From summer to minus 11 in 2 weeks: another european trip for Lindsey and I

Chapter 3. Andalo and goodbyes

The day after the 31st, after waking up very late, Lindsey and i visited the football grounds of my former team, where I was awared for my old services to the club with a nice shirt with my name on it.

Then, it was time to plan another trip.

My (other) Auntie and my (other) cousins decided to spend the festivities in Andalo , in the Italian Alps, and they invited me so I could show Lindsey the beautiful snowy Italian mountains.

We left the morning of the 2nd, still tired from the day before, and after a long commute (train to Milan, train to Verona, then train to Trento and finally bus to Andalo for a grand total of 5 hours) we arrived in the early evening in Andalo.

I’m not too sure how many times I went there before. Maybe 2. I remember clearly the last time I was there because it was one of my last trips before I moved to South Africa, in 2007 . It was summer and the city looked small and empty.

What a difference the season makes! With snow everywhere, all the ski resorts were full and what I remembered as a town of maybe a thousand souls was now a city of ten thousands tourists, with all the hotels booked out.

My auntie owns a place there, so we didn’t have to book in one of the expensive and crowded hotels, and we enjoyed the place even more.

Lindsey in particular spent time playing in the snow, or with the bobsleigh (she was by far the best one among us!), or in the bars drinking very hot and thick chocolate.

I had a chance to finally talk with Davide after the death of his father (my uncle), that happened few months earlier, and it was nice to talk about him. With a mission to Afghanistan on the horizon (he’s in the army), he was still sad but filled with his father virtues.

It was also great to see Tommaso, Simona’s (my cousin) and Marco’s son. The little
kid is growing so quickly…
Once again we spent most of the time eating great food and drinking great stuff (I love grappa!), an essential feat if you are minus eleven degrees and surrounded by snow.

It was a bit sad to leave the place only 2 days later, after another nice forest walk with by cousin and one more drinking session with the family, but for Lindsey and I was time to go back home and organize ourselves for our trip back to South Africa.

After we came back to Milan, we spent most of time trying to work out a way to organize our over growing luggage (we got spoiled with presents and bought even more stuff for our family and friends left behind in South Africa).

My mum took us to the airport, with 2 extra items of luggage and 10 kilos overweight, but once again we got lucky and we didn’t have to pay any extras.

15 hours later we were back in South Africa. Lindsey finally enjoyed a holiday much different from the previous one spent only in the pub or in the area but she was happy to see again her family. I was a bit sad to say goodbye to everyone and travel far away again, but with the World Cup coming in few months I hope to see some of those faces soon again…

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