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Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

xpcdoojk

By xpcdoojk,
in Royal Caribbean International

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xpcdoojk "Live from...." Rare

xpcdoojk

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Nope, I am busy on my computer at home, working on the photos. I have been dumping my CF cards and dealing with the pain in the bottom that digital photography is when you want to share photos. Of course, what is worse than looking at someone elses other than your pictures?:D I figure I will be busy all afternoon, watching the race, watching a little football and screwing around with these photos.

jc
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Host Karen

Host Karen

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Your descriptions are making me salivate for our trip to Rome next summer. Wish we were going to be there in the evening, as the lights on all those ancient buildings must be spectacular. Looking forward to your next installment.

Karen
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xpcdoojk "Live from...." Rare

xpcdoojk

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]This section was very painful for me to write about because I like being in complete control, and in command. I am sure many of you will enjoy it for just those reasons.[/size][/font]
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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]jc[/size][/font]
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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Section 6 the drive thru Rome and to the Amalfi coast.[/size][/font]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day eleven was the last morning in Rome, and we had a nice breakfast on the roof. We finished packing, and then Shelby and I went off after bringing the bags down to the lobby and left the ladies there reading the English language newspapers to the Termini station to pick up the rental car. I had booked a VW Golf station wagon, and I was concerned that we were going to be stuffed in it because we were each couple up one suitcase because of the loot we had bought. We finally got the car, and fortunately for us they didn’t have any VW Golf station wagons, and we ended up with a Renault Magrane Scenic station wagon. It was a goofy French car, but it was large enough just barely for all of our stuff and us. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]We manage to get back to the hotel, despite driving thru a maze of jammed one-way streets. The two women were waiting in the lobby chatting with other tourists, and were a little disengaged from the fact that I was double parked on a busy two way street. Krystal and I had the beginnings of a bad relationship information sharing moment that would build through out the day. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The goals for driving that day were to go to a fashion outlet mall south of Rome and to get to our villa at 5pm on the Amalfi coast. It is about 11am, and I have estimated about four-hour drive time, and we can kill an hour and a half at the outlet mall. We have to leave Rome on a state road and not the Auto Strada, and it is an exciting world on Italian secondary highways. The rules of the road as I have learned them. There is no speed limit. Passing is allowed any where any time. If there is oncoming traffic and the person ahead of you is slow, they pull to the right and you pass in the middle, across the centerline while cars pass in the opposite direction. If there is a line of cars ahead of you and the intersection has a left turn lane, you are supposed to enter the turn lane, but do not turn, instead you pass all of the cars in front of you when the light changes. These rules of the road are multiplied ten fold if the vehicle is a two-wheeled vehicle. Scooters and motorcycles can pass on any side at any time. If it is multiple lanes of traffic scooters can weave thru the parked cars at a light and move thru the light at their own discretion. Amazingly, within an hour I was good with the rules and was creatively using some of them, but I never quite accepted the two wheeled rules, and they generated swearing and muttering by me even a week later after becoming immune to most strange driving habits. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]We arrive at the outlet mall, and I give everyone an hour and a half, and we all have our (hated) FRS/GMRS radios to stay in touch. So we did some shopping, and my wife is buying some cute baby things for a co-worker when our time is running out so I run to the food court to get a couple of panninis to go, and we all rendezvous at the car. So far we are close to on plan. We get back onto the state highway, and I am struggling because I know Shelby is a notoriously bad map reader and co-pilot and I am concerned that we are getting bogged down on the state highway and we are falling behind schedule. I ask Krystal while under this stressful state of mind if she has our document holder handy and if she could verify some details regarding our arrival as we were supposed to find a specific restaurant and meet the property manager their after calling her from the restaurant, and I wanted the details. Krystal replied that she didn’t know where it was, and I said I can’t deal with that answer right now. Meaning to me that I am busy driving this car and you need to find the damned thing. To her it meant, I am an a**hole and she doesn’t know where it is, and that she hasn’t had it. This was the further basis for a bad relationship day. I continue to drive and we finally get to the auto strada A1/A3 and we are almost at Naples, when I again ask for the documents (The document holder had her passport, our airline tickets, our contact numbers for the villa, and all of the stuff we really have to have.) she replied that she doesn’t have it. So we stop at an Auto grill (roadside restaurant gas station), and start going thru the bags. We can’t find it. I assume she left it in the motel room, she assumes I am a complete a**hole. So we try to use our GSM cell phone to call the hotel. Dang thing won’t work. We try to use our AT&T calling card. Again, doesn’t work. So my wife finds an attendant at the gas station portion and sweet talked him to use his cell phone and calls the hotel. The person at the hotel says he will check with housekeeping, and can we call back in fifteen minutes? So we keep trying to use the pay phone, but it won’t take money only a calling card, and we can’t even call anyone with it. We try to call our friends who are meeting us at the villa, but they weren’t sure they would be able to get to the villa at check in because one of the two couples just flew to Naples that afternoon. They have the same GSM phone and they are finding out that despite being told that the phones would work in Italy they do not work, and they never did. No luck. The time passes and Krystal sweet-talks the young man who spoke no English and we again use his phone. The hotel tells her that they did not find anything in our room. She now thinks she doesn’t have a passport and we don’t have plane tickets. We get back in the car and we are at least 25 minutes behind schedule. I am very unhappy and she is very unhappy. Needless to say it was a quiet drive despite four people in the car for the next hour. [/font][/size]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]We get on the Amalfi coast road, and begin the 20-minute drive to our villa thru the narrowest streets I have ever driven on. The streets were like the English country roads, in width, but they differed by having a vertical bluff on the right and a concrete barrier about 18 inches high and a vertical cliff into the sea on the left. Yikes! I start wishing I had my MINI Cooper, as the Renault though small was still a lot bigger than I was happy with in this situation. The corners are so tight that you have to slow down even without traffic to less than twenty miles an hour, and they are blind so the road has a mirror on the left that allows you to see if there is a 40-person tour bus on the other side. Yikes! Nothing makes you pucker like the headlights of a tour bus on those narrow corners reflected in those mirrors! We get where we are in the Maiori police district, and I am pretty much in a full insane panic. We are about 20 minutes late, we don’t know exactly where the villa is. I don’t know the name of the restaurant and I have no way to resolve this problem. We see a restaurant (a very nice one that I remembered from doing research) and I know it is not the one that we are supposed to go to, but I stop, and Shelby and Krystal go in and ask if they know where the villa La Nave is located. The owner says that he knows and that Camella is looking for us. He sends one of his crew to lead us to the villa. We go less than a mile, and we stop at a gate on the left on this narrow road. The restaurant worker is calling on the intercom and there is no answer. Wrong villa. We hang out there for about 5 minutes, getting honked at for blocking traffic, more stress! Finally, the man gives up and we drive to the next gate around a left turn and again on the left. As we are doing this, here comes a tiny Fiat Punto with two ladies in it and a Mercedes wagon with our other friends coming from the other directions. They had found Carmella at the correct restaurant, and Carmella was unhappy because we were now about 45 minutes late, but we went down the road and parked our cars. No matter what else was going to happen we had arrived at our home for a week. I am feeling a little silly for getting stressed out. My wife is thinking that 23 years of marriage might have been too many years. (jokingly)[/size][/font]

