When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home (5 page)

It was terrifying for my husband. Every time a car approached, he came to a dead stop and closed his eyes until it passed. When he tried to turn on the lights, he released the hood. When he thought he was shifting gears with his right hand, he opened his own door. When he attempted to enter a lane of traffic, he looked for traffic the wrong way. In the entire two weeks we toured the country, we never passed another car, never put the car in reverse, never parallel parked or made a left-hand turn . . . make that right-hand turn.

As a passenger, it was no day at the beach for me either. Each time we passed a person walking, I sucked in my breath and made a whimpering noise. When my husband asked me not to do that, I informed him I had been flogged to death by tree branches, drenched by gutter and curb water, mooned by sheep, and seen fear in the eyes of pedestrians that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

For months after we returned home from Ireland, I had nightmares about the “roundabouts”—the Irish's answer to a samurai cloverleaf. No wonder the country boasts such religious fervor. There are probably more instant conversions to the faith on a roundabout than on death row.

What it is is a circle with four lanes of traffic going in the same direction, with six or seven exits and entrances feeding into it. Once you enter the roundabout, cars zip in and out in front of you at blurring speeds. Everyone in the car takes a vow of silence while you are entering and exiting the roundabout. We once spent a half day on one.

Before leaving the Italian car rental counter, I asked, “Italians do drive on the right side of the road, don't they?” For the first time, the agent smiled and said, “Of course. You will have no problem in Naples. Just be sure to put all your belongings in the trunk and out of sight, including your handbag. Scoundrels, you know.”

It was not the first time we had heard of crime in some of the larger European cities. Handbags were reportedly ripped from your shoulders by “scoundrels” on motor scooters. Gypsy “scoundrel” children surrounded you as you walked. When they disappeared, your wallet and valuables went with them. There was talk that windows on your car were smashed as you stopped for a traffic light and your luggage was rerouted.

We made a vow to be careful.

The two-seater sports car we had ordered turned out to be a station wagon that was less than user-friendly. The motor didn't purr. It made human sounds in Italian. When you slammed the door, the radio went on. The reverse gear was one of the best-kept secrets since the formula for rocket fuel. Once the key was inserted in the ignition, there was no way to remove it. We circled the airport for thirty minutes before we finally stumbled onto the Via Don.

To tell you how long it took us to find our hotel would have no meaning for anyone in hours. As a frame of reference, I will simply tell you that Susan Butcher covered 1,158 miles from Anchorage to Nome in eleven days, one hour, fifty-three minutes, and twenty-three seconds to win the Iditarod. She was in deep snow and freezing conditions on a sled being pulled by a team of dogs at the time.

It took us five hours and thirty-three minutes to cover twenty miles to our hotel in a Fiat.

Naples traffic isn't a condition. It's a war in progress. There are eight to ten lanes of traffic all going on an accelerated treadmill to oblivion. Red lights flash, but no one stops. Green lights flash, but no one cares. Cars cut in and out in front of you and never exit anywhere. New ones just keep feeding into the traffic. The street signs are all in (what else?) Italian, straining to the limits my entire Italian vocabulary, which consists of “antipasto” and “Joe Garagiola.”

“How do those people survive as pedestrians?” I asked ray husband.

“They were born right there on the sidewalk,” he snarled.

As darkness approached and we were still driving around Naples, panic set in. Soon we would have to turn on the car lights, and then what would we do? We were afraid to touch anything in the car. We might even be faced with running out of gas. In that traffic, how long would it be before someone even noticed we weren't moving under our own steam, but were being pushed along with the traffic? One year? Two?

As we sped down the wrong way on a one-way street, a bus approached. My husband swerved off into a dark alley to miss getting hit head-on. We sat there for a moment in the darkness before my husband noticed a glow of a dozen or so cigarettes behind the car. They belonged to a group of young men leaning on motorcycles. In my heart I knew they had “scoundrel” written all over their bodies.

