Vi ricordate che recentemente ho annunciato un nuovo concorso?
Do you recall that the other day I announced a new contest?
Ho due bellissime cornici per le vostre targhe da regalarvi…quindi partecipando al concorso, due persone possono vincere! Una cornice dice: “VITA BELLA” e l’altra dice: “CIAO BELLA”. Per vincere dovete solo raccontarmi una storia divertente, che parli di una macchina.
I have two license plate frames to give away…so two people can win a prize for participating! One frame says: “VITA BELLA” and the other says: “CIAO BELLA”. To win you must send me a funny story that involves a car.
Non vedo l’ora di leggere le vostre storie! Per iniziare, racconterò qualcosa che è successo a me in Italia. Se conoscete “Don Matteo” il prete della serie tv, trasformatosi in detective nella piccola città italiana di Gubbio in Umbria (un programma televisivo sulla RAI), potete apprezzare la storia molto di più!
I’m can’t wait to read your funny stories about cars! So let’s get the ball rolling on this contest. I’m going to tell you a funny story that happened to me and my husband last year in Italy. If you are familiar with “Don Matteo” the fictionalized priest, turned crime solver in the little town in Italian town of Gubbio in Umbria, you will appreciate the story so much more!
L’anno scorso durante un soggiorno in Umbria, una sera prima di tornare al nostro B&B nelle colline sopra Perugia, ci siamo fermati in una piccola stazione di servizio a circa 15 chilometri di distanza da Gubbio per fare il pieno di benzina. Essendo andati al di là delle montagne per incontrare degli amici nelle Marche, eravamo piuttosto stanchi dopo una giornata in giro.
Last year while visiting Umbria, one evening before returning to our B&B in the hills above Perugia we stopped at a little gas station about ten miles away from Gubbio to refuel the car. Having driven over the mountains to visit with friends in Le Marche, we were pretty tired after a day of sightseeing.
Più tardi, verso le undici dopo aver cenato, ho ricevuto una telefonata dall’albergo a Roma dove eravamo stati prima di andare in Umbria. Il proprietario mi ha chiesto se mio marito aveva perso il portafoglio. Ero sorpresa! Noi non ci eravamo resi conto che il portafoglio era sparito. Come faceva il proprietario dell’albergo a Roma a saperlo?
Later that evening, around eleven o’clock after having dinner, I received a phone call from the hotel in Rome where we had stayed prior to renting a car and driving north to Umbria. The proprietor asked me if my husband had lost his wallet. I was surprised! We hadn’t even realized yet, that the wallet was missing. How did the owner of the hotel in Rome know this?
Sembra che avessimo lasciato il portafoglio sopra il tettuccio della macchina dal benzinaio mentre riempivamo il serbatoio della macchina. Poi quando abbiamo finito, abbiamo acceso il motore e siamo andati via e il portafoglio è caduto a terra. Meno male che qualcuno ha scoperto il portafoglio e invece di rubare i soldi e le carte di credito, l’ha portato ai Carabinieri a Gubbio.
Turns out we had left the wallet on top of the car at the gas station while we refilled the gas tank. Then when we finished, with started the car and drove away and the wallet fell onto the tarmac. Thank goodness someone discovered the waled and instead of stealing the money and the credit cards, they took it instead to the Carabinieri in Gubbio.
Siamo rimasti stupiti dalla gentilezza di questo sconosciuto. I carabinieri hanno trovato un biglietto da visita dell’albergo a Roma dove eravamo stati prima. Hanno chiamato l’albergo a Roma nella speranza di trovarci. Poi il proprietario della struttura mi ha rintracciata, usando il numero che gli avevo fornito al check-in. In modo molto tortuoso, alla fine il portafoglio ci ha trovati di nuovo!
We were amazed by the kindness of this stranger. Once delivered into the hands of the police, they found a business card from the Rome Hotel where we had stayed previously. They called hotel in Rome hoping to find us. The proprietor of the hotel in turn called me on my cell phone which he had noted down when we checked in. In a very circuitous way, the wallet found its way back to back home to us!
