Escape to Witch Mountain (aka Selva)...

I had a really bad night sleep (after travelling 40 hours to Italy) - waking up at 1am no less... I manage to get back to sleep - only waking up at 6am by my alarm on my phone...

I get dressed and go to a nearby sleazy ATM to get some euro mulua out, pack my stuff and check out.

I head down to the train station and attempt to buy my train ticket to Bolzano from a couple of places (including the ticket information booth - who don't sell tickets) and work out which actual train I should be catching. I was going to stoop low and have McDonalds for breakfast at the station - but believe it or not - Maccas don't open until after 8am in Italy. Instead - I stalk a few customers at a cafe in an attempt to work out how the fudge u order a couple of crossiants and coffee. After about 5 minutes of stalking - I work out that you need to go to the nearby 7-11 and order and pay for what you want - then take your receipt over to the cafe for the booty (logic ahoy). I order something that I could say in Italian (believe it or not - but Itallians don't call Crossiants crossaints - they call them broiches or something unprouncable).

I board my 8am train to Verona (I have to change there in order to get to Bolzano) and it was a semi classy train - complete with train reservations and the like. After a bit of a bitch and fight with a local (who was trying to get my seat) - it was a smooth trip to Verona (home of Romeo and Juliet people!) and an even smoother change over to the train to Bolzano (it was on the next platform). The train to Bolzano seemed a bit less classier (none of the seats were reserved and it was a bit smelly). No one sat next to me (which probably meant that I was smelly= and it was a fairly scenic train thru the Dollamites to Bolzano.

I was very anxious about my transfer to Selva (where we were staying to ski Val Gardena) - just ask Ant. I had spent hours crying over the internet thinking that transferring from Venice to Selva was extremely hard... but in all honesty - it wasn't too bad. When I got to Bolzano - it took me 1 minute to find the bus stop for my ride to Selva. And two minutes for the bus to arrive. Things were looking Milhouse indeed.

The bus to Selva was pretty cheap (5.50 euros) considering it was over an hour long. Despite the smooth trip thus far - I had to screw it up somewhere - and I did it via getting off at about 4 stops too early on the bus. I got off the bus at the town before Selva (St Christina) - and I pretty knew this as soon as the bus started moving away from me at the bus stop. I checked my bus timetable - and it would be over an hour for another bus to turn up - so I said fudge it - i will just walk the rest of the way to Selva. For this trip - I had taken Ant's big wheelie bag - great for flat footpaths and roads but not so great for snowy roads... For about 20 minutes - I hiked with my 20kg bag before the road ran out of footpath - and I headed back to the bus stop in defeat... Only to catch a skiier transfer bus 5 minutes later which took me the rest of the way to Selva and I get out at the right stop.

Thanks to my overzealous preparation for this trip (eg: printing bus time tables, maps, bible passages) - I managed to find the Hotel Olympia in only the matter of minutes. I check in and discover that I'm the first of my family to arrive. My parents are coming from Libya and my brother and sister in law were coming in from Munich (after a month of European shenangians and satisfaction of Taeko's strange castle fetish).

After checking in - it was about 2pm and I was feeling hungry as I had nothing to eat for lunch yet. I wander into town - only to discover that the locals subscribe to the "Latino Time" religion (eg: nothing is open between the non-witching hours of 12-3pm). Feeling defeated - I head back and chill at the hotel until 3pm when I head down to the local Spar supermarket and get some bread and bananas and make some of my world famous (cough) banana sandwiches.

Selva the town is rather scenic (with all the Dollamites surrounding it) - and there are even bonus statues of baby jesuses around town (Ant would be in 7th heaven).

My parents arrive around 4ish (surprise surprise my brother is last to arrive). To rub in the BA economy 1 piece of luggage policy - they arrive with 6 pieces of bags (damn their first class tickets!). I show them the nearest supermarket - where they go on to buy copious amounts of red wine (alcoholism runs in the family).

We have a couple of drinks before Sacha and Taeko arrive at around 7pm. Good old Sacha organisational skills - he caught the wrong bus and had to transfer to Selva.

After checking in - we head down to the restaurant downstairs for dinner (yes - no need to buy food for dinner as it comes included with the room!). We were greeted by a Borat style waiter (same accent, same mannerisms) - he would like to say "It's nice!" and obsess about Taeko in a truly strange manner. Here in Italy - it seems to be the norm to have pasta for entree - which is what we had - some lagsane. Mum said it was the best ever.... word to your mother!