Forever A Hillbilly: Three Sistene Chapels

Forever A Hillbilly: Three Sistene Chapels:      Driving down the Autostrata, we entered Italy. It was elevated through the high mountains, with miles and miles of vineyards sloping...

Three Sistene Chapels

     Driving down the Autostrata, we entered Italy. It was elevated through the high mountains, with miles and miles of vineyards sloping toward the sky. Venice beckoned, and a few miles outside, we stopped at a guest house, the Villa Widoman. We lucked into an English speaker, and got the lay of the land from her. Then, we headed into Venice by bus. It was very crowded, with standing room only in the aisles. Barbara got separated from me, a little farther back. She got groped, and came flying up the aisle to me, scattering people left and right as she came. Welcome to Italy. By the time I understood what was going on, the guy was getting off – on crutches. What could I do? Trip him when he stepped off the bus? I should have.

     Walking around, we just enjoyed Venice. It is truly an unforgettable place. A large number of African guys each had a sheet laid out, selling knock-off purses. Suddenly, they all grabbed each corner of their sheet, picked it up, and totally disappeared. Just like that. Looking ahead, we saw a group of policemen headed our way.

     On the bus back to our Villa, we had trouble recognizing it, until it stopped, right in front.

     The next day, it rained all day. We walked miles of the inner city, and did the boat tour. The Gondola ride was too expensive, but I did offer to sing to Barbara on the boat. She said, "Just forget it."

     We had assumed the boat would just take us back to our starting place. But no. It stopped, everyone else got off. We waited for it to start again. Finally, the driver came walking back, yelling, "Fini! Fini!" We got the message, got off, looked for another boat back.

     On the bus back, the rain was pouring down. We waited for the bus to stop at our villa, but it just roared past. We finally recognized it as it receded in the distance. We got off at the next stop, stood in the rain 30 minutes, and finally caught another bus back. We looked like a couple of drowned rats, and the bus driver laughed at us. Barbara was in no mood for an Italian comedian, and griped at him all the way back to the Villa. Once we were off, he opened the door back up, laughed, waved, and said, "Arriva darche!" Barbara said, "Yeah, uh huh" Arriving back at our Villa, Barbara explained to our English speaker, "We waited for the bus to stop, but it just went on by! I have no idea why it didn't stop, it did yesterday." She looked us over for a while, and said, "It stopped yesterday because I was on it, and I pressed the stop button." Duh! I guess that's about all you can expect when a hillbilly and a Delta farm gal go abroad.

     Moving on down, we stopped for the night in a small city. We had just about given up on their road map, and just looked for city names on road signs. The hotel was a four star, but not by US standards. The pizza place was at least four stars, though. All fresh ingredients, cut up while we watched.

     We continued our travel strategy of stopping a few miles outside of a major city, keeping our car out of such places, and taking a short train ride in. We could never find a parking place for our car when we got into those horrible traffic jams. The trains were wonderful, and not expensive.

     Florence was an unforgettable city, a mecca for famous artists and scientists. Where the Mona Lisa was painted, where Galileo worked, Elizabeth Browning lived. We missed the David sculpture. The lines were long, and reservations were required. We toured Florence twice. A fantastic place. An attendant at a pay toilet even gave me a receipt. What was I to do with that? Take a tax deduction?

     Back home at our little house, we hit another pizza place. But it was overran by a large group of Chinese tourists. They were very pushy. We've noticed this before. Now, why is that?

     We drove on down to Orvieto. We drove in circles, no English speakers, but found a hotel.

We went to buy train tickets for Rome for the next day. Have I ever told you, every single thing we do is hard? Well, the ticket agent just got so frustrated with us, just trying to buy two simple train tickets to Rome, just a few miles on down the road, that he pretended to shoot himself in the head with his finger gun.

     Unable to find a place to wash clothes, we recycled. Barbara felt absolutely filthy. I felt perfectly fine. We rode a finicula up the hill to the city center. Everything in town seemed to be all about this fantastic church they had. Well, it was spectacular.

