Mission Statement

As Clare and I emerged from the terminal at NAP, I soaked in the reality that I was finally in Italy.  As I dragged on my smoke, I absorbed the people, the color, the noise, the warm, humid air and the Mediterranean winter light that Napoli was throwing at me.  It was good.

The HHI show, naturally enough, brought out the house hunters.  I differed from the rest of the crowd in that I wasn’t going to Guardia with the primary thought being to buy a house.  In order to trick myself into ignoring what can, at times, be crippling shyness, I blast into new environs with a mission objective.  More than one objective is always a good approach, that way if my primary mission fails I have one or more fall-back upon which I can rely.  Yes, of course, buying a remarkably-priced house was an attractive reason to go to Guardia, but it wasn’t a mission I could control and so, therefore, had to be eliminated as my Prime Directive (for all you Star Trek nerds).



My brother wanted a picture of an Italian
plug because...I really don't know why.



Here are my (repeatedly) stated mission objectives:

1.       Decompression – remove the weight of the WYE that was 2012.

2.       Photography – I’ve done photo expeditions of my own making before and they have always worked well.  This place was a natural.

3.       Reading – Like, an actual book.  Made of paper. 

4.       Writing – Not sure what, I just know it, along with Photography, are my passions, so it seemed like it deserved a place on the list.

5.       Buying a House.

See how the whole real estate thing is way down the list?  Being an American over there kinda makes people forget the first four on the list.  But, not in a bad way.  The best way I can describe it is that the beautiful woman that Italy was smiled at me from behind her sunglasses and said “yes”.  I kept saying “no, well…maybe..no, really” and she kept saying “yes”.  So, I fell in love and said “yes”.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

As we toddled away from Napoli in Clare’s “wee car” with the steering wheel on the wrong side, I couldn’t deny the feeling that this was what I signed up for.  The elevation grew, the temperature declined and Italy washed over me.  The closer we were to Guardia, the more relaxed I became, not really knowing or caring how much of what I was feeling was attributable to the beauty of southern Italy or the charm and unadulterated Scottish brogue of my host.



Guardia street near the Piazza Costello



The uncanny thing about my experience in Guardia Sanframondi is that everything was as I expected it to be, or, in many cases, better.  Intellectually, I had been almost preparing to be let down since nothing you see on TV can be that way in real life, right?  Guardia is just as I imagined it would be, I thought, as we arrived in what would become a familiar landmark, the Piazza Costello.  It was just a short walk down the cobble stoned streets from The Piazza Costello to Clare’s B&B, Arthouse Guardia.  The Piazza, the streets and the B&B were all featured in the TV episode and were all as presented!  This was starting well.

Along the way from the airport, Clare stopped by a local grocer to enable me to stock up on local toiletries, since mine were undergoing what was undoubtedly much-needed scrutiny by the Department of Homeland Defense, you know, for national security reasons.  Can’t just let any old collection of shampoo, deodorant and the ever-dangerous twin blade razors leave the county all willy-nilly, don’t ya know?  And, all that plaid flannel – obviously a security threat.

By the time I landed in Clare’s lovely B&B, I had been up for something like 28 hours – about 10 hours past my expiration date.  Even Clare’s cats mocked me as I attempted to make social conversation like someone who had just taken two hits of speed after drinking a quart of vodka.  It was only after an hour that I realized the cats didn’t speak English.  I think they were just being polite as they nodded their heads.

I was a nobody 6000 miles from home, but I had already been invited to my first social event in Guardia – a house-warming party for Laurie and her partner, Francisco – Americans from Los Angeles who had just purchased a place in the Centro Storico.  I wasn’t going to pass that up, but I needed sleep.  In the clothes I was wearing, of course, since Delta Airlines was throwing a lumberjack party with my favorite flannels in Detroit.   I just knew I’d get my beloved plaid friends back with stains from the pirogues and Faygo Redpop.  Bastards.

Light switch off.  Light switch on.  Just like the movies.  That was what a three hour nap was like as I awoke to a Scottish bird singing my name, alerting me to the scheduled social event.  It was odd that I was in Europe, but probably even stranger that I was attending a social event, but I felt completely comfortable just drifting on the river of life in Guardia.  It was not familiar to me, but felt right.  It was as if I fit immediately.  That feeling was only to grow over the next two weeks.



L to R: Clare, Me, Pasquale, Laurie, Francisco and Carlo.
Photo by Roberto



We exited Clare’s place and made the short walk to Laurie and Francisco’s to-be-christened house.  A really wonderful place with great bones, as so many of the Centro Storico homes are.  The magnificence of the house was only outshone by the warmth of those inside, not the least of which were the homeowners, Laurie Agard and Francisco Durazo.  They welcomed me like I was family, which was only the first of countless similar greetings I would be the beneficiary of during my too short stay.  In addition to Laurie and Francisco, I met Roberto Adame, Carlo Di Lonardo and Pasquale Orso. 

After a great discussion about the wonders of the new house, some champagne, some pictures and video, Clare and I made it back to the Arthouse Guardia, where I threw myself into the waiting arms of a comfy queen-sized bed.  In my clothes, you know, because…

"Who Does That?"

Not only did that August episode of HHI spotlight a really cool town that was a natural for someone with escapist desires like me, but during the episode it was revealed that Clare turned her home purchase into a B&B.  Thinking that I was very clever, I googled Clare Galloway and in an instant, I was connected with her Arthouse Guardia website.  I wasn't as clever as I thought, however, since I was about the 200th person to contact her, but I did manage to secure her B&B room for a two-week block in late December/early January.  I wouldn't be able to go to Ireland, but I was definitely not going to have to spend New Year's Eve on the left side of the Atlantic.

