You already learned that my husband is from Austria, a small European country with fine traditions and an exalted history. In fact you could say that much of modern Western culture as we know it emanated from his native land, although it’s tough to see that when you go there today. Most of the country still looks the way it did when those fine traditions were in the making in the twelfth century. And of course everyone dresses the way they did then. Including the she-witch-Nazi-dirndl-wearing prison matron we encountered on the very first day. But more on that later.

We went all the way over to the old country just to visit my husband’s family. This is an emotionally loaded destination for him since if he were really inclined to spend time with his family in his native land, I submit that he would not have left there lo these many decades ago.

We took uneventful leave of our house on July 6 at 11 a.m., 1976, heading for Richmond, Virginia, where we would debark, in a manner of speaking that harks back to a less frenzied time when travel to the continent was actually pleasurable and relatively calm, for Philadelphia where we would join our transatlantic flight leaving at 5:30 p.m. for Munich. Which is in Bavaria. Germany. Now part of what is known as the EU, which at that time was still a long lost dream of that French general Napoleon.

Eight and a half hours later, or about 2 a.m. our time, we would arrive. Of course the plane took off almost an hour late, making our arrival time in Munich 3 a.m. our time, six hours later local time or 9 a.m. So THEY were all wide awake and ready to take us to the cleaners — in Deutschmark (a serious currency followed by all foreign newspapers) or the Austrian Schilling (quoted on no exchange anywhere by anybody that I could find) and even more extremely absurd GROSHEN for those of you crossing what used to be the border between Germany (a real country) and Austria ( a pseudo country where everyone seems stuck somewhere in time around 1158 and eats at Gasthauses. Dark, hot rooms with tiny windows, large wooden tables and benches and waiters and waitresses wearing outfits dating back to King Arthur. One thing I noticed right away. Those Austrians were way, way ahead of their time in one department. Think push up bra. In the old country every Fraulein’s boobs cascade over every plat du jour you order. I understood right away why men in Austria spend so much time eating – and drinking.

Here’s my first meal in Austria, the Old Country.

Waitress: “Vood yoo lyke zum freetantenzuppe mit Kreeme ov mutton stchew? Oops, forgif my booobies, zey alvays fall out like zat on ze plates of ze customeers. I yust poosh dem oop agayn. Und now zum schlagg mit dat mutton schtew?”

Mmmmm good. Clear soup with strips of pancake floating in it and mutton stew with whipped cream. What could be more refreshing for BREAKFAST?

But I digress. I won’t go into the three mile hike at Munich airport to the rental car counters, nor will I discuss my husband’s traveling style (chaotic mingled with frenetic, a trying blend in one’s own country, simply put, impossible in a foreign clime). Further I refuse to go into my husband’s need to make extensive arrangements for months before the trip only to change them up until the last minute before leaving, only to change them again upon arrival at our destination. As I say, I won’t discuss these parts of the general travel scene. I certainly can’t blame the foreign land for THAT. But keep in mind that while he continually changed our travel plans, he also made a variety of backup plans.

But you probably want to know about the she-witch-Nazi-dirndl-wearing prison matron we are soon to encounter. Patience.

Not happy to take just any car the rental agents at the airport would give us, my husband wanted a BMW. OK. I can live with that. No, no. He wanted a particular BMW. Anyone who has ever rented a car anywhere knows that you take what they give you when you get there, hoping it will at least be the size of the car you are paying to get. To insure he got the BMW he wanted, he made multiple reservations with multiple car rental companies. While my daughter, her friend and I waited, my husband ran from counter to counter seeing who would come through with the winning ticket in the BMW lottery. In the process he discovered he had rented a car from EuroCar, which sounds like a company. Translation: you have rented a CAR in EUROPE from some rental car company – you have to find out which one. More running from counter to counter.

After an hour of this (it’s now 4:30 a.m. for us) I see my husband’s arm raised in a victory salute to let us know he has found the right counter, the right company and the right car. In my excitement about the perfect car I almost raise my head from the suitcase I am using as a pillow.

It takes a while for my husband to find his perfect driving machine in the huge dungeon of a garage under Munich international airport, but we finally close in on it after listening to my husband’s usual rantings about the damned Germans, their attitude, their demeanor, their accent, the way they stand, walk, look, act, sound, dress – you name it, he hates it about them. We find the car and he waxes poetic about its every feature.

Please note: This car that he is at this point seriously romantically involved with was conceived, designed, manufactured, improved and marketed by these same arrogant, obnoxious, rigid, offensive Germans he was a moment before denigrating. But men are the logical ones? I rest my case, your honor.

What you have to understand is this: When a person from Salzburg speaks disparagingly of a “German” he is really speaking of a Prussian. German-speaking peoples are not grouped, as Americans or Brits might be, by common language. More precisely they are a regional, tribal lot. My husband’s tribe has more in common with folks from Munich than with those from Berlin, or (God forbid) Hamburg. He is, in fact, a Salzburger. Not one of those backwoods Tyroleans. Nor one of those hoity-toity decadent Viennese. Of course in Vienna when you say you are from Salzburg, you just might see a smirk cross the face of your Viennese companion as he (or she) quickly equates “Salzburg” with “Country rube of the first order.” Suffice it to say that the initials BMW stand for Bavarian Motor Works. And it is a purely designed hunk of car fit for anyone who hankers after a sublime driving experience. Personally I was hankering after a bed and pillow.