     Boarding the train on our hard to get tickets, we went to Rome. We went to the Vatican, but the Pope just was not at home, or he snubbed us. We moved on to St. Peter's Cathedral – determined to see the Sistene Chapel, and it's ceiling. We thought we had seen it in two different rooms, then we accidentally stumbled across it on the way out. The Colosseum was spectacular, though we had to look and photograph it through the rain, and the dirty bus windshield.

     Arriving back at Orvieto, we got a "thumb's up" from the frustrated ticket agent from yesterday. I think he figured that if we ever found our way onto the train, we would never come back.

     When we got to Pisa, we decided it didn't look so big. Surely we could just drive around and locate a big, leaning tower. But no, we finally had to board a bus to get there. Barbara has a problem with straight and crooked, something we worked hard with tripods and cropping to keep secret while we were in the photography business. She snapped her first photo of the leaning tower, and in the photo it was standing straight up! She quickly deleted it, knowing I would make a lot of mileage out of that jewel.

Forever A Hillbilly: Our Friend, the Spy

Forever A Hillbilly: Our Friend, the Spy: Southern Europe, continued Sorry this post is late, but we've been spending some time in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, plus my comp...

Our Friend, the Spy

Southern Europe, continued

Sorry this post is late, but we've been spending some time in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, plus my computer has been acting up.

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     The next day, it was raining. We headed for Neuschwanstein Castle at Fussen. We located a road that seemed to lead up to the castle, although we could not, of course, read the signs. We headed up. About half way up, we began to realize there were no other cars on this road. Only horse-drawn carts filled with people. We turned around, got back down without being busted, and found us a horse-drawn cart of our very own to ride up on.  The first stop was at the back, with a beautiful lake, so we got off and pictured away. We got a lot of good pictures of the beautiful back of the castle, and then the rain set in hard.  Barbara was too worn out to walk around to the front, and the driving rain just finished her off.  We loaded on a cart headed down, and I just imagined how grand the front of that castle must have been. But we will never know. We got off the cart in the driving rain, loaded into our car, and headed for Austria.

     Now, all those pictures you see of beautiful, steep round mountains, with cute little men in their cute little pants, neat little pointy hats, walking stick in hand, were for real! We saw a lot of those guys. I had figured that would be like the Arkansas hillbilly stereotype, with their overalls, pointed hat, corncob pipe, Grandma dipping snuff in a rocker, several hounds asleep on the porch. I have actually seen a place like that, in eastern Tennessee. From a train. Take one or two of those requirements off, and it would have nailed me good in Wing.

     Driving on through the mountains and several small towns, we found a guest house beside a steep, beautiful mountain. The nice lady could speak only German, but the only other guest stepped forward, interpreting her German into perfect, even southern, English. Talking just like we talked in Arkansas.

     Well, by now I'm sure you realize, Barbara was not about to just let that lie. She had to know what was going on.

     He was soon our friend, and over a glass of orange juice, she grilled him good. Yes, he had been to America. Still goes regularly. No, he had never been to the South. I went into my hillbilly mode, pulling out,  "We shore are much obliged to you-all,"  throwing in a "feller" now and then, even reaching way back and came up with a "youens'." He couldn't speak hillbilly, but that was about the only thing he couldn't speak. I think it finally helped him realize we were harmless.

     Finally, he just sat there and looked us over good for a long time, poured another glass of orange juice, and began to tell us the most fantastic story we have heard in all our travels. His name was Rio. He was a citizen of the world, he said, claiming no country as his home. He was born in a middle eastern country, and his family moved from one country to another as he grew up, and he picked up one language after another. He was a little dark, a little white, and could pass for about any nationality.

     After becoming a pilot in the Portuguese Air Force, he was trained in regional dialects, for any country. His job was to travel about, assuming the identity of anybody from anywhere.

     He asked us if we had a certain stamp on our car that was required for travel in Austria. Of course, we did not. Agreeing to show us where we could buy one, we all got in our car and headed out. We bought the sticker, and drove around for a long time, just seeing the village and talking. He explained that when you violated a traffic law in Europe, a flash would go off, and they had your picture. The fine would be waiting for us when we turned our rental car in.

     Well, I could already remember a bunch of flashes going off, usually when we were confused and wandering about, which was most of the time. I dreaded seeing our rental car bill.

