After finally falling asleep at 4am the night before, I woke up around 9:45am to the sounds of the group gathering to leave with Antonella for San Gimignano. I was bummed to be missing this day out there with her on a guided tour, but after the night before, I knew I was in no shape to be out and about all day.
I was actually a little hungry again. Do I dare test the waters? My boss told me once to always eat local yogurt every day of your trip when you travel internationally. It helps you build up the local bacteria in your intestines. I remembered Carlo had provided local yogurt in my refrigerator that I hadn’t consumed yet. I decided to test the waters with that and a banana. It was a good sign that I was finally hungry again.
I next decided to do my TeleMed COVID test that I brought on the trip with me to use for clearance on my trip home. You can do the test from the comfort of your own room and I wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible, so if, by chance I had a positive test or something was wrong with the test, I could make other arrangements before I traveled home on Saturday. This continual stress of testing was really wearing on me by now. I longed for the good old days when you could just travel on not have this added level of coordination and uncertainty, can you actually fly home when you want to? Nothing was certain.
I follow the instructions and quickly am connected by video to the representative on the other end. They can see me on my phone but I can’t see them. I can only hear the voice. The person is speaking English, but it is in the thickest Indian accent I do believe I have ever heard. I need to keep asking them to repeat themselves so I can understand the instructions. Somehow we get through it together. I test myself. They tell me to come back to the phone in 15 minutes and sign-in again to report the results.
15 minutes later, I’m relieved to see the same result I have seen for the last 2 weeks. ‘Negativo.’ I sign back in. I get an equally hard to understand representative but I am thankful that the wait times aren’t long – I’m willing to work with her on communication because at least she is a person on the other end. Calling your airline or rental car company is a another story right now – wait times can be up to an hour and you are grateful when you are finally able to speak to someone. You think, ‘How nice, I have only had to wait an hour. Can you help me? Great.’ Anyway, the rep asks me to show the QR code to the camera so they can send me the results within 15 minutes. Then she ASKS me what the result says. She doesn’t ask me to show her. I think, really? This is how they are testing? This is a joke. It feels like a formality at this point and I am taking part of a hugest money making scam the world has ever known. Why is there a continual testing requirement for a virus with a 99.8% survival rate, a vaccine option, a virus we now know how to treat, and one where I’m tested regularly even with zero symptoms. When have we ever tested ourselves so much for something where we feel no symptoms and where the risk is so low at this point.
With the test behind me, I keep refreshing my feed to see my results. This is my ticket home I think. I then go to check in for my flight and see they don’t have a seat available for me – even though I am booked in business class. They say, call the airline. Oh gosh, there goes my next hour. Yes, there it went, my next hour only to find at the end that yes, they do have a seat for me, 10L – they aren’t sure why my check-in process tried to block me. Okay, great, at least of have as seat where I can lay down and hopefully pass out on my Paris to Los Angeles leg.
Next I need to think about the rental car. I have platinum status through Hertz and on previous trips, they offer the convenience of collecting the car directly from you at the airport vs. needing to go drop if off at the rental car place and then take a bus to the airport. It is a nice option that saves a lot of time on the day of when you need as much margin as possible at the airport. When I had picked up the car 2 weeks ago they said, ‘Just call the day before and we can look into it.’ I laugh to think about it ‘Just call.’ Just calling is a nightmare. It took me about 30 minutes of trying to get through to the local desk at the Florence airport. It was a constant busy or no one would pick up.
Finally someone picks up and I explain, I’d like a pick up on Saturday at the airport and was calling to coordinate. The gentlemen tells me ‘Oh no, we don’t have enough staff to do that anymore. You know, because of COVID.’ Of course, why didn’t I expect this to be the case. I saw when I first picked up the car. They had one person representing four agencies on a Monday. They surely wouldn’t just have extra people ready on a Saturday to meet me at the airport as in years prior. I let him know I understand and frankly I’m just happy to have that checked off of my logistics for the following day – I know where I need to go and just need to plan extra time for that process. All of this logistical planning seems over the top this trip, I’m just ready to be home where life seems easier and predictable in many ways.
I am still holding the line with the meal I ate for breakfast. I make some tea and try toast and eggs. Thank you. It seems whatever was in that soup or something I ate was behind me now and my stomach was settled. In all my trips to Italy – I have never had a stomach issue. This was new for me. By now it is noon and so I showered, got dressed, and spent the rest of the afternoon packing. I finally get a chance to lay down and rest for a bit, as I know I need to take Heidi and Jeff to San Quirico to get their pre-flight Covid tests. They had a 4:20pm appointment at the pharmacy.
