My journey to Italy started when I woke up at four in the morning and helped load everything into the trunk of my guest family's car. Going on the trip was Leonie, a friend from Leonie named Luise, my two guest parents and myself. The night before I stayed up till 2 in the morning because I figured that way I could sleep in the car, my strategy actually worked. I slept on and off till 8 in the morning, and at 9 or so we stopped at the last city in Germany and drank coffee and had a little breakfast. I got a croissant filled with cheese and ham, I think it was the best croissant I have ever tasted. After that we made the switch from driving in Germany to driving in Switzerland, and all that happened was the color of the roads signs changed!
Switzerland was beautiful, there was mountains everywhere, and when we drove through the Alps it was snowing! I took plenty of junk car pictures, but I couldn't help it! It was a winter wonderland. It didn't take too long to drive through Switzerland thanks to the autobahn. When we got to Italy on the autobahn all we had to do was drive slowly through a bypass with police men that just glanced into the car. In Italy you have to pay tolls to drive on the autobahn unlike Germany so sometimes you will see Russian or Czech trucks driving through Germany to save money. I slept most of the ride through Italy, but woke up when we got close to where we were staying; Imperia. We got to the town and I saw the Sea, it really was a wonderful sight to see again. To get to where we stayed we had to drive up a steep, small, windy road. Everyone has little cars or mopeds and our car was fairly big even for Germany so we drove slowly with caution and often had a mini heart attacks when we were surprised with a car around the corner.
When we got to the house we were greeted by an older Italian man who spoke Italian, French, and a little English. He poured us champagne before we even stepped into the door. My host parents and sister spoke to him in French as he showed us around Luise and I stood in the back not understanding anything. After everyone was settled in I went with my host parents to a grocery store, then explored a little in the town, took pictures, and ate gelato. That night we went to a "typical" pizzeria. My host parents said it was typical because it was so loud with pop/Italian music and people, but hey it was good food.
For the next days we didn't too much. I wouldn't have minded doing more, but I was in Italy! I went to the markets, ate delicious food, swam in the Mediterranean, walked, biked, took pictures, and read the rest of my book while lounging with everyone by the pool. On Friday we went up to the mountains to a town which is known for the witch trials that were held there. It was a history filled town, it has around 415 citizens so it is relatively small and perched on a mountain top. On the way back to Imperia we rode down a small road that wrapped around the mountains, we had to honk the car horn every time we went around a turn to warn the potential cars on the other side. We only met another car once and it took around five minutes to actually pass them, ironically they were also from Germany. We stopped once on the road to take pictures and my host father walked off a ways so I did the same. My host mother is scared of heights so she looked at me with a worried face as I walked up to the side of cliff. At that point I missed my Mom and Dad who would have come up with me and probably would have walked to the very edge with me. I didn't because my host mom would have freaked out as she watched on from the bottom of the hill by the car.
