Lucky’s Lucky 7th: Favorite Travel Memories

Being married to a reluctant traveler who is more interested in cars than flying on planes, I try to incorporate activities that will appeal to him. 2 standouts:
1. Planning our first trip to Europe together (and his first time in Europe ever), he asked about making a visit to the Porsche factory in Zeuffenhasen. He leased a flat-nosed 911(fairly rare model) at the time. I asked if we needed any advance prep to do this, but he never followed up on this, so we just showed up. The older guard railed at us in German, and all we could figure out was that we would only be allowed to visit the museum since we had not gotten written permission. I had slipped a photo of my husband sitting in his Porsche in my passport case so I told him to show it to the museum guards. A couple of phone calls, and we were driven around the grounds, toured the factory and treated to a multi-course lunch. Husband thought I was a miracle worker!
2. Back in 1997, touring the Malvern Hills west of London, we went to Morgan Motor works. Seems all the owners were out at a trade show, so one of the test drivers took us on separate rides in Morgan. All I can say is that he was flying and then made a 90 degree left turn into a 1 car wide tunnel/bridge. I had visions of my husband trying to explain to my parents why I had died while overseas. Later, when we were comparing our ride experiences, he said he had the same thoughts of his demise!
We still laugh about both of these to this day - travel memories of the first order.

Certainly the most memorable moment but definitely not the funniest :)

My wife, my one-year-old daughter and I were on CMH-JFK-ICN-SIN-CGK F award tickets booked using US Airways miles. The asiana agent at the JFK counter gave us horror look and told us that my daughter is booked on coach while both my wife and I are booked on first. Keep in mind we booked her as lap infant and that cost us 0 miles and 10% of the full fare adult ticket at the time of booking (around $900)

I called US Airways while the agent was speaking in korean to her supervisor. The US Air agent on the phone told me that the issues was because I paid 10% of the full fare economy for the infant (which is total BS because 10% of total full fare economy would cost me around $200 max while i paid $900). She explained to me that the 10% of total full fare first class would be around $2500 (pending rate desk) so I would need to pay the $1600 difference.

Unfortunately I don't have time to argue and obviously couldn't afford 'hang up call again' trick. It was literally 30 minutes before scheduled departure and we were still at the check-in counter. So I asked the us air agent to do whatever it takes to get me on board. She asked me to call them back again to resolve the payment issue because she was waiting from the rate desk to get back to her with the exact dollar amount. She also asked me to hand the phone to the asiana agent. Five minutes later, the asiana agent typed furiously on the keyboard while talking super fast on the walkie talkie in korean. Shortly after that the agent literally jumped from the counter desk and escorted us personally pass through the security all the way to the gate. At 10 minutes before scheduled departure, we were the last 3 passenger to board the plane.

After we landed safely at ICN, I called US airways many times to get the fees waived. After numerous 'hang up and call again' with 10 different agents and supervisors, I realized that it's an uphill battle and gave up. I decided to pay the fare difference and call it a day.

Since then, I would triple check everything at few months before departure, few weeks, and 2 days before the departure date to be sure that everything is in order.

My fiancé proposed to me with an Australian opal at the Park Hyatt Sydney overlooking the opera house. The moment was absolutely perfect, but what was just as memorable was having a coffee later that afternoon at a cafe in the Rocks. We were sitting outside in a quiet courtyard watching some lorikeets in a nearby tree when all of a sudden one landed on our table and stole a sugar packet right off of the saucer! We watched and laughed as it opened the packet and ate the sugar. Now we always say "Remember that time we got engaged...and the lorikeet stole the sugar packet!"

Just this pass Summer, I travelled with my grandmother, my mother, my younger brother, and my aunt to Newzealand. We visited the Southern Island for the most of our stay. We went on our trip by driving our rental car around the Southern Island. We visited Hokitika, Christchurch, Dunedin, and of course Queenstown. It was somewhat a surreal experience of how we survived.. Because no one in my house speaks English besides me!!. We did not book any hotel ahead. We stop when we want to and adventurously seek for available hotels to stay in. It was truly a fun experience in the South Island. When we flew back to the North Island, I went for a jump on from the Sky Tower and it was a true once in a life time experience, I guess everything is lol!!. Anyways, I love this family trip :)

Before our Alaska cruise from YVR. We took a horse carriage tour of Stanley Park. While in line to board the ship, I noticed my wallet was missing. Frantically call the banks to cancel my credit cards. Luckily we had $200 cash with us to tip the cabin staff, other than that, no ATM or credit cards. What a way to start a cruise. When arrived at home 8 days later, got a message on my answering machine (15 yrs ago) that they found my wallet and it was turned in to the Park Police. Thank you Canada!

