Killing Batteries

I’m off to Romania tomorrow for four weeks and two days of beautiful, summertime, LP research. That’s right, seven days a week, 14 hours a day of pure driving adrenalin, no meaningful conversations and going to bed at 9:45pm. Dude, I am going to have so much… ibuprofen.

I know what you’re thinking, wasn’t I just in Romania? Like not even a year ago? And you’d be correct. I was in Romania for six cumulative weeks a year ago. (Also a week in Moldova) So, why am I going again so soon? Welcome to the wild, wacky, wobbly world of wguidebook writing!

Allow me to explain: I write about Romania for three different Lonely Planet guidebooks, Europe on a Shoestring, Eastern Europe and Romania (formerly Romania & Moldova). The first two books are updated every two years. The last, every three years. In 2006, I updated all three book at once. In 2008, I updated EOAS and EEU. Now it’s time to update Romania. See? Makes perfect sense, if you don’t count all the extra flying around and repeat fact-checking after such short intervals. Actually, there’s genuine budget reasons for this staggered, seemingly inefficient process, but that doesn’t mean I can’t myopically ridicule the system for my own amusement. Plus, hey, paying work! Baby needs a new pair of crates of wine.

So, it begins again. As I’ve already exhaustively detailed in the past, guidebook work is not always very fun. Oh there’s fun, but it’s offset by long, pavement pounding days, restless nights in strange rooms with Olympic-level snorers, loneliness and, in the case of Romania, an almost sadistic number of hours of high-alert driving. That said, I’ve spent more time in Romania than any other foreign country. It’s like my second home. I’m comfortable there. And I just visited all the major cities for this trip a year ago, so the discovery process and updating will be greatly eased.

For this trip, I’ll be researching the regions of Moldavia and Transylvania. I’ve spent almost two cumulative years in Romania. All told, I lived in the Moldavian city of Iaşi for 16 months of that time, so this is by far the area I’m most familiar with. And Transylvania is, well, Transylvania. I’ve traveled the area pretty thoroughly for both work and play in the past, but never in the absurd detail that I’ll be doing now for LP. My colleague Mark Baker will be covering everything else, including Bucharest, so fire off a tweet to him if you have any good leads.

As always, I’m going to go even quieter on this blog than I already am while I’m on the road, though I will try to tweet almost every day. Unlike Tuscany, Romania is awash in free wi-fi hubs and armed with my trusty Blackberry, I should be in giddyingly constant electronic contact, like Buddha intended.

When exhaustion starts to set in right around the third week, you may not be able to glean this from my weepy tweets, but Romania is just outstanding in the summer. Unspoiled, gorgeous scenery, even more gorgeous people and (by and large) still pretty affordable. There’s the kamikaze driving, apathetic hotel clerks and maliciously unhelpful train station employees to contend with, but overall, it’s going to be a relatively easy (yet still draining) and glorious trip.

Thanks again for sticking with me and my long absences. See you down the Rabbit Hole.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

It’s finally done. I know this is incredibly delayed (I finished my Tuscany research trip over a month ago), but I felt I needed to review and carefully consider my notes before posting this authoritative, yet decidedly subjective list.

Caveats: Of course there are caveats. Chiefly, I’m not taking into consideration all of Tuscany in this list. My territory of research for LP is Central, the Coast (including Isola d’Elba), Eastern and Southern Tuscany. In other words, not Florence and not Northwest Tuscany (Lucca, Pisa, etc).

Also, although I’ve now done guidebook research in this territory twice and can cautiously declare myself an expert, I am merely one man - one exceptionally gifted, insightful, smokin’ hot, dignified, semi-sober man - and Tuscany is a densely packed region of almost limitless awesomeness. By my estimation, there are about 3,475 notable scenic drives, 374,622 agriturismi, 1,273,938,294 restaurants (roughly) and so on. Obviously I did not drive/visit/eat at every one of these options. Relying on experience, meetings with tourism reps, reader letters, conversations with local characters, etc, I endeavored to review some of the best options that time, the elements and word count limits would allow. So if you don’t see your favorite whatever here, it’s not because I’m an incompetent halfwit that didn’t actually visit Tuscany before doing the write-up. This is all too frequently the conclusion that people authoring hate mail to me jump to when I don’t mention the amazing, third generation, mom and pop trattoria they presumptuously “discovered”, like it was an archeological find from 1000 BC. By the way, they’re almost all third generation, mom and pop trattorie, people.

What I’m getting at is that it’s likely I didn’t get to review the absolute best of everything. That’s just how this job goes. Maybe if there were six of me (which would be spectacular, even without Tuscany) and each of us had three months on the road, perhaps this would be viable, but unfortunately that is not the case. I hope I have not destroyed your other-worldly, mystical fantasy of how guidebooks are made.

Now that I’ve excused myself from all fault, here are my “Best/Worst of Tuscany” and “What Happened?” lists for 2009.