     He was at the guest house, he said, to meet his buddies, climb the mountain. Then they would spend a day drinking beer and playing cards on top, then climb down.  He currently lived with his wife in Germany.

     After arriving back at our lodging, he offered to buy us dinner. Well, who can refuse that? And, Barbara was nowhere near through with him yet.

     We sat down. He offered to buy me a beer. I didn't like beer, so I said no thanks.

     He looked at me hard. "You won't drink a beer with me, Pat?" I could tell he took that personally. I drank beer.

     After we had eaten a great meal and he had a bunch more beers, he began to really loosen up, and tell us more.

     During the first Gulf War, He was recruited by the US Air Force because he spoke perfect Arabic. He was sent to Colorado Springs for training. His most fearful moments ever, he said, was the night he and his buddies wandered into the wrong part of Colorado Springs by accident. Sounded a lot like stories we had heard a world away, in Australia.

     When He got to Iraq, he assumed his Arabic identity. Those same buddies arrested him one night, and he smiled and said, "It's me, guys." They wouldn't believe him, and he had to show them his US Air Force pants, on under his robe, before they would let him go.

     Currently, he said, he makes regular trips to the eastern US near Washington, D.C. The CIA was never mentioned, but we understood..

     The next morning, he walked us out to our car. He had a small lecture for Barbara. "You travel far too lightly about the world. People will entrap you. You should never have let me in your car yesterday."

     "We had you outnumbered."

     He laughed. "I wasn't worried." He waved Barbara's camera away. No pictures, no address, no e-mail address. "But I will e-mail you." We're still waiting.

Forever A Hillbilly: Strange Shopping in Amsterdam...

Forever A Hillbilly: Strange Shopping in Amsterdam...:  We worked our way back to the ferry where we could rent a car.  We rented the car for the next 26 days, vowing to never remove the monster...

Strange Shopping in Amsterdam...

 We worked our way back to the ferry where we could rent a car.  We rented the car for the next 26 days, vowing to never remove the monster bag from the car again until we flew out. We would just pull out what we needed each day.

      Although we could not read labels on food at the grocery store, we bought mystery food and ate it anyway, and spent much of the night watching the one English channel on TV, BBC.

      After mastering the car in my broken-back state, we found our way out of Calais into Belgium. We wandered around awhile, tried to find our way into two towns, but not being able to read the signs proved a big problem.

     Having trouble finding a motel at the end of the day, we finally found something that could be one after several dead ends. It was. We ate out of a gas station.

     We called home. The kids said Hurricane Rita was about to hit Texas.

      Heading out the next day, the girl at the desk spoke some English, and lined us out some on this day's travel. We headed out for Amsterdam.

      Belgium looked a lot like a strange version of Iowa, corn and cows. We stayed at a hotel at the airport, and rode a train into Amsterdam.

      As we walked through the Red Light District, prostitutes displayed themselves like merchandise in little windows. Barbara mentioned, "Did you see how pretty that last one was?" Naturally, I had to walk back for a second look.  She smiled, started opening the door to welcome me in, and I quickly fled back to Barbara.

 

When we reached the other side of town, Barbara toured the Anne Frank House while I sat down and rested my back some. I've never seen a town where so many people rode bikes and walked. Amsterdam had a neat patchwork of canals, beautiful buildings and was very interesting, but the smell of pot filled the air and one side of it was just generally a sleazy place.

     Back at the hotel, Barb "mastered" the Internet. She always does, no matter what the language.

     We wandered on through Holland. We finally stopped at a grocery store, having to have help to even unlock the shopping cart. Everyone recycled everything there. A good thing. With a little help from an occasional English speaker, we stocked up. Late that afternoon, we finally located a B&B after several failures. A stressful day.

     The next day, we drove on into Germany and got on the Autobahn. We were a little shocked with the speed. I hung in the truck lane, and soon learned that if a car was in sight behind us in the fast lane, I didn't have time to pass before it was all over me.

     After entering Koblenz, we then managed to get directions to the Visitor's Center from a real, live, English speaking lady. She helped us out a lot in planning out our trip down the Rhine river Valley. We walked around a lot, with me still moving pretty slow. We negotiated the 53 steps up to our room, and dined on bread, peanut butter, and cake thingies.