Key to this story is knowing my SO is a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu.

A few years ago, my SO and I went to Europe together for the first time. We went from Paris to Madrid. I got food poisoning in Paris the last day (bad snail - yes, really), so Madrid took a day or so before I was having a good time.

We went to dinner the 2nd night in a small cafe where nobody spoke English. We were the last ones there and they were closing up, so I head downstairs to use the bathroom before we leave. The door was a bit hard to close because it was warped and had been painted over. Well... I wasn't able to get the door open again. The door opened inwards and it was a tiny bathroom with barely room for the toilet, so no room to maneuver.

After a few minutes of trying on my own, I realize I am actually trapped in the basement bathroom, so I give up and started banging on the door, alternately shouting my SO's name and "ayudame!" ("help me" in Spanish). 5 minutes go by, nothing, and I'm starting to wonder how long I'll be trapped before someone notices. There was so much noise in the kitchen, the staff didn't hear anything.

My SO finally realizes it's not his imagination that I've been gone a long time and comes down to see what's up. The waitress followed him downstairs. I tell him I'm trapped, so he tries the door, but no luck. The waitress didn't speak English and he doesn't speak Spanish, but he managed to mime to her that he wanted permission to kick the door in.

She agreed and he told me to get out of the way! (Remember, tiny space.) I had to wedge myself between the toilet and the wall. One hard kick and the door flies open and I'm free! My SO rescued me from the basement bathroom by kicking in the door like an action hero! This is definitely our favorite travel story.

I was desperate to get cheap reflexology while in Malaysia, so I talked my friend into it by offering to pay for it (they had a "happy hour"), and we ended up in the sketchiest almost-pitch black reflexology parlor, where the woman told us to sit and woke one man up from the couch (in the same room) while he was napping, and left the place to go hunt the second guy down. They then proceeded to put on what I believe was a bootleg version of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, while we got reflexology treatment by two men who we could barely communicate with.

Needless to say, it was absolutely one for the books.

Lucky,
Here is my story:

The Mercedes was going close to 100 miles an hour in the misty rain. I was sitting behind the driver grasping his seat, white knuckled, as if doing so it was going to prevent which appeared to be, my eminent death. This driver was nuts. The car was moving like a bullet on a two lane country road in Brazil’s deep south. Cows, dogs and kids chasing soccer balls along the side of the road looked like blurs and the fear the car would hit one of them sending us all to oblivion frightened me to my core.



I could tell you about my Kilimanjaro trek, of when I fell off the Inca trail, of my solo flight on a single engine airplane or of riding a train at night through a dangerous part of Cape Town . But Instead, you will be stuck with me in this Mercedes on the day I went from Hell to Heaven.



The driver assured me that he knew these roads like the palm of his hands. But his argument made no sense because I did not doubt his knowledge of the place, but his reasoning instead. In my humble opinion when you are clocking 90 miles an hour on a country road in misty weather, you are a crazy mother fucker who deserves to be in a straightjacket and not behind the wheels of a car. 



I had fallen into this predicament because the flight I had been scheduled on was three hours late and threatening to cancel. If cancelled, I was sure to miss my international connection, (GRU-ATL) later on that evening. So, the producers of the festival I was performing at got the ones with tight connections into this car , last minute, so that we would go four hours away to a major airport with hourly flights to GRU instead of dailies. Tickets were still to be purchased as the driver was ripping the asphalt apart with his Mercedes . Thump! The car hit a bird and sent it into a thousand pieces. This is a terrine omen, to kill a bird before flying. I was certain this was my last day on earth. Especially because this was an unplanned, last minute idea, and I’m paranoid about last minute change of plans in which I have a stranger at the controls . The only time I am ok with going very fast with a stranger at the controls is at six miles above the ground in an airliner, away from cows, dogs and kids chasing soccer balls.


Every time he attempted to pass a truck I thought it was going to be the end me. 
Interestingly so, the other two passengers in the car were perfectly ok with this. It was like I was in a nightmare where I am the crazy person. One of them even tried to calm me dow.



