DO I OVERCOMMIT?

This is a question I often ask myself and there are a number of people that ask me that. I thought I’d take the period from October 29th through November 6th and dissect it and see what we can learn from it.

Last Thursday, we flew five and a half hours out to San Francisco from Atlanta to attend a two hour reception. Then we drove back to the San Francisco airport area, grabbed a sandwich from Panera, checked into the hotel, went to bed and got up at 4:30 am to fly the five and a half hours back to Atlanta. Fortunately the wind was with us and it took a little less than five hours.

We arrived back home Friday evening and it was a nice Halloween weekend (other than the rain) and by Sunday night I was recharged. Monday morning I got up at 4:30 am to catch an early flight to Chicago for a lunch appointment. Then I went to the office for meetings from 2pm until 5pm and then we had a Board committee meeting until 8:30pm.

Back to the hotel and to bed by 11pm as I wanted to get up at 3am to help adjust to the time zone of the next part of my week. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 3:30 and did the unending emails, thought about writing on my Blog, went to the Fitness Center at 4:30 am for an hour (there were not a lot of people there), and had some breakfast while chatting with Francisco, a guy from Mexico City who I have gotten to know over the years. When you and the waiter at the hotel know each other and all about your families, one could suggest you are spending too much time in this hotel.

I drove to the airport, turned in the rental car and checked in at Delta. As I went through security, the TSA person wouldn’t let me take a small bag that had only a pillow in it as it meant I had two carry-ons and my "personal" item, which was my briefcase. Of course I do it all the time but she was in charge so this time she was going to enforce the rules. I had a quick vision of her being my new government Doctor in a couple of years by the time Witch Nancy and Nutcase Harry get done wrecking our health care system.

So, right in front of her I took the pillow out, took the small empty bag and put it in my big bag, sealed it up and walked back up to her, now with only two visible bags and the pillow in my hand and she said “That’s better”. I had the same amount of carry-on but now it was okay. Our tax dollars at work.

I caught an 11:40 flight to JFK on one of these tiny commuter planes and we actually landed early. Then I learned I had to exit the terminal I was in, go outside, walk a while with my two bags and a pillow down to another terminal and check in with security again. Security is always fun when you have an artificial knee. Every single time, without exception they pull me out, put me in their little box and have someone who is now trying to complete his third day on the job come and wand me all over and feel me up.

I went to the Air France lounge and devoured two sandwiches and two large bottles of water, made a couple of calls and got in the plane. I was going to follow my typical regimen for flying to Europe. I was going to take an Ambien the minute I got on (4pm) and sleep the next 8 hours so until I arrived in Paris at midnight (but 6am their time), I felt then I would be ready to roll for the day.

I forgot to take the Ambien when I got on the plane and the next thing I knew they were serving dinner. I had been reading some stuff for a meeting and didn’t realize we had taken off, which is odd only because I think it is the first time in 20 years I have not been asleep on takeoff. So I passed on the dinner and thought I would do emails for a little while and then crash.

It is now 11pm and I have been on the plane for seven hours doing nothing but answering emails other than the ten minutes I have typed on this. We are landing nearly an hour early due to the strong tail winds, so it will be about 5:15 am in Paris when I get off and traipse around Charles de Gaulle airport.

LATER

I cleared customs and then walked about 10 miles to the other terminal where my flight was leaving from. After going through security again, we all got on a bus that was going to take us to our Air France plane to Lisbon. Nearly everyone was speaking French, not such a surprise I guess. Pourquoi je comprend le francais un peu, I was intently listening to everyone’s conversation. Of course to most of us Americans, the French language sounds so sensual, saucy and sexy that we assume they are talking about sex when they are talking about buying turnips at the market.

But in this case, as I deftly translated in my mind all the conversations, I was struck by what an incredible coincidence it was that all the women were saying things like “Look at that American guy in the orange striped shirt. He is really hot”. I might not have the translation exactly right, but you get the idea.