     After a good breakfast at our motel, we found a laundromat. Everything we do is a challenge, but luckily, an English speaking lady helped us master the automated laundromat.

     Now, I know I have been running on a lot about how hard everything was to do, and it was hard. But in between frustrations, we were seeing a lot of great new places, and we were having fun. No, really, I mean it. I'm going to really make an effort to lay off some of the "It was just so hard" complaining, because we really were enjoying everything.

     Koblenz had a lot of beautiful buildings. I remember my Dad telling me a lot about his days in Koblenz, during the occupation immediately after WWI. He got to Germany aboard a very crowded troop ship, with no room to lay down. They slept sitting up.

     During our days in Koblenz, we would learn an occasional German word, and I was proud of mine. We also began to realize (I know I made a firm promise to not to whine any more, but I've just got to tell you this, then no more!) that Europe, at least this part, was set up for train travel, not car travel.  The trains were totally wonderful, totally quiet, and like riding on a cloud. All the inexpensive hotels were grouped around the train station, and there were no spaces to park a car within a mile, even if we could recognize one of the strange assortment of German words "hotels” were known by. But my back just ruled out train travel. I couldn't be moving that giant bag around.

     The next day, we headed down the Rhine River Valley. We moved down the Autobahn through an assortment of quaint small towns, past beautiful vineyards on the sloping hills, past many castles on the mountain tops.

     On arriving at Heidelberg, early in the afternoon, we drove around through that beautiful city for a while. We have never seen so many bicycles as we saw parked on the city center.

     The hotels seemed a little full, and a little pricy, so we moved on down. We started noticing that we saw one exit after another for Ausfarte. What a huge city Ausfarte must be. Only later did we realize that was the German word for exit.

     Coming upon another small town, we got off to look for a hotel. That turned out to be a really large city, and I got hung up in the middle of a "bus only" area. When the buses all stopped, the streets were filled with people like ants from an anthill. We worked our way out of that mess, finally, and seeing no hotels or anything that looked like it could be one, we went on south.

     It was getting late in the day, and we needed a place to lay our heads. The next small town advertised two hotels, so we got off. One was filled, another closed. So, we just wandered about, looking. Stopping at a likely prospect, it turned out to be a bar. But a child that had learned some English in school interpreted for his dad. The man said, "Follow me. I will lead you to a place to stay." He headed across town, we followed, and our young interpreter followed on his bicycle.

     The man stopped at a house, got out and talked to some people. They glanced at us, shook their head no, and he headed back to his car, just as the youngster arrived on his bicycle. "Follow me. I know another place." Well, the bicycler headed home, the leader sped up, and we lost him. Getting out by the Autobahn, we caught a glimpse of his car entering the Autobahn headed back north. Determined not to lose him this time, I sped up. When I got up to 110 MPH, he was still pulling away. Three exits back, I lost him, just as we decided we were following the wrong car anyway..       

     We turned back. When we exited again, it was close to dark. We wandered aimlessly. We had never had to sleep in our car, but it was beginning to look likely. Seeing the words "Zimmer Frei," we shouted with glee. One of the words for "A place to lay our head." Well, it was closed for the season, and darkness was upon us.

     A lady was just finishing up working in her yard, 3 doors down. Barbara put on her best friendly face, but the lady couldn't understand a thing she said. However, she headed down the street, motioning us to follow.

     Stopping at a house, 2 doors the other side of the Zimmer Frei, we began to realize it was her son's house. She talked to him, motioning to us, and we both put on our very best friendly, yet desperate and pitiful faces. Turned out, he owned the Zimmer Frei, and he could understand a few English words, if we talked real slow. He gave up on me, talking too fast, and turned to Barbara. He took us to the Zimmer Frei, explained they were closed for the season. But he let us in, told us to find us a room, fix our own supper, and lock up when we leave tomorrow. He charged a fair price, gave us the run of the place. Barbara's smile, her "stay clean and look good" mentality, and her gift with people had saved us again!

Forever A Hillbilly: Blood Pudding

Forever A Hillbilly: Blood Pudding:      The weather was good that day, so we spent most of the day driving the Ring of Kerry. The scenery was so good,so we just kept stopping...