Olestravels

05/04/2024

04/30/2024

So I've been thinking about writing over and over and I do get started but then I don't get very far. I don't know if you would call it writer's block or I just don't find what I'm writing interesting enough to share with anybody. In fact I think my last couple of posts have been rather boring and I would rather have fun, wouldn't you?

So let's talk about Gio.

Gio was my waiter at lunch today and he gave new meaning to the word 'wait' since that is exactly what I did for about a half an hour.

Oh, I did get a glass of Heineken ( I know, who drinks Heineken in Italy when there are so many great wines to drink? Well, the answer to that would be 'Me'.) I really didn't want another glass of wine any more than I really wanted another Pizza. But here I was at one of only 37,000 pizzerias on this particular block of Milano ordering yet another pizza.

Not yet though.

Before I could even order the Heineken, and long before I should have offered the pizza, I had to wait for the girls who sat down immediately before me to order their glasses of wine and water, and get them. I also had to wait for a couple of men to sit down at the table immediately in front of me and watch as they ordered Cokes. I watched also as Gio walked by me saying "Momento, memento." As he sat two more ladies behind me and to my right and took their orders for 'still' water.

Oh that. Before you can order anything in Italy it seems, and almost before you get the menu, they ask you if you would like still water or sparkling. I had neglected to order any sort of water so that was not on my agenda and obviously threw Gio off his game.
'𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺 𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰, 𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘭'𝘢𝘤𝘲𝘶𝘢.' as if I had made a bigger offense than not pinching his wife's bottom as they walked past me on the sidewalk.

So I waited for all of this to happen before I could order my Heineken, at the same time thinking I was pretty brilliant in ordering not only the Heineken, but the artichoke and bacon pizza at the same time eliminating the need for Gio to return (and me watch sunset) before ordering food.

I did get the Heineken. But not before the men who sat down after me received their Cokes AND the ladies across from me received their salads, which, by the way looked really tasty. One got the octopus salad and the other calamari salad and I probably should have ordered those. I didn't, watched, and waited as the men in front of me received their flatbreads, and ate them! I watch as pizzas were delivered behind me to people who had sat down after I did. And I watched as the ladies with the octopus and calamari salads were preparing to pay for their meals and offered me their bread!

Pretty much the people around me were noticing my dilemma at this point and we started to talk as Gio, remember Gio? went by me yet another time with somebody else's food and a mournful look on his face saying "Sorry, sorry." Conversations were had and I was just about ready to pull all the change out of my pocket and walk out of the restaurant my Heineken only 1/4 of the way finished and me chalk it up to yet another bad experience when my pizza did in fact show up.

It was hot, slathered with cheese, small amounts of artichoke and bacon, and dripping with olive oil. And life was good.

I ate this entire plate of molten cholesterol, and liquified glutens with a smile on my face and my taste buds thanking me for the wait.

Gio, watching me finish this up, which was easy for him to do since all the other customers other than one table on the far side of the outdoor alfresco arena were now gone, appeared once again but this time with a little shot glass of a pinkish creamy liquid and he apologized telling me that this was on him in English which was only slightly better than my kazakhstani language skills. It, which I found out later was meloncello, was a taste treat that I truly appreciated and thanked him for. He smiled and motioned me to sit down as I was getting up to pay my bill. I sat and waited only a very short period of time before he brought me yet another meloncello, which I accidentally spilled, and he let me know he was going to bring me yet another one!!!

At this point what could I do other than give the man a 10€ tip for a 19.5€ bill. I mean, who would not pay 10 euros for a good story?

Sorry there aren't more pictures but you'll just have to picture the rest in your head.

The last photos are of where I am currently sitting as I'm writing.

Buona notte.

04/18/2024

2024 travel 3 Bucharest

It is well known things do not always go as planned.

Occasionally there are pleasant surprises and other times there are ‘situations’. (I just made that up but it seemed to work better than anything truly negative that I would have put in had I not thought that up.) Situations are neither bad, nor good, they're just things you have to deal with that you didn't think you were going to have to deal with and usually have an element of upset involved. That upset of course could be with somebody else or with an organization or, as in my case yesterday, the upset could be because of your own stupidity or lack of intelligent planning.

Let me share the story.

Believe it or not, there will be another story inside of this story but those sort of happen extemporaneously. In this case however I know that I’m going to tell the other story first so it’s not so extemporaneous as much as it is a plot within a plot.

