We checked into our hostel in Piza, Italy at 7pm, after seeing the leaning tower (Impressive!) and before dinner. "Where can we park our car?" Kimberly asked. "Down the road, turn left, park on the right," he said. We drove into Piza and ate where the guide book said college students like to go. We had great pizza at a reasonable price and really wonderful gelato for a great price. We returned to our hostel, followed the instructions and found a parking lot down the road to the left and then on the right. It was by a Bingo Hall. We saw the supermarket parking, but it had 2-hour-limit signs.
This morning, we wanted to get an early start. Everyone was ready at 8am. Dave went to get the car. When he was gone too long, we sent a scout. Somebody closed a big gate late in the evening and it was now locked. We tried the phone number on the gate, the phone number on the sign and the phone number of the hostel proprietor. All three recipients of the phone call had similar responses: "I am sorry. You parked in the wrong place. No, I cannot help you." We wondered when the next Bingo game was scheduled. We asked official-looking people on the street; nobody seemed to know what to do.
We went to breakfast (sweet breads and some cappuccinos) and walked to a nearby supermarket for more food (ever tried to feed teenage boys on a budget in Europe? No easy feat!). One wonderful find in the supermarket: PEANUT BUTTER! It's the first time we have found it in Europe. (just a special treat, really the food has been spectacular here in Europe).
At 9am, Dave found some people cleaning the Bingo Hall. They did not have a key to the gate, but they had the phone number of the person who did. Hooray! We were going to get our car out. Unfortunately, while helping us with our predicament, the cleaning staff got accidentally locked out of the Bingo Hall. Ughh.
We weren't too far off schedule. We drove to Lucca, Italy (happily eating PBJ sandwiches and fruit) and had a wonderful morning riding bikes around the old wall of Lucca. The weather was gorgeous and a good time was had by all.
It was quite difficult to find a toilet in Lucca. The woman at the pizza shop said, "Go to the square and go right." After doing that without finding a toilet, we asked another restaurant worker who said, "Go to the next square and turn left." No toilet there either. It turned out to be along a street between the two squares. We should have gone straight when we went right, and we should have turned around when we went straight. In the end, we bought cokes at a different restaurant so that we could use their toilet and on the way back to our lunch spot (which had no toilet), we saw the public toilet. It turned out the public toilet cost 0.60 Euros per person anyway, so the coke plan was a good one.
So, did we park in the wrong spot and go the wrong way because of the gulf between Italian and English, or did we miss some other cues that would have helped us? In the end, one guy told me that we should have parked at the supermarket; were we supposed to ignore the 2-hour-limit signs (even though Italian is not our native tongue, the limit was quite clear)? Ah, isn't international travel full of ambiguities?
By the way, we are finding several things that we are so thankful for in good 'ole America: many free public toilets, free and good water at most restaurants and the fact that the white lines between car lanes actually indicate something. It is good to be thankful for home, and still, we are having a grand adventure. Our sweet Josh was the first to thank God for allowing us out of the parking lot and on to Lucca for our bike ride. We live such fortunate lives.
I'll add some more photos when the setting is more conducive to high-speed Internet and opportunities to charge devices. We are currently in tents at a Camping Villa on the outskirts of Rome. We will be here for three nights. Thanks for your interest in our adventure.
Kimberly, for the other adventurers also
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