Lis wrote up and posted a lengthy entry about our flight to London and one night’s stay at the Sofitel Gatwick, and then lost the bulk of it. Poor Lis! So, if you happened to see a post, and then wondered where it went – that’s where; Lis took it down until she can re-create
what was lost.

In the meantime, I thought maybe we should say something about Italy itself, since up to now we’ve mostly talked about getting here. We’ve been here a bit over 24 hours now – we’ve had two lunches, two dinners, and one breakfast in Santa Margherita.

Our first lunch was at the hotel shortly after arrival, and it was great. It was a sunny day, and we sat out by the pool. Roger and Iris, who have been coming to this hotel every year for over twenty years, were a bit put out by a new girl working the front desk, who kept insisting to them that they couldn’t sit by the pool for lunch this early in the season. “We should take a picture of ourselves out here and show it to her,” Roger said. Just to be sure, they confirmed with the waiter that we were allowed to be there. “Yes, of course, it is set up for dining.” Take that, New Girl!

After lunch, Roger and Iris walked to Portofino, and we unpacked and got settled. After that, Lis thought it might be fun to swim, since it was so nice. However, once we were settled in the room, that was it until dinner time.

For dinner we went to a small restaurant called Trattoria da Pino, a family run hole in the wall where the proprietress greets you with a hearty “Buona Sera!” (good evening) as you walk in the door. Roger says the region is famous for its pesto, so we had that, along with the house wine (red for me, white for everyone else). It was good, though I thought the version of it Roger had for lunch at the hotel was better. For dessert Lis and I split a slice of apple pie (was more like a torte), and a chocolate mousse amaretto thing. The pie was really good – not very sweet, so you could really taste the apples. And the mousse was divine.

Also, there are about a million gelato shops here, and we are making decent headway in our goal of trying all of them. No clunckers so far 🙂

I’ve been doing pretty well adjusting to all the time changes, but last night a combination of jet lag, hard bed, and stuffy room (and maybe rich food and wine…?) caught up with me. I couldn’t get to sleep, then eventually did, only to snap awake at 3am and stay that way.

Then, the free buffet breakfast at the hotel didn’t sit right, and I was nauseous and unhappy. This combined with my lack of sleep meant that I bailed on the day’s plan of taking the bus to Portofino for lunch and the ferry home – Lis and Roger and Iris went on without me. I was bummed, but it was also nice to rest and relax at the hotel.

There were some sailboats in the bay (it had been listed as a regatta, but it didn’t look all that impressive – just some small boats), and I walked over and sat in a chair overlooking the beach and watched them for a while. Then I sat on the balcony and finished a drawing that I had started yesterday. I’m not an artist by any means (meaning I have minimal natural talent), but it was nice to be able to apply some of the lessons on perspective Jane and I learned in the drawing class we took a few weeks ago (Holla, Jane!!). I’ll try to post my masterpiece here soon.

Update: here it is…

Lis texted me when they were on the ferry coming back – said they were going to be coming by the hotel and I should be out on the balcony to see them. I was, and they saw me wave to them, but, alas, I didn’t see them wave back. Lis texted that she could see me, though, so I knew that they probably were waving. How did we ever manage such transactions pre-mobile phone??

For dinner we walked to a restaurant that Roger and Iris were wanting to take us to. It has a Michelin rating and is a favorite of theirs. Earlier in the week, they had stopped in to make reservations for tonight (Saturday night), and the proprietress had told them “Oh, you don’t need a reservation!” Tonight, though, she said “Oh, I’m so sorry – we’re completely booked.” She looked genuinely sorry, but it was irritating all the same.

The good news, though, is that the restaurant we eventually landed in, Ristorante da Gennaro, was really good, and pretty inexpensive. So who needs a Michelin rating, anyway?

We walked back to the hotel through a rather raucous Saturday evening, stopping for gelato along the way. The weather, which had been cloudy but warmish all day, was perfect. It was a really pleasant meal and stroll.

