Italy: puglia
March 18 - April 9, 2012
SUNDAY, 3/18/12: 4:48PM: Phone rings: car early; I say I'll be down. Into car at 4:53PM. $82.50 for $75 cost plus 10% for putting it on my credit card, and then $12.00 toll and $13.50 tip (to make it evenly divided by 2) for $108! Pick up Ken at 5:25PM. AWFUL tunnel traffic to Newark at 6:15PM. Onto United line 6:20. Trouble at check-in at 6:50; for mileage credit I have to call and give confirmation number. To security LONG line at 7:01PM. To "shorter" line at 7:04. Thru by 7:15. Sit at gate at 7:15. Board 8:01. Look through the movies, since I KNOW I never can sleep, and note that they're showing The Adventures of Tintin, Descendants, Immortals, and J. Edgar. 7-hour flight announced, with 30 minutes to taxi time at 8:17PM. Take off at exactly 9PM, which makes it easy to calculate. Watch Descendants to 11:33PM, not really that great, though Clooney does a lot of "non-acting" acting about his wife's infidelity and his daughters' unwillingness to cooperate with him AT ALL.
MONDAY, 3/19/12: J. Edgar to 1:46AM, Leonardo almost not recognizable under both the YOUNG J. Edgar and the OLD J. Edgar. The Tolson character is very appealing, though he's not very convincingly aged: more like a mummy than a person. Amazing how his hand on Edgar's knee can convey such an emotional impact. But not really that satisfying a movie, though I have to admit that watching it on the tiny TV screen, punctuated by a rather rocky series of seat-belt-fastenings, would tend to minimize any dramatic intensity. The details on the map don't get very detailed, and the two people between me and the aisle seem to go into early catatonia. Dinner isn't that bad: no pasta by the time they get back to my row, about sixth from the last, but the chicken is rather tasty, and Ken remarks afterward that the pasta was burnt, without ANY redeeming qualities. I had tonic water at the start of the flight, but when they don't have any tonic with dinner, I take a glass of white wine. Eat hardly any of the rice, and my stomach is content with fairly little food. Start watching The Adventures of Tintin, but the cartooning is very flat, the plotting is skewed: he SEEMS like a kid but ACTS like an adult, which may appeal to Spielberg, but doesn't appeal to me. It starts very slowly, but when the action sequences begin, particularly with the pirate ships, it quickly becomes REAL cartoon hit-'em-scare-'em-fast, with unbelievable coincidences and escapes, and I soon lose any sense of involvement with it: I'm just older than ten years! Sky beings to turn pink, and I look outside as we start over coasts and towns in Ireland, then Scotland, and then lots of whale-like shapes of fleets of, maybe, fish farms off the west coast of Manchester---I should Google them to see what they really look like---at one point the shapes seem to be pyramids starting with one, then two, then three objects, building into pyramids of twenty-something at the bases. Stop movie at 2:30, when I have to wake both beside me to pee JUST before the breakfast cart starts down the aisle, and I notice the guy that was sitting next to me is now behind me in the men's room line. At 2:50AM we slowly pass a plane and its contrail RIGHT BELOW US. Took night pills at 2:40AM---VERY late. Land at 4:06AM, after INCREDIBLE views of Frankfurt Airport, rivers, towns, roads, trains, and fields---in Germany. Wish I'd taken out my camera, but it WAS darkish and somewhat smoggy, so they wouldn't have come out well anyway. LONG taxi after landing (Tintin ends at 4:12, still on TV though the flight is over) to 4:19. Off plane at 4:28. Directed to gate A40 for the flight to Naples, and there's just a JAM at four passport-check booths at the gate. Try to avoid them, but at 4:45 the Lufthansa agent says there's no other way to get through, even though we may miss our flight: "You can always get the next one," she says, smiling. "And how many flights to Naples ARE there?" I snap back. Through passports at 5:01, I joking to the agent that he's getting a geography lesson as he flips through my multiple entries and exits and full-page visas from foreign countries. Finally through passports at 5:01, gratified to find that it's 10:12AM, not 11:12AM: only five hours' difference, rather than six. I finally find my stamp on page X at 5:10PM. Change watch and camera to 10:20AM. Board at 11:40AM, not having been able to change from my seat 20D, on the aisle, though I'd asked twice, and the clerk had kept saying that the flight was entirely full (though Ken later said that the center seat next to him, in the very last row, remained empty). I get to my aisle seat and wait for the couple who sit inside, and HE says to HER, "YOU take the window," and SHE says to HIM, "No, YOU take the window," and I jump in and say, "Well, if you really don't mind, I would like the window," and they GIVE IT TO ME! Lovely. They're from San Francisco, have been traveling longer than I have these two days, and are visiting Italy for the first time, starting in Naples but going to Rome and Milan and other places for two weeks. I say very little to them as we ascend into the clouds [that continue until we lower over Naples]. Announced as 1:35 flight. Take off at 12:07PM, all clouds and BUMPY up. Decent 250 g chicken/noodle (cold) snack, and I order both white wine and water, sparkling, for me. My neighbor doesn't eat his at all. I look at her fork and ask if she had thought in advance to bring hers, and she says it's on the bottom of the dish! So it is! Bright sun reflections off the wing are annoying. Land at 1:44PM, with few pictures. Off plane to bus at 1:58. Pee with great relief at 1:59! Get bag at 2:15 and the carousel stops at 2:18, Ken out WITHOUT bag at 2:38. I leave the baggage claim and find the guy waiting for us in the station without having to call the number Ken gave me to check to make sure he WAITED for Ken. Ken says they tell him that his bag was left in Frankfurt and would be sent to the hotel at 10PM. We go to the car at 2:40, and the African Guinean guide chats with Ken in French all the way into the city, where he INSISTS on giving us a driving tour of the old part of town, having to retrace his route when streets are closed to auto traffic, and we see narrow street after narrow street until I get rather tired of it. OUT at Hotel Costantinopoli, 104 Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, at 3:15PM! At 3:20 we find that our room has only a DOUBLE bed, so we're moved to room 206, with twin beds and a huge bathroom with a tiled tub with Jacuzzi attachments. I take my AM pills at 3:45PM, thinking it's "really" only 10:45AM. I unpack a bit and take stuff out of my shoulder bag and leave hotel at 4PM. Buy Arte card for 16€ with Ken at 4:22 at the Archaeological Museum, a long walk up a hot street that has me rolling up my jacket sleeves so my wrists can dry their sweat. At 4:45PM to Duomo, enormous, with side chapels as large as ordinary churches. To San Domenico Maggiore to 5:40, when I walk up the long stairs before waiting for Ken to decide whether he wants to do it or not. Ken had gotten the name of a good pizza restaurant in the Piazza Dante, but after we search and search, it turns out to have closed. To hotel to pee at 6:25PM, feeling quite tired. Have free house limoncello and chat with cute Claudio to 7PM. TIRED. To "most famous Neapolitan pizza" at Sorbilla, since 1935. Get there, with many empty tables, at 7:15 and soon there's a line outside waiting to be seated. I have a "Four Seasons" pizza, rather large, and Ken says I'll never finish it, but I perversely DO, while he breaks the cap off his weak tooth and decides he has to get it fixed tomorrow. I pay 23€ for the meal of his Pizza Dante; our bottle of Falanghina wine isn't as good as Ken expected from the name, but I manage to finish it, as I do the full bottle of carbonated water he also ordered. He SAYS that Neapolitans traditionally eat with their hands and tourists with knife and fork, but almost EVERYONE uses their utensils. Ken liked the southern lilt of the local dialect. He returns to hotel at 8:17, while I sit in the Piazza Bellini and WATCH the dynamics between the guys and gals, some straight, some gay, some wanting to be accepted. The "regulars" linger with double cheek-kissing and fondling the stomach of the apparently single woman who is probably pregnant. VERY complex sets of cliques. I go back to hotel, very tired, at 9:04AM. BED, under duvet, at 9:16PM, kids screaming outside, Ken's bag not returned yet. At 11:30PM it comes and he unpacks a bit, while I take the cover off the duvet because I've started sweating under it. Sleep almost instantly.
