Feb 2008

Downtown Milan after arriving from sweltering Bali

Well there was quite a transition going from 90 degree temperature and over 90 percent humidity in Bali where my pores were essential locked in the open position. As I mentioned I think I actually got heat stroke while surfing and was wiped out and exhausted the rest of that day. So after leaving Bali on a Friday night and gaining about 10 hours in time zone changes we ended up 7:00 am Saturday in Milan…temperature 29 F…ouch. I know I’m not getting any sympathy here but I hadn’t put on any pants for about 3 months and then it’s cold & raining in Milan. But the ONE pair of pants I did bring sure did come in handy. We checked into our hotel by the airport and I didn’t expect much of the “Italian feel” that close to an international airport 30 miles outside of Milan but we got it. Walking down the street we found a local bakery with incredible focaccia and pizzas. We got the train into Milan and enjoyed the beautiful Duomo which is the 4th largest church in Europe. Milan, the “commerce” hub of Italy compared to Rome’s claim as the cultural center is a wonderful place and there’s definitely some healthy competition between the two cities. Of course the big adjustment - for we Californians who are from a City that was the first in the U.S. to ban smoking from public places- was the prevalence of smoking. It seems everyone does it and It’s taken some adjustment but we’re getting used to the smoke. The boys haven’t had the benefit of being around in a time when you could go into a bar and come home smelling like a chain smoker so it’s even more of an adjustment for them.
After a couple of days enjoying Milan we got on our first train to Lucca to visit the Croziers. Now up to this point we didn’t know if we’d be renting a car or going by train or…….? So for an American who can speak some Spanish and no Italian I was in a bit of a bind trying to buy train tickets, at the automated machine for a departure in 5 minutes on a train you’re “recommended” to board 10 minutes prior to departure. Well I got some guidance and ended up with the right number of tickets to the right place but all this with the looming thought of being ripped off the whole time. You see in Rick Steve’s guide book on Italy (I highly recommend it) he talks of how in the larger cities you keep an eye on your bags, don’t carry a wallet and use a money belt securely fastened. Then, the sweet lady at our hotel as we left Milan for the train station said to watch your bags closely. So I was ready for battle. Of course, nothing happened and it was a wonderfully smooth trip.
Lucca is an incredible place and we’re so impressed with Alex & Judy’s decision to spend 6 months there, enroll their kids in school and totally immerse in the area. We have the benefit of being tourist for a few weeks in the area, enjoying the sights and then moving on. Just imagine taking your children to a new school, where you don’t know a soul and…..ready for this….don’t speak their language. That’s gutsy. But they had been there a month and were adjusting well. I know it’s easy to be the parent in this case, the tough thing is being a student. Imagine you’re a kid in class, everyone’s chatting away and you can’t understand any of it and then you have to do your school work…Wow, my hat goes off to Dan, Bo and Angie. I know they will learn a ton but it’s got to be so challenging!
So the train and bus system here has been very easy to use and comfortable. As the main driver in most of our road trips it’s a real treat to sit back and relax. No navigating, wondering where to go, stressing about killing someone or being killed, breaking a law, missing a turn, trying to figure out where to return the car etc. Just sit back and enjoy the view, a book or some conversation OR…..go to the dining car! Ya, that’s my kinda trip, letting someone else drive while you relax and enjoy a meal in a restaurant. If they only had ESPN sports center or a movie in the dining car then who would ever get off the train?

Nate in the boardpark going off jump with valley in the background.

Kyle likes to launch his body off things

Now just because the train system is good doesn’t mean we know how to use it. Some trains have assigned seats with power for your laptop and fold down tables and some have seats a slight step above a Greyhound bus. And with no assigned seating we ended up in between cars in the loading area with our luggage stacked and us sitting in a couple fold down chairs and on the floor. We didn’t realize there would be other stops and by us monopolizing this area we were right in the flow of passengers boarding and departing. So…….as a seat would open we would be more aggressive and move into position and stake our claim. For someone like me who loves to talk to people, see where they’re from and find out the best places to go it’s tough to sit in total silence. It sucks being a stupid monolinguistic American.