Tomorrow Iris and I (and maybe Lis) are going to go to mass at the ornate basilica in town. I don’t go to church a lot these days, but didn’t want to pass up the chance to go to mass in Italy. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe since I’m going to church tomorrow, God will grant me a good night’s sleep tonight 🙂

Update: She did – praise be!

Our flight to London on Virgin Atlantic was lovely. At JFK there was a long line to get through security and I amused myself by texting back and forth with our friend, Jane, who happened to send a text while we were waiting. Each time my phone beeped because of the incoming text, the woman in front of me would turn around and give me the stink-eye. She looked like she was having to hold herself back from throttling me when I read one of the texts aloud to Mary. There came a point where the line broke up into two and I chose the longer line because she chose the other line and I could actually empathize with her hatred of me. She’ll most likely never know the sacrifice I made for her.

Our seats were in Premium Economy and they were the first two seats when we got on the plane. We had no one in front of us to lean back into us and we had TONS of leg room. In fact, we had probably a 100 square foot area all to ourselves for most of the flight. We could have done yoga or pilates on the floor if we wanted to. They offered us champagne or orange juice when we boarded and then later brought hot towels and dinner and, after dinner, brought around brandy and something that was like Bailey’s but fruity. I chose the latter and it was delicious. We also received amenity kits with a toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, a pen, earplugs, and an eyemask. After dinner I watched “Finding Vivian Maier” on the inflight video system and then, when my eyes started to close on me I put on the eyemask and managed to sleep until I was woken up by the delivery of breakfast – scrambled eggs, potatoes, English bacon and a blueberry muffin. Soon we were at Heathrow and though First Class was supposed to debark first, the flight attendants said they would let us off first. They weren’t able to accomplish that, as the First Class passengers came pushing through, but we ducked out in the middle of that group so were off the plane very quickly. Everyone ran to get to customs like they were running for their lives. Of course I took part in this madness, though Mary kept saying, “Slow down, we’ll get there.” Even with my Keeping Up With Jones’s racewalking, it took us 30 minutes or so to get through immigration. Then we met our driver from Blackberry Car Service, which I had booked online before we left Portland. He was a very sweet guy and drove us from Heathrow to the Sofitel Hotel at Gatwick.

We arrived at Newark Tuesday afternoon around 4 and had a lovely 24 hours in the Big Apple. We took the air train and the Path train to Penn Station and walked from there to our hotel, the Distrikt, which is on 40th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. The walk was about 10 or 15 minutes through very busy rush hour streets, and I was having to conduct a business phone call at the same time. Mary enjoyed this walk very much as it made her feel like a real New Yorker.

We had a free night at The Distrikt, using Choice Privileges points, and they upgraded us to a King Grand View room. The view WAS grand, and the hotel very luxe, with robes chocolates AND chocolate brownies. They also had free hors d’oeuvres in the lounge and I had a few gyoza and edamame while waiting for Mary to come downstairs from the room.

We were only in the room about five minutes after we checked in to the hotel before we took off on foot to meet our friends Jennie and Inga at Scandinavia House for dinner. Mary and I shared Swedish Meatballs, a beet salad, and a burger and we all shared a waffle for dessert. It was fabulous as was hanging with Inga and The Rev (aka Jennie.)

We had tired feet so we took a cab back to the hotel and basically went straight to bed. We each slept about ten straight hours but were still so exhausted when we woke up at 9:30 am. We went downstairs and got breakfast and then I tried to figure out how we could spend the rest of the day lying about until our plane left at 9:30 pm. The hotel was able to give us a late checkout of 1 pm, but because of the Tribeca Film Festival there were no cheap hotels available nearby. Eventually I found that we could book the Holiday Inn Express JFK for $70 plus 15,000 ihg points. That bottomed out our points but I didn’t care.

