Bluebird Day…

Today started off bad. I was just falling asleep when my noisy french neighbors came smashing through their room next to me at around 3:am. This wouldn’t be so bad but the bed I was sleeping on was leaving spring marks in my skin. This is AFTER I took the bath towels and put them under my sheets. So to get back at my new friends nextdoor I fired up my laptop, put on my headphones, opened up SuperTroopers (on repeat) and tuned the television to some German Top 10 POP show and cranked the effer’ UP to speaker blowing levels! That’s where it stayed until I woke up this morning around 10.

I actually woke up in a pretty good mood. So I’m getting everything together (checking out today) and I unplug my laptop charger from the wall and get a nice JOLT that momentarily locked my elbow. Then I immediately bang my knee into the weird shaped desk. It’s a bruise now. So that was this morning. A good start…

I decided to drive to Switzerland this morning. Which I did. I even got my passport stamped so the Germans won’t have a fit with my September 20th entry should they decide to pull me over again. Then I decided it’d be fun to drive to Italy. So I did. In just about an hour of driving I made it from Switzerland into France and then from France into Italy. Rad. It cost me 38.10 Euro to take the Mont Blanc tunnel. The tunnel starts right outside Chamonix (France) and spits out in Courmayeur, Italy.

Before the tunnel entrance on the French side is a monument in memory of the 39 people that died on March 24, 1999. Pierlucio “Spadino” Tinazzi, an Italian tunnel worker, rescued 10 people using his motorcycle before he himself died in the fire. That’s a hero. If you ever need to explain ‘hero’ to somebody think of Spadino. He rode through black smoke that even the firefighters didn’t make it through with their trucks… “Spadino” rode directly toward a fire that generated 1000+* heat on a motorcycle… to rescue people he didn’t even know… This picture is of his motorcycle. He was incinerated about 20m from this spot. The heat was so intense the frame of the bike melted into the road surface. The fire was so devastating that it took YEARS of repair and upgrades before they reopened the tunnel.

So after a quick and uneventful trip through the tunnel I was in Italy. I feel more comfortable in Italy because I can more or less understand what people are saying. I can pronounce the words and in general just prefer the language over French. So I was feeling cocky. My little diesel needs new tires and an adjustment of the rear brakes. I found a switchback road that started from the valley floor and rose up some 2000 or so meters. When I reached the top the view was impressive. And yes, I took pictures. My favorite is one I found near the top of the road in a small, I dunno, village. I call it “Head On A Platter”!