Now I am typing this while on the way to Lisbon, my final destination for the day. I will get to the hotel and since I will have been up 24 plus hours straight, I will hit the bed after setting the alarm on the PC, the alarm on my phone, the alarm in the room and leaving a wake up call with the front desk for a 1:30 pm wake up call because at 2 pm Lisbon time I have a conference call for an hour for a Board I am on in New York. So, 3 and a half hours sleep, the conference call and then I am going to go wander around the town for a couple of hours and wake up. I would mention the name of the town but I have never heard of it and don’t remember the name. Fortunately someone is meeting me at the airport so I don’t have to know where I am going.

Now, why did I go through this Atlanta/Chicago/JFK/Paris/Lisbon marathon? Am I going to spend some time here in Portugal? Am I going to do a tour of their Port houses? Will I sit in an outdoor café and drink crisp and cool Albarinho wine?

No. I came over here to have dinner with two guys at 8:00 tonight and then to get up at 6am tomorrow and drive 2 hours north to spend the day with 3 young guys who are each 33 years of age who have created this incredible company that I have agreed to get involved helping them with.

Then we are going to drive 2 hours back to wherever I am staying, have dinner again until about 11pm, go to bed and get up at 430 the next morning so the car can pick me up at 530 and get me to the Lisbon airport. This means that less than 48 hours from now I will head back home, flying from Lisbon, to Paris, to Newark and then to Atlanta, arriving there Friday night, a mere 21 and a half hours after my wake up call in Lisbon.

So, to return the question “DO I OVERCOMMIT?”

No. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. (I learned how to do the words like that from Alice)

EVEN LATER

Things don’t always work out as planned. I arrived in Lisbon on time and it was raining like crazy. As I was walking through customs I realized I didn’t even know what city I was going to. This was all set up by the people here with my assistant and while I had seen the name of the place in an email, I hadn’t paid any attention. So I was sure hoping the driver would be there.

And he was. His name is Vitor and he told me it would be a half hour trip normally but due to the rain it might take a little longer. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes so I got to know Vitor and all about his school teacher wife and his boys, 7 and 3. The traffic jam we were in due to an accident on the slippery roads was as bad as any I have ever been in. Vitor complained the entire time about the traffic and the bad drivers yet as soon as we passed the accident scene he set the speedometer on 160 KPM (99.2 MPH) and flew down the rain soaked highway. I thought I was back in Italy.

We finally arrived at the hotel in the town of Cascais which is right on the ocean. The hotel was the former summer home of the King of Italy back when they had Kings. Fortunately they have added Wi-Fi and a few other amenities. It is truly a gorgeous hotel and spa so I appreciated their putting me up for my short stay in such a great place.

But of course now my long nap was out of the question due to my conference call so I slept for an hour, went down and drank two cappuccinos, cleaned up, spent an hour and a half on the conference call and then spent a couple of hours walking around this nice town. So I decided to take photos and share them.

NOT A BAD SELF PHOTO FOR HAVING HAD NO SLEEP BUT I NOTICE JET LAG MAKES MY NOSTRILS ENLARGE

THE OUTSIDE OF THE FAROL DE SANTA MARIA





INSIDE THE FAROL OF SANTA MARIA (I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT A FAROL IS)




A WONDERFUL OLD MANSION IN PARQUE MARCHAL CARMONA. THE ROMANCE OF THE MOMENT WAS BRUISED A LITTLE WHEN A GUY DROVE BY ON A SEGWAY AS I WAS GETTING READY TO TAKE THE PHOTO





A NICE VIEW OF THE OCEAN I ENJOYED

A LOCAL EATERY WITH THEIR MENU MAN

THIS LOOKED MORE LIKE SOMETHING IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE THAN HEREPARQUE VASCO DE GAMA. I TOOK THE PHOTO AS I STARTED LAUGHING WHEN I SAW THE NAME. WHEN I WAS A KID THERE WAS A BREAKFAST DRINK NAMED BOSCO AND WHEN WE STUDIED THIS GUY IN HISTORY I ANSWERED ON A TEST THAT IT WAS BOSCO DE GAMA. I DID NOT MAKE AN A.

A NICE LITTLE IN TOWN PICNIC AREA NEAR THE HÍPODROMO

THE LOCAL HÍPODROMOA TYPICAL LITTLE INTERESTING SIDE STREET

THE CASA DAS HISTORIAS MUSEUM AND EXHIBITION CENTER WHERE THEY JUST OPENED A PAULA REGO EXPOSITION. I WENT IN AND VIEWED HER WORK WHICH WAS VERY UNUSUAL AND VERY INTERESTING.

