As we're riding on a jet plane, taking the clan to Sicily for vacation the next couple of weeks, there will likely be no new updates until I return. There will, however, be plenty of wine consumed, seafood eaten, and sunny Mediterranean beaches enjoyed. That should make you feel better. It certainly makes me feel better. And if you don't feel better, there's not a lot I can do about it from a beach in Sicily, is there?

It's odd to consider that after one of the worst driving experiences in my life (Naples, where lanes are merely suggestions, the local population considers cramming a family of 12 on a Vespa to be a great joke, and traffic police are kind of like Shriners, in that they have pretty uniforms and like to wave frantically at people as they pass, but really are just there to mildly amuse the masses), I really enjoy driving in Italy. Driving in Italy just isn't taken too seriously. Even when you really piss off some guy who has a ridge on his forehead that would seriously turn on Daryl Hannah by cutting him off on - well, let's call it a 'highway' just to humor the Italian Highway Agency - the whole thing is likely to end up with him inviting you to his aunt's house for some pici and a glass of grappa. My car this time had one of those GPS navigation things. Even though I've now learned the road from Pisa to Siena pretty well, I tapped in my destination just for giggles. This lovely female voice came on and even spoke to me in English (British English, though. It insisted on misspelling words like 'color' and 'theater'). The only problem with it was it insisted I was going the wrong way to Siena the whole trip. It wanted me to take the main road to Florence and then take a right turn down to Siena, which nearly doubles the length of the trip. I know better. I take the old roads through the hills. Every 5 minutes it told me I really needed to get back the highway and that I should 'make a U-turn where fruitful.' (Seriously. It said 'fruitful.' That was funny enough to almost get me to follow its instructions. Almost.) Finally, about 30 km outside of Siena it gave up and said something in Italian which probably translated to "if you die in a lonely ditch in some farmer's field, don't say I didn't warn you, idiot." I'd have turned off the woman's instructions long before that, but I couldn't figure out how to shut the voice off and still show the pretty map. Technology is our friend.

Tonight I'm back in my favorite hotel in Siena, Italy. It still has rotary phones. I've long since learned not to expect things to hurry when I come here - and it's a good thing I ended up planning a little extra time in my trip this time as well. As always, things in Tuscany operate at a different pace than the world around it. The plane landed a few minutes late because of winds, but was close enough to on time not to matter. There were no issues in baggage claim or at passport control. In fact, there were these two beautiful dalmations in the terminal I got to pet while waiting. I miss having a dog around. The big one, not the little evil one. Anyway, things were going fine until I got up to the Hertz counter. The admin in my office forgot to use my Hertz Gold card, so I had to wait in the long line, and spend more time providing passport, license, credit card information, etc. No big deal, just annoying. Because I've always used my Gold card at Pisa, I've never realized that there's a normal, non-gold member lot further out from the airport, that requires a shuttle bus. OK, so I get out there and the bus is full, but the guy gestures that he’ll be right back, and sure enough, he's back in 5 minutes to take me over to the lot. He drops me in the area where my car is labeled as being, and drives off. Problem is, there's no car there. The parking spaces aren't individually numbered, but rather grouped together under a single number, so I figure maybe my car is just over a few spaces one way or the other. Nope. Hm. Try using the clicker thing and see if I can get it to beep at me. It's a Renault Scenic, and doesn't actually have a key, but rather a wacky card that looks like a credit card, only a few times thicker. French ingenuity. Nothing beeping at me. So I walk all the way down to the end of the aisle. And then back up to the other end. And then down the next aisle. Did I mention it's like 90 degrees in Italy right now? By this time I see the shuttle guy coming back around for his next run and flag him down. I gesture at my paperwork and the number where I'm supposed to find the car, and say 'no car. Um.. No auto.' Shit. I should really learn Italian one day. He figures out what I mean when I point at the spot where the car is supposed to be and spread my hands wide and shrug in the international symbol for 'What the hell?' He takes my not-a-key and says what I assume to be 'wait right here, gringo' and drives off to complete his round. Then he comes back and picks me up and we spend 15 minutes driving slowly through the entire lot looking for the car. Nothing. So we drive back over to the terminal. The way back takes us through the gold-member lot. El Duce slams on the brakes just as we enter. I'm trying to figure out the international sign for 'You just gave me whiplash, you crazy S.O.B' when he gestures across my body at my car. Parked 10 feet from where I got on the shuttle. In my defense, I have to say that the paperwork really *did* say go to the other lot, and the lady behind the counter really *did* say 'go get on the shuttle'. Ah well. Nothing an extra glass of chianti at dinner won't cure.