Lake Como

April 10, 2010
It's saturday. Our alarm is going off at 7:30 am. Why? Because we signed up to go to some Lake Como place. Apparently it's really pretty. I don't care how pretty anything is at 7:30 am! I wanna sleep! Besides that I got up and took the hour train ride to Lake Como. WOW. Gorgeous! It's a little midievil town built around a lake surrounded by mountains. It was so nice to see mountains again!
It felt like home. We arrived around 10:30 am and strolled along the lake for 2 hours. The houses were beautiful and I felt like I was in an ancient Greek town. There were Greek statues on a lot of the houses. The water went right up to the foundation of the houses and there created a little inlet of water. So romantic and beautiful! I could live there.
Everything was so quiet and most people rode their bikes everywhere. The best part of the day was watching two sister missionaries teaching an old man on a bench. Just seeing them took away the cranky feelings I had and brought back a flood of all of my missionary experiences.



Finally they let us take a break for break for lunch so we set off in search of some food. Oh we found some food! We sat down at a little restaurant ordered some awesome food! I got pasta with pine needles basil and pesto with an oil sauce. Everyone else got lasagna, still pretty amazing. Then we got desert. Oh man. I ordered the Tirimisu! Ahhh! I could have died in that moment and been happy. It was SO good. Pretty sure there was coffee and maybe a little bit of alcohol but still, it was SO good. The cream was thick and real actual cream. I might not come home from Italy.

As we were sight seeing we saw that there was a tram that takes you up to a little village at the top of one of the mountains. Of course we want to do that! No big deal right. Well... from a distance it doesn't look very steep, but once you get closer you can see how steep it is. About as steep as a roller coaster. As we're walking there I'm trying to calm myself down and talk myself out of the images of the cables breaking and me plumeting to my death on some random lake that I didn't even want to be at. So we get on and of course I'm standing up. Sitting would have been better. There was NO conductor in the tram. Does anyone else see a problem here? I'm pretty sure that there were WAY too many people in the tram. Then someone, one of my FRIENDS!, says oh I don't think this thing is up to code. They don't have codes here in Italy. Oh SHOOT! Somehow we start going and I am holding on for dear life. Can't the go any faster? It's rocking and making funny noises. Holy crap, this thing is gonna break! About half way up the hill we stop. WTF!?!?!?!? All of a sudden we come to a lurching stop in the middle of the mountain! Who in the hell stops half way up a 30 degree mountain to let someone off for their way home? Apparently I freaked out and there is a video somewhere that I will post so you can all see. It was awful and I don't know how I made it up there. But I made it. I guess it was worth it because the city was AMAZING! This is 100 % Italy! The houses were right there built on the mountain side with these amazing yards.
Then we got lost and separated from the group so we wandered through the town and came upon the most amazing streets. The houses/apartments were 4-5 feet apart and staggered. It looks like real Italy. Exactly what I expected when I thought of Italy. Words can't do it justice so look at all the pictures.
Oh don't worry the weather was about 60-70 degrees and I'm burned. My head, face and chest. It hurts quite a bit.