Tag Archives: Family

September 27, 2012 · 1:12 PM

The Griswolds Drive Through Tuscany

On our second full day in Italy, we decided that we’d like to visit some ancient hilltop towns, the kind that idyllically appear in the distance over rolling hills of vineyards. We pictured the cliché images of a Tuscan-themed Barnes and Nobel calendar coming to life before our eyes. We imagined driving dreamily through the countryside as Bocelli sang in the background.

And then we actually started driving.

Our first mistake was to caravan. There were twelve of us, split among three toy cars. When not one of you knows where you’re going, it doesn’t help to caravan. It also doesn’t help when an error is made and all three cars have to U-turn in the middle of a freeway. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We decided to visit two famous hilltop towns, San Gimignano and Volterra. Allow me to illustrate.

You can see that there is not a major expressway one can use to glide thoughtlessly to either town. That may be why our route ended up looking like the way taken by little boy Billy from the Family Circus.

We headed south from the villa around 10AM, with Dave and Nancy taking the lead. They, along with my father, had done some brief map work earlier that morning and felt fairly confident. After forty minutes of winding through single-lane roads that were being used as double-lane roads, we pulled over. I ejected myself out of our car from nausea.

After a brief powwow, we got back on the road with cheerful outlooks that all would be well. And then we reached the freeway.

“Freeway” is an interesting term here, because one doesn’t realize one has entered until it’s too late. One minute we were driving country roads, then a whip-fast roundabout and a wrong turn later and suddenly we’re supposed to be going 120 KPH.

The funny thing about Italian roads is you need to make four decisions in a span of ten seconds, any of which could be horribly incorrect. You leave the roundabout, hoping you took the right exit, only to be immediately presented with a fork in the road with twelve signs accompanying it. After that harrowing close call, the road splits again, with both signs pointing to the same town. Pretty soon your nerves are shot and you’ve lost your caravan. Oh, and they hate you.

This is more or less what happened all the way to San Gimignano. We were very lost, so our fearless leader, Dave, pulled to the side of the road in the middle of a highway. Italians must expect this of us, because they have built little pull-over areas along the major freeways. The problem with this is not the exit from the road, it’s the reentry. There is absolutely no, and I mean not a smidgen, of on-ramp. You must watch a thousand cars race past you at 130 KPH and try to jump into their flow from a stopped position. And bonus! You must do this with a stick-shift toy car.

The real talent comes in blocking out the terrified screams of your passengers, at which I must say, Mike excelled.

At this point in our journey, at least seven of us had vowed never to travel by caravan again. The rest simply vowed never to travel again.

Only once did we completely lose each other, and it happened so fast none of us actually knew what happened. We exited a roundabout as a group, then Dave got on one freeway and suddenly realized it was wrong. Like I explained earlier, immediately after getting on the freeway there was another fork in the road ahead of him, and he had no idea which one to take (none of us did), so he pulled up to the fork and stopped. In the middle of the freeway.

Several expletives escaped the mouths of those riding in my car, and Mike quickly realized there wasn’t enough room to pull over behind Dave so with one glance he pulled a U-turn across a freeway that shaved fifteen years off the lives of his passengers, not to mention his mother-in-law in the car behind him.

Despite the danger of this activity, my father quickly followed suit, and we met up in a safer area back by the roundabout. After several phone calls, we realized Dave had continued on the main road, so we got back on the freeway (after three attempts) and found him.

When we at last arrived at San Gimignano, no one even wanted to be there. We were so frazzled and fried from the journey that the destination only held our contempt for drawing us there in the first place. Plus, there was no parking.

We exploded out of our cars, airing our grievances and shouting at the sky “I’m not mad AT anyone IN PARTICULAR, I’m JUST MAD!” Things of that nature.

Finally my mom made the call: let’s skip this and go straight to Volterra. Even though the idea of getting back in the car was suicide for most of us, we agreed that the sooner we got somewhere less insane, the better.

On we went, and things were fine — right up until a semi truck rolled up behind us. Our caravan was moving along, minding the speed limit like good little Americans, and then the truck driver reminded us, by forceful use of his horn, that this is not how things are done in Italia.

“This truck is ON MY ASS!” Mike hollered, while the rest of us turned in horror to see a truck, literally inches from our bumper, that was so big we couldn’t see the driver. The monstrosity of this truck made our car look like one of the car game pieces in The Game of Life.