But the single thing I pick up on right away about this perfection of a car is, we can’t fit all the luggage into it. So the girls and I end up sitting on or with a good portion of our bags. We leave Munich behind and whiz onto the Auotbahn, the world’s scariest highway, particularly with my husband at the wheel. After being cooped up in speed limit limbo in America, he lets loose with a vengeance. There is no car in all of Germany he can bear to let pass us. The countryside becomes a blur as we shoot past what I think were cows, trees, barns, houses, villages, I really can’t say for sure. After 20 minutes or so, terror has made me forget how tired I was, what time it was, how hungry I was. All I could do was grip the door and plead between clenched teeth for my husband to come to his senses and pull over to the middle lane. No dice. He was unstoppable. No matter. Forty kilometers of this and traffic ground to a halt. An accident somewhere ahead in Lithuania had closed the Autobahn.

For the next hour we crawled behind trucks from Poland, Romania, Latvia and Italy until we followed the rest of the traffic off the hallowed racing ground and onto a small country road which took us the rest of the way to Austria and Salzburg. By the time we arrived it must have been 8 or 9 a.m. for me. I had now been up over 24 hours. I was ready for the big suite with the double rooms, huge beds, giant terrace overlooking the mountains and the city, and the feather comforter and pillows that we had prearranged for at a wonderful hotel halfway up a mountain where clouds sweep through the rooms on days when the sun shines and the high clouds move swiftly across the low Alps.

We drove up the Geissberg (in Austria, anything with berg at the end of it is a mountain). Our hotel awaited us. So did Frau Herzog, the aforementioned she-witch-Nazi-dirndl-wearing prison matron. Since I last saw her, she had added a spa and tanning palace to the hotel. She seemed to be its best customer. I never saw such dark skin on such an otherwise obvious Aryan. Also her hair was now copper red. And, true to plan, she was wearing the traditional dirndl out of which her boobs protruded at the top of her chest.

“Oh, Missus Gschwandtner (she pronounces our name properly, although it is impossible to give you a phonetic spelling and even if I did you would not believe it), Zo gut to zee you. May I geef you a hug hello?”

I’m too exhausted to resist this treat.

She leads us into the lobby, which seems smaller than I remember. Then there is a lot of talking in German with Austrian accents. I see keys, I hear my husband’s voice raised, I see Frau H gesturing and off we go down various hallways towards what I assume will be number 35, the largest and best suite in the hotel, the one my husband arranged (along with three other hotel arrangements he made for the Austria leg of our trip) and that has been promised to us. Imagine my surprise when we stop outside number 18 and she proudly announces this is our suite, with the girls down the hall facing the parking lot. I see my husband’s back stiffen. I know what’s coming. I retreat to the lobby, sit down on the small couch and put my head back. Negotiations that make the Paris peace talks at the end of the Viet Nam war look like a board game commence.

Frau she-witch-Nazi-dirndl-wearing prison matron has given away suite number 35 and is trying to sell my husband on a lesser suite (all she has left) for the same price. Another hour slides by as it becomes clear that my European vacation is going to be neither peaceful nor stress free.

It occurs to me that shifting plans and changing arrangements may be an Austrian national custom, which would explain a lot of my husband’s behavior. I am too tired to think about it deeply.

We travel the halls of the hotel looking at every suite she has. We settle on one, but not until she has told us the history of everyone staying at the hotel, even to the point of trying to move a set of bodyguards who are assigned to some singer she keeps ranting about as if it is someone a) I have ever heard of and b) I would give a damn about if I had.

The final negotiation takes place over furniture (none of these suites has the beds we requested), they move things around (another characteristic of my husband’s when traveling – he always moves around the furniture in every hotel room I have ever been in with him) and we are set. Not exactly what we had expected. But we can finally go to sleep. It is lunchtime there. Our terrace overlooks the roof of the restaurant. No clouds sweep by. In fact it is raining and so cold you can see your breath.

Relieved to hear this I naturally thought she-witch would then hand me a telephone slip with a number where I could reach my daughter. Now, whatever made me think that?

She-witch: “Eet vas zo late zat I told her, ‘Your mozzer needs her zleep. And zat music vhere you are is zo loud. You cannot talk to her now.” Then she hung up on my daughter as any professional hotel operator would.

“Have you tried zee schtew mit lingonberry dressing und zee ssshocoladde pastry mit schllagggg? Eesse gut to haf a rrrousing brrreakfasse in zee mountainzs.”

This menu suggests a hint at what’s responsible for Frau She-Witch’s triple EEE boob size.