TUESDAY, 3/20/12: Wake and look at the time at 1:57AM. Then pee at 5:09 and type DREAMS:3/20/12. Up at 9:08AM, Ken having breakfast, remembering he said breakfast was from 7:30 to 10AM. I have breakfast to 9:50, miserable because of the two kids screaming in KEN's breakfast room and the two-year-old scurrying, just like a rug rat, across the floor in MY room, where I have a bowl of fruit, a glass of red juice because the other is grapefruit, some cheese and ham and salami and decent hot chocolate, and then a roll and butter and cold scrambled eggs. But I'm not hungry after that, and I just want to get away from the KIDS. Shit to 10:30AM. Ken's dental appointment is at 1:30PM, so we leave for the Palais Royale and get in at 11:10AM, free with the Arte card, and the stairway makes me laugh with astonishment, puzzling Ken greatly. The rooms seem to me somehow UNIFIED: rather over the top, but tastefully so. Take some pictures, particularly of a kind of special ceiling of plaster and gold, and avoid most of the other tourists. Leave at 11:57AM, sated. Stop on a street near Ken's dentist for good 2€ limonatas to 12:51PM, and I go to Castel Nuovo by many wrong routes, along bummy seaside, thinking it was the Maritime Building, which was much to the east of it. Frescoes by Giotto, maybe, were followed by those of Nicolo di Tommaso. At 2:11 I climb the stairs to the Hall of the Barons, magnificent in its bareness. 2:27 to funicular, which arrives as I enter the waiting room. Sadly, it's all in a tunnel, so I take no pictures except when I exit at the top. At 2:41 ask for 20 stamps at the little post office, but they only have FOUR STAMPS, for like 3.50€. Walk to the Certosa di San Martino, stopped to chat by a guy who had visited Brooklyn, whose uncle owns the cameo shop near San Martino, whose other uncle works for Tiffany's, and who wants to keep talking, but I fantasize Ken's waiting for me at 3PM at Castel Sant'Elmo, but it's closed, the guard says nicely, so I use my Arte card to get into San Martino, and the clerk has to find change for my 20€ note when my two "euros" turn out to be TURKISH coins with Ataturk on them. I hope she didn't think I was trying to pull a fast one. Buy GREAT general Naples book for 3€. Take lots of pictures, lingering luxuriously on balconies, amazed by the ship museum and all the side rooms with statues and paintings and even a classic "crib" donated by its maker in the 1800s. See museum exhaustively, interested that I'm not yet hungry, and board the bus at the top of the hill, figuring it'll take me SOMEWHERE at the base of the town, but when it keeps circling Vomera, I get off at the Funicular de Chaia at 4:53 and walk down to the Metro to find that the line happens to STOP at Dante! Travel 5:08-5:17, crowded until the penultimate stop, and back to hotel at 5:30 to find Ken just arrived! His tooth has been fixed, and he had free pizza and two cups of coffee before the dentist arrived late at 2:05PM. I tell him of my day, then pee and relax before we leave at 7:15 for Leon d'Oro, which IS where Claudio said it was. Ken has a linguini appetizer that fills him up, but impresses him with its quality, and we have a bottle of house wine for 8€, and my Cotelette Milanese is VERY good. Ken loves his fried sardines but can't finish them, and rather than my requested profiteroles, the waiter recommends the "house dessert" of fried dough for only 2€, and we leave sated to get back to hotel at 8:58. I start working on my journal at 9:03PM, while Ken complains, first about my sneezing, then about my coughing, and I finish to date by 10:15. We've left a wake-up call for 7:30AM, so if I'm lucky I'll get nine hours' sleep. Now to get to bed, relieving Ken, who's reading, naked, on top of the covers. Bed at 10:30PM.
WEDNESDAY, 3/21/12: Type DREAMS:3/21/12 at 2:19AM. It feels trivial, but at least I've slept over three and three-quarters hours. Wake and doze, and the phone rings at 7:43AM, rather late for a 7:30 call. Feel draqged out, as if I'm coming down with something, but that's rather typical, I tell myself, and the feeling improves during the day. 7:55AM: Get stuff together for the morning, Ken still hacking and shaving and running water in the bathroom, and I've got a need to shit. [Did very well, thank you.] Have an idyllic breakfast without children screaming, and quiet adult couples order their breakfast beverages. Have scrambled eggs, two slices of salami, a bit of ham, a big bowl of fruit, a cherry yogurt, hot chocolate, a VERY hard piece of bread with 1 1/8 pats of butter, and a large glass of what I take to be cranapple juice, not the rather acidic orange-colored liquid that Ken can't identify. Feel I'm stuffing myself, but maybe I can go without lunch again, which would be nice, since the veal Milanese last night wasn't as filling as the enormous pizza the night before. Now at 8:52 waiting for our guide at 9AM, having shown Ken the presepe photos from San Martino yesterday, when I had remarked about their being mentioned in his guidebook. So caught up I don't know what to do with myself. Also have ANOTHER discussion about Ken's endless throat-clearing, which he implies has something to do with aging, and he's sorry he can't help it. Driver phones at 8:54AM. Horrible traffic at all intersections because of the jams of cars coming into the city, and get to Herculaneum at 9:44AM. Ken waxes ecstatic about the guide, who's good enough, though it seems that many of the places are closed, and we have to avoid some that are jammed with other groups. Much more INSIDE the houses in the line of frescoes, paintings, mosaics, and colorings than I would have expected. We walk up and down, in and out, and see many of the things in the book that I bought at the Archaeological Museum, but missed other things. Take lots of photos, but get tired by the time we leave the site at 12:02PM, getting back to Tony at the gate, and Ken thanks Claudio with a 5€ tip. Into car at 12:04 and drive around and around, even going on the same road twice, because they're constructing new entrances to the freeway to Naples. Finally get turned around and back to the hotel at 12:46, Ken giving driver an extra 2€. Have an apple while Ken does all kinds of maintenance, and I decide to leave my bag and take only my camera and extra batteries to the Museum, to which we leave at 1:13. I have to pay 3.5€ at 1:23, half the entry, because I've already used up my three FREE Arte card entries. Get up to the "Secret [porno] Chamber" first, not really THAT great, and then to the mosaics on the mezzanine, which are Ken's top items. Up to the top floor to get rid of that by 2:26, and note that I photo Tiberius just before Hercules. Also Dionysus and Eros at 3:31. So tired that I sit before the Tyrannicides while groups come and go, and I finally continue taking photos, including Apollo, with lyre, in a strange dark stone. Try the Egyptian section in the basement, but only one room is open, just as other rooms were closed, and Ken, who says he's seen everything he can, did NOT see the model of Pompeii, which I would have seen had I known it was there. Exit by way of the shop, buying the mediocre Museum guide for 12€ and a good Herculaneum guide for 6€, both in English, putting the 18€ on my credit card, getting a good free Museum bag, and leaving at 4:05. To hotel to shit and pee and put batteries to charge just to make sure they work if I need them as replacements. Look at books to 4:44, and wonder what to do next, so try finding how to get my picture number on my camera. Ken comes in about 4:50 and orders a coffee in the lobby, so I join him and have LOTS of limoncello and nocello until 6:15, when we return to the room for Ken to throw things out and say we can leave for dinner almost at once. I catch up with this to 6:22 and get ready for Matteo Pizza. Leave at 6:35, sort of remembering the way. Get to the boarded-up facade, fearing it hasn't opened yet---they were turning people away from Sorbilla as we passed and they still weren't open for the evening---but Ken looks next door at the shop with the same name, and we're directed to the second floor: spare, paper tablecloths that slide as we sit at them, with a quartet of young Japanese as the only customers---well, no, the girl who asks for the pizza with French fries (and gets it!) is Italian---but the menu appears quickly and we order a Capriciosa and a Pizza Fritta: the first wonderful, the second a cheese-gritty, thick-pastry-crust mistake. And the Aglianico rot-gut red is so bad I have to finish it more or less by myself. We leave, full, at 7:58, but Ken wants gelato, which they didn't serve there---the bill was all of 15.5€---so we're looking for the Piazza San Domenico (where he remembers there's a shop), and we go down a few false alleys, totally dark, shops all shuttered. The graffito "Marieammashit" sounds vaguely Oriental. We get good directions from everyone we ask, and find the shop keepers at G. Scaturchio bringing in their chairs from Piazza Domenico Maggiore, but they take us into the back room, where we can choose among a dozen flavors, Ken taking the mille fragoli, and I jumping aboard the strachiatella. They give us two big scoops each for 3€ apiece, and I sit on a planter and finish mine, while Ken stands. We finish at 8:30 and get back to the hotel at 8:42. Edit photos---having found that simply pushing Display gets my photo-number back on my screen---from 242 down to 208, though some are still not very good or exactly in focus. That goes to 9:10, Ken already naked in bed and demanding that I look at the choices for Campi Flegrei for tomorrow's four-hour tour. I examine the material on the 18 pages in my small guidebook, while Ken disagrees with me with his enormous tome. Get lots of information, but it'll mostly depend on the driver-guide tomorrow. [I'd changed into a long-sleeved shirt for dinner, wearing my jacket, while Ken remained in shirtsleeves.] Bed at 10:02PM, fearing I might have a cold coming.