A PLACE I STOPPED FOR A DRINK BECAUSE IT LOOKED SO UN-PORTUGUESE TO ME

I WALKED IN AND SAT DOWN AND THE BARTENDER SAID IN ENGLISH: "I BET I CAN TELL YOU WHERE YOU ARE FROM. I AM REALLY GOOD AT THAT". I SAID "WHERE?"

HE REPLIED: "SWEDEN", THEN "FINLAND", THEN "NORWAY", THEN "DENMARK", THAN "GERMANY" AND THEN "THE UK" AND THEN HE GAVE UP. I SAID "ATLANTA" AND HE SAID "THE WINE IS ON ME". IT WAS A NICE ENDING TO MY TOUR.

FOR THE WOMEN WE CARE ABOUT

Rachel and her friend Andrea decided that they would raise some money for Breast Cancer and that they would participate in Saturday's 5K Making Strides Walk in downtown Atlanta. The first person they recruited was the old guy (me).

ANDREA AND RACHEL-FRIENDS SINCE BABIES!

They did a good job, raising something like $1,500 or so. They also invited two of Rachel's friends, Melissa and Michelle, to join us.

OUR TEAM-THE PINK LEMONADERS

They did this in honor of three very strong women who are dealing with Breast Cancer. In our family, Andrea's Mom and my bride Cathy is a breast cancer survivor. We hope she will be out of the woods in three more years.

Rachels cousin and our friend Rosalie, who lives in Birmingham, has been dealing with it for a shorter period of time but we believe and hope the worst is now behind her.

And Rachel's Mother-in-Law Vilma, in Jacksonville, is right in the middle of the hard part with horrific chemo treatments. She is fighting a valiant battle and we think of her daily.

So Rachel made us all pink tee shirts with Vilma, Rosalie and Cathy's name on them and because it was cold and a little rainy, she insisted we each wear a long sleeve black shirt under the tee shirts. The closest thing I had was a long sleeve navy blue shirt that was actually the top to a set of pajamas Luthansa gave me a couple of years ago when I was on a flight from Singapore to Frankfurt. I looked, as I often do, like a real dork.

NOTE THE FASHIONABLE BEIGE PAJAMA COLLAR PEEPING OUT ABOVE THE SHIRT

I ACTUALLY MADE IT TO THE FINISH LINE!

We had fun, it was for a good cause and we all finished. I'm glad we did this for the three brave women we love and all the other women we don't know who are struggling with breast cancer.

IT'S THAT TIME OF LIFE

Yes, I know I have not written on this Blog for a month or so. I forget why.

There is a guy named Dave that is CEO of a company that I am Chairman of. Therefore, we talk all the time but I always call him.

Yesterday, after an exchange of emails to set up a phone call with him for 6 pm tonight I told him "Why don't you call me at my Atlanta home at 404-973-7353?"

So at 6pm tonight he didn't call and I thought he forgot. About 6:10 he called and said "I couldn't get through on this number. I tried several times."

Thinking of course that he had to have dialed it wrong I replied, with a certain amount of cockiness and swagger "And what number did you call Dave?"

"404-973-7353" he said.

I then realized that I had given him the phone number from the early 90's when we lived in Atlanta previously. Of course in between we lived for ten years in New York and Chicago, but for some reason I had forgotten all of that and thought that the number we dropped in 1994 was still my home phone number. How I even rememberd it is beyond comprhension.

And you wonder why I forget to write on this Blog.

THE QUESTION FROM JEFF SOBEL

A man named Jeff Sobel left me a comment on my posting from yesterday but I do not know how to contact him as there was no email address associated with the comment. So I thought I would answer it here and if he does a Google search on himself it will turn up.

Jeff left a comment with this question:

Are you the same Grover Thomas that showed me magic tricks in meetings at American Finance in the "70s?

Well, Jeff, yes and no. I'm still Grover Thomas but I'm not the same. I'm older. And I am still a member of both the Society of American Magicians and the International Brotherhood of Magicians but because I have no time in my life, I rarely do magic any more.

