March, 2000
Nuremberg, Germany

Back from our first trip to Italy. When you come right down to it, it is not real different than some trips to Austria since we were just a few kilometers from Italy when we were there. Then again it was very different. People in this area of Italy feel they are Sud Tirolian as opposed to German, Austrian or Italian. The primary language is Italian with most also speaking German. Very little English. This language thing was our biggest cultural shock. We are use to people speaking languages we do not understand but usually you will find some English as a second language. In this strange world the second language is German.

This is what caused Sue and I to decide that we needed to impersonate Germans. This was a strange thing for us. We spoke German to get by. Now don't jump on that bandwagon that some people have and say "oh well they have been over there for nine months so their German is real good." For those of you that think that thank you for your confidence but we are not that good. Nevertheless we do speak some phrases and understand better than before. We also had the advantage that German was a second language for these people. So we started our impersonation of Germans by doing a lot of nodding and keeping speech to short sentences. We were doing a great job of this until that fateful night.

To back up for a second to the trip so that I can better explain that fateful night. We had a terrible drive down. We started about 9:30 am after a nice long run that had us ready for our five to six hour car drive through three countries. (This driving through different countries thing really gives us a cheap thrill) We started out fine then we hit a little traffic. One word we do know in German is stau. This is posted along congested parts of the highway and since you are not moving it is an easy word to look up and learn. Now we not only can translate it but also really understand it as only a true European can. We first hit a 70-kilometer stau, which took two hours to get through. If you were naïve enough to pull off to get fuel or go to the bathroom at a roadside area you were in such a mass of humanity that you could barely find a place to put your feet let alone get fuel or into a bathroom. So you just sit. This traffic broke after Munich but it was not the end of the staues. We found pockets of 30-minute staues all the way. These Europeans take their vacations serious and they are all off at the same time. Extremely brutal.

We did finally get to our resort and I will not drag you through the story of the 30-kilometer winding road up the narrow mountain with little to no barriers because this is the same old thing from other ski trips. It is just a way of life. We then could not find our hotel. So we asked a policeman by showing him our brochure. He was very nice and answered is a very nice lyrical Italian. We loved the way it sounded so much more pleasant than German but who knows what he said. We were still lost. He recognized that we did not understand and immediately switched to German, which we did understand. So we thanked him and off we went and this was our start of impersonating Germans.

We found our hotel and checked in as Germans. That is we talked German with the lady and she explained all the amenities in German. Nice place but no great areas to walk at night so we had to drive for about five minutes before we could walk each evening. The way hotels work in this part of the world it is pretty hard to find a place without half pension. That means that with the price of the room you get meals. The food was really very good with a great salad bar that included great mozzarella and other Italian type antipasto things. Our waitress was always the same person and she spoke to us in German so the scam went on, although I think she was a little suspicious. The restaurant definitely had a segregation policy and had all the Germans on one side of the room and the Italians on the other. There was an Italian family that really made dinner fun every night. They had three of these real cute very Italian featured children. On the second night we were served polenta and obviously the smallest of these children was not happy with this. So a few minutes after their table was served and the waitress was half way across the room he yells out Graci real loud. The whole room looked to see him with a forkful of spaghetti and the biggest smile you have ever seen. A spaghetti marketer's dream shot.

The skiing was wonderful. This area is called the Sella Rounde and is in the Dolomite's. There are literally hundreds of lifts and you can ski from valley to valley while crossing two extremely famous world cup runs. Cable cars were everywhere.

I know a lot of our family member's talk about the avalanches in the Alps but we were more nervous about American fighter pilots. We had no close calls.

We took a cloudy snowy Wednesday off to drive over one of the passes to go to the town of Cortina. Very famous ski town full of people wearing minks and visiting very expensive shops. I am not sure if anyone skis here but they are there to be seen. In this town we were able to drop the German scam and become Americans again, which we gladly did. The ride over the pass was breath taking as well as scary.

Now back to that fateful night. The dinner menu (the menu was written in Italian and German) read that dinner would be served in the tavern instead of the restaurant. When we got there the place was rocking with a large buffet table with a flaming side of beef and live music. Then they told us that since this was a festive night that we were all sitting at big tables together instead of at our own table. Our table of course was full of Germans. Well it did not take long for them to expose us as frauds. After we were exposed and asked were we were from it turned out to be a lot of fun. One guy spoke pretty good English and the rest just a smattering. So we all practiced, us German and the real Germans their English. We learned of their past vacations and we told of our experiences each helping the other out with words and pronunciation. That night on our walk we both had big grins from the good time this turned out to be even though our cover was exposed.

Saturday we headed for home and more staues. But before we could leave we of course had to pay. I have left out the excitement about using Lira to pay for things but it was exciting all week. The check out process was really different than you have ever seen in the states. No bill slipped under your door. What happens is that you Queue up at around 8am no earlier because no one is at the desk. Then one by one you walk into the office and the proprietor sits down with you and goes over your bill. It takes forever and since we really did not understand much it was a waste of time. Now back to paying by Lira. One thing we did understand was that our bill was a little over 2,000,000 lira. Now we all know it is not how many things but what the exchange rate is but still it makes your heart skip a beat when you see your bill being over two million anything's.

It was a great trip and a great winter. We skied three different countries and three different cultures and really had the skiing experience of our lives. Now the buds are setting on the trees and twitching to break open but probably more important restaurants are actually setting their chairs outside and anytime a little warm sun comes people sit outside and the beer gardens are twitching to open.