General Globe Trotting Archives - Page 9 of 11

TRAVEL HINTS FOR THE LONG HAUL TRAVELER

ITALY, UMBRIA . . . AND BEYOND — First of all, I am not a total straight line kind of guy. I try to be organized, but ten minutes after I have cleaned the garage, my office, anything, I’ve got everything all stirred up again. I’m a mass of carefully controlled confusion at most times, but total chaos reigns when I am traveling. Keys for Maine, keys for Italy, driver’s license, passport, international driver’s license, plane tickets, whoa. . where DID I put those tickets? So many things to take with on a trip. Or not take. Finally cured myself of donating a Swiss Army knife to the security guards every, single, trip. That took awhile.

Ok, Hint One. Hey, the bulk of us are not immigrating when we go abroad. It is just a trip for heaven’s sake. Are we going to places totally without stores? Well, I hope not. But, you would never know it from the freezer-sized pieces of luggage I see so many people checking in. I hope my daughters are both reading this. The stuff they will bring for a weekend should come by truck or cargo ship containers. But anyway, I’ll just say it: I hate waiting for bags to come off the carousel after a long trip. Only thing worse? When they don’t come off the carousel and you have to go describe your precious cargo and hope it really does eventually arrive and they really do bring it to you, before your vacation is over. But the waiting is wearisome. And your mind is racing as you are pacing. How long will the taxi lines be? Will all of these people be cueing up ahead of me? Will my ride wait for me? Will the last bus come and go while I am cooling my heels here? Customs. Look at the line growing over there.

So. I take one small, but light and efficient, wheeled suitcase. End of story. One. After a lot of false starts and inopportune choices, mine now happens to be this vaguely purple one from L.L. Bean. We ARE from Maine, afterall. Yes, this is not an ad. Think they probably have plenty of business as it is. But this is a nice bag. We have actually got plenty of dumb bags at Beans, as well. This just doesn’t happen to be one. This one works. Light, simple, efficient. Typical, wheeled bag big enough, or actually, small enough to qualify as carry on.

When I get off a bus or out of my car, I pull out my bag, I lift up the pull handle on it and loop my laptop bag’s hand straps over the pull handle. Totally obvious concept, everyone does it. For good reason. That way, the pull bag can carry my laptop. And not me. And then, I’m off like a shot. Traveling light. And since I am not waiting in line, ever, for random bags on the carousel, it DOES matter, if I am early off the plane. So, I ask for seats on the aisle and toward the front as a matter of course. Not THE front. That’s for babies. You don’t want to be there. Just sort of toward the front. When the plane lands, I can be through the airport, past customs and on the bus headed north to Portland while people from my flight are still milling around hoping their bags made the same trip. And it works coming in, too. On this trip, there were hundreds of people in line, out-going. The Air France guy that presorts you as you get in line and makes sure you are on at least the right airline, on the right day, saw me and my carry-on only, and waved me out of a line of literally 2-300 people and into a line of two people. I was number two. Living lite and living large.

Once through with check-in, I head for a wash room and put my belt with metal buckle, wristwatch with big metal band, coins, ANYthing metal into a pocket of my laptop or small wheeled bag and I go through security like nobody’s business. I’m squeaky clean and they rarely ever look twice at me. And I do what they say and not act all surprised at the last second. If they want laptops out, have them out. Shoes off? Same deal. I was through check-in and security in maybe 10 minutes. In Boston, Mass, with throngs of people going the same direction as me. I win! I win!

FLIGHT JACKET? GO AHEAD: PICK A POCKET, ANY POCKET.

Hint Two For some un-recalled reason, someone at our office had flagged an article for me from the WSJ and I took it home to read. My attention wavered and then wandered over to the ad next to the article. Very homemade looking, cartoon-y ad talking about this magic sportcoat. At least that is what I call it. Duluth Trading Company has it. And now, thanks to the internet, I have it. I am from the Midwest and I think Duluth is in the Midwest too. Minnesota, maybe? But I had never heard of this company. I don’t know if it is a fashion statement or not, but I’ve seen worse in the airports. You sweatsuit wearing people know who you are. Yes, I am talking to you. Anyway, this coat is Denim and it is lined. Way soft. But here is what got me: pockets, pockets, pockets. Deep ones, big ones, small ones, pockets hidden inside pockets, zip top, flap top, open top. This was its first trip and I used it day in and day out. Totally passed the travel test. I thought I was going to be, at one point, a wild life photographer vest wearing kind of guy. Got the vest, wasn’t that kind of guy after all. I put it on, I hung it back in the closet. This sportcoat, on the other hand, works for me.

