My trip to Italy via Amsterdam with my oldest son Michael for 2 weeks, without a single room reservation, end of September-Early October 2008.

Turn on the volume and be sure to see the photos below.

Ciao' everyone,

Well, the trip was amazing in more ways than one. For whatever reason, Michael and I booked our trip to Europe on Lufthansa Airlines, but it was actually United that did the flying. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Meanwhile Michael flew here to San Antonio and we boarded one of those toothpaste tube jets to Chicago where we changed planes for the non-stop flight from Chicago to Amsterdam. United used one of their new 777's, a very impressive and nearly as big as a 747 but with only two engines. We sat way in the back of that bus and it seemed like we walked three blocks to get to the rear of the plane, but overall I was very impressed with the 777. Downside was how many people that monster seats and the very little leg room available. Upside was the mini screen in front of each passenger that shows movies or you can choose a GPS type screen showing speeds and location. The Atlantic Ocean is very dark at night and a bit spooky, but our trusty Boeing moved us with safety and smoothness.

I really didn't know what to expect upon our arrival to Amsterdam and I had just thought of it as a temporary layover city, but there were things Mike wanted to see there so we planned on two days there prior to jumping on a jet to Venice. We had an absolute blast in Amsterdam walking around and seeing the people interact. About every language that exists is spoken there, yet most folks spoke English when needed. I was surprised to see very few overweight people there. I suppose it's all the walking and bike riding because the food was great and the French fries (chips) were world class and I ate a ton of them (slosh)......

I have never done any research on Amsterdam so it was a total surprise to me. The buildings were all built with art in mind and were a joy to experience. We stayed at a Hostel there and most Hostel's are upstairs from local coffee shops/cafe's. Within those shops was the sale of every kind of marijuana and what they call "magic mushrooms". Having what they call coffee there (2 sips of mud per cup), people were buying their favorite flavor of pot, sitting down at the tables, rolling and smoking the stuff. One would think that with all the "stoners" around there would be chaos, but most all of the people were orderly and peaceful. We did get to see a great fight between two black African friends and once the one guy got knocked on his arse twice, the fight was over and they walked away still yelling at one another. The pot there was surprise number one. As we walked through the city we found ourselves in the Red Light District. Okay, ho's. Most cities have those, but these lady's of the night were displayed in store front windows for some of the best window shopping any male had ever seen. Most of them were not the typical druggie ho's, these were world class looking women like you would see on posh magazine covers. Wow, that was strange to see. We asked our Hostel manager guy about them and it turns out that the hookers began way back when while Amsterdam was more of a pirates port and just kept going and legal. He said they charge 50-60 Euro's for a quick 15 minute romp that the ho's themselves called matter-of-factly; S and F (you add the rest of the letters). Weird! He said that the better looking ones have 20-30 "mini dates" per day. They apparently pay something like 150 Euros per day for their window position. One blonde looking goddess poked her head out of the door to speak with us and obviously solicit, but she was friendly and seemed very happy with her life. Once we told her that we were father and son, she understood and went back inside. Mike and I walked off not believing what we saw and heard from that lady. There were some doggier looking gals like this one black lady that had to weigh 300 lbs, so I suppose there's every flavor there that those who hunt that type thing can have a variety. Worthy of note was that some of the "lady's" we had seen in the windows were actually MEN! We learned from our Hostel mgr that if the window has purple lights in it instead of red ones, it's a guy! YUK! I nearly barfed because naturally being a man, it was interesting to see these women in their own Macy like windows, I admired the beauty of a few women that I later found out were men. Gads! Worthy of note was the fact that these window's were store fronts during the day and "ho-downs" at night so the stores were right in the same area of town center that all tourists walk around anyway, so even if one wants to avoid the show windows, one cannot, but there were as many women with their men there that seemed intrigued by seeing what we all saw.

