I love travel and adventure, except I hate to travel and I’m scared of adventure. What I actually love is being places and going on well planned and thought out safe mini adventures. I also happen to be one of the most type-Aeist people you’ve ever met. Did I mention that I’m also married to a planner as well? Together we are a pretty tightly run (and wound) ship.
Since this guy’s parents retired and moved back to Italy, we’ve had more opportunities than ever to travel. Also, we were both lucky enough to grow up in families that considered travel and experience far more important than things. We’ve both been places: solo, together, with family, with friends, since we were kids. What I’m trying to say is, this ain’t our first rodeo. I don’t consider us novices, but, without fail we always make this novice move: the ridiculous argument. Oh, there will be a fight on this trip. There will be a fight on every trip. It will be stress and exhaustion induced. It will be at the very beginning or at the very end. It will mention the word “divorce”. And above all, it will be over the dumbest thing to possibly fight about ever in the history of arguments.
Typically our travel steps are as follows:
1. Pick destination
2. Choose nebulous date months into the future
3. Find good fairs & choose dates around prices and weather restrictions
4. Solidify flights and car rental
5. Plan every stop, stay, meal, activity, refuel, points of interest, bathroom breaks, and photo op with painstaking neurosis and precision.
This trip’s travel steps:
Everything but #5
Thinking that we were cool and loose and chill enough to “play it by ear” this trip, we decided to just loosely plan a road trip from Zurich, Switzerland to the hubs’ parent’s home in Fiumalbo, Italy. Our basic principle for traveling in Europe is to choose a destination that we can fly into, rent a car and road trip to Fiumalbo checking out different spots along the way, taking a different route each time. Last year we did Venice to Fiumalbo and the drive through the country was gorgeous. The actual driving is a whole ‘nother story, but more on that later.
My parents took us to Switzerland when I was quite young, and I don’t remember much, but I remember one thing: Switzerland is ridiculously amazingly pretty. I’ve always wanted to go back and the hubs had never been… seemed like a good idea at the time. So, it was decided: Biondi vacay 2018 would be road tripping over or through the Swiss Alps ( we ended up going through on the way there and horrifyingly over on the way back-but again, more on that later). Flights were booked, car was rented, old fashioned map was purchased, outfits planned. All the usual, but this time the hubs said: I’m not going to plan this year, we are just going to wing it. Me: ok, this could be great for us (dying inside-anxiety level 8). We will just go with the flow, see where the road takes us! Hubs: exactly! I’m not even going to look at the map until the day before we leave. Me: fantastic (insert vomit emoji here-anxiety level 8.5). Have I mentioned flying over the ocean makes me want to have the mother of all panic attacks and 100% involves prescription medications- that are prescribed to me after I have a mini panic attack talking to my doctor about it who has been my doctor for over 20 years and we’ve in fact met so she knows I need a Xanax the size of my head in order to sit in a greyhound bus in the sky for 8 hours.
Whew, we made it!
Fast forward 2 flights and sitting still for 8 hours because the guy sitting in the aisle seat was a complete asshat later, but, none the less-we made it!! No need to stop at baggage claim as we have a firm no checked baggage policy, and to the car rental we go. It’s 08:30, clear visibility, perfectly warm but not humid. Thanks to the aforementioned Xanax the size of my head, I had slept on the overnight flight and we were ready! Ready to cruise through this amazing landscape towards, loosely(did I mention we are flying by the seat of our pants here) somewhere around Interlaken we decided. The very lovely female British GPS voice told us where to go and blam, we are cruising through some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen.
With the hubs driving we make our way to Interlaken with relative ease. When we exited the highway you could feel the relief in the car. We did it! Meandering through the countryside, stopping to take photos. Look at us! So chill! So easy going! So stupid.
Fun fact: Interlaken has a lovely park in the center of town where every 45 seconds some maniac drops out of the sky with a parachute or a hang gliding thingy strapped to them. It’s quite the site.
And this place is seriously pretty…
It’s the off season, so there’s not too too many folks around. Pure heaven, right? Well, not in the parking lot of the Coop, Switzerland’s version of Sunoco…that’s where it’s hell. It’s hell because we are there and all of our exhaustion and travel anxieties are unleashed on each other with deadly and precise force as we’ve also met and know each other quite well as we realize that we are somewhere…WITHOUT. A. HOTEL. RESERVATION. This is a level 10. As I google a stupid place to stay, the hubs is reminding me in a not so subtle way to make sure my hotel search filter includes the parking option as this is a must and I’m responding in a not so subtle way, that I fecking get it as I know he ain’t a street MF’ing parker as we’ve been married for 14 years and we’ve fecking met. Screaming at each other in a foreign country that is a bucket list item over parking seems like the right choice, doesn’t it? We’ve all seen a couple, who love each other very much and have a good solid relationship have a knock down drag out (ever so subtlety and through clenched teeth) over something stupid at the airport. Well, we are that couple, but in a tiny Volvo, in the middle of an amazing place, at a gas station, and we aren’t being so subtle. Acting as though we are destitute without a hotel budget and an IQ, we continue to yell at each other about the 14 surrounding hotel choices.
Insert stuffy British narrator from a nature show here please
“Flailing about in the tiny Volvo, we see the Italian in his natural state”…says the stuffy British nature show narrator in my head. “Being incredibly bitchy and stubborn, the southern belle crosses her arms and condescends her partner”- the narrator continues. “Both partners move into the ‘we should just get a divorce’ portion of the dance all whilst the gas station attendant tweets out- god bless tourism and Americans are idiots” (this narrator is a bit of a jerk). “Finally we move to the next to last portion of the dance when the technologically unadvanced Italian is forced to rely on the only somewhat minutely more technologically advanced southern belle to book said reservation and the southern belle is forced to rely on the Italian for transactional purposes- because we all know that she makes her own living but also didn’t just bring him for his language skills-thusly moving to the final portion, ending the ‘almost marriage ending fight of vacay 2018′” The narrator concludes his running commentary in my head-thankfully, and this is what shakes out:
Yep, that’s right. We get it now, but back then, back on 9/19, we were fools. Fools that argued over something so stupid when we had beauty and perfection of both nature and man all around us (insert face slap emoji here).
Chocolate & cheese with no divorce please
Lessons were learned. Apologies were said. Reservations were secured. Compromises with each other-and ourselves were made. Food was procured. Spritzes were consumed. Beautiful view, great service and fantastic food was luckily (though karmically) undeservedly obtained at Hotel Beausite Interlaken.
Lunch and spritzes in town now that we’ve decided not to end our 17 year relationship over Expedia filters…
Hotel and view from our room…did I mention there was parking?
Fantastic dinner and service at the hotel.
The couple that travels together never gets any photos together because we don’t want to bother anyone or be “that couple” who asks strangers to take posed photos so all we have are either solo photos or selfies from vacays who also didn’t end up getting separated over parking:
And finally, the whole reason we even came here! Which was, thankfully realized after all…gorgeous Interlaken, Switzerland:
Also, there is a Hooters and a sex shop here. And no, mom, we didn’t go into either.
I hope y’all enjoyed the first leg of our adventure. I can’t wait to tell y’all what happens when we crash a fancy dress party for a luxury auto group in Lugano. Until then, ciao y’all.
Ciao Y’all 