Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Italy Travelog #23
Chia, Sardinia - Thursday, 29 May 2025, 8pm

Eating dinner surprising takes a lot of planning in Italy. Especially as an American with American habits. Restaurants virtually all close after lunch and don't open again until dinner. And dinner is late. A few restaurants start at 7pm. Many don't reopen for dinner until 7:30. And you often need reservations. Especially for dinner, as most casual restaurants, the kind where reservations aren't required, don't even serve dinner. They close after lunch. So if you want dinner out, you've got to plan ahead and wait.

It's extra hard out here in Chia on the island of Sardinia where there aren't even that many restaurants. Other than the few onsite at the hotel, which are all expensive and have tiny menus— each has, like, one thing Hawk could eat— there's one other restaurant nearby. It's spendy and also has, like, one thing Hawk could eat. After that the next nearest place is a taxi ride away. Except there are no taxis here. And a private car costs €45. Each way. Even just to go a few miles.

We ended up buying a few things at the small grocery store a few minutes' walk from the resort and enjoying a picnic dinner on our patio. Oh, but we had to go quickly, because the grocery closes at 7pm.



The photo shows the two kinds of sliced meat I bought, sliced cheese, bread, and wine. The cheese is pecorino sardo, a local style of pecorino. The bread is focaccia. And the wine is Cannonau, a locally grown grape that is actually an ancient clone of Grenache/Garnacha. Most of it was pretty tasty. One of the two types of meat was overly dry.

On our way out to the store, when we were discussing the limited dining-out options with the hotel concierge, I remarked that waiting until 7:30 for restaurant seating was unusual to me because most Americans eat dinner earlier. She explained that Italians normally eat dinner as late as 9:30. To them, she explained, 7:30 dinner is early because people who work in stores only close up at 7. They have to go home and start dinner or go back out to eat.

It's an interesting explanation that points to a cultural difference. In the US we think of the service industry as there to serve us. In Italy it's more recognized that the service industry is "us"; that it's normal people working jobs in retail, and they need to live their lives, too.

Italy Travelog #6
Rome - Sunday, 25 May 2025, 10:40am

This morning we've headed out on what will be a busy day touring Rome, much of it on foot— the way we like to tour. We started with a walk from our hotel down to the nearest metro station, about a mile away. We could've taken a hotel shuttle, free, to the center of town. But as we still would've had to take a taxi from there to the Colosseum we opted to walk to the train and take the train to the Colosseum station. Riding transit is also part of how we like to tour. We like to see the city like locals. Plus, the train was just 1.50€ each, less than a short taxi ride from the shuttle stop would've cost.



The walk down to the Cipro station was fun. We saw a lot of residential Rome on our way down the hill. One thing that's interesting is how winding and jumbled together everything is. And this is a part of Rome that was built post-1950, so it's not like the streets are based on ancient cow paths. And while the streets zigzag back and forth climbing the hill our hotel sits atop, there are numerous sidewalks/stairs for pedestrians only that shortcut the route down to the train station.

It's interesting to see how close together everything is here. And the cars parked along the street are tiny. An American-style compact car— there are some of them here—looks huge by comparison. Another interesting bit we saw is that there are apparently community trash cans. Every block or so there's a line of dumpsters with labels for trash, recyclables, food waste, etc. It looks like people walk their own trash out to the community bins. That makes trash pickup simpler— and reduces the clutter of every house and apartment building having its own trashcans near the street.



From the Cipro station we rode a train into downtown and changed at the Termini station, pictured above. From there it was just a few stops south to the Colosseum. Ah, how much easier it is to get around Rome than in ancient times!



The Colosseum is right across the street from the metro stop.

We arrived early for our 10:30 tour so we walked around to see the outside of the Colosseum from different angles.



I also used different cameras. For today I'm carrying both my Fujifilm dedicated camera, which captures beautiful, rich colors as in the photo immediately above, as well as my always-in-my-pocked iPhone.

Part of our reason for walking around different sides of the Colosseum was we were trying to find where we were supposed to meet our guide. Apple Maps and Google Maps both sent us on wild goose chases to find the where "Colosseum Plaza 33" was. Different wild goose chases. It turned out our guide was meeting us right at the metro stop. There's a tiny "33" stone above the metro exit. It would've been nice for them to tell us, "Meet us right outside the metro station" before 10:35am.