Best/Worst of Tuscany

•    Best drive: This is a tough one to nail down. Incredible driving scenery in Tuscany is more profuse than douchebags at a Brewer’s game. In Central Tuscany the stretch between Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore and Asciano is by far the one where I wished I was the passenger in the car and not the driver. In Southern Tuscany, the bit between Albinia and Magliano in Toscana gets awfully pretty for the last 10 km. On the Coast, the back road connecting Sassetta and Suvereto is hailed by a local cycling journalist as being one of the best in all of Italy for biking and motorcycling, to which I agree whole-heartedly.
•    Worst drive: Anywhere within the Livorno city limits.
•    Best parking: Cortona. Close to the historic city center and free.
•    Worst parking: It’s a tie between Livorno and Arezzo.
•    Best view from a hotel room: I’m giving it to the same place as last time, the Albergo Guastini in Pitigliano. Specifically, rooms six and 18, among others. There’s just no equal. Pitigliano is also far and away the winner of the ‘Coolest looking hill town from a distance’ award, if you’re interested.
•    Best Hostel: Sadly, the best hostel in my territory is in one of the least noteworthy areas. I’m talking La Cocciara in tiny, ho-hum Cetona. The hostel is large, clean, safe, friendly and has great beds, but apart from some fine dining in town and the inviting climb on Monte Cetona, there’s really not much to keep you in the area.
•    Best hotel room (budget): Santa Margherita in Cortona. Run by sweet, obliging nuns and just completed a total renovation, including new beds, fresh paint, and sparkling bathrooms. Honorable mention goes to Pensione Weekend in Porto Santo Stefano, on the Monte Argentario peninsula.
•    Best hotel room (mid-range): Antica Residenza Cicogna in Siena. Springless beds, soundproof windows, ornate frescoes, free wi-fi, antique furniture, huge buffet breakfast and a great location. What’s not to love?
•    Best hotel room (high-end): La Frateria di Padre Eligio, also near ho-hum Cetona. (Am I missing something here? Is there a major attraction nearby that I somehow drove past while grappling with the GPS?) It’s a gorgeous former convent dating from 1212, lovingly restored and converted into an unforgettable seven-room hotel and gourmet restaurant.
•    Worst hotel room: Unlike in 2007, I managed to get through the entire trip without being the victim of bedbugs. I stayed in some shabby places, but none of them were flat-out awful. So, instead of naming the worst room, I’ll name the worst service, which was hands-down the disastrously pretentious Hotel Vogue in Arezzo. I didn’t stay there, but my time in reception was probably the most frustrating, customer service-starved 10 minutes of the entire trip. They started out cagy and difficult and then, even after I relented and identified myself, they refused to give me prices, refused to let me see a room and refused to smile (or look away from his computer screen in one clerk’s case). Kiss all your Lonely Planet business goodbye!
•    Worst city for overall accommodations: Though there’s a new, promising budget contender that has yet to prove themselves, overall, Livorno has the worst price-to-value accommodation options in Tuscany. This is unfortunate, as they don’t exactly have the strongest visitor appeal, unless eating at endless exceptional seafood restaurants is enough to snare long-stay visitors. I imagine their biggest tourism hotel customer base are those people arriving late or departing early on ferries, so we’re talking one overnight max, whereas if they lowered prices a bit, people might be inclined to stay longer, giving them more money and less work turning over the rooms. Capice?
•    Best wine: Once again, Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Though I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the incredible, relatively discounted prices one can get if they shop carefully in Montalcino for very decent bottles of the coveted Burnello.
•    Most over-rated wine: It was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I’d have a hard time finding the money to regularly indulge in the Super Tuscan Sassicaia, made in Bolgheri, for €20 per 10cc pour.
•    Best plate of pasta: This is how unfair the universe is: the best plate of pasta I saw in Tuscany was not consumed by me, but by my companion! I got a small taste and that was it! For the record it was the buckwheat lasagna au gratin with pheasant and fennel seeds on a base of creamed garlic and squash. Anyone whose saliva glands aren’t running at full power right now should see a doctor, because it was cra-zay. This complex miracle of gastronomic wizardry was served at Antica Osteria da Divo in Siena. I’ve gotta give two honorable mentions (that I actually ate): the first was the Spinach ravioli with walnut and radicchio sauce, served at Ristorante Don Beta in Volterra. The other was the Chianina beef and tarragon ravioli with porcini mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, a tiny but nonetheless amazing dish I had at Sobborgo in Cetona (there’s that town again).
•    Best meal: Price being no object (without resorting to Michelin Star restaurants), I’m giving this one to Ristorante Don Beta in Volterra. I ate there twice and although the service on the second visit was wooden at best, the food standard was with either superior or beyond both times. Also, as my companion pointed out, the place was full of locals, which you don’t often find at higher end restaurants in tourist towns.
•    Best budget meal: This one was easy, Cantina Senese in Livorno. Excellent seafood at prices dock workers will pay.
•    Worst meal: I have to be careful here. Last time I called out the place that food poisoned me, the owner went nuts and emailed me repeatedly. Instead, I’ll just say how disappointed I was that the formerly great and relatively affordable restaurants that sit on the northeast edge of Piazza Grande in Arezzo have started to charge 10-15% service charges on top of the coperto, which is just unnecessarily greedy and opportunistic. They still have wonderful meals, but staring at not one, but two compulsory tips on the bill irritates a special place in my soul.
•    Best gelato: Gelateria di Piazza in San Gimignano, who I named in 2007, is still doing great work, but I was very impressed with newcomer Visola del Gusto in Volterra, whose signature flavor redefines the word ‘creamy’.
•    Best town: I’m still a die-hard Cortona fan. As I said in 2007, I like the funky streets, cinematic houses and the fact they manage to maintain eateries serving great food at decent prices. This year they were even better, with some major improvements in the budget accommodation options (see ‘Best hotel room [budget]‘ above). However in the interest of fairness, I’m going to give the bump to Portoferraio, on the island of Elba. It’s got fun streets, interesting Napoleonic history and too many good restaurants to fit into the space that I was allotted to write about them in the book. Just avoid it in June/July/August or you’ll have difficulty enjoying most if not all of these perks. Also, the accommodation situation could use improvement. Entrepreneurs, get going.
•    Best big city: As in 2007, it’s Siena. There’s nothing like it.
•    Best beach: Passable beaches are on the coast, like just south of Livorno or the less objectionable profiteering beach towns like Castiglioncello, but the island of Elba still takes honors. If you don’t like rubbing oiled-up elbows with strangers, head for the southeast corner of the island. There’s a bunch of places that take a little effort to reach, meaning they’re pretty roomy, even in high season.
•    Best monastery: Again this is a toughie, but I found myself more impressed this time around by Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore near Asciano. The fresco cycles by Luca Signorelli and Il Sodoma are just amazing.
•    Best agriturismo: In 2007 my bump went to Agriturismo San Lorenzo, just 2km outside of Volterra, which I still love with the heat of a thousand espressos.  However, I was introduced to a new winner this year that takes the title, La Cerreta, outside of Sassetta. They’ve been at it for over 20 years, engineering a ’self-sufficient, biodynamic, harmonic project’, a mindset and lifestyle that will cause all but the most die-hard city lover to re-think their lives. They aim for a simple, gastronomically authentic Tuscan lifestyle. They raise cinta senese (indigenous Tuscan pig), Maremma cows, and the rare Livornese chicken, among others and welcome WWOOFers for short and long-term stays. When I visited they were close to finishing their brand new, three-pool spa, using a thermal spring that they’d discovered late last year.

