Marj wishes to make an announcement

Several readers / fans have commented that, while enjoying our many and varied postings, they find that one small omission limits their satisfaction with their experience as armchair travel companions. That small omission is the lack of any proof that Marj is indeed along on the trip, not stuffed in an abandoned piece of luggage.

Have no fear. My very good friend and fellow signora, thought kindly to document my existence at a time when an ungainly but necessary maneuver was the only means of retrieving our luggage from the bowels of the bus. Believe me, I had the sensation — and I know several former colleagues who will understand exactly what I'm talking about — of being on a photo shoot with Lisa or Perry, although this kind of situation occurred rather more frequently with Perry.

THANKS FOR THE PHOTOS KATE!

Brooks' last day in Roma

Brooks' Last day - número 21 An inauspicious start. I woke up early. Answered some email, tried to upload a picture into this blog to no avail, but the big event was yet to come. I kept thinking of a nun from yesterday. She rode next to me for six hours on the train from Lecce to Roma. She kept crowding me. Elbowing me. Kate said I had six hours. She and others had to deal with pushy nuns for years. Kevin announced Ann B. Davis, former star of Love that Bob and more recently of Brady Bunch acclaim, slipped in the bathroom and killed herself. OK. Kevin takes a shower and comes out with a towel around his butt and announces he has splashed a lot of water in the shower. Oh goody. Kate announces there is one more church to view before they go off to the airport. I haven't seen a church in days. I don't want to break my lucky streak. Don't read too much into that previous sentence. Once the door closes on my intrepid church seekers, I get up to take a shower It is a bathtub with a fragile plastic sheet that extends along only half of the tub. It barely touches the bottom of the tub. I adjust it to minimize the amount of spillage. I turn on the water. The soap is located in a dispenser at the end of the tub away from the shower head. I get a little soap and reach for the shower head. The next think I know I am holding the shower head and I have slipped and crashed through the little shower wall. The edge of the bidet has stopped me from going all the way to the floor, but my head has struck it rather severely and I roll over onto the bathroom floor. I hurt in many places but the shower is now flowing onto my chest and then to the floor. I place it into the tub and get up slowly without slipping again. Unfortunately, I am still covered with soap. I gingerly return to the tub and rinse off. I curse as I dry off. My face hurts. I dress and dry up the water and stare in the mirror. I have a dent on the right side off my face. I curse some more. Have I dented a bone?That makes no sense: one side of my face must be swollen. I take a few naproxen: pain and anti-inflammatory pills. Wait. The best is still yet to come. I go down for breakfast. Two men stand behind the concierge desk. They cheerfully greet me. Buon giorno. I respond Buon giorno. How are you doing sir he says in his heavily accented English. I say, "I'm glad you asked. I slipped in the tub." He says horrified, "You slept in the tub. That is terrible. What is your room number sir?" "No. I slipped in the tub." I point to my swollen cheek. "Perhaps, I should see the hotel doctor?" They both look at my face. Shake their heads negatively. "That is nothing. You are fine. Have you had breakfast yet? Go straight through those doors." I thought I was in a scene from "Fawlty Towers." I was waiting for John Cleese to ask me why would I want to do a stupid bloody thing like that for. "Like what?" "Sleep in a bathtub. Who was in your bed? You know you only paid for a single." "No you fool. I didn't sleep in the tub. I slipped in the bathtub while taking a shower." "Well. I didn't slip. You did. Did you break anything?" "Only my cheek," showing it to him. "Perhaps I could see this hotel's doctor?" "Oh. Now I get it. Trying to pull a fast one. Your face is fine and you think I'm running a bloody hospital. Get out. Go on with you. Breakfast is in the next room. Try not to fall before you get to your cereal." I enter a crazed dining area. People are all around me. I'm not feeling well and folks are jockeying for position to get their toast and juice. I go to the coffee machine that is dispensing all types of coffee: cafe, cafe latte, cappuccino and all with a push of a button. It regurgitates some foamy brown stuff. I grab a sad looking croissant and join Kevin and Kate. I show them the side of my face and share my woeful story. Kate is properly upset for me. She says you are going to have quite a bruise. Kevin proceeds to regal me with various horror stories. "First Ann B. Davis and now you. In high school I knew a boy who hit his head in gym class. He got up like he was fine. He went home and got into bed. He never got up again." Now my face is really starting to hurt. Marj and Phil have joined us. Phil says nothing and shakes his head. I take a bite out of the dreadful croissant on the side of my mouth away from injury. Owww. It hurts I say and it is on the opposite side. Marj who has been silent up to now, says, "that's not good." I'm starting to feel sad. I've had better coffee at the Greyhound station in South Station. I push my "breakfast" away. I go up stairs and lay on my bed. Kevin and Kate return to get their luggage. As they go out the door, Kevin warns me not to fall asleep. That could be dangerous he says, as he reminds me of the boy who never woke up. I say Kevin I have a nine hour flight ahead of me. He throws up his hands, "don't say I didn't warn you." Ugh. The day has barely begun.