I was left to wonder if my daughter was calling from a) a hospital, b) a jail c) a frat house in Brussels, Paris or Lisbon. I was too agitated to partake in the rousing breakfast and went off to locate Strong With A Spear. Maybe he could manage to pry some information out of the telephone records.

But let’s move on. To the Relatives.

And start with names.

Having not seen any of these people for the past ten years, the boy nephews I remember have turned into young men and have either married or moved in with young women. The younger brother of my husband has divorced and moved in with a middle-aged women. The older brother of my husband is still living with the woman he married the first and only time. The names of these women are, for practical purposes, all the same. Here is a list:

SiegLinda
DietLinda
DerLinda
DeLinda
SerLinda
and finally the dog, DreiLinda

If you think a family outing at a long table with this group of names makes for easy, flowing conversation, think again. First of all, most of them speak a kind of English that is taught by people who have never spoken any kind of English. Example:

Lauwrrrah, shoen ist gut cocacola?

Anything with cocacola at the end means they are speaking English. Also the words, Beeg Mack pass for bilinguality with the Austrian relatives, all of whom are over six feet (women included) and supercharged with energy for hiking, the favorite pastime in this Alpine vunderlandt. We hiked EVERYWHERE. In the rain, in the fog, in the cold, at night, early in the morning, after lunch, before supper, after breakfast and when we had nothing else to do since it was raining all the time. Here’s how a typical conversation went:

I am at one end of the table, DietLinda at the other.

“Hey there, DietLinda, when did you get your degree in architecture?”

Five female heads turn in my direction all saying, “Lauwrrrah, shoen ist gut cocacola und BeegMack.”

I ladle out more freetatensuppe and pile on the boiled beef you’ll remember from BREAKFAST and call the conversation game a lost cause.

“DerLinda izz going zroooh anozzer depreszcsion. Zhey’ve had her on zeven different drugs but she schtops taking zhem. She zays zhey make her feel bad.” He glugs down a glass of beer and raises it up for more. His older brother raises his glass and they break into a chorus of Ach Du Lieber Augustin. The waitress brings more beer, leaning way way over to pour it, giving the push up bra a real workout. I wonder which Linda is the depressed one. I imagine it’s the older one across and two Linda’s down to my right.

I ask if there isn’t a better medication for DietLinda’s depression. Such a naive American.

“It’s DerLinda und it doesn’t matterrr vhat medicine zey gif her. Zee momente she ztarts to feel betterrr, she zinks zumsink is wrrrong und she shtops taking it.” He tops off his beer and cuts into a slab of wurst.

“Oh, right, DERLinda not DietLinda.” I glance around the table again to try to fix the Lindas in my mind.

Meanwhile, down at the other end of the table, Strong With A Spear’s 88-year-old mother is busying herself rounding up all the uneaten food at the table and stuffing it into the biggest purse I have ever seen. Later I learn this is her going out to eat purse, especially designed for leaving no crumb standing.

We had exactly five such family meals (all after long hikes in the country). Luckily the dog, DreiLinda, had to stay in the back of the car because “Is better for Lauwrrrah.” Yes, it was better for me. DreiLinda was a champion drooler.

On the one day we didn’t have a meal planned, we were to meet Strong With A Spear’s younger brother and SiegLinda at a cafe in Salzburg for coffee and relaxed talk. Only his older brother had faxed Strong With A Spear orders for the evening’s meal to convene at his house at 4 p.m. for a cookout. Youngest Bro didn’t want to make this scene and was glum over Oldest Bro’s imperious attitude and tyrannical manipulation of everyone. Girlfriend SiegLinda, an assertiveness trainer who also teaches conflict resolution, was mum on the subject and Strong With A Spear was busy trying to figure out the car tax sticker issue.

His brothers said he needed one on our rental car to drive in Austria.

Where to get this sticker was an issue.

The tax sticker conversation went something like this:

Brother: “Goomfurtebegassetreibefereung und fierumferkoopferlangen scheisse under dem rebesperungenstranderung arbereitergekopft.

Husband: “Vas? Vas? Das ist der schtupider furkompfengurungerbrumberkomft Ich bein frunderwasserkoperfiericht. Varoom nicht der polizei nicht underschtrubberstaraberingerfunterungerbrachten?”

Oh, sorry. You need the ENGLISH version. Don’t feel bad. Once I saw the veins under the skin of my husband’s forehead about to burst, the Linda standing there had to translate for me too.

Brother: Did you get the tax sticker for your rental car at the border?

Husband: What are you talking about? What tax sticker? Nobody told me about a stupid tax sticker. How am I supposed to know about that?

Brother: You have to get a tax sticker either when you rent the car or when you cross the border into Austria or they could fine you (he being the brother who lives in Germany gives a figure in Deutschmark, which my husband translates into Austrian Schillings and then quickly computes into dollars).

Husband: What? That’s $650. That’s ridiculous.

Brother: Yes, but you have to get it or they’ll stop you.

Husband: Where do you get it? Do I have to go back to the border toll?

Brother: You could get one at the Post Office.

A word here on the POST OFFICE.

