Italy Trip - Sorrento Day 1

We decided to get to Italy a few days before the wedding to set some things ups.  We wanted to check out the hotel, find a place for the reception, get a bouquet, and settle a little bit before the wedding.  Our original plan was to spend the night in the city we landed in, Naples, and eventually make it to where we got married, Capri.

After doing some research and reading we decided against that plan.  Everything we read about Naples was umm ... interesting.  All the guidebooks warned tourists that Naples could be dangerous.  They made it sound as if thieves were around every corner and the mafia was just waiting to shoot you in the street.  So we passed on Naples and went to the other town with an easy ferry to Capri, Sorrento.

We booked through Expedia a small little hotel called Hotel Sorrento City.  Picture below.



As it turns out, it was a great location, right on the main drag in Sorrento.   One of the disadvantages of taking a long trip is that you spend a lot of money on lodging simply because you have so many nights to account for.  My wife and I have decided to stay at relatively modest hotels to save some money and because we are not really fancy people anyway.  We only require a safe location, clean room, modest bed, and a nice hot shower.  Most other problems we can deal with.

Hotel Sorrento City satisfied these conditions so it was adequate.   But it was not more than that.  The room was definitely small but not that small when you compare it to the European standard.  It was somewhat odd that there were built in pull down beds on the side of the wall but I guess that could be convenient for some.  I wish there was free internet access but there wasn't.  I wish there was wi-fi but there wasn't.  Just a small little pay station in the lobby.  The breakfast that was provided was pretty good though.  My wife really liked the coffee out of the coffee machine but she has liked all the coffee that we have had since coming to Italy.

Sorrento itself was a very nice city.  Our very first stop was to the center square to catch a bite to eat.  Right in the middle of the main square was a place called Fauno Bar.



It seemed to be a typical Italian outdoor cafe but bigger.  There were lots of people there, and that is usually a sign of an OK place to go, so we asked for a table.   I had the cannelloni, my wife had the gnocci.  It was seriously some of the best Italian food we had up until that point.  The pasta was clearly fresh and the cheese was very tasty.  Part of it was that I was pretty hungry by this point but the other part of it was that Italian food is just better in Italy.  Go figure.

One of the odd things we noticed while we were eating was that we were THE ONLY people who ordered food.  I'm going to write more on this later but it seems that Italians eat really really late.  Dinner doesn't start until 7:30, and in some places 8:30.   After dinner we were wiped out from the trip so we went back to the hotel and just fell asleep.  That concluded our first day.

Italy Has Bad internet

I have been meaning to post along my trip but I have found my internet connections in Italy to be lacking.  The last two places I stayed at, one in Bologna, and one in Florence, have both had internet connections which have been flaky.  It seems about 1 in every 3 requests is just dropped.  I could understand if it were just one hotel's bad connection but two?

I finally got to a hotel which seems to have a steady, albeit somewhat slow connection.  Unfortunately, I'm too tired to post as I've been driving all day in the search of an elusive mall.

So I will have to try and catch up later.  Right now, I'm in Lucca Italy.  About to go see the wall that surrounds the city and maybe make it to Pisa to see the tower.

Italy Trip - Getting There

 

OK, I'm finally back blogging.  I'm still in Italy but I finally have some time to sit down and blog a little bit.  My intention was to blog along the way but there was a little hiccup with that plan.  Internet access has been spotty and I was way busier with wedding stuff than I thought I would be.  I'm going to try and catch up in the next few days but we will see.  I have a week left to go in my vacation and the second half is probably as jammed packed as the first.

Getting to Italy was an adventure by itself.  We had booked a flight to Naples Italy with stops in Seattle and in Paris.  The stop in Seattle was fortuitous because I got to visit Rick and make a stop at one of my old favorites Sushi Land.  Great to see Rick, not so great to go to Sushi Land.  Maybe I've been away too long or maybe something has really changed, but it just wasn't like I remembered it.  The pieces were smaller and the fish not as fresh.  Oh well.  After stuffing myself with fish and saying goodbye to Rick, we were on our way to Paris.  It was a lovely twelve hour flight.  I slept some and then watched The Hangover on the plane.  I'm usually not a fan of these types of movie but perhaps my low expectations and my being trapped on a plane with no choices made it entertaining. 