What Happened?

•    Number of days on the road: 31
•    Number of genuine rest days in that time: 2
•    Drove about 2,200 kilometers (about 1,367 miles)
•    Percentage of time while driving that I was being tailgated by a deranged Italian, under the impression that he was racing for pole position:  50%
•    Most dangerous passing: a van three times the size of my car rode my ass on a violently twisty mountain rode for about 10 minutes – I was already going fast enough to scatter books and papers and test the traction and suspension on my Panda - then finally passed me on a 150 meter stretch between blind curves and careened out of sight. Asshat.
•    Average temperature: 60 degrees  Fahrenheit (15.6 Celsius)
•    Number of days that I could walk around without a jacket or umbrella: 2
•    Number of times I did laundry in 30 days:  1 and 1/2
•    Number of towns visited:  65, (not counting all the little resort-towns, rural abbeys, parks, random castles, and bumps in the road that required me to pull over to check a fact)
•    Number of cumulative hours spent lost:  five (huge improvement over the ‘1.8 billion squillion hours’ I spent lost in 2007)
•    Number of times I cursed lazy/confusing/nonexistent Italian signage at lunatic volume until I became horse: three
•    Number of times that my GPS crashed, ran out of power, got confused by dense cities, took me on unnecessary detours or otherwise failed me: 18 (still, in addition to my familiarity with the region, it’s what most saved me from being constantly lost on this trip)
•    Number of times I parked illegally:  countless
•    Number of parking tickets:  zero
•    Number of free wi-fi clouds that I found:  22 (much improved this year, mainly because I was armed with my awesome Blackberry, allowing me to pirate wi-fi while loitering in front of random hotels, cafes and doorsteps, though searching these out still took a lot of energy, as most hubs were  password protected)
•    Number of cups of coffee consumed: 257 (I tried to show a little restraint this year, 2007 got a little out of control)
•    Number of people who told me that I had their dream job:  31
•    Number of times that people who only talked to me for 15 minutes in 2007 unsettlingly recognized me as soon as I walked in the door: 14
•    Number of reverent, nubile, females whose hearts I broke with my good looks, coveted job and fleeting, dashing presence: zero
•    Number of reverent, nubile, males whose hearts I broke with my good looks, coveted job and fleeting, dashing presence: three
•    Number of people who charitably told me “No, no! Your Italian is just fine!”: one
•    Number of mornings I woke up and said “OK, no wine with dinner tonight. This has gotta stop. I’m dying here.” then had wine with dinner: seven

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

I’m gonna say it yet again, just so there’s no question: I will never relinquish my Blackberry Curve. Anyone who thinks they can part me from this little piece of handheld perfection will have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands. And even then I might deliver one of those post-mortem, loogie spit-spasms right between your eyes or at least haunt and plague your decedents’ cell phones from the outer edge of limbo until my spirit is exorcised through a séance with a dozen virgins and an Everything Omelet. Nevertheless, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that someday someone will improve upon the Curve, which is why I accepted the offer to play with and honestly report on the new Nokia N85.

First, the good stuff. The N85 is sexy. Sleek and minimalist while closed and only slightly less so when opened. The screen is huge and clear and the dual slider face elicited a lot of oohs and aahs from bystanders. The N85’s exhilarating list of specs and features is truly something to behold. There’s a bunch of pre-loaded games (trial versions only), a radio receiver and FM transmitter so you can wirelessly pipe music stored on the phone through your car stereo, boom box or whatever, GPS, a five megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and flash, eight gig memory card, tiny, little stereo speakers, email wizard, web browser, video center, MP3 player, USB, Bluetooth, 3G and wi-fi connectivity… And I’m just getting started.

The mere fact that the N85 is the size of a Milky Way bar, with the combined features from gadgets that, not even five years ago, would have filled the trunk of a small car, is the kind of technological advancement that geeks have been waiting for since Star Wars (with the notable absence of a Lightsaber). Even if you had a year alone in a room with this thing, you could never conceivably master or even put to good use all of its features. That said, unfortunately, bugs, an awkward interface and challenging usability detract from the phone’s dizzying potential.

Let’s start with interface: Admittedly, I’m spoiled. The Blackberry Curve has a full physical keyboard that’s quick, responsive and accurate (as accurate as a full keyboard that’s 1″ x 2″ can be). There’s nothing else better, including the iPhone. Due to my extended absence from the world of cell phone ownership (approximately 2003-2007, not counting the bare-bones toy phone I carried around Romania and Italy for two years), I effectively made the giant leap from an analogue phone straight to the Blackberry. As such, I had almost zero experience trying to enter information or SMS messages using only the standard phone keypad, a maddening, ungainly task I consider to be the 21st century equivalent of Morse Code.

To make matters worse, the one (and possibly only) thing that the N85 doesn’t do is that auto-complete for common words shortcutthingiewhatsits that most keypad-only phones have. That failing, and my unfamiliarity with this form of ‘typing’, meant every text message took eons to compose. If I was reduced to writing full emails with the N85, I’d almost certainly need (more) therapy to cope with the tremors it would cause over time. Also, and it may have been because I had a refurbished phone abused by 10 testers before me, but the buttons were non-responsive unless you hit them just right. Other people who played with the phone reported the same problem.

The ‘Navi wheel’, a.k.a. ’scroll key’, was also clumsy. Admittedly, I also have misgivings about the combo roller/clicker ball on the Curve. I’ve played with the sensitivity adjustment on that thing for a year and still haven’t found something that doesn’t cause me to routinely careen past or stop short of the icon I’m aiming for and misfire a regrettable click that isn’t easily undone. Still, overall, my Blackberry’s roller ball will out point-and-click the N85’s Navi wheel with its ball tied behind its back. The Nokia just asks too much of my thumb to be bouncing around four sides of the so-called ‘wheel’ and perfuming multiple action clicks in the center. And with the admittedly eye-pleasing minimalist design of the N85, you’re forced to drill down into countless menus to accomplish even the simplest tasks, where I could do the same after punching only one shortcut button on my Blackberry. I was constantly mis-navigating, a problem that was exacerbated by the N85’s often very slow response time (which it appears is the price you pay for cramming so much functionality into the limited processing power of a smartphone).