Europeans have cornered the market on doing things the slow inefficient way. If you think standing in line for your book of stamps in the States is a chore, welcome to Postal purgatory doing it in Europe. See, the Post Office in Europe represents the culmination of 1,000 years of consolidated bureaucratic hierarchical Catch 22ism. In any Post Office of any metropolitan center anywhere in Europe there are at least 20 lines. Each line has a sign that tells you practically nothing about what awaits you at the window end of it. So no matter what line you choose on the very best authority that it is the one you want, you can be sure, after you wait for 30 or so people in front of you to finish conducting their piddly business and you finally wind up facing the bureaucrat with bad breath and worse teeth who has been sitting behind that window for 42 years, that you will be in THE WRONG LINE.

I give you my personal guarantee on this.

So on to Italy, leaving behind the wonders of a 1,000-year-old culture that has deteriorated to playing musical comedy for a living.

The drive from Salzburg to Lake Como has to be one of the most beautiful anywhere. I recommend it to anyone without reservation. And you pass lots of lovely old Schlosses built on headlands facing down river, the better to see your invaders by.

I would like to state for the record, however, that my husband’s driving did not let up anywhere in the rugged and picturesque Tyrolean Alps. Mr. Hyde would have been no match for the driver he became that day. I was afraid I would have to get my jaw pried open by a safe cracker when we finally arrived at our hotel, which was billed as a lovely old converted villa right on the lake with a suite reserved just for us.

Let’s see, to me suite implies two rooms, one to sleep in, the other to sit up in or escape your spouse in, or eat breakfast in, or whatever, but another room as in – two rooms. Our one-room “suite” was positioned in such a way that every truck and motorcycle rounding the bend of the only road that encircles the lake seemed to be aimed right at our bed. Also, the bend had an uphill incline that required all vehicles with stick shifts (Italy is simply loaded with them) to shift into second gear. Thus our lovely villa was, in actuality, a speed bump on the road to Como. How is one to know these things from way back home in America?

Strong With A Spear immediately looked for better accommodations and we ended up at Villa D’Este, a world-famous watering hole for the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and other notables (it says so right in the about-the-hotel stuff on the desk next to the day’s menu and how to use the pants presser or call for more towels) and us. Needless to say we classed the joint right up.

Before our stay came to an end, we happened to meet a young Japanese woman who launched into a most interesting description of her love life. I right away noted the diamond bracelet weighing down her wrist, not to mention the diamond earrings and Lanvin handbag.

She didn’t actually launch into her love life right off the bat, but told us about her stay at the Crillon in Paris before coming to D’Este. It seems her uncle is a partner owns the Four Seasons chain and has an interest in D’Este as well so she gets the royal treatment everywhere she goes. She right away invites us to Paris and the Crillon for New Year’s Eve 2000. I perk right up and say of course, we’d be delighted. Strong With A Spear gives me a dirty look.

It seemed Midori’s Italian boyfriend had just dumped her, in so many words, and she was trying to figure out if that’s what happened or perhaps she had gotten it wrong. She was quite distraught, as you can imagine, and I tried to comfort her the best way I knew how. She wanted to get away so I told her of the perfect solution. Take the Sound Of Music Tour. Hop on a plane in Milan, get over to Munich, then fly to Boston and grab the bus right up to the Von Trapp Family Lodge and Gift Shoppe. Well she took my advice and now is the proud owner of two dirndls, three rosaries with Maria Von Trapp’s image hanging on an amulet, the complete collector’s video set plus annotated biographies of BOTH Richard Rogers AND Oscar Hammerstein.

With all that, who needs sex?

While Strong With A Spear went off to do battle with the sticker windows at the post office, youngest brother, assertiveness trainer SiegLinda and I sat down to some coffee mit schlagg whereupon youngest brother again complained of oldest brother.

Naive American inquires, “Why don’t you tell him to screw off?”

Assertiveness professional SiegLinda and Youngest Brother gape at me. “To VAS?”

To screw off. It’s an American expression meaning to take a flying leap, to go jump off a bridge, to piss up a rope, to put an egg in your shoe and beat it. You know, just tell him you don’t want to go to his house for dinner, that you have other plans.”

SiegLinda looks totally dumbfounded and I must admit completely nonassertive. Brother just looks really baffled. I jump in again.

“Look, he’s your brother. His wife is the depressed Linda right?” Brother nods. “The last thing she needs is all of us to show up at her house for a backyard barbecue. So just tell him it’s a bad idea and that we all have other plans and can’t make dinner by 4. Then tell him to pick a restaurant and we’ll meet him there at 7.” Now I get all kinds of reasons why this won’t work. I get impatient.

“Look, do you want me to tell him? There’s a phone.” I point to a booth at the corner. “Dial it and hand the receiver to me.”

“No, no,” brother says. Now he’s ashamed of being such a wimp. So he makes the call and tells Brother Tryannical we can’t make it. He comes out of the phone booth beaming. “It vorked,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, “That’s conflict resolution 101 in America.”

“Yes, I zeee. Go shcrew off. Verrry nice. SiegLinda can use zat in her courrrse.”