This story actually starts the day that I got into Milan but I’m going to skip over most of that since I’ve already written about the misery of the auto rental organization. That said, when I went to Auto One also known as SurPrice, the day before yesterday there was a man and his wife who were picking up a rental car and they were going through the same bullexcrement that I had gone to with this stupidly expensive, but absolutely necessary, insurance. He was seriously pi**ed since they were charging he and his wife €300.00 for a four day rental on top of what they had already paid for this all inclusive insurance (I had paid 'only' €100 for my 2 day rental). In a conversation with him I found out that he had lived in Europe for 12 years and that he had rented cars in Germany, Switzerland, France and even Amsterdam but every time he dealt with the Italians they figured out some sort of way to use a screwdriver, the methodology of which was unpleasant, and extracted extra money out of you which you could not avoid. And he said that it happened “Every time!”. I responded that “If it happens every time, you should probably just expect it and add it into the cost of whatever it is that you're doing. To not expect it would be to deny the reality, which hardly ever works, and would lead to frustrations like the ones we were currently experiencing.”

He actually agreed and the conversation actually made me feel better about the experience that I had had knowing that it was something that happened every single time and I was not being singled out as a dupe. Yay me!

Which leads us to today’s story. Yesterday was supposed to be relatively difficult with me needing to wake up earlier than I normally like to get the car to the rental car organization and then to the airport which is massive, find my airline, my gate, and go through security. All that going on I did not sleep well and wound up waking at about 6:00 in the morning, after having woken up at 4:30 in the morning, at 2:00 in the morning, and 1:15 in the morning. As I was about to head out though I noticed an e-mail which was not there the day before, or even the night before when I went to bed. This E-mail was to inform me that my flight had in fact been cancelled then rebooked on a flight that was to leave just after noon. My reactions and emotions were mixed. On the one hand there was relief that I didn’t have to rush at this point and on the other hand there was the “I could have slept an awful lot better had I known this last night.”

With that I managed to have a more relaxing morning, and get to the car rental agency, deal with them having the incorrect e-mail address so I had nothing to prove that either I had rented the car and paid the exorbitant insurance fee, (other than the fact that I did make them give me a paper copy of the initial contract- in Italian of course) or that I turned the car in in good condition. This time though there was yet another frustrated customer. A young, beautiful, black Ethiopian looking lady who turned out to be American and who, with her group, had rented 3 cars but she was the only one of the group that had an International driver’s license, a requirement when driving in many other countries. Let the games begin!

I have once again gotten off topic.

Ohhh… I did get to the airport and I did catch my first flight, (which was delayed of course). You thought it was going to be smooth sailing from there?!

Silly reader.

Nooo… I did in fact make it to Munich though and I had plenty of time, or so I thought, to go to the lounge and have something to nibble on before my flight from Munich to Bucharest. Especially since there was an hour time difference between Milan and Munich which would afford me with an extra hour. And that, my dear readers, was my failing.

I left with plenty of time to get to the boarding gate, which of course had been changed and I found out rather quickly, after seeing nobody at the gate, and going up to an agent at the gate next to it that there was not a one hour time difference between Milan and Munich, that they were in the same time zone and I was now 7 minutes late and incapable of getting on to the plane which I could see through the window.

This resulted in a harried rush to the Lufthansa service center where the kind lady rebooked me on yet another flight at 9:30 that evening which would have gotten me into my hotel at midnight. Not optimal, but what are you going to do?

So, frustrated and not thrilled with myself, I went to the Lufthansa lounge to assuage my stupidity. It was there that I found out that the new gate was in a different terminal and it was going to take perhaps 37 minutes to get to. “Crap.” There was plenty of time but it was yet another thing to deal with. Another ‘situation’.

Knowing that though I traipsed off so as to make it easy for myself so that when the time came and I needed to be at the new gate and I was, by God, going to be there early! HAH! I would most certainly be there at the appropriate time which I had set onto my watch as an alarm so I would not miss it. And when the time came, I trundled on down to the gate and, once again, there was nobody there.

“WHAT???”

The flight had been changed again and it was going to be yet another hour later, and at the terminal that I left to get to this terminal which was a good 20 minutes away not the 37 that they had suggested.

Eventually this was all resolved and I was at the correct gate and there were actually people there. But then there was an announcement that the flight was overbooked and that they were taking applications for those who would like to receive a ‘Substantial reward’ if they offered to give up their seat. Nobody responded and it was about 10:15 in the evening. I was really, really tired so I went up and asked “What’s the substantial reward?”

€250 and a hotel room for the night. The first flight out the next morning would be at 9:00. Pretty good to me and I started to apply but then asked other questions and found out that I would have to wait until the plane was boarded to see if in fact my seat was needed, and only then would I be able to get the voucher for a hotel room which was going to be 20 minutes away which meant that it was going to be 20 minutes to get back to the airport and I would have to go through security again. I then declined.