After a couple of hours the macho driver finally stopped for a bathroom break. I went to the urinal for a long long time. My hands were shacking so bad, I could not even aim properly. After that pit stop, the rain ceased, the roads got very busy as we approached the airport and, since he had been notified via phone that the new tickets had been purchased with ample time, he slowed down.

 When I got out of the car at the airport, I was confused and so thankful to be alive that I actually thanked the driver as if he were a different person.



After a short plane ride from POA to GRU I waked in a daze towards the international terminal and sat, by the gate, still shaken by the whole experience. I had been to hell and back. I had cheated death. There was a kid near me, all excited on the phone. He was telling to a loved one that he had just spotted Pele’. I looked around looking for the great soccer legend hoping that by seeing him, he would make me forget. He was no where to be found.


Then I heard my name being called by the gate agent . “Ohh gee, now what?!?!” So I approach the counter and the gate agent thanked me for being a loyal customer and handed me a different boarding pass. Ahhh, an upgrade. Sweet!!!


As I laid flat on my comfortable airline seat with a down pillow under my head, a comforter over my body, going 500 miles per hour, with a stranger at the controls, I was completely fine with it. Why? because now, I was six miles above the ground away from cows, dogs and kids chasing soccer balls.

All rights reserved 2015-
Antonio Rocha

Flying to NYC with my sister and best friend while in high school. Somehow (because of my sister) we almost missed our flight there and ended being upgraded to first class by the very nice airline employee. Then my friend borrowed headphones from my backpack on the flight and ended up knocking my wallet out with $300 in it without anyone knowing. I realized it after we left the flight but while we were still at the airport. Amazingly it was at the airline lost and found with all the money still in it!!

We hopped into the Paris subways to learn that the transit workers were on "strike" that Sunday, as we were trying to catch our flight back to the states. Lots of military with machine guns standing by and transit employees who, unfortunately, didn't speak much English, nor us much French. After a mad scramble, we missed our flight home on an Air France A380. We were thankfully rebooked by Delta and made it home at nearly our scheduled time, but definitely missed out on the flight experience.

When I lived in France as a college student, a friend and I decided to take an unexpected, last minute trip to Berlin. We had the time, the train was easy enough to navigate trip to Berlin, we had never been, and we found a highly-rated hostel. What we forgot, was that we didn't speak a lick of German and by the time we passed through Switzerland and realized the language had changed three times into something we finally couldn't understand (and couldn't read... playing a guessing game on when to get off is fun, too), we took a deep breath and tackled the city together.

It was one of the best experiences of my life: drinking vending machine beers in our 10-bunk hostel room we shared with Canadian tourists; sharing a snowball fight after finding machine-made snow for a ski trick contest; buying single bottles of beer from a back alley "grocery store"; and rolling the dice when ordering food because we didn't know what anything meant.

We made it home in one piece. Well worth the trip and instilled a bit more faith in adaptability when traveling.

Just a funny story, well maybe to me anyhow.
We had landed in Rome and were taking a very quick self guided tour of the city before our Mediterranean cruise took off. We headed towards St. Peter's Basilica and were standing in awe outside looking onwards and everyone was oohing and awing and whispering. Suddenly my sister yells out in English very loudly "so what is this place anyhow". My Mother in pure disdain and horror looked at her and said "12 years of Catholic school and you don't know where we are?" and everyone around us finally burst into laughter because it seems that no matter what the language barrier people understand a mothers scorn.

Went to Egypt in this past January by myself, figuring the State Department was overblowing the situation their for tourism. A guy friend was supposed to go with me, but chickened out. I lied to my parents the whole time up until the plane took off saying he was with me, but on the last day in Cairo right before I was returning stateside, I admitted to my parents the ruse. They took it better than I expected, admitting that it would have been much harder for them to feel calm had they known I'd taken off on my own. Then later that day, there was news about a series of bombings in Cairo. My phone was flooded with messages asking if I was ok - but not from my boyfriend. I called him when I returned stateside, and his response was that he figured if an American were killed it'd be announced on the US news, but nothing was said so he figured odds were good I was alive. (And for the record, the trip to Egypt was fabulous, I had no competition for the best spots to take photos, and I couldn't have felt safer. The spots I spent the most time were in Upper Egypt anyway which was nowhere near the unrest.)

