Tuscany: getting here and getting around.

Journal rdewald's Journal: Tuscany: getting here and getting around. 8

Journal by rdewald on Friday September 08, 2006 @10:05AM

Getting here.

It is just as I anticipated. I may just be able to become accustomed enough to being in Europe to seriously consider a permanent move here. I'm not sure exactly where I belong in the EU, but both France and Italy are now candidates. I have much more to learn, including a language or two, but I don't feel alien or uncomfortable here.

One thing has surprised me. I was expecting to have my distaste for the habits of Americans intensified as I left the shores of the US. On the contrary, my general level of impatience with things American attitudes has softened. I dont' think this is because I feel any less alienated from the things that trouble me about the US, but with some perspective comes some compassion. In the warm embrace of the Tuscan hills I find that I don't have it in me to be as angry and defiant.

Also, there are things that we seem to do better in the US--the conveniences of modern life are less robust in Europe, but it is the kind of thing I could get used to or overlook. The grocery stores have less variety, the signage is less helpful, things like that.

I have much to say, but first things first.

Air France has won a customer for life. As most of you know, I am a very large man. You might not know anyone as large as I. I carry it well, i.e., I also have a large stature, heavy bones and broad shoulders, so to the eye I do not appear as large as I am. But, airplane seats are not burdened with such perceptions. They know how far out on the tail of the bell curve I dwell.

When my companion and I sat down in our seats on the Boeing 747-400 my anticipatory dread was confirmed. I was wedged in like a shim under a heavy table leg. My companion, like most people, hates the middle seat, but if we were to sit next to each other she was going to have to suck it up. She did.

As I sat there drawing upon the resources I have (my Zen practice) to endure such things, I did notice that the trim and stylish cabin crew was fluttering around me a lot but I did not pick up on the fact that I must have been a topic of conversation. I was comfortable enough for the 7 hour flight to Paris. I would make it, but I assume I was visibly mildly distressed.

The trend in US airlines has been to make seats bigger and provide more room because of the increasing average size of the US public. So, on the newer Airlines like JetBlue if find that I am much more comfortable. I also know that Europe lags behind the US in this trend, so I expected to not be as comfortable on EU carriers. It wasn't that the seats were smaller on this Air France Boeing 747-400, it's just that they were the same size they were when this plane was rolled out in the 1970's.

To add to all this the gentleman sitting on the other side of my companion had significant body odor. You would have to know my companion to appreciate the distress that arose in her because of this. So, neither of us looked very happy, but I had no idea anyone else noticed.

When everyone was on board, I made my customary request for the seatbelt extension and the stew (in the low tones of a breathy French accent, no less) said "Of course, I will get you the belt immediately, but we are working on moving you and your companion to an open row, that is, three seats for two people."

The plane was near full. I had not asked for this accomodation. Just as surely as I was surprised, the stew returned in a few minutes and said "if you please, we can move you now." My companion and I moved back about 30 rows in the plane and settled into our own row of seats and suddenly I was comfortable. Two French gentlemen had traded their seats with ours. I thanked them as we passed each other in the aisle and they nodded and smiled. After we had settled in (but before the plane left the Gate) I saw the stew standing over them with a bottle of Champagne pouring them what I assume was a complimentary beverage as appreciation for their cooperation.

That's how you win a customer for life. It will never matter to me very much if their competitors are cheaper. I will be flying Air France when I can.

This Air France 747-400 had the LCD's in the seat backs. I had my first "we aren't in Kansas anymore" moment as I was perusing the available channels, i.e., I was pleasantly surprised to see boobies. Not pornography, just a silly French comedy with a scene with a young French woman relaxing in a bath. No parental controls, no hysteria about "saving the children" from this sight. It was just another movie on the menu. I tried to watch it for a while (it had English subtitles), but it was not my cup of tea, so I switched over to Alfred Hitchcock's "To Catch A Thief" which I hadn't seen in 20 years. Then I watched some old Mission Impossible episodes and my first ever episode of MacGuyver. They also had games to play (with a handheld controller than snapped out of the arm rest) and the customary map of the voyage with mileage/speed indicators.