Era destino, perché io e mio marito avevamo già in programma di visitare Gubbio il giorno seguente. Durante il tragitto verso Gubbio io e mio marito abbiamo scherzato, dicendo che dev’essere stato Don Matteo sulla sua famosa bicicletta ad aver trovato il portafoglio e averlo dato ai Carabinieri. Il prete detective è sempre vicino per salvare la situazione.
As fate would have it, my husband and I were already planning on visiting Gubbio the following day. During the drive over to Gubbio, my husband and I teased each other saying…it must have been Don Matteo on his famous bicycle, who had found the wallet and turned it into the Carabinieri. The crime-solving priest is always the one to save the day and do a good deed!
Quando siamo arrivati alla stazione dei Carabinieri, mi sono sforzata per evitare di chiedere al maresciallo se potevamo ringraziare Don Matteo per la sua gentilezza! Ma alla fine ho pensato che non fosse il caso!
When we arrived at the police station, it was all I could do to keep from asking the captain, where we could find Don Matteo to thank him for his kindness! But in the end I thought it probably wouldn’t go over that well!
Allora! Tocca a voi! Mandatemi le vostre storie divertenti sulle auto per vincere una cornice per la vostra auto! Potete scrivere le vostre storie nel comment box sul blog, o potete inviarmele a questo indirizzo:Melissa@StudentessaMatta.com Accetterò le storie che cominciano in italiano – almeno tre frasi devono essere scritte in italiano – il resto potete scriverlo in inglese.
So, now it is your turn. Send me your funny car stories to win a “fabulous” prize: a frame for your license plate! You can post your stories in the comment section on the blog, or send them to me via email at: Melissa@StudentessaMatta.com . I will accept stories that begin in Italian – at least three sentences must be in Italian. If you want to finish the rest of the story in English that is fine.
I nomi dei concorrenti saranno messi in un cappello e un giudice imparziale sceglierà un nome dal cappello. Faccio una registrazione della selezione e poi annuncerò i vincitori in un nuovo post il 1 Ottobre. Avrete un mese di preparare i vostri racconti!
The names of those who participate will be put into a hat and an impartial judge will select a name from the hat. I will post the names of the winners in a new blog post on October 1. You have 1 month to prepare your racconti!
Il disastro a Salerno
Ci siamo svegliati presto la mattina successiva e siamo pronti ad arrivare sulla strada. Ho fatto un po ‘di caffè con la caffettiera in cucina e abbiamo mangiato i dolci speciali extra che avevamo squirreled dalla American Bar. I dolci erano meravigliose, ma erano una ricompensa scarsa per l’orrore assoluto che doveva seguire.
We said farewell to the DeSimones and thanked them for their hospitality. Piling our things into the FIAT, we programmed Sophia (our Italian GPS) to direct us to the Archivio di Stato in Salerno, and we were on our way to the second phase of our adventure. Our plan was to spend the afternoon at the Archivio, looking over Barbella records from Sassano. We would have a meal in Salerno and then begin our trip to the homeland of Pietro Barbella, Sassano.
Salerno was no more than twenty kilometers from Quadrelle so we were expecting a fairly quick trip. Sophia put us on an AutoStrada so it wasn’t long before we were on the outskirts of Salerno. If we were smart, we would have parked the FIAT on the outskirts somewhere and found another way to get inside the city. We were not smart.
There is a point where fearlessness can slowly transform itself into stupidity and we reached that point as soon as we entered the main part of the city. Driving in Salerno was a nightmare. Almost immediately, we ran into the most intense rush hour traffic on the narrowest streets we have ever encountered in any city. I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to. There was no place to pull over.
With single minded focus on the Archivio di Stato and no focus on sanity, we pressed on. We got into a line of bumper to bumper traffic, with horns blaring all around us. I don’t know how many times we were sure we were traveling the wrong way on a one way street with someone behind us, pushing us along. To make matters worse, Sophia was barking turns at a maddening rate and we had no idea how far we were from the Archive.
I pressed on and although Joe had told me that there was a “traffic restricted” area in the center of town, we did not know what symbol would denote that area on a road sign.
We wouldn’t have seen it if we ran into it, which is what we did.
Sophia was little help. She began recalculating almost every few seconds. I don’t think she knew where we were but we were sure her erratic commands were a sign that we were close enough to walk to the Archivio. We began looking for a parking spot. This was a fool’s errand. Believe me, you couldn’t park a bicycle, sideways, anywhere on the streets we were on. The cars were packed like sardines and every one of them had their rear view mirrors turned in.
