Duck Girl and Boss Man

We were awakened in the early morning light by doves, pseudo-cuckoos, roosters and cheery twittering birds.  The laundry was mostly dry.  We had breakfast on the patio with roses, little white butterflies, birdsong and views, the green hills rolling away to a villa settled on a hill with Italian trees on the ridgeline.

After we left Il Pozzo, we nosed around very local roads looking for points of interest that don’t exist past the sign, then found the place we had been directed to yesterday to buy an Italian SIM card for my phone, the Studio Foto Video in Monteroni.  How hard could this be?  But we stood in the tiny shop for over an hour to sign me up for the Italian SIM.  While the shopkeeper worked assiduously at his computer and made phone calls for further support, his assistant (who was wearing a shirt that said “determined feisty friendly duck”) sat on a stool next to him chatting with a visiting neighbor, answering her phone, looking at her fingernails but not helping the four other customers who had gathered by the time we left.  Eventually Duck Girl picked up her purse and hastened out of the store.  Is the Italian economy in trouble?  Do we wonder why?  I suppose all the purchases and tech stuff have to be done on the one computer, but then why does the boss have an assistant?  We left with instructions to insert the SIM card at 1400. Keep reading

Our room in Il Pozzo di Radi

It never gets easier to pack for these trips.  I was up late and early every night and day to finish things and get ready to go.  You’d think I could sleep on the plane but there’s hardly room to exhale.  The seat in front of me tilted back past the plumb of my seat.  How can the greedy airlines, squeezing ever more bodies into their flying machines, pretend they are at your service?  I just read in The Week that the 23 largest American airlines made $15.5 billion profit last year, about half from baggage and change fees.  I bet their CEOs don’t sit in economy. Keep reading