Mottolini is the name of the mountain

But we made it again and Livigno is a real treat. Maria found this incredible alpine valley online and did an AMAZING job. It’s quaint with old chalets, just two streets running almost the length of the valley, tons of restaurants and two great ski mountains on either side of the valley. It’s a difficult place to get so they RARELY have Americans here and you can be on the chairlift and hear Russian, Italian, German, Dutch, Sweedish, Swiss, Hungarian, Slovokian etc….There are a fair number of Brits here as well. In fact, I tend to lose context of language so when I met the gentlemen renting the unit across from ours and he greeted me I was about to say “non parla Italiano”. I then realized he wasn’t speaking Italian at all so I almost blurted out “no Sprechen” and finally I realized he was speaking English as they speak it in Scotland – I owe Mike Myers a lot for all his good Scottish impersonations which kept me from embarrassing myself in front of this Scottish Lad.
So we have a cool little apartment in a large remodeled chalet that probably has 4-5 apartments in it. It’s right on the road and near the bus stop. We have a store, a butcher and a hotel with great cappuccinos, pastries and internet access. We can walk out our door & go 30 meters to a Poma lift that will take us to another Poma and then to the main Gondola. We bought a 20 day lift pass (all the days we’ll be here and it worked out to about 15 Euro/day to ski….that’s soooo much cheaper than in the US!). The food is very reasonable and even at the Mountain lodges meals are only 5-7 Euro and are very good. Yes we eat mostly incredible Bolognese pasta or pizza and bread and we’re loving it!! The snow has been very good and they take excellent care of the mountain with grooming and snowmaking. It doesn’t look like we’ll get any fresh powder here which is disappointing.
After 4 days of skiing the boys got to try snowboarding. Maria and I really wanted to have the boys get proficient at skiing because we figured once they went to snowboarding they’d never go back to skiing. Well they took right to it and within a couple days they were going down the steepest sections of the mountain and didn’t even seem worried. So Maria and I decided to give it a try. After skiing for 35 years it was time for us to really suck at something and wallow in our suckiness. Well, you get wet when you snowboard cuz you have to sit almost every time you get on or off the lift to buckle into your board. So we lasted one day, turned the boards back in for our skiis and Maria tweeked her neck so bad she had to stay in bed the next day….who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.
The boys to continue on their school work. Nate already finished his Algebra course online and started into the Geometry text and Kyle is keeping right up with his work in advanced 7th grade math. The boys are NOT being home schooled , in my opinion, but are self-schooling. When we started on the RV trip it was hard to know what to do as parents/teachers and hard for the kids to know what to do and when to do it with no formal schedule. But we’ve worked it out and we’re very pleased with how the boys take the initiative, do their schoolwork on their own every morning with only an occasional question to tap their parents limited brain capacity. They journal regularly and do pushups 3 days a week for PE – Fridays are “100 pushup Fridays” so they’re getting quite strong.

[b]St Moritz, Switzerland....what a place

Before we left Livigno we made the trek to St. Moritz, Switzerland. Probably only 20 miles away as the crow flies it’s about an hour van ride then another hour or so by train. What a great decision that was. We had asked around in Livigno about St. Moritz as to run and snow quality and most Livignians are very proud and would only say it’s more expensive and the mountain wasn’t any better, nor would the snow be since the altitude’s are the same. Well, it was more expensive but the mountain is really a set of mountains and the terrain was quite diverse and boy, was it more upscale. St Moritz is where skiing was born, where James Bond made some great escapes on skiis and where the rich all over the world love to keep their hoards of cash. The train ride alone was well worth the trip.

Nate & Kyle love snowboarding now, this is Nate getting some air

Kyle fullfilling his need for speed

Maria & Judy in Front of Giglio's in Lucca, Italy(Maria's mom's Maiden name).
Okay, Okay, Okay Lucca is very cool. We stayed with our good friends the Croziers and had an amazing time and hopefully they're still friends after we invaded their home. They are spending 6 months in Lucca with kids enrolled in school and the whole bit...really an exciting and challenging thing to immerse yourself completely in a different country and culture like that. We'll be back in Lucca with our own place from15 March till 5 April. But since we just got out of the “taxi” from Tirano I’ve got to share this. So we’re trying to figure out how to get from Lucca which is in the Tuscan region (central W. Coast) of Italy up North through Milan (all trains seem to go thru Milan) and then past Lake Como into Italian Alps to our final destination of Livigno. Of course trains don’t go all the way to Livigno (and as I’ll explain later cars shouldn’t either) so I thought I’d just rent a car at the nearest train stop to Livigno which happened to be the last stop - Tirano. Well, it seems that most of those towns are too small for the major car rental agencies and after hours checking the options online of bus to train to car, train to car to bus, train to donkey, scooter to train to mule… no luck. Then I find an online car rental service that books me an Audi A4 for 6 days – I don’t even know if we’ll need a car in Livigno – and I figure I’m set. Well, the rental company emails me back a couple times asking where we’re going to stay which I don’t know cuz I don’t know where we’ll be yet so I haven’t made accommodations for that one night we need prior to the start of our 3 week booking in Livigno. Of course the car company says at the last minute “Oh, sorry, we don’t have a car available” which I can deal with even though they charged me $25. So I call a taxi in Livigno and ask if they’ll make the 1 hour 50 mile drive from Tirano, the last train stop, to Livigno. No problema says Armando the driver over the phone. Well we are in the middle of the Italian Alps, the roads wind so tightly it’s unbelievable. In fact, I can’t even believe they cut roads into the sides of these mountains. The trip starts out fine, fairly flat, lots of loooonnnggg tunnels under huge peaks. Well Armando must have somewhere to be that evening cuz we are SCREAMING down the road (granted, to this point in Italy we’ve been on trains, buses and cruiser bikes so I’m sure some of the speed shock was due to that fact). I mean this guy is passing people on these tiny Italian roads which in my opinion look like they are only made for one car not two. Then, as we gain altitude the road gets some moisture, some snow and we’re still going so #@$*in fast I can’t believe it. Well Maria and Nate are getting a little car sick cuz we’re going around corners that seem like corkscrews and climbing so fast it's making our heads spin. Then we reach the top of the pass and head down. I was laughing so hard only because when I’m scared @#*$less I tend to laugh but I keep holding on to the thought that this guy is 43 years old and has lived in Livigno his whole life (so far) and I’m sure he wants to live so we should be fine. But then it happened. He’s driving us in a VW van that’s a 5 speed and this thing can really go. But as we are passing another 2 cars and a semi truck down a steep alpine road he grabs his cell phone to call someone. That’s right, one hand shifting, one hand on the cell phone, knee on the steering wheel and looking down at his phone with his 43 year old eyes trying to make sure he’s got the right number as the slush from the tires of the semi truck we’re passing is smothering the front windshield…who is this guy. Well, obviously we made it to the little two street Alpine Valley town of Livigno and as people are pleasantly strolling down the side of the narrow street we come screaming through like a teenage grease monkey in a hopped up ’72 Pontiac Thunderbird. We parked in front of our quaint little hotel as we unloaded with Armando (very nice, expressive guy by the way) talking on the cell in one hand and throwing our bags out of the back with the other.

