Exercise and Paper Sculptures

The other night we found a side street that was busy with a vibrant young crowd. We immediately sat at one of the bar tables and ordered beer and wine. It was so entertaining. Then we wandered back to our favorite hang-out, the amphitheater. Because it’s considered too touristy, we can sit and relax without the crowds. Everyone crowds into the narrow streets and church plazas.

Lucca is completely surrounded by a fortified wall, which now serves as a walking and cycling path. We decided to go for a walk this morning. It’s supposedly only 2.6 miles around, but seemed much longer. We walked for about an hour and half. Thank goodness we’d stopped for a cappuccino and panini first. Apparently, two noblewomen in the distant past decided the walls should be made into a parkland. They planted trees and made a walking (and cycling) trail for the people of Lucca. It’s interesting that Lucca never had to make use of its military wall. At around that time the Americas were discovered and all the power-hungry folks turned their attention to the new world.

I love the view from the path. The gigantic trees keep it nice and cool. There were a couple of groups of school kids up there with their teachers. One was a group of boys sprinting to their coach at the shrill of a whistle. The other group was of maybe twenty teenage girls. Joe and I purposefully let ourselves get surrounded by them as they walked. It was like being in a gaggle of geese. All talking at once with ponytails swinging back-and-forth… so cute.

This town is way too small for cars. Way too small. From our window we can see down the street which ends at our door (we’re on the second floor—first floor to Europeans). Our daily entertainment is to watch the cars trying to get around the corner without tearing their car apart on the stone walls. This morning a service truck had us mesmerized. 

Because of the crazy roads, bicycles are the norm here. As you know, Italians are the most fashion conscious people in the world… even on bicycles. Pretty ladies with dresses and high-heels and men in suits cruise to work on bikes. Children start off with trikes and the elderly end up on trikes. Every single wall in the city has horse loops for the reigns, which are now for the bike-locks.

At 5:30, we met our guide, Luca, ("Luca of Tuscany like a local") in front of the train station for a tour. He was a blast. He walked us through the city, stopping to explain odd things like the street that never gets any sunlight so it’s named the dark street (loosely translated). We made three food stops. 

The first was Pizzeria L. Pellegrini. The pizza cook shoveled pizzas in and out of the blazing oven. The unique local item was Cecina (Cheh-Cheena). It is basically a thin pie-shaped cake made from chickpeas. It was great.

Then we walked further until we came to one of the oldest shops in Lucca; Antica Bottega di Prospero dal 1790. The owner of this wine/salame/olive oil store served us himself. It was a great experience to have him quietly pouring our wine and then hovering in the background as Luca explained the olives, the oil, and the salame board. He closed up shop but stayed with us until we were done.

Next we went to a restaurant we’d eaten at before and had a mixed board of bruschetta. One had the dreaded anchovy. I’ve never tasted anchovy and I swore I would if the opportunity presented itself. Another thing I dislike is liver pate… so naturally one of the bruschetta had chicken liver pate. I tried them both. I would never order either one again, but the anchovy with bufala mozzarella was okay. I still don’t like liver pate. It was a very nice evening and I think taking a food tour with Luca is well worth your time. You can find him on Airbnb’s tour page for Lucca: Lucca Aperitivo Adventuretour… morning or night version. It’s very personal and small groups.

Today we made our first breakfast at our home… scrambled eggs. Then we went to our favorite café to order cappuccini. Then we came back to our street and bought tickets for the Guinigi Tower. It’s directly across the street from our door. At the top of the tower is a bunch of trees. I will admit right now that I did not climb the 232 steps to the top without multiple rests. Climbing that many steps with a mask on wasn’t fun, but it was worth it. Torre Guinigi dates back to the 1300s. I’ve been in much better towers on the inside. This one had all modern steps and quite a few metal steps. There’s something awe inspiring about climbing up ancient worn stone steps with thousands of years of wear and tear. However the view from the top from under the ancient trees was pretty special.