We finally reached an area where the cars were not packed like sardines. Yet every where we looked there were signs banning vehicle parking. On instinct, I made a turn towards the direction I thought the Archive was in and we found ourselves in an alley which allowed the FIAT to pass, with, literally, inches on each side.
I drove slowly, nearly knocking over a parked motor scooter. There were stone buildings on either side of the car that went up at least three stories. Gay and I could have knocked on the doors of these buildings on each side of the street as we were creeping by. It was like driving in a narrow tunnel. I made a slight turn around a curve in the alley and to my utter horror encountered a steel post in the middle of the street, blocking any vehicular progress.
What now! Please don’t tell me I have to back the FIAT all the way out of this narrow alley. I could almost feel the stone walls egging me on to scratch my pretty FIAT. How were we going to get out of this mess?
I was in a spot where Gay, who was deep into a Stage IV apoplexy, couldn’t even open the door enough to step out and help me back out.
I managed to reverse to a spot where she could get out. She looked over the situation and promptly decided that turning the FIAT’s rear view mirrors inward was the only way to avoid the walls. That was a big help.
I barked1 at her to put them back so I could have a chance to see what I was doing. I started creeping backwards, inch by inch, trying my best to control the gas and the clutch to not jerk the vehicle into the stone walls. I was making some progress when a man came along. He was trying to walk down the alley. The car was wedged so tightly that this poor man could not pass and go along his way. I could feel the burning malocchi aimed directly at me.
The man stepped into a doorway and a few minutes later I had inched my way back enough that he could continue on his way. I called out, “Buon giorno!” I hope he didn’t miss his appointment.
What was actually about 5 minutes seemed like 5 hours as I inched my way back, little by little to the corner where I had made the disastrous turn that landed me in this alley. I managed to get myself back on the road I had come in on and was about to get out of there, when another car came down the street towards me. This was not a two way street. I had to turn back into the alley to allow him to go by. Then I had to inch myself back out once again. This time, when we got out, we had clear sailing out of the one way street and back into an open piazza.
We found a couple of paper bags to breath into to restore our normal breathing rate, then I stopped someone and inquired about the Archive. I don’t know exactly why I cared any more but I did. I was told it was a short distance away but that I was in a restricted area and should exit quickly. I kind of knew that.
When I got back into the pandemonium of the city streets, we started looking, to no avail, for a parking space. We would have taken any place we could find. Suddenly there appeared a steep driveway, going down underneath a building, and a nearby sign said “Parking Garage”. I must have been so excited to find this sign that I missed another word on it, “Uscita”. I started down the narrow ramp only to find the garage attendant running up the ramp flailing his arms furiously at me. This was the exit ramp. Now I not only had to back up a steep narrow ramp, but I also had to back out onto a busy crowded narrow street.
I don’t know how I managed to do this, but when I was back on the street I yelled “ZIO.” For those of you who do not speak Italian, that’s “UNCLE.” That was enough. We drove until we found a fairly wide street that appeared to be leaving Salerno.
Maria Fernando, I apologize. I wanted to thank you, in person, and leave you a gift for the wonderful allegati you had sent me. It will have to wait for another time when I have the good sense to take a train into Salerno.
When the road got wide enough, we pulled over and told Sophia to “take us to Sassano, NOW!”
Ciao Peter! Che bella storia! Moooolto divertente…almeno adesso potete ridere! Now you can laugh, but how stressful at the time! We also once had an experience in Lerici in Liguria where the GPS directed, not to our hotel, but down a path that continued to get narrower and narrower until it dead ended, with no way to turn around and the only way out was to back up the entire way! And another time we too literally were scrapping the sides of the car in a tiny little medieval street in a tiny little hill town in Tuscany!
The wine always tastes better after adventures like that! I love your comment “We found a couple of paper bags to breath into to restore our normal breathing rate”!!