We order more coffee. After an hour and ten minutes in Postal Hell, Strong With A Spear emerges from the Sticker Wars ready to toss a well aimed bomb at the building that he swears every time we go back to Salzburg that he will never ever enter again no matter what. Of course we both know this is an empty threat because if you have any business to conduct in Austria, it almost always gop through the post office. I think it must have been an ancient Roman way of controlling conquered peoples. As we leave the coffee and moiund of schlagg behind, he tells me he can’t stand one more day in his native country and has called Italy and moved up our reservations. We are leaving in the morning. Of course he did this at the POST OFFICE.

That night we have one last meal with the Lindas. Again I try to fix who is which in my mind. I think the depressed Linda took a few pills before coming because I couldn’t tell one from any of the others at that meal.

After the meal is over a Linda comes over and gives me a huge hug.

“Zsank you.” She smiles right at my eyes.

It’s DERLinda, the depressed one. She’s thanking me for saving her from a family ritual sacrifice and I realize these women never learned how to tell their men to screw off. No wonder depression is a problem in the old country.

I was glad to be leaving for Italy. I like pasta in all its forms except that penne stuff that looks like maggot eggs.

We packed up and headed for Lake Como where I never expected to meet a Japanese rich bitch wearing the biggest diamond bracelet this side of Yamamoto.

But before we leave Austria behind, let’s take one last in-depth look at the culture, which consists primarily of Mozart, castles, known by their Germanic title, schloss, and The Sound Of Music. This well-known musical adaptation of a legendary escape from bad Germans who had invaded Austria, and were forcing all its most elite titled nobility into forced labor in submarines, has formed the basis for an endless chain of commercial enterprises that now spans the Atlantic Ocean.

Case in point. In Austria you can go on Sound Of Music Tours guided by lilting voiced Frauleins who lead you through, over and under every nook and cranny that Maria and the children touched or spat at before, during and after their escape, presumably across the Alps to Switzerland. Having seen the topography and weather, I doubt very much that Maria and Company made it past the Glockenspiel, a large cafe in downtown Salzburg where you can eat whipped cream until it oozes straight from your arteries. You can buy Sound Of Music books, cards, costumes, histories, wines, candies, pictures and even rosaries. This is no joke. I’m pretty sure the name Austria will soon be changed to Soundenofmusiclandt. Gesundheit.

But, on a less commercial note, consider the reverse. Not only can Americans travel to Austria to relive those thrilling moments of Rogers and Hammerstein (two revered Austrians if ever I met any) but Austrians can now take their own Sound Of Music Tour. Here’s the way it works. Austrian nationals, all of whom harbor a deep attachment to anything that is even remotely maudlin, can board an Austrian Airlines jet in Salzburg, fly to Munich, catch an 8-hour flight to Boston and then board a charter bus to Vermont where they can visit, in person and up close, the actual home of the Von Trapp Family after they emigrated to America and opened a ski lodge and gift shop selling Sound Of Music memorabilia.

I repeat: This is no joke. It’s a very popular tour in the Old Country.

On our third day at the incredible Villa D’Este a call came through from the daughter who had not been allowed to speak to us in Austria. I know this comes as a shock, but at D’Este they put calls through to the hotel guests no matter what time of night the call comes into the switchboard.

Radical, no?

She wants to join us. She will arrive by train from Portugal.

The next day we find ourselves in the BMW totally lost smack in the middle of Milan rush hour. Where the hell the train station got to I will never understand. But Italian drivers are not known for their excessive concern for caution, rules of the road or speed limits. I felt as if I had landed in an anthill when the queen’s in heat.

Now, in Milan (and pretty much all over Europe) all street signs are located on the corners of buildings way back from the street. And they are pretty much made of the same material as the buildings – that is some type of gray stone. My eyes are not real good. On a par with my math skills you could say. So there we were being pummeled by all the hungry, tired Italians going home from work, me trying to locate some street sign that would tell us about where we were, Strong With A Spear keeping up with the traffic flow but not at all sure he was headed anywhere useful to us.

“Look at the map again.”

I open it on my lap and notice it is getting darker outside.

“Oh look, do you think it’s going to rain?”

“Look at the damned map.”

“Yes, honey.” (This is a big lie. I never call my husband honey.)

“Is this the train station?” I point at a blob on the map that is in Italian, of course. I have been looking for the shape of a station or at least something substantial enough to be a major building.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s starting to rain, I think.”

I look up from the map as a huge splat hits the windshield. In less than four seconds we are being pelted by hailstones the size of robin’s eggs. In case you have never seen or held a robin’s egg, they are the size of an average oval ice cube made by an ice maker.

“Shit, I can’t see a thing.”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“What?”

“I asked you what.”

“I said I can’t see anything.”

“Neither can I. Why don’t you stop?”

“What?”

“I said stop.”

“Where?”

We are both yelling by now as the hammering of hail becomes a movie theater sound surround.

“Anywhere.”

“I can’t.”

He follows the traffic, which has slowed somewhat since no one can see anything.