They have little outdoor market places everywhere. I discovered the chocolate market! Oh yeah… I’m weak when it comes to chocolate. Next to the chocolate market is a giant sculpture of a person in a hoody. Veronica explained that the industry of Lucca has been, and is, the manufacture of paper products. They have different themes for the art on display throughout the year. Right now it’s “Fear and Desire.” I don’t understand the hoody sculpture, but the others were interesting:

This woman is trying to make friends with the dog, who clearly is afraid yet desires the contact.

The tightrope-walker is wanting to get to the other side, in spite of the danger.

This giant bull doesn’t look afraid to me, but maybe he is?

This man wants the freedom to fly, but looking at his face you can see the excitement and fear.

Italia! Our first stop in Lucca

We crawled out of bed 24 hours ago. Sort of. We got up at 5:30 am for an 8:00 flight and now we’re flying over Ireland at 5:30 am, but of course it’s a nine-hour time difference. So it’s actually 8:30 pm back in California. That might explain why I’m awake writing my blog instead of sleeping. Oh well… I’ll sleep tomorrow. We lucked out and were able to upgrade to premium seats at the last second for only $230 each. Normally it’s three times that much. I recommend you check premium and first-class prices when you book your economy tickets. That way you will know if your being offered a good deal. I’d say we saved about fifteen-hundred bucks for these seats.

But, speaking of tomorrow/today, we’ll be landing in Rome at 8:00 am. The biggest dilemma is to find out what our Covid test results are. We got our noses swabbed Sunday morning. When we landed in Dallas, we still hadn’t gotten the test results back. The problem is, we may have to quarantine in Italy. We’ll see. We already had to fill out an online form to allow the Italian government to trace us if someone on this plane gets sick with Covid (which was a good thing because they wouldn’t let us board the plane in Sacramento without it).

From the Rome airport we’ll catch the airport train into Rome. We’ll change trains there for a high-speed train to Florence (I have a secret fear that we’ll sleep through the train stop and wake up in Milan or something). In Florence, we’ll change again to a local train to Lucca. When we get off that train, we’ll walk straight out to the city wall and find the tunnel with the stairs. After about ten minutes walking, we’ll arrive at our place. By that time we’ll be zombies. But, that’s okay. We’ll sleep for awhile and then go explore Lucca, our home for one week.

So far not much has happened. I read Black Beauty from Sacramento to Dallas. From Dallas to Rome I’ve watched Luca (an adorable movie about two little sea monsters who become boys and take up residence in Cinque Terre, Italy), Peter Rabbit II, then I watched Raya and The Last Dragon (another cute movie about dragons and saving the world). During that time I managed to not notice my water bottle was leaking. Now I have wet britches. Traveling is such an adventure, right?

Well, a lot’s happened since that last note. When we landed we signed onto the free wifi at the airport before going into customs to find our test results, which were negative. Then we hustled through customs and never had to show the results. We bought train tickets at the airport kiosk and walked for five minutes to find the train. The first ticket doesn’t say where to get off the train… we kept going and going and finally I got desperate enough to ask another passenger via google translate. She waved her arms around dramatically and mimicked getting off the train and getting the train going the way we’d just come from—towards the airport. This seemed odd, but we did it. We went back to one of the stops that was bigger and dragged our luggage to a customer service desk. In limited English he told us we were screwed and had to go to the ticket office. The not-so-gracious lady at the ticket office issued us new tickets after chewing us out for not getting off at the correct stop. We were baffled. She extended a hand for all my tickets and pointed to the next ticket which had the correct STARTING point for that ticket! How was I supposed to know that? Just my opinion, but I think the first ticket should’ve had both the start and stop, like a plane ticket. We ended up going to Florence, then Pisa, then Lucca. By-the-way, we did have to show our vaccination shots on the trains.

But we’re here now. At the point of shear exhaustion, we walked straight forward from the train station towards the city wall and found the tunnel and stairs going through the wall. We went down little cobble stone streets until we came to ours. Right across the street from the famous Torre Guinigi (a medieval tower with trees growing on top). It makes it easy to find our place :) Just as I reached for the door, the landlady opened it and welcomed us in.