Che bel racconto! Complimenti anche per il tuo italiano! 🙂
Ne avrei alcune, ma, ovviamente, la mia partecipazione non vale; leggerò quelle altrui 🙂
Ciao Gabriele! Certo puoi partecipare! Voglio sentire la tua storia! Dai! Raccontami una delle tue avventure! 🙂
Una Guida con Macchina in Sicilia
In Sicilia è quasi necessario noleggiare una macchina per viaggiare tra l’isola. Un giorno, dopo aver guidato allo sito archeologico meraviglioso di Agrigento, siamo andati a un piccolo paese sulla costa per trovare un posto per fare il pranzo. Essendo lunedì, l’unico ristorante nel paese è stato chiuso. In fatti, quasi tutti i negozi erano chiusi per le ore di pranzo. Questo è una cosa normale in Sicilia. Ma, avendo un fame da morire, ho deciso che varrebbe la pena di domandare gli ultimi due uomini che rimanevano parlando nella strada.
In Sicily, it’s almost necessary to rent a car for traveling throughout the island. One day, after we drove to the marvelous archeologic site of Agrigento, we went to a small village on the coast to find a spot for lunch. Because it was Monday, the one restaurant in town was closed. In fact, all of the businesses were closed for the lunch hour. This is very normal in Sicily. But, because we were starving, I decided that it would be worth it to ask the last two guys that remained talking in the street.
Gli ho chiesto se fosse un posto per fare il pranzo qui vicino. Fortunatamente, parlavo un po’ di Italiano e riuscivo spiegare che avevamo molto fame e non abbiamo mangiato per 5 ore. I due uomini hanno parlato insieme per qualche minuti e finalmente, mi ha chiesto, “Piace carne o pesce?” Gli ho detto “Non importa, tutti i due sono buoni.” Poi, con gentilezza, Carlo mi ha detto, “Mi seguite in macchina e vi porto dove si mangia bene!”
I asked them if they might know of a place for lunch nearby. Fortunately, I spoke a bit of Italian and I managed to explain that we were very hungry and we had not eaten for 5 hours. The two men talked among themselves for a few minutes and then asked me, “Do you like meat or fish?” i told them that it wasn’t important, either would be great. Then, politely, Carlo told me, “Follow me in your car and I will take you to a place where you’ll eat well.” (We had no idea where we were going, but we very hungry, so we decided to follow him)
Carlo ha guidato per quasi 15 minuti per mostrarci il suo ristorante preferisco al Porto Empedocle. Dopo di arrivarci, ha lasciato la sua macchina per trovare il proprietario e ce lo ha presentati come fossimo i sui cari amici.
Carlo drove for about fifteen minutes to direct us to his favorite restaurant in Porto Empedocles. After arriving, he left his car to get the owner and introduced us all as if we were his best friends.
Sebbene fosse un po’ tardi per il pranzo, abbiamo ricevuto un cordial saluto ed abbiamo mangiato un pranzo stupendo a Salmoriglio, un ristorante con il pesce frescissimo e l’ottima pasta. Alle fine del pasto, tutti nella cucina sono venuti per salutarci. Abbiamo chiacchiere un po di più ed abbiamo scoperto che Porto Empedocle è la città nascita di Andrea Carmilleri, l’autore dei libri famosi ( e la serie TV) di Commissario Montalbano. In fatti, si trova il suo monumento a pochi passi del ristorante.
Even though it was a bit late for lunch, we received a warm welcome and we ate an amazing lunch at Salmoriglio, a restaurant with the freshest seafood and the best pasta. At the end of the meal, everyone in the kitchen came out to say goodbye. We chatted a bit more and we discovered that Porto Empedocles is the native town of Andrea Carmilleri, the author of the famous books about Inspector Montalbano (which has a TV series, too). In fact, you can find his monument just a few blocks from the restaurant.
Guidare in Sicilia può essere una piccola sfida a volte. Ma, la sapienza della lingua Italiana può cambiare le cose e procurare un’esperienza di ricordare per sempre.
Driving in Sicily can be a bit of a challenge at times. But, knowing a little Italian can change things and provide an experience you’ll always remember.
Ciao Marta e Peter! Siete i vincitori delle cornice per le vostre auto! Grazie per le storie divertente! Potete inviarmi i vostri indirizzi postali in un email a: melissa@studentessamatta.com, nel modo che posso spedirvi le cornice. Grazie 🙂