THURSDAY, 3/22/12: 1:02AM: Pee and type first two of DREAMS:3/22/12. 4:35AM: Pee and type third, quite elaborate, dream---my penchant for elaborate dreams during trips is returning. 7:32AM: Phone rings and I type fourth dream while Ken shaves in the bathroom, and I'm sweaty from the duvet that I covered myself with after the penultimate dream. But my cold seems to be allayed except for a runny nose. Finish in bathroom at 8AM, managing a small shit, and get out to breakfast in an again all-adult room. Take green tea for a change, but it's bitter and bad-tasting, so I don't know what to do for the future. Remark to Ken that my stomach is still jet-lagged, because it keeps saying WHAT are you doing trying to put all this STUFF into me? Eggs and bacon and ham and tea and a sugared roll finally soft enough to chew, and a kiwi for a sort of dessert. Back early to type while Ken finishes his late-ordered double Espresso. Type this to 8:52AM, ready to pack for the day. Phone rings at 8:55AM; the woman greets us and the man drives us off at 9:03AM. Enormous traffic. 9:34AM to Cuma Castle, LONG walk to the entrance, and then LONG flights of stairs and corridors inside for wonderful 8th-Century BC pottery, some good statues, even replicas of caves and "antra." Not that many major pieces, but a clean and professional exhibition---and we do NOT get to the third floor for the Rhina Terra, or whatever it is. Dash back to car, cursing the distances to go, and out at 10:22. To Cuma ruins at 10:42, 1€ entry, and AGAIN a long walk to the entrance, where an indolent woman points to the Cave of Sibyl, and it's only a cave lit with sky-holes along the side. Climb to the top of the hill to see horse-carriages conveying tourists along the Sea of Pozzuoli, and the heat-haze makes the far mountains invisible [I never DID get a shot of the fortress that's so impressive on the lake]. Don't see that much in the line of ruins, and get back to car at 11:06 and pee at 11:08 and Ken fusses about "one ticket for three places," as I sit in car and REST to 11:15. 11:27 to Anfitheatro Flavio di Pozzuoli, WELL WORTH the visit for the top attraction: 40,000 seats, an area for modern presentations, an underground maze of pillars and caverns and broken columns, few people under, groups of students shouting on the surface. Long time underground, Ken goes around outside, I sneak over barriers to shoot corridors above basement but below bleachers. VERY impressive brickwork of MASSIVE import. Flavian Amphitheater third in size behind those of Rome and Capua, and I can't think of the name of the big one [El Djem] in Tunisia. Out at 12:01PM and car comes for us at 12:03. To Solfitara for 12.2€ at 12:09, long walk AGAIN through woods for sulfur-smelling crater, with Fangaia having a bit of boiling mud, and the Grosse Buco, or whatever, having orange rocks issuing smoke that I take my first video of the trip of. Not at all impressive compared with Yellowstone or Vulcano. Out to car at 12:35, where the woman wonderfully suggests---when Ken asks if I want to go to Capodimonte this afternoon and I waffle---that they can leave us OFF there! PERFECT! Arrive at 12:55, making their obligation of four hours door-to-door for us also perfection. Stop at 1:12 to pay 8€ for a shared pastry and two quenching bottles of Schweppes Lemon for me (only 18.7 centiliters each). Then ANOTHER long walk across the park to the only entrance (at 1:24) to the enormous Capodimonte Castle. Up to the second floor for painting after painting: my memory of it as mainly presepes [literal translation: cribs] obviously wrong. Two or three El Grecos, many copies and some original Raphaels, many other famous names and paintings, including Breughel's "Blind Leading the Blind." #284 Jacob Van Oostsaanen's "Adoration of the Child" from 1512. Sexy Caracci fluvial god. #291 Caravaggio: "Flagellation of Christ," wonderfully dark and newly cleaned. Out at 3:40, tired from following Ken back the long way through galleries we'd already ignored to see a few mediocre pieces of modern art. Many of the rooms are totally deserted, and the total religiosity of the groupings, including multiple renditions of the exact same story, become rather boring after a bit. We go to the other two floors, stop to pee, sit for times before works, read some of the English cards (some misplaced in different rooms), and become totally tired of walking, sitting, and getting up. Out at 3:40. Get to the street much FASTER going back, and I board an empty bus that ends up going in a small circle and depositing me where I started just as Ken is getting on a JAMMED bus headed for the Archaeological Museum. I join him and get a seat fairly early, he only at the penultimate stop, which, at Via Braggia, should have been where we got off around the corner from our hotel, but we continue to the Museum and walk back from there. Off the bus at 4:12 and to the hotel at 4:28, to take most clothes off and just lie in bed, exhausted. Shower from 5:32-6:08, finding something odd about the novel ornaments at the sides of the tiled tub, which Ken says are specifically for handicapped people, as is the toilet across the way, about which I'd completely forgotten after the initial view of it on the first day. Out to the lobby to drink and chat with a couple from Clermont-Ferrand until 7:48, since Claudio said that his recommended restaurant, Canzuncella, doesn't really take reservations until 8:15PM, and I'm willing to wait. Leave at 8PM and Ken leads us endlessly around and down and turning and searching for street names and backtracking and trying again until finally finding it at 8:30, to be the second couple seated in the large place. I'm tired again, but the Prosecco given free at the start revives me while Ken goes to a FAR john (I settle for a simpler, nearer one). Finally get a bruschetta to start, and a plate of tiny anchovies with odd pasta-wickerwork pieces, and a couple dozen dough-balls that I rather like and Ken doesn't, so I'm glad when they take them away. Then a large pot of mussels, which aren't bad, but Ken loves them (though that may have contributed to his delicate stomach that night and the next morning), and then the singer starts and Ken HATES her, finally asking to be moved to the side room where she's less audible, when, ironically, she stops just then and comes to work at the cash register right behind Ken's seat! We get gnocchi (which Ken loves) and tubes of al dente pasta in tomato sauce for the next course, and then Ken chooses the whitefish and I the pork, his portion just tiny, mine of poor quality, with a very salty side salad of tiny green leaves. We down our food; I finish half the bottle of Prosecco; and Ken nearly finishes his whole bottle of red. We're astounded when the bill for 70€ appears, without accepting credit cards! I give him 35€ and he pays 35€ and vows to critique Claudio for not saying it was a "price fixed," high-priced for the singing, restaurant. Leave at 10:27, irate with the bill, and back to hotel at 10:50, backtracking AGAIN. I do sudoku 11:03-11:44 to digest and get to bed at 11:55PM.
