Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

[nosnobunny]

I loved the pictures jc. Up til now, Italy's never been on my "Must Do Before I Die" list. Looks like it's time to update my list. :D

PS - You weren't smiling in a single photo. Were you still peeved over the passport thing?

Beth

[xpcdoojk]

#2 I am not a poser, I really don't care to be in the picture, so they almost never take pictures of me unless it is a group photo, whereas my wife is always ready to be in the picture. I think my general thing is the camera aims at me and I wish it would go away.

jc

I was having a wonderful time, and I laugh a lot just not when someone is bugging me to take a photo, I would not be a good celebrity!:D

[joannanna]

I can't seem to access any photo albums now. Earlier it was just showing the mini album.....now however it is saying that access has been restricted.

What am I doing wrong? I have a yahoo account but it still won't let me access your album.

I've been enjoying your account of your trip very much and would like to put a face to the name :D .

Thanks!!

[mammallama]

[quote name='xpcdoojk'] I would not be a good celebrity!:D[/QUOTE]Oh but you are! ;)

[staylor]

Thanks for sharing your travel experiences and pics with us. I feel like I just went on a mini vacation right here in my family room!!!!!:) I love the pic of the ladies in the clover. It is beautiful there, isn't it?!!......Someday.....

[vossjemi]

Well, yesterday all I could see was the Mini Album. Someone mentioned it took a long time to load....waited, waited, and waited. Never got any other album. Only the 1. Today it says access is restricted, so I still haven't seen the Italy pics.:( I too have yahoo, so I'm not sure why I'm not able to view.

JC, I work near where you live. I get off at Battlefield/65 exit every day! I'm a moron when it comes to cars. Not sure I'd recognize a Mini if I saw one. I could email you so as to permit access? I'd sure love to see those pics!:)

p.s. This is where CC could stand to have enabled private messaging! On the Disboards, its so nice to be able to PM someone and exchange info without everything always being public. I'm like you, not so sure I want too much info about me on a public forum.

[xpcdoojk]

my email is [email="xpcdoojk@yahoo.com"]xpcdoojk@yahoo.com[/email]

I think if you have a dial up access it may take so long to load that it is a problem. The file is available currently, as obviously some folks are seeing it. I took the MINI album into private so that it wouldn't confuse people.

Send me your email and I will send you an email to let you access it.

jc

[vossjemi]

I have dsl, so thats not the problem. Hmmm. Weird. I emailed earlier when I was at home. Right now I'm visiting brother in Nixa. From his computer, I can see the pics. Strange. I wonder if my Norton at home is blocking them? Oh well. Glad I got to see them! Good pics!:D

[stretch]

[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Great pics! I'll have put that on my "places to go before I'm too old list". [/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Question though, is this saga going to continue to be a day by day story published weekly or what?? Come on dude, you had all weekend to finish it! [img]http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/3/3_4_11v.gif[/img] [/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[wallie5446]

[b]jc,[/b]
[b]Great pic's, thanks for sharin em ![/b]
[b]EW[/b]

[nosnobunny]

I'm assuming you realize that we now have a face to go with the reputation. :eek:

Beth

[xpcdoojk]

#2, and the implication of that knowledge affects us how?


jc

[nosnobunny]

Just joking with you. That's all. I was trying to imagine what you must have looked like as a small boy. Rather Dennis the Menacy. ;)

Beth

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[quote name='nosnobunny']Just joking with you. That's all. I was trying to imagine what you must have looked like as a small boy. Rather Dennis the Menacy. ;)

Beth[/QUOTE]

[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Funny for saying that, I was thinking more in the lines of Eddie Haskell...............[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[nosnobunny]

No Eddie Haskell wouldn't work. He grew up to be a cop. Can you see jc as a narc? :D

Speaking of jc, he hasn't been around much today. He must be finishing off his memoires. ;)

Beth

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[quote name='nosnobunny']No Eddie Haskell wouldn't work. He grew up to be a cop. Can you see jc as a narc? :D

Beth[/QUOTE]

[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Actually, yes I could see jc as a cop............................. Maybe he's editing his "Vacation in Review" video.[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[xpcdoojk]

I actually, did look like Dennis the Menace as portrayed by Jay North until I was about 7 or 8. I was blond headed, and I always had a rooster tail. Then my hair turned brown.

Definitely not a cop or even a cop wannabe, however I do have a scanner, which I bought for Nascar races.;) :D

jc

[vossjemi]

Although my son is red-headed, HE IS DENNIS THE MENACE!!! While we thought he was taking his nap a couple of weekends ago, he'd ripped the screen out of the window, ripped the window shade in half, pulled all the kleenex's out of the box and spewed them about the room, and basically took all his toys out of his toybox/closet and his room literally looked like a disaster area. And, he did this quietly. Never heard a peep. We found him sleeping on the screen when we checked in on him. Needless to say, he didn't like it when Daddy made him pick everything up, but he did it. Well, except for the screen. He couldn't do that. Many have referred to him as the tornado...he destroys everything in his path. And, he's only 2!

