Every Boy's Got One

Travel Diary of Jane Harris

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

I got it! My first stamp in my passport! It’s kind of smudgy and you can’t really read the date. But it’s THERE!

Though it TOOK long enough to get it. What is with the LINES in this place? I mean, seriously, do you think they could have opened more than one customs booth? There must have been three hundred people in line ahead of us. This NEVER would have happened in the US. I mean, Americans just would not have put up with it.

Still, it gave me a chance to look around and realize right away that my shoes are all wrong for this country. NO ONE here wears Steve Madden slides. NO ONE. The Italian women have slides, all right, but they have these wicked pointed toes and tiny little heels. Plus they are all wearing long pants, not jeans like Holly and I, and they have these cashmere scarves thrown casually over one shoulder even though according to the Weather Channel it’s going to be 24 degrees Celsius every day while we’re here, which is in the 80s. I think.

So what’s up with that?

Also, it was just SLIGHTLY disturbing when the Customs guy was all, “And where in Italy are you staying,” and I said, “Le Marche,” hoping I’d pronounced it right, and he made a face and went, “Why would you go THERE?”

Frankly, I do not believe that by offering me his opinion on my final destination that he was allowing me to pass without delay or hindrance into his country, as my passport says he has to.

Besides which, he’s wrong. Holly always said her uncle’s house was in the most beautiful section of Italy there is. And okay, according to my guidebook, Le Marche (also known as the Le Marche in English) isn’t that well known to foreigners. But her uncle seems to have liked it well enough to spend a million bucks on a sixteenth-century villa there.

Besides, what’s not to like? Le Marche “forms the eastern seaboard of central Italy—with the Apennine Mountains, noted for their bare peaks and dramatic gorges, forming a natural boundary between it and Umbria and Tuscany. The areas nearer the coast are celebrated for their fertile rounded hills topped by ancient fortified towns.”

Um, at least according to my guidebook.

And OK, maybe it’s not super popular with anyone but Italians (except for my customs agent). But my guidebook also goes on and on about its unspoiled beauty….

Whatever. Why is my bag always the last one to get through the fricking carousel? And why is Cal laughing so hard at it? My bag is not funny. OK, I painted a Wondercat head on it. But that’s only because it’s a black rolly bag, and there are only five billion other black rolly bags that look exactly like it. At least I can tell mine apart from all the others at a distance of a hundred yards.

Plus, my bag’s not as big as HOLLY’s. I mean, I didn’t cram a wedding gown into MINE. Just because HE has this dinky little backpack, Mr. Jet-Set-Travel-Guy—

Oh, here’s the taxi stand, at LAST. I can’t WAIT to get to the hotel and take a nap. Even if it IS only ten in the morning here. I’m so TIRED….

What is that incessant BEEPING coming out of my bag? Not just MY bag either… EVERYBODY is beeping!