FRIDAY, 3/23/12: Pee at 5:23AM and type first of DREAMS:3/23/12. Up at 9:31 to shit a bit, type another dream, and get to breakfast at 9:50-10:30, enjoying lots of the greasy bacon, and bridling when Ken suggests that, if he can't buy Cipro without a prescription here, I call Edgardo to bring a prescription down with him. I say HE should call, but he goes to the desk to find he CAN get it, and gets two 6-day (one pill/day) supplies of it, thanks be! I pack everything to 11:17AM, putting junk into my shoulder bag, which I'll have to leave when we go to the San Severo Chapel while waiting for the 2PM taxi to our new hotel. Finish typing to date at 11:47, throat still sore. [I took about 15 aspirin from my pill bottle, added to my dop kit, as I added Vicks and tooth flossers.] Warm in my T-shirt while I type, wearing a short-sleeved shirt today and packing away my jacket in my bag. [Lots of sorting accomplished, and actually threw away a few ounces of unwanted papers, remembering to take my water bottle from the fridge. Moved all my euros from my envelope to my wallet and coin purse, leaving $155 at the bottom of my shoulder bag.] Now 11:50 and I can pack THIS away in my shoulder bag---I guess I can take only my hat and my camera to the Chapel! Forget GoAhead badge. Leave room at 11:56, and walk to chapel 12:04-12:15. Great stuff, no pictures allowed, down to "body" exhibit and marvel at it, though "male" and "female" labels seem switched. Swathed Christ really worth all the photos. About a DOZEN eagle-eyes make SURE you don't take photos, protecting their 6€ entry fee. Out at 12:44PM, taking a picture of the perfectly plain facade. Get to San Lorenzo at 1:04, look through it, and stop at the Catacombs to find the next tour isn't until 2PM. Lunch to 1:40 on Ken's ice-cream snacks and my lemon soda. To hotel to call taxi at 1:55, take a last bit of free limoncello, and taxi comes at 2:01. Our Renaissance Hotel room is ready at 2:09 when we get there. [For the tour, meet in the bar at 6PM.] Check that Edgardo HAS registered here tomorrow. We're in room 633. Unpack to 2:34. Ken wants to see the waterfront, so we walk down to the base of the street where the Excelsior Hotel, our last-night hotel, is (waterfront not very interesting), and I jabber 3-3:26 with him about what to do between now and 5:15, when he wants to be back in the hotel. #306 Plaza of the Martyrs, after he leaves me to return to the Excelsior, convinced that we'll not be able to get ANY food at the hotel Easter Sunday, and it turns out he may be right: the guy at the desk tries to reassure him by saying we might be able to rustle up something to eat at the bar. Everyone may go out to dinner on Easter Sunday [but it turns out to be, says Edgardo the next day, in the afternoon so that everyone can go home in the evening]. I continue walking past the Ovo, with all the hotels and restaurants out in the sun facing the Adriatic. I'm getting tired of walking, but still want to get to the park at the foot of Via Chaia, which I finally do, after resting on a park bench for a while, noting all the heroic statue-reproductions on the other side of the park, where the hotels stop and the "common park" starts, which contains the aquarium that I may have seen before---but now I realize [6:46PM 3/25/12] that I brought along my Naples notes from my 1982 trip and haven't read them AT ALL. Get up energy to walk up Chaia, noting with irony that the MARTYRS are situated just after a street filled with Ferragamo, Pachotti, Valentino, Prada, Cartier, and Gucci. Walk to Toledo and detour into Galleria Umberto to stumble onto St. Brigid's at 4:51, finding the church almost terminally dark, but I take a picture of it anyway just to prove I was there. Sit a bit, and then back to room at 5:05, Ken JUST having gotten in. We talk with people from the enormous group of 41 from 6:05-6:50 in the lobby, led by Linda, and I have a small glass of champagne while Ken manages, through Linda, to cadge a second champagne, and I mostly sit and observe the group, talking to a very few and being talked to by the young trainee who talks to everyone. Then we leave in an unwieldy group, walk down to the corner of Castel Nuovo again, and then along the construction area, turning another corner, coming to the Sofi Restaurante and Pizzeria, sitting at a table with a sweet guy from Minnesota, his wife from the state of Washington (?), a talky old single woman, a boring world-wide traveler who's been on 162 cruises since 1980 and been to Antarctica thrice. Dinner of OK Pizza Capriciosa, too much of the red wine (according to Ken), and some of the old lady's better white wine. Leave there 8:30-8:42, thinking I know how to get back to the hotel, but I'm lucky and catch up with the people from my table who know to turn right at the main street, rather than left as I would have done. I leave a note for Edgardo at the desk to meet us when I think he's ARRIVING at the hotel (at 7AM), and do the English paper's puzzle and a sudoku to 9:45 and get to bed at 10:15. Can't get to sleep, stomach roiling, so at 11:30PM I take eight Rolaids and an Ambien.
SATURDAY, 3/24/12: 5:38AM: Shit and type DREAMS:3/24/12. Take Cipro #1 and two aspirins at 5:55AM. Up, suddenly, Ken in bathroom, and find that it's 9AM! At 9:15 we arrange to meet Edgardo and Marina at 9:30, and he recommends the Buffalo Farm near Paestum, and the Siren Baia de Ierant (?). We four have coffee on the roof after we two had breakfast there, and at 10:54AM leave hotel to search up and down Toledo for my coat for 79€, and drop it at hotel. To dock at 11:40 to TRY for earlier boat to Procida but fail. Sit on dock and chat till noon. [At Amalfi we're told we must take the Walk of the Gods, and also the Conca dei Marini, and see the Santa Rosa Monastery.] We get to Procida on the boat at 1:12, going across the bay through spray against our windows on the bottom deck of the jammed boat. On bus at 1:30 and ride around lots of the island until we get off at a small bay on the other side. Decide to try the Hotel Crescenzo Restaurant from 2-2:50, which turns out to have a good salad for Ken, tasty fish for Edgardo, octopus for Marina, and for me a VERY tasty contorno of eggplant, peppers, lettuce, and beans in a wonderful oil. I also drink a beer and lots of water. We want to find an old Thai-style bridge, but find the entrance to it locked. Ken refuses to climb up the wall as Marina and Edgardo and I do, and he pouts and leaves, WALKING back to the beach and ending in the bar, where we find him later. We three cross the bridge, I bully my way through the next locked gate (guarded by the angry landowner) to take one last picture, and then we go back across the bridge, where he lets us through the UNLOCKED gate. Search the small beach area, hoping to find Ken, but he's clearly gone, so Edgardo organizes a taxi for the three of us to tootle around the island, going up three or four hills, stopping for views, entering churches and museums, seeing great vistas over classic Neapolitan beach houses, taking lots of photos---I laughing with the driver and Edgardo and Marina---and getting to the beach at 5:30 to have a beer and lots of nuts, waiting for the boat at 6:05, which arrives promptly. We take a row of four on the top deck just behind the door, where Ken and Edgardo talk and Marina rests her eyes and I gaze out at the sea. Back by 6:45, tired, to the hotel at 7:01, where our keys won't work. Ken goes down in anger while I rest in a chair in the elevator hall. I take Cipro #2 at 7:10PM and pack to 7:43, since we have to leave EARLY in the morning, AND we have an hour's time change! Look through Ken's Saturday-Sunday Tribune, saving the puzzle for later, to 8:06. Leave at 8:15 to meet them at 8:20 and walk WAY down, AGAIN past the Excelsior, to a place with a Club name on the door and Felix on the final bill, where we get a table near the window and we talk long over the menu, and I order a Kir Royale, a veal with almonds (which is great), and a chocolate soufflé (which isn't that wonderful with an odd addition of cream to the chocolate). Ken's and Marina's appetizers come on ENORMOUS glass platters with mozzarella, beans, fish, pâté, and other items, while Edgardo has a plate of mussels and the waiter insists I have a plate (indeed delicious, which everyone shares) of cooked, slightly salty, wonderful-tasting spinach. Edgardo has some simple pasta disks filled with, maybe, squid, and Ken has a whitefish that he's not crazy about; Marina has a PILE of stuff on her plate with a shrimp on top, and Ken and I finish with the soufflé while Edgardo has the Baba au Rhum, ending with a GLASS of rum that he finishes as I finish my kir---served in a German commemorative glass from 2000---which is really very good. In the awkward pause at the end, I take out my credit card, Edgardo asks if I need US dollars---and maybe I should have said yes because it would have given him a chance to get rid of them?---but he piles bills on the check for 239€ and I get a receipt to sign for 120€. It's just later and later, the piano keeps on playing, Ken insists on tipping the guy who gives us our coats even though Edgardo said not to. We stagger back to the hotel at 11:30PM, change the clocks to 12:30AM, and I get to bed at 12:49AM.