Now, I'm not sure I am the guy you are looking for because you mentioned magic "tricks". I used to do real miracles that I learned from an old Wizard in the forest and would never stoop so low as to do a cheap magic trick. But I still think I may be the guy you are looking for since how many guys named Grover Thomas did magic and worked for American Finance in the 70's can there be?

In fact, back then I combined my vocation and avocation by learning to deal off the bottom of a deck during countless hours sitting in my car waiting for some deadbeat to come home and leave their car out on the street so I could pop it (repo it) when they went inside. Now, 35 years later, I have the same fun watching "Operación Repo" on the Tru channel on TV and I feel a lot safer in my family room experiencing the world of repo's this way than I did on the streets of some of America's diciest neighborhoods.

So yes, I am the guy and I remember you also. The fact you remember the magic is the most amazing part. You must have been at the meeting when I turned a randomly select grapefruit into a full size live collie and then I gave it to that woman named Brenda from Galesburg and she took it home with her. I would guess the dog is no longer alive but hopefully Brenda still is.

Click HERE Jeff and you will go to a website that shows how to contact me. Maybe we can catch up on the phone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANDREA!

I write this on September 21st, 2009 before I go to bed as my daughter, formerly known as Andrea Yvette "Tootsie Roll" Thomas is winging her way to Phoenix to spend her birthday tomorrow with my Mom, who will soon be 94 and has been fighting for her life for the last year. I so appreciate Andrea that you, and your brother Grover this last weekend, spent time with my Mom as I know how much it means to her. Unfortunately, I also know that due to our floods here in Atlanta today, your plane will not arrive in Phoenix until 3am on your birthday as I just checked the status of the flight! See comments below on your birthday in Slovenia. It must be a birthday thing.

Of course now Andrea is just known as Andrea, or Mama, or Mrs. Botham. But I remember her over all the years, from these photos of her when she was just a little over a year old when she refused to let her hair be washed more than twice a year (based on this photo) and when she would cuddle with a man living in her home that I thought was me, although I have never been as young as the photo suggests.

For those of you who read her Blog, the resemblance between her at that age and someone else in her family will not escape your sharp eyes.

I scoured our house for a better photo of the two of us, but since the family joke (funny to everyone but me) is that her first words were "Daddy Work" the photo above of the two of us may be the only one I have.

Of course, when she was nine we went to Japan, Hong Kong and China and I managed to get at least one photo of her with her brother and me.



And suddenly, poof! The years flew by. I have many memories and few photos of places where we were together like the town of Bled, Slovenia on her birthday when I didn't notice the car said "Diesel Only" (it may have been in Slovenian) and I filled it up with Regular and all of Andrea's plans for that big day were dissolved into an eight hour stretch of standing in the scorching heat at a mechanics house while they pumped the Regular gasoline out with a little motor powered by a sewing machine engine, all the while they stood next to all of the gasoline chain smoking one cigarette after another. It's amazing we weren't blown halfway to Bosnia. But I have a photo of that day (the blue car with every possible door open was ours) and to her credit, she took the disaster and her ruined birthday well. At least kind of well.



I made it up to her later when we celebrated that same birthday with a dinner in a small town outside of Venice, Italy in one of the stranger places we have ever eaten.



I remember one summer when she went with us to Scotland to attend a festival in Edinburgh but of course, they had record rains that year and there were mudslides (called mudslips there) that closed the road and kept us from attending the festival.



We left Scotland having no idea that she would return a few years later to this part of the world to become a part of the life of someone else from the United Kingdom.

That same trip (I think) we went from Scotland to Amsterdam and spent a good part of the day at the Amsterdam's annual Gay Parade, all the time cursing British Airways who had lost our luggage both in Scotland and in Amsterdam.



The two of us had a great time going to the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile where she was sick as an infected coyote and where when we checked into a small "hotel" and I told them how sick she was and that she needed to go directly to bed they told me they would first have to make it. I thought they meant put sheets on it but they showed up with boards, a hammer and nails and literally "made the bed", all the while pouring hot Coca tea down her throat while I worried she might get addicted to Cocaine.

We then went to Easter Island, the most remote inhabited island in the world where we managed to have the strangest pizza we have ever had, but it was a fabulous trip.