Another annoyance was the camera’s slide door. It was just too frakking easy to accidentally slide it open, a goof that automatically takes you directly to the camera app, meaning whatever awesome cards you’re holding over at the World Series of Poker game are put into jeopardy.

Now the real reason I hauled this thing across seven time zones was for the GPS feature. Navigating roads in Italy is little better now than in Roman times - the roads are in better condition now, but the signage is worse - and I needed all the help I could get. I know I can’t hold this against the phone, but unfortunately, just getting the effing thing to work properly took over a week. This was mostly due to the lack of foresight and prep between me and the Nokia people. First, I didn’t have the right code to activate the walking and driving instructions feature. Then I couldn’t activate it without being in a wi-fi cloud, which took several days as wi-fi in Tuscany is still at Third World stages and when there is wi-fi, it’s almost always password protected due to Italy’s bafflingly strict internet “privacy laws”. Then there was the time that I carelessly allowed the N85 to connect to Vodafone’s (my cellular provider in Italy) data service, when, despite using the GPS sparingly and internet almost not at all, the phone somehow sucked down 15 euros worth of credit in just 24 hours.

After further performance problems, the Nokia people asked me to download and install the next version of the GPS software. Once again, ridiculous amounts of time and energy went into this task, as I needed both my laptop and the phone connected to a wi-fi hub to complete installation. Then the upgrade somehow wiped out the spoken word driving instructions feature, which I discovered too late to correct while I still had access to the hotel wi-fi I’d paid so dearly for, which meant another day of sweeping the air outside of apartment buildings and hotels, hoping to catch an unsecured wi-fi hub so I could re-download a voice guidance package.

Also, the new version of the GPS software wasn’t quite happy to work with the N85’s operating system, because the phone crashed on me a few times while I was using it for driving instructions. At least when it died, it would kindly signal me of its demise by making a high pitched, squawking noise like an audio tape being fast-forwarded. The only way to get the phone working again after a crash was to remove the battery for a minute or so, then let it do a cold boot. I became quite skilled at cursing in four languages in one breath while performing this task.

Also, and I understand that this is true with any GPS device, but you need to take the driving directions it provides more as a suggestion than the gospel. There were often times when the phone insisted that I take turns that didn’t exist, or tried to send me down restricted or one-way streets, or go infuriatingly silent when I was approaching a roundabout with five exits. In large, dense cities, like Siena and Livorno, when I really could have used the help, it was rendered almost useless by the prohibitive tangle of streets and interference caused by tightly packed buildings. And once in a while, during an otherwise problem-free cruise, it would throw out the random ‘now perform a U-turn’, just to fornicate with me.

After the third or fourth death-squawk, I seriously contemplated pulling into a scenic outlook and hurling the N85 off a cliff to be ravaged by scavenging goats below. Why not? I had already been forced to buy a road map, since I was having such spotty success using the GPS, and even though relying on the map required me to pull over more often than when I used the phone, at least with the map there were no performance issues. The only thing that kept me from testing its air-worthiness was that, when it worked, the N85’s GPS was my savior.

When it wasn’t adhering to a French work schedule with a hypochondriac’s craving for attention, the N85 saved me significant amounts of time and frustration on the bewildering roads of Tuscany. Though it must be said that this hot-cold performance was like dating a charming asshole. It would let me down over and over, but then, just as I was getting ready to throw it out of the house and give its prized record collection to the Salvation Army, it would do something totally amazing and redeem itself. Then the cycle would start all over again.

In retrospect, I can honestly say that I was very happy to have the N85 with me on the road. The GPS set-up/upgrade headaches and occasional unnecessary detours into olive groves aside, overall the N85 undeniably improved my trip. Lesser, but nonetheless appreciated assistance it provided included the quicker and boarder wi-fi scanning range over the Blackberry and the vastly superior photo quality.

This phone certainly has a target audience that will promptly lose bladder control when they get their hands on it, I’m unfortunately just not one of them.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

Using my very limited skills and resources, I have slapped together a montage of photos from my recently completed Lonely Planet Tuscany research trip. As a general nod to posterity (and those considering my internship offer), I’ve chosen to irresponsibly romanticize the trip by leaving out pictures of me limping, being lost, rained on and falling asleep at dinner between the primo and secondo. Enjoy.

[If your blog reader does not display the video, please click here]

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

Flying from Pisa to New York was the most profound test of my Buddha-like patience for rudeness and psychoses since I tried to buy a car in Romania.

My immediate neighbor was a batshit crazy woman from the Dominican Republic, who was totally helpless, unable to even fill in her own name into the US arrivals form without help from the flight attendants. When the flight attendants stopped paying attention to her she talked me. When I stopped paying attention to her, she talked to herself. She also fidgeted for nearly the entire flight and repeatedly applied lotion to her hands and arms that had an overwhelming stench of cough syrup.

The woman across the aisle from me was an Italian of middle years, seemingly on her first flight, who fancied that the entire crew was there to serve only her. No flight attendant could pass by her without being stopped and asked to perform some kind of trivial service, like taking away a magazine that she had finished reading. The flight attendants eventually stopped using our aisle whenever possible.

The worst, though, were the two 50-something, vacuous, women from Long Island sitting behind me. They both had booming voices that, even in normal conversational tones, traveled for five rows in all directions. Even with my silicon earplugs stuffed deep enough into my ears so that they actually formed synaptic connections during the flight, I heard everything they said with perfect clarity. And they were frequently even louder, as they yelled to friends sitting three rows away.

Though they quieted down for one of the three movies shown during the flight, mostly they just talked. And talked. And talked. It was exactly as if a Bluetooth transmitter had been implanted in Paris Hilton’s brain and then paired with a Twitter account. Every move, every comment, every idle, passing, inane thought from these two ladies was broadcast to dozens of people in their immediate earshot.