SUNDAY, 3/25/12: 2:49AM: Up, disgusted, not able to sleep, take eight Tums and an Ambien, and finally drop off. Ken pokes me awake at 6:35AM. I take Cipro #3 at 6:46, dress to 6:52, bag out at 6:57, and down at 7AM for breakfast. Take time on the terrace to take pictures to 7:37AM, and find the bus is coming only at 8:30. Back to room at 8. To bus 8:15, where narrowing my shoulder bag JUST fits it into the shelf above our seat behind a VERY unpleasant woman who first lowers her seat onto Ken's KNEES! People talk to 8:28. Bus leaves at 8:37. Off in Benevento at 10:01, where my ear-whisper machine doesn't work at first. We're in MID-Italy, east-west, part of Apennines, 60,000 people in town. Tour at 10:30 and take #391 of St. Sofi and six columns from ISIS temple. #404 body of Apostle Bartholomew. Watch Trajan's Arch movie to 12:09, Ken saying it's too long. Ken refuses to look at my possible lunch place, so I stop for lunch at Maxim's Bar with two nice women from group for 3.5€ ham sandwich and lemon soda, leaving .5€ tip. To bus at 1:40. Stop at gas station 2:40-3:10 just over the border in Puglia. [Dinner announced for 8:15, meet at 8:10.] Arrive in Barleta 4:04, 4:20 to room 222, leave hotel 5:28 to great castle and museum and basement. Buy Puglia book for 12€ and back to hotel 6:26 to take Cipro #4 at 6:30 and type to 7:43, Ken saying I smell, so I decide to take shower. A QUICK one, made perilous by a VERY slippery tub bottom, but I get through by 7:58 and dress and get down by 8:10, when everyone goes across to La Brigantine for large tables where three gay guys and their two lady-friends insist we sit with them, and we have a HILARIOUS conversation that ranges from Rwandan gorillas to the Large Hadron Collider and Fringe, which the guy next to me---the one of the three who isn't Allan or Arthur---highly recommends because he says they talk about basic particles and alternate universes and he can't follow it, and only Arthur has access to Netflix, and he has never heard of Roku, through which I can probably get the first three seasons of Fringe. Mary-Beth is accurately described as reminding me strongly of Tilda Swinton---of whom Mary-Beth has never heard!---with her sweep of pale blonde hair, light blue eyes, and narrow, pale face. Rosemary (who blossoms when I say she looks like a young Maureen O'Hara) is the second of the two, and OF COURSE they recognize they're playing second fiddle to a bunch of guys who prefer going to bed with a bunch of guys, but they enjoy our company anyway. I drink white, then red (which is awful), then white wine through the evening, which started with a pasta that I barely touched, then a half-decent fish that Ken said was even BETTER than what he had at La Cantinella, better known to me as Felix, and they started comparing notes on great restaurants around Amalfi, Sorrento, and Ravello. Since I was drinking, the evening went wonderfully smoothly, I giving my card with "West Africa please" to Jenny Humphries and "Ajanta and Ellora, India" on Allan Broehl's card, which they exchanged with me, Allan insisting that he had few and I had to share mine with Ken. The fish was followed by a Charlotte of mostly ice cream and fresh fruit. Having drunk much too much, and eager for bed, I insist we leave. We get back to hotel at 10PM, asking for a wake-up call for 7:30 for departure at 9AM. I finish this at 10:15PM, ready to read up on tomorrow's itinerary: Castel del Monte (AM) and Monte Sant'Angelo (PM). Sort stuff out and read to 10:40, then sudoku 10:47-11:20PM, and bed.
MONDAY, 3/26/12: 3:11AM: Ken wakes me from my intolerable snoring; I pee. 5:30AM: Pee and type DREAMS:3/26/12. Then TREMENDOUS fugue: going through waterfalls: Iguazu, Sete Quedas, Angel, Kaieteur, Gavarnie, Yosemite, and Reichenbach and Trimmelbach; then extraordinary sex: Al JaK., Arthur M., Nick Veal (if that was the guy in DC---which led me to animals: the DC ocelot, the NZ lyrebird, the Ngorongoro lions), Louis Love, Bob Broadway, John A., Dennis, John C1 and John C2, and other Jewel Box experiences. May have dozed, since the phone at 7:31AM definitely jolts me awake to find Ken in the john. Wash face with the non-rinsing Dove Crème Soap, deodor for Ken, and dress in T-shirt and slippers to go to breakfast at 7:58, to be greeted by Allan and Mary-Beth and a few others with nametags still on. Only a hard-boiled egg, a bit of ham and salami, Del Monte (like the castle?) fruit, corn flakes, and nothing to drink except, they said, "orange, carrot, and lemon" juice. No sign of hot chocolate. Back at 8:28AM to add to the dream and type this to 8:38AM, Ken chuckling about something, reminding me to take my whisper-phone. Allan asks if we're ready for our walk, and I say, "W.O.K.?" and he laughs obligingly. Tell Ken that maybe it's the new hotel that's giving me an effect of déjà-jet-lag. I just DON'T feel RIGHT! Tired, listless, energy-less, not looking forward to anything. It does NOT feel like the hangover I might have expected from all the wine last night---though possibly that might contribute to it. Ken still clearing his throat and blowing his nose at 8:40AM. Forgot that I took Cipro #5 at 7:35AM. Put on the Caverzasis' new shirt and I discover to my delight that it has LONG SLEEVES! They had gotten me PRECISELY what I needed---even though it IS a bit small and shows the wrinkles of the T-shirt I'm wearing underneath---or is it all MY wrinkles? Ha. On bus 8:57AM, but it leaves at 9:15, my watch being four minutes ahead of the bus's clock. Teacher talks to me, complimenting me on the color of my shirt. To Castel del Monte at 10AM, past wonderfully yellow fields of spring flowers, interspersed with pink and purple and white flowering trees, and later purple ground flowers---really a wonderful time to visit, though the olive trees aren't fully in leaf yet. Daniella gives us LONG talks in a basically boring octagon of stone that I try to make interesting with interior shots and pictures of the village of Andia through the window. Everyone listens respectfully. Crowds flow in and out. Back to bus at 11:52AM, taking a pee and getting a spindly-spiny flower in a shot that Allan debates and doesn't take. Ken wants to go into Barletta for gelato, but I just feel tired and lazy, so I go to the room and lie down at 12:46, resting until he comes back, and we go to the lobby at 2:20, I having had nothing for lunch and only later, hearing the woman behind me on the bus talking about the roll and hard-boiled egg for the lunch that she took from the breakfast buffet, do I recall the benefits of Fred's "falaters." I should do the same tomorrow. Long ride, very flat countryside, strange coast AHEAD of us sporting a row of what look like apartment houses lining a good part of the crest of a wave, Ken saying it couldn't POSSIBLY be ten miles inland, but I say it would depend on the slope of the hill, and as we draw closer, indeed, the crest recedes and the foothills extend, and we suffer a dusty road-repair for a length of time that seems to delay us. Monte Sant'Angelo reached at 4:15 with a CHILLING wind that drives me down a stairs following who I THOUGHT was Daniella, but I get into the cave-church of St. Michael at 4:30 before realizing it is NOT she. Put in the "whisperer" and hear her, go back up the stairs, and there she is at 4:40 with the group in the courtyard of the sanctuary, talking about the tower and the history and the people involved in "seeing" St. Michael, who eventually expanded the hilltop to a kind of resort with rows of apartments down the hillside. We go down again to get involved in a mass that lasts until 5:20, I sitting while the others stand and undoubtedly fume. I persuade Ken to look at the OTHER cave at 5:27, taking #447 of a fresco done in 2004 (according to Ken's book), and then we're out at 5:37 to join Daniella in seeing another church at 5:42, at which time I leave them to go down to see more of the old quarter at 5:52, fearing getting lost, stopping a few people to ask for "autobus parking," and getting good directions, panting to the top again and finding the busses really before I expect to, paying 40 cents to pee, at 6:10, Linda assuring me that I'm in good time, and I sit in the warm bus until Ken arrives and we start down at 6:29PM, the sun setting as we lower into the valley, having to go back down the same way we came, taking the last picture at 6:43, depressed that I really can't capture the thrill of the winding road up and down. We then turn off on ANOTHER long road, going into the darkness, Linda saying she isn't going to tell us the schedule for tomorrow UNTIL we got to the hotel because everyone will forget, but then we get stalled in traffic and don't get to the hotel until 8:30, when Ken insists on going to the john while I wait, and then we're across the street to il Brigantino to join others of our group at different tables, and Ken has a pasta appetizer that's not that bad on my third taste, and a white wine called Castel del Monte (that Ken says he ordered for 12€, which appears as La Piana at 10€ on the bill for 61€, which I figure to be equivalent to his paying 48€ for our meals, since mine is 24€), a decent chicken Paillard ai Ferri, and his Scallopine Marsala was under-Marsala-ed. We have a good-natured dinner until 10PM, then back to the hotel for me to have Cipro #6 at 10:10PM; put on my jacket, since Ken left the window open when we went out this morning; and I finish this by 11:03, more than ready to get to bed, since HE insists on a 7AM wake-up call! Bed 11:16PM!!
