Our first taste of the Alps!

After most of my family left, Lisa, my dad and I headed to Lake Como to stay with a friend of Lisa's dad. We drove from Venice to Como and around the lake to the north side where they live. Luigi and his wife, Elena, met us at the tourist information office, greeted us as though we had been friends for years and said it was time to go eat. We went to a little trattoria where they ordered fish from the lake for us. We then went to their house which was right on the lake and had a jaw dropping view of the alps across the lake. Luigi and Elena were hilarious and very excited for us to see their home. They were passionate about skiing (water and snow) to say the least. Luigi was out on the water at 5am just about every morning. They also had high hopes for their son as a skier but he decided to pursue academics and become an engineer instead. This, they said, was crushing. Around Luigi Lisa was a celebrity and she was introduced to everyone he knew as Dave Goode's daughter. He was also very disappointed that Lisa was not some professional skier. The first day we were there we took a ferry around to a few different towns on the lake, each more resorty than the last. The views of the mountains though, were perfect. The next day we took a drive into Switzerland stopping first to climb near the border, then at a tiny traditional Swiss village that looked as though it were taken right out of The Sound of Music, the ski resort St. Moritz as well as a few other towns. The scenery was breathtaking mountains with huge glaciers and cows grazing in green meadows. Exactly how one would picture Switzerland. The next day Luigi's son, Giovanni the ex-skier, took us on a tour of the lake in their boat. It was the first day that was warm enough to swim and we had a great time deep water bouldering and cliff jumping. We also had a chance to climb in the beautiful Val de Melle. The weather was iffy but we did get a great view for a few minutes. We even got a few routes in before it started to rain.

After a couple of days Luigi had to go to Dubai on business and My dad had to go home, so it was just Lisa, Elena and me. Lisa and I drove their scooter around and went hiking, and we all cooked dinner together. We met their other son, Piedro who was just as nice as the rest of the family.

One night we went to watch a world cup match with Giovanni at his uncle's restaurant. His uncle had an extended cab Dodge Ram parked outside. If you have never been to Italy, a ford torus would be big here, and I have no idea how it could fit down the street. To make things more like Texas, he opened it up to show Giovanni and the back seat was stacked with 15 to 20 shotguns!

It rained at least a little every day which was a bummer, but it made for interesting scenery. Lisa and I also took the train to Milano one day. We were really excited to see it since we had passed through so many times with out every actually seeing it. We were a little disappointed that it really didn't do anything for us. We liked most other Italian cities much better.

After about a week, Lisa and I were sad to leave, but took the long train ride south to Sarzana to start another wwoof for a full month