After departing this flight, this is where the fun really began.  All I have to say is the Paris airport probably needs to be rethought.  I had two hours to get to my connecting flight.  I barely made it.  First, I had to walk what seemed like an eternity to Passport Control.  I walked so long I seriously thought they were going to make me walk the rest of the way to Italy.  After getting through Passport Control, I had to walk again through security.  This was very odd to me.  Security in Paris was odd.  They asked for our passports (not odd) but then made me empty out my camera bag.  Then they stopped my (then) fiancee and checked all her stuff again.  Then they asked for her passport again.  So now she has had her passport asked for three different times. 

By this time, we are cutting it pretty close to the time.  But my fiancee is extremely hungry and thirsty so she needs to stop for some food and water.  As we approach the gate she stops at a small cafe.  I can see our plane boarding and I'm worried because we have quite a bit of carry on and I want to be sure I can get a spot.  She gets her food and water and we rush to the plane only to be once again be asked for our passport!  This is now four times since coming into Paris that she has had to produce her passport.

When we finally reach Italy we land in an airport where there they make you exit onto the runway before reaching the terminal.  Just outside is a bus waiting to take us to the terminal.  So we board the bus and, I'm not exaggerating, the bus drives 20 yards to the terminal.  It was kind of crazy.  We wait for our bags, which comes really fast, and then look for some sort of official looking person to either ask us about our bags or to check our passports.  Neither happens.  When you compare that to the Paris experience you can see why we were quite confused.

At this point, my fiancee is pretty ill and is in no mood to get on a bus for an hour.  So we sit in the Naples airport with all of our stuff for about two hours until she feels well enough to get on the bus.   She is not getting much better but time is running out for us to get to where we need so she muscles up some courage and we get on the bus run by CURRERI Viaggi .  It is a private company who specializes in making the trip between Sorrento and Naples.  However, hen we get to the bus, the driver tells us he can not take us all the way to Sorrento, he can only take us part of the way.  There is some stupid bike event or something blocking all the roads to Sorrento.  Seriously, they stop all the traffic going into a city for one stupid event?  What am I getting myself into?  Looking back, I kind of doubt they did; I think the bus driver was just being lazy and not wanting to drive us the whole way (we were the only people on the bus). 

The driver drops us off at a train station, the Circumvesuviana, close to Sorrento but still a 15 minute ride.  Here we are, tired and weary from our long drop, and still needing to slog through the local train to get where we need to be.  To make matters worse, we have no idea where the hotel is as soon as we get there.  It could be on the other side of town for all we know.  When we finally arrive Sorrento much to our delight, the hotel is just minutes away from the station.  We were REALLY lucky because most of the hotels are not that close.  Most of them are quite far away.  We get to our hotel room, which is quite small but typical of European hotels, and just finally relax.  We shower and then go get a quick bite to eat in town (the above picture is of the main Sorrento square).  More of Sorrento in the next post. 

All of this reminded me of why I really hate to travel sometimes.  It wears on you.  Things are never as easy as they should be and you are usually not as comfortable as you are at home.  This is magnified when you are in a foreign country where you don't really speak the language.  All in all, it was an ordeal to get to Italy (and every time we have had to move) but so far, a great trip.  More on that in the next post.

Where Have I Been?

It's been about a dozen days since my last post.  In the two years since I've started this blog I've probably never gone more than 4 or 5 days without a post.   I try to stay pretty consistent, even if it is only a quick post, but I just haven't been able to lately because I've been too busy.

You see, I'm getting married in a week.  To make matters worse, I've been in the middle of finalizing a huge platform change for my company.   This has left little time for anything other than work and planning for my 2.5 week trip to Italy.  Since I'll be gone for several weeks, and I will not be following current events or work,  the topic of my posts will be quite different.  So instead, for the next several weeks, I plan on blogging about my wedding and my trip.   Hopefully I will have some good pictures and some good experiences to share with everybody here.  So if you are interested in my travels, stay tuned.  Otherwise, see you all back here in about 3 weeks.

Cheap Flight - Too Good to be True?

I am trying to plan out my vacation to Italy.  One of the hard parts about the trip is that we want to go from Southern Italy to Northern Italy.  Taking a train could take several hours and sitting in a train is not my idea of a fun vacation.  So we decided to look online to see if there were any cheap flights from Naples to Italy.  I figured there might be some sort of deal like Southwest Airlines which offers really cheap flights within California.