That 11 at night we finally were boarded for our 1030 flight. We arrived in Bucharest at 1:30 in the morning and I was fortunate to have looked into finding ways to get to my hotel from the airport which included Uber and the cost of which was a nominal $15. the ride was easy the hotel decent, my room a sweet with a small bedroom and a huge living room which I probably won’t use hardly at all. I slept until 10:00 this morning in the mail at 2:15 in the afternoon Bucharest time finished writing this story and ready to trump off for my Romanian experience.

Life is good (again)!

04/17/2024

2024 Travel 2

Reprise:
Do things happen for a reason, or do things happen and then we make up reasons?

I asked this question of myself a long time ago and occasionally I’m reminded that this is something that many people believe, that things happen for a reason. So how does that fit into my current trip?

As you know by now I am headed to Bucharest today. The trip so far has been eventful but not eventful in a really nice sort of way. But the truth is the genesis of this trip began on Christmas Eve when I stumbled down some stone steps on a dark night in San Miguel de Allende creating a ‘Z’ shaped fracture in my left wrist which was going to require surgery. Unwilling to have said surgery in Mexico I caught a flight back to Sarasota on Christmas Day and was able to schedule surgery the next week. To make that choice story short, the surgery was successful and I am probably 92.7% healed at this point with some residual pain when I turn my wrist a particular direction but I’m now able to lift some small weights and begin to exercise again as I was before my previous accident. With that I had to cancel the rest of my plans including flights to Manila in the Philippines, New Zealand, and Santiago, Chile.

The cancellation of the flight from Mexico City to Manila that was the initial because for looking for a flight almost anywhere that would cost approximately $4300. You see KLM airlines, with him I had booked my flight that gave me a flight credit for that amount rather than giving me my money back. there were catches to this the catch is being that it had to be KLM, it had to be a business fair, it had to be one way and not multiple stops. If my flight costs more than $4300 I would have to add money in, and if it costs less I would lose the difference. Me, being frugal and hating wasting money, did a Google flight search from Sarasota to anywhere flying business and a cost of approximately $4300 and Bucharest showed up. I was intrigued having wanted to go to Eastern Europe for a while so I started booking the trip. This however became. Its own exercise in that I had booked the trip initially through my Chase credit card. Unable to complete the transaction by myself I got in touch with chase travel which after several machinations and two or three different phone calls, pointed out to me that I had in fact gotten reimbursed for the flight and that there was no KLM credit. But now I wanted to go to Bucharest.

More research than ensued and it wound up being less expensive for me to fly up to New York City come and see my son Cole and spend the night there, fly round trip to Milan business class and from there fly to Bucharest, Sofia, and Rome. With all of that I was still going to spend about $1000 less than the initial cost of flying one way to Bucharest.

Now maybe there was some event or circumstance that having fallen and broken my wrist prevented me from experiencing which would have been even more negative than the breaking of my wrist. Or maybe there is somebody that I’m supposed to meet while I’m here in Europe that I would not have met otherwise. Or maybe, just maybe, I’m supposed to be here suffering through a miserable experience at the rental car agency and having had difficulties with my Verizon international plan so that I will learn something that will make a huge difference in my life in the arena of patients going forward…

But I don’t think so. I think I fell down the steps because it was dark my legs were tired having gone up and down the mountains for a couple of days, and I simply slipped. No real foul here. No ah ha moment. Just a bit of pain I would rather not have experienced and another trip.

Oh, and that.

It is not that I’m getting too old for this but i have already experienced more of the world the the vast majority of people. To a large extent I have quenched my thirst for experiencing cultures, languages, and foods. Certainly I am at a point where I’m looking forward to having others do the planning and the day-to-day arrangements and me just go along for the ride. That means that my future excursions will be two or three weeks instead of two or three months, so be it. I guess I’m just a little tired and maybe next week I will feel differently.

That's it for now.

My initial flight to Bucharest was cancelled and I was rescheduled for a much later time today which actually worked out well. My experience with what is quite possibly one of the worst rental car agencies on earth is hopefully over with and no more excess charges will be drummed up. And, it is possible that I’ll miss the thunderstorms that are supposed to be occurring in Bucharest almost as I type. My phone says no… I will be flying into 100% chance of rain if my flight actually does make it there.

Oh goodie!

04/16/2024

2024 travel
Or,
This time it's Bucharest and a cooking class in Piedmont.

Do things happen for a reason, or do things happen and then we make up reasons?