Angrily, my husband opened his door and said, “I'm going to tell them we're tourists and we're lost.”

I grabbed his arm. “No matter what the outcome of this evening is,” I said, “I just wanted you to know that this is the stupidest thing you have ever done in your entire life.”

“Look,” he said, “I don't care if they're Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. We've got to find the hotel.”

After a few minutes of conversation, one of the young men climbed into the front seat of the car with my husband. I was told to get in the rear seat. Another young man climbed on his bike and motioned for us to follow. Together, they delivered us to the doors of our hotel. When we tried to pay them, they refused and told us to have a nice stay in Naples . . . and be careful with our cameras and handbags. There were scoundrels about.

I tell this story for two reasons. First, because it's the kind of story you never hear about—the nice people on your travels who are glad you have come to their country and want to show it off. Second, it marks the only time I can remember that my husband admitted to being lost.

By the time we crawled into bed that night, we knew what we had to do. We were going to put our rental car in a garage somewhere and hire a driver to take us to Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.

That's when we met Frank. Frank was a concierge at the hotel who had a way of conducting business with you and painting the lobby with his eyes at the same time. We asked him if he knew of a driver who would not only be knowledgeable, but who spoke English.

Frank shrugged. “No problem. I get you good driver who speaks English better than you do.” Frank made a phone call. We tipped him.

If Henry Kissinger had been Italian and had a lip full of Novocain, he would have sounded like the driver Frank got for us. His name was Rocco. We asked Rocco if he had been called often by Frank to serve as a guide/driver for English-speaking tourists. He said, “Oh sure, he's my brother.”

We had the feeling when we tipped Rocco, we tipped Frank again.

Someone told us that Naples has the best pizza in the world. Where do you find the best pizza in Naples? You silly goose. You ask Frank. Frank said, “No problem,” he would make reservations for us that night. He made a phone call. We tipped him.

Later that night as we walked into the restaurant, a familiar face approached us with the menus. It was Frank. He owned the restaurant and worked there on his nights off from the hotel. We left a tip for the pizza and Frank.

We were to discover in the next few days that Frank had relatives who ran “best jewelry factory in Naples” and a brother-in-law with “best laundry” in all of Italy. I knew in my heart that in a few years, Frank would have enough in tips for a down payment on his own country.

Watching state-of-the-art nepotism was fun, but we had to push on to the drive down the Amalfi coast. Both of us were apprehensive as we stared at the rented Fiat sitting at the curb.

“Is it pointed in the direction of the autostrada?” asked my husband. (The autostrada is the Italian version of an expressway.)

“No problem,” said Frank. “You go down and make a left and at the first turnoff a right and you are there. Then you get off at Amalfi exit.”

We tipped him.

We couldn't believe that something had worked out right. The autostrada was exactly where Frank said it would be. We stopped at the toll booth, gave them a chunk of lire, and watched for our exit. When we arrived at the toll booth at the other end, it was obvious we had overshot the Amalfi exit, so we paid another chunk of lire to get back on and go the other way.

When we once again reached our original toll booth, we realized we had missed it again. My husband said maybe you could only exit going one way, so we paid another toll and got back on.

At the other end as we forked out our fourth toll, I said, “This is ridiculous; I'm going to ask.”

“Don't be silly,” he said. “It's here. We're just not seeing it. Pay attention this time.”

I yelled out of the window, “Where's the Amalfi exit?”

The man in the toll booth yelled back, “It's called Maiori!”

In Positano as we stopped for a light, a large group of tourists walked in front of us to board their tour bus. One of them yelled at my husband, “Your windshield wipers are on.”

“I know,” shouted my husband. “I'm making a left-hand turn.” The man stared at us for a minute and then walked on.

“I thought you released your hood when you wanted to turn left,” I said.

“I release the hood when I want to turn right.”

I looked over my shoulder as the group boarded their tour bus—and was filled with envy.