He blared his horn and revved up behind us as we screamed. Mike yelled for me to get on the phone to the lead car, and tell my dad to GO FASTER. LIVES ARE AT STAKE.

My mom answered. “We can’t go any faster. We read somewhere that there are cameras on Italian roads that capture you breaking the speed limit, and then fine you,” she explained.

I told her if that were true, why were all the other cars speeding? She said she didn’t know, but she did know “your father will not go any faster.”

I politely told her which songs to play at the funerals of Brian, Amy, Mike and Abby, and hung up.

Shortly after the truck turned off of our road, we were still venting our frustrations and railing against the difficulty of getting around a foreign country, when Brian said, “Guys. Are you seeing this?”

We looked out our windows and gasped. That cheesy Tuscan Barnes and Noble calendar? It was live in front of us. Bocelli? He started to sing. Our eyes took in miles and miles of vineyards, olive groves, undulating hills made golden by the sun. And some astounding hilltop villas, just to send us over the top.

And we got it.

“Ugh,” we said sheepishly. “We’re the worst, aren’t we? I mean perspective, yes?”

“This is blowing my mind, honestly, LOOK AT THIS,” he added.

“Take a picture! Where’s my camera?!” Amy chimed in.

“Mike – not you! You keep your eyes on the road,” I instructed.

The same reaction must have been happening in the other two cars, because soon my dad was pulling over, and this time it wasn’t the side of the freeway, it was a winery. Hallelujah.

We were the only people there (wine tasting at noon might have something to do with it) and we tasted their homemade olive oil and wine, purchasing several bottles to enjoy later that evening. We were revived by the wine and by forgiving each other’s driving, we were climbing our way back to sanity, and soon enough, we arrived in Volterra.

We had a fabulous time exploring the medieval city, and the journey home was absolutely painless. Later, over the bottles of wine we bought, we agreed that perhaps the morning was our crash course, and now we were weathered masters of the Italian roads.

It’s also possible that victorious sentiment was inspired less by actuality, and more by our second glass of hard-earned wine.

6 Comments

Filed under AwkWORD (Humor)

Tagged as adventure, Amy Hofmann, Europe, Family, Mike Reph, Vacation

September 11, 2012 · 10:19 PM

To Pisa, One Way or Another

As our plane touched down at JFK a few weeks ago on our way to Italy, I was excited that our first leg of the journey was over, and I was about to see Amy and Brian. We had coordinated our flights brilliantly, with them joining us at JFK from Philly to take the flight to Pisa.

I turned on my phone to text her that we had landed, and instead saw a text that read, “We’re not coming to JFK. Our flight was cancelled.”

I showed Mike the text and rolled my eyes. “She should know me enough to know I hate these types of jokes. They’re not funny. I’m not laid-back enough to think these jokes are funny.”

Another message popped through, this time from Brian, showing a picture of Amy apparently crying.

“Sheesh,” I said, “they really like to take these practical jokes all the way, don’t they?”

To put an end to this comedy hour, I called Amy.

“Ha,” I said when she picked up. “Ha. Ha.”

“I’m not joking,” she said with a meekness that could only come from crushing disappointment. “Our flight is canceled so we’re not flying with you. We are now booked on a flight to Paris, getting into Pisa about the same time you are.”

I looked at Mike with my hand over my mouth. I was so shocked and sad I didn’t know what to say. We discussed how we were both completely deflated from the burst bubble of flying to Europe together, and slightly anxious about having to find each other on the other side.

I consoled her and told her this was the most infuriating cancellation, but we both agreed there wasn’t anything to do but maybe drown our sorrows in a few brewskies.

The rest of the gang was getting ready to deplane so I did the awkward cross-aisle-mouth-words-and-half-speak to let them know Amy and Brian would not be on our flight. They all sagged in disappointment as well, but said, hey, it’s not like they’re not coming on the trip at all — get a grip!

So we did — we had some lunch and drank a couple of beers to pass the five-hour layover. Kelly and I led Erin and Sam in a brief barre workout along a terminal wall that had handrails. We boarded our flight, took melatonin/Ambien/red wine to help us sleep, and eight hours later we landed in Pisa.

While the rest of the group went to retrieve our tiny toy rental cars, Kelly and I waited for our diverted travelers to arrive. About 45 minutes later I got a text from Brian that only said, “We need address. No bags.”

“Unbelievable,” I said to Kelly, while also noting in my head that responding to his text would cost me fifty cents. Rather than replying we tried to find the baggage service area, and instead found a jail.