Marj and Kevin: is that who I think it is?

As the putative "fast train" lopes its sluggish way up the Adriatic coast towards Roma I find myself with some time to describe a uninvited but welcome member of our hardy band of travelers heretofore unintroduced--that international star of stage and screen, Morgan Freeman. Like the Phootes, this persona slowly revealed himself throughout the journey as Brooks accepted somewhat unwillingly this second identity. Heads in piazzas across Italy turned to stare when Brooks was recognized not as the professor/tourist we all know and love but the implacable and dignified, albeit slightly grizzled, driver of Miss Daisy or portrayer of the president in countless summer blockbusters that feature invasions by alien beings. Not infrequently and, in fact, as many as 3-4 times a day during the past 3 weeks, while negotiating public spaces, cappacini queues, epicerie isles, bus stops, piazzas, the escalator, the funicular, one among our group would hear a native speaker gasp, astonished, l'italien-accented: "MORGAN FREEMAN!" Really. It kept happening. Once in Napoli it was "DOCTOR J!" but that was an incongruous Napoli misunderstanding. Who knew they followed basketball? Although he feigned annoyance, he actually brought it on himself. Early in the trip he bought himself a natty straw fedora which he proceeded to wear at a rakish angle hat, a sartorial flourish that, in tandem with his dark shades, says "This is a fraudulent attempt at pretending I don't want to be recognized by assuring that I stick out in a crowd." The effect was exacerbated because Italians tend to be a lot shorter than Brooks and mostly not Black. WE INTERRUPT THIS POSTING FOR A TRAVEL/TECHNOLOGICAL UPDATE: IN ITALY IT IS NOW POSSIBLE TO BOOK SEAT ON A TRAIN WITHOUT INVOLVING PAPER AT ALL. THE CONDUCTOR JUST CHECKED MY SEAT VALIDITY BY READING THE CONFIRMATION NUMBER OFF MY IPAD SCREEN, NOT ON A PRINTED COPY OF THE RESERVATION. THE TIMES THEY ARE A' ...WELL, YOU KNOW. Now back to this tale of personal transformation. Another "tell" that helped create a stir and some, eye rolling and finger pointing as Brooks/Morgan lounged with the other "gentlemen of a certain age" in the afternoon sun' was Brooks '/Morgan's insouciant way of topping off a day's outfit with a sweater draped over his shoulders and knotted casually under his neck. This fashion choice just screamed "I may be as old as these guys but I'm still one roguish devil." While we were all more that willingly to bask in Mr. Freeman's star luster, we were somewhat disappointed in Brook's unwillingness to use this personal resemblance to get us free tickets, second cups of cappachino, free liters of wine, etc. What's the use of paying the price of fame if you can't get your friends free stuff, eh, Mr F (as his friends call him). We began to devise methodologies for taking advantage: MORGAN FREEMAN likes his cappuccino HOT, per favore. MORGAN FREEMAN would prefer the table with the VIEW OF THE PIAZZA, per favore. Per favore, CHARGE IT to MORGAN FREEMAN's account, and so on. Meanwhile Brooks felt the need to keep insisting that he is, in fact, MUCH YOUNGER THAN MORGAN FREEMAN, thereby ruining many of our efforts to capitalize. Really? Not THAT much.

Finally Phil's First Filing

"There's a Lot to Like About Lecce"

They celebrate Republic Day on 6/2 (along with most of Italy) to recognize getting rid of the Mussolini supporting monarchy. Happy Republic Day everyone!

Friendly stranger in a Mercedes who leads us to our B&B (thanks to Marj). Second day in a row this has happened.

Five men from a store across from our B&B who speak little English try to help us with directions to Hertz. The guy I spoke to at Hertz said it was too complicated for him to give me directions and we should ask someone. So here we are. After much "left, right, under the pont, up, right, left, right" and much gesticulating we thank them and decide to park the car for the night.

Ample public parking if you wait for 45 minutes for some asshole on a cell phone to leave and have 2 goons (Kevin and Brooks) to keep the other desperate and dangerous drivers from stealing the space before you can figure out how to get your spiffy fire engine red Fiat 500L into reverse.

Historic main square hosting a 4 day holiday weekend festival with food, arts and crafts booths and music. Bright lights among centuries old buildings, statues and ruins.

Two Rooms overlooking the magical square and one room looking into the garbage strewn internal "courtyard" from where I type this.