Italy Travelog #3
At FCO Airport - Saturday, 24 May 2025, 1:50pm

I've joked for many years that certain countries in Europe *cough* Greece and Italy *cough* treat scamming tourists as a national pastime. I'm an experienced enough traveler that I'm savvy to many potential scams. But the problem with being in a scam-heavy place is that you've got to be on your guard constantly. I made the mistake of not triple-checking my transaction at an ATM and got ripped off.

Yes, the ATM charged me a fee for giving me my own money. It was €4.95. I knew it was going to be like that. What got me was what the ATM slipped in near the end of the transaction. It showed me the amount of my withdrawal in Euro, the amount debited from my account in USD, and asked me to confirm. Foolishly— or, rather, not on my guard every fucking second because everyone is trying to rip you off when you so much as blink— I accepted the conversion without whipping out my calculator to check the math. The fuckers gave me .75EUR to the dollar. The normal bank exchange rate today is 0.88. So on top of the €4.95 flat fee I also paid a 15% vig.

I've been in this country for 10 minutes and already I've been scammed.

Fuck Italy.

Recently I tried a "new" restaurant, P.F. Chang's. I quote new because the restaurant itself is hardly new. It's a chain that's been around for 30 years and has 300 stores worldwide. Likely there's one near you. And the one near me isn't exactly new to the neighborhood; it's been there for 24 years. Plus, I've been there before. Though my last visit, to it or any of its 299 sister stores, was about 23 years ago. Returning to try it out again fits my sort-of New Year's resolution a few years ago to try new restaurants— where "new" specifically includes places I haven't been to in a long time.

Why have I not been to P.F. Chang's in 23 years? It's not because I hated the food. I mean, I did dismiss it as overly Americanized, yuppie-fied Chinese fare. I live in an area where there is so much more authentic Chinese food available that going to a "Chinese" restaurant that's the same in Wichita, Kansas as Silicon Valley, California was laughable. It's the same reason as why sit-down chain restaurants are sparse in Silicon Valley and up the peninsula to San Francisco. See also, Try finding an Olive Garden here. But keeping in mind, "I'm not eating Chinese food so much as Chinese-ish food that's yuppie-safe and is the same in Wichita," I decided the local P.F. Chang's was worth another try.

So, how was it? In a word, Chinese-ish. 😂 I went with my spouse and two mutual friends. We ordered a variety of appetizers, sides, and mains to share. Everything was well prepared and attractive looking as it landed on the table. The flavors were a little bland, made suitable for Middle American palates, if a bit too salty (also suitable for Middle America). Basically it was exactly what I expected it would be: an Americanized facsimile of Chinese food, served in upscale fashion and with upscale prices. And I figure that's exactly why/how the chain succeeds. It gives people a safe, not too foreign, and slightly upscale experience with ethnic food. Plus, it's a date-night or nice-dinner-with-friends spot that's two steps classier than Chili's.

Would I eat there again? Sure. Not next week... but probably sooner than in another 23 years.


Edited to add: Funny story about how authentic— or not— P.F. Chang's is. When I was traveling to China frequently for my job in the late 00s/early 10s I showed my Chinese national counterparts online pictures and menus of some of the Chinese restaurants near me. It was a revelation to them as schools in China taught that nobody in the US speaks a Chinese language or knows anything about Chinese culture. I was curious for their opinion as they looked at menus and pictures from the restaurants, which looked the most Chinese to them? They all picked P.F. Chang's. Why? I asked. It turns out it's because the restaurant's website prominently displayed the words "Chinese Food", in Chinese, written traditionally in vertical orientation. Native Chinese thought that made it the most authentic. 😂

Panama Travelog #27
Near Gamboa, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 3pm.

This morning we packed up and left El Valle, Panama after 4 days there. It was surprising how fast we packed. We were done in, like, 5 minutes. Thought the reason it was 5 minutes and not 20 was that we weren't packing for a flight. We only had to carry things as far as the car, where there's no restriction like "1 bag and 1 personal item". Today we're driving to Panama City, where we'll unload all our little bags onto a luggage cart a hotel and take them in the elevator up to our room.

We're not driving directly to Panama City, though. We've made a few side trips to hike waterfalls along the way.


First we drove from El Valle to La Chorrera. It was highway driving all until the last few km, so it wasn't too bad. But then it was.

City Driving in La Chorrera

Our first stop was Chorro de la Chorrera. Trying saying that 5 times fast! The name literally means stream of the waterfall. But what's weird is that The Waterfall is the name of the town. The waterfall in The Waterfall is called The Stream.