They text and let me know they are hitting traffic on the way back from San Gimignano. Mike and Veronica have graciously offered to bring them straight to their appointment, if I can just pick them up when they are done. I say sure, no problem. By now, I feel just a little weak, but so much better and I had taken a DayQuil so my cold symptoms are really non-existent. I’m all dried up.
It’s still raining when I head out to go pick them up. I felt bad for them standing in the rain under umbrellas. I tried to coordinate as closely as possible so that I could get there just as soon as their results were available. I pull out and they hop in. Poor things – they are wet and look cold and violated – having just had the test up their nose that makes your eyes water. Jeff, who really never complains, ever says in the kindest of ways, ‘Gee, I’m not sure I’d want to travel again Internationally, while you have to take that test. It is such a hassle.’ I was thinking to myself, yes, imagine being me, I had to take it every other day. I’m on the same page with you, Jeff.
It’s about 6pm and the group had talked about all gathering at the farm that evening for a pot luck. Heidi, Jeff and I decide we will go pick up pizza to bring for the pot luck. I knew a place in Pienza that Carla and I had really liked. So we drive over there and go to the Pizza place. Sorry, we don’t make food or Pizza until 7pm. OMG. My first lesson of the trip, I had already forgotten. No pizza until after 7pm. Yes, it’s the same all over. So hard for an American to imagine a world without pizza until 7pm, but there we were living in that foreign world. We drove back to the farm, with the Pizza place number in Heidi’s back pocket and decided we would order it ahead of time and pick it up after 7pm.
When we got back to the farm, Carlo was in the gathering room collecting the money for the week. You usually have to pay in cash, but now you have the option to pay by credit card – kind of. What we didn’t realize was that you can pay the room by credit card, but the Dolce Vita package and any extra wine you consumed in your room all had to be settled in cash. Heidi and Jeff needed about 833 Euros. This was going to take another trip into an ATM in town. Luckily that’s where we were headed anyway for Pizza later on. Carlo recommends an even better new Pizza place for us to pick up our pizza. I think why not, let’s try a new place.
Jeff and I go to run the errand. We decided to place the order for the Pizza first and then come back after we have gone to the ATM to save time. He goes inside and orders and tells them we will come back to ‘take away’ the pizza. We believe they understand. We then go to the ATM and Jeff walks up with 2 cards and 2 codes to makes sure he can pull out enough (there are limits per day on cards). I’m waiting in the car. He walks back to the car and tells me when he gets in – I feel like a target with all of this cash on me. Yes, that’s how it always feels. We both start laughing.
We go into the pizza place after parking the car on a partial curb, just to fit in the spot. We are all ready to pick up the pizza. The lady says, ‘Okay, you want us to start making the pizza now?’ Ugh, message fail. So Jeff and I get to set there for 20-25 minutes while we wait for 2 fresh pizzas. Everything feels hard today. Every communication. Yes, I’m ready to go home where it feels easier.
We get back to the farm where everyone is in the gathering room with their pot luck contributions. We eat dinner and reminisce about the last week. It’s not too long before Luciano joins us with Vin Santo and the tools to roast us chestnuts on an open fire. But first, he asks me to come to the car, he has a little gift for me. There in the car is a bubble wrapped, ready to fly, bottle of his personal Vin Santo hooch he made. It is so sweet. I just don’t know how I will be able to fit this in my luggage, it is packed to the gills, but I will find a way. I’m touched by his gift. He is truly a sweet old Italian grandpa.
We spend the rest of the evening watching Luciano, build the fire and roast the chestnuts. It looks like a scene out of a 1950’s cowboy movie. He then brings the chestnuts inside and starts cracking them open and offering them to us to try. I pop one in my mouth and Heidi says, ‘Really girl. You just got over the cha-chas, are you ready to risk it again?’ I laugh. Er, ah, maybe not. But Luciano keeps handing them to me and it’s hard to resist. And well, they do taste good and I had my yogurt with the bacteria this morning. I should be good.
This last night together was really good with everyone. I finally felt the relief of no more responsibility for the week and everything lined up to travel the next day. I was relaxed and felt so much better health wise than the night before. Everyone was inviting everyone to their homes in the USA and hopeful that we could all travel together somewhere again someday – even in the US, if circumstances allowed. Are hearts are here in Italy, but I know for me, I couldn’t see wanting to go through all of these logistics again to travel internationally. Not until the world has climbed out of crippling fear enabling governments to overreach their control to give people an illusion of safety. I long for a maskless world like 2019 again.