Finally with some catch up sleep, we boarded our airliner to Venice. Wow, was that a gorgeous place from the air, but once we got our rental car and actually drove to the ferry that takes you to the waterways of Venice, we were a bit disappointed as to the commerciality of it all. Except for the beautiful sound of the Italian language, it seemed like we were at the River Walk here in San Antonio. AT least we were now ready for our first and highly anticipated dinner at a local restaurant where we were seated outside. The waiter was on the verge of rude and the dinner sucked! What???!!!! Dinner sucked in Italy? Must have been an anomaly we had thought. We must have walked for miles that evening and we then took a boat-bus back to the ferry landing and we got back in our car late that night. I can't even remember where we stayed that night I was so tired with the time change and all, but when it was time for breakfast, we were starving. Eggs, bacon, potato's and toast! NOT! Breakfast in most of Italy was a bun, tomato and cucumber slices, one thin slice of lunch meat, a slice of cheese and the smallest serving of coffee mud I had ever seen. Mike loves espresso, but I'm a weak decaf sissy. When I asked for larger cups and hot water added, you'd think I insulted the waiter's mother! I'd just say: Americano! They would then shrug their shoulders and tsk me off. Eh! I asked this one waiter if they had chickens in Italy and if so, don't they lay freakin' eggs?! Oh yeah; now I remember, we didn't spend the night in Venice. We drove all night to Florence (Firenze) and we couldn't find anywhere to get a cup of java let alone eat something as everything was closed including most of the gas station stores, so we pulled into a hotel parking lot at around 5 am and tried to get some sleep while parked in this mini car of ours. Once the sun rose, we decided to drive over to Pisa about an hour or more west of Florence. Pisa was an amazing place and the best photos you've ever seen of the leaning tower does not do the angle of off plumb justice. That sucker looks like it was ready to fall over at any moment. Some people paid to go up in that tower but not us! We took about a million pix of that tower and each time the cameras seemed to straighten the tower out so not even the cameras believed how much that thing leans.

Once we were done with Pisa, we decided to drive back to Florence and Mike got us this really cool and large Hostel where we enjoyed a few days of sightseeing and fun. Florence was my personal favorite city of those we had visited in Italy. Michael seemed to know exactly what to go see in each city and our trusty GPS would get us there............sometimes. :o) Once there, we finished up and headed southwest toward the west coast of Italy. WOW! It was more gorgeous than any other places I had ever been. The drivers and motor bike riders in Italy are nothing short of nuts! We had a $1,000.00 deductable on our rental car and we were certain we'd eventually have to pay that but miraculously, not a scratch, but I was having heart attacks at every bend in the road especially when Mike was doing his own LA variety of driving. There is just no way to put in writing all that we saw and did, just know that I don't think that anyone could ever have a nicer and more beautiful trip through Italy than we. The most disappointing and unbelievable thing about our trip was the food in Italy. I had asked one waiter for pasta with marinara sauce and he asked what was marinara?! It mostly sucked, especially in the major cities, but as surprising was the fact that the women (and men) were all gorgeous and trim, not the fat mamma's and gramma's I'd expected to see. Women older than me were still beautiful and trim. There were pizzeria's on every corner, but not what you'd expect. Old cold pizza in the glass cases with some baloney and cheese and that was it! Those places stay open because each day at a certain hour, businesses close down and go there for their espresso fix and most of them rarely eat. I'm not sure where we were at, but somewhere near Naples off the beaten track, so we decided to eat pizza at this cute little settlement just off the hiway and WOW! Now you're talking. That was some pizza pie! It had what looked like pepperoni on it but the owner said it was a special salami that ended up having a bold flavor that lit up the entire pizza. Boy did we eat, or at least Michael did. I don't know how Mike stays trim and muscular because he eats enough for an army when he's hungry and he's usually hungry! I can't tell you how much time out of each day it took just to find somewhere to eat something decent and we often went without. I have eaten Mortadella many times in my life and never liked it much, but when I saw them cutting thin slices of that stuff off of a pigs head I realized that those round pieces of fat in the baloney was not fat, it was BRAINS! Shudder-gag-barf

We were really looking forward to our visit to the Island of Capri. Pulling up to that island in our hover jet boat, it looked just like Catalina Island in California. Mike found us another room in a local hotel. That was a great room with a view from either one of its two balcony's, but of course a bit expensive so we only stayed one night. We had a great meal and home made wine to die for, but there wasn't that much to do other than watching naked men dive into the water from the rocks.

