We are now on our second day in London. I’m hoping that Lis will cover getting here and our first day, and I’d like to skip ahead to some thoughts I had about our visit to the National Portrait Gallery. But first, I can’t help but include a word or two about our British Airways flight from Genoa, or, more specifically, boarding our British Airways flight from Genoa.

They called us to board in groups, by row number – we were in row 14. First, they called business class passengers to board, then they called rows 20 through 26. Since we weren’t in either of these groups, I didn’t pay much attention to the process – I was just dimly aware of movement. Then they called rows 7 through 19, so we gathered our stuff and went to board.

The first thing we noticed is that there was no proper queue – one line straggled in from this side, one from that side, all very haphazard, with the girls at the counter looking flustered and confused. After we got to the front of our “line” (actually a scrum of several people, with the girls choosing whom to serve next apparently at random) and they scanned our tickets, we turned to go down the walkway and board the plane, and almost instantly ran in to a huge queue of everyone who had gone before us – they hadn’t actually opened the doors to the walkway yet. So everyone was just standing there, and the queue was backing up in to the gate area. You’ll notice that the effect of this is that the business class people got to stand in line the longest.

After they got us all jammed together in this giant queue, they finally opened the door to the walkway, and we shuffled forward, still packed pretty tightly, but at least moving in the direction of the plane. THEN they called the people needing wheelchair assist, and threaded them through us to get them to the head of the queue – think ambulance working its way through a traffic jam. Wackiest boarding process I’ve ever seen. Crazy Italians (or crazy Brits…?).

Anyway, yesterday we went to the National Portrait Gallery, which I was excited about – I’d highlighted it as something I wanted to do when I was thumbing through a guide book before the trip. Lis wasn’t sure she was interested, but then when we made plans to meet our friends Ron and Trish, they suggested we meet at the National Gallery, and then after lunch suggested we go to the Portrait Gallery. So, yay for me!

Note from Lis: A few details wrong there. I WAS interested in the National Portrait Gallery and I was the one who suggested we go there after lunch. (Gots to get me my credit where it is due.)

We went first to the Tudor room, which I was interested in because I’ve recently read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and listened to several podcasts about the Tudors on The History Chicks, and we’re watching Wolf Hall right now on PBS. I was struck by how much the portrait of Thomas Cromwell looks like Tony Soprano, and by how not beautiful Anne Boleyn was – I thought the woman who captivated Henry VIII for years, to the point of overthrowing the Catholic Church, would be more stunning. I guess that just means her talents and wiles in other areas were even more impressive than I’d thought.

Later, we were in the 20th century room, and I came across a portrait of Princess Diana. I’d been seeing “No photography” signs all about, and was being respectful, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Diana, and so couldn’t resist – I pulled out my phone and took a surreptitious, blurry snap of the portrait (if you look closely, you can see my reflection in the glass, and my stealth, keep-the-phone-low pose). Then I turned around and noticed, right across from Diana, this amazing portrait of Queen Elizabeth in an intimidating, regal posture and a spectacular royal red cloak – surreptitious snap here, too. Later, I learned that the “no photos” rules only apply to specified portraits – ones with copyright issues – and so I probably could have taken legit, and thus better, photos. Oh well – I kind of liked feeling transgressive…

The juxtaposition of these portraits, with the queen tall and stately, towering over and looking down on a soft-focus, vulnerable Diana – it was really something. I wonder if they staged it that way on purpose.

There were many, many great paintings in the portrait gallery – so fun to see portraits of all these historical figures that I’ve read and heard so much about. My other two favorites were this great one of Margaret Thatcher that looked a lot like an old Soviet-era propaganda poster (ah, irony), and a sweet tableau of George VI, Queen Elizabeth (Queen Mum), Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret at home.

At the train station in Santa Margherita, as we were waiting for the train to Cinque Terre, Lis wondered if Roger’s government minder would be there. While we were talking, Iris said “Look! Those are police peeping over the wall! I think they’re keeping an eye out for pick pockets.” Lis said, “No, those are Dad’s new government minders.” And I pretended to take a selfie so I could get a (blurry) pic of them – someone needs to document all this government minding 🙂

Cinque Terre is a collection of five little villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore) perched on rocks overlooking the sea. They are extravagantly picaresque – at one point, on the train back to Santa Margherita, we looked back at one (Corniglia, I think), glimmering in the weak afternoon light against a stormy sky above a stormy sea, and it looked like a still from an animated Disney movie. Unbelievable.

