Today was a pretty quiet day. We went to the town at the peninsula on the south end of the lake, called Sirmione. We just strolled around there, since it was after lunch and too early for dinner. I liked the place, except for the bugs coming from the stagnant drain water. They were everywhere and very annoying. On the way into town you walk across a little bridge from the parking lot to the old town. In the moat were lots of ducks and swans, and peo
ple had set up a little floating thing for one to lay eggs on. It wasn’t a duck, though; it looked like some sort of heron on the eggs. This little town was pretty touristy, but they seemed to have genuine jewelry stores. There were some gaudy things, but also some nice looking coral necklaces and bracelets. We wasted enough time there to get dinner at a small bar; I had a margherita pizza. Then, it was time to pick up my brother’s friend from the airport (he should have been in at noon, but missed the connection) so I stayed at the house and relaxed.1 July 2003
Today we went to the Ferrari factory for our tour. Man, that was awesome!! It was just so cool to see the cars being handmade. I didn’t see any robots there, it was just men and their tools. There were three models being made at the time, the 8 and 12 cylinders, and the Enzo, each having their own assembly line. How the cars were pointed with respect to start and finish depends on where the engine is located. I guess there are 38 of the 8 made each day, and like 14 of the 12 each day. I liked best the fact that they were filling orders (ordered interior color, and all that) instead of just making cars. We saw the stages where engines are turned on in the car for the first time, testing doors, lights, horn, etc. At the end of the line they weren’t pushed or driven to their resting place but picked up with a palette jack. All the men were at the assembly line, and all the women were working on the upholstery. We watched them sewing up the leather; it looked like they were mostly doing the dash. They seemed to sew the pieces together first, then applied them to the dash by using adhesive, wetting everything, then using a heat gun to shrink it to the perfect fit. It was all very interesting. I just wish I could have taken pictures so I could remember everything. I wish we could have seen them test drive some on the track. And maybe the wind tunnel too. I guess it’s all just too secretive to show anyone.
Then we just rested at home for a while and finally went to dinner. We went to something Alla Grotta. They had a section on a dock thing out over the water. When we first got there it was a little windy and the water was somewhat rough. Where that dock met the path there was some space for water to get splashed up onto the deck. This freaked people out, especially if they were just sitting and minding their own business. Some of the kids, though, were really annoying and kept screaming every time they got splashed. As people left, new ones came for dinner and one lady sat in a wet seat. Then she stood there and fondled her butt for a few minutes. Anyway, the memorable part was my brother ordering the scampi that wasn’t just shrimp, but the whole crayfish thing. It looked like a plate full of my electric blue crayfish “Crabby Cakes, aka Citizen Snips”, but they weren’t blue, and they were bigger. He did a good job of overcoming the horror of seeing their faces and eating what meat he could. Then we all ordered desert and I had a yummy banana split. We got some good people watching in, and taught our guest a little about making fun of people.2 July 2003
Today my brother and his friend went to Venice, so the three of us were on our own. We went to Verona (about half hour away) mostly to go to the internet café, and a little to see the town. When I got done with deleting all the porn spams, we decided we were hungry. my father went to a change place to get more money and took a really long time to do it. He took so long because he was arguing about the rate he was getting. They I guess were going to only give him 700 Euros for $1000 when at the airport he got over 800 Euros. When he complained I guess the girl said she would give him their maximum discount, which then gave him a little more than he got at the airport. I think that means it pays to complain! Ha ha. OK, so anyway, we didn’t really do much walking around the town. Just up the street from the café was Juliet’s balcony, which turned out to be very touristy. They had little speaker box things that you could pay to tell you something about the balcony. The walls of the small courtyard
were totally covered in graffiti of people professing their love for someone. Whatever. Oh, and there was a bronze statue of Juliet that had one boob rubbed shiney. Judging from the pictures people were taking, I guess everyone puts their hands on her boob. I even saw women doing it. Why would they do that to the poor girl? She was only 13! Isn't that illegal? So after we saw that we went up the street a little more and ate at a café. There were pigeons and small birds all over. I wanted to see if a pigeon could get so distracted by eating bread that I could grab it. Sure enough I got one. He seemed pretty traumatized, but maybe that was just because the camera was shoved in his face. So after lunch we strolled around some more and then headed back to the house.We ended up missing my brother’s first call saying they were leaving Venice. He says he called the house too, but it didn’t ring. We got his next call while we were eating dinner, and my father told him to wait for another hour and a half while we got done. I’m glad he did that instead of making us miss our yummy food. I only had spaghetti in oil and garlic and hot peppers. It’s something easy I can do at home. Something tells me I’ll have to upgrade from Safeway Select olive oil…
to be continued...
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