Epilogue

How do you sum up an adventure like we had? I guess the trick is to "put pen to paper" or, in this case, start banging on the keyboard.

For years, Sandra and I have wanted to do a big "real" vacation together - something more than just staying in N. America for little one week vacations every couple years or so. We wanted to do something outside of our comfort zone and be able to check something off the bucket-list. Though I crave a little adventure, I was opting for a long tropical vacation somewhere where I could chill on a lounge chair and have mai tais delivered by bikinied natives but, because this is a milestone birthday year for my lovely bride, she held sway with her choice of visiting Italy.

The Hill Family, Terence and Lori and their son, Jess, were instrumental in making this all happen. Their kindness and generosity was overwhelming as they helped us plan our trip and offered up suggestions for activities, dinners, places to visit, etc. Both Sandra and I were a little anxious about visiting another country where English wasn't the official language but the Hill's put us at ease and allowed us to "get our feet wet", so to speak. Spending time with them, as locals, allowed us to really get a feel for what it would be like to live there. I ended up liking Rome far more than I thought I would because of this. The pulse of the city, where everything you needed was within walking distance, started to course through my veins and it was easy to imagine myself living there. From the Hill's apartment you can walk a short distance to a salumeria for meats and cheeses or, in the other direction, coffee or gelato. There's a market close by, pharmacies, basically anything you need is walking distance. I love that.

I took away a few observations about Italy and its inhabitants. In many ways, they seem far more advanced than Americans. The food; seriously, everywhere we visited, if you were hungry, you could stop at any restaurant or bar and get far tastier and fresher food than most restaurants here in America. I'm not talking expensive restaurants, either. We made a point of eating "local" as much as possible and staying away from the "touristy" restaurants. Quite a few meals were simply a slice of amazing pizza or a little snack. I found the food prices to be similar to the US though even the smallest market usually had a great selection of salamis, cheeses and wines.

I imagine the autostradas to be what American freeways were like in the 60s before they started to deteriorate. I've driven coast-to-coast in the US and every single state has issues with their highways. Tax money just isn't getting spent. The autostradas are all toll highways and, unlike the toll highways in the US that have tolls because they can, the Italians actually seem to use the money on the highway. We drove about 4 or 500 miles during our visit to Italy and every single road was virtually perfect. Granted, some were narrow due to ancient planning but I don't think I ever saw a single pothole. The autostradas were 2 to 3 well-marked lanes in each direction with informational signs everywhere. There were signs noting that bridges and tunnels were forthcoming. There were SOS pull-outs every couple kilometers or so and there was always a sign informing the driver of that upcoming pullout. The autostradas do not wind through mountains, they go through them. Never in my life have I driven through longer tunnels. I'm not talking a couple hundred feet long, I'm talking tunnels that are kilometers long! If Italians built highways for Los Angeles, there would be 4 or 5 autostradas with tunnels going from West LA to the Valley and the drive time would be in minutes rather than hours during rush hour. Rome is just a little larger than Los Angeles by city size and population but the traffic just didn't seem to be nearly as bad. In addition, the Italians (as well as most of Europe) have embraced small vehicles. I saw very few American cars with their huge, gas-guzzling motors.

One more thing about the autostradas; about every 50km there was an Autogrill rest stop. How can I describe these? It was as if an Italian grocery store meets a convenience store meets a coffee shop meets an Italian restaurant meets a gas station with all the necessities a traveler would ever need. Toys for the kids, oil for the car, toilet paper for grandma, wine for mom, prosciutti, balls of provolone, pasta everywhere, towers of cookie tins. The food? Absolutely amazing!! Fresh pastries, meats, cheeses, etc. You can sit down and eat a hearty bowl of pasta, pizza, whatever! They have restrooms that could take an entire football team with room to spare. The gas stations have 10+ lanes so you never have to wait to get gas. They are truly amazing and, when you're done, you get right back on the autostrada!

Let me speak a bit about Italian bathrooms. First off, no matter where you are, if you have to "go", every restaurant has a toilette that they are more than willing to let you use. None of this bullshit of "customers only" that you get here in the States. Even the smallest, oldest building had clean, efficient bathrooms. Even the ones that still used antique pull-handle toilets were in perfect working order, didn't smell and were clean. Though there are a lot of American toilets that are now automatic, there are still quite a few that still have handles somewhere on the toilet for flushing. ALL Italian toilettes have large push buttons on the wall for flushing, separate from the toilet. Why can't we have that? So much more sanitary! When you're ready to wash your hands, you step on a lever and the water starts flowing. Step away and the water stops. Oh yeah, in homes, hotels and a few restaurant bathrooms, there are bidets. Bidets are the best invention ever for a bathroom. Why, oh why, have Americans not brought bidets into their bathrooms? In this respect, Americans seem truly barbaric and disgusting compared to Europeans.