My husband and I just came back from Las Vegas to celebrate his 30th. We try to visit the USO lounge whenever we travel (and the airport has one). We weren't planning on stopping by the USO lounge in Vegas before our flight but we had some time to kill. After going through security, we decided to take the shuttle back to Terminal 1 (where the USO lounge was) and then walked aimlessly for 15 mins and still not finding it. I finally called the USO lounge and it turns out, the lounge was BEFORE security. Since we made it this far already, we went to the lounge, grabbed a sandwich and went back through security. Then I realized I dropped my jacket some where between the USO lounge and security. My husband got out of line, found my jacket and went through security AGAIN. We decided that it was worth it though after everything because we got free food and exercise!

Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres in one day way back in the days when AA flew out of Orly instead of CDG. Too much to pick from, but I'll go with this.

Years ago my wife and I zipped through Normandy on a Thanksgiving long weekend. Somehow, I'm not sure why, we ended up approaching Mont Saint-Michel along the secondary coastal road. With all the ambient morning humidity, we couldn't see much of anything. Then, suddenly, rising above the clouds and mist, we saw first the spire and then gradually the rest of the town appear as if out of nowhere, an Emerald City floating in mid-air. That was real magic. And then seeing the stained glass windows of Chartres later that day, positively glowing in the late afternoon sun, was every bit as magical. The funny part is that we were really in Chartres mostly just because the local Novotel was both cheap and reasonably near Orly. I thought if we were lucky we might just have a daylight hour in the cathedral, and I was right.

Pre-9/11, I took a quick mileage run on CO TPA-IAH-NRT-IAH-TPA for a sub-$400 fare. When checking in, I saw a friendly agent who recognized me since I was a Continental Platinum and was at the airport several times a month. We were talking and he took a VERY long time checking me in. Finally, he smiled and said “have a nice trip” while handing me BusinessFirst boarding passes for the outbound AND the inbound! Flew both legs with the same crew, by the time we were returning from NRT we were like family. They couldn’t do enough for me and gave me an unopened bottle of Dom to take home. A memorable trip for under $400!

We flew from New York to Las Vegas, Nevada, after three days stay we rented a car to continue our vacation to San Fransisco & Los Angeles then back to Vegas to NYC. We visited the Dead Valley National Park in Nevada before heading San Fransisco. After seeing all the attractions in the Park we were heading San Fransisco through the desert. Not sure how many miles had driven the gas tank red light was on! It was pretty scary because we don't see any cars/ human insight, of course cell phone not working because we were in the desert, it was 127 degrees F. To conserve energy we turned off the ac, radio & drove 55 mph. Luckily after drove about 20 miles we saw a plam tree far away( the excitement was just like what you see in movies)! We drove for another x miles and reached a small town with a population of 39 and a gas station. We used every drop of the gas & we had to push our car to the pump (about 5 feet) ! What a scary experience!

In December of 2013 I went on an Antarctic cruise with my wife and one of our best friends. It is hard to pick just one experience from the trip but I think the 3 that stand out the most are: 1) the morning our boat pulled into the narrow channel for our first landing and the awe of the size of the glaciers and seeing the penguins; 2) camping out for the night in just a sleeping bag in a shallow "grave" dug into the snow so the wind would pass by; 3) the last landing site, on Christmas Day, where we saw multiple species of seals and penguins and having that final feeling of being so far away from anyone other than the 100+ people on the boat for one last time.

2 of us young ladies flying on Alitalia JFK/FCO on an almost-empty 747 - the crew very sweetly asked us to move back 1 cabin (both were Y cabins) for reasons of weight and balance - after taking off we looked around and realized that we were the only pax they had asked to move (at the time we weighed at most 220 pounds/100 kilos including carryons)! the extremely handsome flight attendant saw us notice this and gave us a big wink plus a 'pizza' created in the galley by toasting ketchup and grated parmesan on a slice of (American) bread

Bringing a 747 back to the gate for a personal pick up!

On way to Cebu with family and had change of flights in Manila. Plane was late arriving in Manila so we ran through the whole airport to catch flight out of Manila to Cebu, hoping there was a delay in the flight. When we arrived at the gate the Boing 747 had already left the gate and we saw it being pushed off. For some miraculous reason I was able to convince the individual at the gate to bring the plane back even though it was more than 20 yards from the gate. We could not believe it when we saw the 747 being brought back to the gate. This was pre 9/11 though. There were not many passengers on the plance. Oh and the the looks we got from the other passenger as we boarded….well I think you can imagine. And we deserved those looks for sure. Maybe the other passengers were expecting some dignitary boarding given the plane went back to the gate. I regret making this request now given how inconsiderate it to the other passengers.

