Gypsies, Antiques, and Movies

We flew from Lisbon to Florence on Sunday and the adventure began. I got a glass of wine and Joe got a beer on the flight. If I’d known I’d be charged for it I would’ve had water, which is probably why Joe didn’t tell me until it was too late. When we left the airport we hooked a hard left and went to the tramvia. As we approached the tracks we encountered a tall lanky dude racing around trying to convince people that he would buy their tickets for them from the little kiosk. We weren’t born yesterday. After we got our tickets without ‘help’ and climbed on board we had a couple of young gypsy gals sitting by us. One asked with concern, “Did you get tickets for your luggage too? Each bag has to have a ticket.” Like I said, we weren’t born yesterday. I told her we’d deal with the consequences. They got off at the next stop.

The Airbnb hostess was waiting for us out front when we arrived on foot. Probably because I texted her and said we were lost. She proudly showed us into her grandparents’ home. It’s like a beautiful time-capsule… even with photos of great grandma and grandpa on the wall. The bed was heavenly. We hunted down a pizza place after walking alongside the Arno for a block or two. This brings me to a pet peeve. It just rubs me wrong to be charged for a placemat and a napkin (2-3 Euros) when I know it cost them 20 cents. It’s highway robbery ;)

The next day Mark Holmes, the producer, arrived. We walked down to the tramvia stop and walked him home. He’s a very nice guy and completely normal. Because the movie industry is a mystery to me, I expected him to be a little uppity. Not so. We went out to dinner at a local place and had a good meal and expensive paper placemats. The next morning we were up early and hoofing it to the bus stop. We stood for about fifteen minutes at the wrong one and then decided to follow the advice on our apps and go to the correct one. Our destination was a small town in Siena called Poggibonsi. We arrived in a rainstorm.

By the time we arrived at the office of the Film company we were soaked. Joe had planned on wandering around during this meeting, but he stayed dry with us. It was kinda cool to have him be present for the meeting. These guys are skilled at pulling everything together in Italy. They seemed very interested, and when we left, they even gave us each a little gift bag of chocolates. We took a group photo and went back into the little town to meet our second guy.

He’s an Italian-American full of energy. He’d actually driven all the way from Florence, about 30 minutes, to pick us up! He wasn’t expecting three of us, so he had to put the baby-seat in the trunk to make room for us. Then he kept up a stream of chatter as he swerved around corners and drove us to a gorgeous restaurant overlooking a little tree lined stream. We shared a giant meat and cheese board and wine… well not Mark. He doesn’t drink wine or beer. Maybe he can’t be trusted. Hmmm. This guy we met with has worked multiple jobs in the movie industry, so he was a wealth of information. It was interesting to talk to him from an American viewpoint. He started off with saying he has finally learned the most important person in the industry is the screenwriter. Nice stroke to my ego. Obviously movies wouldn’t exist without screenplays, but screenplays would just be weirdly formatted books without the production team. Anyway, he apparently liked what Mark had to say, so we’ve been referred to another film guy in Rome.

One thing I’m learning is how this exchange works. I thought it was purely us pitching the screenplay to them, but a larger element is them selling their services to us once they’re convinced we have a valid product. It’s very interesting to me.

Today we are headed to Lucca and possibly Pisa. This is definitely not how we usually travel and it’s taking a lot out of us. Mark has a huge amount of energy and seems to be able to walk endlessly. He’s run his phone dead a couple of times from taking so many pictures. Yesterday Joe and I were straggling along trying to get all the way up to the David plaza lookout while Mark trotted around snapping shots. Suddenly he stops and says he’s run out of juice or energy or something like that. Hope soared. Maybe we could sit somewhere and rest our feet… nope. He was referring to his phone battery.

On our way home we found the cutest curio shop. Mark and I went inside while Joe stood in the alley. It was wall to wall stuff. Everything from salt and pepper shakers to olive wood cutting boards. The elderly man insisted that we have some of the cured meats and sliced cheese on one of the boards. It was such a treat after all the other souvenir shops.