Nate & Kyle overlooking Livigno Valley from one of the runs.

Skiing has been great and this really is a quaint little town with a wonderfully diverse and well kept ski mountain (actually there are 2). We finally let the boys try snowboarding and they love it and we've probably lost them as skiiers for life.
Ciao

[b]TRADITIONAL BALINESE DINNER IN UBUD
According to Nate and Kyle Bali is better than Australia & New Zealand especially when it comes to surfing and sightseeing. We heard the beaches were great and the Aussies come here to surf and the people are kind and everything is CHEAP. After being in Melbourne and seeing a great tennis match between the #1 player in the world playing in the semifinal against the #3 player in the world, enjoying great food and wonderful accommodations it was with some trepidation that we got on the plane to Bali. We booked our hotel suite so many, many months ago that I had forgotten where our hotel was or what it looked like on the internet. We had emailed the hotel for a cab and also spoken to Maria’s brother Joseph who has been to Bali before and who’s friend has a villa here. It turns out we had the driver, Kedak, from the villa and the driver from the hotel at the airport to pick us up at the same time....oooppps. You can have a driver take you wherever you want all day for about $40 per day and it’s very competitive so EVERYONE is jockeying to be your driver. We split up the family and the luggage between the 2 drivers and went with both to the hotel. We’ve never been to Asia/Indonesia and it’s totally different from the Western cultures of Australia and New Zealand. There is so much activity in the cities, incredibly kind and sweet Balinese people, lots of trash, thousands of tiny shops selling everything and streets that are packed with scooters, trucks, small vans and the like. Chickens, cows, dogs and the like all roam the side of the road and have a sixth sense about not venturing into the madness that takes place on the roadways. What a HUGE change coming from NZ where we were in an area with about 20 houses, almost all vacant vacation homes overlooking a secluded bay with only the sound of the birds to break the silence. Cars, motor scooters with 2-4 people and cargo on them and trucks were flying around us with most “lanes” being guidelines more than boundaries and normally a narrow 2 lane road was 3+ vehicles across. Thank goodness we had a driver and didn’t have to navigate those conditions ourselves. Kadek made our trip very pleasant. We were also lucky because some friends of ours from SLO – Rein & Linda Pille - who owned Java gallery, had moved to Bali so we got in touch with them by email a couple days prior to our arrival. They instructed us on all the do’s and don’ts of Bali and showed us their incredible beachfront property where they are building their family compound. That was a real treat.

[b]Rein & Linda's property in Bali
We came to Bali for many reasons but the most important was to surf. Because most of the surfing spots are reef breaks we decided to get a coach who could show us the ropes on our first day. That was probably the best decision we made. They gave us incredibly useful information and coaching, guided us to the most suitable surfspots and made our surfing experience incredible. None of us had really surfed a reef break and fortunately we only had to paddle out about 200-300 yards to reach the break but it was a bit unnerving at first because we were all picturing either stepping on a sea urchin or landing face first into a rock underwater. Of course neither happened and it opened up a new world for all of us in our surfing opportunities.

[b]ONE HAPPY MONKEY IN ULUWATU...DID SOMEONE SAY MEN EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS?
A major highlight as well were the Hindu Temples in Bali. Most of which are homes to monkeys and lots of them. It was incredible to have so many of these monkeys roaming around in their own environment and it seemed like the obvious inspiration for “The Jungle Book.” Uluwatu Temple is percherd on a solid rock cliff 100's of meters over the crystal blue ocean where you can watch the waves roll in over the incredible reef.

[b]VIEW OF THE POOL AT THE VILLA FROM PATIO OF MASTER BEDROOM....NOT BAD!
Our last day there was incredible because we checked out of our hotel a day early and stayed at Joseph's friends villa. Just check out the photos because the place is undescribable. So after 5 days of surfing in water so warm and air so humid that you NEVER cool down, I mean you're hot in the water and you're hot out of the water, we headed to Milan and 34 degree weather.