Killing Batteries

For those of you that weren’t waiting in line at midnight, Lonely Planet’s latest edition of Tuscany & Umbria hit the shelves recently and through the magic of sub-standard mail delivery I just got my hands on my free author copies a few days ago.

That’s right, author copies. Why? Because I helped write that bitch, that’s why. Pages 213 through 308 to be exact.

As I’ve confessed here repeatedly, my being thrust into the brass ring of guidebook writing jobs was the direct result of an untimely bacterial lung infection (not mine) and using up about a decade of banked karma by conveniently being in Italy and doing nothing particularly important at the time. Seeing as how I was a sub and the regular (infected) author’s text was in such great shape, I hesitated to alter too much, but vast quantities of coffee during that panicky write-up interval and my uncontainable goofball humor repeatedly got the best of me.

Some of my more notable zings that somehow made it through editing include:

• Used the phrase “stupid Florence” (p237, 2nd column, last paragraph)
• Compared the rough port city of Livorno to a grade school girl bully (p213)
• Used the phrase “screw-the-Pope” (p295, 2nd column, 2nd paragraph)
• Slipped in a sarcasm-rich box text about Saint Catherine of Siena, entitled “Mom! Catherine’s Consecrating Her Virginity to Jesus Again!!” (p245) that eventually inspired the post “Good for nothing kid or future saint?”

Also, I must say that I hit the Eating sections hard. I heroically managed to dine in nearly 70 Tuscan restaurants during my 31 days on the road for this guidebook. There were times that I reeked so much of truffle oil that dogs came running out of the hills and gave chase as I drove by. I spent over 150 euros on gelato alone. I drank enough wine to earn a lifetime membership in the Pope Paul III Wine Appreciation Club.

I’ve had precious little free time to do more than skim my chapters and admire the “smoochy” picture of me in the front “On The Road” color section, but I know for a fact that my co-authors are all geniuses, so their sections are probably at least as good, if not better than mine – minus copious snarky comments about popes and Florence.

There’s already been a flood of positive reviews about the book online. Here are a few quotes:

“This guidebook changed my life. I’ve arranged to be legally wed to it.” – Leif Pettersen, Amazon.com

“I don’t know what’s better, this guidebook or porn.” – User “love_of_your_leif”, Travelers That Love Porn Dot Com

“This guidebook is what you would get if you took DNA from Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Michelle Hunziker, put it all in an incubator with 452 blank pages for nine months, then fed it with Diablo Cody’s breast milk.” – Genetics Society of America Book Review

In closing, having taken all factors under careful, impartial consideration, I declare that this is the greatest guidebook in the history of the universe. Twelve out of five stars, plus the KB Seal of Pure Genius Awesomeness™. Get it now before the first printing sells out and you can only get copies on eBay for $2,000, sold by some company calling itself Leiftime Book Brokers.

More senseless football (soccer) related violence in Italy. This time a fan is killed, strangely while sitting in a car. I suppose authorities will dream up some wacky explanation as to how the guy sitting in the car was the most dangerous one at the brawl. Or maybe they’ll blame everything on a nearby dog.

Tit for tat I guess, after a cop was killed while sitting in his car in February when a fan tossed a homemade explosive through the window.

This is just the stuff that makes international news. Smaller, non-fatal skirmishes happen constantly. Pseudo-solutions like stopping games and playing to empty stadiums for a week or two has done nothing to cool things down.

The way I see it, there are only two ways to resolve this issue permanently:

1. Play games to empty stadiums for a decade. Yes, a whole decade. Let the fucking hooligans watch games on TV and tear up their own apartments if they wanna get rambunctious. After 10 years they can reopen the stadiums to fans. By then the current generation of hooligans will have matured a bit (maybe) and the new generation of fans will not have grown up in that atmosphere and won’t be prone to kicking up trouble for the sake of kicking up trouble.

2. Inject valium into every man, woman and child as they enter the stadium.

If they’re gonna act like children, treat them like children.

Discuss.

[Continuing the reuse of my "Don't Go There" series, the Naples installment was written while I quietly whimpered in a corner of my hostel in November 2003. Unlike Berlin, Naples has apparently gotten worse in the interval since I visited.]

I’d initially only intended to stay in Naples long enough to break the Guinness World Record for Sprinting the Length of a City While Carrying Two Heavy Bags, before diving onto the ferry to Sicily. I’d formulated this plan on the strength of several reliable sources warning me that Naples was an unequivocal shithole and my feelings were that in the previous six months of backpacking Europe, I’d categorically filled my Shithole Quota.

However, in the days before I hit town, a few people had swayed me, enthusiastically ensuring me that Naples had been given a bad rap. I even ran into a native Neapolitan who was very nearly reduced to tears while singing the praises of his home town. So at the last minute, I dipped into my Lonely Planet to sort out accommodations. Things looked up immediately. Lonely Planet raved more ardently about Six Small Rooms, a hostel in the heart of Naples, than any other accommodations options that I had read about previously.