Tipping

Tipping has become as mechanical to Americans as swatting a fly buzzing around the potato salad. Foreigners tell us we are responsible for the decadent bit of capitalism that turns Boy Scouts into money-grubbing urchins. They contend many countries with people pledged to give good service on the basis of pride have been corrupted by the American dollar. This is probably true.

I remember one New Year's Eve we hired a babysitter to watch our children. The teenager invited in a few friends for a party, broke a gin bottle in our fireplace, burned a hole in the family room rug, locked the kids in their rooms, and threw up on our sofa, which had to be re-covered at some expense.

My husband tipped her five dollars because it was New Year's Eve and she had stayed after midnight.

It's a habit we cannot leave home without.

We have tipped waiters who removed a cat from the table where we were eating. We have tipped cabdrivers who nearly orphaned our children. We have rewarded curbside porters for holding our luggage at the curb as our plane took off.

Americans do pay for the strangest services. During the years I have been traveling, I have paid possibly $700 (and that's a conservative figure) to get back my garment bag that originally cost $60. On the occasions that I wanted to carry it myself, it was literally ripped from my hands. Unfortunately, the IRS does not consider this garment bag a dependent. It should.

In one trip alone, I paid to have it checked in at curbside, rescued from the top of a carousel by a skycap, put into the trunk of a waiting cab, picked up by a hotel bellman who dropped it into the hands of another bellman who finally deposited it in my room. At this point, I invested more in tips than the contents of the bag were worth. Small wonder President Carter carried his own luggage.

In some places, tipping is a major industry. Take Haiti. If you plan to ride a mule to the mountaintop fortress of Henri Christophe's Citadel, you will never be lonely.

There are twenty or thirty mules at the bottom of the historic climb for tourists. There are also three hundred unemployed children ready to help the tourists. There is a child to assist you in getting on the mule, another child to put his hand on the left side of the reins, and another to put his hand on the right side of the reins. There is another optimistic child who places his hand on your buttock to keep you from falling off the mule and another one with a switch who whacks the mule when it pauses to pass out. This quintet of children will stick to you like ugly wallpaper for the entire trip up and down the mountain and will not leave you until you reward them for their vigil. If you are carrying a camera bag, purse, and raincoat, prepare to hire an accountant to handle the payroll.

As far as I'm concerned, tipping comes with the territory. How can I complain when I used to give my kids an allowance for breathing? It's the American way. In Las Vegas, tipping is state of the art. Never have so few done so little and gotten so much. One night we went to a casino showroom to see “Frank” and bought our tickets. The tickets got us inside the door. No farther. A man in a black tuxedo surveyed the empty room and said, “There is nothing any closer.” My husband gave him five dollars and his vision improved. He spotted a table six feet from where we were standing.

I still couldn't make out the stage. I looked at the second maitre d' and told him I had sold blood to get here. His expression never changed. My husband tipped him and we passed on to the third maitre d' another six feet away.

This went on for fifteen minutes. Thirty dollars later, we were seated at a long table straight out of a VFW lodge. To view the stage we had to turn our heads into a locked position for one hour. Frank sat on a crummy stool. I figured he didn't tip.

It is reasonable to recognize good service, but one practice in most foreign countries is unforgivable. You must pay for the privilege of using a restroom before you set foot in it. I'm pushing for the Worldwide Freedom Potty Act that should be a part of the Geneva Convention, the Treaty of Versailles, and all those documents that grant everyone the right of a facility when the need arises.

“Surely,” I told my husband, “there is someplace where you can go without wearing a money changer around your waist... a Shangri-la where smiles come easily ... a magical place where people pamper and hover over you because they just want you to be happy.”

Cruising the Baltic

It was another one of those predictable evenings. By eight-thirty we were in our nightclothes, semiprone in our matching Barcalounger recliners, watching animals mate on PBS.

As we were searching for a special on “The Monogamous Manatee,” the screen filled with Kathie Lee Gifford bopping around a cruise ship singing, “Eatin' what you want and doin' what you choose.” Everyone around her was half sick from happiness.