Back on topic....by the way, tell your wife I loved her silk scarf. Lovely.

[Elizanessie]

Strange but for some reason I always imagined jc as being stern faced,dark haired,bearded,thin,tall,glasses,wearing a suit and yes driving a mini emm think i got it a wee bit wrong.

Oh by the way.....when mum in Venice last week.....there was so much water in St.Marks square they had to walk on trestle tables to try keep a little dry.....no joke.

Liz

[xpcdoojk]

The photo link previously provided will no longer work, anyone wanting to see the photos, just needs to email at

[email="xpcdoojk@yahoo.com"]xpcdoojk@yahoo.com[/email]

and I will send you an email that will allow you access to my pictures.

ciao

jc

[xpcdoojk]

OK here is some more of the travelogue. I hope a few of you are not bored to tears.

jc

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day thirteen dawned again a little overcast. It is Monday and we have tickets for the Beethoven Concerto in Ravello. We had by this time become well acquainted with Mitza the villa dog. Mitza is a basic bird-dog type, and had recently had a litter of puppies, and she was missing the puppies, and she became very clingy to us. Mitza had the worst ear mite and subsequent infection issues, and we started the cleaning of the ears. After realizing what a mess they were, we went into Maiori and visited a pharmacist and got an ear mite spray along with some hydrogen peroxide and q-tips. We then began a twice daily cleaning of the ears and applying the medicine. Mitza was a sweet puppy and while she did whimper a little she took the entire process very well. I was a little concerned that we were going to have to deal with an unhappy and biting dog, but it worked out very well. By the time we left the villa on Saturday her ears had made amazing progress. I am hopeful that Carmella and others continued the treatment after we left. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]After a wonderful light lunch of bread, fruit, proscuitto, parma (ham), and wine, we dressed for our trip to Ravello. Ravello sits above the town of Amalfi. It is several thousand feet up the mountainside from the sea. The concert is at the Villa Rufulo, which is an amazing formal garden and estate. Sue, Shelby, Krystal, and I went early because we wanted to tour the gardens Villa Cimbrone before the concert, and the others were going to spend the afternoon in Amalfi prior to joining us for dinner in Ravello. Ravello is a beautiful village with spectacular views everywhere you care to look. The two gardens have made Ravello a little fairytale town, for centuries. Wagner is said to have used these gardens for the basis of his opera Parsifal, and as a result the town holds a Wagner festival for a couple of months every summer. The cute little shops have tons of pictures of celebrities that have visited and shopped in their stores. The ceramics in Ravello are beautiful, and my wife found a beautiful serving set that was about five-hundred euros that the shop owner said was the same pattern that Ralph Lauren had just purchased for his Telluride, Colorado home. Another shop had a picture of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton in the shop with the owner. Everywhere you went in Ravello you would find pictures and autographs of similar celebrities. We finally escaped the shops without the serving set, and went to find Villa Cimbrone. Wow. The gardens are very nice, but the setting on top of the mountain is just superb. The view from the Point of Infinity is almost indescribable. Imagine a terrace located on the tip of two thousand foot cliff with views of the sea on 3 sides from the point of the cliff. The views are simply spectacular. The terrace is lined with statues and beautiful pines. We then when down a level and bought a gelato and sat in a booth located hanging out over the cliff. Amazing. After the gelato we continued looking thru the gardens and the other statues. Villa Cimbrone is beautiful, from a garden point of view it is not quite Butchart gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, but the overall setting is simply unbelievable. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]We then wandered the tiny streets of Ravello and found a nice restaurant where we made a reservation for eight for 7pm that night. We walked through a small art gallery and eventually made our way to Villa Rufulo where we toured those gardens, which were a little smaller and little more formal than Villa Cimbrone. The view from Villa Rufulo was only to the South and east, and did not have the commanding position found at the Point of Infinity. We eventually, reemerged in the main plaza and our radios crackled with the sound of the other car trying to figure out where to park. I guided them to the parking lot, and the two ladies took our tickets and toured Villa Rufulo while the rest of us adjourned into a pub and had some very expensive beer. Yikes. I wouldn’t want that to be my primary watering hole. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Dinner was a very yummy affair, and it was Gary’s turn for ordering the wine. We had a very nice Barolo and some other super Tuscans that went down very well, indeed. Dinner was excellent. It got very cool that evening due to the altitude and despite gas heaters and Plexiglas shutters the dining area was a tad chilly. After dinner I went to pick up our tickets at will-call. The funniest thing was when I got to the previously opened gates to the gardens they were closed and an employee was shaking them violently trying to get them to reopen. He tried for about five minutes and then he gave up and went off. About five minutes later he returned and started using a series of keys to try to unlock the gate. He then returned to the vigorous shaking of the gate. Finally, with the help of a few of us on the outside we get it open. I pick up our tickets and we are in about the sixth and seventh rows. I radio back that we are good to go, but they had stopped at another bar and were ordering coffee. There is a downside to being the responsible person, as the others had another dessert to share with their coffee at the new bar. I am pretty sure their coffee had something a little extra added to it, too. Oh well, I have to drive home again anyway. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]We are past their primary concert season and because the weather is cool they hold the concerto in the villa and not in the gardens like they do in the summer. This was a small disappointment, but the music was beautiful and well played. Two hours later about 11:30pm and after a pair on encores we happily filed out of the villa and get in our cars for the forty-minute drive, down the mountain and along the twisting coast highway. All in all it was another beautiful day. [/font][/size]

