January 24, 2012
Today was the day we were driving to our destination place in Perugia, Italy. We rented an apartment from a guy who only worked in Perugia until 3:00 p.m., so we needed to be there by that time. We decided to get an early start, just to be safe. I drove first, and as we left Nice, we were in heavy traffic that turned into bumper to bumper traffic on the way to Monte Carlo. It was a bit stressful watching the time tick by and not getting any closer. There was construction going on everywhere in Monaco. We had planned to take time and explore Monte Carlo a bit, but as we lost an hour getting there, we tried to exit as quickly as possible.
In the process, I was looking in my side view mirror and drifted into the curb. David screamed, we hit the curb and it was back onto the road again. It was quite easy to hit the curb there as the streets are so narrow and just a little drift and there you are! The kids started laughing because of the way David screamed. I was completely stressed from driving in the traffic, so the laughter was welcome, and I couldn’t help laugh myself as it really was quite a scream! I was just happy the kids weren’t petrified of my driving! I think that was about the only laughter we had today.
So, it was on to Italy and once on the toll roads, the going was pretty fast as the speed limit was 80. We drove through loads of tunnels which creeped me out a bit because for some reason I kept thinking of Princess Diana. The traffic was moving superfast through the tunnels, and I just felt we might crash at any moment. The speed limit stayed 80 through really sharp curves in these tunnels too!
The other weird thing about driving in Italy is that the speed limit changes a lot from 80 to 45… crazy… So it was FAST then slooooooowwwwwwwww, and repeat. I was really tired after 3 ½ hours of driving!
By 1:00 p.m. we needed to contact our landlord, and we had British cell phones with us. They worked just fine in France, but we couldn’t get them to work in Italy. We were receiving text messages from the service provider saying things like “Welcome to Italy”, so we knew the phones worked, but couldn’t get them to make a call and it was our only way of contacting the landlord to get keys, etc. Yikes! This was stressing me out yet again wondering where we would spend the night if we couldn’t get keys…
We were also driving fast to make up the lost time. We were on track for a 2:40 arrival, giving us 20 minutes to spare to try and find a pay phone and call the landlord. Unfortunately, our satellite navigation GPS system had a really hard time once we hit Perugia because of the steep terrain. It is so steep here that sometimes the GPS thinks you are on the road directly above or below the one you are actually on. So, we drove around lost for awhile until we found a parking spot near the center of the old part of town. We knew the apartment was somewhere near the center.
So, we walked around, and thanks to Google Maps Street View (which we had looked at when we first searched for apartments) we recognized the street view and found the apartment. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a pay phone, and it was after 3:00 p.m. So, I waited with the kids by the apartment in case the landlord showed up, and David walked 15 minutes to the train station to see if he could find the guy (He said he would meet us at the train station after 3:00 p.m.)
While David was gone, the Landlord phoned him and said he had already left town and would head on over. David walked back to us and we all waited outside of the apartment, tired, hungry, and desperate for a bathroom. Forty minutes later, the landlord finally arrived! That is when he told us that if we were using a foreign phone, we needed to put a ‘+’ in front of the number before we dialed! Ughhh!
It took an hour and a half for us to go over everything with him and get our luggage up the four plus flights of stairs (52 steps to be exact). While driving the car to a closer place so we could unload, the street was so narrow that David scraped the side mirror, our first Italian ding! After all of that, we were too exhausted to unpack, so we walked to the train station where we could get something to eat and then we shopped for a few groceries and necessities like toilet paper.
Surprisingly, towels are NOT provided in this fully furnished apartment. It is also very difficult finding a shop that sells them. Of course, my Italian completely left me, and I couldn’t remember how to ask for them either. We finally found a shop that sells super thin, terrible quality towels for $25 each! I am talking about towels thinner and smaller than ones you would find in the cheapest motel in the States. I just couldn’t buy one for $25!!! So, we are going to use camping towels until we go to the market this Saturday to buy some real towels. All in all, just one exhausting day!
Hopefully better news next time…
~Mary
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