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Bookit

Bookit

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:eek: I don't know if I'm ready for this story -- uh, I mean trip. More than ever, I am convinced that for a :confused: traveller like myself, I better FIRST go to ITALY on a cruise, and WITH some folks I know.

Where ARE those tickets, and passports, and stuff, anyway?! :o
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celtic selke

celtic selke

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[quote name='wallie5446'][b]An ``O`` thats a 'dumb bunny' !:eek: ```O``NO```:D [/b]
[b][[size=1]this should be 'real' "good"][/size][/b][/QUOTE]No no Wallie,of this I am certain.
It is not an "O" dumb bunny thing.
It is a "Man" dumb bunny thing.

celtic (just one of the many incredibly smart women O's)
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nosnobunny

nosnobunny

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[quote name='wallie5446'][b]An ``O`` thats a 'dumb bunny' !:eek: ```O``NO```:D [/b]
[b][[size=1]this should be 'real' "good"][/size][/b][/QUOTE]
Careful how you throw that bunny word around. This is getting a little too close to home. :D

Beth
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abridalmaven

abridalmaven

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Hey, I resent that bunny thing too. ( It is a hated nickname..some family members still use:mad: )

But gee JC, you actaully act as insane as my DH is when we are travelling and he is driving... last trip one of our freinds drove just to avoid the same;)
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xpcdoojk "Live from...." Rare

xpcdoojk

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Hstrybuf, under the Tuscan sun would never work, since the only time we were in Tuscany was at night on the train, and I had the window shut and was looking at the inside of my eyelids, very uncomfortably, and there was definitely no sun shining on us in Tuscany.:D