TUESDAY, 3/27/12: 2:52AM: Pee and type DREAMS:3/27/12; it feels like I maybe didn't sleep at all, but I must have, because of the dream. Try to shit; it seems PART of the knee-scab fell off, but there's yet ANOTHER hard core of dead material remaining to dry and fall off AGAIN!! Drink water and manage one hard turd by 3:05AM. 6:39AM: Pee and type more dreams. Pee again at 6:48AM. Back to bed to wait for 7AM call, which comes at 7:02AM by my watch, and Ken complains that his alarm doesn't work. I lie for a bit, and then get up at 7:08AM, determined not to mope, but to prepare for the day in a productive mode: will soon have to replace my too-small earplugs; will not wear an undershirt under Edgardo's sweater, but carry my jacket in my shoulder bag for warmth if needed; pack a large plastic bag that I can remove from my shoulder bag for tours during the day; pack "good" clothes in the bottom of my suitcase so I won't even have to hang them up in the five hotels remaining, until I need to wear them. Put bag out at 7:33AM, after Ken has already left for breakfast, almost forgetting to put HIS bag out, and after I've succeeded in closing my suitcase very easily, having left my dop kit, pills, slippers, beret, and a few other bulky items (including spare glasses) in a Garden of Eden plastic bag that I can leave on the bus out of my shoulder bag when we're touring some town or other. Turns out I STILL don't have a real ITINERARY to look at, so I have to get THAT out at some point. Will wear only my slippers to breakfast to give my socks and shoes a better chance to air out. Two Tuesday-AM pills had fallen OUT of the pillbox, but I can match them from spares in the "first Monday" boxes---how handy can that be? Leave for breakfast 7:45, with Cipro #7 ready with pills. We sit alone until Loretta joins us, then Ken leaves and Loretta regales me with the tale of the guy she had to shepherd around Morocco because HE would get lost. [Up to type at 8:35, having no idea WHAT to do until the bus goes at 9:15.] Others from another group make the breakfast room a bit crowded. I ask for hot chocolate, and she asks, "Cream?" and I say yes, but it comes out DARK and THICK, so much so that I have to order more milk to dilute it enough to drink. 8:44AM: Ken sits, fully clothed, in bed, waiting for the half-hour before the bus leaves, complaining about how the driver won't supply the bus with water to flush the bus's toilet, and notes that in Alberobello they not only don't do laundry on Sunday, they don't do it on SATURDAY, so he'll have to take HIS stuff to the desk on FRIDAY to be done, and my stuff can join his if I so wish. Many of the people in the group seem to be almost AVOIDING others in the group: not even acknowledging them to be part of the group. Not that I mind, but it makes some of them look very angry all the time. But then I think, when two seats at our table had been empty for a long time, while Loretta really seemed to SEARCH for an alternative to our table before agreeing to join us, maybe WE give the impression that we don't want people around us, which may be true for ME but not for Ken. He agrees to try sitting in the back of the bus, which means to me that we should get on fairly LATE to see what seats may still be available, maybe even meaning that we have to share with OTHERS. On bus, full already at 9AM, except for LAST row of seats, and Ken starts bitching to the guy in front of him. Bus goes at 9:15, Loretta joining us in the middle of five seats, and we're off to Bari at 10:25AM, warmer, to meet Daniella outside the castle. Bari has 600,000 people. Linda suggests the yellow flower is wild margarita, which will all die out in April and be replaced by some purple flower. Regular margarita is white, which is why she thinks this is WILD margarita. We're starting with the Cathedral, which has a bishop. Photo of a patio with EXTERNAL piping for electricity, water, and waste, since nothing can be changed, at #497. #499 is the eight columns from the FIRST church, St. Mary of Good Counsel. #508 is Basilica St. Nicholas ceiling at 12:27PM in my first peek in. It was built in 1192. At 1:10 we're finished with the tour of the city, going in and out and around and about. Told to be back at 2:30; we mostly decide on the Locanda di Federico, nearby, where Ken wants the orichietti with turnip greens (which turn out to be broccoli rabe, just awful) with sardines (barely noticeable as a slight taste) and I share some with him before giving most of it back, having had my boiled egg with some of the water he got from the local fountain. Order a good fresh fruit dessert that includes wonderful pineapple, soft kiwi (unlike Ken's unripe breakfast kiwi), a huge tasty sliced strawberry, and three pieces of honeydew melon. Everyone very friendly at the tables. We go a long way around to the bus, which meets us on the main drag, and then drive 2:40-3:47 to a rest stop on the highway, where I can't bring myself to shit. Florence asks me about Iceland, not being able to decide among three next destinations for her aging body. Elaine is the name of the loquacious short-haired one. Loretta and I talk more than on the bus. Leave at 4:15, local scenery not much to talk about: fewer flowers, more olive groves, some with trees of incredibly thick boles, with upper branches, bare, bowed over so that the fruit is more easily picked. Stop for Lecce city tax at 5:11 and move into town at 5:31. [Tonight: drink at 7:15, dinner at 7:30.] Into room 402 at 6:05. Take Cipro #8 at 6:30PM. Shit at 6:35. Type starting at 6:40, interrupted by Ken talking about something or other, unpack to 7:05, and down to dinner at 7:30. 9PM: Back from an INCREDIBLE dinner with Manny and Rosemary and Art and Allan, with Linda paying for our THIRD bottle of rosé for the eight of us, with Mary-Beth telling the MOST incredible story of her GOING on the $75,000 RTW private jet that I'd dreamed of doing---for half price, with $200 in local currency on their table when they got to each different country. Ken goes to shower and at 9:05PM I can think of nothing better to do than the Sunday Times puzzle! Do that to 10:27, quite an easy one, start new earplugs, and get to bed at 10:23, Ken still reading, but I seem to get to sleep instantly.
WEDNESDAY, 3/28/12: 12:33AM: Pee and type DREAMS:3/28/12. Aware it's only two days to my birthday, and feel sad that Linda maybe hasn't had a chance to look at our passports to see when my birthday is. Phone rings at 7:44AM, waking me with Ken in the bathroom, and have breakfast 8:05-8:40, with the group of three talking mostly with Ken while I fill my stomach with Rice Krispies, hot chocolate, juice, ham, prosciutto, cheese, fresh yogurt, and a roll and butter. Back to room to type until Ken returns to report that Mary-Beth's last name is Ortballs! [Start file 2 on 3/28/12 at 9:04AM.] He thinks it's Flemish; why, I'll never know. He sends out over $50 in his own laundry and two shorts and two pair of socks for me, hopefully not much over $10. He goes down to make a dinner reservation, having checked that the museum is closed 1:30-2:30, but I'll still meet him in town. He's somehow convinced, though the board says the bus leaves at 9:30, that it'll leave at 9:15 if we're all there, so I catch up with this at 9:07AM and prepare to put on my shoes and socks and go down to the bus at 9:14AM. Quick ride to Porta Napoli for a history and pictures, walk past Teatro Paisiello, the Palazzo Costantini, and the Basilica di Santa Croce, taking #543 of the Cathedral's interior at 11:38; to the Roman Amphitheater for the meeting place for those going on the 2PM tour, and at 11:50AM change batteries. [THIS reminds me, with a jolt at 10:19PM, to put on my batteries for recharge!] Go too far to try to find the gelateria Linda referred to as being the best in all of Italy, if not the world, and come back to look on the OTHER side of the street, and see the pretty blonde and the small woman Ken identifies as "Barbara 2" inside Natale, and go in and ask them if THIS is the one recommended, and they say yes. I wait a long time to order a piccolo coupe of liquorizia and strachiatella, very good, for 1.8€, at 12:10-12:30PM. People-watch (MANY!) to 1:45PM, and then do sudoku, greeting three women, Mary-Beth, Barbara 2 and her partner, and the three guys, to 2:05, when I walk across Viale XXV Luglio to Viale Francesco Lo Re, which turns out to feature old palazzi behind gates, to the Ceramics Museum, which is open when I get there at 2:15PM. Shit to 2:20PM, and go through the ground floor and meet Ken on the second floor (ceramics), where he cums over the quality of the retrieved Greek vases, and we're to the top floor, and then to the paintings gallery for more, Majolica and others, taking pictures of a few nice erections, then out at 4PM to return to the square, where Ken has grappa---I have two tiny sips---and then I do more sudoku while he returns to the Cathedral to have to settle for a book on Lecce instead of one on the Cathedral, as he wanted. Back to hotel to talk and read, typing some, getting the laundry for 62€, and I figure that the socks were .7€/pair, just under $1 [and it turns out I return home with two unused pair of socks]. Get that sorted out after he goes down for the bill and gives it to me. Leave at 7:50PM for Osteria degli Spiriti 8:10-9:15, getting an appetizer with so many courses: mushroom tart, vegetable tart, roll of other vegetable, a nothing potato puff, another small puff that Ken says includes fish, and GREAT vegetables (which he takes most of, then gives lots BACK to me when I convince him to tell waiter I do NOT want the cotelette d'agnello), while Ken gets his pasta, which I have a few forkfuls of, and we have an 18€ white Chardonnay from Puglia, while looking at others coming and going. Good meal, Ken paying the 51€ total and strongly suggesting we merely SHARE the total. Back to hotel at 9:45, type a bit, put on batteries to charge, and look at slides to 10:37PM, and then type to this point to 10:50PM, ready for an early bed, morning call in for 7:15AM for 8AM luggage out and 9:30AM bus departure. Very mixed good and mediocre day! Update with laundry to 10:52PM. Bed 11:04PM.