We eventually worked our way through Rome, Naples, and finally onto the southern tip for our ferry across to Sicily. Sicily was just as my family had described; a less than beautiful place as compared to the boot to the north, but interesting nonetheless. While I was sitting in our car on the ferry, Mike was exploring the upper decks and these ladies would come by selling trinkets. I bought a couple of things and as usually had fun handing out American bubble gum to people including this one lady I bought some trinkets from to take back home when another lady came up to my car window and asked me in Italian for some bubble gum like the other lady got so I gave her a piece. She then started in telling me her dad died recently and she has diabetes, etc. and asked me to give her some money. Okay, I'm a sucker as usual so I opened my wallet to get a few Euro's out of it and she reached down and took a ten and smiled. What the hell, I didn't complain about it and just before she walked away, she reached down and gave my penis a double squeeze leaving me sitting there in shock! When Mike got back he wanted to know why the look on my face I guess and I told him. He nearly fell to the deck laughing and I was still in shock by that action of appreciation.

I can't finish this up without telling you about the topography of Italy. The size of many mountains were awe inspiring and we drove through many of them in these series of eerie tunnels where we were driving at times indicating 140 kilometers with cars coming up to our bumpers and passing doing over 200 like we weren't moving at all. Mike gave this one Audi driver the finger and then that guy tried his best to kill us while we were at very high speeds. We stopped giving the finger there as I guess it is taken more seriously than here in the states. If this guy had a gun, he'd have shot us. That really pissed me off so good thing I wasn't driving then or I'd have caught that sonofabitch, but when I told Mike to tear after him, Mike kept the level head and backed off. I did watch all the gas stations for the next two hours to find that asshole, but best that I didn't I suppose, but he really tried to kill us and because my son was in the car, my family protection mode took over and we'd probably still be in an Italian jail for throwing that asshole off a cliff.

We stayed at times in hotels right on the beach. Oh so beautiful and the Italian life-style had me convinced that their individual lives seem richer than ours. They are certainly more healthy by miles. Mike was so cute as he's been studying Italian in classes in LA and he'd go up to Italians for directions and stuff saying "scuzie" and then on he'd speak with them. I was very proud to see my son speaking in Italian and without using a single "FONGOUL" even once. The Italian I was taught when young used that word in every sentence seemingly. Mike fell in love each time one of the plentiful gorgeous women passed us by promising himself that if he ever gets married, he's going to find a wife in Europe. It's true, there seemed no pretense nor falsity as in many LA women he's used to. Imagine very little makeup used by those women, yet the most beautiful as a whole in the world, at least the world I have seen.

With rumors running rampant about Alitalia Airlines going under, losing bags, and stealing stuff from bags, we decided to try to change our airline so we found a great fare on line back to Amsterdam where we went a few days ahead of schedule to spend more time there and eat some descent food, so we did that and had a lot of fun. I got hooked on dark beer and I thoroughly enjoyed our walks that were all rewarded by a pint of the local beer. It was such a great trip and worth the high prices due to the devaluation of the American dollar. The worst exchange was around 50%, so ten Euros would cost us fifteen bucks, but what the heck, it was the trip of a lifetime and I am so fortunate to have done it with my wonderful son Michael. I don't know if it was the food or the water, but we both peed green and both had nasty gas attacks the entire time so the nights in bed...........we sounded like a symphony. Oh yeah, Mike kept losing his guitar but we always managed to find it and in places it could have been stolen but never was. Oh yeah, we'd walk for mile after mile and one night in Florence we got lost as my GPS would not acquire satellites with so many tall buildings around, so we seemed to have walked ten miles that night and I was dead. Mike would often pick up his back pack, front pack, guitar, and hand bag, and walk at about 50 miles an hour that I often could not keep up, so he'd take my rolling suitcase and attached duffle bag to get the weight off of me when I needed it and people would laugh at him. He looked like my pack mule. :o) Thanks buddy! Oh my feet, oh my back, but I loved every pain I had felt while in Italy. Once back in Amsterdam and as men, we would often point out to each other yet another gorgeous woman (of all ages) and while we were waiting for a trolley, I had my camera out and shot a woman who had the finest butt in all of Europe. It was perfect and she was dressed to kill! Michael was kind enough to point out that that more than fine ass belonged to a transvestite with an Adams apple! All I could think to say was to quote Joey Brown in "Some Like it Hot" and I said; well no one's perfect! ;o) This guy had one fine ass! Anyhow, I was still happy as Amsterdam makes the best fries in the world and that's all I could think of while in Italy. I had brought mostly shorts and neither of us had enough socks, so we spent parts of some days just looking for a store that sells clothes and couldn't find socks anywhere and laundry mats were rare so we wore the same socks over and over until one night our socks got up and walked out of our room. If someone offered me a first class trip there to all the finest hotels and restaurants vs. the down and dirty way we decided to see Italy, I'll always choose the exact way we did Italy. We had no one single room reservation. Oh yeah, when we had to move from out Amsterdam Hostile due to them being booked for the weekend, we set out on a trek to find a room. Mike sat me down where I could drink dark beer and went on his hunt. An hour or two later he showed back up, loaded us up and off we went to our new hostile. He told me that the manager was a weird haired Indian guy who was spooky looking but nice even though he seemed stoned most of the time on mushrooms. Up we'd go on what they call stairs ( we call them ladders here) and Mike leading the way spoke to someone as we were walking who was around the corner out of my site. As I passed that hallway, this crazed looking man with hair in all directions stuck his head out sideways and it popped out in front of me as he yelled "Hello sir" and I left the ground nearly falling down the ladder with my bags in tow. Mike said that was HIM. Our room overlooked the street but really high up. When I leaned out to see the street I noticed that this building like many had the brick facade looking like it was pulling away from the rest of the building. They all seem like that and many have heavy wires holding the facades from falling to the street. There were very few cops anywhere and the law seems to stay out of people's lives unlike here where we have a law for everything. Those people seemed more free due to that fact.

