Of course, the day we arrived in Italy, I got sick. Everyone around me had been sick for two months at least and I managed to keep the germies from getting me. Until we hit Italy. So I’m sick during my vacation. How sucky is that? But I’m trying to persevere!

It was snowy here in Val/Valles when we arrived. The hotel is situated in a little valley surrounded by mountains. We have a room with the equivalent of a king size bed, a big bathroom  complete with bidet, and a balcony which overlooks the rest of the valley and the ski lift across the creek. The views here are spectacular. It’s difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that the view out my front window looks like a painting on a wall. I can remember when my husband (before we were married) had gone to see the Grand Canyon and said he couldn’t be impressed with it because it was too big to wrap his mind around. I thought that was silly at the time, but I have a better idea of what he meant now. I mean, how can you  fully appreciate a view like this? It’s almost beyond comprehension. And I find it amazing that people actually live here and this is their normal day-to-day life, seeing these views whenever they look out their windows.

There’s several hotels, little restaurants and a couple bars. The other day, we went across the creek, got some hot chocolate at one of the restaurants, then took the ski lift up to the top of one of the mountains. I’m not a skier, so I’ve never even been to any sort of ski facility. I assumed that we’d take the lift up and we’d see the top of the mountain, along with the ski slope that goes down to the valley where our hotel is. Wrong! We got to the top of the mountain and there were ski slopes everywhere! I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that they’d utilize the entire mountain for skiing. What a dope, right? But there were half a dozen ski slopes up there, in all different directions. I know there was some sort of organization to it, but I couldn’t make it out.

Also at the top of the mountain was a little restaurant where those of us who weren’t skiing hung out. Something interesting about this area of the country: it was part of Germany until about World War I, and everyone here speaks both German and Italian. So the restaurant menus are in both languages. I’ve taken some Italian as well as other romance languages, so I can make out a lot of the written stuff. But German is definitely predominant here.

Yesterday, we drove about fifteen minutes to a small village called Brixen/Bressanone (German/Italian) where we went shopping. They’ve got a great little shopping area and they were having their winter market with lots of little stalls where people sell holiday trinkets, some hand made, some made in China ;) More photos of that trip next!

I’m sitting in the bar of the hotel we’re staying at in the Italian Alps. It’s almost lunchtime and skiers are clomping through with their big, plastic ski boots. We’ve been here a couple days now, but this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit and write some things up. I’m going to try to give some highlights of my trip so far. And hopefully the pics will upload properly. Internet here is 2 Euros per hour, so you can imagine I’m not connecting all that often!

We arrived in Amsterdam at about 11:30am local time on 17 December. The flight itself was good, but we were surrounded by children and they really got into the tag-team screaming (I’m sure there’s a story in there somewhere about the secret screaming-child conspiracy). There was snow on the ground when we landed in Amsterdam! For those of us from the US, snow isn’t often a  big deal, but snow is rare in Amsterdam, especially in December. So when we went to the house we’ll be staying at here, all the school kids were outside throwing snowballs and building snowmen.

The next morning, we left with my mother in law and brother in law. We drove about  seven hours and stayed overnight in a small town in Germany. Along the way, we stopped at rest areas where you had to pay 50 Euro cents to use the bathroom. You got a ticket and could take it to the counter and use the ticket as credit for a purchase. I thought this was an interesting way to ensure people bought things at the rest area. And because it was all the same system, you can use the bathroom in one area and use the tickets as credit in another rest area. Very interesting! Though I have to say, for those who complain that Starbucks coffee is expensive, you should try the espresso in Germany! It’s wonderful, but at these rest areas, a single espresso, which would cost $1.80 at Starbucks is 2,85 Euro, which comes out to be about $4US. Talk about expensive coffee!