THURSDAY, 3/29/12: 1:04AM: Pee and type DREAMS:3/29/12. Take four Tums and finish typing at 1:12AM. Take four more Tums as I get back to bed. To sleep quickly, and then Ken wakes me because I'm snoring. Back to sleep again, and then have a TERRIBLE nightmare that takes me to the toilet to type at 4:48AM. Typing the dream to 5:01AM barely relieves the bad feelings from the nightmare, and I even find myself starting to type this comment into the full file 1 by mistake, slightly adding to the dread lingering from the dream. JUST AWFUL! Got to get back to bed with Actualism to feel better about this! Try starting Actualism, but I fall asleep, and wake about 7:05AM, pee before Ken gets into bathroom, and hear phone ring about 7:15AM. Get ready for my shower and almost completely pack by 7:25AM, filling this in. Shower 7:30-7:52AM; I SWEAR I heard Ken say he'd leave the key, but I don't see it ANYWHERE. Take a shampoo. Find I FORGOT to pack the contents of my bag in two DESK DRAWERS at 7:56AM, but the bags are still there, so I haul mine back in and put papers in the outer case for the first time and get it back out at 7:59AM, others still waiting in the hallway. Almost had a LOAD for my shoulder bag! Down to breakfast in slippers at 8:05AM. Elevators take ages: baggage and people crowding both---of the only two. Sit with the three guys and Ken, and then "Lucia" joins us, actually talking rather well with Allan about various points in South America. I eat Rice Krispies, two slices of pineapple, ham and cheese and prosciutto, juice, and hot chocolate not nearly so dense as in the last hotel. Leave the two of them talking as I depart. Back up to type at 8:43AM, listening to air hammers in the distance. Ken has the absurd idea of going down to check if the bus is loading 47 minutes before departure (at 8:43AM with a 9:30AM departure), and, if it is, COMING BACK UP to get his bag to reserve the seats. I INSIST that by the time he comes back up the seats he wants will be gone, so he condescends to take my jacket to spread across the seats if they are in fact available. GOODNESS! The sun is really warm streaming in through the open window, and I've put on my last clean short-sleeved shirt in the HOPE of a warm day, and also to give the group a chance to see that I have more than the shirt Edgardo gave me. Allan actually notices Ken's new jeans, and guesses that they would have cost $78---how he came to that I have no idea---and is floored when Ken says they were 90€. From Ken this morning, of things he'd left, I've taken: a small plastic bag for my eggshells, tissue wrapping to blow my nose, and water from his bus-obtained water bottle. He's back up at 8:50AM to say that the bus is IN FACT there, and he DID use my jacket to reserve the seats, and took his bag to go down NOW to put under the seat on the bus. We may as well plan to leave a half-hour earlier. "Lucia" lives at 24 Fifth, and we chat about the number of restaurants that have come and gone in the building, though she doesn't see my logic that it's a rather poor place for an expensive restaurant. "But it's Fifth Avenue!" she exclaims. "But Fifth Avenue isn't densely populated, there aren't enough people to supply a clientele for such a large restaurant at such costs." She doesn't see my reasoning---which of course is impeccable. Vicks my lips again, giving them a preternatural shine---akin to the thick pancake on the forehead and cheeks of an attractive kid flanked by two pretty girls on the street yesterday. My shirt, outside my pants to avoid revealing as much of my paunch-protrusion as possible, still looks pretty bad. Now at 9AM there's nothing left but to put on my shoes and socks, pack my slippers and Neo, and go down for the bus. We leave at 9:18AM by my watch, but 9:14AM, a minute early, by the bus's clock. Not very interesting ride back to Brindisi in order to turn off to Ostuni, which we start seeing at 10:36, stopping in the lot at 10:50AM, getting to square at 11:21, taking a long time for seven or eight of us to use the single-hole john at the "Blue Eyes" place, where we should have stayed, because later he gave away not only lemons and grapefruit, but cakes and candies. Finally with the group up to the square, where I take a picture of a couple in wedding garb at 11:27. We walk up to the closed cathedral (now only a mother church), and to the edge of the hill for the panorama at 11:42. That's the end of the tour, so Ken and I and Tom (the single three-Antarctica-trip guy Florence finally gave a name to) stop to have gelati: I a fiordelatte and a limone, Ken a single gelato of something with baba au rhum. When we finish, we start down, where I take a picture of the church at 12:14, and then get back to the main square, where Ken wants to find a Bancomat, and I decide to start up a side street at 12:46---also maybe looking for a corner into which I can pee---but don't find any place interesting, so back to the square to see Ken and six others having snacks at a gelateria. I sit with them, then chase after the wedding couple PUSHING A BABY, but sadly they refuse to let me take their second picture, obviously realizing that I want to make fun of them. I at last ask if I can use the john in their gelateria, and the girl is very nice when I tell her how much I enjoyed my liquorizia gelato at ANOTHER place, letting me into the john. The group gathers slowly and we leave at 1:35PM, walking the long way back to the bus, which finally leaves at 1:50PM. Sadly, have to change batteries AGAIN at 2:10, having used the blue ones for LESS THAN A DAY! Glad I have my recharged green ones with me. Continue over the plateau past some very nice houses with new-stone fences, and see our first trullo at 2:08. I spend a lot of fruitless time trying to take pictures of them from the bus, where they're quite beautiful in their natural surroundings, but have to wait until we get to Grand Hotel la Chiusa di Chietri, five kilometers from Alberobello, which Ken tells me we'll tour tomorrow morning, and as we drive into the grounds [dinner in the hotel at 7:30], Linda tells us about the hotel trulli, which we see 3:46-3:53 (after waiting quite a while for our luggage, during which time I lay on the bed complaining about feeling VERY tired: could this be part of my recovering from stopping my five days of Cipro?). We walk way around the twelve guesthouse trulli, through outdoor ballrooms and gardens and tiny Japanese wooden bridges over streams, and then in through an enormous meeting hall, then into the lobby, where I see Ken looking at the Strega on the menu in the bar. He tries it at about 4:05, offers me some, but it seems sweeter than I remember. Then he asks for a small sample of the digestif "Trulli," which isn't nearly as bitter as SOME of the Italian digestifs, but a little goes a long way. Florence stops by, we invite her to join us, and she starts complaining about how she's forced to have an expensive dinner in the hotel tomorrow night because there's nowhere else to go, since she's not joining the tour (which includes dinner) with everyone else. I ask what she thinks of the trip and, as I rather expected, she agrees with me that she wouldn't recommend it to anyone, which surprises Ken, who obviously likes it much more than we do. She and I both feel that everything is much the same, nothing is really THAT worthwhile seeing---and then she starts speaking very highly of how intelligent Tom is. She asks about our backgrounds, which we give briefly, and then Ken asks about hers, and she's been "in social work," raised two sons, and has a total of five grandchildren, whose lives she proceeds to describe in GREAT detail, until I've had just about enough, and at 5:09 I say I have something I have to do in my room. Start typing 5:13-5:45 and then take my OWN pleasure with sudoku! That goes to 7:20, actually getting boring---eyes closing---toward the end. Wash face, get pills out to be refilled, and find I packed my evening pills TWICE tonight---no WONDER I found the slot in the pillbox empty! Down to dinner at 7:29AM, being, wonderfully, INVITED to "Les Six," as Ken has started calling "the four gay guys and two fag-hags." I choose "Daddy" at the head of the table and Ken, sadly, has to sit next to "the loser" at the other end of the table, whose name Ken can't remember. Manny IMMEDIATELY takes to talking with me about "Belle de Jour," who was at "Fire Island in the late 80s" and was a dominatrix who enjoyed hammering nails through the foreskins of willing masochists. I am astounded at his forwardness, and talk with Rosemary about him and all the others, and I drink the champagne we were offered by the three hostesses as we entered, and then unending Chardonnay and red wine on the table, and I get drunker and the table wilder, and Allan and Art quieter and quieter compared with Manny and Rosemary, with Mary-Beth definitely in a minor mode. The starting pasta is pretty poor; then comes the fish, which I eat little of, and then three flavors of ice cream for dessert. By that time I am roaring, everyone is laughing, and even Florence seems happy with being taken over by Rosemary and Mary-Beth and whoever of Les Six were taking her to Alberobello while the others of us went to dinner on the tour. Linda DOES know about my birthday, which makes me happy [and everyone also celebrated Rosemary's birthday on April 2, the last day of their tour]. Back to the room at 9:42PM, when I start with my pills, which take FOREVER, but I finally finish about 10:40 and put the Band-Aid back into the dop kip, put the "orphan because I needed the pillbox" aspirin and melatonin into one of the empty Wednesday pillbox slots (with all the spare pills in the other, to be sorted out when I return), and I'm set through NEXT TUESDAY, back in New York for one day, and Ken goes exasperatedly to bed at 10:42, while I finish typing this by 10:49, feeling VERY good to be finished with BOTH the pills AND this journal. Bed at 11PM EXACTLY, but then up to Vicks my nose and lips and get back to bed a few minutes after.
