My impromptu 2 1/2 month trip to Milan, Italy....and everywhere in between....with my boyfriend Shane :)

Saturday, February 20, 2010

I'm in Italy, I see France, I see Mont Blanc's large expanse.

Shane and I decided to spend our Sabbath in God's beautiful nature--the Italian Alps of Aosta Valley.

To do this, we woke up at 5:30am this morning (so much for a day of rest!) to catch the 7:15 train. We transferred halfway to another train that took us to Aosta, and from there a bus which took us the remaining way to Courmayeur, home of the famous Mont Blanc (which is actually in France but can be seen from Italy).

The scenery was beautiful along the way, with several castles proudly sitting atop hills with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. Courmayeur was amazingly sunny and clear, although yesterday's snow piled almost as high as my waist! The views were stunning--360 degrees of majestic snowy mountains sparkling in the sun. A mainly touristic/ski resort, Courmayeur can easily be toured in about 3 hours, which is what Shane and I did.

So by and by I felt the urge to use the bathroom. Luckily for us there were men and womens bathrooms free of charge near the bus stop. As I walked into the women's, I heard the rather loud sounds of a woman "dropping off the kids"...complete with respiratory noises that I could only associate with a massive heart attack. Disgusted, I thought to myself how people needed to just practice verbal silence while using public restrooms. Then I walked into a stall....and understood completely. The "toilet" consisted of this:
Now think back, ladies, to that time(s) in your life when you were at a public restroom in which there were no seat covers, not enough toilet paper to put down, or you just plain couldn't bring yourself to place your bare skin on that seat that has housed who knows what diseases. So you assumed "the stance", which consisted of hovering an inch or two above the toilet seat while you completed your business. After a while your toneless thighs might have started to quiver as you defied gravity at all costs. Terrible memories, right?

Well.

This so-called toilet was ten times worse. Not only do you lack the luxury of resting your tired feet, your poor legs have to work 90% harder to suspend your body a mere 2 inches from the floor, all the while trying to ensure proper aim lest you have to stand there for 5 minutes pushing the flush button, praying everything will eventually go down. No hand rails even to hang on to for dear life when you just can't take the muscle burn any longer, and believe me you do need to persevere, because this is one toilet you CAN fall into. The last straw is having to take off all coats, scarves and long sweaters, lest your day is ruined when they fall into the path of destruction.

It is obvious to me that the committee who voted for that type of toilet contained very few or no women.
Needless to say, I was quite miffed to discover that the men's bathroom had regular toilets.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully on buses or trains back to Milan, all of which worked out very nicely for us time-wise. Although we didn't get home until 9pm. We spent about 9 hours today traveling for 3 hours of sightseeing. But it was worth it to me to see all that beauty. Thank God we had a decent trip this time that actually went according to plan. :)

Exhausted now, I am heading off for bed. Tomorrow is the big (and last) day to pack up before moving out of our apartment on Monday morning...after which we will be commencing our 3-week adventure around Europe. :) I will attempt to post blogs occasionally during, but no promises, as we only have one computer to share and hit-and-miss internet.