Our original plan was to take the train to Monterosso (the closest one), and then visit each village via the ferry that plies them, and then take the train back to Santa Margherita from Riomaggiore (the furthest one). Roger and Iris wanted us to experience the villages from the sea – they say it is amazing getting to the towns that way. Riomaggiore, in particular, says Roger, is exhilarating because it is both stunning and scary, as the boat basically docks at a big rock, and then you walk a gangplank type thing to the top of the rock and up some stone steps (we went and looked at where this takes place once we were in that town – it looks like it would indeed get your blood pumping!).

But, alas – the seas were too rough, and the ferry wasn’t running. So, we walked along the (tiny) main drag of Monterosso for a while, enjoying the sights and formulating a plan B. We decided we didn’t have time to visit each village by train, as we had dinner reservations back at the hotel for our anniversary (Happy Anniversary to us!!), and didn’t want to worry about being late. Eventually we decided to take the train to Riomaggiore (I don’t know/remember the rationale for picking that one), and then go back.

At the train station in Riomaggiore, there’s this great stone wall full of pigeons fighting each other for roosting space on the occasional hooks jutting from the wall or small slits recessed in to it. We watched a few of these contests, and then headed in to the tunnel that lead under the hill to the main drag on the other side. These tunnels (there was another one in one of the other towns we visited – I forget which one) have fantastic acoustics, and so street musicians set up in them. This musician was a woman playing a flute, and she was playing “My Way.”

There were lots of people coming and going, and the music echoed through the tunnel, and Iris started singing, and then Roger joined her, and they sounded great in the tunnel, too. And then other people joined in, and then more, and then more, and so by the time we reached the climax of the song, practically the whole tunnel was belting “I did it myyyyyyy wayyyyyyy!” It was really a fun little spontaneous moment, courtesy of Roger and Iris and their lovely public singing 🙂

Once we got to Riomaggiore, we found a gelato place (of course!) and then wandered for a bit until it was time for the train back to Santa Margherita. For those of you dying to know – I prefer the chocolate (cioccolato) and hazelnut (nocciole) combo, especially if the chocolate is of the dark variety. Lis, on the other hand, is partial to coconut (cocco).

Once back in the hotel, we rested for a while, and then met Roger and Iris in the hotel bar half an hour before dinner, for aperitivi. The bar lays out a huge spread of nuts, home made cheese-it type things, olives, potato and tortilla chips, etc, when you get drinks. So we munched on those and then went in to dinner. The wait staff were very attentive, we had a lovely anniversary dinner, and then it was time for bed. A most pleasant anniversary and last full day in Italy!

It is now 2am in Santa Margherita, and, as I feared it might, my long lie in this morning has lead to insomnia tonight. So, I might as well put my sleeplessness to good use, and jump back to our day in Camogli.

We walked to the bus station, wending our way past hoards of people from a Costa cruise ship anchored somewhere out of sight, and boarded a bus for Camogli. Lis thought it was strange that we headed up in to the hills, since she’d thought we were headed to a fishing village, but then we started to go down the other side towards the water, and it all made sense.

We got off the bus and walked down a cobble stoned hill toward the harbor and a sort of quay with lots of shops and galleries and restaurants. Along the way we saw more of the wonderful old-world architecture that we’ve been seeing in Santa Margherita. What is great about this architecture, though, is that it is faux. When you look close, you can see that the buildings are flat, and that all the curliques and falderols are painted on. Usually, only the shutters and an occasional balcony are real – everything else is a paint job. They look great, though, and it strikes me as very efficient – simple to execute, easy to change the entire architectual style of a building. I approve. You can see some examples from Camogli and Santa Margherita here.

After wandering for a bit, we stopped at an open air restaurant, Xodo, for lunch. Iris and I shared a pizza, Roger had gnocchi with pesto, and Lis had a chicken schnitzel. Schnitzel is a big thing here, it seems, as I’ve seen it on almost every menu – once, I saw it described as Milanese style schnitzel, so I suppose that means schnitzel with an Italian twist…? Anyway, Lis seemed happy with her chicken, Iris and I enjoyed the pizza (though they brought it to us uncut, and with only regular butter knives available at the table, so we had a bit of a time wrestling with it), and Roger’s pesto gnocchi was the best gnocchi I’ve ever had anywhere, by far.