Although Six Small Rooms was within reasonable walking distance of the train station, I had it on good authority that the immediate vicinity around the Naples train station, Piazza Garibaldi in particular, was a free-for-all of thievery, hustlers, junkies and a few entrepreneurs employing a scary combination of all three. Those who weren’t in the aforementioned demographics were selling stuff that was so recently stolen that you could detect what the former owners had had for breakfast.
(more…)

OK, I’m still a little pissed off about Italy’s “new” registration regulations for US tourist (and possibly other nationalities) staying more than eight business days. Part of the reason I’m in a tizzy is that I still can’t find a definitive answer. The US Consular Information Sheet for Italy (dated August 13th, 2007) that was emailed to me conflicts with the Consular Information Sheet on the US State Department website, updated October 11th 2007, which still says that a permesso di soggiorno is only needed for stays over three months.

(more…)

(Advanced apology to non-US citizens reading this post. This may not affect you. Or maybe it will. Or maybe you’re even more screwed. It’s too early to tell.)

I’ve just been forwarded the latest US Consular Information Sheet for Italy. It’s business as usual in the entry requirements section, at least for the first paragraph:

“A valid passport is required. Italian authorities may deny entry to travelers who attempt to enter without a valid passport. Visas are not required for U.S. citizens for tourist visits of up to 90 days.”

Well thank Buddha for that. Now I can plan that one month Tour con Lamborghini that I’ve always wanted to do. Awww yeaaaah. Fast cars, loose women and… Hold up, what’s that in the second paragraph?

(more…)

(Or would that be ‘doofi’?)

I have a dirty little secret. Every time I fly in or out of Italy or Romania, I’m scared shitless. Actually, when I fly into either of these countries, I’m merely very concerned that I won’t see my luggage for a week. Inconvenient, yes, but not in an underwear soiling sort of way (which is advantageous since I’ll be wearing that pair of underwear for the next six nights…). But when I fly out of these two countries, I need two shots of tequila, a blindfold and preferably a stick to bite on.

The reason why I’m this scared is this: I don’t completely trust the ground crews in these countries. I know this is not going to go over well in my voluminous Italian and Romanian fan clubs, but the fact is that I’ve lived in both of these countries for a fair time and it was hard to overlook a few character flaws that these people have in common. That being, they tend to be inordinately distracted from critical duties by inconsequential matters. Distracted from driving their car in a straight line by adjusting the stereo. Distracted from getting the hell out of my way by lighting a cigarette. Distracted from closing the luggage bay door on an airplane by an SMS message from their girlfriend or what have you.

(more…)

I’ve been back from Malta for like three days, but its really only been about 12 minutes when you take out the waking hours that I’ve been entrenched in frenzied catch-up work. Apart from one indulgent shower and a run to the market in the next village because all I had to eat was raw garlic, bread crusts and a giant Toblerone I bought in duty-free, I have been working virtually non-stop since the moment I got off the train Sunday afternoon, two hours later than planned (keep reading).

If you’re just joining us, I’m kind of a dangerous fanatic when it comes to work. I have to be. I don’t say it often enough, but at the end of most days this job is effing awesome, however little details like having to work seven days a week most of the time just to stay financially afloat can make me a little cranky. Well, I just went a full week without doing a minute of work for the first time in like two years and even though I’m not under any deadline pressure just yet, as soon as my plane from Malta landed in Italy I zapped into full freak out mode.

(more…)

Have you ever noticed how there’s just too damn many saints, popes, royalty and leaders for any person with a reasonable social life to keep track of? I’m even fuzzy about the ones that are still alive, much less the untold hundreds of dead ones that people with a good inner-city education should have at least heard of. Did you know that Attila the Hun was from Hungary? Why did I think Mongolia?

Italy has no shortage of important people that I should at least have passing knowledge about and that’s creating a lot of extra work for me while I expand coverage for the LP book. It seems to me that someone should arrange of all the important people in history and present them all in one neat, chronological list. I realize that this might be more popularly known as ‘a history book’, but that’s not what I’m getting at. Just the really important people, done in a clear timeline, with cross references to other important people they interacted with. The current method of deluging us with information about every idiot that ever wore a crown, fed to us over the course of 18 years of schooling, is not sticking. And no, I will not be the one to compile that list. That’s a Bill Bryson job if I ever heard one. I know my strengths… If it isn’t about traveling or writing or complaining about something or cheap, yummy wine and coffee, I don’t want anything to do with it.

(more…)

I love breakfast in Italy for three key reasons:

1. Wicked

2. Good

3. Coffee

It’s one of the simple, given pleasures of being here. You can walk into the crustiest, backwater, hilltown train station café, order an 80 cent café macchiato (’stained coffee’, an espresso shot, with a dribble of milk) and it’ll be better than anything you can get for less than US$5 in America. I think about this coffee all day. At night, sometimes I’m too giddy to sleep, because I can’t wait to have that first coffee in the morning. Also the walls are pretty thin, so you can hear it when anyone in the building decides to do a procreation training session. And since this is Italy, that’s pretty often and, needless to say, boisterous.

(more…)

As promised, my “Best/Worst of Tuscany” and “What Happened?” lists.

Best/Worst of Tuscany

• Best drive: People, it’s all good, assuming you’re in the passenger seat. If not, count on pulling over a lot for photo sessions. No need to signal, just stomp on the brakes. The 12 Italians tailgating you will understand.
• Worst drive: Trying to get anywhere but Rome when leaving Siena (honorable mention, any drive within the Livorno city limits)
• Best view from a hotel room: Hands down, the Albergo Guastini in Pitigliano

(more…)