Lake Como

After a very long and tiring Olympic adventure, we all hoped back onto a train for Lake Como. When we arrived we could see really high lights, and we thought there were mountains around, but we couldn't actually see them. Sarah and I, again booking late, had missed out on the hostel and instead made reservations at a bed and breakfest. Sooo, we waited around for a taxi for a while, and when one didn't come for a really long time, we decided to phone the b&b to have them call one for us. To my grand suprise the woman on the other end answered hello! (I was all ready to budst out my Italian.) She called us a taxi, and we headed up into the mountains! We finally arrived at a large three story villa stuck in the side of a mountain overlooking the lake! The woman, whose name was Nicole, invited us in, and offered us some wine by the fireplace. Plus, we had our own room with a balcony overlooking the lake. Nicole and her husband Paul were from London, and essentially they just adopted us for the weekend- kind of strange, but also kind of nice. Plus it was amazing to watch tv in English! The next day we slept in til 11, then had a huge breakfast of pastries, nutella, grapefruit juice, tea, and pineapple for like an hour, then took a nap, then took long hot showers. It was heavenly!!! The way lake como works it is a bunch of small mountains surrounding the fork shaped lake, with the alps beyond. It is the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my life. It is also the home of George Clooney! Paul showed us pictures of George's villa which was "just down the road" and complained about how "Clooney and Brad always race their boats out there" in front of the house. We then ventured out, saw the Duomo, shopped a little, and then went to the top of a mountain!! We took this very sketchy cable car up a pretty much 90 degree angle, but it was soooo worth it. At the tope we could see the entire area, plus Torino and Switzerland!!!! It was crazy, and soooooo cool. We got some hot chocolate up there- and there was actually snow. After we made it back down, we met up with the rest of our friends for some Barollo (famous northen italy wine as featured on the good morning america olympic special) and cheese! The next day we traveled to Bellagio, an area rumored to be one of the most beautiful areas in all of Europe. We did get some great pics, but we also almost got stranded. Never travel anywhere in Italy on a Sunday! We thought that perhaps we might never get to leave and we would miss our train and then I would miss my Philosophy exam the next morning at 9:30, but we prayed a lot and God took pity on us and sent us a bus, and a kindly bus driver who let us on for free since there was no where open to buy tickets!! Then the bus drove back through the mountains on roads that were 2-way, but only big enough for 1 car, so it would go around curves and honk to hope that no other car would venture to come around the curve from the opposite direction! But, we finally did make it home at like 10pm, and I hadn't started studying for philosophy- yikes!!! Oh well, we'll see what happens. Overall, Lake Como- my new favorite place!