Rogue Waves and Screenplays

We’re wrong about a lot of things… the list is actually pretty long. Partly because we bring all our cultural history and life experiences with us, and partly because of the language barriers. I think this is a normal part of traveling and actually an enjoyable part. The unexpected. The surprising.

A not so favorite language barrier for me is the French fries. Back home I always ask for the fries extra crispy. I have succeeded in being understood once while in Portugal and it was because the owner speaks perfect English. I still didn’t get crispy fries, but he tried. Usually it results in a double order, for which Joe is thankful because he doesn’t have to share them with me. Not sure why, but the Portuguese French fry is a wimpy soft thing like at a fast-food place. When a place has good fries, we go back often.

The shoreline has changed due to a heavy winter. We used to be able to walk in front of the fortress, but now it’s only doable during low tide. We (Joe) decided to go in front of it (instead of climbing up to the road and walking past it) which meant getting our feet wet, but since we were in swimsuits, that didn’t seem terrible. Cold, but not terrible. So with backpack and travel purse we timed it to dash past the wall. We timed it wrong. As soon as we were at the most critical point a wave swept past our feet, up the wall above our heads, and doused us. I’m pretty sure the wave was laughing as we stood on the other side covered in sand and salt water. Everything in the backpack and my purse had to be set out to dry at the restaurant.

This has been a difficult trip for us to predict what to do and what to wear. The weather is absolutely impossible to predict. Even my app is confused. It predicts sunny days for the next week and it rains every day. One time it showed that lovely round yellow sun for the whole day. I held the phone up to show it that it was pouring down rain… seriously, a torrential downpour. The whole day it rained on and off, but the app never changed its prediction.

We brought our swim gear, as usual, to swim laps. The pool is freezing. It’s a love/hate thing. We force ourselves to do it and then we’re cold for a couple of hours in spite of the hot shower. However, we can eat more French fried, hamburgers, and pizza. I hope Florence is warmer next week.

Well, we’re all packed up and ready to go to Lisbon for the night. I had to lay on my suitcase to get it closed. I just checked in for our Flight to Florence for tomorrow, and now I’m sitting here waiting to walk up to the bus stop. We’re going to miss Armação de Pêra but looking forward to spending some time in Sesimbra. I’m excited about my workation in Florence. My producer is a busy guy. Right now he’s in Lisbon at a couple of meetings with Portuguese movie-makers. Why? you ask… because he wants to produce all sequels to first Tattered Book. The second book/screenplay takes place in Portugal.

The first night he arrives in Florence—Monday, we have a meeting with a someone from a film company. Then we will start mapping out the scene locations. We will need to film in front of the police station, across the plaza of the Duomo, in the alley where Grom Gelato is, the Ponte Vecchio, and some back streets on the other side of the Arno River in Oltrarno. We’ll also check out Pistoia and Lucca. On one day we will take the high-speed train to Rome to meet with a producer who’s interested in the film.

Last, but definitely not least, The Tattered Book screenplay has been nominated for best screenplay in the European International Film Festival. This is a new festival and I’m excited to be part of its debut. Their trajectory is somewhat like the Olympics. Every year they will have it in a different European city. Next year it will be held in Rome, but this year it’s in Madrid on May 29-31. I was so tempted to fly to Madrid for the blessed event! Keeping my fingers crossed for winning the Best Screenplay, hopefully not being present won’t prevent me winning. There’s only one other screenplay besides mine nominated, so there’s a pretty good chance.

The 'It Made Me Laugh' Edition

So, this may rub some of you the wrong way, but I can’t resist. Some times things happen that make me laugh, mainly because I can picture it happening to me. I remember, years ago in L.A., we were hanging out at the hotel pool courtyard. Along came a guy. Seemingly very important based on his expensive suit, shoes, sunglasses, and his cell phone glued to his ear. He appeared to be having a power discussion as he arrogantly strutted past us. The pool saw him but he didn’t see the pool… he walked right into the deep end—fancy suit and all. Everyone rose to their feet to rescue him, if needed, but he dog-paddled to the ladder and got out. That was memorable.

