Laetitia and I drove across to Napoli this morning to pick up Carla and got back to the house a couple of hours ago. Long day. We left at 10:00am and got to the airport at 11:40; swapped out our rental car for a different one because our air conditioning was not working and of course because it’s Italy, that was a hassle. The guy insisted the air conditioner worked because the fan came on—he could not seem to grasp the topical point which is that the air was just blowing from the outside with no chilling effect. It was working and then it just stopped suddenly. We agreed to disagree but got a different car anyway. It is abnormally hot here; around 93 degrees today. Shannon, Terri, and Onah went to the beach which was probably a good call. We did stop in Ravello on the way back and had a terrific lunch on top of the mountain. Ravello is a beautiful little town with iconic views of the Mediterranean, the olive and lemon trees, grapevines and houses that are stuck to the sides of the mountain. Carla and I had beautiful tuna steaks and Laetitia had a nice pasta—we shared a caprese salad and had cold beer to offset the heat although we had a nice breeze open the deck.
We received Shannon’s luggage at 12:20am Friday night along with one of Terri’s bags. The other bag came Sunday morning.
We had a lovely lunch and a stroll through Amalfi yesterday. It is about a 1km hike straight down to town–maybe around 1,000 steps of so. So a tough hike back up. We took a taxi instead as we had a lot of groceries and wine and are still recovering from the travel.
Group dynamics are in full swing here. I usually travel alone and so am not used to consensus decision making or waiting on people to get organized. Sjoerd and Onah also travel alone. Everyone has their view of the world and thoughts about what to do and when; what time they want to get up in the morning and how to get around and yada, yada, yada. It always sorts itself out and we have fun, but sometimes a little bruising in the planning. Now most of us are gathered on the deck waiting on a few others so we can drive up the hill for dinner. We will eat most dinner meals in but because today is Sunday most of the shops closed early and so we could not get meat or fish. So we will shop tomorrow and cook. Last night Laetitia made Poulet Basquiez which was great. Of course also wine and cocktails.
I did not sleep well. In fact, went to sleep only at 5:30 or thereabouts. And got up on 9:00. So was a bit tired all day
The Martini Tales 
Good job brother!
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