A year of so later I had been down in Argentina for a while and so I met Cathy and Andrea in Lima and I guess I forgot that Andrea only brought one blouse and one coat with her.



A few days later the two of us got up at 4am and hiked to the top of a mountain overlooking Machu Pichu below and she was still wearing the same thing.



Then, everything changed. She went to a wedding in Pittsburgh, met a bloke from London whose name was Lee and the rest is history.

A few months after meeting him I secretly flew him over to Atlanta for her surprise birthday party and when I looked at this photo from her party I realize I was so surprised that now I was wearing the pink shirt.



The next thing I knew she was living in London and we were flying back and forth like a commuter. One time we met them in Spain so Luis, Teresa, Gustavo and Dorte could meet Lee and here she was wearing pink again.



After a couple of years she returned to Atlanta, with husband Lee and son Finn, another boy for our collection of Grandkids. And now, there are fewer photos of her with me and millions of photos with her family and that is the way it is supposed to be.


Happy Birthday, Toots!

TRAVEL RULE NUMBER TWO

Below is a post I wrote a couple of days ago but could not get posted due to the lack of internet access where I was. In the meantime, after sharing with all of you my Travel Rule Number One, today I learned what Travel Rule Number Two is. So I am going to share it with you here and then below that is my posting I wrote a few days ago.

So here is my TRAVEL RULE NUMBER TWO:

Never, ever, ever ask your traveling companion what I did two days ago. I asked her to get out of the car and guide me so I would not bump into anything after being sandwiched into an impossible situation in Spain by people who parked all around me after I had left the car near a church.

She was doing a great job and suddenly she yelled “Stop. Do not come forward another inch as you will hit this (not knowing what “this” was because I couldn’t see it). Assuming that she must be mistaken, despite the fact that she could see it and I couldn't, I went boldly forward anyway. There was this crunching noise and she yelled “Stop. You are hitting the church” or something to that effect.

Well, it turns out that I ran into a small rock post (probably 14th century) that was part of the church (also 14th century) where my good friend Estefanía was going to be married the next day. And of course, I “chipped” the fog light of the rental car, which simply means I broke the plastic glass.

The result (and the reason this is Travel Rule Number Two)?

When I turned the car back in to Avis tonight, they charged me 200 Euros ($296.14 in US dollars) for this tiny chipped fog light. The lesson? If you are going to ask someone to get out of the car and tell you if you are about to hit something, it would be helpful to take their advice.

And now on to the post I have been trying to publish for several days about a very special time we had.

COPENHAGEN-A WONDERFUL VISIT

Despite the hassle at the Copenhagen airport, which was mainly my fault, and the lost luggage which was a gate agent in Rome’s fault, the visit in Copenhagen was super.

After Gustavo brought us some tee shirts to wear and after we had dinner and then a drink with him, we slept like babes. I got up early to do emails in one of the world’s most expensive cities (only $44 a day for internet access). I also walked from the Hilton over to the airport and spent about $24 on some really good coffee.

Our bags arrived on time as promised and we cleaned up, Gustavo picked us up and we went to their apartment.

Sofía and Luis had been in the hospital for several days with a severe gastro-intestinal problem and had been poked and prodded and hooked up to IV’s in a way that had to have scared them of any stranger that came near them. Not to say how absolutely scared Gustavo and Dorte were during this time.

So we were worried that they would be very afraid of us since their interaction with people they did not know well was limited to their 3 day old experience. We agreed the best thing to do was just smile and them and not reach for them or try and pick them up until they saw us for a while. Gustavo and Dorte had been telling them we were coming, but we were still concerned about frightening them.

When we arrived at their really nice apartment in a great location (Gustavo bikes ten minutes to work), we thought they were sleeping but we walked in and there was Sofía in Dorte’s arms. Both of the kids have these incredible eyes, but especially Sofía. Luis was still sleeping.

Sofía chilling out when we were having coffee at an outdoor cafe

Soon Luis was up and both of them were quite unsure of us given the pure hell they had been through the last few days with adults they didn’t know. Cathy took one look at Luis and said “He is going to be a Lady Killer”


Luis and his Dad at the same outdoor café

So we just sat at the kitchen table catching up with Gustavo and Dorte while the kids had lunch and within an hour they had decided we were okay.