Soon after we sat down, Lis said, “Oh, look, there’s that same guy from yesterday.” Iris looked, and agreed that the man sitting on the sea wall in orange shirt and orange scarf was the same man they’d seen the day before in Portofino. “Maybe he’s your government minder, Dad” Lis said.

He stayed there the whole time we were at the restaurant, pretending to “read” his “book”, acting like he was taking no notice of us at all (as if). Then, near the end of the meal, Roger got up and left to use the restroom. Lis said “Look, he’s wondering where Dad went.” And, indeed, he had stopped “reading” and was craning his neck, looking around. He even looked a little anxious (as I suppose you would, if you’d lost your target).

After lunch we got up and walked off past our minder, who had returned to his “reading”, and I wondered if he would casually follow us. But, no – maybe he was afraid we had made him.

We wandered along the quay for a while. The great thing is that it wasn’t very touristy – we were mostly hanging out with Italian families enjoying their Sunday afternoon. There were lots of kids running around and playing, and lots of parents chatting and hanging out. It was really fun.

We stopped in a small art gallery, and while I imagine you are getting tired by now of our “We spoke Italian, we are so awesome, blah blah blah,” I must try your patience with one more story, because we are just so pleased with ourselves we can hardly stand it 🙂

We were looking at the paintings when a woman came in, and by the way she was attending to us, I could tell she was the artist. Now, normally, I get nervous about trying to speak another language, and I hem and haw and stumble. But, for some reason, this time I felt all confident and just launched myself in to conversation. I had no real idea of the proper gender of the words I was using, or which definite article to use with them. But I also didn’t care, figuring it was close enough and she would understand me, which she did. The other effect of this is that she could tell I wasn’t a native speaker, and so spoke slowly and used the few English words that she knew.

And so we had a whole conversation, where I asked if she was the artist, and she said she had painted all the paintings we were looking at, and I said I liked her work, and she said thank you, and I pointed to a particular painting and said I liked the colors, and she said (deploying her English here) that she had painted that one “softer”, and then I asked if she had painted another one I’d seen outside, and she said no, all those on that side were done by her friend (this one involved some sign language), and I said again I liked her work very much, and then we said goodbye. I think the fact I really did want to talk to her about her paintings accounted for my wild abandon, but it was great fun, and she seemed very pleased by both the compliments and the fact that we spoke in her language. I highly recommend learning some of the language any time you travel.

After this, it was time for some gelato, of course, and then time to head back. We took the train back, which wasn’t nearly as scenic, as the bulk of the route was a tunnel bored through the hills that separate the two towns. But, it also wasn’t windy, and was way faster, which was nice, as I was tired and wanted to rest for a while before dinner.

For dinner we headed out to La Paranza, the Michelin rated restaurant we had been unable to eat in the night before. This time, it was uncrowded and we got a table easily, and the proprietress made a big fuss over us. Roger and Iris had fish, I had pesto (lots of pesto on this trip, all of it molto bene), and I can’t remember what Lis had. Then we all had dessert, and I had a cappucino, and we were full to bursting and headed back to the hotel to call it a night. I will say, though, that Michelin rating or no, I didn’t find it any better than any other place we’ve eaten. Which I suppose is a testament to the other places, rather than a knock on the Michelin place…

Bear with us as we move back and forth in time. Though we haven’t written much yet about yesterday or the day before, right now I’m going to tell you about today. Right now it is 8:55 pm in Santa Margherita de Ligure and we are in our hotel room. We have a balcony that overlooks the sea and it has been a stormy day. We have the balcony doors open so we can hear the surf, one of my most favorite sounds in the world. There are also some birds singing, which I find curious and lovely. I’ve rarely heard birds singing after dark.