In the airport, passports and tickets go in a big inside pocket. Note pad and pencil in a big outside pocket. The paperback I’m reading goes in another. I’ve got what I need during the flight, on me. I pack the rest of the stuff up over head and never look back. During the days and nights around town, I’d shove my clunky old camera, (digi, but old and big as a couple cans of Spam) into one pocket, cell phones in another and I am ready to go, knowing I had my minimum requirement of Stuff, my security blanket.

It helps me maintain my number one travel rule. Be prepared. Prepared for the moment that may never come again. At least have your camera and a note pad with you at all times. Even if you are ”just going for a quick coffee, dear”.

Writing this, right now the jacket is on my lap defending me from the Air France Air Conditioning. So, now it’s a security blanket, with pockets. And no, this is not an ad either. I know it may sound like one, but believe me when I say there was no money in any of the pockets when I got it and Duluth’s computer thanked me in an email for being a valued new customer. So, I paid them vs the other way around. I’m just saying what works for this guy after a million three hundred trips, might work for someone else somewhere down the road.

Boston, London, Rome, Rinse, Repeat Going The Other Way. Tracking down the newest member of the SeeyouinItaly team.

LONDON, via Umbria — We were going by England on our way back from Italy when we thought, gee we’re right here — why not see our daughter graduate from college? And now she has gradutated. And she has a job!

Weren’t we just in Umbria a minute ago? Can we really be in England? Must be. Where else are there two story high red buses, the tall black cabs and flower–covered pubs with improbable names on every corner? And look, swans and sculls sliding past us on the Thames. It is not just the stuff of magazines and post cards, after all. It is all totally real. And totally engaging. That is the London we love and look forward to visiting as often as we can and it is right on our way to Italy. So we do stop by there often. We had very strange timing this trip, what with the bombs going off twenty-four hours before our first stop in London. That was on the way to Italy. And then, of course, the second batch of bombs was going off as we were taking cabs to the airport to leave London.

OK, that is less than great. We’ve loved our daughter being in school there. Last year both our daughters were in school there and we loved it twice as much. They are both done with London for the moment but we’ve all got so many friends there that we will just worry and fret for them too. And we will be back. It is going to take more than a few crazy people to keep us from seeing our friends in London.

HAVE YOU SEEN “THE GRADUATE”?

This was a big and memorable weekend. Wiley graduated in her Hons program in broadcasting at the University of the Arts, London. Got her BA in three years by getting the school to believe she really didn’t need to be a Freshman and could she just start as a Sophomore please. No idea how that worked out. But it did. Way to go Ms Wiley. She came. She saw. She graduated.

Wiley is coming home to the States this week and BIG NEWS she is going to start learning the ways of SeeYouInItaly here in our offices in Maine and being a new marketing assistant. In September she is planning to be in Italy and seeing houses and learning the ropes on that side of the ocean. She is also planning to further her Italian studies. She was in Italy for a month last September and really raised the bar on those Italian language skills by a mile. And then, true to form for a marketing girl, she found out her teacher had a house she just could not sell. And a very nice place we all thought it was. Wiley referred her teacher to the broker, we put the house on the web and Bada Boom Bada Bing sold it in short order.

Clearly, the focus of the trip was the graduation. What a fine and impressive ceremony. And what a location! Very downtown. Buses and taxis swirling about, Big Ben a block away in full view, Westminster Abbey right there across the street. Go over and touch it if you like. Seemed all wonderfully unreal. Still pinching ourselves a bit. (By the way, parents of college age kids — did you know that universities in the UK are about one fourth the cost of university’s in the US? Can you say 12,000 dollars a year vs 40,000 something? Un-huh. That’s what I’m talking about. Yes, we were able to rationalize a trip now and then to see her in Italy and in London)