Our friend Bob met us at the hotel at 1 and we walked down 9th Avenue looking for a place to eat. We decided on a place called Burgers and Cupcakes. I thought the burgers were so-so, but the lemon-poppy seed-blueberry cupcake Mary and I shared was divine, as was Bob’s company.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel where they were holding our luggage and then we walked with Bob to the subway where we said goodbye and Mary and I planned to catch the A train to the Howard Beach JFK station where we would then get a Uber car to the Holiday Inn Express. Bob told us we would need to get the Uptown train, which made perfect sense to us, Brooklyn being downtown, and Queens uptown. I didn’t bother to actually read the directions on my Google maps. We got an Express train, which was great, because before we were even on the train I realized I had a somewhat full bladder, and I had no intention using a subway station restroom, if such a thing even exists.

The situation was feeling more and more urgent and I knew it was about an hour’s ride to the station we needed. I wondered how many more stops we had. We weren’t near a map and I couldn’t get any signal on my phone in order to look at Google maps, but eventually I remembered I had a NY Subway app on my phone. I pulled up the app and found the stop we had just passed, 168th street. This is when I realized, to my dismay, that we were only four stops away from the end of the line, but we were going in the WRONG DIRECTION! The A line actually goes downtown and through Brooklyn before going back up to Queens.

So we got off the train at 181st street in Washington Heights and got on the A going the other direction. Now we had to get back to where we came from and then it would take close to an hour from there to get to the Howard Beach JFK stop. We weren’t in danger of missing our plane, but I was starting the question the wisdom of the hotel room plan. Mainly, though, I thought I might wet my pants on the train. I started writing this blog post in order to focus on other things, but that made me feel nauseous. So I settled in for the entertainment of the NYC subway.

The woman next to me was VERY tired and she kept falling asleep against me. People are so heavy when they are sleeping on you! It wasn’t so pleasant. Across from us was an adorable little boy in a stroller who, at every stop, once the doors were open, would say, “Waa Waa Waa. Doors are closing!” over and over again. He made most of the conscious people on the train smile. Shortly after we boarded the A train heading in the right direction, a woman came on and started loudly preaching to all of us. She had a lovely lilting accent, but eventually the preaching got old. At one point I noticed she had stopped and I looked around to see if she had gotten off the train. But it was only that her phone had rung and she then carried on a very loud phone conversation. Once she was done with her phone call she began to sing hymns, also loudly. This was contrasted by the man sitting across from her who shouted into his phone, “What do you mean what time am I getting there? I work for myself. I own my own business and I don’t have to answer to anybody. What? Yes, I want dinner…. oh, okay, I’ll be home at six.”

Finally we got to Howard Beach JFK and Mary tried to talk to me about something and I shouted at her, “I have to go to the bathroom!” Oh, what sweet relief that was when I finally found the restroom. Next, we attempted to use the Uber app to get a car to the Holiday Inn Express. I found a promotional code so that the ride was free but when I typed in the address where we should be picked up, which I figured out by just taking the address from a building across the street from us – 8 Coleman Square – the app seemed to change it to something Broadway. I was very confused and attempting to figure out whether Coleman Square was also called Broadway, when a young woman came up and said, “Are you trying to get to the airport?”

“No,” I told her. “We are trying to get to the Holiday Inn Express and I can’t figure out this Uber app. I told it to pick us up at 8 Coleman Square but it changed it to Broadway. Is this street Broadway?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know where Broadway is.”

At this point I realized I could call our driver using the Uber app so I told her I was going to call the driver and thanked her for her help and she went wherever she was going. The driver was a little bit hard to understand – but basically he kept asking me where I was and I kept asking him where he was. Then he said, “Oh wait, I’ll ask the lady. She’s right here.” Then I heard him talking to someone and I heard her say, “Oh, I know who you’re looking for. They want to go to the Holiday Inn Express or something. I know exactly where they are. Take a right and then take a left.” Who says New Yorkers aren’t friendly and helpful?!