Last night was stormy also and we slept all night with the balcony doors open. There are great big wooden shutters that you can pull shut to block out some of the street noise – we are on a busy street and occasionally people congregate down below and talk, or there is the sound of an ambulance rushing by. Our shutters were closed but the door was open and the sound of the surf was wonderful. Mary went to sleep last night around 11 and I stayed up reading until 12 and then couldn’t fall asleep until 1. I woke up at what I imagined to be about 7 and went to the bathroom and was heading back to bed to check the time on my travel clock when the phone rang. That was strange! I wondered if there was some sort of emergency. “Hello?” I picked up my phone. “Buon Giorno!” said my father. “Oh my God, what time is it?” I replied. “Did you just wake up?” he asked? “It’s 10:30. You missed breakfast!”

He thought we should go to the aquarium in Genoa today and there was a train leaving at 11:something and the next one was at 12:something. I was barely awake and Mary was not awake, so I said I’d talk to Mary and call him back. I saw it was 10:20 something and I REALLY didn’t want to miss breakfast. I pulled on some clothes and went flying downstairs. Usually I attempt to communicate with the waiters solely in Italian, but this morning I said, in English, “I’m so sorry. I just woke up. Can I get some breakfast and bring it back to the room?” I thought this would be less of a problem for the waitstaff. But that is not the done thing here and they assured us we could still sit and eat. In my rush I had forgotten to bring my dairy digest pills so my options were quite limited. I had two hard boiled eggs and some rye krisp – quite the low calorie breakfast but that can hardly make up for all that we’ve been eating. I also hadn’t brought my phone but Mary had brought hers so I used her phone to text my Dad and ask if we could get the 12:something train.

We had time to shower and dress properly and then we were off to the train station in the pouring rain where we caught the train to Genoa (Genova). My father wanted us to get sandwiches in the train station but Iris wanted to sit down so we compromised by going to a restaurant across the street and getting sandwiches. The sandwiches were all pre-made and most of them included cheese and I preferred non-dairy, but Mary and I decided to split a salami and cheese on focaccia with Mary taking all the cheese.  That sandwich was molto delizioso and I was still hungry after eating my half. (It wasn’t loaded with salami.) Iris suggested I get chips but I wanted another sandwich and talked Mary and my father into sharing with me. I went up to the counter and began by saying, “In Italiano…” and I then attempted to do the entire transaction in Italian. I’ve been doing this everywhere I can. Yesterday the housekeeper came by and asked when to come back and I said, “Dietsche e tre” which makes no sense. Another housekeeper behind her said, “Three o’clock?” and I said, “No, one-o’clock.” Then I got back into the room and realized I should have said “tre-dici.”  So later I saw the housekeeper and said, “No Dietsche e tre, dici-tre!!” all proud of myself. She smiled.  You might notice that I still said it wrong. The housekeeper probably went to her colleagues and said, however you say it in Italian, “Goddamn Americans!”

Anyway, I was more successful with the guy at the counter – he understood me and seemed to enjoy speaking Italian with me – and he soon brought us a delicious schnitzel and tomato sandwich cut up into four pieces, of which I got two. Then a few minutes later he brought some focaccia with onion and said to me, “This is a present. It is a specialty of our region.” I choose to believe that I had charmed him and that was why he brought the present. When we left I said to him, “Nui piace molti!” Which means “We like a lot!” and he said something like ,”Thank you for the compliment,” and then he said, in Italian, that I speak Italian perfectly, a very sweet lie. Then the only other woman in the restaurant said to me, “Oh non lui” – which translates to “not him” which I took to mean, “Don’t believe him.” Did she realize she was saying I DON’T speak Italian perfectly? The nerve!

Next we got a cab to the acquarium. As we entered the acquarium so did two large groups of schoolchildren, which did not bode well. In fact there were even more schoolchildren inside. The place was overrun. It made the visit a bit more tiring, but it was still really great – the best acquarium I’ve ever been to, but I haven’t been to many acquariums. There were huge tanks with sharks and dolphins and frogs and turtles and alligators and tropical fish and coral and penguins.  You follow a route and can’t just wander back and forth so there was no way to escape the hordes of children, EVER. At one point a young boy came up to me and said, “Scusi, something something something something” in Italian.  I said, “Come?” and he repeated himself. I said, “No parlo Italiano,” and he got this big smile and said, “Scusi,” and sort of bowed to me and walked away. He was quite adorable, but I have no idea what he was asking.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we got to the end of the exhibits. I was thinking a nice glass of airborne would be just the thing. I saw a little display with samples of Ricola and a woman with an ipad asking people questions, and though everyone else moved past it, I was going to get me some Ricola, even if I didn’t speak Italian. She asked me questions in English and I attempted to answer in Italian. They were just marketing questions for the acquarium… where are you from? when did you decide to come here? do you think it costs too much? When we had answered all her questions, I snagged some Ricola – one was licorice flavored and the other was Sambuca – elderberry – which I popped into my mouth and I’m sure it greatly enhanced my immune system.

