Welcome To Italy...

Our Italy trip started off a little rough. We flew into Milan Bergamo airport and arrived about 3pm on Sunday. Our flight was pretty full but I figured that it's a pretty popular airport and despite the fact that there was a huge mob of people it wouldn't take long to get through immigration. HaHaHa... after about 30 minutes of watching the whole two employees they had staffed there get through about 10 people (they didn't even ask any questions, they were just stamping and checking passports) 2 very stylishly outfitted security guys show up and basically wave through all the EU citizens. All that was left was about 15 non-European Union people. After they finished, one of the Italian guards looks at me and says "UK?" So, I turned around thinking he must be talking to someone else, then look back at him and say "US." He shrugs apologetically and we continue to wait.(So far, people have taken me for being from Canada, the UK, and Finland...) Then, the guard who was processing the EU passports gets up and leaves since the guys just waved all of his people through. So, the one guy is left to process the 7 or so remaining people in line. Finally, after waiting almost an hour, they let us into Italy.

I tell Sean as we're waiting that this must be our introduction to Italian culture: forced relaxation, since getting agitated will get you nowhere.

We go to get our car. Luckily, all goes well but we are amused when the rental lady asks us if we want full coverage for the vehicle and says, "THIS IS Italy." Since we had heard that theft of any kind, especially car theft is a regular past-time of young Italians, we take the coverage.

We then set out on what should have been an hour-and-a-half drive to Besozzo outside Lake Maggiore. Two and a half hours later we finally arrive and realize that we had the GPS set to No Toll Roads and almost all of Italy's major highways are toll roads. So, we got the back streets, industrial tour of Milan.

But it was all worth it...we arrived to some of the most beautiful mountains and lakes we've ever seen and the wine, pizza, and gelato we had that night made us understand why so many people love to visit Italy.