So we go to the little hotel in Germany, called Salzburger Hof, and settled in for the evening. We had dinner in the restaurant on-site and the food was fantastic! We got this family style mixed grill that had weinerschnitzel, chicken, pork, spaetzle, shrimp, french fries and veggies. It was pretty awesome. I really have to admit that the Germans know how to make great food!

It got down to -15 Celsius overnight and it snowed. Freaking cold! So we got back on the road for the last leg of the trip to Italy, which should have been about three hours. It turned into five hours instead. We were driving in temps between –7 and –11*C and the windshield wiper fluid froze in the tubes. You wouldn’t think this would be an issue unless you’ve had the experience of driving in the snow in freezing temperatures. The dirty sludge thrown up from the road stuck to the windows – froze solid whenever we’d run the wipers. So it was smeared along the windshield, leaving a grey grime for us to try to see through. Of course, we had anti-freeze in the wiper fluid, but it was only for temps as low as –20*C. We ended up buying –60*C and finally got the ice broken up in the tubes at around 1pm. After that, we were able to get back up to speed. We passed a lot of little towns nestled in the foothills of the Alps and even got some photos of small castles and strongholds. Some of the views were absolutely spectacular!

We arrived at the hotel in Valles, Italy at about 3pm local time. More photos to come!

Like my little word play up there? Yeah, me too.

So you didn’t hear from me in November, I know. I was busy with the nose-to-the-grindstone thing, belting out a very (ugly) rough draft of a middle grade paranormal story. I did win Nano though, with 53k words! Go me! I’m very pleased with myself, as this is the first time I’ve actually won Nano. Most years I wasn’t even able to participate because I was working on my MA, but this year I was determined! And, you know, it’s really amazing the number of words I can write if I stop putzing around and actually put fingers to keyboard.

On Monday, 14 December, I had the privilege of seeing Neil Gaiman speak here in Decatur, GA. The Little Shop of Stories (a fantastic indy kids’ bookstore) won the Graveyard Book Halloween Party Contest, along with a store up in Winnipeg, Canada. So the prize was Neil coming to speak and sign. I arrived at about 5:15pm and Neil was going to begin speaking at 6. I wasn’t able to get a ticket for the main room where he actually was, so I was in the overflow room with a couple hundred other folks. When Neil began, he actually did a shout out to those of us in the overflow room, which was really wonderful! He paused and asked where the camera was (we were watched on closed circuit tv) and he waved to us and thanked us for coming. He also assured us that we would be real people soon. ;)

He read from Odd and the Frost Giant, then took some questions which had been submitted prior to the evening. One question dealt with Nanowrimo. It asked whether he thought it was a waste of time, or a good idea. And I really loved his answer. He said that he thought anything that moved an aspiring writing from the “aspiring” tag to the “writer” tag was a good thing. And he also said that for some people it was a good tool to discover that they shouldn’t be a writer. That cracked me up!

At any rate, he was a real trouper! I finally got to him with my two books at 12:30am. I got home at 1am and Neil tweeted that he was finished at 1:30am. Talk about an author dedicated to his fans! He said he signed for 1050 people! No wonder it took so long. This was my first time seeing Neil in person, though I’ve been a fan for a long time. He really did go above and beyond expectations. I have even more respect for him than I did before, if that’s possible!

And for the final “N”… I’m at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport right now, waiting to get on a jet plane headed for Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (Granted, when I get a chance to post this, I’ll already be there because I’m not paying Hartsfield five bucks just to get on the internet for two hours.

Now I’m en route, up in the air some few thousand feet. I guess I’m about three and a half hours from arrival and can’t really sleep. These little seats are not particularly comfortable.

Anyway, the trip is a family thing and also a very, very, very late honeymoon. Like eight years late. But better late than never, right? We’re flying into Amsterdam, then driving with family down to the Italian Alps. A week there, then back to Amsterdam for another week. Then to London for another week, then home. I’ll post as often as I can, but I have no idea what my access will be. I’m hoping to get some revisions done since I won’t have the internet distracting me. Ha! :)

Good writing to all!