I must say that the Amsterdam Airport was the nicest I've ever seen. It was huge and even had among all the restaurants, as supermarket inside it. We stopped in Heathrow for some hours to change planes back home and that airport sucked. I even asked several of them why they didn't know how to spell "Exit". You could not find an exit door to go outside. I didn't see much of England obviously, but what I did see didn't hold a candle to Amsterdam and all of Italy and those idiots drive on the wrong side of the car and road! Pip pip cheerio, we flew home sitting behind a screaming baby, but it took a long time to get airborne as our 777 broke down and they had to fly the parts in, so we obviously missed our Chicago connection and no more flights so United put us up in the Crown Plaza Hotel; not too shabby especially compared to the Hostels we stayed at previously.

One evening in Florence we decided to go out walking and coming downstairs I saw my reflection in the window of the door. I had bought this white Godfather looking light weight hat which I was wearing, but when I saw my reflection I said to Mike that I thought I looked more like Truman Capote than the Godfather and so Mike turned on his video camera and did an extemporaneous interview with me acting like Truman Capote. It came out pretty good and with no way to load it from Mike's camera to my computer, we put it on YouTube so you can watch it for yourself. Turn up the volume all the way as traffic was loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zm8fVpiOH0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zm8fVpiOH0 

I was so happy to get home finally........................NOT! I fell in love with Europe and had I been younger I would really consider moving there. I was so impressed with the lack of waste as we have here. We never even saw a single paper towel and most of the people said that we waste our resources in America and they are right! Many of their cars there can park straight forward into the curb and still not stick out past the parallel parkers and it was usual to see entire families on one Vespa scooter and often without helmets, yet they drive in such a way as we walk through heavy crowds of people. NEVER put your hand out of a vehicle or it will be hit. Heck, while walking on the sidewalk a car drove by me and hit my hand holding my camera. I some how held on to the camera and was uninjured, but I nearly got run over by a speeding train at the train station and in some places where I stopped to take pictures I thought I was on the sidewalk but was actually on the street as they were so narrow, so occasionally I'd hear Mike scream for me to get out of the way. I'd look back and see a speeding street car heading towards me with no intention to slow down. Wow. I finally began to learn that when I'd hear Mike scream at me, I'd just leave the road and look to see what went by me later. It was that close at times. When we'd stop for pedestrians we were looked at as nut cases even by the pedestrians that we stopped for and boy did we get the what for from the cars behind us that had to wait.

I could so go on, but as I said, there aren't enough words that could describe my appreciation for this trip with my son. As a suggestion, should you go to Italy, bring someone you love with you as I did.

I'll send pix when I get some time. Two weeks away makes for some work catch up.

Thanks for reading about our adventure.

Ciao' Bella,

richardo zeffiro

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