The following is a sample list of verbatim comments (to the best of my memory) that transpired throughout the flight:

•    [To a flight attendant during boarding] “Do you know where the food was made for this flight? Was it Italy? I hope it was Italy, because the food on the flight from America was just awful! I mean, really, really, really awful!”
Flight attendant: “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

•    [While regarding the big screen, flight progress display] “Hey! We’re flying at 34,000 feet!” [moments later] “Look! Now we’re at 10,000 feet!” [beat] “Now we’re at 34,000 feet again! What’s going on??” [many minutes later] “Do you think the 10,000 feet was actually meters?”

•    [When the crew accidentally started to show "Quantum of Solace" a second time] “Hey, they’re showing ‘Quantum of Solace’ again! Or maybe this is part two?” [Five minutes later] “No, I’m pretty sure this is ‘Quantum of Solace’ again.”

•    “Blah, blah the beach club. Blah, blah, beach club. Beach club, blah, blah…”

•    “Our tour guide was terrible! He had an awful accent.” [Reminder: these ladies were from Long Island]

•    [Repeated every time there was a new listener] “Well, my husband is a dentist, and he thinks…”

•     [Yelling to friend three rows away during Hour 5 of flight] “Hey Joyce! Are you awake? Hey Joyce!! Joyce!!!”

•    “I haven’t turned my phone on for two weeks. Do you think the battery is still charged?”

•    [Seconds after touch down] “Quick! Quick!! Give me your phone! I have to tell Ron that we landed!” [other replies] “But isn’t he waiting for us at the airport?” [response] “Yes, but he likes to know when I land.”

I have never wanted to openly moan so much from the pain of someone’s else’s speech as much as I did during this flight. I know threatening flight staff is a federal offense, but what if I threaten a fellow passenger that really, really deserves it? That’s still legal, right? I know Obama will make it legal.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

… when everyone in town knows you’re gonna drink it alone.

By this stage, it’s no secret that I habitually enjoy a few glasses of wine (in front of me, simultaneously, as I dutifully finish the bottle) while in the privacy of my home after a long day of writing and the sadistic four foot commute from my desk to my couch. This regular wine consumption is one of those charming, some say ‘fruity’, habits that I brought home after living in Europe for almost four years, in addition to refusing to ever own a car again, coffee addiction and pronouncing words that are new to me using Latin vowel rules which is never right in English and just makes me sound pompous. I still cant seem to say ‘Conde Nast’ right.

When I buy wine at home, it is done with delightful anonymity at a wine/liquor store just a few blocks from my condo in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Though they are ever attentive and kind, even after a year of my frequent custom and well over a $1,000 in wine and Strongbow purchases, there’s nary a wee hint of familiarity when I heave my items onto the checkout counter. I love this, because that means there’s no probing chit-chat about the special occasion that calls for yet another case of Strongbow, only six days since I was last seen hauling a case out the door or how much my extended family must have loved those sale-priced Chiantis, when I return only days later to once again to buy as much as I can comfortably carry.

I’m not overly concerned with appearances, as even a quick glance into my closet will confirm, but I found myself more than a little self-conscious on the morning of my departure from Montalcino, when I resolved to buy some can’t-say-no bargain Brunello di Montalcino in the main piazza. Drawing on my years of method actor training, I have resolutely assumed the quiet, rumpled dignity and unrelenting focus required of my guidebook writer persona - a ‘get a load of Rainman’ like manner that excuses me from acknowledging any trace of social embarrassment as I walk-trot from place to place with my Palm Pilot in one hand and my GPS-ready cell phone in the other amongst relaxing locals and vacationers. But I was feeling exceedingly self-conscious on this morning, after having been introduced to the whole of Montalcino the previous evening and they were all fully aware that I was quite alone and charged with writing detailed, accurate and, ideally, sober travel information about their town.

I’d taken drinks and dinner that night with Jena, an American expat and Montalcino resident of eight years, who I made mildly famous when I featured her as a ‘Local Voice’ in the current edition of Lonely Planet Tuscany & Umbria. Jena is, as we like to say in travel writing, a character. Lovely, warm, loud, passionate. She has taken on (or has always had, I can’t say for sure) all the stereotypical characteristics of a strong Italian woman – with a hair-raising zap of her own already robust personality. She is without a doubt a leading Montalcino personality. In a scorching two hours of rapid-fire banter, sometimes carrying on three concurrent conversations, we encountered and mingled with virtually all of Montalcino, who, in turn, met me and learned of my noble duty to report on all that is great in Tuscany.

The next day, I felt the eyes of the town on the back of my neck as I completed my research and, not wanting to pass up the cheapest Brunello prices in the world, decided that I would take away a bottle of liquid memories on my way to the car. Strangely, the overwhelmingly wine-focus Italians view drinking alone, even in moderation, as being somewhat eccentric. Even the dedicated winos do their drinking at their local café, where despite it just being them and the barista at 9:30 in the morning, they are nevertheless drinking in a social situation, so they’re exonerated. Knowing this, I was keenly aware of the implications and interpretations of marching through town, carrying a Brunello that all in attendance knew that I would drink single-handedly in a distant hotel room in the very near future.

A collective hush descend on four busy café terraces in the square as I entered the shop. I quickly made my purchase and hustled out the door carrying my bottle in a conspicuously large, cardboard carrying case that the cashier insisted on giving me, rather than permitting my carefully laid plan to shove it up my pant leg. Eyebrows on some 87 people arched, while they tracked my retreat down Montalcino’s main street. The usual smattering of little old ladies leaning out their windows, monitoring street goings on while their laundry dries, was unusually abundant as I made for the car, their expressionless faces slowly turning, staying fixed on me as I passed, judging, tutting, condemning.

I picked up the pace once I was in the parking lot on the edge of town, leaping and sliding across the hood of my car Dukes of Hazard style (which ain’t easy on the snub-nosed Fiat Panda), clamored into the driver’s seat and roared down the hill (which also ain’t easy in a Panda), taking a 15 kilometer detour around the city, rather than driving back through the center.