We were starving and wiped out. I knew I couldn’t eat another protein bar, so we scurried to the central plaza to grab a bite and a beer and wine. By the way the wine I got is excellent and local. Joe kept dozing off at the table, so we went back and slept for a couple of hours and headed back out for groceries (okay—beer, wine, milk). Then we slept like babies for nine hours.

Today we went for real groceries then we drank espresso and ate paninis. But one of the high-lights of this whole trip was meeting our old friend, Veronica for lunch. We met her fifteen years ago at a Club Med and have stayed in touch ever since. She came to Lucca to have lunch with us. She treated us to a meal at one of the oldest restaurants in the area, Ristorante All’Olivo. Afterwards she gave us a little tour of Lucca.

As you all know, I am fascinated by odd behavior. In Italy, it’s odd to be drunk. It’s a cultural no-no. So, we’re standing there chatting with Veronica near one of the cathedrals and I noticed there’s this dude sitting on the steps being a little loud and unruly. He was with another guy and a lady. Next thing I know the buddy leaves and the unruly guy passes out, with his head on the girl’s lap. His bear bottle rolls away about five feet. None of that is that interesting, but the Italian’s reaction to it was priceless. The tourists glanced at him and kept going. The Italians glared as they went past. Their expressions were so fun to watch; anger, embarrassment, disgust. They shook their heads and muttered. Even the teens looked amazed. Veronica said this just doesn’t happen, especially not in the city center. I’m sure his parents have received several phone calls today!

Negative

 

Yahoo! We tested negative for the Vid. We get to get on a plane tomorrow and go home. Getting tested was an odd experience. We chose a company called Bimodi because they were the cheapest--about $45 per antigen test. We got a ride from a friend and were a little surprised by how fancy and modern the building was. As we approached there was a sign pointing down the stairs for covid testing. It led to the garage! The garage, people. Anyway there were two people in space-suits at a table surrounded by sheets of plastic. They tested the guy in front of us and then sanitized EVERYTHING. Then it was my turn. I asked if it was going to hurt because I'm a big sissy. He assured me it wouldn't hurt. Then he gently stuck a super long Q-tip up my nose. He was so gentle it tickled like crazy. Anyway, two hours later we got our results. Then I downloaded the pdf to my phone, then uploaded it to the United app and viola... all done.

See ya on the next adventure.

Qro; The New Place and Where to Eat

We’ve moved to our new hotel. I don’t think I’ll miss the guy with the street cart crying out something like, “Ricos, Tamales Oaxacaneros!” for a couple of hours every night. Our new place is set at the back of the hotel on the third floor. The entire wall facing the sunrise is glass doors. Thankfully they have black-out blinds. A couple of mornings we had to keep those closed to prevent the room from heating up (no AC), but today we have the blinds up and the doors open because it’s nice and cool. The last couple of days have been pretty warm.

The best part about this place is the patio… it’s huge. Every night we sit out here sipping wine and guzzling beer (sorry Joe) and watch the moon rise.. In the morning we watch the sun rise while we sip coffee. Joe’s been able to get his work-outs in on the patio. He misses the last place only because he could hang from the stair well and do pull-ups. In my opinion that’s a sign of mental illness.

The only down sides are the pretty shower with no place to set your shampoo and stuff, (so I dragged a bar stool into the bathroom and set it next to the door), and one of the sliding doors doesn’t latch… we can’t lock it. It has a screen door, which is locked in place, but all they’d need is a little knife and they’re in. Also, no safe for our valuables. Fortunately, this is a closed and guarded hotel. You have to have a key to get in and a guard sits by the front door. Anyway, it is what it is.

For those of you planning to come to Santiago de Queretaro (Qro), our favorite restaurants are Blue Fish (fish and shrimp tacos), Fiume 37 (serrano ham and arugula pizza), Hanks (Bourbon chicken), and Balkan (Mediterranean food). 

We’ve found lots of cheap street food carts too. Remember, we take a Pepto tablet every morning. We love the hot dogs next to Our Lady of Guadeloupe Church.

Our other favorite is up in the plaza in front of the giant Convent and Temple of Santa Cruz. They have a street cart with huaraches (basically like a large tostada with your choice of toppings) named Chio.

