First day on the road in Italy

It was a warm, sunny Sanremo afternoon when we hit the road yesterday.  The Kangoo was packed full and the sun was shining bright on the Mediterranean - it was really something to see.  There are literally thousands of tunnels along the route we were taking.  Small towns & villages dotted the mountains all around.  You could see the snowy peaks in the distance while the sun sat low over the sea. 

We have a GPS unit that we've named Maria.  She's difficult.  How often do you have a woman navigator (no offense)?  Actually, her voice module is broken, so she just shows you where you're at and doesn't say anything.  We were doing great at first.  Caroline felt sick about 3 minutes into the trip, but then just started eating all our food which seemed to take her mind off the sick thing.  Jackie & I were chatting away when I somehow ended up off the Autostrada and into Genova.  It's a beautiful city, but it's got a little old after an hour of driving through the bus lanes, honking at awaiting passengers and going the wrong way down one way streets.  We eventually ended up back at the toll booth for the autostrada.  Unfortunately I wasn't in the Telepass (E-pass) lane, so I just snuck through behind the guy ahead of me as the girls screamed and the guard nearly came crashing down on top of the car.  The trip was a lot of fun, just taking in the scenery & listening to music.  It felt good to leave Sanremo & rehearsals and get out on our own.

Eventually we ended up just outside of LaSpezia at the right town, but once again Maria was being difficult.  We saw a wierd dog whose front & back ends didn't communicate and accidentally pulled right into the hotel parking lot.  After lugging our stuff upstairs we tried to find the school we would be at the next morning.  Good luck.  An hour and a half later we hadn't gone more than about a 3km radius and nobody in the city knew where the place was.  We got word that the teacher was waiting for us the whole time at the hotel and would take us there in the morning.  We hit the street and found a great market with humongous bread and the biggest sausage I'd ever seen.  We found some 3€ pizza and delirium started setting in.  On the walk home Caz was on the phone and said "the tom-tom wasn't working" which got us laughing and then this lady looked at us and yelled "Watch It!" which was probably the only english phrase she knew.  Then we saw the store "baby yogurt" and I pretty much lost it. 

The hotel room was wierd and the bathroom was basically a shower with a toilet and a sink and no shower curtain, water that just kind of fell from the ceiling, and a window on the bathroom door.  I decided it was a good idea to take advantage of the moment and brush my teeth in the shower.

Our first show was good, just one performance of Little Red Riding Hood for a bunch of elementary kids. The intro that we do for the little kids is this thing where we sing a song and do movements that are somewhere between a marionette and a robot.  So while we're doing this, the kids are looking at us with blank stares like "wha... um.. uh... what are they doing?"  In the middle of the song the girls walked like robots up to the kids which only added to the experience for the little ones.  During the fairy tale we looked ridiculous and sang off key, but it wasn't too bad.  Especially when I came on as the wolf and said "Hello Little Red Riding Hood" and Caroline said "hello, my name is Dorothy!" (from the wizard of oz, if you didn't realize)

We had a 2.5 hour drive to Bergamo which only took us about 5 hours.  I used my incredibly keen driving instincts to nearly double our time!  The first part of the drive was beautiful with bright sun and snow all around.  I stopped to throw some for a few minutes.  Somehow we've ended up outside that in the industrial midwest of Italy.  It's not pretty, but it's cold!  It's still a blast, though. 

I'm off to find something to do for the evening.  It's freezing outside, but the hotel's nice and we've got plenty of food.  Tomorrow we're headed into Milan for the afternoon to meet up with friends who got incredibly lost on their first day.  At least they didn't put gas in the diesel Kangoo like one of the other groups.  All in all, it's been a real kick in the pants and I think it'll stay that way for the most part.

If you want to call or send a text, you can reach me at +39  334-767-0358