To top it off this was the most run down plane I had ever been in and the roughest landing I have ever had when we arrived at Cebu. Most of the emergency masks fell out of the overhead bins on landing it was that rough (the weather was perfect). Very memorable.

Meeting another couple on the train from Venice to Florence, hitting it off well, and sharing tips with where to go and what to eat. Then running into them at dinner at one of their recommended restaurants and having a great time drinking wine and sharing travel stories, all while talking a bit too loudly for the other patrons and staff.

Then, having the same thing happen in Madrid with a different couple and sharing another lovely evening drinking and sharing stories.

Seeing the world is great, serendipitous meetings and enjoyable evenings with strangers that become friends is even better.

Arriving in Santiago, Chile (first time in south america, don't speak Spanish) to meet up with someone for a film shoot that I'd never met before, without any contact information for said person, only a vague "he'll find you". Navigating around the scammers who wanted to "take their taxi to his house" even though I didn't know where he lived. Finally found him/he found me, and we end up driving two more hours to Valparaiso and lug all our gear up the hill (which is the entire city) to stay in a "hotel" that literally had ants in the beds.
Chile is fun - I honestly can't wait to go back!

My boyfriend Jesse and I awake at an unusually early hour; my under-eye bags heavy and dark, about as dark as the night that still blankets the city below. From our third floor hotel room we have a panoramic view of Cusco’s main square. Lights from the houses that freckle the mountainside sparkle like stars and faint morning chatter enters our room from our open window. I sip on coca tea as I wait for our ride. The tea allays my altitude sickness, but does little to assuage my excitement. Today, we hike the legendary Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

Hector, our chaperon, meets us in the lobby. Friendly and welcoming, he is the epitome of tour guides. Once aboard the empty van, I prop up my feet in the seats beside me. We depart. Now, the sky is watercolored in a rainbow of hues; rosy pinks and light blues share the sky canvas. The sun is barely visible, peeking through from behind the hillside. The humming of the van’s engine lulls me to sleep and an hour passes before I awake. We have arrived at Ollantaytambo’s PeruRail train station. Hector guides us through the chaos, he, our mother hen, Jesse and I, his confused chicks. Tickets and receipts are exchanged and suddenly I am boarding the iconic blue and yellow-striped train.

Soon after, we disembark. A sign marked, “Km 104,” welcomes us to the trail. We pose for an obligatory picture. An hour of hiking and my body is already crying out in pain; sweat tears trickle from my every pore, staining my pits and stinging my eyes. I am drained, but I push on. We hike for hours, up and down stone steps, across rope bridges, and along waterfalls. There are moments where I hug the mountain fearing the wind will knock me over and send me falling hundreds of feet. Periodically, we rest to admire the beautiful view. Puffy, white clouds float just above our heads, luscious greenery coat the mountains, and the sound of rushing water fills our ears.

Eventually, strength replaces my pain. I think of the Incans who hiked this very same trail – the couriers who ran ideas from one village to another. The pain no longer hurts my Incan feet. We turn the corner and encounter a wall, a wall of steps as steep and tall as ever. I get on all fours and crawl. Hector, already at the peak, excitedly yells, “puri,” Quechuan for hike. I reach the top. As I stand, Hector masks my eyes and ushers me to the perfect viewing spot. He counts down for the big unveiling, “3, 2, 1,” and he uncovers… Machu Picchu!

One travel that was epic for me was when I biked around Taiwan during summer 2011. It was a 13 day trip and I rode on a bicycle alone around most cities and towns around my home country, which is something wild as an Asian teenager back then since travelling alone to somewhat unknown areas (I live in the Southwest of Taiwan, and haven't been to the east for 7 years) on a pair of wheels and pedals were extremely crazy, but I succeeded it beautifully. But definitely, it was tiring to bike around 1200 km in 13 days with mountains and headwinds, but the great food and scenery in different towns amazed me heavily, and I even wrote a book about it for my college application, which I believed it somewhat helped me to get in my desired University.