Getting out to El Chorro de la Chorrera was a bit of a pain. The main reason is that traffic in La Chorrera was awful. I wrote before about how highway driving in Panama is a bit chaotic with drivers going at very different speeds and some weaving lanes. Well, city driving is a whole 'nother beast.

Many city streets are jammed with solid lines of cars crawling along. Few intersections have traffic lights. Many don't even have stop signs. The norm there seems to be to take turns as if it were a four-way stop. But when you've got a stop sign and crossing street doesn't, forget about anyone letting you in. They won't.

You've got to ignore what that red and white "STOP" sign means in the US and other civilized countries— stop until it's clear to go— and treat it as a momentary pause. You ease out into oncoming traffic until your blocking of their right of way forces someone to stop and let you in. And if you don't do that fast enough, someone behind you will overtake you and cut you off to get into traffic ahead of you.

Finally we got to El Chorro. Billed as "The largest falls in Panama" or maybe "one of the largest falls in Panama" it was kind of disappointing. We made the best of it, though, and enjoyed having it pretty much to ourselves. All the other foreign tourists were probably lost in traffic or waiting at a stop sign somewhere until midnight when the traffic abates.

Revenge Trip to Sendero el Charco

After spending a short while at El Chorro we got back in the car and Road Warrior'ed our way back out to the highway. Once on the main road it was smooth sailing up toward Gamboa, where we sought a revenge trip on the waterfalls of Sendero el Charco in Soberania National Park.

Revenge trip? Yes, because this was the trail that was closed when we tried to visit 4 days ago. And today... today it was still closed! 😡

This time, though, we were in a mood of "Fuck it, we're going in anyway." We parked off the road across the street, stepped over the chain across the parking lot, and walked past the empty gatehouse. There we noticed that the gatehouse was stripped completely bare inside and looked like it hasn't been staffed for years. The fact that the park has apparently been abandoned by authorities made us feel better about breaking in. That, and the fact that we parked next to another car belonging to people who'd evidently done the same already.

We had ourselves a nice loop hike in El Charco. Yeah, the trail's it deteriorating shape like it hasn't been kept up in several years. There's a suspension bridge that's falling apart. I determined that it's falling apart when I was about halfway across. 😳 But we got across safely and looped back around to the falls. And no cops came out to arrest us for breaking in to the park. ...Of course, if they could afford to send cops to ticket or arrest people, they could staff the booth charging admission. And maybe fix the suspension bridge.

Now we're back at the car, ready to head down to Panama City. Our phones are out of cell range up here in the park, so it's good I know the first 10km of the route already. It's the same as we drove earlier this week and earlier today.

What, no Pictures?

As I mentioned in one of my blogs yesterday, I'm streamlining my Panama blogs now with fewer pictures to keep the backlog from getting so out of hand. I'll come back around to share photos & video once I'm caught up.

Panama Travelog #8
El Valle, Panama - Mon, 23 Dec 2024. 3pm.

This afternoon we drove from Gamboa, Panama, the home of the Gamboa Rainforest Preserve, to Valley de Antón. It was a 132km trip. Along the way our only stop was a brief, foiled attempt to hike a waterfall.

Driving 132km, which is not quite 80 miles, can be quite an undertaking or can be a nothing-burger, depending on where those 80 miles are. In the wide open spaces of the western US, for example, you can drive 80 miles in many places without passing more than a one-blinking-stoplight town or two. Our route across a few states in Panama today wasn't that remote. We passed several towns, few of which were quite that small. We also had busy traffic a fair bit of the way, even on the 4- and 6- lane divided highways that made up about 2/3 of our route. It was seldom slow, but driving in traffic did require constant vigilance as drivers are much less predictable here than in the US. More on that below.

So, what's it like driving in Panama vs. in the US?

First, I've got to say, way more is familiar than not. You drive on the right. The basic traffic laws are the same. Road signs look familiar— things like Stop (though it says "High" in Spanish), One way, and No Parking. There's none of that British crap like a pictograph for "Road Turns to Bacon Ahead." Though green signs informing you which exit goes where are infuriating small, vague, and placed almost too late to make turns safely when driving faster than 40 km/hr.

Second, it's unclear what the prevailing attitude on speed is. Or, should I say, the prevailing attitude on speed is "Whatever". On a road signed for 100 km/h plenty of people are tooling along at 70-80. Including police cars.

I thought I'd just bought myself a ticket when I nearly overtook a police van cruising on one of the highways. I cautiously dropped back and matched his speed. Then I realized he was driving only 75 in a 100 zone. Plus, the van had a broken window and seemed to be full of flattened cardboard boxes, like a hoarder's car. Maybe it's the hoarder police. They write a speeding ticket, but instead of giving it to you they hold onto it.