Let's continue to compare....you could always pick out American tourists. I was one the first couple days but then I tried to assimilate a bit. Obviously, the camera is a dead give-away but let's just take that out of the equation for a moment. Americans almost always are carrying more body fat than Italians and European tourists. We would sit and point them out and wait to hear if they're speaking English. Yup, almost always. Americans would wear t-shirts or tanks, shorts or jeans and tennis shoes or sandals. Italian men, out for a stroll, would be wearing a fitted, collared button-up shirt, fitted pants and nice shoes. Most businessmen, even of seemingly modest means, would be wearing beautiful, fitted, navy-blue suits. The first day, I was wearing my Hendrix t-shirt, Nike baseball cap and faded jeans. I quickly went out and bought more button-up shirts to add to the few I brought and wore those exclusively the rest of the trip.

Everywhere we went, Italians were kind and gracious. Enter a shop or restaurant and you'll get a warm, "buongiorno" or "buona sera". People always say, "grazie" or "grazia" (thank you) and "prego" (you're welcome). It didn't seem to be a show, it seemed to be ingrained into their culture. To give you another idea of graciousness, we needed to fill up our rental car prior to returning it in Venice. The closest gas station was on the mainland side of the long bridge and it was a bit rundown. I pulled into one lane and a nice Mercedes pulled into the other. I couldn't figure out how to get the payment kiosk to work and the nice Italian man from the Mercedes explained that it was broken and we needed to move to the other lane. We both move our cars and try that kiosk. There was a handwritten note that I couldn't understand so he haltingly explained that it was cash only with no change given. I said, "oh no" because I thought we only had larger bills. He was immediately concerned for me and offered to make change for me! How nice!!! I ended up having proper change but, again, how nice of a stranger to help a foreigner.

It seemed to me that Italians kinda had a "can do" attitude about them. They did things for themselves rather than hiring immigrant labor to do it for them. It seemed to me that the Italians were working almost all the jobs rather than farming them out to the cheapest labor pool. I truly think that is one of the reasons that the streets are clean, bathrooms are clean, goods are fresh and local and that, for the most part, people are nice and gracious. It appears to be part of their culture. Don't get me wrong, there are labor issues with demonstrations and negative graffiti but I think you get that in every major city.

Euros are awesome! No paper money below €5 so change is given in the form of coins. I like VAT, as well, because the final sales prices of goods and services are rounded amounts. The tax is built-in so the consumer doesn't have to deal with pennies. €5 is €5, not €5.45 after tax. Every single sales transaction done by credit card is done with a portable, hand-held chip reader that prints out two receipts, one to sign for the retailer and one for the buyer. So easy, fast and your card never leaves your sight. I just don't understand why the US is so far behind on things like this.

These are just a few examples of what I learned from our trip to Italy. I was also reminded about how much fun it is to spend all day every day for 14 days with my lovely bride. We just get along and enjoy each others company and we also enjoy the same things but there are still enough differences between us to push the other a little outside our respective comfort zones. Sandra (with help from The Hills) had obsessively planned out our vacation, months in advance, with most of the hotels, car rentals and museums reserved and pre-paid so there weren't really any surprises. Though I like to be a little spontaneous and "wing-it" a bit, I have to admit that having everything planned out really took the stress out of visiting a foreign country and, for that, I thank my lovely bride. If you'd like to get a feel for how I like to be spontaneous on vacation, check out my blog of my Road Trip across the US back in 2010.

Vacation is over and it's back to the grind, so to speak, but I have to say that everything seems fresh now. I appreciate my home, my animals, my TV and internet, my work, my music.....there's just a freshness about things. Sandra and I have never taken a 14 day vacation together where we were so completely disconnected with work and home. I think the last time we took a two week vacation together was our honeymoon back in 1993 when we went to Maui. Obviously, Maui is part of the US so there really wasn't any experience of visiting another non-English speaking country. This vacation was a long time coming and we arranged our finances so that we could afford to splurge a bit. I hope that we haven't come off as being pretentious as we've shared pictures and experiences with you. It's just something we've never been able to do before and it was our "virgin" trip overseas so we wanted to share our experience with you, our family and friends.

Until the next vacation blog.....Ciao!