6

We are currently stuck in gridlock, so I'm taking this opportunity to write a bit. Gridlock is interesting, it's like an impromptu party. Everyone gets out of their cars and looks around, talks, gets snacks, explores the roadside. It's a bit of an interesting juxtaposition, with the cars on the other side of the four foot barrier whipping by at 100km/h. We just talked to the people in front, who speak a little English, and they don't know anything about how long this traffic is supposed to last. They're from Belgium. There are a lot of languages around us at the moment; Flemish, German, French, Italian, English. Probably more that I don't recognize.

Ok we can see movement ahead, maybe about a kilometre ahead. So we're getting back in the car.

And we're moving! We managed to figure out how to close the sun roof in time. That was a bit scary.

We just passed a young couple pushing a tiny red car onto a side pull out. That might have been it, but I think it was probably more than one broken down car.

 

Today we're driving to Italy. Been about two and a half hours on the road so far. We stopped off at a rest stop recently to eat some food and stretch our legs. Bathrooms cost 1 euro or Swiss franc, so only those who really actually needed to go went. They sold amazing selections of Swiss chocolate, including copious amounts of toblerones and Lindt. So we all chose a chocolate. Some of them were gluten free. There was not a single well-parked car in the rest stop lot. There were cars that were right on top of the painted line. It was very busy there, I think it's the only rest stop for a good while.

 

We seem to be back in gridlock. We're moving a bit, maybe 10 or 5km/h. Mostly just stopped though. Our satnav warned us about traffic issues earlier on. I wonder how it gets its info. Listening to the radio doesn't help for us, it's all in German. We're inching in and out of tunnels. There's a giant 17km tunnel coming up, so we're hypothesizing that some of this traffic might be a kind of line up to get to the tunnel, and they're controlling the entrance to prevent stopped traffic inside the tunnel, which I guess could be dangerous.

We're still moving very slowly. It's 3:30. We left home about 5 hours ago. We are about 1/4 of the way there. This could be a long trip. We stopped briefly by some port-a-potties but they were so bad that Julias peed next to them. They were very bad. Imagine bad and make it worse with a smell to boot. I'll spare you the details.

We've tried and failed many times to connect my iPod for music but it didn't work. I used my little portable speaker for awhile.

We're listening to the radio again. Lise translates for us: "it's something about four people". We switched to a national music station. It's slow polka and accordions. It's very Oktoberfest. It adds to the atmosphere if you look at the rolling hills of cows and small huts while listening. There was a song that I thought might not be a polka, but I was wrong. That was just the introduction. But this song has a modicum of syncopation so it's a tad interesting.

The mountains here could almost be the Rockies, except for the fact that there are rolling green pastures and small villages in every valley. The hills and mountains have walls built into them, some very old. The entire area has been developed with farms and stone structures for a very long time. It's weird to see that right underneath soaring peaks and trees. I keep expecting to see a grizzly bear or something, but there are practically no wild animals here.

The chord progression of this song is I, V. Repeat to end.

We may have to develop a plan B in terms of getting to Italy; we'll reach our halfway point at about 5pm. So. That might kinda suck.

 

We've just reached a traffic light controlling access to a tunnel. This could be the source of the congestion, if so we might still have a chance of making it to Italy today. Remember what I said about when nothing is happening, there will be a long blog post because I have nothing to do but write? Well this whole traffic thing is a prime example.

The current song has yodelling in it.

We're in the 17km two way tunnel now, and there is no more congestion. So that traffic light was probably it. Safety reasons I guess.

We're out of the tunnel, and there is stopped traffic on the other side of the road leading into the tunnel. So I think it's smooth sailing from here on out. We think we're in Italy now, because the signs are in Italian now mostly. 

 

Just kidding, we're still in Switzerland. They just speak Italian on the other side of the tunnelled mountain, makes sense. We're seeing Swiss flags so we have reassessed our assumption. It's five minutes till we reach the Italian border. It's 5:30 pm.

 

Without really realizing it, we're in Italy. We were driving through a town, we saw a bunch of cars. We thought maybe this is the border crossing? We drove up next to a guy in uniform, and without even stopping chewing his fingernail and continuing to look distracted, he nods and we drive on. He didn't even look at us. We erupted in laughter.

The traffic has immediately worse. There are mopeds everywhere and doing everything. Through red lights, around cars and people. It's a bit stressful. The roads are worse as well. Now we're driving along a really skinny road with oncoming traffic and a brick wall on our left and it's scary. Every vehicle is crazy. I'm surprised more people don't die in cars in Italy.

We're parked in a grocery store parking lot and there are cars parked in front of other cars. I would hate to drive a car here.

 

We stopped at a grocery store to stock up on food. I love grocery stores in Italy (or at least this one); it's mostly raw ingredients, there are lots of gluten free options, and cheese. So much cheese. And cheese options. There are many kinds of bocconcini available, in bags of water. Focaccia bread is abundant. Whole squids can be purchased. The normal store tomatoes are incredible- like the glanford greenhouse ones in Victoria. We had corn thins with yummy ham and yummy cheeses and good tomatoes. I'm saving the bag of boccencini I got for later.

We have gotten in contact via text with Chiara (our hostess), we took out euros, we are stocked up on food (we found some gluten free crackers and cookies at a rest stop- and if anyone can do good gluten free stuff, it's Italians), and we are on our way to Padova in surprisingly high spirits. No low blood sugar here.

 

It's almost 11pm. We have arrived at the apartment and brought our stuff in. I think Chiara runs this as a BnB, because there are lots of empty rooms and beds, and it's very organized. The apartment and surrounding area remind me strongly of my home stay in Salamanca, very similar vibe, just a much bigger and slightly nicer place. We found a giant cupboard full of games including a bunch of Magic cards and jungle speed. We may choose to play one or both of those tomorrow. We put our cheese stuff in the fridge. Chiara went to bed because it's late. I think I will do the same momentarily.

Tomorrow I don't think we'll be heading to Venice first thing in the morning, rather we might stay in Padova, explore the neighbourhood a bit. In the evening though, after it's cooled off a bit, I will get to see my first view of the city that inspired Villanelle from The Passion… Carrying no valuables on my person.

Goodnight.