On slower roads people speed excessively. 60 km/h zone on a highway? Count on seeing people driving over 80 and weaving lanes. And they reason they're weaving is to get around the people driving as slow as 25 in the 60 zone.

Between these differences requiring vigilance, and the poor seats in our crappy little rental, I was feeling saddle sore already halfway through this two-hour trip. That's unusual for me as I routinely handle drives 2-3x as long without fatigue. I got us there without stops (other than the abortive hiking one mentioned at the top) by force of will. If nothing else I figured I'll spend most of the rest of the day walking, standing, lying down, or sitting— in a better chair.

Los Cabos Travelog #16
Viceroy hotel San Jose del Cabo - Wed, 8 May 2024, 9am

It's another taking-it-easy morning here in San Jose del Cabo. Like yesterday morning I awoke early (sunrise is 5:40am) and relaxed on our deck overlooking the pools. And it's not just this morning I'm taking it easy. Yesterday after coming back from our snorkeling trip I was pretty wiped. I took a nap for an hour or two before dinner.

Dinner last night was on our own. While some of my colleagues went looking for expensive food, likely to use up the dining allowance, Hawk and I kept it simple. Like I've said before, we're generally not fans of fancy food. We found a local-style place within easy walking distance and walked over there. I ordered a plate of two tacos while she got a plate of two small mushroom quesadillas. We split a dish of guacamole to enjoy with our chips. Altogether it was a light meal and not very expensive; about $25 all-in.

Light meals seem a bit strange to us as US-ians. We've become accustomed to the gut-busting portions normalized over the past 25-30 years. I still remember what meals used to look like, though. These were adult sizes in the long-long ago. Which means they left us room to enjoy a modest dessert afterward. 🤣 We split an order of churros with chocolate and caramel sauce at a cafe on the walk home.

Well, back to the here-and-now. It's rolling up on 9am Wednesday morning. That means the lazing around on our deck is coming to an end. In a few minutes we're going up to the lobby to meet our group for today's activity— ATV rides in the desert!

New Zealand Travelog #41
Back at the Airport Hotel - Sun, 21 Apr 2024, 8pm

We're back at the airport hotel enjoying a shared dessert with a couple of complimentary drinks (yay elite status!). We didn't eat dinner here, though. The menu's too narrow and spendy. Typical airport hotel fare. Instead, after spending much of the day hiking in gloomy, windy weather and then making a chance window-shopping visit to the only Costco in New Zealand, I felt like treating ourselves to some good food and a sit-down meal.

Finding good food has been kind of tough the past few weeks. Part of that is New Zealand is not a country that would ever be associated with the phrase "fine cuisine". The most common food frankly seems to be meat pies, similar to Australia, and similar to Australia a totally reasonably place to buy them is at a gas station. A lot of our meals the past two weeks have been purchased in gas stations and eaten in the car.

Another reason why good restaurants are few and far between is that businesses being open in the evening really isn't a thing in New Zealand. Like, if you want to sell dinner at a restaurant, you really need to be open through dinner time, say 'til at least 8pm, right? Yet lots of restaurants close for the day at 4 or 5pm. And outside of super-touristy towns like Queenstown, most of the restaurants are bare-bones takeaway joints.

Thus it took a lot of searching but tonight we found an Italian restaurant that had a menu of familiar favorites, good reviews, and a cozy little dining room with table service. Oh, and it was open past 5pm... though it did close at 7. When we left at the ungodly late hour of 7:30pm the co-owner had to unlock the door to let us out.


On the drive home from the restaurant we crossed the 1,000 mile mark— again. Yes, after driving over 1,000 miles on South Island we have now driven over 1,000 miles on North Island. As I parked at the hotel a bit ago the car's trip odometer showed 1,610 km— just a hair over 1,000 miles. I figure we crossed the thousand-mile mark as we exited the freeway a few blocks from the hotel. And when I say "we" I mean I. I've done all the driving, averaging over 235km/day (145 miles/day) in addition to all the hiking and sightseeing we're doing.