The driver got us to the Holiday Inn Express and we had a little less than two hours there before we went down to the lobby and got a shuttle to JFK. I thought it was a bit crazy to rent a hotel room for 2 hours, but Mary says it was money well spent just because she got to lie down on a bed for two hours.

Well, after several plane, train, and car rides, here we are in Santa Margherita! It is beautiful here. We are at the Grand Hotel Miramare for a 5 night stay with Lis’ dad and stepmom, with whom we had lunch today, and with whom we will walk in to town for dinner in about an hour.

Lis is working on some blog posts cataloging some of our transit misadventures, and I don’t have it in me after all of our traveling to do much but post this picture. I will say that one of my favorite things so far, is that we were able to converse a bit with the driver who brought us from the Genoa airport, and who spoke minimal English. This, because we’ve been diligently practicing our Italian, via the Pimsleur CD’s we checked out from the library, and our Duolingo Android app. So Lis was able to thank him for waiting for us (we needed to stop to get Euros), and he said something to the effect of “Oh, at the airport you always have to wait,” and I understood him! I couldn’t really say anything but “Ah, si” in response, but I understood. Later, when the traffic was heavy, I said “molte macchine” (many cars), and he said, “Si, multe, multe” and then talked about how bad the traffic is, especially on the weekends. He interspersed this with the occasional English word, so I was able to follow most of it, I think. Very cool.

Addendum: We just walked in to town (not for dinner, as said above, as dinner won’t be until 7:30pm, now that we’re in Europe), and conducted a transaction in a hardware store, where I asked “How much” in Italian, and, again, understood the answer! So exciting. But, the item I purchased, duct tape, wasn’t duct tape at all, which I didn’t know because I couldn’t read the Italian on the packaging. So, can’t win ’em all, I guess.

(The duct tape is to fix a tear in my AyeGear 23 pocket travel vest, which I still love with all my heart despite the great rent in the back panel)

Addendum #2: Some pics

Today is the start of the longest trip we’ve ever taken together. We were up at 2:30 am so we could get to the airport by 4:00 to catch a flight to Seattle at 5:05 am.  We have a flight to New York at 8:05 am.  However, it is now 5:49 am and we are still sitting on the tarmac, crammed into a tiny Horizon prop plane, with no projected leaving time.  Apparently there is a problem with a lightbulb. Also, someone keeps kicking the back of my seat and the person to my left keeps coughing and is surely going to get me sick.

I was already anxious – just normal pre-vacation anxiety accentuated by the fact that we are going to be gone for almost three weeks.  Now I’m more anxious.  It’s hot on this plane.

Anyway, here is our plan: we hope to arrive in New York at 4:30 this afternoon. We were planning to get breakfast in Seattle during our nice long layover and also get some lunch to carry on the plane.  Now we may be subsisting today on Kind bars and Trident gum.

In New York we are spending the night at the Distrikt Hotel near Times Square. We booked this hotel for free using Choice Privileges points.

Wednesday evening we fly Virgin Atlantic to Heathrow and when we arrive in London on Thursday we have a car scheduled to take us to Gatwick where we will spend the night at the Sofitel.

Friday morning we fly to Genoa, Italy where a car will meet us and take us to Santa Margherita where we will meet my father and stepmother.  We will spend five days in Santa Margherita with my Dad and Iris and then fly back to London where we will stay four nights at the Staybridge Suites Vauxhall. I am particularly excited about this hotel because they have a hotel labradoodle puppy named Waggers who gets excellent reviews on TripAdvisor for his friendliness.

Then on Sunday, May 3rd we board Cunard’s Queen Mary where we will spend seven nights, arriving in Brooklyn on Mother’s Day.  That evening we will fly home on Jet Blue.

At the moment we are still on the tarmac in Portland. We are told they are only waiting on paperwork now. I am so hungry.

Well, this is travel. Sometimes getting to where you’re going is a real pain in the ass.

Signing off at 6:12 am. Still on the tarmac.