Years from now, they’ll still talking about the devilishly handsome, lonely, gringo that blew through town one day in 2009. Despite being a sad, closet drinker, his guidebook jottings saved everyone from financial ruin and indentured servitude to the evil mega-ranch owner, not to mention the 20 minute running gun fight with the rancher’s henchmen, where 4,246 rounds were fired from automatic weapons and all the henchmen were disarmed and captured without a single person getting shot. And then, like a one-man A-Team, he was suddenly gone.

Despite these heroics, I’ll have to decline the LP Tuscany job in 2011, since I can never set foot in Montalcino again, what with their long memories and legendary café gossip, repeating the tales of my alcoholism like historical legend, passed down orally from generation to generation as was the custom before there was mobile phone text messaging.

And yes, I opened that Brunello the very same evening, an exquisite, palette-humping 2004 (14% alcohol volume!), that cost a mere 18 euros or about US$24. Per the careful instructions I received in the shop, I opened it and waited for two of the longest hours of my life while it ‘breathed’ or ‘wheezed’ or whatever, then, after showering and putting on my best underwear, we climbed into bed together and made the kind of sweet love that only a man and a good bottle of wine can make. Well, if you wanna split hairs, I suppose there’s a second kind…

[PHOTO CREDIT: Katie Mardis]

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

I think by now that I’ve managed to drive home the point that, while totally awesome at times, on most days travel writing is about as sexy as answering phones and data entry at the National Center for Statistical Reporting of Barley Yields.

There is copious unsexy downtime and tedium in travel writing and, sadistically, even those intervals can be mentally draining. Although I’m certainly biased, there are few jobs that I’m aware of, or can imagine, that demand the same full-on analytical, detail-oriented, creative, clerical, organizational, financial, social, cultural, physical and diplomatic requirements as travel writing. This holds true whether you’re writing a 500 word article or updating a 60,000 word guidebook. Well, it should hold true at any rate, but the evidence in certain (in-flight) magazines, newspapers and blogs suggests that you can get by without most of what I’d consider the bare minimum of effort or ability.

From the list above, you can extrapolate how much of travel writing involves being dropped out of a helicopter to ski down the Andes Mountains, right up to the VIP entrance of a luxury spa and then ending the day with copious booze and an eight course surf and turf banquet with the mayor and how much of it involves sitting in front of a laptop researching, fact checking, networking, beseeching, weeping and sometimes writing the perfect introduction.

Travel writing isn’t kind of like a rollercoaster ride, it’s exactly like a rollercoaster ride: waiting in the interminably long and slow moving line surrounded by yokels, drunks and idiots; climbing onboard; the slow, chugging and neck-snapping climb; the mind-bending crest; the electrifying plunge causing primal screams and blood to pool at the back of your skull; the disappointing final straightaway, largely dull with undulating, minor thrills, but already making you nostalgic for the seemingly distant plunge; and finally coming to a stop and staggering to the exit with your head spinning, minor injuries and occasional vomiting.

In less metaphoric terms, the general arc of a guidebook job goes something like this:

Week 1: Unsexy pitching (read: begging) for work

Week 2: Unsexy fee negotiations and, in my case, insomnia spike

Week 3: Getting the gig (OK, that’s kinda sexy), followed by the unsexy realization of the true scope of the gig, which always turns out to be way bigger than you realized, and stirring up Freelancer’s Remorse at having been too supplicating during Week 2

Weeks 4 & 5: Receiving unremitting, unsexy piles of documentation, guidelines, the product manual, the old text, maps, the map guidelines, and loads of random emails all crammed with essential information and tasks that you must satisfy during the gig, then copying, pasting and geographically organizing this litany of data into one document (which, if you ask me, should have been done in the first place), so that nothing gets overlooked during the controlled chaos that punctuates on-the-ground research and, if there’s any time left, cramming vocab and lost language skills

Weeks 6-?: Very sexy, though often grueling, on-the-ground research, which, depending on the scope of the project, lasts anywhere from three to eight weeks, and frequently includes one or more unsexy, near-disastrous obstacles like bed bugs, food poisoning and car accident(s)

Write-up (6-8 weeks): Arguably the most jarring, dispiriting and unsexy part - shifting gears overnight from travel, hyper-socializing, and a steady sensory overload of cool and singular experiences to sitting alone in your anti-stimulating home, surrounded by stacks of notes, tattered maps, brochures, business cards (usually proffered by friendly, enthusiastic people who will then never answer any of your emails) and embarking on the task of transcribing all that information into a logical, concise, triple-checked, layout-friendly and pleasant-to-read format

As some of you have probably surmised from the recent laziness on this blog and my one-track tweets, I’ve been wholly absorbed in the weeks 3-5 part of the process. While everyone else I know has been hooting it up at SXSWi or standing bewildered at the gorgeous weather in Minnesota these past few days, I’ve been locked inside my Condo of Solitude, doing prep work that I call ‘prudent’ and others call ‘batshit obsessive-compulsive’.

But all that is about to change. Tomorrow, via layovers in Cincinnati (Three hours! Someone please tell me there’s free wi-fi!) and Paris, I’ll be rocketing to Pisa, getting into a 2-door Fiat Panda, powering up the GPS on my loaner Nokia N85 and heading into the exceptionally sexy world of researching Tuscan towns, food and wine. Even after you subtract the significant Sexy Points I lose by driving the Panda and wearing nothing but Old Navy t-shirts, cargo pants and trainers, I’m expecting amorous people to fall all over me as I flash around my official letters of introduction in two languages from both Lonely Planet and the Italian Government Tourist Board, not to mention carrying the current edition of Tuscany & Umbria that already has my name and sexy picture in it.

I have the added advantage of having already done this gig, so the lengthy and unsexy discovery process and being hopelessly lost for several hours a day will be removed from the equation. I’ve also had (slightly) more time to prepare this time around, allowing me to track down and make contact with a small army of officials, informers, friends and handlers throughout the region. I’m not gonna jinx myself and say it’ll be easy, but it’ll certainly be easier than last time. And even if it’s not, it’s difficult to complain about researching a guidebook in Tuscany – and even more difficult to gain any sympathy.