“I think it’s this way.”

“Why?”

“I just think it is.”

Let me stop the action right here to make an observation.

* * * *

My father was one of those very controlled people who planned trips down to the most finite detail. Which is not to say he didn’t leave room for extemporaneous events once you had reached your destination. But getting there was serious business that required Marine Corps style organization. If he were going to Milan to retrieve one of his daughters from the train station, he would have known precisely what route to take down to the last traffic light. My husband, on the other hand, never even knows when his plane is taking off and, on occasion, has even gotten on the wrong plane. Even walking very confidently headed in the wrong direction, he appears to know what he’s doing. I say appears.

Still, he always gets where he wants to go. He’s one of those people for whom things just work out.

* * * *

Back to Milan.

“Let me look at the map again.”

“No, no, I think it’s up this way.”

“Have you ever been to Milan before?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think it’s this way?”

“Because there it is.”

The last of the clouds roll away and, as daylight returns, I see a massive stone building in front of us with train tracks going everywhere. He pulls into a parking space that has just opened up in front of the huge entrance and jumps out of the car, beaming. This is perhaps his most annoying facial expression.

“See? I knew we would find it.”

Daughter trundles off the train and we have a happy reunion before climbing back into the BMW and taking off for Lake Como, where they will find her a maid’s room at a cut rate, a lovely little room that has more charm than 95 percent of the houses built in the states over the past fifty years. She promptly becomes constipated and the next three days don’t yield any relief for the poor girl.

Strong With A Spear and I take ourselves to the only pharmacy in the village where Villa D’Este makes its home. Cernobbio.

A moment while I wax poetic about Cernobbio. If only I had trained as a travel writer.

Some places on this earth contain a kind of magic, an unseen force that imbues your time there with an otherworldly feeling that you can lose yourself to the space and yet return to your daily life as if nothing had happened to you and no time had gone by. They can do for you what Harvey did for Elwood P. Dowd. Such a place, for me at least, was Cernobbio.

Small crooked streets along the Lake rising almost immediately to steep roads that climbed forever toward the Alps beyond and the snow that rested there even in summer. Houses that I longed to explore, lush nearly semitropical trees and vines, flowers and shrubs. The whole region exists in a weather warp of its own, with palm trees at the lake level and snow capped mountains hovering high above.

The shops were a mixed bag of completely local and highly sophisticated so that I could walk along the cramped village thoroughfares and go into a shop that sold the most mundane shirts and shoes for a pittance or traverse the back street where twice a week an open-air market offered fresh vegetables and raspberries, T-shirts, scarves, eggs, apples, flowers, handbags, jeans, just about anything, and then go into a shop a block away and buy a Missoni.

I bought lovely little decorated white cotton string Tees at the open air market – the Lire thing had me a bit overwhelmed, everything being in thousands like that – that turned out to be six for five dollars, and some rather expensive but drop dead gorgeous Missoni scarves, shirts, shorts and sundry other items at the little store that was no bigger than a comfy armchair. I am not a shopper but the pleasure I remember of that day can only be ascribed to the magic of that little town on Lake Como.

The pharmacy was packed, it being Saturday and near closing time for all the stores.

So how do you ask for a laxative when you speak no Italian? And no Italian in the pharmacy speaks any of the three languages you do speak between you and your husband. That was another of the charms of Cernobbio. Although it is host to one of the world’s most famous watering holes for the rich, famous and worldly, the town itself has managed not to become corrupted by its grand neighbor.

“Pardonne.” Strong With A Spear stands at the pharmaceutical counter surrounded by Italians awaiting prescriptions, looking at the bottles and vials and cure alls stacked floor to ceiling behind the pharmacist. We just knew what our daughter desperately needed was right there in front of us. But which one was it?

“Si?”

After this the conversation took a series of unexpected turns.

“J’ai besoin d’un laxatif pour une fille, s’il vous plait. Vous parlez francais, no?”

The pharmacist gives my husband a bemused look and shrugs. Italians are extremely good at this gesture.

“Ich gefundgredunkeroptigut meinne dachter fundergrabbergunseit immmer dem klockschpeilebefrechten.”

Now the pharmacist shrugs with palms raised. He’s willing to do his part but no more.

“Do you speak English?”

The pharmacist, a professional fellow who wants to help us but just does not know how, smiles at my husband and says, “Goood morrrning.” He rolls his r very smartly.

Strong With a Spear looks at me, eyebrows raised.

I take out my pen and motion for a paper. Strong With A Spear watches in bewilderment. Have I hidden a dictionary in my purse? Have I been holding out on him and secretly learning Italian through some subliminal tapes while I slept next to him?

I begin to draw a rudimentary human. Unclothed. Italians love this. I have noted in passing that all their statues are naked. I draw my nude from behind (you should excuse this rather metaphorical descriptive phrase). I draw my nude standing next to a toilet. I put a huge X across the bowl.

“Ahhhh. La senora bellissima giuligantiscalorra con imaginario fundilussintari.”

Obviously he thinks it is a self-portrait.

