Northern Italy

I could easily spend a year here, or maybe a lifetime. The mountains are pointy, the gelato is awesome, the coffee is good and cheap, and the driving is fast. Every time I visit a country I have to remind myself to pay attention to those things that quickly become ordinary. For example, we bought a SIM card for our cell-phones two days after we landed. We paid two Euros for the SIM card and 10 Euros for a month’s worth of cell coverage. Just so you know how terrible we have it in Canada, here’s what €10 will buy you in this boot-shaped country: 10GB of data, an Italian phone number, unlimited calling to Italian numbers, and more international minutes than I’ll ever use (including text – I just need to figure out how to text internationally now). Europe might have high gas prices, but they seem to make up for it with insanely low cell plans. Also, roaming charges don’t exist in Europe. If you’ve ever wondered how Canadian telecommunications companies can afford to put their names on stadiums without having to expand to international markets to raise profits, then, well, the previous sentence might provide some insight.

We’ve leased a French car for our time here in Europe which comes with red license plates that show we’re foreigners. If you subscribe to the stereotype that the French are somewhat xenophobic, then French vehicle leasing laws won’t help dispel that thought. We have a Renault Clio which is just a touch smaller than the Mazda 3 and fits our family plus bags, but not much else. A huge bonus is that the car comes with GPS, completely necessary for all introverts and efficiency-seeking-people that don’t want to stop and ask for directions in a language they don’t understand. So far the GPS has tried to take us down some one-way streets in the wrong direction. Apparently, the GPS hates us. Maybe because we’re foreigners.

One of the most pleasurably stressful moments in Europe is driving. I’m sure everyone has heard the cliché statements that driving in Europe requires nerves of steel, keeping your head on a swivel, and your foot on the gas. While those statements have a bit of truth to them, it’s no where near as bad as a lot of blogs make the driving out to be. If 80-year-old pensioners and 16-year-old learners can drive in this continent without getting into an accident every time they leave the driveway, then why can’t everyone else. A few lessons that I’ve learned along the way are:

1. Tailgating does not mean you have to pullover right away or flip the bird to the person behind you. This is just how they drive. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve looked in my rear-view mirror and thought there was someone else in the back-seat with my kids. They drive that close.
2. Scooter and motorbikes will drive right beside you in the towns and cities. Drive like they’re not there and they seem to figure themselves out just fine. Every traffic light will bring a small herd of scooters to the front of the line.
3. Roundabouts are amazing. I wish Canada would adopt more of these back home and then not treat them like 4-way stops. There is some kind of poetry in being able to flow through an intersection that has no stop signs or traffic lights without having to touch the brakes.   
4. The lanes are narrow. Learn the width of your car and then test that knowledge daily. Our car has a button that pulls the mirrors in automatically, just for those times when you’re not sure about how much space there is between a rock wall and an oncoming car.

Finding parking is stressful. I don’t find any pleasure in that experience. Italy, and Europe in general, suffer from a lack of parking spots. When we visited Genoa in northern Italy, the AirBnB host had instructed us to call her when we arrived so she could move her car out of a parking spot and then let us park there. After we parked, we were then told not to move the car for our entire stay, otherwise we wouldn’t find parking again. I’m not sure where our host parked after she let us into her spot.

On that note, we’ve had a few laughs at how people park in this country. Lines for parking stalls are just a make-work project. When parking, just go off the person beside you. If you can’t find any official parking, don’t be afraid to park on the inside corner of a hairpin turn. Make sure to press your car against the brick wall. When you feel the scrape of the passenger side door coming through the steering wheel, then that's probably enough.

For any drawbacks that Italy has, they make up for it with gelato and coffee. A cappuccino will run you about a €1.30 in most places and there is no shortage of the stuff. Although I miss not sipping on a massive mug of coffee Canadian-style, I really like the slam-it-down way of drinking espressos here in Italy. I’ve even learned to use an espresso maker (all guest houses seem to have at least two of them). And after we’re all piss and vinegar from coffee shots, we then hit up the gelato bar for a €2 cone of awesomeness. The Italians aren’t shy with the gelato servings either, unless you’re in an incredibly busy tourist area, then the serving sizes are just embarrassingly small.

Anyway, I need to sign-off and go buy some food for dinner, the kids are getting restless. Luckily we have all the same names for food back in Canada, so if we can’t find something we want, then it’s easy enough to ask. 

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