Having Lunch

They are going to be walking soon as they pull themselves up on to anything they can and then walk around it. Dorte speaks to the kids only in Danish and Gustavo speaks to them only in Spanish and then Gustavo and Dorte speak to each other in English so that the kids will grow up trilingual. They clearly understand what you tell them no matter which of the three languages they hear. I think that is pretty cool.

It was a gorgeous day in Copenhagen and when it is a beautiful day there it is as good as you can find. So we went to an outdoor café and sat and talked some more while the kids just soaked in everything around them.





Dorte, Sofía and I walked back along the shore. The streets were filled with thousands of Danes and even more thousands of tourists, many of them on shore for the afternoon from cruise ships. I especially enjoyed the time I had with Dorte just to talk and Cathy, Luis and Gustavo went back in the car as Luis was a little tired. It gave her a great chance to catch up with Gustavo also. It was 24 years ago this month that he became part of our family. Almost a quarter of a century.

During our visit we learned that both of them were a little baffled by their hats as well as learning that the kids take much better photos than their Dad! Sofía also wanted to make sure we knew that they had just turned one.







Back at the apartment the kids were very comfortable with both of us down on the floor playing with them so we did that until their dinner time.




After their dinner Gustavo and I walked down the street and bought some Vietnamese food and brought it back and the four of us ate while the kids played. It was about 9:30 and a little past bedtime for the kids but they were not fussing at all. They let us give them a hug and a kiss and we went back to the hotel. What a wonderful visit it was.

HOW DO YOU SAY UNDERWEAR IN ITALIAN?

It sounded like a good idea at the time. I found this place over the internet called L'Andana for us to stay for a few days outside of Grosseto in Southern Tuscany, just 4 miles from the Mediterranean coast. It was the brainchild of Alain Ducasse, one of the world’s most famous chefs who achieved notoriety in the US when he opened his restaurant in the Essex House Hotel in New York City in 2000 with a set price meal before drinks, tax and tip of $160 per person. Remember, this was in 2000 so it was considered outrageous.

I thought that with the reputation he has for quality and the reviews I read, this had to be a great place to stay. But the prices were astronomical so I proceeded to exchange 14 emails back and forth with them negotiating for a decent price, reminding them of everything from the worldwide economic recession to the lack of Americans traveling to Europe this year. I even told a little white lie by saying I was a pensioner on a fixed income.

In the end, they agreed to rent me their “Deluxe Room with Mezzanine” for a decent reduction in their normal price and throw in a dinner for two every night, including one night at Tuscan Trattoria, Ducasse’s one star Michelin restaurant which is on the property.

So here is the verdict after staying here 3 nights. It has one of the nicest settings I have ever stayed in, beginning with the entrance which passed though nearly two thirds of a kilometer of these giant umbrella and cypress trees.

Here are some more views of the grounds and the service, while completely unobtrusive, was as great as the scenery.

I tried to get a photo of the purple grapes growing on the vine in the above photo.



The breakfast area.


Looking out over the vineyards.






Olive trees in the distance.


The rate included a breakfast buffet that was not bad, but not great and we ate the first night at their “normal” restaurant which turned out to be what they called a barbecue and was pedestrian at best. Somehow the idea of a barbecue (and I love barbecue) at a place built by Ducasse seemed incongruous.

The room was described as a “countryside cozy duplex”. The word “duplex” sounded bigger to me than to the author of their website. I should have had warning lights go off at the word cozy.

The “du” part of the “duplex” is shown below. First the stairs leading up to the “du” and then the “du” itself. They were brutally honest in saying it is cozy. Note the one piece of furniture and a lamp. That’s it. No more.





Then there was the main room:



It is somewhat bigger than the rooms in New York City at the “W” hotel which I have written about in the past on this Blog, but not much.

In the end, it was a wonderful place to stay because of the setting and the service and the one night we ate at Ducasse’s restaurant it was phenomenal, but in the end, due to the room and the price I was a little disappointed.

Now, what does that have to do with the word for Underwear in Italian you ask?

Well, I needed to do some laundry while staying at L’Andana. I looked at the laundry list and they charged 6 Euros ($8.64 at today’s exchange rate if I would exchange a million dollars or so at a time-about $9.00 at my exchange rate) per piece of underwear.

