Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]jc, unlike #2 I really don't need to see you in your undies. Now did any of the ladies join in???????[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[celtic selke]

I don't need any pictures, #2.
Images of intoxicated middle age men cavorting semi-naked in a pool, I can do without.
Sorry jc.

celtic

[xpcdoojk]

It was pretty dark, and the water temps were pretty cool, and the ladies, just laughed. We are a pretty calm group. Although, Gary, is one of the funniest people I have ever met, and combined with my wife it does get quite comical at times. My undies were the ex officio travel underwear, that suppossedly you can wash in the sink and they are dry the next morning, and they are pretty much traditional style. I don't wear those kind normally. They dry the next morning only if you use the hotel hair dryer on them, too BTW. In other words don't believe all of the marketing hype. They are very comfortable though.

jc

[celtic selke]

Good grief. Now a discourse on travel undies. And blow dryer underwear at that.
Please get back on track.
I want to picture Italy and the villa; not you in clammy briefs.

celtic

[xpcdoojk]

Seal, we have to keep this informational for future travel, and not just about me, as fascinating as that subject might be!:D ;)

jc

[ezcheezy]

You sure were crabby and short tempered when you got home. You post to me telling me you wanted to slap the s--- out of someone must have been your first post.

I didn't think my observation was that cold hearted but I apologize if I offended anyone. You saying that I was putting people into labeled boxes and how did I like it was harsh and uncalled for. I lost all respect for you and your BIG ego.

[xpcdoojk]

I mean I am not sure if you don't like me because I am an ego maniac or if you don't like me because I wanted to slap the s--- out of someone. I sure hope you can clarify this for me sometime. Although the discussion would be better placed in the thread in which the issue occurred don't you think?

BTW compared to what some people have thought of me over the years, egomaniac is probably as close to a compliment that I have received recently. In other words, you might want to pick on someone that cares what you think. :p ;) :D

Sorry, I will try to be nicer, someday. :rolleyes:

jc

[xpcdoojk]

Here is more from Amalfi

jc

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day twelve arrived and I discovered a new challenge. The villa came with an espresso machine that looked interesting, but I was too tired to fiddle with it the day of arrival so being the first up the next day I had to have a cup of coffee. I find the instruction book for the espresso maker and amazingly it has an English section. To my utter dismay it uses instant coffee crystals. I discarded that notion immediately. So I start looking into cabinets for something resembling a coffee maker, or a French press or any such item. I see nothing, and by this time Shelby is up, and I suggest a quick run into Maiori to buy a coffee maker because there is no way this group would have survived without coffee for a week. So we jump in the Renault, and whiz around the corners and down the hill into town. It is about 8am and virtually nothing is open. So we park the car and start wandering up the side streets, and I find an electrical/hardware store that looks like it has al kinds of stuff in it. There is nobody in the store, but the door is open. So I am looking around when this large older Italian man comes in and starts to help me. I try to explain to him that I want a caffe/espresso maker, and he shows me a tiny 2-cup espresso maker, and I ask for something larger, and does he have a regular American style coffee maker. He speaks no English, and I limited Italian, but he shows me the selection a 2-cup, a 4-cup and a 6 cup 3 piece espresso maker. The units consist of a base that holds fresh water, a funnel shaped section that you put the ground coffee in that fits in the base, and then a top section that has a tube running up the middle for the coffee to percolate through as it boils. It is a very simple system. I ask him how to do it and he takes it apart and shows me by playing charades, to put water here, coffee grounds here, screw it together. I say I will take it. He diligently puts it back together in the box, and then disappears into a side room. After a few minutes he returns with 3 O-rings to replace the one on the unit in case it were to fail. I thank him and pay him and we jump back in the car and return to the villa. In order to turn into the villa I have to get all the way in the left lane make a 180 degree corner that every time I did it I knew I was going to hit the wall, so I would have to do a 3 point corner, and this time I got too close to the gate on the right side and just slightly caught the box that holds the electronics that controls the beam of light that shows the gate is cleared and for it to close. Oops, I am glad I have insurance prepaid on the car. It did a tiny little line dent on the rear wheel well. The day is not starting off very well. [/font][/size]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]We get back and a few others are up, but the two couples that joined us just yesterday at the villa are still timed messed up and they are mostly still asleep in bed. I assemble my espresso maker put it on the stove and start the process. When the process is finished I pour a cup, whoa talk about dark and thick. So I add about an equal amount of milk and pop it in the microwave. The resulting brew was pretty good. While I am looking for coffee cups of which there were plenty I found another espresso maker exactly like the one I had just bought. Laughing I got it out and now I had two units going. Which, actually, was a very good thing, because the 6-cup espresso maker made about 2 smallish cups of coffee and milk. Every morning we ran the espresso assembly line. By the end of the trip the black drinkers were drinking pure espresso in the regular Italian way. [/size][/font]