Iris and Mary were in the mood for coffee and pastry but there didn’t seem to be any good place at the acquarium or outside the acquarium, so we got a cab back to the train station and got the train back to Santa Margherita. By then it was after 5 and my Dad asked if we wanted to have an early dinner, which I very enthusiastically agreed to. We’ve been eating late – 7:30 or later and I definitely prefer an earlier meal. Not many places are open here for dinner before 7 or 7:30 but Dad knew of a place and I was very surprised when we went into a restaurant we have been passing all week, strangely named My Boyfriend is Out of Town.  I would not have chosen that restaurant, based on the name alone, but it was very good, maybe my favorite of all the places we’ve eaten.

One of the things that we never learned even though we did over 40 Italian lessons is how to say you’re sorry! However, I learned how to say it when a restaurant owner apologized to us a few nights ago for not having any space for us even though she had said we didn’t need a reservation. Since then I’ve used it a few times. As soon as we sat down at My Boyfriend Is Out of Town, I asked for directions to il bano (bathroom) and I actually understood one word of the response, which was LEFT so I turned left in the direction the waitress pointed and found the tiny one room unisex bathroom that most of the restaurants here have. When I returned from il bano the waitress came to ask if we were ready to order and my father said yes, but I said no, because I hadn’t even seen the menu yet and didn’t want to feel rushed. However, everyone was very hungry and once I had decided and there was no waitress, my father banged his knife on his glass, to which Iris exclaimed, “Roger!” and I exclaimed, “Dad!” The waitress came running and heard us admonishing him and I said to her, “Mi dispiace!” which made her laugh.

Our meal was fantastico. The bread was delicious, as was my insalata mista (mixed salad). The salads here come undressed and the only choice for dressing is the olive oil and balsamic vinegar they bring to the table. I kind of love not having to ask for dressing on the side because I think most American restaurants overdress their salads. Mary and I shared minestrone soup and trofie pesto. Trofie pesto is one of the specialties of this region and it is a spirally shaped pasta with pesto sauce. I have had it at least four times since we’ve been here and it is very good, but this was my favorite of all of them as the pasta was a little more al dente. The minestrone soup was very different. It was a pesto base with potatoes, green beans, celery, zucchini, mushrooms and carrots.  It was very delicious. We decided against dessert in favor of gelato at one of the many gelaterias. There is a gelato store approximately every 2 blocks in this town and we have visited many of them. It was hard to believe it was 6 pm and we hadn’t yet had any gelato!! Sadly, though probably my stomach would not agree, all but one of the gelato stores were closed and the one that was open didn’t look all that great so we came back to the hotel sans dessert!

Spoiler alert: Something bad happened on Grey’s Anatomy last Thursday.  Mary and I wanted to watch it but our Watch ABC app wouldn’t work in Italy and neither would our Xfinity TV app. So Mary got the brilliant idea to remote in to her desktop computer at home and watch Grey’s Anatomy from there. Back at the hotel after dinner, I sent our housesitter a text to let her know what we were doing in case she started hearing Grey’s Anatomy from Mary’s office. That might be a little alarming. Mary’s brilliant idea worked and may I just ask, are we the only two people in the world who are glad to see the end of that character?

It is 10 pm now and we have to catch a train at 10:15 tomorrow to go to Cinque Terre.  I guess we’ll have to set an alarm since that is before our wake-up time! So I am going to read now and try to settle down listening to the wonderful sound of the surf outside our balcony.

