My first trip to Switzerland I made the pilgrimage to Zermatt, where all good tourists go, and took the ski gondola up the Kleine Matterhorn. I was shocked at the number of healthy people I encountered skiing, even in May, but was enjoying the view nonetheless. Now one of my main treats growing up was border crossing; I absolutely loved the idea of crossing borders between cities, counties, states and Mithras-bless-my-grandparents-and-their-summer-cottage-in-the-1000-islands even international frontiers. Knowing that Italy began, well, just over there from Zermatt I made the mistake of asking an exuberantly healthy looking couple if they knew where the border was. The condenscension shooting forth from behind their mirrored Ray-Bans was enough to melt a glacier. So I hemmed, hawed, said I was a tourist (wasn't it obvious?) and that while I wasn't planning to visit Italy on that trip, I merely wanted to know where it was because...and out popped the first stanza of Lemon Tree (very pretty, but too bitter to eat! ahem).

At least if I were going to be a vulgar American tourist, I was going to be an educated vulgar American tourist.