Kelly's Adventures Abroad!: The dangers of renting a car in Italy

Well after seven months...my family is finally here! We stayed in the first night and I cooked pasta al forno for them and Charlotte. Mom didn't feel very well (not because of my cooking) and so the next day we actually called the American doctor and got a house call! He was quite the character and we're pretty sure laughter was the best medicine because mom had started feeling better already. At one point, he coughed and said, "Sorry I'm just getting over a case of TB." We all started laughing and then he said, "Tiny Bladder." We ate lunch at a great place right around the corner from my house where they'd make any kind of pasta that struck your fancy. Afterwards I left the family napping and went to Alessandro's graduation thesis presentation. It's been the topic of conversation for the past month, and the day had finally come. I was so nervous for him but he did great!

Me and Ale

Later my family and I did a tour of Bologna and then I got them set up for dinner before leaving with a friend (on his motorino!) for Alessandro's graduation party. The motorino ride was probably the highlight of the evening because I had never ridden on one before. It was thrilling!

The next day we began the adventure of driving a car in Italy. Rick Steves should have written in his book, "Warning: it may be bad for your health." I think my dad might now have problems with ulcers, hehe. First stop was San Luca, in Bologna. We drove up through the hills, but found the church to be closed. Like I said before though, it's the journey and the architecture outside the church that make it so incredible.

Our Alfa Romeo

In front of San Luca

After that, we attempted to head to San Gimignano. We started right off the bat going the wrong direction and had to ask a man that owned a bike shop where the freeway was. He gave me directions and said, if you follow those, you can't mess up. HA. We get to the freeway finally heading towards Florence, and we come to a toll. However, there wasn't a person there and we couldn't figure out how to make the barricade go up. So everyone's honking and we're freaking out so I get out of the car and look around but I don't know what to do and so I go to the guy in the big truck behind us and tell him so. He asks if we have a pass and I say no and he says well you're in the pass lane. Great. At this point my dad's yelling at me because apparently there was this help speaker and so he yells, "Kelly, they're talking to me!" And rather quickly the help people give up on him and just lift the barricade...so I run up to the car while yelling at him to go through the barricade and finally I jump in the car and we're off! Oh my God it was so stressful. My mom is laughing so hard because she said my dad might as well have yelled, "Kelly, they're picking on me!" when the help people spoke to him in Italian. So basically we got lost a couple more times and finally end up in San Gimignano, which is a very cute little walled city. We walked around, looked into some shops, and had a very yummy dinner.

And then we headed for Camp Darby, the army base near Livorno. Easier said than done. By this point it was already dark. We went to visitor's information in San Gimignano for directions and they gave us several names of towns whose signs we should follow. That worked for a while but at one point we got confused so we pulled off at this restaurant that ended up being hidden in the forest and I asked this group of guys who all wanted to give me different directions and they would be thing like, "when you come to a really old building, turn left and follow that road through the forest until it dead ends, then turn left...blah blah blah"--no street names, no specifics, nothing. One of them also told me, "If you do that, you can't mess up." HA. It was impossible but we're again headed in the right direction. So then we're trying to follow the directions the hotel gave us. But we end up in some random town unable to find any more helpful signs. So dad tries to turn around but we end up in this alley blocked by a truck loading. We get out to ask the men loading the truck where Camp Darby is, and then an ambulance drives up behind us and is also blocked so we ask them instead, and the man driving--God Bless Him--says he will lead us most of the way! There's seriously no way we would have made it without him.

Here's Daniel's Russian celebratory dance for having arrived:

The next day we did a ton of food shopping at the commissary on base...I bought baking mixes, Mexican food, and various other requests from my American friends. Then we headed to Pisa, saw the Field of Miracles, took our corny tourist pictures, and then left for Lucca.

We made it both to Pisa and Lucca with practically no directional problems in the car! Lucca is the small town my dad's grandparents, the ones who immigrated to America, are from. I was completely charmed by the city and could see myself living there one day! It's just lovely.