Thursday, July 17, 2014

Blogger's Notebook


The streak has officially ended—at one.  While it fell just short of matching Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak (which ironically ended on this date 73 years ago), we watched it with interest and anticipation night after night.

The streak involved Shelley’s attempt to pay for dinner each night using our Discover credit card.  Discover has been the card of choice because, unlike other credit cards, there isn’t a surcharge for using it, whereas VISA charges 3% each time. So every night after dinner Shelley pulls out the Discover, and with the exception of a couple of times right after we arrived, the response every night after the server runs it through the machine is that the restaurant doesn’t take Discover. When Shelley called customer service after it was denied the first time, the service rep made it sound like there must be something wrong with the restaurant, but subsequent calls turned up the truth-- Discover is trying to break into the market in Italy (or maybe Europe).  Anyway, the other night we were pleased that Discover went through no questions asked at the restaurant where we were dining, but the streak has ended.

We leave Lucca in less than a week, which is hard to believe, and have company coming later today for the weekend, so I’m using the cheap trick journalists use when they have nothing to write about.  I’m using this post to empty my notebook with some random things I’ve noticed on the streets of Lucca.

            --Among the stores on Via Fillungo are a couple that might be found in any suburban American mall, FootLocker and GameStop.

            --Another store on the same street pays homage to American culture.  It is the Generale Lee, named for the car from The Dukes of Hazzard.  Bo, Luke, Cousin Daisy, and Boss Hogg were apparently mainstays of Italian television at one point, because I’ve also seen a Dukes of Hazzard t-shirt in a souvenir store.  It’s good to know that much of the world gets its information about what America is really like through our cultural exports.

            --The most famous shop on Via Fillungo appears to be closed. Di Café Simo was the long-time hangout for Lucca’s intellectual and artistic elite, and the place where Puccini went for his daily coffee.

            --The most interesting place on Via Fillungo is right around the corner from our apartment, and is not a store.  It’s the Museo della Tortura, the Museum of Torture.  I thought about going in so I could write a blog post about it, but we’ve walked past it numerous times, seen only a couple of people go in—and no one coming out.  I’ll put it on the to-do list for our next trip.

            --When we were in Rome I wrote about the street musicians.  In Lucca there was a street musician the other day playing cello.

            --The other evening, we passed the Lucca centurion who poses for pictures with tourists (the one painted in white, not the one in Rome talking on his cell phone).  He was engaged in conversation with a guy who looked like he might be homeless, but was taking off his helmet and apparently calling it a day without regard for the fact that he was standing in the middle of Piazza San Michele, at the busiest intersection in town.

            --The same evening we saw a new twist on bicycling in the streets of Lucca, a new variation on the tandem bike.  Twice we saw someone riding one bike and steering another bike at the same time.  I'm hoping they were returning two bikes to a bike rental place.

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