The most beautiful park, by far, is the Alameda Hidalgo. It is giant and full of huge trees. Unfortunately, it’s mostly closed right now for Covid. The only have the center walkway open, so we can all be close together as we walk through… instead of spread out. I don’t think the right hand knows what the left hand is doing here. For example; the giant indoor market called La Cruz is packed full of people—packed like sardines! But the grocery store wouldn’t let us enter together. Only one person per family can enter. Most of the restaurants take your name, temperature, and make you use their hand sanitizer before you can enter.

I feel a little bad for commenting on this, but a lot of people beg here. Most have something for sale, but there's plenty who don't. Unfortunately, even the ones who have something to sell, act like they want a hand-out. Anyway, when I saw this giant statue, I started laughing.

Our current dilemma is we must get a Covid test in less than 3 days prior to our re-entry to the United States. We knew that before coming. What we didn’t know was it’s really expensive here. They have two types of tests; an antigen or a PCR. The prices vary, but the antigen is much cheaper. The least expensive place we found was Bimodi (3,000 pesos for PCR, 900 for the antigen). The problem is that the website says if you get the antigen test and it’s negative, you have to take the PCR to prove it’s negative! 3,900 pesos! I checked the CDC website and they say the antigen is good enough, but I called United Airlines just to be double sure. After ten minutes, the airline rep hunted down the flight requirements and confirmed that the antigen test is good enough. In current dollars to pesos, that puts us at 90 bucks. So in about two hours we’ll hop in an uber and go to get our nostrils destroyed by a Q-tip… can’t wait.

IF we test positive, which can easily happen (I know of several people who’ve gotten two tests in one day with two different results), we won’t be permitted to return to our country. We will be forced to wait two weeks and get another test. I’m trying really hard to not stress-out, but not succeeding so far. Joe thinks we should just go to Puerto Escondido and hang out at the beach.

On a better note, I’ve been inspired to write while here. I’ve finished Clay Boyce’s biography (now it’s in the editing mode), I’ve taken one of my favorite screenplays I’ve already written and split it into two. Now I’m writing number three and four. They are adapted from a 10 book series (written in 1902-08), which will make 20 hour-long shows for cable TV. This series will be similar in genre to Little Women.

I forgot to tell you that while I was sitting having a cup of coffee a couple of ladies walked by carrying wedding flowers. I apparently was obvious in admiration for said flowers. A couple of minutes later a lady brought me a bouquet... wasn't that sweet. Well, hopefully this is my last blog for this trip :) If we test positive, we’ll be on a very different adventure for at least two more weeks :/

Qro; The Good and the Bad

School is definitely getting harder. Our teacher, Lulu has been forcing us to speak in past tense. No biggie in English, but in Spanish you have about five or six different verb conjugations for past tense. And of course, the most commonly used words are the irregular ones. We have a few irregulars in English, like go and went, but dang-it, they’ve got a ton. Lulu speaks at a normal speed, which is really fast for us. This is a fairly educated city, and lots of people speak English. Fortunately, they prefer Spanish, so we can practice.

The director of our school invited us to go wine tasting with him and his girlfriend. That was an adventure. We drove through the open country past vast ranches and farms for a long time. Then we went through tiny villages, where they had so many things for sale in front of their tiendas, we could hardly get through the street.

The first winery was gorgeous, and almost empty. We couldn’t taste their wine because we didn’t have an appointment, but we ate there… one of the best hamburgers I’ve had. It’s called Vino del Cielo. It looks like one of those places you’d want for a wedding venue. They had an attached hotel and a nice swimming pool. Plus they had a big grassy area with a man-made lake and waterfall.

Freixenet was like going to an amusement park. It had families and couples everywhere. The huge motorcycle group we’d passed on our way to the Queretaro Wine Region was there with their black leathers on, sipping sparkling wine. Because of covid we couldn’t try their wine, but I could buy a glass of wine… I wasn’t impressed with this, but they certainly weren’t hurting for business. The reserve cabernet sauvignon was good, and I got the wine glass as a memento.