[celtic selke]

Eggos? When I was a kid I loved Eggos. Except they never stayed hot for long enough for the butter to melt.
Do you have the rectangular Eggo or the round Eggo, jc?

celtic

[xpcdoojk]

I prefer my eggos to be fresh made Belgian waffles.:D Loaded with maple syrup, butter and bananas.:D


jc

[FrankiRN]

[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=darkorchid]JC crabby and short tempered after a week in Italy? Surely you jest. And why in heaven's name do you feel the need to post some obscure flaming comment to his thread when you obviously don't like him :confused: . Just don't read any threads with JC as the originator and you'll be fine lol. :rolleyes: [/color][/size][/font]

[bchbms]

[quote name='mammallama']JC, I'm lovin' it! You should be a writer. Thanks for sharing with us.[/QUOTE]
I've been reading along and really enjoying this also....love living vicariously through other travelers! :p One thing I have to comment on though, after reading your Rome adventures, is that you must REALLY like to walk!! We were in Rome last year and went to all the same places you went to (and probably ate at some of the same places around the Pantheon), and if you covered all that ground from the Spanish Steps to the Forum to the Trevi Fountain on foot, you put some miles on your dogs!!

Can't wait to finish reading all of these adventures. We are going to the Amalfi Coast next year! :)

[BADBUOY]

[quote name='ezcheezy']You sure were crabby and short tempered when you got home. You post to me telling me you wanted to slap the s--- out of someone must have been your first post.

I didn't think my observation was that cold hearted but I apologize if I offended anyone. You saying that I was putting people into labeled boxes and how did I like it was harsh and uncalled for. I lost all respect for you and your BIG ego.[/QUOTE]
Cheezy -

Didn't you know that he's a true 'Legend in his own mind' yet?

Don't lose any sleep over it - really.

Buddy

[xpcdoojk]

[quote name='bchbms']I've been reading along and really enjoying this also....love living vicariously through other travelers! :p One thing I have to comment on though, after reading your Rome adventures, is that you must REALLY like to walk!! We were in Rome last year and went to all the same places you went to (and probably ate at some of the same places around the Pantheon), and if you covered all that ground from the Spanish Steps to the Forum to the Trevi Fountain on foot, you put some miles on your dogs!!

Can't wait to finish reading all of these adventures. We are going to the Amalfi Coast next year! :)[/QUOTE]
Well, I don't know about liking to walk, but it is good for you at least that is what my wife tells me, and then she says things like you can sure use it too, etc. etc. :D The first time we were in Rome we were there for 1 day and we did virtually everything in one day that I took 3 to do this trip. Talk about worn out dogs. We were on a cruise and we only had about 9 hours in Rome, and we even did the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel, yikes.

You will enjoy Amalfi, but I hate those tour buses, probably fine to be in one, but danged problematic on those crazy roads. If you want to stay at a villa I would heartily endorse the one we stayed at.

Buddy, glad to see you are still reading my story. It is great knowing that you are out there and that you care!:D

jc

[nosnobunny]

[quote name='ezcheezy']You sure were crabby and short tempered when you got home. You post to me telling me you wanted to slap the s--- out of someone must have been your first post.

