Pandas, "Tourist" Moments, and Paolo's Tempered Welcome

We rented a car at the Rome airport from a cheeky Italian stalion. A highlight of our check-in experience was listening to him converse with a customer over the phone. "Yes I speak English, speak quickly!" "Where are you now?" (They were in the parking lot.) "What do you mean you can't move!" (They apparently couldn't reverse out of their parking space.) He gave some foggy directions that sounded more like exacerbated reprimands and then clapped the reciever down onto the counter. He looked up... Oh good, Americans. He treated us graciously, however, and we were soon on our way. Our car was already pulled out of it's parking space, and this is an important detail, so we loaded up and we were easily on our way. We're now seeing the Italian countryside from the belly of a blue Panda, Fiat with matching blue insides. They say that blue is the most calming color and that's probably a good thing because driving in Italy is, at times, hectic or free-spirited, depending on how you look at things. Gordon glided masterfully through the traffic in our blue Panda as we inched along the map from Rome around Florence and to Lucca.

Our trip cost us one tank of gas, 18 euro, and one "tourist" experience. We pulled off the autostrade, leaving the fury of the race track behind, for a lunch break. Sandwiches with prosciuto, cheese, tomato. We bought a map and climbed back in the Panda. Gordon shifted into reverse. Nothing. We were stuck in neutral. He tried again. We kept looking back and forth at each other. No wonder the man at the rental counter was nice to us, he gave us a lemmon. Gordon kept trying reverse to no avail so I got out to push. The hood of the car was uncomfortably hot and Gordon forgot to take his foot off the brake so our first attempt was a feeble one. A few spaces away, there was a family eating sandwiches that were wrapped in aluminum foil, politely pretending like nothing was happening to their right. I looked at the father who was standing close by and asked him, as he chewed, if he could help us push our car, it seems that it won't go in reverse, I explained. We gave it a shove, but the Panda was stubborn and wouldn't budge. Suddenly I felt a release (the brake) and this gentleman and I switly propelled the Panda out into the parking lot and for a moment I thought Gordon was lost from me like an astronaut in space gliding away. We narrowly averted a collision from behind, but Gordon found the brake, and honestly, the oncoming car was not a major threat at 10 yards away and crawling at a snail's pace. Calmly back inside our blue safe haven, we cranked up the air conditioner and slid back on to the autostrade.

Two scenic hours later we had arrived in Lucca and parked, in a metered lot, at the train station. We wandered the winding streets to our B&B, La Torre, and found our hosts sitting outside in the small plaza in white plastic porch chairs. After checking in, we asked our host, Paolo, about free parking and he offered to drive us to our car so that we could follow him to the free lot. We also mentioned that two of our friends were staying at La Torre tonight, Jen and Rebecca Arrington. Had they checked in yet? Paolo's face lit up and, hands flying in every direction, he cried, "You know Rebecca?" "We been waiting all day for Rebecca!!" (Their reservation said they would arrive at 11a.m. and it was now 5:30.) "Where the Rebecca? NO ROOM for Rebecca!" His father, an easy going Sammy Hagar look alike with an unbuttoned red hawaiian shirt, blond ringlets and chest hair to match, was mimicking his son's motions. He kept clasping his hands, shaking them, looking up towards the heavens, repeating, "Where Rebecca!" After a line of questions about the Arrington's arrival, (we really had no idea) we climbed in the car with frantic Paolo and whipped through the streets back to the station. Gordon and I tried to explain our problem of going in reverse, but Paolo didn't understand us. Trying to be quick about our back-up routine, we braced ourselves against the hood of the Panda again. Paolo, wondering what was taking so long came back to see why we hadn't started to follow him. He looked around to assess the scene, huffed, and motioned for me to get out of the car. He clamped his hand around the gear shift and squeezed a special button and the Panda slid into reverse. Of course there had to be a trick! Soon, Gordon was back behind the wheel and I looked around the train station and fixed my eyes on two ladies standing at a map wearing backpacks. It took a minute to register, but I recognized Jen's Nike Kantara running shoes (Thank you Ragged Mountain Running Shop in Charlottesville, VA!). "Gordon, there they are!" He honked at Paolo and Paolo's car stopped short. I jumped out of the Panda and corralled Jen and Rebecca over to Paolo's car, too quickly for a decent hello. Arms outstretched, he cheered, "Reeeebecca!!!" It was a masterful transition!

The rest of our time in Lucca was peaceful. We walked the streets, ate leisurely breakfasts of cantaloupe, prosciutto, cheese, and boiled eggs, sampled a variety of gelato, saw a Ben Harper concert, and caught up with our friends. We're enjoying our slow paced life in Tuscany!