Greetings From Lake Como, Italy:
Okay. There’s more to share about the first seven weeks in France, including photos. However, our 15-day trip reached the half-way mark today and if we don’t get some of this off our chests now, it may be forgotten. So, Sophia got out of the shower (I know that was days ago) and she’s helped me transfer the photos of this trip from the phone to the computer. So here goes. We’ll see how the photo explanations go.
Here are some broad generalities.
The trip has been great. We do have language spin. Too many languages and not enough language knowledge. I’m at about 25 French words, still have about 15 Spanish words from college, and 5 words of German from my great-grandmother, to say nothing of a very basic working knowledge of English. The first few days of the trip were in France and the French-speaking section of Switzerland. Than we spent two days in Lucerne (Luzern), which is very German. Then we drove through the Italian-speaking section of Switzerland, before landing here in Italy. So, hello, bon jour, gutentach (spelling?) and bon jour no, and oui, si, yes, and, oh well, it sure is confusing just trying to be polite.
By the way, there’s much between the lines here, and a few minutes using Google can fill in many of the blanks. How many people in Geneva vs. Lucerne, etc.? Where is that place they’re talking about? All to be easily researched, if you are interested and have the time.
Switzerland was breathtaking. What a country. So different from France. Geneva was beautiful with lots of men in suits (politics and economics), a quick look at Luasanne reminded us a bit of San Francisco and we were ready to move there, and Lucerne (Luzern) was sensational and ohhhhh so German. Every time I heard the language, I thought I was watching a movie about World War II. The Germans really are into precision! The French and Germans could not be more different. All of a sudden, no baquettes, no cuisants, and no Orangina. Hooray, we’re better with German food than French food! And, we think the Italian food has a leg up on the French food. There’s much too relate about the experiences and impressions, but let’s get to some photos.
Photos #1 – #4 – Gap, France doesn’t make the tour books. They have a great hockey arena (where Keaka’s Marseille team played). Gap has a team in the French version of the NHL. Players make less than $200,000 per season, while the players a few hours away in Switzerland’s version of the NHL make $400,000. Both have very few games compared to the NHL. Anyway, we found Gap to be charming, with a typical European Old Town and the standard cafes. We said, “We could live here.”
Photos #5 – #9 - This is a series of photos in Geneva, starting with a restaurant we ate dinner in, which supposedly is frequented by top world diplomats. An overweight American in a slightly oversized doorway from who knows how many hundreds of years ago, a little great architecture (which is endless) and the Geneva harbor.
We arrived in Lake Como, Italy Thursday night. This has to be the most beautiful lake in the world! George Clooney’s villa is on the same side of the lake we are on, but about 11 miles away. He was here in September with Sandra Bullock, but hasn’t been sighted since. We have some photos (not of George and Sandra), but it’s late on Saturday evening and these e-mails get “stuck” when I add too many photos. More later.
No spelling check or grammar review, just putting impressions onto paper quickly. Please excuse.
The Wilsons