“Oh my gosh, that’s Bri!” I yelled when we saw him. He couldn’t hear us; he was inside the little prison. We saw his head through a window that looked like a teller window, with double-pane glass and a tiny open slot for paper and exchanging words. The door to the room was a cylinder, which couldn’t be rotated from the outside. Amy looked over at me with a mix of helplessness and rage as she tried to communicate with the baggage lady.

I slipped a piece of paper with the villa address on it under the window to Brian who handed it to the woman. She asked a series of nonsensical questions like “Is this a real address?” and “What is the cell phone number of the owner?” Amy gritted her teeth and said, “You don’t need the cell phone number of the owner of the house. You need MY cell phone number and I’ve already given it to you.” Kelly and I astutely observed that this was not going well.

When they were finally released from San Quentin, they came barreling out of the room with a level of frustration only known by those who have had a canceled flight and lost luggage in a foreign country.

It occurred to me then how laughable my original vision was of Kelly meeting Amy and Brian — everyone at JFK cheerfully meeting for a fabulous flight to Italy! Instead, Amy and Brian were yanked around, luggage-less, and anything but excited. Kelly would later admit to Brian and Amy that she was slightly afraid, given the thundercloud of anger hanging over their heads, but of course, who could blame them?

This is also why no one minded in the least when, an hour later, we were all standing outside of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Brian, Amy and Mike looked for ten minutes and then said, “People, we need to eat. Peace.” We all said please, do whatever you want, you deserve an award, please have a drink on me, etc.

However, my mom, Erin, Sam, Aaron and Kelly were not quite ready to leave. We walked up to the Duomo and decided to go inside (the shade from the 95 degree heat was motivation enough). It was stunningly beautiful, and we spent about fifteen minutes exploring the interior.

The building across from it was the Baptistry of St John, and we entered and were instantly somewhat underwhelmed. It was still large and beautiful, and deeply impressive for a building completed in 1363, but it was very plain, with little adornment of any kind.

There were signs for silence throughout the circular room, and Erin nudged us that the ticket-taker was walking into the room, presumably to shush us. He entered and gave a “shhhhh” that was practically deafening, and then he mounted the baptismal font to stand in front of everyone. We had no idea what he was doing, and then without warning his voice rang out in a clear, deep tenor.

“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooh, oooooooooooooooooooooooooh,” he sang, going deeper with each note. He held each note about three seconds, then would change to a different key. The most incredible thing happened: his voice never stopped. He was showcasing the baptistry’s acoustics in an astonishing way — as he sang, each note lasted far longer than he held it, building on one another until it sounded as though a hundred men were singing around us. It was spellbinding.

Kelly looked at me with eyes as wide as the font, and mouthed “I have goosebumps.” I did too, so I gripped her arm as we listened together. I closed my eyes to amplify the sound, which so filled the room it was as if we could see the music.

Just as simply as he entered the room, the man exited it. Everyone stood there in stunned silence, unable to move. Finally we burst outside and exchanged exclamations about what we’d just heard.

When we reunited with Mike, Amy and Brian back at the car, they were as refreshed as we were — the lunch and beer had treated them well. We felt like we had been traveling for days, and we had — two plane rides and a tourist stop and we were feeling the wear and tear. We all agreed we couldn’t picture anything better than getting to the villa for a swim, so we piled in the car and headed on our way.

3 Comments

Filed under UpWORD (Beauty)

Tagged as adventure, airplane, Amy Hofmann, Europe, Family, Vacation

April 29, 2012 · 3:18 PM

Waiting for Lillian – Part 3

For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here.

With the sound of Rhianna pulsing from the room, we gathered in the hallway to listen for a sign that the baby had arrived. We perked up at each voice encouraging Rachel to push, we leaned closer with each pause in sound, and we jostled for position closest to the door opening. But after a mere five minutes with no baby, we realized our patience had diminished to that of a toddler awaiting Christmas morning.

We walked back to the waiting room because we were sure this was it, but we were also sure that we’d been sure before. We were jaded. We felt like we were too smart to be tricked again into believing we’d be meeting a new family member at any moment. It was the most intense case of crying wolf any of us had experienced.

Chloe was the exception. At nine years of age, Cami and Erik’s daughter didn’t have the cynical attitude of her adult peers. She was darting between the waiting room and the delivery room as nervous as if she was the father.