The other day, sitting out front of Pedro’s, a group of maybe ten millennials sat around a couple of tables pushed together. They were a good looking group. The best looking one was a raven-haired beauty in a tank-top and loose linen shorts. A seagull flying overhead indiscriminately went pooh on her. Stunned silence was followed by hysterical laughter. Sounds mean, huh? But she was the comedian. When she showed them that it had gone into her shorts pocket, the group was gasping for air, they were laughing so hard.

There’re a lot of pedestrian streets in Armação de Pêra. Can you guess where I’m going with this? A car went creeping down the narrow, steep street the other day. I could tell they didn’t want to be there, but couldn’t figure out how to escape. Literally everyone watched them until they got down to the bottom where a one-way road goes by at a sharp angle. This is when it got worse. They turned down the wrong way, realized their mistake and tried to back up onto the pedestrian street. You know that at this point they were probably completely stressed out (I would’ve have been). Anyway, in their first attempt to back up they hit a garbage can. Then they drove forward to within a couple of feet of a table with people eating lunch—they promptly vacated their seats. Then it backed up over a curb as Joe and I scurried out of danger. They did eventually get going the right way. We laughed only because we’ve all been there to some degree or another.

Have you seen those round window shades for car windows? I have one and they take awhile to figure out how to make them collapse. Apparently there’s a beach pup-tent based on the same principle. The other day we watched a dad attempt to reduce this wind block structure to a little round thing meant to fit inside a bag the size of a grocery bag. It was hysterical to watch this battle. He would almost get it to the right size and it would spring open to its preferred shape. It was so entertaining to his buddies, they pulled out their cell phones and recorded the contest. It appeared that the tent was going to win, but after twenty minutes of sweating and covered in sand, he finally squeezed it into its bag.

Children are basically left to wander where they want. No one is going to hurt them. The other day at a café, a little toddler was wandering around with a couple of giant strawberries clutched in his hands. He saw something else he wanted to pick up. Faced with a dilemma he came over to our table and set a gooey strawberry on the seat next to me, then went back to fetch the seashell and carried to his parent’s table. I picked up the strawberry and wiped the seat off just in time for him to return for it. He stood staring at the clean seat in confusion. He looked up at me with absolute conviction that I was the thief. Mom came to my rescue.

Freedom Day was a couple of weeks ago on April 25^th. It’s a super important day here and Armação de Pêra was packed. This holiday celebrates the day the citizens calmly went out en-mass to place red carnations in the barrels of the militia’s guns. They’d decided they would rather be a republic than a have a socialist government. They succeeded. The next holiday was May-day, or Labor Day. This is a day off from work if you work at a grocery store. It least that’s the way it seemed to us. We needed groceries so we innocently headed out with our little rolling grocery cart. It blew me away that our big store was closed. So we tried the next one, and the next, until we’d tried all five grocery stores. We stopped at our favorite café to have a cup of coffee and rest our feet. The waitress claimed everyone had the day off except the restaurant industry.

Last but not least, I have to poke a little fun at the Brazilians. They are so different from their Portuguese cousins. This sturdy little group of Portuguese are seemingly in awe of the loud, flamboyant Brazilians. They play music on the beach, which is taboo here. They wear the craziest stuff too. Kinda hard to describe really. But the other day Joe and I watched with open mouths as an exotic woman poured an entire one liter bottle of Coke all over her body on the beach and rubbed it in! What? I bet the sand ants loved that feast!

Regarding my screenplay, I’m still scouting places we can film if Florence won’t cooperate. I was leaning toward Pistoia and then I heard about Prato. It’s a beautiful city right by Florence. As I researched its personality, I discovered it is struggling with gang activity right now because of the Chinese textile factories. Their people are controlled by the Chinese syndicates and the Italian mafia doesn’t like that, so occasional skirmishes occur. As pretty as it is and the wonderful history it has, I’m not really interested in placing a film there. This week, I’ve been looking at Lucca. Lucca is one of my favorite cities in Italy. We will make it a day trip to go explore it for the scenes to see if I can adapt it for that city. It doesn't hurt that this will be the week of Lucca's History Festival with all kinds of medieval reenactments.

Um copo de vinho tinto e uma cerveja preta, por favor!