So I went to Expedia to search for a deal.  I was not really expecting anything really cheap but figured it was at least worth a search.  What I found I still can't quite believe.  I bought two tickets from Naples to Italy for $67.  That is not $67 each.  That is $67 TOTAL.  What seems even odder is that the taxes and fees for the flight are $65.  That means the tickets were $1 each!  The tickets are from what seem to be a reputable airline, Meridiana, so I'm at a loss to understand how a flight can be so cheap.  To compare, every other flight listed on Expedia with other carriers were for $330 each.

So what do you think?  Am I going to show up at the airport only to fly I'm going to fly in the luggage compartment?

How To Buy a Suit

I have spent the last several weeks looking for a suit.  This is not just any suit, this is the suit I am going to wear for my wedding. So I wanted to get the absolute best suit I could without spending an arm and a leg.  Boy did I not realize what I was getting myself into.

First off, let me reiterate advice I often give on this blog when it comes to buying big ticket items.  Always buy the best you can afford.  No more, no less.  If you buy something cheap, you will regret that you did not buy the nicer item.  If you overspend, you will suffer buyer's remorse.  To that end, I set my suit budget to be between $600 and $1200.  I have not been in the market for a suit recently, so I wasn't sure what I would find in that price range or if this was too high or too low.

This price range ends up being in the upper middle portion for most suits.  Think Nordstrom and Saks not Macy's or Penny's.  The upper echelon of suits usually run $2000+ with many getting in the $5000+ range.  I had no intention of buying anything close to that unless it was made of gold.   Anything cheaper, in the $200-$300 range, looked fine at first but close inspection and actually wearing the suit revealed significant drawbacks.  So I was happy with the general price I was aiming for.

Who knew that having this budget in mind could be such a problem.   The first problem you run into with suits is that there really are hundreds of options, styles, and differences between each suit.  It is not like buying a TV where you can narrow it down to a few models from a few stores.  It is as if each and every store has its own set of suits.  The selection of suits was different from stores of the same retailer right down the street from each other!  One store may carry Hugo Boss, the other one would not.  If they both did carry Hugo Boss, they would for sure have different models.

What made the whole situation worse was my "unusual" body shape.  You see, I'm actually in shape.  This means I am thin and have broad shoulders, a wide chest, and a narrow mid-section.  This gives me a suit size of 38, but that is over-simplifying the problem.  It is hard enough finding a 38 in a suit because most men in the United States are not as trim as I am.  There are just not a lot of size 38 suits made. But when you throw in the fact that I have a wide chest and broad shoulders you can be certain that nothing is going to fit quite right.

There are four things you have to look for in a suit to make sure it properly fits (listed in order of importance)

• The shoulders are in their proper place


• You do not get any stress marks in the back of the suit (between the shoulder blades) indicating the jacket is too small or too big


• The lapel does not pop up but lies flat against the chest


• The sleeves are of the right length

The problem for me always lies in either the first or third bullet point.  Size 38 suits are usually too narrow in the chest meaning the lapel does not lay flat.  Size 40 suits are too broad in the shoulder meaning I do not get a proper fit up top.  You want to get a suit that fits as perfectly off the rack as possible because you want as little tailoring done to the suit as you can get.  I went to just about every possible store in Southern California looking for suits.  The list included:

• Five Nordstrom's


• Two Sak's Fifth Avenue


• One Niemen Marcus


• Four Bloomingdale's


• Ten Macy's


• Two Men's Warehouses


• Two 3-day suit Brokers


• Nine different Malls

And I did not find a suit that worked until I went to a Nordstrom Rack.  But more on that in a second.  From the list of stores I visited, you can clearly see that this was not an easy task.  I tried on suit after suit.  In each store I probably tried on a minimum of 2 or 3 suits and in a few I tried on as many as a dozen.  I tried on so many that I feel somewhat like an expert in suits.   My problem was compounded because I had particular needs.  I needed the suit to be either black or dark gray, not navy, since this was the suit for my wedding.  So given all this, it was a near impossible tasks to find a suit.