New Zealand Travelog #36
Hamilton, NZ - Fri, 19 Apr 2024, 5pm

We're back to our cozy apartment in Hamilton atfer another day of adventure. Today's adventure was a stitching together of a few paid tours plus a few completely self-guided things:

• We visited the Ruakuri Cave (vendor link) with a guided tour. On the trip we heard about a few of the features in limestone caverns, the history of the Maori people, and glowworms. The cave features part was the least interesting (to me) as those features are the same around the world, this was hardly our first cave tour, and this cave/guide wasn't the best for highlighting features. I mean, anyone can tell you what stalactites and stalagmites are. I think I learned that in 4th grade science class.... But learning about Maori history was really interesting. Our guide was Maori and descended from the chief of the tribe that settled this area 750 years ago. He really personalized what it meant to him. Plus, we were among a small group that was all adults, so we asked lots of questions about Maori language, culture, and history.


• Next we visited the Waitomo Glowworm Caves (vendor link) nearby. This one focused more on the glowworms, though we'd already learned the basics at the other cave: The "worms" are the larval stage of a species of insect— so technically they're glow-maggots, not glowworms. They grow up to a 3cm long. They glow through bioluminescence, which they use to attract other insects for food. They drop sticky lines, sticky similar to how a spider web is sticky, to catch those insects. Again, this info was all a repeat from the previous tour. That's a risk with cave tours: once you've done one you've done most of all of them. The standouts on this tour, though, were that a) there were a lot more glowworms-maggots and b) we toured part of it on a boat through an underground river. I've never done an underground boat tour before!

After these tours we were on our own and visited 3 short hiking trails in the area.

• The first of these was Mangapohue Natural Bridge. A short trail led into a beautiful stream canyon to a large overhead arch. We had the area mostly to ourselves. That's always nice when outdoors, and was doubly nice after a morning spent on paid-for tours where buses pulled up to disgorge tourists by the dozens.


• Next we hiked to Piripiri Cave. A short but steep trail leads up to the entrance to a large, single-room cave. How large? I estimate it's 80' deep and 50' across. And, yes, 80' deep because you enter it near the top. Wooden stairs descend to the bottom.


• Finally we hiked to Marakopa Falls. The weather had been crummy all day but wasn't really a factor up to this point. I mean, it almost doesn't matter if it's cloudy and drizzling outside when you're in a cave. And cloudy-and-drizzling helped with the atmospherics at the natural bridge. But here at these falls it started to be a real minus. Marakopa Falls is large, which is a big plus, but the last part of the trail to it has been washed out due to floods, and with today's rains what was left of it was too slick to traverse safely... even for experienced hikers. (And by "safely" I mean "without getting covered in mud from slipping a few times".) So we viewed the falls from across the canyon.

New Zealand Travelog #13
Te Anau, NZ - Thu, 11 Apr 2024, 7pm

It's a well known fact for Americans (well, some Americans) that when we travel pretty much anywhere else in the world we have to convert distance measurements to/from kilometers. New Zealand is no exception to that.

Similarly, in most countries we have to convert US dollars to/from the local currency. (I say most because in some countries businesses cheerfully accept US dollars. A few even give fair exchange rates. 😅)

A few of us know that the km/miles conversion is 0.6. We remember it, perhaps, from physics classes where we used it on a daily basis. But what about the various currency conversions? New Zealand makes that simple for us US folks. The NZD-to-USD exchange rate is also about 0.6.

As we've been traveling in New Zealand the past several days I'm often stuck with a moment of sticker shock seeing prices advertised in "dollars" with the $ symbol. They're New Zealand dollars, of course, but my gut reaction because of the naming and symbol is to read them as US dollars. The momentary reaction passes when I remind myself, "These prices are in are kilometers!" 🤣

So, how good or bad are the prices after converting to metric? Well, it depends. Restaurant food isn't too bad. A main dish in a restaurant listed at "$24.50" on the menu, similar to what I've paid for dinner orders the past few nights, looks spendy at first (see above) but multiplying by 0.6 brings it to $14.70 US. Furthermore, considering that taxes are already included and there's no tipping— laws and cultural norms in New Zealand require businesses pay employees fair wages, what a totally no-this-is-not-socialism concept!— makes it equivalent to a "$12" menu price in the US. For what I've ordered for the pre-tip-and-tax equivalent of $12 US, I've gotten pretty decent amounts of dinner.

Not all foodstuff is cheap, though. My dearly beloved Coke Zero, like all sodas in most countries outside the US, is expensive. Soda fountains are virtually unheard of, so you're buying it by the can or bottle in restaurants. That gets expensive quickly. I tend to drink water in restaurants and buy my sodas at the grocery store to enjoy back at my hotel room.

Oh, and the money itself? Like Australia, the "paper" currency is plastic. And it's colorful. It makes me feel like we Americans are cavepeople with our monochromatic "greebacks" printed on... fabric.