As an aside, why do they call it a “Pair of Underwear” or is that just the way I learned it in Kingman, Arizona? It’s not a pair. It’s one piece.

Anyway, I decided that I could buy new underwear for not much more than $9.00 a pair (see, there I go calling it a pair) and maybe less.

Into Grosseto we drove. We parked the car in a city lot, bought our little ticket at the parking machine on the corner and placed it on the dashboard and walked thru the gates of the 16th century completely walled city (no cars allowed). We were looking for a store that sold underwear and then I saw a woman in a Tourist Information Office. I went to go ask her and I realized I had no idea how to say underwear in Italian (Bianchiera). So I looked up the word, marched up to her and asked “Dové posso encontrare un negozio che vendere bianchiera per uomi?”

She smiled and immediately pointed down the street and said “Sotto la bandiera appesa c’é un negozio chimato “Intimissimi” sulla sinistra”

So we walk down the street to where the banner was, looked to the left and sure enough, there was a store call “Intimissimi” that sold what looked like ladies lingerie, not men’s underwear. Keep in mind I am more a Macy’s kind of underwear shopper than a place that starts with “Intimi” anything. But they were about to close for lunch so we went in and found in the back one small section of men’s underwear.

I bought 6 pair of Italian “briefs” as they were on sale for 18 Euros for 3 pair, or exactly the price I would pay to have the old ones laundered. They looked a little small but they were closing for lunch in a couple of minutes and they were my size so I bought them.

She gave me this little bag with the underwear in it and it big letters on the outside that screamed INTIMISSIMI which of course I couldn’t figure out how to hide as we walked thru the main square back to the car.




We then drove about an hour and a half up in the hills to the town of Scanzano, in the middle of the wine growing region, and found a little restaurant sitting on a hill that looked almost like it was a Quonset hut.



We went in there and had a very nice lunch for a very cheap price ($35 Euros), the way all of Italy is if you stay away from the tourist places. As I drove back we decided to go to the grocery store in Grosseto and buy some cheese, wine, olives and fruit and just eat in the room that night rather than go to the hotels restaurant since we would be going the next day to Ducasse's Gourmet Mecca.

It turned out the entire town shut down between 1pm and 4:30 pm every day for lunch so there were no stores open. I decided to take a short cut back to the hotel and got lost but in the process, passed a roadside stand selling fruit. We stopped there and I bought some fruit from the woman who thought we were Germans. After picking out the fruit that had been picked that day right behind the stand (grapes, plums and peaches) she then took me back into her house to her wine cellar where they stored their red wine they made themselves. I bought a bottle of their 2006 red wine for 8.8 Euros. She then tried to sell me a gallon of olive oil, just pressed from their fields and I told her I didn’t need it. She said she thought we were here for the month of August and we could use it during the month. No wonder she thought we were Germans.

I explained that we were only here a few days. She then wanted to show me the apartment she rented out in her farmhouse so we could rent it. I told her we already had a place which disappointed her.

I found my way by quite accident back to the hotel and back in the room I took a look at the underwear. “Brief” was the right definition. Visualize those Speedo swimsuits that Italian men wear. Now visualize soaking them in hot water for a week to shrink them. That is what these looked like. But hey, I now have twice as much underwear for the same price that I would have paid to wash my old ones. And half of them are clean.

Since we needed more than fruit and wine for dinner, I went down to the town of Castiligione della Pescaia which is just 5 minutes away right on the Mediterranean Coast. I parked in the municipal lot and walked to the square. Everyone there (and there were thousands of people) were either speaking French or German. August is holiday month when everyone takes off for the month on their annual trek to the sun and this is one of the places they go. It was very crowded and most people had hardly anything on, which in a few cases was a delight to see and in most cases was scary. I should have taken my shirt off, put on a pair of my new underwear and just strolled through town. No one would have thought anything was odd at all.

Here is a photo of the harbor and overlooking the old town from the hills above the town.




I went in a bar and asked where a bakery was. They gave me directions and I went there and bought some great bread. I then asked the clerk where I could buy some cheese and she told me where the cheese shop was (I thought) but when I got there I couldn’t find it. Maybe she had said something like “You are very nice looking for your age” (she was about 19) and I just thought it was directions to the cheese shop.

