The GJWHF Summer tour 2006 has the amazing good fortune to be playing The Continental Hotel in Sorrento on the Amalfi coast of Italia.

I write to you from the veranda of our room, done in blues and crisp whites, with three of everyuthing, including robes, which tells us they personally prepared the room for just us. sigh. Ne less than four different kinds of palm trees flank the veranda, framing our spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea. Frankly, Caesar was crazy to want the UK, Gaul and Africa; this, my firends, is the true, real real estate for which your ambitions should run greasy, hot and smoky. Mio Dio!

We've had an amazing good fortune on the Italian leg of the tour and our good luck continued last night as we celebrated the Italians' latest World Cup victory, borne on the back of a sterling performance from their goalkeeper and three very solid goals from the boys up front. The national pride around the Italian soccer team is just one more thing I love about these people. Just as the pace flags were predominant four years ago, the red, white and green flag of Italia is everywhere, everywhere, in solidarity with the boys in Germany. You really do see the flag literally everywhere and my favorite was the tour guide in Rome who had amassed curled red, white and green ribbon at the end of a television antenna to use to lead her group around the cobbled streets and piazzas of the Eternal City. Another favorite was glimpsed from the train, in a marginal area that was quite reminiscent of Tiajuana. Three neighbors pooled their efforts to drape the railing on their tiny balconies with solid red, white and green banners, creating one marvelous big flag. In Naples, in a similar neighborhood, they flew their little flag off a similar tiny railing, but then attached red, white and green wide, wide ribbons, stretching them four stories to the ground in a national pride cascade of sorts. Such unqualified happiness; so simple, uncomplicated.

Sat in the bar downstairs last night with an English girl who joined me in rallying Germany past Argentina in penalty kicks--another multo bravo performance by the goalkeeper. Her countrymen, also present, sneered and mocked Germany's perseverance but as I told them, one thing you gotta give the Germans, they are damn good looking people. (tongue in cheek here, along with innocent smile.)

So the party continues in Sorrento, where the lemon trees grow thick as noxious weeds and shoulder the burden of hundreds of lumpy, sweet lemons happily--this is Italy, where the muzak plays opera, every man and woman alike is beautiful, the goals stay out of the net on one end of the field and go into the net on the other, yet new pieces of the exquisite jigsaw that is la douceur la vie.

JBelle
On Location
Sorrento, Italy