So how did I finally find the right suit?  It was a war of attrition.   I had to narrow it down to what I did not want before I found what I want.  Brands that simply did not work for me because of my body shape ended up being

• Hugo Boss


• Calvin Kline


• DKNY


• BCBG


• Alfani


• Joseph Abboud


• Paul Smith


• Dolce and Gabana


• Versace

The mistake I made was to keep trying on brands that just did not work for me in hopes that I would find a suit from that manufacturer that would suddenly work. I can not tell you how many Hugo Boss suits I tried on before I finally realized it was a futile exercise. The most ironic thing was that I got this bit of advice at the second store I went to (it was a Bloomingdale's) by a very helpful salesperson.  He told me that the only suits that were going to work for me were by either Zegna or by Canali.  He showed me a Zegna but did not have a Canali to show me.  He said he would only sell me a Zegna and that if I did not like what he had on stock that I should go find a suit made by one of those tailors at another store.  This was very wise advice (as you will see in a minute) and leads me to my first and most important bit of advice.  If you find a salesperson who is knowledgeable, helpful, and puts your interests ahead of his own.  Buy your suit from him.  I probably could have saved myself a big headache if I would have just taken his advice to heart because I found the only suits that worked for me were

• Canali


• Zegna


• Armani

Notice these are all Italian made suits. It seems I should have been European and not American because I only fit into clothes made in Europe.  This is exactly what the salesperson told me would happen and it took me trying on dozens of suits before I finally reached the same conclusion he gave to me at the very beginning.  My body type would only work in one of these suits.

Now the problem with this advice is that these suits are all very expensive.  While I could afford some of them in my price range, they were at the upper end of my price range.  All else being equal, I would have liked to spend at the bottom of the range simply because I do not wear suits too often.  Did I really want to spend $1200 on a suit that I would only wear a few times in my life?   The problem was, as soon as I found out what a good suit is supposed to look like and how it is supposed to fit, I could not let myself buy a suit that did not look nor fit properly.  Before today, I found exactly two suits that would work but they were both above $1000 and one of them was above my budget at $1295.  So what was I to do?

Ironically, I decided to listen to my own advice and go back to that original salesman despite the fact that his store was about one hour away.  I was willing to spend the money and buy the suit from a man I trusted.  It became ironic because I ended up not buying my suit from him, I didn't even see him, but from a store I would have never gone to if I were not have decided to go back down to see him.  My fiancee suggested I go to the Nordstrom Rack and take a look at the suits there.  I had been to other Nordstrom Racks and not been impressed with their selection.  But the one I went to was different.  It was probably the "nicest" Nordstrom Rack around because it was next to fanciest mall we have in Southern California.  The selection of suits was actually quite large and the discounts were substantial.

I ended up getting a fantastic black Canali suit.  It was the best fitting suit I had come across yet and, being at a Nordstrom Rack, it was the lowest price I had seen for a designer Italian Suit.  It was 70% off of MSRP came in at the low end of my budget at $600.  It was such a fantastic deal that I bought it on the spot without thinking too much about it.  Just to be sure, I checked another Nordstrom Rack in the area and there was not nearly the same selection.  Once again, two stores, just down the road from each other, and not nearly the same suits.

Once again, my patience in shopping paid off.  I was about to give in and just pay full retail for a suit that actually met my needs but ended up getting an even better suit for a lot less than I would have paid.  I love a great deal!

Better to Serve Myself

I've done some of my shopping at the Fresh and Easy that recently opened in my neighborhood. The idea behind Fresh and Easy is somewhat opposed to the trend lately in supermarkets.  Fresh and Easy stores have much smaller footprints than grocery stories that have become supersized as of late.  It also offers far fewer choices than others, usually only offering one brand and its own store brand on most items.

What it lacks in variety it makes up in price.  I do a lot of comparison shopping and the prices there are probalby the best per item that I can find locally.  They definitely beat my local Ralphs and they are probably even better than the Trader Joe's, the normal price leader around these parts. Yet despite being cheap, I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food that I've gotten.

But I'm writing this post to cover my favorite thing about the store.  They only have self serve lines.  Yes, that's right, they do not have any cashiers.  You scan and bag your own groceries.   I am sure this is one way they are able to keep costs low.  The grocery business is very low margins and one of the biggest variable cost is headcount.  They reduced this by making their stores self serve.  While I really do value good customer service, I really like self-serve models when it comes to paying.  Most lines take too long because most people are slow or have too many questions.  I want to pay for my item and leave.  If I have a problem it is my fault and problem and nobody else.

This is like me and having my gas pumped.  I hated living in New Jersey because you can't pump your own gas.  This means you have to wait for the attendant to come over and pump your gas.  If he is busy with others, you have no choice but to wait.

How do you feel about self-serve models.  Would you rather just have cashiers or do you like doing it yourself?