FRIDAY, 3/30/12: 4:52AM: Wake with a sore throat, take a Fisherman's Friend, and pee and type DREAMS:3/30/12. Sneeze a number of times and blow my nose; type the first dream and can't remember the second one. Finish typing second dream 5:03AM and go back to bed. Pee at 7:27AM and lie awake until 7:40, when I pull back the curtains, wake Ken, and find that our wake-up call was for 8AM and our departure is 9:30AM. "Sorry," I say. "Too late for that," replies Ken. I look VERY aged in the mirror as I type at 7:45AM, but I'm certainly gratified that the group at the table last night, at least, seems not a jot to be concerned about how I look or how I dress. Pluck ear-hairs. Ken answers phone at 8AM and goes to breakfast; I follow at 8:15AM. Great cheese-hardened omelet bit at the end, with ham and cheese and toast, along with hot chocolate so thick I pour it into two cups to dilute with milk. Orange sections and melon bits, red-orange juice, ending with nothing blue-colored not-blueberries, and tart maybe-lingonberries, so adhesive that I brush my teeth afterward. Type to 9:13, prepared for 9:30 bus, and noting 3:15AM (ha!) departure for tour of the caves, up to one-kilometer walk! On bus 9:20, all wishing me "Happy Birthday." Driver calls "Lucia" "Barbarella." Off bus at 9:50 at Alberobello parking, and ride up top on fourth shuttle at 10:10, walking and taking pictures to sit, tired, in square at noon. Single lady [Elaine?] comes by about 12:30 to offer me a free gelato, and I take her up on it with Amendola (or whatever almonds are), delicious with tiny bits of almond that I dig from between my teeth for the next half-hour. Ken happens to be in the same place, and later comes to chat with me when I'm sitting back in the square. File down to the shuttles back to the bus area and get into the bus to be handed a brightly wrapped package from Linda, wishing me "Happy Birthday," at which the entire bus sings "Happy Birthday" to me and I respond with "Mille grazie," to which someone responds "Grazie mille," so I say it that way once. Back to hotel at 1:30 and unwrap a bottle of Negro Amaro, a dry red wine, and debate taking it to the group to share, but Ken's still talking with Linda and the two trainees about his trouble making transfer changes from the last hotel, wrongly listed, in Sorrento, so I go back to the room and wait for him to come up. He says it'll be OK if we share the wine at a meal on our own after the tour, since sharing it with ANY of the group would be "against" the rest of the group. Lie in bed, looking at his book on Alberobello, seeing that the Siamese Trulli MAY have been Siamese, rather than aborted as I thought, because the book describes an exit from the "twin" on the street in BACK, which I didn't see or bother to check. Then up at 2:25 to have my boiled egg with the rest of the cold water which I'd left in the fridge, filling the bottle and putting it back, and substituting my jacket for the long-sleeved shirt I wore against the morning chill in Alberobello, not needing it in the sun, but Ken reads that the caves may be as chilly as 15 degrees. He dozes while I type this to 2:40PM, nothing to do before the 3:15 bus but, maybe, try to shit. As I finish typing, a feeling of extraordinary---well, maybe more and more ordinary---lassitude falls over me: wishing the trip were over, fearing what still might go wrong, wondering about the walking in the cave, worrying more and more about the weakness in my left knee. But I should rouse myself, try to shit, and get back to sudoku to keep me from falling asleep (as I fear Ken may be in danger of doing) now at 2:42PM. To caves 3:10-3:45. In Grotte di Castellana 4:10-5:10PM, VERY large rooms, many small areas of new formations, but regrettably many large areas of ruined old formations: obviously there's been LOTS of seismic activity in the million years of the cave's formation, and stalactites have fallen, stalagmites have broken, levels have collapsed, possible contacts of columns have shifted, and many of the lights have spawned disastrous moss formations. The "imaginative" formations are mostly a loss: I never DO see the ballerina, and the "Little Virgin" is no more than a phallica symbola. One small formation like a slice of bacon at the end. And I'm TIRED from the hour's walk. On bus for the short ride to Massaria Papaperta, where I start taking pictures at 5:47, amazed by the beauty and utility of the place. Continue until everyone goes inside for dinner at 6:30PM, starting with frizzante water and red wine, and I drink and drink, and Allan keeps talking about my birthday and coming on to me, and Art and Manny comment from across the way, and the single guy who's taken up with "Lucia" sits to my left and says very little. We get a number of bruschetta-type appetizers, vegetables from which I pluck the largest mushroom, then a pureed fava-bean with turnip greens dish, then more dishes before the only MEAT dish: sausage, beef, and a meatball with delicious potatoes, all of which I eat very little of, while drinking much. EVERYONE insists that this should be added PERMANENTLY to the itinerary: it's a real SMASH. Linda goes into incredible detail about her mother, excuses me for making fun of her accent, and seems to appreciate my praise of her pronunciation of Italian towns. Meal ends with everyone tasting four liqueurs [rosolos, Ken learns they're called] from laurel, rosemary, strawberry, and lemon, the last being the most accessible, since the others are more chemical-tasting than fruit-tasting. Go to the john, take pictures of the planet Venus above the lit stable doors, and back in the cold---forgetting my card from the place, so I'm forced to take photos of Ken's. [Note that it's ROSEMARY that I've been calling the woman other than Mary-Beth.] Bus IMMEDIATELY to hotel at 9:27, told that our bus driver's last day is tomorrow. Ken calculates we've been driven for 7 days, at a recommended $3/day, and I'm prepared to put $20 into an envelope for him. Catch up with this at 9:56PM, Ken packing; I'm not even STARTING to think of the task ahead. See that we have FIVE hotels ahead of us in the ten days remaining of our trip. Wake-up call in for 7AM, with bags out at 7:30, and 9AM departure for our LAST hotel with the group, and breakfast, lunch, AND dinner included tomorrow. Absolutely incredible that I pack EVERYTHING (well, except dop kit and pills) into my suitcase and CLOSE it (with papers on top) by 10:10PM! Finish it all by 10:23PM, amazed that a GREAT evening can end so easily. Tomorrow "taken care of," and that's the end of MARCH! Then only the nine days of April to go before HOME. Bed about 10:27PM.