Later that fine graduation day, post-ceremony, we got together with friends and supporters of Wiley’s at her favorite Moroccan restaurant. American friends, Italian friends, British friends. And that went on and who knows how long it went on. Good times were had by all. I’ll fight anyone who says the food is bad in England. We had so many Italian restaurants on our streets you wouldn’t believe it. Literally one after the other. And there truly is a nice Pizza Express on every corner in London these days. And the Lebanese place we ate in! Oh my yes. No idea what I ate but think it was chic pea related and I know it was gooood. And does anybody know when did the English stopped drinking tea? I mean clearly they have. I tried to photograph and write down the names of the coffee places within 50 paces of our apt on St. Christopher’s Place. Not just Starbucks, trust me. Huge places named Carducci’s with every kind of Italian coffee and pastries. And a few feet any direction lurked more coffee-oriented fare. I gave up trying to document them all, like grains of sand on the beach. Any where we went in London we could get ourselves as cappuccino-caffeinated as our wildly beating hearts could bear. But, I say Old Bean, Did I see any Tea Shoppes? I think not.

OLDE ENGLAND VS NEW ENGLAND

And now, just some random pictures to prove we really were in Olde England vs our New England. We think London is always a fun thing to do on the way to or from Italy and always worth a side jaunt. We might take BA Boston to London and then Florence. Or Rome. Oh, and thank you British Airways for upgrading lucky us to the giant business class fold all the way down sleeper beds in the sky. I’ve always wanted to see what kind of high life was happening at the top of those stairs in the big jets. And yes, I will have that complimentary champagne now, thank you very much. Ta! Cheers! Ci vediamo, la prossima volta.

Yes, it appears our office in Maine does have a piazza

Do you remember what I was saying about being in Italy even when we are not in Italy? I guess our recent office renovations would bear that out. Working fountain, cat sleeping in window by geraniums. And we have always had a certain amount of Vespa art in our hall way. And then I remembered my good friend Terry Turner said he had an old Vespa. I guess he did. His 1960 Vespa still has the 1962 Maine license on it that it did when he put it in storage. It hasn’t run since then, but we thought it made a great lawn ornament in our Maine Piazza. In an interesting twist, the original owner of this fun artifact was another long time, friend Bill Goddard. He does our insurance and has an office a couple blocks from ours. We invited him over for a surprise reunion with this piece of his past. He didn’t offer to insure it just yet!

And, bombing or not, we are leaving Saturday and flying straight to London. Changing planes there and continuing on to Rome, Umbria and then, a few days later, London, again. Our daughter Wiley is graduating from college in London that next week and we are going to celebrate that event and honor all her hard work, come heck or high water.

But if you will be in Umbria next week we will sign off for the moment and say . . .

See you in Italy,

Stew

Even when we are not in Italy, we sort of are in Italy

We may have gone around the bend. Saturday was emails to and from Italy in the morning. Some in Italian some in English all on subject of Italy. About noon I signed off on all that BECAUSE We had a party to get ready for. Late afternoon on the beach in Ocean Park, by Saco, Maine. Both couples were people we have met through the wonder of the internet and one had a house in Italy and the other was considering a trip to look at same. To get ready for this, we were planning to spend the afternoon deep in anti-pasti preparation. Because this would be an all about Italy conversation, Italian and food and drink too. Just your traditional Fourth of July party.

So, about one pm the phone rings and a sweet voice says “Hi! It’s Lydia, and we are on Main Street a couple blocks from your house. We will be right over. Lets do lunch.” Yeah! Its Lydia. Stew running upstairs yelling “Lydia!” meets Midge, coming down the stairs yelling “Lydia?” Then we both got nose to nose and said “I thought knew“? Well, heck. We started throwing junk in far closets and revealing couches and tables we had not seen since before we packed our daughter off for camp at the last minute in the middle of the living room. And then the mystery Lydia called again, lost, whew. Momentary reprieve from governor and chance for all the pieces to fall into place. Oh, LYDIA. We are so dense, like we know a lot of Lydias. What WERE we thinking?

We know her as well as we know anyone. She is American and from nearby Connecticut. But we have only ever known her IN ITALY. Contextual issue. Even our fun drop-in guests are Italian related. Some times having houses in two countries is like having two separate lives. This was a fun case of the two blurring over and surprising us.

PETER POURS PARTIALLY POPSCICLED PROSECCOS AT THE PARSONS’ PARTY

Later, after that fun lunch with “Italian” friends, we were at the party on the beach and all those great minds were thinking alike and the world was in total harmony, because everyone brought bottles of the fun fizzy Prosecco. Forget champagne. Forget Spumanti. The real deal is Prosecco. Friends in the Veneto introduced us to it years ago and immediately got our full and undivided attention. Believe me, they don’t save it for special occasions up there. They plunk pitchers of it on the table like it was beer. Right thinking people. Prosecco is not as sharp and dry as Champagne, not as dessert sweet as Spumanti, but like baby bear’s porridge, juuust right. Somehow sitting on the beach watching the colors of the blue in the sky and listening to the waves crashing on the beach made all the bottles of bubbly go away. All, save one.