With one swipe he hauls over a pink box and slaps it down on the counter.

“Quatro cente mille quanto cinque Lire.” He punches the cash register and grabs the drawing to hang on his wall. I don’t know if he ever framed it.

After a day and a half we achieve our goal and life proceeds. Daughter finds her way to a wildflower meadow high in the Alps above the lake and rents a horse. She takes the ride of a lifetime through the meadows under the snow capped peaks, with the blue blue lake far below looking like a Persian miniature in crazy perspective, faraway and altogether pristine.

***
I hike up one of the roads that leads from Cernobbio straight skyward. I climb and climb. By the time I stop three hours have passed and I am nowhere near the top. It is the time of day when all Italians take the post lunch three-hour nap break. This is what they mean when they say Europe is more “civilized.” They nap a lot. Americans just work straight through everything.

y the time I reach the lake again and hobble into D’Este, my right hip is hurting so much I have to bend over to walk. Unfortunately this affliction, whatever it is, will stay with me for the remainder of the trip.

Bavaria is known for its cool climate. The day we arrive it is 102 degrees. That’s Fahrenheit. I call that hot, no matter where you are. The Müncheners (you noticed the umlaut, huh?) are sweating profusely and acting like junkyard dogs on an August day in Mississippi. The lobby of our hotel is the only air conditioned room in the entire city and tightly packed with sweaty people.

We ascend to our tenth floor suite in an elevator that could have been used as a a sweat lodge. But it is as cool as fresh dew compared with our south-facing room.

I collapse on the couch. Strong With A Spear gives the porter a giant tip and asks if they have any fans.

The porter stands about five foot one, if you could have stood him up straight. His curved spine made him look like the hook of a question mark, giving him the stature of one of those gnomes you see in illustrated fairy tale books. He was about 104, gnarled, wizened, slow of gait. I felt guilty letting him lift our bags. When I tried to help he shrugged me away. Maybe he was feeling as sorry for me in my bent over state as I was feeling for him in his. But the tip – now that lit up his watery old eyes. He scuttled off nodding and grunting.

Ten minutes later he returned pushing a machine that only my great grandmother could have loved. About the size of a Laz-E-Boy, it stood nearly as tall as he did, was about two feet across and had a huge vacuum cleaner-type hose sticking out of its boxlike top and a fat black cord coming from underneath. He wheeled it over to the window then wedged himself behind it. Taking the big brass window handle, he flung it up to unlatch it, then pushed the great window wide open.

Great. More stifling afternoon air. What a good solution to the heat situation.

He plugged in the cord and a fan’s roar filled the room. Before backing out bobbing and bowing as if we were royalty, he flung the giant hose out the window. I stood there staring at this contraption wondering what it was supposed to do. Bring in more hot air? Exchange our hot air for the hot air outside? Make fun of us in some great plot to show that American’s are indeed the most gullible people on Earth? Gingerly, Strong With A Spear moves closer to the CONTRAPTION. He eyes it quizzically. He goes from one side to the other. It hums along merrily, oblivious to his presence. He puts a hand out the window. He feels the air inside the room. He pokes the hose. He fiddles with the dials on top of the box.

“It’s an air conditioner.” He announces proudly.

“I can see that, dear.” This is my second lie. I never patronize him by using the word “dear.” I do it in other ways.

“No, look.” He pulls the hose inside. “This is releasing hot air to the outside. And these vents,” he places his hand in front of the thing’s grill, “release cooled air into the room. This thing actually works.”

It does feel slightly cooler.

“Isn’t it an odd way to cool the air inside by opening the window and letting more hot air inside?” I query.

Maybe I’m just not mechanically inclined but I do feel Americans have earned their bragging rights to air conditioning. Along with Corn Flakes. When the history of the “developed” world is studied in, say, two thousand years, the way we now study the early Christian era or the Chinese dynasties, I’m convinced air conditioning will rank as one of our finest moments. What about SPACE TRAVEL you ask? I doubt it will have the same relative significance. After all it was really air conditioning in post WWII America that allowed scientists to think on hot days at all. And to drive from place to place for their meetings of the minds. Otherwise they would have had to go to the mountains and sit in cool streams all day and that is no way to do advanced calculus.

Imagine, if you will, the following scene:

Edward Teller, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking are sitting in a cool stream passing the day while jays and titmice squabble in the trees above their heads.

Einstein says: “Isn’t zis vasser refreszhink?”

Hawking replies: “Itssss [click] muchuh betterrrrr [click click] thanuh thatuh hohttt [click] lecturrrr roomuh [click whoosh].”

Teller is mute. He wiggles his toes in the sand of the stream bed and plays with a handful of pebbles, tossing them in the air and watching them fall with a splash into the stream. He seems fascinated by the explosion-like ripple effect .
Hawking, whose breathing apparatus and chair sit just at the edge of the water so that his toes can dangle in the stream, watches the pebbles land. He yawns, which pulls great thwunps of air through his breathing/talking machine.
Einstein skips a flat rock against the current.