I walked in another bar and asked the woman working there and she came around the bar, took my arm, walked outside and walked me into the store right next to her that somehow I had missed.

I bought some local Parmagianno Marrema from this region (we ate almost 2 pounds of it that night) and some olives. I then asked the Cheese monger where to buy a knife to cut the cheese and fruit. He sent me to a kitchen supply place. I told the clerk I wanted a knife to cut cheese and she brought me a 28 Euro knife. I told her I just wanted it for one night. She laughed and went and got a knife that cut cheese amazingly well for only 2 Euros.

I love stuff like this. Being in another country and trying to do the activities of daily living is one of the things I like the most about travel. If I could get a job doing grocery and household shopping for a different family every month in a different country, I might be tempted to do it.

On the way back to L’Andana, I saw another stand and stopped and bought some fresh figs that were fabulous as well as some fresh purple grapes and a basket of strawberries.

We spent the evening sitting in the room being geeks. Cathy was reading her Kindle and I was playing with my IPhone while we drank the rugged young bottle of wine and ate cheese, olives, fruit and bread until we were going to pop. Wow, what an exciting life!

The next day, was our dinner at Ducasse’s Trattoria Toscana.




In the morning we sat by the pool and I listened to a book “How we Decide” on my IPod while Cathy read her 7th or so book of the trip. We had a light lunch and in the afternoon I had an hour long conference call with my brother on my Mom’s condition and I did email while Cathy went to the spa for two hours. More of that exciting life!

When it came time to get dressed for dinner I put on my new “Briefs”. Now I have friends who are Italian men so I apologize in advance to all of them for what I am about to say here. They all seem very masculine to me and somewhat “macho” in many cases and their voices seem normal. But having put on these briefs, I am shocked that they do not all speak like Michael Jackson used to.

Basically, to wear these, you have to master a certain maneuver that requires you to fold your testicles in half into a wad and then pull them up toward your bellybutton and quickly close the underwear. If you are someone who recently had hernia surgery this is somewhat more difficult but I can attest that it can be done.

You then walk with your legs close together so you know what won’t slip back down and you learn to sit down very, very carefully. I am not sure what Italian baseball players do when wearing these as there is nothing to “adjust” the way ball players constantly do. Everything is wadded up into a crumbled little packet so there is nothing to scratch or paw at. That could explain why Football (or soccer as we call it) is more popular than baseball in Italy.

Oh, and lower your voice-a lot when wearing them or the local church will recruit you to be in the boys’ choir.

The dinner that night was everything you would expect. It was just fabulous, helped in part by the fact that I had talked them into including the cost of it in the room. I had a pasta with sausage, bacon, green peppers and gravy for an appetizer that was to die for.

For dessert we had the most incredibly sweet fresh peaches sitting on a bed of chilled and pureed peaches. I have not had a great experience at a Michelin rated restaurant in the past but this one was tremendous.

The next day we drove back to Rome. In my last post I talked about the taxi drivers. Everything I said applies to drivers on the Italians highways.

I had rented a Fiat Alfa Romeo and was driving down the autostrada at a very steady 140 Kilometers per hour, which is 87 miles per hour. I never passed a car but a couple of hundred passed me. I kicked it up to 155 KPH when we got on a toll road (96 mph) and I was cruising with traffic but many cars still flew by.

Those of you that have never driven in Italy think I’m exaggerating. Those of you that have driven in Italy know I’m not stretching it.

As we entered the airport, cars were passing us one after another at speeds in excess of 75 to 80 miles per hour and I am talking about right as you get to the airport-under the “Arrivi” signs. It is just nuts.

We spent that night at the Hilton Inn at the Rome Airport as I had another free night with points. This Hilton has likely won consistently the monthly award within Hilton for the most obnoxious and rude staff worldwide.

If you read my last post, you know about our delightful and lovely experience XXX the next day flying to Copenhagen from Rome. And although I will tell you more about it later, let me close by saying it was worth every minute of aggravation getting to Copenhagen when we walked into Gustavo and Dorte’s apartment and saw Luis and Sofia who had just had their first birthday on the 29th of July and who had just been released from several days in the hospital two days before we arrived.