Bon Gourno Delle Donne

I have to write fast because I am getting charged per minute that I am on here, it is so much per hour....boy, these Italians...but just wanted everyone to know that we made it here finally....we lost 7 hours, so we are 7 hours ahead of you now....but we gain it back coming home.

Our flight was great, both of them....we flew to Frankfurt Germany and then into Bologna Italy....from there our trip was not good, but at least we have a week to make up for the first day here....we flew into Bologna and Chris's bike did not arrive for the race, it should be here by tonight....while we are at the airport, the lights went out and they lost power....well we hadn't exchanged our money yet, so we had no euro's, well guess what, the computers were down and we couldn't get exchange money to pay for the bus to the train station....finally after much fretting and fighting and wanting a divorce (just teasing on that part), we were desperate and Chris found someone that was willing to exchange american dollars for euro's....Praise God, so we got on the bus after a great search....then off to the train station.....walked in and it was like the busiest day plus more on a Canton weekend with dozens of those motorized vehicles almost knocking you over and with a couple hundred different languages going on at the same time....if this gives you any indication of how crazy it was....the lines to buy tickets for the train was a mile long, and we had tons of luggage ( I should have learned that you do not carry more than one bag, but as I was telling you earlier, I was fretting over what to bring....so what does a woman do, brings everything, including my huge iron.

After buying our train tickets to Rimini, we had only 1 minute to find the train that the track was on and there was an "ask me" desk in the middle of the station so we were asking what track do we get on, he didn't understand Chris and so he wrote it down on a scrap piece of paper and it was like a blind person trying to read a book without Braille (I have a whole other story on Braille) anyway, we finally found the track, and the train had already left....we found another one and it left....so went down and up the stairs twice and I am having a heart attack by now and feel like I have smoked all my life and I have emphesema....I cannot talk and by this time, Chris was very happy that I couldn't talk, because he knew that I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, because if he had listened to me the first time, none of it would have ever happened....but you know men sometimes, they want to be the hero, but what happened in our case is that he had a demon possessed woman wanting to tear his head off.

We missed two trains to Rimini, we finally found another train on Bin (Italian for Track) 10...it was down the stairs, under the train station and then back up two flights of stairs again....at this point, I am thanking God his bike didn't make it with us....I was dying....we got up the steps only to realize that we had to wait about 50 minutes.....it took me that long to catch my breath to start talking again.....while we were there waiting on the tracks with several hundred people, we inhaled so much second hand smoke that I felt as if I was getting emphesema again....what is wrong with these people, couldn't they tell by me laying on the ground that the cigerette in their hand beside my face was making me ill, NO.....while we were waiting, all of a sudden this huge group of people who were waiting to go to a different destination, all began running down the stairs....I didn't think it was a good sign, but we stayed and learned finally that their track had moved....I am thinking to myself, you know we should probably be going too, because I would bet a hundred dollars that is what is going to happen to us, so while we have at least another 30 minutes that would give me time to get up the other staircase, going down was no problem, although I may not have wheels on my luggage after this trip. But my hero of a husband assured me that no, this was the Bin that it said it would be on, so no, they wouldn't lie....we now had 5 minutes and again, all of sudden, this huge group of people went running down the stairs....just what I had thought, our train had moved to another BIN....dang, it can't get any better than this....we made it finally to the train and as the door was shutting, someone saw us in distress and opened the door for us....there were no seats left so we had to sit on our luggage for over an hour going through each little town stopping and letting more people in....I also was sitting on my luggage perfectly okay with just being on the train, but I was also in front of the bathroom door for the train, I kept having to move.

We get off the train finally at Rimini and Chris googled a map of where we were supposed to go, it was within walking distance he said, google maps are always right....well that may work for America, but when you are in Europe, just disregard it....it was dark by this time, almost 30 hours later and with no sleep since we had left our house and we couldn't see to read the map (by the way, I have to say that I am better at reading maps than Chris, but I was trying to let him be the hero again)....I said one way and he said another....so I followed him....we got a couple of blocks down with all of our luggage and realized after seeing one street sign, that we were going the wrong way.....we got back to the train station and set there for a second, still not having any Euro's for even a cab, but Chris decided to ask a cab driver if he would take American money for a ride to our hotel....Chris didn't even know the name of our hotel, but he knew the address, it is hotel Villa Lalla....he was such a nice guy and he took our money, by that time, we would have paid him $200, but it only cost us $15.....when we finally made it to our hotel, we realized that it wasn't in walking distance at all and we would have never made it by the google map....we would have been better with a GPS in our suitcase....anyway, we finally got here last night and stunk to high heaven I am sure, but they sent us right away to the supper and we barely made that, sitting with people we didn't know, but got to know them from Team USA....it was great...got to our rooms, took showers and Chris flooded the bathroom floor because he didn't know how to work the shower door, he made it into a U shape when it was supposed to be a square....but at this point I didn't care, he became my hero after that, I realized he had the nerve to look like a begger two times for me and we made it here....and thanks to him, this week will be fabulous.....freezing, but fabulous.

I have taken a few pictures but nothing to brag about yet....I will be posting pictures soon though...I promise....I love and miss you all....arrividerci delle donne.