Ironworks Gaming Forum - The Sojourner 3: Coming up for air

Whew, no net for four days or so! Actually that was far from the worst of it. Had a lot of fun over the last couple of days but also some mighty frustrations. Frustrations are ok unless they mean you lose heaps of money which then negatively impacts on your abiltiy to keep moving. I had a few of those, but hopefully the worst is behind me.

Italy.
I must say I love Italy. The food, the people, the environment. Very intoxicating. I somehow seem to end up in non-tourist areas in my travels. The bad thing about that in Italy was no money changing, few english speakers and the worst... NO MAPS. For my entire time in Italia I was unable to purchase one map from anywhere, I managed to spend a few precious moments pouring over one at one stage, but take it away with me? No. The result I shall deal with later.

I decided to hire a car. Right hand drive. No worries. I've driven left all my life. Total brain re-adjustment. There was only one time I drove on the wrong side of the road. I pulled over to look at a magnificent mountain, and with no other cars around to pull me out of my daydream hurtled down the road until another car raced into view. It was a while before I registered, so I can just imagine him thinking
"What a nutcase! What an absolute nutter!"

Oh yeah, and I almost went round a roundabout the wrong way.

Anyhow I found the Italians to be extremely hospitable, friendly and beautiful.

I stopped at one village asking if there was somewhere I could buy a coffee. Yes there was. So I got out of my car and they led me down narrow cobblestone streets to the village cafe. The proprietor was an old guy who'd had an operation on his throat so used a machine held to his throat to talk.

One of my three guides decided to have a cappucino too, so I paid for it as well as mine. Well, I was promtly invited back to their house, introduced to the whole family, invited to a beautiful traditional Italian long lunch complete with pasta, hams, breads and cheeses, a very fine red wine, some sweets and black coffee. I was proudly shown the 'Super car', a Ferrari look-alike sleekmobile, artwork one of them drew and a keyboard. I obliged by practically giving an impromtu music lesson to the owner of the keyboard, gave them a CD of mine and engaged in some fantastic conversation, some in my vocabularically limited Italiano, and most in one member's broken English.

I had a ball. It's amazing how a positive experience like that can shape your perspective of a nation. Thus I smiled and greeted pretty much everyone I passed by, and was met with smiles and greetings back.

I ended up in another town, a bit larger this time and was trying to call a train station to get to Zurich (and return my car). No luck. I did manage to end up talking at this bar to the two people that were helping me wade through the recorded messages blocking my phone-path. One of them owned the bar, so I decided to buy a drink as thanks (another wine). Did I get to pay for it? Of course not. No chance, not for his 'Australian friend'. So I thankfully accepted and ended up talking in English to a Swede who'd lived in Italy for the last 30 years. The goodwill in that bar was amazing, more than a few of them wishing me well when I left.

My lack of a map, local or nationwide, and lack of luck in finding the information I needed (I was told there was a trainstrike) meant I decided to drive to Zurich... the long way round via France. (D'oh!)
50,000 lira for the tunnel to France, two 7,000 lira tolls in Italia and three or four hefty tolls all through France left me feeling a little light in the back pocket. What I did see though were incredible mountains. The alps viewed from that direction are quite simply something else. Such self-dwarfing majesty is truly aweinspiring. I felt like a child who saw the ocean for the first time. Don't get me wrong, I've seen mountains before, just never at that relative height.

I also got glimpses of Genéve, Lausanne etc, and got to listen to French, and Swiss radio. Important for a musician feeding on influences. The French can sing I tell you what!

Switzerland is an enigma. Three languages in one country. Why the respective areas united together instead of with the other speakers of their language is something I'd like to find out. Certainly at the moment they seem to be a model for racial harmony. Maybe the tri-racial element is why they remained neutral in times nearby wars. Preserving interracial harmony. Who knows.

Well, quite a long post eh? And there is still much to tell. I hope we find the other posts as I forgot to copy them into my email for posterity (puns everywhere it seems).

Thanks for the wellwishers all. I'm having a ball. Catching up with a very old friend here in a town just outside Zurich by a very pretty lake. Walked around the old town centre, the old Castle (they're everywhere in Europe it seems) and stopped by at the first internet cafe I'd seen in days.
Hope you guys are all well.
Cheers