Peter turned to Joan and said “You think that last bottle I put in the freezer would be any good by now?“ She jumped up and said “Peter! That was two hours ago, it will be a Proseccoscicle!“ He ran up into the house to begin damage control. The rest of us slowly and regrettably dragged our rainbow colored canvas chairs off the beach just ahead of the incoming tide and tossed them into the tall grass at the edge of lawn. When we got into the long screened porch, Peter was gingerly holding the last bottle of Prosecco, or, should I say, block of Prosecco. And looking at it through squinty eyes with great scientific interest. Yep. Frozen. But the cork hadn’t blown. Whew. Peter made it his mission to keep that bottle near him for the next hour.

Ready yet? Nope? How about Now? Eventually, holding it up to the light we could see the bottle shaped baby ice berg melting a bit and producing some strange shaped chunks burbling left and blurbing right as the bottle was tipped back and forth. Finally, he of multiple MIT degrees, said that in his professional opinion, it was high time to try it. And you know that was the bestcoldestmostawesome bottle of Prosecco any of us had ever tasted. Now kids. Don’t try this at home. But we did live to tell the tale. All Is well that ends well and that night of Italy on a beach in Maine ended very well indeed.

Only six more days until Italy!

ALERT: STRANGE SEGUE AHEAD!

Bear with us. We know this isn’t Italy. Going there in a very few days. Giancarlo tells me he has a huge list of new houses to see and report on.

In the meantime we are using that Iowa mention from the previous bit as a transition out of the Pacific Time zone and into Central. This time next week we will be on Italian Time!

Ok, the correct answer is the house on the right is in Sausalito on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge and the one on the left is in Vinton, Iowa. We saw Vinton’s Victorians while visiting my sister Mary in her new home there. The town was very nice, her home and all the Victorian homes were great, but the high point of the afternoon had to be when the high school across the street let out at two thirty. We are so not in Umbria or San Francisco here friends and I can tell because here in Vinton’s Washington High it was the final day of Ag Week and therefore Bring Your Tractor to School Day. Take that Sausalito. You may think I am kidding but that is specifically why I carry a camera with me. What parents trust their sixteen year olds to take their behemoth rubber tired tanks to school? Yike. I’m from an Iowa farm background but I didn’t remember tractors following us to school. Or tractors THIS big. Maybe they look bigger when there are packs of them roaming up and down Main Street in the rain, smoke billowing from stacks and kids with seed corn hats waving from the cabs. So glad our timing worked out for all this. I put this in the pantheon of wonders with Day after Easter Cheese Rollthru the streets of Panicale in Umbria.

ITALIAN DOVE FLIES IN FROM FRISCO
This bird took the long way to its final destination. We bought an Italian Easter Cake called Colomba (nominally shaped like a dove) at Ferry Plaza on the Embarcadero. And brought it to Iowa to share with the family on St Paddy’s Day. The Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk Cheese didn’t go over as well as we hoped but that Italian cake was crumbs in a heart beat.

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There was something kind of nice and completing the circle in this trip that made me especially glad we stopped in Iowa. 68 years ago my then teenage dad made the Iowa-California-Iowa trip with a bunch of guys in a 1930 Model A Ford coupe with rumble seat. They shot gophers and tin cans with a pistol from the open rumble seat going across the Nebraska and those other wild and wooly states.

They were in San Francisco when the Golden Gate Bridge had just opened and was in its first coat of Golden paint. Dad said they had no money and just kept getting closer and closer to bridge but did not want to spend the money and pay the toll to actually go over it. At a certain point they got a bit too close, could no get back out of the on ramp and tried to explain their way out of it to the toll booth guard. But any explaining that was going to happen was done by the guard holding out his hand for their money saying Oh, yeah, you ARE going to see the Bridge. And pay the toll, too boys. They were glad they saw it and so were we.

That is all for the moment folks. We are headed off going east to Bella Italia and our home in Umbria during school vacation in mid April – so watch this space. Until next time

See you in Italy,

Stew