He poses a question: “Vhat do you tink vould happen to time ifv man vould be able to ezscape zuh pull of all zuh grrravitayzhonal vorces of all zuh planutz?”

Hawking: “Whatttuh issss a planutz uuuuhh [click whoosh]?”

No one answers and soon they are all lulled into a nap from which they awake in time to put their shoes back on and go to take a glass of iced tea.

See what I mean? It would have been way too exhausting to fight the heat AND come up with concept shattering formulas. No, they needed the structure of bland, academic air-conditioned surroundings to come up with their breakthroughs, thus moving mankind inexorably forward (to be talked about further later on, when we get to Technology).

After our room cooled down, our daughter decided she needed to make some calls home. Her friend and Strong With A Spear went out for a walk. After about twenty minutes they found themselves in a park – The Englischer Garten – by the river Isar that flows through Munich. A lovely park. Tall shade trees. Picnic areas. Trails. Grass. You know, basic park surroundings. Plus one extra attraction.

It being lunchtime, business people, both men and women, in suits, were arriving in great numbers to take a break from the unbearable heat in their offices. Once they reached the banks of the river, they would take off their jackets and carefully fold and lay them down in the grass. Then they would loosen their ties. Then unbutton their shirts, unzip their slacks, step out of their underwear, strip off their shoes and socks and dive into the river. After which they would emerge and just lie around, naked, presumably studying the Börse (the umlaut is altogether proper here) reports.

Even in California this rarely happens during the normal business day. If it does, I’d like someone to let me know where and when. If you have pictured this scene accurately, you might try going one step further and remember, if you will, that French Impressionist painting where people (well, ladies actually) sit around in the grass naked with a picnic spread out around them. The men in this famous painting, Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe, are fully clothed, much to my mystification. I guess Manet felt that a guy being naked at lunch was just too outrageous even for pre-WWI France. But the gals, that was okay. It’s a well established fact that women often take off their clothes to eat, weather depending.

I once took off all my clothes to go swimming in a public place. Every stitch. It was on my honeymoon. On Cape Cod.

We were like that June Carter, Johnny Cash song, we got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout, Strong With A Spear and I. We chose Wellfleet way out on the Cape because I had spent a lot of time there and knew it well. On our third day of married life we found our way down one of those sand trails that is more a buggy lane than a road and ended up at one of those crystal-clear ponds formed eons ago when the Ice Age pushed all the sand and a few huge chunks of ice from Northeastern Canada all the way down to the outer edges of the east coast and formed the sand spit now known as Cape Cod. The ice got trapped under all that sand, forming perfect fresh water ponds in the middle of sand surrounded by the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean and Cape Cod Bay. Today those ponds are as fresh and clear as they were then and you can still see clear to the bottom no matter how far into the middle of the ponds you go.

The pond we found that day was deserted. We laid out a blanket at the southern edge under some pine trees. Pretty soon the sun broke through the branches, touching us with spattered light. After an hour or so a man riding a bike showed up. He got off and leaned the bike against a tree.

“Nice day,” he said to us.

“Yes,” we agreed. We smiled.

He wandered over to us and squatted down next to our blanket. He was a bit shaggy looking. Like an artist maybe.

“You ever been here before?”

“No,” we said.

“I come here a lot.”

“Really? Do you live on the Cape?” Now we were interested.

“Yeah. In the summers. I work in the city during the winter but a lot of painters from New York come to the Cape in the summer.”

Confirmed. He was an artist. At that point I noticed that his sandals had some paint splatters. And his nails had paint under them.

“Are you visiting friends?” he asked us.

“We’re on our honeymoon, actually.” Strong With A Spear shared this information. I don’t think I would have. But it was okay.

“Really? That’s great. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” I laid back down on the blanket and closed my eyes. Where else was there for this conversation to go after all? I had done my part. Now it was up to the guys.

“Hey, do you mind if I take my clothes off and go for a swim?”

I sat up again.

“I mean this is the free pond you know. The park rangers and the locals have an unwritten understanding. If we don’t use the bigger ponds where the tourists go to swim, they leave us alone here.”

“Oh sure. No problem.” We both nodded.

So he took off his clothes and went for a swim and then got out and dried off in the sun for a little while then got back on his bike and took off down the sand path. He waved goodbye once. For the rest of the day people wandered in, sometimes alone, sometimes two or three of them, went over to a remote spot under the trees, stripped, swam for a while and left. Not a whole lot of people. They were all quiet and peaceful. No loud music. No beer. No picnics. No outdoor grilling. Just the crystal clear pond and the pine trees and every once in a while some naked people. So we decided why not join them? We took our clothes off and swam in the cool clear water. It was lovely.

Strong With A Spear took a picture of me from the side standing knee deep in the water, my long hair hanging down my back. We still have it. I had an eight by ten print made and hung it next to our front door with a lot of other pictures of our babies and some flower pictures he took. It made a good ensemble. Our children’s friends always wanted to know who the naked person was standing in the water. You couldn’t really tell it was me. It was not exactly the standard Sears portrait.