With that, I’m signing off. Blog readers will be hearing very little from me in the next month, though Twitter followers should see self-satisfied, giddy tweets almost daily, hopefully augmented with random pictures, assuming in the past two years that someone in Tuscany has finally gone around and introduced proprietors to the cutting edge technology known as ‘wi-fi’.

As a preview of what’s to come, or to fill the gapping Killing Batteries void in your life, you can review my Tuscany Lists from 2007, where I detailed the best and worst of my trip and TMI details like how many times I did laundry in a month (one). Heck, rereading some of the posts, pretty much anything from April or May of 2007 should give you a firm idea of what I’ll be getting into starting Tuesday morning.

Thanks for sticking with me and I look forward to being the target of your wretched envy for the next month.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

Hi! Remember me? I used to blog here during the Clinton Administration. I’ve been a little busy hiding out in a yurt in the steppes of South Dakota, changing locations every third day under the cover of night for the past eight years, but I’m back now!

Actually, I’m not quite back yet. Tuscany prep and a short paying gig have totally derailed my life. I’d like nothing more than to blog about my booty and post pictures of starlets in see-through dresses, but in these times of economic uncertainty I gotta give the paying work priority.

However, I’ve managed to find some text to lazily paste here in place of original writing. Actually, this is all original writing as far as you guys know, so disregard that last sentence. A new Twitter follower asked me today if there was a “life story synopsis” on my blog, explaining how I got into travel writing and I realized to my horror that there was not! How did this happen? How can I have a blog about me, written by me, in order to shamelessly promote me, and not have a life story synopsis? It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in the entire course of my existence! Well, that and when Michelle Bachmann got re-elected.

So, I’m tackling that scandalous omission now. Without asking permission from my agent (She’s on a slow boat to India right now, what’s she gonna do, email me to death?), I’m posting a excerpt from my latest book proposal (is 835 words still technically a ’synopsis’?), a heartbreaking work of travel memoir-y genius, which briefly explains why I’m a travel writer and not the guy that monitors national and international electronic payments networks for the US Federal Reserve System.

The selection picks up on my life story at age 24, after returning from two post-university backpacking tours of Europe in 18 months, during which time I took a particular liking to the lifestyle in Spain, to face the real world and submit to a career. It ends abruptly, so as to avoid getting into a meatier section of the book and giving away its super-awesome, career-making hook. Enjoy.

…………………………………………..

When I returned to the US to reluctantly begin my career, in my youthful naivety, I decided that I would live as the Spanish lived. I would place priority on my personal life no matter the cost, and if that meant eliminating any trace of professional ambition and languishing in eternal mediocrity, well then that’s simply how my life would have to be.

Conveniently, with my Theatre Arts degree and the dire state of the entry-level job market in 1994, I didn’t have any choice but to embrace a low-income, Euro-slacker lifestyle. Indeed, I immediately landed one of those jobs specially reserved for people such as myself: switchboard operator at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

This was a job that I’d performed handily during university. I could work a phone with the same technique and élan as a concert pianist, answering and transferring calls for hours without ever looking up from my book.

Having, I felt, ingeniously found a job that only required 5% of my brain processing capacity there was little stopping me from staggering into work on two hours of sleep in the throes of a raging Rum-and-Cokeurism. Staying true to my inner-Spaniard, I would skulk off and nap during lunch. Since time and distance prevented me from returning home for my siesta, I had to sidle into one of the ‘resting rooms’ at the Bank, meant for sick people and lactating mothers.

This went on for two of the most carefree years of my adult life, before things like TV commercial brainwashing, peer pressure and envy finally got the better of me. Actually, more than anything, I’d finally had enough of watching people earning twice what I was earning who couldn’t even print out envelopes without assistance. I slowly let go of my pursuit of leisure, hobbies and rum and clawed my way up the ranks of the Federal Reserve, jockeying and leaping up the pay scale through five jobs in six years until I hit the big time. I was getting a comfortable check, I had my very own high-walled cubicle, and I was the proud owner of all the essential Bank-issued status symbols: a laptop, pager and cell phone.

At about the same time that I achieved what I’d coveted for years, I suddenly realized that my career had taken control of my life and I was the least content that I’d ever been. Out of the blue, I was 32, divorced, overburdened with crap I didn’t need, working an insane on-call schedule, dangerously dependent on caffeine and muttering darkly about life. I’d succeeded in duplicating the Pettersen family career blueprint.

A series of hangover driven moments-of-clarity occurred, making me realize that I had to act fast or I would lose 40 of the most important years of my life to the Federal Reserve. And act fast I did. In a frenzied six-week period, I implemented a critical mass of rash and irreversible decisions: I quit my job, sold my house, car and all earthly possessions, bought a laptop and flew to Europe with the intention of breaking and entering into the travel writing industry.

With no applicable writing experience, no connections and no clue, the first two years of my travel writing career were reminiscent of the pandemonium and accidental success of an Inspector Clouseau investigation.  But I toured nearly 40 countries on four continents and wrote about every escapade.

After months of manic and hilariously misguided pitching to newspapers in the US, my first true paying gig came when a magazine editor in need of a short article on Lisbon found my travelogue during desperate Googling. After considerable editing, I managed to turn in something that wasn’t too bad and proudly earned my first byline. When she learned that I was traveling overland from Romania to Greece a few weeks later she asked if I might like to stop in Istanbul and write a feature for her. The travel writing snowball had finally started rolling downhill.

By the end of my second year on the road, though I had managed to fortuitously snare a few more juicy magazine assignments, the real break finally arrived. I landed a gig updating Lonely Planet guidebooks for both Romania and Moldova. With the exposure that my Lonely Planet work provided, combined with an increasingly large pile of glossy magazine clippings, I was quite suddenly loaded with more travel writing assignments than I could handle and, more importantly, getting paid a living wage.