That sort of energy tends to be contagious, and soon I was running into the waiting room with non-announcements like, “I can hear Phil talking!” and “There’s still music playing!”

Amidst all of the madness, Cami managed to compose a song about waiting for the baby to be born. We were in awe that her creativity was not bound by her exhaustion, as she scribbled lyrics and hummed a melody while the rest of us could barely string thoughts together. Later, she shared a song titled Worth the Waiting that beautifully captures the emotion of anticipating Baby Goodman.

Half an hour later the suspense got the best of us and we all gathered around the delivery room door again. This time it was much more exciting, as Phil led Wendy and the nurses in counting to ten as Rachel pushed. This had the effect of leading us to think that every time they said “Ten!” the baby would burst forth crying, so we’d clench up as they counted and then deflate when nothing happened after they hit double-digits.

Mike was past the point of fatigue since he’d been studying for finals throughout Rachel’s labor. He turned to walk back to the waiting room, saying, “This is not happening. I know this is another false hope. I’ll be reading. Come get me when it’s really happening.” I tried to convince him to stay but the weariness in his eyes told me it was a lost cause.

Twenty minutes later seven nurses came rushing down the hall and into Rachel’s room. This was new. This was alarming, and this was a sure sign to all of us that the baby was finally, truly going to be born.

I ran down the hall and into the waiting room to tell Mike that this was actually it, and I promised the baby would be here in minutes and he did not want to miss this. His eyes lit up just as I knew they would and we ran back to the room together.

Usher suddenly burst into song and I said this is the perfect song for the baby to be born to; “Without You” was playing and we started dancing in the hallways, wailing about how we couldn’t live without baby Goodman.

“One, two, three, four, five…” Phil was counting and yelling, “You can do it! Come on, baby!” Colleen started recording the sound on her iPhone and we pushed the door open a little further so we could hear every sound.

At 9:25PM the song changed to “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida and Phil counted one more time. Suddenly they all stopped yelling at once and we heard the tiniest, faintest cry, and the world stopped turning for what seemed like hours and we all grabbed each other as tears filled our eyes. We heard Phil say “she” and we started saying “Did he say She? It’s a girl, isn’t it!? It’s a girl!” and then Wendy opened the door and exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” and we all hollered and yelled “Lillian! Lillian is here! It’s a GIRL!” until we couldn’t think.

“And her CHEEKS! You should see her cheeks, oh my gosh wait til you see them!” she added. Then she went back in the room to take pictures. “Clair de Lune” began playing in the room, and we all sighed at what a perfect choice it was. Phil and Rachel had selected it to be played immediately after the birth so that throughout their lives when they heard that song they’d be transported back to that room, and that moment.

Phil later told me he was so emotional and swept up in Lillian’s birth that he didn’t even hear the song until a nurse commented on what a nice song it was. Then he heard it and began to sob.

Colleen, Mike, Cami and I were texting furiously, updating everyone who had been with us on this journey. I reported to Lindsay at 9:40PM that she was 8lbs 13oz, and at 9:43 she asked how Rach was but I said we hadn’t been let in yet. Looking back now, I can’t believe that we stood outside that room for twenty minutes waiting to see Lillian. It felt like two minutes.

Finally the seven nurses finished cleaning and left the room, and we were welcomed in. Mike and I walked toward the heating lamp that Lillian was laying under, and we saw Phil standing beside her. When we got closer we realized that she was clasping his finger in her hand, holding on with every ounce of her strength. She was staring right at Phil, never once looking away, and he had tears streaming down his face. We leaned over her and said, “Hello Lillian, hello baby girl. We love you so much, we love you already. Phil, she is beautiful! She is gorgeous! And she can’t take her eyes off of you! She knows your voice!” It was one of the most profound interactions I have ever seen; a man and his first-born child, so connected in her first moments of life that it appeared they were being reunited rather than introduced.

Rachel looked happy and relieved, and took Lillian in her arms and said, “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? She’s so beautiful,” and then looked at her and said, “You are good” in the softest voice, and I bit my lip to keep from crying.

Mike popped the champagne and passed out cups, and we raised our glasses to our newest family member, our lil Lil. We thanked God for her and chatted, happily, about the shock we were all feeling that she really was here. We told Rachel that she was a warrior, a mighty woman we all admired and of whom were so, so proud.

After that, the room was full. It was full of joy, of family, of relief, of love, of love of Lillian.