After the dinner, which was pretty good for airline food, I tried to catch some sleep, I may have slept an hour or so, but it was fitful. I wasn't tired enough. My companion slept better than I. When we arrived in Paris we had to rush in an unsuccessful bid to try to catch our connecting flight to Florence. The JFK to Paris flight had been delayed about 2 hours, which was our layover period in Paris exactly.

We got to the gate and got booked on another flight to Florence in two hours, so we went in search of lunch. Now, my culinary French is pretty good. I used to work in a French restaurant for a French chef who used English as sparingly as he used the microwave (which is to say, hardly at all). So, I stood at the counter and ordered my ham and cheese on a bagette with a tossed green side salad dressed in oil and venegar in French with the ease of someone whose been speaking these phrases for twenty years. The counter person nodded and prepared my meal. She came back and said something to me in French I did not understand. I told her "Pardon moi, but I don't speak French."

She smiled and said "You fool me. Do you want dessert?" That was nice.

On the plane bound for Florence the Air France stewardesses AGAIN made arrangements with other passengers to get my companion and I an open row. AGAIN without being asked. And notably, without any perceptable judgments being passed about my obesity (unlike my experiences with US Airlines). It was just all smiles and "can we do anything else for you?"

Both my companion and I slept more on the two hour flight to Florence than on the seven hour flight from New York. It was good solid sleep we both needed. When we arrived in Florence we hit the first snag of the trip--my companion's bags did not make it on to the plane. Hers weren't the only one, there were a number of passengers in the same sorry state owing to the problems witht he delay at JFK. Again, though, Air France excelled at customer service, it was delivered right to our doorstep the next day, even though our doorstep was more than an hour outside of Florence in a very remote tiny town (Lamole, near Greve-in-Chianti) in the Chianti region of Tuscany.

Getting around

I rented a car from Avis. Now, here's an odd story. I started out by renting the car at Avis.com. Then, during an e-mail exchange on GMail between my companion and I about the car rental plans I found an ad (in the sidebar) for a European car rental agency based in France which said something like "lowest 14 day rates!". I clicked it, filled out the quote request form, figuring I had nothing to lose.

I got a prompt answer back, they had a quote that was significantly less (~$275US less) for my two-week rental period. They just required that I prepay, I did, and then they sent me a voucher back to present at the Florence airport. In the meantime, I cancelled my avis.com reservation.

The car I reserved through the French agent was exactly the same car class, for exactly the same dates, from Avis! It was such a rate difference that I began to worry if I had been scammed, but no. Everything went very smoothly at the Airport, I rented a VW "Polo," which is sort of a modern Bug. It's been a beautiful car.

But the real score was renting the GPS. For about $12/day they provide a TomTom GPS Navigation system. It is worth $120/day. It has made all of the difference in the world for us on this trip. My companion and I are driving in a country with a foreign language, in which neither or us has ever been, and we are driving straight to our destinations like we were locals without so much as unfolding our map.

I have used GPS systems before, but not the TomTom product. It is generally a good deal more expensive than others, so I have eschewed it as an overpriced product targeted at the technologically-challenged.

It is not overpriced, they deserve to be paid for this level of excellence in programming. The interface is simple, easy to use, intuitive, and it provides all of the options I can conceive of needing. It has been as indispensible to (and inseparable from) me as my Treo in in the US. No matter where we are in Europe, as long as we can get a GPS signal (which is only a problem in urban city centers), we can type in our destination and easily naviagate directly there.

The only "mistake" it made was related to road construction. It did try to turn me into a wall in San Gimimgano (that has been there since the 1300's I might add), but I had not set the "driving directions only" option. There was a walkway.

If you are considering a trip anywhere which involves driving in unfamiliar territory, get yourself a TomTom. I simply cannot imagine what this trip might have been like without it. I am hard to impress with gadgetry, but this is an amazing device. I have absolutely no fear about going anywhere. If we can name it, or find an address, we can get there. Need a gas station? Ask TomTom. Need a restaurant/bathroom/laundry/hotel/museum/etc? Ask TomTom. It is awesome.

More later, Internet connections are sporadic owing to my travelling companion not giving a fsck about having Internet access.

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