My favorite was Tierra de Alonso. It had a funky little shop up front, but then it opened up to a gorgeous garden with a little cage of rabbits for the children to feed. The sommelier came to our table and gave us tastings for three of their wines and I bought a bottle of a really unusual tasting wine they call Coupage. I can’t figure out what the varietal is. They even had cheese and wine ice cream. I have no idea if it was good.

The ride home took us past a giant rock named Peña de Bernal. It’s the third largest monolith in the world, surpassed only by the Rock of Gibraltar and Sugarloaf Mountain in Brasil. My photo from the car was terrible, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Queretaro is a unique city. I can’t decide if I like it or not. It’s really pretty with its cathedrals and cobblestone streets. The shops and restaurants are good. I think the best part is the people. They are polite and helpful. Everyone goes out of their way to help. The huge cathedral near the end of the aqueduct, lets all the homeless sleep along the walls. At night piles of blankets cover them, but during the day there’s no sign of them near the church.

Pets are a big thing here. I’ve never seen so many pet grooming shops and veterinarians anywhere else. But, unlike the US, I haven’t seen very many dogs at restaurants or in stores. They even have professional dog-walkers here. The other day we walked past a guy leading eight dogs. I can’t figure out how he got them all to behave?

There’s a canal that runs through the city in front of the university. It has a bike trail and a walking trail. It’s really pretty with all of its little bridges crisscrossing over it. Our side is the colonial side, and the other side is a mix of old and new. There’s people there at all hours of the day and long into the night. When we come back from the city center at nine or ten at night, we’re going the opposite direction of the people flowing into el centro to get dinner. Mexicans eat late and stay out late, probably because it’s cooler.

People dress nice here… sometimes I feel like we’re in Barcelona. It’s nice enough, but for some reason it’s not for us. Part of the problem is the incredibly dry air and the minerals in the water. My feet look like I’m wearing alligator shoes! The dust is wreaking havoc on my sinuses. I’ve had a bloody nose every single day. And then there’s the altitude. We’re at 6,500 feet! Somehow, I didn’t know that ahead of time. It wasn’t until we finally admitted to each other that we were getting winded just climbing the stairs, that we suspected some dark force was against us. Now I don’t feel so old and feeble… it’s the altitude.

Another oddity is the number of people wandering around who are drunk (I see maybe two or three a day, sometimes more). The puking kind of drunk. I’ve never seen that many in a truly Mexican city. A tourist city like Cancun, maybe, but not Puebla, Oaxaca, or even Guanajuato. Maybe it’s a sign on the times? It reminds me of Antigua, Guatemala, where the drunks are protected by a spirit, unless a black dog licks them… then they’re doomed. So, no one messes with the drunks there, even if they’re laying on the sidewalk in front of your establishment.

Our house is interesting. It has two rooms and a bathroom with doors, but the rest is open-air with screens (mostly). Mosquitos don’t seem to be a problem here, but we’ve found two giant cockroaches in our place… dead, thankfully. Our Airbnb is extremely basic. Enough toilet paper and garbage bags for a few days. The sponge was ancient, so I bought some. She gave us four bath towels for two weeks and no change of sheets, so I have to do laundry—by hand in the kitchen sink, which only has cold water. The fridge is the size of a carry-on suitcase. We definitely won’t stay here again, though it is cute, cheap, and conveniently located by our school. Hopefully our next place will be a little better equipped.

Another interesting custom is the way the restaurants compete with each other. Normally they stand out front and try to talk you into coming into their place. Not here. It’s not unusual to have someone hold the menu for you to read, then when you decide to eat there, they lead you to a restaurant two doors down. Sometimes they stand next to each other and stick two or three different menus under your nose. A host or hostess dare not leave their post for a moment, or another restaurant host will stand at their entrance and entice the customers away. We found a really clean and modern looking place and stopped to look at the menu. The sweet young guy standing at the podium handed us the menu to peruse. It looked good, so we decided to eat there. Suddenly a girl came racing out of the restaurant and shooed him away and proceeded to hand us the correct menu. Fortunately for her their menu looked good also.