Wallie, hang with the O and the O dirt gets on you by association. :D

jc
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stretch

stretch

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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]How come Bicker didn't welcome you back??? I know for a fact that he was just pineing away without you around.[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]StretchO[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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stretch

stretch

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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]I really think that Bicker has been lonely without you![/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[img]http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_29_120.gif[/img]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]StretchO[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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xpcdoojk "Live from...." Rare

xpcdoojk

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This is the first of the longest section of the story. This portion is rated PG-13 so please keep it in mind when reading. :D

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Section 7 The Villa, Maiori, Minori, Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, Vietre Sue le Mar, and Capri.[/size][/font]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]The requirements for our villa required a refundable security deposit of 400 euros to be paid in cash before we occupy the villa. We are “talking” to Carmella and the other lady about the remote control for the gate, and where the gas turn on is for the stove and to always turn it off when we aren’t using it, etc. My mind is rather distracted by the stress of the drive, and Carmella speaks slightly less English than I do Italian. Yikes! This is a bad combination, but we manage to get through it with a reasonable understanding of the idiosyncrasies of the villa. When we pulled into the driveway to the villa we are met by a hound dog that is barking at my car and that I am worried I will run over it. Carmella asks if we are ok with “Mitza” being at the villa. Apparently, she lives there on the premises, and we are all dog lovers and we say sure the dog is welcome to stay with us. So Mitza became an integral part of our stay at the villa.[/size][/font]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]I am thinking that I need to find my wife’s passport because my life will be less than optimal if I don’t. I have mine since I needed it to get the rental car. So as soon as Carmella and the other lady left, I start breaking down all of the luggage and my backpack. I empty my backpack and hers and I find nothing, again. Then it hits me. Early that morning I had put the document holder into a secret compartment in my backpack because at that time I was worried about it sitting in the lobby of the hotel just in the top of the bag. It is a really cool Osprey pack, with all sorts of neat features, but I really regretted that one feature at that moment. Sheepishly, I go out and tell my wife that I have found the document holder, and that she isn’t going to have to stay forever in Italy. Now my wife knew I was an a**hole. What can I say? She was right.[/size][/font]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Now that I have eaten crow, I take a quick poll to see if people wanted to go out to eat the first evening or if they wanted Kathy and I (the two cooking people) to make dinner that would be simple. So they all wanted to explore the villa and settle in. So, we all put 50 euros into the house pot and Kathy, Shelby and I jump in the car and drive into Maiori and to find the little grocery store that Carmella had mentioned. We get there after an exciting drive and find it is closing in about 15 minutes, and we buy one of all the types of wine they have, including a couple of boxes that contained one liter of vino rosso or bianco delle casa that cost about 1.50 euros which is less than two dollars. We spent about 80 euros and we have breakfast items. We then go to the local fruit market and patisserie (bakery) and get some other staples, and we go back to the car, and we drive back to the villa. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Dinner was a simple delightful pasta, and we did serious damage to our wine, beer, and scotch purchases. While I was gone the others had put 4 pieces of paper into a hat and each couple had drawn a number that was associated with a bedroom and everyone was settled into their own private bedroom and their own bathroom. Everyone was pretty tired, but it was a pleasant evening and we all moved down to the pool, which was a spectacular pool located about 50 yards from the villa. It featured a covered section and it was quite large, probably 20 yards long. It was surrounded on three sides with tile and on the other side it featured a waterfall that was continuously recirculated back into the pool. There was no lip on the pool, and if you looked at the water from the surface it had the appearance of infinity merging with the Mediterranean Sea that was directly below. Spectacular. Some of us are drinking a local Lemongello that we bought in Maiori, the rest are drinking spumanti, scotch or beer. Life is good. The evening progressed and everyone was discussing plans and the villa and wondering how cold the pool really was. So, I say, well I am going to try it out. I take my pants and shirt off and I am in my tighty whities, and just as I am getting ready to jump in, I see a flash of Gary flying from behind me diving into the pool. He later told me while I was discussing taking a swim he had already stripped naked, and when he saw I was leaving my underwear on he quickly pulled his back up. Dang that water was pretty cold. It was not horribly cold, but I wouldn’t want to spend too many hours in the pool. The guys are all in the pool in varying degrees of undress, and the ladies are laughing their bottoms off at us. [/font][/size]

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