I didn't think my observation was that cold hearted but I apologize if I offended anyone. You saying that I was putting people into labeled boxes and how did I like it was harsh and uncalled for. I lost all respect for you and your BIG ego.[/QUOTE]

And this has exactly what to do with this thread? :confused:

Beth

[BADBUOY]

[b]Don't worry ezcheesy your permitted to have your say. [/b]

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[quote name='BADBUOY'][b]Don't worry ezcheesy your permitted to have your say. [/b][/QUOTE]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Badbuoy, didn't you intend to type " you're permitted........"[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[BADBUOY]

Either way ezcheesy is [i]allowed [/i]to voice his/her opinion. :D

[nosnobunny]

Of course he's allowed to post. It would be real helpful if we knew what he was talking about. :confused: But preferably in another thread. I have enjoyed reading jc's travelogue and would hate to see it jeopardized.

Beth

[mammallama]

EZ--Now that you've gotten that off your chest, can we please get back to the story? :rolleyes:

[wallie5446]

[quote name='mammallama']EZ--Now that you've gotten that off your chest, can we please get back to the story? :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
I second or third that !:)

EW

[celtic selke]

Motion carried.
On with the epic.

celtic

[xpcdoojk]

I am really busy so I haven't had much oppurtunity to work on this serial, but if I ever quit I will never finish, so here is todays, blurb.

jc:D

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]We spent the morning checking out our surroundings. The first trips to the sea were made. David was the first to make the trip down the mountain goat path to the sea, and he came back very excited and very out of breath. The hike down wasn’t too bad, and it has obviously been in use for a long time. There are railings made from materials growing on the slope, and they had formed steps from wood except for spots where they obviously were required to pour concrete to keep them in place. At the bottom of the cliff there was a stone circular building with a roof made of bamboo tied together. This was not a rainproof roof, but it would block the sun. I am guessing at some time in the distant past it had a real roof. The walls were 20 foot high and the floor was ceramic tile with a stone table on each side with a ceramic top, and a bench made from stone circling the entire room that was, also, topped with ceramic tile. There was a lot of leaves and stuff everywhere, but it was an amazing little spot, and it made me wonder why it was there and how many long years since it was built. Just a few feet from the round building was a creek that ran from the mountains thru the lemon grove next to the villa on its way to the sea. There was a pump house built that must have been built to pump this fresh water back up to the lemon groves or to the pools of the homes up higher on the cliffs. After the pump house the creek had worn a path thru the granite into the sea. The hole at this spot was about ten feet wide and a few feet across. The granite then extended another forty feet or so before dropping about twenty feet in a sheer drop into the sea. Over the previous night there had been a big thunderstorm and the sea was quite rough, and the water smashing into the shore was throwing up huge spray. Beautiful. [/size][/font]
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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Shelby and I were the next to make the trip down to the shore after listening to David’s description. When we got there, we continued a little further along the top of the twenty foot cliff and found a place where someone had poured concrete and put steel hooks or rings in the concrete in order to secure things to cliff. They, also, had put a submersible pump in a piece of galvanized water pipe, and you could follow the path of the plastic pipe up the hillside towards the top of the hill. I could not quite imagine what you would want to pump seawater for. The other discovery was attached to one of the rings was a jumbled up rope with wood tied into it. I immediately was excited. The water was very wild, and the cliffs were too sheer to safely climb out of the sea, but I immediately knew that this jumble represented an option. So I start untwisting it and trying to figure it out. About fifteen minutes later we had reassembled a very cool rope ladder, and we started experimenting with the best place to put the ladder to safely get out of the water. We walked a little further and there were brick steps that were cemented about halfway down a sloping portion of the cliff. Eureka! We run the rope ladder along the top and then down the slope and I know it will work.[/size][/font]

[mammallama]

Holding my breath waiting for the next part.....Will the ladder hold? Does jc's companion go crashing into the sea below? Did the rough seas rip off their swim suits (or tighty whities)? ;) Stay tuned....

[bchbms]

You will enjoy Amalfi, but I hate those tour buses, probably fine to be in one, but danged problematic on those crazy roads. If you want to stay at a villa I would heartily endorse the one we stayed at.

We'll only be in Amalfi for one day on the cruise, but we are taking a private tour, not a bus. The next vacation will probably be in a villa there. I would love info on the one you stayed in - sounds fabulous!