Mass this morning was molto bene – it was really interesting attending a mass in a foreign language. The readings and homily were a bit hard, as I don’t know enough Italian to have any real idea of the substance of them. But Italian is a lovely language to listen to, and the priest had a mellifluous voice, so it was still very pleasant. And even though I couldn’t do my part of the call and response, I always knew where we were (profession of faith, Lord’s prayer, etc). A morning well spent, indeed 🙂

Here are some links. The first is to a wikipedia page about the church. The page is in Italian – I looked for but couldn’t find an English version. However, if you open it in Chrome, it will ask if you want to translate the page. And the next is to some pics of our day in Camogli, a small fishing village about a half hour bus ride from here.

My last post ended abruptly and that’s because there was more to it that mysteriously disappeared when I added a photo of Mary’s Virgin Atlantic dinner, so here is the second half, second draft:

We arrived at the Sofitel Gatwick Airport around 11:30 am.  I had reserved a package that included a three-course dinner and breakfast. For an additional £30 we got an early check-in so we were quickly in our room. Our room had a view of the countryside as well as some of the airport and planes to the right. I had requested two twin beds because I figured we might each want our own space after the long plane ride. This was a good call. The only thing Mary wanted to do once we got to the hotel was sleep and that she did, immediately. The only thing I wanted to do was shower and I had a lovely relaxing one. I planned to then get into bed and sleep but I realized I was starving so I wandered over to the airport terminal. The Sofitel is connected to the airport so it was only a 5 minute walk. The first place I saw to eat was a place called Jamie’s, which was a coffee shop branch of a Jamie Oliver restaurant. I bought a huge sausage roll, a Greek Yogurt Parfait and a Greek salad for around £14. It was a lot of food and I figured I would eat half and then Mary could have the rest when she woke up. I brought it back to the room and ate every last bit except for a few olives and tomatoes in the salad. I guess I was hungrier than I thought! Also, the sausage roll and yogurt parfait were SO delicious!  Eating completed, I crawled into bed and slept until 5 pm. I could have slept later but I still wanted to be able to sleep that evening.

Everything I have ever read about jet lag has said to not sleep until the evening when you first arrive wherever it is you are going. I’m glad I didn’t follow that advice because I slept fine that night and was STILL tired the next day!

Anyway, we had a dinner reservation for 6:30 pm, which was the earliest the restaurant opened. The menu was pre-set. The entree choices were Confit of Gressingham Duck Leg, Pan Roasted South Bay Fish with Baby Capers, or Broad Beans Risotto. I’m not a fan of duck and the risotto sounded too rich, so I chose the fish, which the waiter said was salmon. The service was VERY slow. We had our appetizers, soup for Mary and salad for me and the waiter also brought us each an amuse bouche of tomato-pepper soup.  Then, as we were waiting for our entrees, the waiter came and said to me, “I’m very sorry, Madam, but the salmon has changed into Octopus.” He didn’t actually say, Octopus, I can’t remember the actual name of the fish, but I was amused by his phrasing and I imagined the salmon suddenly transforming into some other kind of fish. The new fish was some sort of whitefish and I was concerned that they might have to use a lot of butter to give it some taste. The waiter said he would check and then he came back and said, “The chef assures me that you will not taste the butter or know it is there.”

“But there is butter?” I asked.

“Yes, but very little, ” he said.

We eventually got our entrees and my first taste of my fish was of butter as was the taste of the greens underneath the fish. I didn’t even try the “butter mash” that was the third part of the entree. The meal was so rich I could only eat a few bites. Mary’s risotto was also quite rich. By now we had been in the restaurant for almost two hours so we asked to bring dessert back to the room. We both chose Pot Au Chocolate, which was a huge amount of chocolate mousse and also incredibly rich. I have such a sweet tooth but I couldn’t even finish the dessert. We very much enjoyed the Sofitel but probably wouldn’t go for the dinner package in the future.

We were asleep by 9:30 and up at 5 am so we could get breakfast and get over to the terminal for our 7:50 am flight to Genoa. The breakfast buffet was lovely. My stomach was still recovering from the meal the night before so I only had some fabulous Greek yogurt and grapes and I purloined a mini baguette for later consumption on the plane.

I will end with something Mary said at dinner, which seemed very poetic to me so we have turned it into a poem:

Sofitel Restaurant on 3 Hours Sleep

the sun is in my eyes and I can’t see anything. It’s like I’m the only person who exists.

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.