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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]And the saga continues! What a bummer though, having to be the responsible one and DD all the time.[/color][/size][/font][/i]

[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Does jc get to finally shirk his responsibilities??[/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Do any of the others finally take a turn behind the wheel??[/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Does Mitza respond to verbal commands in English?? [/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000][img]http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_2_106.gif[/img][/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Will these and other questions be answered.[/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Stay tuned, same time??, same thread??, another day ??[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[nosnobunny]

Oh the suspense of it all. How will we ever manage to last until the next episode? Type faster jc. :D That was nice of you to give us a nod for Butchart Gardens. ;)

Beth

[xpcdoojk]

Here is another section of the story.....

jc

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Day fourteen is a gloriously beautiful day. The group that went to Amalfi the day before are armed with the ferry schedules and we decide that Tuesday would be Capri. The ferry was scheduled for 10:15 leaving from Amalfi, and parking being at a premium we get there about 9:30. The ferry tickets were about 25 euros per person round trip and with parking about 25 euros you can see it is not a cheap place to do anything, and Capri is the most expensive of all. We spent a little time checking out some of the nearby shops, and David looked for a currency exchange to change his dollars into euros. To me this was the biggest waste of time of anything he did. I found it easy to keep my dollars and find an ATM to withdraw money in euros instead of trying to find someone that would exchange money and then worrying about the exchange rate. To each their own though. We finally got on the ferry about 10:40 as it was running a little behind schedule. The ride over was very nice as the seas were very mild, and we really got to see the rugged coastline. Capri lies just off the end of the Sorrento peninsula, and is renowned for its rugged cape (like Cabo San Lucas in Mexico) and for its grottos. We, however, visited it for its more earthly pleasures of shopping designer fashions. Yikes. Talk about a little shopping Mecca. All of the famous designers had shops at the top of the funicular overlooking the port and harbor. From there you could see the Mediterranean on both sides of the island. Beautiful. We all separated and wandered through this beautiful little town on top of an island. Lemongello is a famous liquor of the Amalfi region, but Capri had more stores than anywhere else that we visited and we sampled it freely and often. Yum. I admit in my preparation for the trip to becoming a Lemongello addict, and I was in heaven. Krystal and I ended up at a bar near a large tennis club and we needed a gelato. I have never paid so much for an ice cream cone, but I would pay it again in a heartbeat if I could have that gelato right now. Unbelievable. It was simply the best I have ever eaten (at least for the next 24 hours). We found the rest of our group a few hours later back at the ferry piers and we found a nice table in a bar and quaffed a couple of beers with nuts and waited for the ferry. The return ferry was jammed beyond full, and in true European style it became a dog eat dog lines be damned rush to get on the ferry. We ended up standing at the back crammed together. Krystal climbed outside the passenger area, and was sitting on a safety floatation device. This ferry was not a fast ferry and we took a slow trip to Positano, where we lost about 20 people. The ferry is still loaded beyond capacity for the last twenty minutes or so to Amalfi. We got back to our cars and we went looking for a grocery store, as we figured that Amalfi would have a better selection of foodstuffs than tiny Maiori. It turned out that it was actually not as good. Fortunately, we bought some steaks and pork chops along with Charcoal for a barbeque back at the villa. We, also, found some more staples for lunch and breakfast the next day. We finally loaded up and drove home tired, but happy. We started our barbeque on the patio and grilled some meat and consumed many bottles of wine and David and Gary killed another bottle of Johnny Walker. It was a beautiful evening, and we watched satellites fly silently overhead and listened to the sounds of the water striking the rocks below. Talking amongst ourselves we decided that if the weather was like todays then we would hang out at the villa tommorrow. Wednesday was, also, Sue’s birthday, and we decided that we would eat at the restaurant that helped us find the villa just a short way as the crow flies away. I was now drinking ice-cold Lemongello and contemplating my own personal grotto at the bottom of the cliff![/size][/font]

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[Elizanessie]

jc

Oh how strange ....but nice.I had read your earlier review....ceramics at Ravello etc and then I was catching up on other thread with pax(fellow CC'rs) mum had met on BOS and looking at their photos and lo and behold there was a photo of the ceramics place......oh and Venice ....and the Almafi coast etc.....oops and the rain.

Liz