· Ed dropped his wallet in the treni stazione in Milano. Before and during our time in Europe, we had been warned repeatedly about pickpockets so we thought that's what had happened but, in this case, Ed apparently just missed his own pocket. As soon as we got back to our hotel room, he contacted our credit card companies, but we were not surprised the next morning to be advised “your purchase from Amazon has been denied.” Unfortunately, he also lost his new Utah driver license and about $80 in USD and euros.
· We took a bus to the Michaelangelo Museum on a hillside overlooking Milan. When it was time to depart, Ed was – we thought – right behind us. We boarded the bus, the doors closed and all three of us, at once, saw Ed running to catch the bus as it pulled away. Of course, we got off as soon as we could and tried to make our way back, but it took at least an hour and several failed attempts to find a bus going in the right direction. In the meantime, he – like all good Boy Scouts – simply found a shady spot, sipped a cold Coke Zero and waited for us to come find him.
· In Florence, we were trying to wrangle our luggage to our AirBnB so we jumped – as only four weary travelers could do while each dragging 60+ lbs. of luggage – onto a city bus. Unfortunately, we had nowhere to move ourselves or our luggage, so we just had to stand near the door. When the next passenger – an older lady who was probably a frequent rider - stepped onboard and realized she couldn’t get passed us, she became pretty irate and, no doubt, insulting (in Italian). We had no idea what she was saying but we could tell from the look on her face, it was probably not something we wanted to hear in English. The bus driver – who spoke some English – did her best to diffuse the situation and we apologized to all who were inconvenienced, though it didn’t do much good. Most of the other passengers seemed sympathetic to our plight.
· Palma de Mallorca introduced us to nude beaches. Of course, we didn’t plan to visit a nude beach, but somehow ended up there (could have something to do with our inability to understand the language). In all fairness, it wasn’t officially a nude beach – though there were some a little further down the coast line – but this beach definitely had, a few, uninhibited nude sun bathers. It was pretty funny to watch our two priesthood brethren trying their best not to look!
· On one of our shore expeditions we found ourselves having lunch at a winery – which, of course, involved wine tasting. Before we got there, our host came up and down the aisles of the bus with a clip board making notes about food preferences. Vegan? Vegetarian? Glutton-free, etc. When he got to me, I said, “No wine.” The look on his face was absolutely priceless. “No wine?” he finally managed to stammer after several seconds with his mouth open. When he finally regained his composure, he said, “I’m shocked! I’ve never known ANYONE who doesn’t drink wine.” I want to think our seating at a far away corner of the room in the direct sunshine - and with nothing to drink - had to do with too many guests and not enough table space, but I can't be sure!
· We stayed in a very nice AirBnB in Florence which had a gate so people couldn’t come in off the street unannounced. When it came time to leave, we gathered everything up, locked the door and headed downstairs to wait for our taxi. When we got to the gate, we realized we were locked in – and locked out – inside the gate and outside of the apartment. It was early in the morning, but the guys decided the only thing to do was to knock on doors until we could find someone who had a key. I walked out into the courtyard and found a woman hanging her washing … and a man a floor above her who spoke English. Unfortunately, neither of them had a solution and in the meantime, our taxi showed up. The driver was pretty upset we couldn’t find a way to her vehicle and left in a huff. Finally, someone yelled down to “push the button.” Well, duh, sure enough there was a button next to the gate which freed us from our self-imposed prison and we were able to get on our way (I'm pretty sure, at least a few of the tenants were murmuring, “stupid Americans!” as we sped away).
· We only got seriously lost once during our month in Europe and it happened on our last Saturday in Rome. We decided to make a day-trip to Tivoli, a small community about 19 miles from downtown Rome which has 2 UNESCO Heritage Sites. How hard could it be? We made it both ways but the entire trip, which started at 10 a.m. and ended at 10:30 p.m. involved 1 mini-van, 2 shuttle busses, 3 trains, and 4 metro stops. The treni from the Rome Termini cost us only 2.60 euros apiece going out to Tivoli, but to come back it was going to cost 309 euros (no, that’s not a typo), so of course we needed to find an alternate route which dropped us at a train station in another part of Rome. We got back safe and sound – and even got to see the inside view of the Rome’s Leonardo di Vinci Airport. A little unnerving, but fun anyway!
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