I believe the latter to be true. But then I’ve been wrong before. Let me pontificate for a moment and you’re welcome to plod along with me as I write extemporaneously about my current experience. (now many hours and a different country latter)

(And now another day and many frustrations later)

And I digress. This story is getting weird but I promise it’s a fun one. I am now sitting at the outdoor alfresco area of the Bar Restaurante Hotel Lago Maggiore, listening to some rather beautiful almost Louis Armstrong-ish background music and having had green gnochi with goose spec sauce and a very enjoyable Nebiolo. By myself.

I was talking to the head waiter, Enrico, and the waiter here, Joseph, both very enjoyable men, both weighty, (‘Orinoco Flow’ is now playing in the background), both people that I think I would enjoy knowing.

I am interesting but scary/Sono interessante ma spaventoso… I had to do a translation from English to Italian for the ladies who are sitting across from me and whose child looked at me and then when I looked at her looked away. I am interesting to her but scary.

But I digressed from my digression. My brain works like that sometimes, bare with me.

So, talking with these two waiters we connected. We talked briefly about food and I showed the picture of me in my Le Cordon Bleu chef’s jacket. The menu was in Italian, English, German and French. As it turns out the waiter speaks a little English, Italian and Portuguese. If the head waiter says he speaks the rest of the languages. Of course I speak German and Spanish conversationally as well as English and a few words of Japanese so we connected on this level as well, so we connected on this level as well. Earlier I had chatted with the clerks At the auto rental offices and I shared photos of my NSX. all of which has gotten me to think about where we connect with each other.

Is it food that interests you? Or travel? Do you like cars, conversations, other languages or gardening? Are you a reader of books, or a writer? Is architecture your thing, or history. Can you accept other people’s areas of interest even though they do not interest you?

Back to the point, why the heck am I going to Bucharest? Was there some preordained reason that I was unaware of, or shall I make up a reason having set up the trip?

Well I hate to say this but it’s now almost 10:00 at night and I have to get up at 6:00 in the morning so you'll just have to wait for the answer to that very intriguing question.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Olestravels.

03/29/2024

Breakfast by the stream.

Leftover bouillabase base, a little bit of Pace picante sauce, sourdough bread, eggs and Parmesano Reggiano...

Life is good.

03/17/2024

On a lighter side...

Happy St Patrick's Day!

(Photo 13 years ago.)

02/15/2024

Galletas y salsa...

It is not every day that you can go to a Cuban Cafe and ask how to say something in Spanish and the ladies that work behind the counter don't know how to translate from English to their supposedly mother tongue. But that is what happened to me this morning and here's the story.

I am on my way to my ophthalmologist where I'm going to be tested for my eyesight supposed in both my right and left eyes to determine what sort of prescription lens that will put in my left eye when I have cataract surgery on Wednesday the 21st of February and I'm hungry. I also have an extra 35 minutes so I'm thinking that should be enough time to have something fairly simple. But actually goes through my head as I'm driving along though is that I want an egg a muffin. But I'm debating because that's a lot of salt and salt puts on a couple pounds on me for a couple of days and I don't like that feeling. So I'm thinking perhaps some fruit or a croissant but fruit and croissants are all carbohydrates and too many carbs are not good for you either. So I'm thinking well maybe an omelet with veggies but that's going to take too long. Oh this is going through my head as I'm driving down South MacDill Avenue after having had to take a detour for some road work. As I am driving, listening to Caravans on Audible and getting interrupted with directions from Google Maps I noticed Geo's Cuban Diner off to my left as I am passing it.

Okay so maybe I won't get all those things that I might have gotten but certainly I can get a double espresso 'sweet' which one can only truly get in Cuba or an Ybor City and it's surrounds in Tampa. I know that since I have traveled all over the world and had espressos all over the world and the only places they are really good are in Ybor city. La Teresita, someplace I went to in Miami that I do not remember the name of, and now Gio's right here on South McDill Avenue.

But as I noticed the menu I see that they have biscuits and gravy with two eggs! There you go there is a ticket. Okay, okay so there are carbs here too but they are freaking tasty carbs if done right and I haven't had biscuits and gravy in ages. So now, I'm salivating. The lady behind the counter asked me what I'd like and I'd tell her I'd like biscuits and gravy with two eggs over medium. Then I ask her, in spanish, "How do you say biscuits and gravy in Spanish?"

Her response made me smile and laugh a little bit. "I don't know." And then she asked her coworker who also did not know. She said " I'll have to look it up on google." Which I did faster than her. The result was 'galletas y salsa',, but we both knew that that was wrong. That galletas are cookies. That said, we had no other options so here I am chatting with my dear readers and if you have a better option for how to say it in Spanish I'm looking forward to hearing it.