Apart from the amazed satisfaction of having orchestrated my very own dream job, all that long-term, homeless travel and living entirely out of two modest-sized bags triggered multiple defining lifestyle epiphanies. I realized that even some of the most dirt-poor people on Earth were generally happier than pretty much everyone I knew at home. I realized that a simple life was the best - and possibly only - technique for reducing stress. Finally, I realized that I needed surprisingly little money, possessions and living space to have a rewarding life.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

When people meet me for the first time in person, several undeniable truths about Leif Pettersen, negligibly famous travel writer, are readily apparent:

•    Aged like a fine wine
•    Lover of furry animals and children
•    Zen-like in his patience for bad drivers
•    Natalie Portman scholar

However, when people first get a load of this blog, apparently the first trait that springs to mind is ‘gadget junkie’. The enablers at Nokia acted on this gut instinct, which is why I am now fondling a loaner Nokia N85. Yes, fondling. It’s worse than the first time I touched a boob. I’m working this anti-social behavior out of my system now, because soon I’ll have to go out in public with this thing for some very important geeklicious testing.

Now, there’s no chance that I’ll relinquish my Blackberry. In fact if my explicit instructions about being buried with it are not followed to the letter, heads are gonna roll when I’m reincarnated. But after scanning the specs on the finely crafted, portable technorgasm that is the N85, it was difficult to pass up the offer to play with it. Indeed, the timing was exquisite, as the phone comes loaded with a slew of wicked GPS apps and I’m mere weeks away from a long tour through Tuscany – a place sign-posted by a crack team of Italy’s most dedicated underachievers. I spent something like 483,562 hours simply being lost the last time I researched Tuscany and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be out-passive aggressived by Italian signage twice. The Nokia people quickly agreed to let me take the N85 abroad, so when I’m driving in circles on this particular trip to Tuscany, it’ll only to be to find a parking spot that’ll cause the most traffic havoc (when in Rome…).

Now, to be fair to the asshats in charge of putting up signs in Italy, I’ll admit that Italian roads, and particularly the streets in the centers of historic cities, could make the hardest cartographer snap. I figured that even a squillion dollar satellite couldn’t possibly plot all those tiny, winding streets correctly and decided to do some pre-testing. I used the phone to GPS-tour both Siena and San Gimignano and, oh happy day, every single alley, corner and dead end were perfectly marked! So I said to myself, “Self, stop messing around here. You and I both know we can make this thing go haywire. Let’s show it who’s boss and take it to the most confounding, head-spinning, spirit-sapping tangle of streets in all of Italy. That’s right, Venice.” I zoomed out, floated due northeast, then zoomed back down onto that deliciously hellish maze and Buddha help me, it was all there, perfectly plotted and marked.

People, this phone is going to literally save me tens of hours of time on this trip that will be better spent signing copies of the current Tuscany & Umbria for all the groupies that follow me around in VW vans when I’m on the road. Or, failing that, playing World Series of Poker, which is also pre-loaded on the phone.

I’ll post a full Nokia N85 review when I’ve returned from my trip (or the next time I can’t think of anything else to blog about).

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

I joined Facebook last summer, because many self-absorbed friends had taken to posting their vacation photos on Facebook and only Facebook, so it was either I join or I miss out on photos. (Tip: If you ever want to see any of your friends semi-nude, just ask to see their Burning Man photos. Boioioing!)

But joining doesn’t mean participating, and so I didn’t. I mean really, I’ve got stuff to do over here. I’m already prohibitively preoccupied by email, Google Reader, Twitter and whatever else I can find that doesn’t involve actual work. I’m hanging onto the bare minimum of daily productivity by a slender thread here. No more distractions, thank you.

Peer pressure to flesh out my Facebook page and find friends ensued. I told those people they could take their Facebook and shove it right up their MySpace, because I’m a busy man. Very busy. I have, you know, stuff going on, like constantly. I can’t think of an example right now, but rest assured it’s bedlam.

Last week I caved. My ego couldn’t resist widening the audience of people who have no choice but to read and bask in my idle thoughts and funny pictures. And you know what happened? Pretty much exactly what I predicted would happen. Facebook become a full-time job.

First there was the pictures to upload. The figuring out how to connect the Twitter feed. Then the momentous task of friending everyone I’ve ever met for the past 25 years. With Facebook’s wonky interface, none of this happened in quick fashion. And, though I’m sure this gets easier over time, with the roughly 274 options you have on each page, you can never be quite sure where a link will take you or how to get back to that thing you wanted to look at five hours ago, when you first signed on.

Then you suddenly realize that it’s 2:30pm and you haven’t eaten anything except for that coffee at 8am and your eyes are burning and your brain is scrambled and your work day window is effectively shot.

Now if career-ending non-productivity was the only issue, I might, over time, be able to balance my daily schedule, allowing me to both engage in Facebook play and earn a sustainable income. But there’s an incessant, individual P.R. see-saw that needs to be attended to on Facebook. Namely the damage control and spin required whenever someone from your past decides to get cheeky and post something personally embarrassing, like the above picture of me from a bad hair day from the final days of senior year in high school.  (I’m on the left)

When you think about it, the fallout from regrettable moments dredged up from your past could be potentially ruinous. No one would ever think to do stuff like that to you publicly if it were all happening in person, but since it’s all online, anything goes. The following video, which I found on one of my new friend’s profile page, shows what Facebook in real life might be like. [Those of you reading this with a blog reader, can view the video here]:

I saw that video after I’d spent 12 cumulative hours establishing myself on Facebook and it momentarily made me start searching for the elusive ‘delete everything’ button. Why is it OK to do that type of stuff online when, if it were to happen in real life, the ensuing violence would probably earn you a spot in the opening credits of Cops? Nevertheless, I’m sticking with this Facebook fad for now and we’ll see how quickly some identity thief gets a credit card in my name and charges up $2,000 in donkey scat porn. Because I’d never do anything like that.

So, yeah, by all means, friend me. But I’m not gonna do all that “25 Things You Didn’t Wanna Know About Me” and join your “I Like Beets” fan club. At least for now. Ask me again in about six months.

[STUPID PHOTO OF ME CREDIT: Peter Kelen]

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…