There are just so many stories that I could talk about in Taiwan, Lucky I think next time you could spend a few more days outside Taipei and visit the different cities and counties in Taiwan. You could fly to Kaohsiung on Cathay Pacific and tour the south of Taiwan. It's amazing and different compared to Taipei.

One thing that always comes to mind is a time we did some volunteer work for rural African villages in Kenya. Mind you, this is way far out of the way from any sort of "civilization." The journey was only 100 miles out from the larger town, but took well over 5 hours to get there.

Anyways, because of the work we did (and we were hallowed guests), the villagers served us a goat soup (literally chopped up pieces of goat boiled in water). We had seen a goat earlier when we arrived at the village, but now nowhere to be found.

Eating the soup (you can't not eat it, because it's rude since the villagers make use of everything), I noticed in one of my last bites that I was chewing a rather large piece of meat/muscle, and without too much detail, it was a very strong, circular piece of meat what seemed to be a whole in the middle.

Not wanting to be rude, I chewed it for a good 5 minutes and then swallowed it.

Later I described my bite to a priest, and he said I had eaten the "prized" bowl, or the bowl which contained the goat's anus. Prized because every goat only has one.

I will never forget that moment.

Cheers, and thanks Ben!

Way, way back I was stationed in Heidelberg. On weekends when I didn't have duty and wasn't flying someplace for the weekend courtesy of Uncle Sam's Space Available program, I liked renting a car and poking around in the untouristed corners of Germany and eastern France. One early summer Saturday in 1985 I stopped in a tiny town in Moselle for lunch to discover nearly everything was closed. Talking to the gas station clerk I learned there was a large wedding; two prominent local families were being connected for the first time in well over a century. This was too good to pass up, so I drove to the next town, got a large spray of flowers after explaining it was for a wedding I'd just learned of, and drove back to leave them with the reception. Just as I was turning from the car with my arms full the church opened and the wedding party came out. There was no way to possibly time it better, and I calmly met them with a smile and presented them with the spray. The expressions were priceless, not just the happy couple but everyone else.

I became a de facto member of the wedding party from that point, and didn't escape that town until the next day!

i was 18 and wandering around england over spring break, alone. one morning i took a bus very early from london to canterbury to see the cathedral.

groggy and sort of out of it -- and lonesome, to boot -- i walked down the high street through the morning fog. it was empty and all the shops were closed, completely desolate landscape.

suddenly, through the fog, a car approached slowly. as it got closer, i realized it was an american station wagon (a rare sight on this side of the pond) with classic 80's faux wood paneling. on the roof rack was a pile of luggage strapped to the top.

as the car passed, i noticed its occupants were a family of tourists, eagerly glancing around, one of them holding a camera. they drove by and off into the fog. before they disappeared completely, i noticed the car had an indiana license plate.

it was straight out of the movie "european vacation". to this day i'm not 100 percent sure i wasn't hallucinating. i've seen some really out of place things in my lifetime of travel but that was probably the weirdest.

Had booked a NRT-AKL-PER routing on NZ before they took away award space from Star alliance. There was a 6 hour layover in AKL which I intended to make my way to go bungee jumping at Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Due to delayed departure out of NRT, I arrived in AKL with 5 hours to spare and a decision to make. Since I had no luggage I decided to go for it despite the limited time. Took half an hour to get out of immigration, then took a taxi to the bridge. Got the driver's phone number who promised to bring me back to the airport when I was done.

Got to the bungee site, found out they were full for the next session, but they squeezed me on after I explained that I had a flight to catch. After a long walk to the middle of the bridge, there was a lot of waiting while the group all completed their jumps. Went back to base camp, and got the staff to cal lthe taxi driver. It took him 15 minutes to return, and then hightail it to the airport - where I made it with just under 2 hours until my flight. Relaxing in the lounge was the biggest relief of all - was very amped up with the rush and the the jump itself.

Honeymoon in 1970 was 45 days guided by Frommer's Europe on $5 a Day - really! One of my friends/groomsmen was traveling with a friend and even though we had totally separate itineraries, we kept running in to them. Last time we were lwalking away from the Piazza de la Signora in Florence. All of a sudden, a car coming towards us honks its horn and stops. My two friends jump out and start hugging us. At least 20 of the Italians who were sitting at outdoor tables at the restaurants that lined the street stood up, grabbed wine glasses and their bottles, and started pouring wine for the four of us! They saw a party, they saw happy people, and they wanted in! What a country!