Tobons Around the World: The Unexpected

By Guest Blogger Morgan Ernst

When getting ready for any trip, long term or weekend, you read all the travel guides, catch up on local news and probably embark on a little history review. At least that was my way of preparing for my seven-week adventure abroad. I read all the romanticized literature on what to expect in one of the most beautiful countries in the world: Italy. I was ready for the medieval architecture, the most delicious carbohydrates and even the intense and somewhat inappropriate men who gawk and blow kisses at the stunning women. Little did I know many unexpected events, good and bad, were about to unravel on our perfect trip to Italy.

One thing I was most interested and excited to see in Italy was the immense duomos and cathedrals that were older than the most senior parts of the United States, and the History Channel is the closest I’ve come to these amazing handcrafted cities. As we stepped off the bus and I set my feet down for the first time in Rome I was mesmerized; my eyes shot from one thing to the other trying to memorize everything. One thing caught my eye right off the bat: graffiti. At first we saw it on a couple of buildings then we began to see it everywhere! There was literally no beginning or end to the amount of tagging, mostly of names and initials. What was even more disturbing was the ultimate disregard for the cultural heritage, plus 90% of the tags are in English, not even their native Italian. These taggers have defaced hundred to thousand-year-old buildings, including the Duomo in Florence. Overall, I was disappointed with the amount of graffiti found in even the smallest of towns, although some of the “artwork” was spectacular: the kind of talent I would expect to find coming from the descendants of Michelangelo and Da Vinci. Alas, the buildings were still beautiful and everything I had expected.

Mario and Luigi in their homeland

One of the better, unexpected journeys to come our way on this beautiful trip was our road trip to Lazise. Originally we had planned on staying in Verona, the town made famous by Shakespeare and Juliet Capulet, although we were ultimately unlucky in our search for beds and hot showers. Our next best option was to stay on the outskirts in a little lake-town named Lazise. We figured this town would just be a place to rest before heading out again. Little did we know this town would be one of the most prized places from all the cities visited.

Upon arriving in Lazise we found ourselves hungry and a little grouchy. We headed to a little café where Miguel, Courtney and I had our first hot dogs on the trip and they were delicious to say the least. As we finished, Courtney and I thought it would be nice to take a tour of the town while Miguel and mom napped off the mean effects of awful colds. To our amazement this town was a little slice of heaven with a side of dazzling scenery. While on our walk we met a family of blissful swans enjoying the setting sun and newly hatched baby ducks and their proud mother.Finally, it was dinner-time and we had our top choice of restaurants. There were many options on the water and even more to the center of town. Ultimately, in my opinion, we decided on the best little family-owned bistro in Lazise. The delicious food rivaled the incredibly nice people. A great find!

sunset at Lake Garda

perfectly cooked Gnocchi

After our two eventful and busy weeks on the road travelling around northern Italy we could finally indulge in a little R&R in a villa we had rented in the Umbrian countryside. We were so ecstatic to have a kitchen for home cooking and enough bathrooms to serve us all that we barely noticed the one thing that would haunt us in the morning, as we slept and even in the shower: bugs and lots of them. First we noticed the daddy long legs. Some so incredibly big they could barely fit on a dinner plate therefore you knew they had been cooped up in that corner of the ceiling for quite some time. Finally we were beginning to understand living in the Italian countryside meant living alongside bugs of every shape, size and color. I just knew that Miguel, Mom, Courtney and I were finding a new species of insect every time we would venture outside to the pool. Courtney even became the unofficial pool debugger. Here are a couple of startling events that will help you understand the severity of the bug problem:
1) Mom and Courtney were cleaning up our mess from breakfast one morning when I heard a terror filled cry of horror. Courtney had started to fold a jacket I had left on the back of a chair. It had been there for about two days. She found in the hood not only a spider of gigantic proportions, but also a gigantic spider spinning a web in the cloth of my hood. Yep.
2) Courtney had come to wake me up early one morning so we could begin one of our days touring the vineyards and gorgeous towns. As my mind was still cloudy and waking up from a great nights sleep she tells me she had just killed a scorpion in the shower. I think about what she had just said a second and repeat, “Scorpion?” Yes, that’s right a scorpion. There was even evidence on the shower wall.
3) One night I was getting ready for bed but was in need of a snack so I headed to the kitchen. As I opened the fridge and it lit the room, a speck on the wall began to move. I looked over and to my horror realized it was some hybrid of centipede and worm. Its legs got progressively longer as they spread to the back of its body. They moved fast and in jig-jags and only came out at night, reminiscent of some horrific blood-sucking creature. These were easily the creepiest crawlies that we came in to contact with.

Some other interesting creatures we spotted were on our drives on the side of the road. We first spotted these specimens while nearing the end of our first drive to the villa. As we were all looking out the windows taking in the green pastures and old farm houses we all spot a tall, lean, brunette in silver hot pants step out of a Mercedes and light a cigarette while walking to another car. Everyone was silent for a few seconds processing what we had all just seen. Miguel’s the first to speak with, “That was a guy!!!!” We all responded, “I don’t think so. She had hips!” Finally as we saw a few other scantily clad women standing or sitting by cars on the side of the road we understood: prostitutes. These women would park their cars along quiet country roads in the middle of nowhere, work out in the open and wait for customers. One morning we were “hunting”, because of course we would need pictures for our tall-tales, when we spotted a women sitting in her motor home, or place of business, dressed in a tight mini-dress and red HIGH heels. We came to find that early morning was the busiest time of business, so I guess it’s true-the early bird does get the worm.

There is romance in every bush in Italy!

Open for business!

You might not expect the bugs or the prostitutes, but one does expect amazingly fresh and delicious food. The family and I were out on one of our many day trips when we came to a small walled town on an incredibly steep hill. By the end of the hike to the top and back down we are all famished. We hadn’t eaten in at least two hours so you can only imagine the crash of everyone’s glucose levels therefore causing dips in the fun-o-meter. We all came to a decision that pizza was the food of choice for lunch and of course there happened to be a cute little pizzeria by the car. We walk in, take a seat and ask for our usual funghi and formaggi (cheese) pizza. The waitress, looking a little puzzled, lets us know they only serve one kind of pizza, formaggi. We say okay and start dreaming about the crispy crust and delicious, melty mozzarella. Not only was the crust not crispy and the pizza not good, the pizza was originally a frozen pizza…a totinos if you will. In the land of freshly made pizza we manage to find the only pizzeria in Italy that only serves one kind of frozen pizza. Yummy.

Unexpected events are bound to happen, I’m just exceedingly happy most of our crazy happenings were hilariously funny or at the very least manageable.

The Expected...