So my parents and sister left yesterday morning. Of course, it happened to be a day when the SNCF employees were striking and their train to the airport was canceled. Needless to say, they are safe and sound in the US and I miss them. But we had a great vacation together and I will see them relatively soon, so I can't complain too much.I won't be able to recapture the magic of the full 2 weeks but that probably doesn't matter anyway since the majority of people who read my blog were there. For those of you who missed out on the wonderful adventure...
It all began on a crazy Monday morning, when Maresa and I left Dijon, forgetting all of the paperwork we needed and haphazardly met up with my Mom, Dad and Grandma outside the apartment we were renting in the Marais, the Jewish and new hip neighborhood of Paris. We spent the first day allowing the 3 travelers to recover from jet lag and explored Paris a little. That night, Maresa, Mom, Dad and I took a walk to Notre Dame (where my dad was in complete awe over the flying buttresses and the stone work on the streets) and then we ended up walking all the way to the Louvre. For those of you who don't know, nothing compares to seeing the amazing sites of Paris lit up at night without too many tourists around. The next day, we went to Roland Garros (the French Open). It rained the whole day and we only saw one match. But it was pretty cool being there. Maresa, my Dad and I were soaked afterwards because we were lacking raincoats and umbrellas. That night, all 5 of us did another tour of Notre Dame (the outside) at night and it started to pour down buckets of rain again. My parents 2 weeks in Europe were quite wet. You'll notice the trend.
The last day in Paris, my Mom, Mima, Maresa and I saw "Sex and the City" in English, which was silly but highly entertaining. Then I had to head back to Dijon to finish this big final report I was forced to write before we went to Italy. Consequently, Maresa was left to lead the pack to Montmartre and the Latin Quarter. As well as, an apparently difficult journey from Paris to the place where they were staying in Dijon. I worked on my report until we had to dinner together in Dijon that night and then we prepared for our road trip to Italy!
The next morning, my dad and I picked up our rental car and all 5 of us left for our 1100 km journey to Italy. We stopped by Lake Geneva (or Lac Leman as everyone in Europe calls it) on the way, drove through the Alps and then stopped for the night in this amazingly beautiful little town called Santa Marguerita. It is just east of Genoa on the Italian Riviera and it is gorgeous. Apparently, it resembles the town my grandma was born in and we can see why moving to Brooklyn must have been a little disappointing; the beaches just don't compare. It was great to finally be in Italy with my family and really cool to be there with Mima. It was amazing hearing her speak Italian; it was the first time ever. When we were calling hotels from the road, we just kind of thrust my cell phone to her ear when it started ringing and she started speaking, like magic. It was also one of the first times I really heard her talk very concretely about her childhood. And we learned things, such as, when she left Italy, she departed from Genoa!!!On our way back to the autostrada we got hit by a motorcycle, so that added a little bit of adventure to the already crazy Italian driving scene. The best part was that the motorcyclist was not hurt and seemed completely un-phased by the fact that if my dad hadn't swerved, he probably would have died. I guess that is Italy though. Maresa did not enjoy this part though, as she has her extreme fear of other moving vehicles on the road.
From the beautiful coast, we began the rest of our journey down toward our villa in Umbria (really the boarder of Tuscany and Umbria). We were all a little skeptical of the place since it cost so little and when we finally arrived at the "road with no pavements" that our villa was on we just assumed that the first dilapidated house we saw was the villa. We decided to keep driving and after Maresa and I scouted out the area, we found a 3rd house and our villa. It was so perfect for our family and our price range!! The landlord, Giovanni, was really nice and he gave us two bottles of wine to welcome us to Italian wine country. After he left, we only had a few minutes to wait until the rest of our party arrived....
Keep checking my blog for Part 2 of this long entry!!
Ciao for now!
