Later in Europe...

Okay... Sorry I haven't posted this sooner. I've had it written out for a little while, I just haven't posted it. I'm not going to promise that I'll post again. I'm really not dependable! Anyway, I'll post what I had written down already. Enjoy!




The next few days were not quite so eventful as the first. We were staying in an American lodge, so it made things a little bit less interesting, but a lot less complicated and confusing.

We went skiing for about 2 days. It was a lot different from skiing around here. It wasn't that the slopes were particularly difficult, but around here you learn to ski on ice. I had no idea what to do in that powder stuff. I hadn't learned how to balance on my skis to keep my tips above the powder. After about the fourth wipe out I was thinking, "Get me out of this stuff! Let's find some ice!" The upside to wiping out in powder is that it doesn't hurt very much. Embarrassing, but painful to my dignity alone.

Learning the lifts was a challenge.  Instead of having a chair that is attatched to a cable, they have these bars that are shaped like an upside-down T. You grab the bar and place it under your... er.. bum, and then you let it pull you up the slope.  DO NOT SIT DOWN ON IT!  I learned this on my way up the bunny slope.  Unfortunately, Josh and I were going up together, so yeah.  We beefed it.  Big time. I just knew that all those little German kids who have been skiing since they were 9 months old were going to point and laugh.  I don't know if they did.  I avoided all eye contact.

After our second day of skiing we packed up our stuff, checked out of the lodge and hopped a train, Italy bound.  I must add that I was beginning to feel really bad.  I felt similar to an old, wilty, slimy piece of lettuce, only my throat hurt and my lungs were really tight.

We rode the train straight through Austria.  Neither of us really had much desire to stop there, so we didn't.  This was the glory of taking a self-guided tour.

Once we had crossed the Italian border, the police hopped on the train.  Those guys were really scary. I'm not sure if they were trying to look really intimidating, but they did.  They were just fine with my passport, but they weren't sure what to do with Josh's military ID.  Now, Josh and I were a little freaked out, because we had heard rumors before we left that the Italians can be a little... difficult.  Some people said you couldn't get in the country with a military ID, some said you could get in but you couldn't get out.  Since we were a little disturbed about this we asked the lady who sold us the Eurail passes.  She had done some research and told us that we should be good to go with the military ID.  Here with the Gestapo... I mean the Italian police, we weren't so sure. They looked at it, grunted, then asked Josh if he had a passport.  Josh replied that this was a military ID and is acceptable as a passport.  They asked what his occupation was, so he told them he was in the U.S. Army.
"But what is your job now?"
"That is my job. My profession is being a soldier in the U.S. military."
They said a few things to each other in whispered tones, looked at us through squinted eyes, wrote something on their clipboard and then told us we were okay.  This was met by a flood of relief on our parts.

This relief was, however, short lived.  Not 5 minutes later a train attendant came through the cars. After about the third language he said in English,
"Tickets please."
Josh found the Eurail passes and handed them to him.
"Where are your global passes?"
Josh looked at me, I looked at him...
"Global passes?"
"Yes. You must have a global pass to be on this train."
"I don't understand. The person who sold us these tickets told us that we could ride any train with this."
"Yes, but you must have a global pass."
"Why?"
"You must have the Eurail pass, and you must have a global pass to ride this train."
After a lot of confusion we figured out that in order to ride a train legally across a border, you had to have a global pass. The guy told us they cost about 5 Euro.  Then he looked around, looked over his shoulder and told us, (this is paraphrase)
"You know what?  I'm going to let you skate.  You're cool with me, but I get off the train at Bolzano.  There is going to be a different attendant checking passes, so he might get you.  The worst that can happen is that he'll make you buy them and then charge you a fee."
Okay.  That's cool.  Well, when they new guy hopped on the train he came through, checking everyone's tickets.  When he came to us and asked to see our tickets, Josh looked at me and then started digging in his pockets to find the Eurail passes.  We were kind of sweating bullets.  After a couple of seconds the guy said,
"Wait a minute... how long have you been on this train?"
"Since Germany," we replied.
"Oh.  Never mind then."
Whew!  And so God spared us from the fee.