Delicious food at a casual family style restaurant (had the same dish 2 nights in a row - adventurous) cafe con latte and ice cold lemoncello. It all made the somewhat stressful travel day fade into a pleasant memory. Suddenly there was no need to flee back to Rome prematurely. As a wise woman once said "life is life". Actually she has said it ad nauseum.

An easy drive on Saturday morning with Marj to our local friendly Hertz shop, gassing or dieseling up on the way. Why did I pull into the self serve pump when a very helpful attendant had to do the whole transaction for me? Never saw a pump like that before and everything was written in some foreign language. Later, I see the store owner who helped with directions the night before. He gives a questioning look and I communicate mostly non- verbally that we were successful. I thank him the best I can. He smiles and seems happy he could help. Very nice people we have encountered. The kindness of strangers much in evidence.

A gallery hosting an opening of enamel art work. The building was hundreds of years old, had been a church and still had original frescos on the walls next to a jewelry store located in a beautiful cave like building we browsed in briefly.

Many churches, weddings and brides walking around the city - some radiant some not so much on the happiest day of their lives. We stayed in one church for 30 minutes to watch the arrival of a bride we didn't know and would never see again (except for later that evening in the square after she'd changed from her white gown to a red dress). We seemed to have differing opinions as to whether this was time well spent.

Wonderfully bad translations to English in a museum showing beautiful cartapesta art work. That's paper-mâché to the uninformed.

Many men suddenly appear selling umbrellas as soon as a rain drop falls.

Cannibal panhandling for euros in a cafe.

Cobblestones that turn into ice when wet.

There are many more things to like about Lecce but right now the best is a comfortable bed in a quiet room. Time for sleep. Good night.

BULLETIN - Old man Brooks bonds with his Italiano peers

Lecce 5/31/14 -- I'm sitting in piazza in front of our place while my room is being cleaned. I have been typing away for half an hour. I look up from my ipad as two long legged beautiful women walk by: one with a short skirt and the other in a pair of snug translucent black tights and an equally snug top that barely touches her waist. She is wearing high heels that causes significant movement. One must smile. As I look down again there are two men sitting several feet a way on two chairs. They have been chattering away happily ever since I sat down. All of a sudden they were silent. I look to my left and one says to me as he looks towards the women walking away. (He speaks to me in Italian. So I am translating.) Why didn't you take foto. Such beautiful TA TAs he says. I smile and snap my fingers feigning disappointment. They both roar in approval and resume talking and smiling. Old men from different countries having a moment.

Kevin: The Colossus of Roads

One of the things I hate most about traveling is, well, traveling. What I mean by that this not that I don't like seeing new and interesting  places, wandering around, fantasizing that I live there. What I really don't don't like is the actual mechanics of moving from place to place-- the bus and train schedules, making the connections between them. Packing dirty clothes ( I pretend the luggage is a washing machine...if an article of clothing spends any time crammed in it, it's considered clean)

Thursday was one of those days...leaving Praino on the Sita bus, (bus late and horrifically overcrowded) meeting a ferry in Amalfi for Salerno, (Didn't happen...we had to take the bus,)finding the Hertz office in Salerno, (first evidence of Phil's superpowers) navigating out of Salerno to the Autostrada for Matera. (Second and best evidence of Phil's alter ego),  finding the inn in the Sassi district of Matera

(All of this effort was expended in the service of several hours poking around one of the strangest UNESCO heritage sights...a city where the buildings were  carved out of rocks and caves. But enough of the travelogue, let's return our story and to the complaining.)


 Luckily I and the others actually had to negotiate very little of this journey because a new member of the Phoote family emerged at this juncture of the journey, someone who orchestrated all of the tasks above-- FILIPPO MCGRANAHAN: THE COLOSSUS OF ROADS.

 After a few short miles at the wheel of a rented, fire-red  Fiat wagon and suddenly Phil now Fillippo was driving with the flagrant disrespect for common courtesy, for the sanctity of human life, and for the need to observe the conventions of civilized human discourse that are the marks of an true and typical Italian driver.  Ciao, Phil, Buon giorno , Filippo.

It was awe inspiring to see him battle with the natives for the dominance of a two way, one lane, cobblestone alley with parking on both sides.

Breathtaking to see him swerve around  and pass trucks on a rotary for no good reason.

Refreshing to hear him growl "Not today motherfucker" when refusing to cede even a small section of the roadway to a terrified Chinese gentleman on a bike.

He had found a new voice and it sounds like a car horn. We all feel a lot safer and ready to head to Lecce.








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Marj: Photos of sweet home Praiano, the neighborhood, the adventurous non-map readers K&K, and by the by, when you hear anything about the Phootes it's a Kevin fantasy