Restaurants are the center of social life here. We encounter the same people at our hangouts. For example, there’s a blond Swedish woman who hangs out at Saboyas. She comes alone and drinks a couple of glasses of red wine and knows everyone who comes in. We’d never spoken to her before but other night she suddenly said, “Am I imagining things, or is there a seagull in that restaurant?” We all looked across the street to see a giant seagull desperately trying to get out by flying at every window as employees chased it around or crouched under tables depending on their courage. It was quite the drama to watch as the bird cleared elegant table settings with its wings. They succeeded in getting it out and introductions were made.

A Portuguese man arrived to sit with the Swede. A lively discussion ensued about careers and medical problems… you know, older adult subjects. Oddly enough, the subject that stood out to me was the proper pronunciation of Ikea. Apparently the Swede was a worldwide Ikea financial trainer. She announced that Americans say Ikea wrong. It’s not eye-key-ah, it’s eh-kay-ah. Not eye, but eh. Got it? I’ll probably forget by the time I get home.

We were at another café called Pedros. It was packed because a band was setting up. Seeing as how we had two seats available at our table and a sweet looking older couple was trying to find a seat, I offered for them to sit with us (not unusual here). The Swiss lady and I got into a struggling conversation as I don’t speak French or German. I dreaded the moment that introductions would happen. Sure enough, she burst into laughter when I said my name is Heidi. She wanted to know if my husband was Peter. I need to make up a name when I’m around the Swiss. That same day, a photographer was wandering amongst the guests taking pictures. He took a great photo of us and wanted to know if we would like him to email it to me. Sure! I gave him my email and then I waited for the opportunity to get a good shot of him, then I emailed it to him.

A promenade café with a black cat on their logo is an easy place to stop for a glass of wine to people watch. The other day, when I ordered my wine the kid got a nervous look on his face. Another waiter brought Joe’s beer, but no wine yet. Pretty soon I see the kid trotting back from the grocery store down the street with a bottle of wine. Shortly after, he calmly set a glass of wine on the table.

Another place we go to when we’re willing to walk for 40 minutes, is Os Salgados. It’s at the other end of the boardwalk spanning to wetlands. It’s a little spendy, but worth it for the great wine and even better steak fries. On the walk over we got to see a horseback tour.

A favorite of ours is Pappas. They serve the best curry shrimp I’ve ever had. We get an order for two. The servers have been there for years and always greet us like friends.

Sometimes we take an Uber over to Portimão for the day. There’s a restaurant on the beach we like that we call Rita and Leo’s place, even though neither one of them work there anymore. There was giant pipe right along the whole length of the beach. The manager explained that this was a huge project to restore the sand to their beach from the eastern end of the beach, Pria Rocha. They pump the sand into the pipe with lots of water and it travels to the end (about a mile) and dumps out into a huge trough. Three pipes drain the water from the pond as the sand settles. The manager broke out her cell phone and showed pictures after last winter’s stormy season—one of the worst in memory. The beach was corroded right up to her deck.

But Tasca’Lado is the best. We went there right after we got here and ordered the meat platter for two… a rib-eye and a rump-roast with grilled pineapple and steak fries. The waitress, Andrea, is a sweetheart. We told her we would be back for my birthday. When we came in last night, she clasped her hands together and said, “That’s right, It’s your birthday!” she seated us and brought me a glass of red wine saying she opened a special bottle for me as a present. It certainly was good—from the Alentejo region. 

She was so disappointed that we didn’t order dessert (too full) that she brought me a crème brûlée with a candle on top and sang happy birthday to me. Isn’t that sweet?

My latest work effort is researching Pistoia, Italy. It’s near Florence and shares an ancient medieval history. Florence is overwhelmed with tourism at the moment and my producer is concerned that the local Florentine municipality may not want us filming there. If that’s the case, I will need to rewrite the script to be in a different city, such as Pistoia. It needs to be a city that could support an old crime family like the Scutaris from the story. I will be looking at Lucca and Pisa also. Do you have any ideas for cities similar to Florence? We will meet with the city officials when we’re there, so I’ll keep you posted.