I told a friend what I had done and her response was the first indication that this could be a pretty unique experience.  She said: "So, let me get this straight - you watched a TV show, then contacted the person in that episode and now you're planning to fly halfway around the world and stay in her house?"  I replied: "Um, yeah, that's a fairly accurate summary."  With a look of bemused admiration, she blurted: "Who does that?"  "Well, apparently I do."  It never occurred to me that what I was doing was anything out of the ordinary - you know, everyone talks to people on the TV and goes to stay in their house, right?

Finally, departure day arrives.  The last week before my December 26th launch had been especially stressful, making sure everyone that needed a Santa got one and reading the copious number of postings that were now coming from my sister, brother, Step-Mom and Dad in Ireland.  I Just. Wanted. To. Go.  NOW!  After "Who Does That" dropped me at the George Herbert Walker Bush Number Forty-One International Intercontinental Airport (IAH), I started to feel the beginnings of a good, old-fashioned decompression.  My soul had started to dips it's toes into the nice, hot bath that this trip represented. Until Paris.

Another beautiful evening in Detroit.

The route was Houston-Detroit-Paris-Naples.  Extra points if you spot the one U.S. city you do NOT want to fly in or out of in December.  Yeah, my hometown, Detroit.  Leaving Houston was easy, but getting into DTW was a challenge, since they were still cleaning up from 6" of overnight snow.  And of course, what comes down with difficulty, goes back up with even more difficulty, so we were just about 90 minutes late leaving DTW for CDG.  No problem, since I had a reasonable almost-two hour layover in Paris and we were flying east, which meant a 150 mph tailwind, right?  Yeah, no.

I was actually looking forward to the DTW-CDG portion of the flight.  I had paid an unconscionable extra amount of money to get the first row in the cabin and after I brushed the snow off my seat and while we all waited for clearance to leave Detroit, I settled in to watch two the goings on amongst the stewardesses who were making a bit of a production out of the fact that two of their own would be making their final voyage.  There was the ceremonial presentation of the embroidered silk air sickness bag, pinning of a rather enormous rose, fashioned out of the finest 1-ply airplane bathroom tissue and of course, one bag of peanuts each.  That's one!  No more.  Not even for retirement. 

Except for the fact that I didn't sleep more than nine minutes on the trans-Atlantic flight, it was without any notable occurrences.  Even the old stewardesses took off their support hose, grabbed their afghan (which can also be used as a flotation device) and curled up with the Reader's Digest.

CDG Airport in Paris and the back of the Marquis De Air France.

I was nervous when we arrived at Charles Degaulle airport in Paris.  I knew time for my connecting flight to Naples would be tight and, of course, I had no earthly idea where to go when I bolted from the plane, but I was thrilled when I saw an Air France guy looking bored/almost annoyed holding a sign that said "Naples", presumably because he believed that Americans would walk right past him if the sign said "Napoli".  So, I was the first person in the "Naples, stand there" group and slowly our little band of Napoli-bound Detroiters grew to about ten.  When Bored Air France guy was satisfied that all of the Americans who were intelligent enough to figure out how to leave the plane had done so, he began to lead us through the airport.  And, when I say "lead", I mean he began walking as fast as an Olympic, um, really fast walking guy.  Keep in mind, that I am the guy that all my friends and family get mad at for "walking too fast", and yet I couldn't keep up.  I get why the 20-somethings in the group could keep up, but why, oh God why, were the old women keeping up better than me?  What kind of bizarre, alternate universe had I been transported to?  I wanted to hobble those smug old women as they power-walked further and further into the distance, knocking over orphans selling apples as they went.

Finally, the Marquis De Air France stopped at some sort of collection of glass-encased other bored French people.  He motioned to me to give my passport to one of his bored colleagues who looked at me, took a drink of wine, then stamped my passport with the traditional "go home" stamp.  Another short sprint and we finally arrived at the plane to Napoli.  I have a vague recollection of animal sacrifice and other general malaise on that flight, but, frankly, I was too traumatized to recall much of it.

Arriving in Napoli, my greatest challenge was in establishing contact with Clare, who had graciously offered to pick me up.  Numbers were exchanged, texts sent and that part of the plan was actually going well.  I texted "I'm here", she texted back "Trying to find parking", and I thought all was well.  OK, by now, you're waiting for it, aren't you?  Here you go:  Until it wasn't.

Some combination of Delta Airlines/Air France and/or Homeland Security acted alone or in concert to ensure that my suitcase would not arrive from the left side of the Atlantic to the right.  I, along with most of the other victims of the Marquis De Air France, now tried to communicate with a very nice Italian-speaking only lady the fact that all of our bags were missing.  When it was my turn, I started to make slogging progress.  She pointed to the form with the pictures of the different types of bags, I picked out mine and then somehow figured out that she wanted to know where I was staying in Italy.  I said "GUARDIA Sanframondi".  She looked puzzled.  I then showed her Clare's address on my iPhone and her eyes lit up: "Oh, GWADIA!"  And as if she had said the magic word, at that moment, inexplicably penetrating airport security, appeared Clare like a super-heroine, who blasted a few sentences off in brilliant Italian and we were done.  I sauntered through the door, met Clare and we stepped out into the midday Napolise sun.  Ahhhh, Italy!

No Ireland for you, Old Man!

Do you know how to tell that you're having an amazing adventure?  One way is that you don't have time to write about it!  I am a bit tardy starting this blog, but I've been having one hell of a time procrastinating!

In order to develop a full appreciation for how cool this all has been, I need to rewind a bit to last year.  Ah, yes, last year - 2012.  Worst. Year. Ever.  The more donkey manure that was thrown at me, the more I was positive that the Mayans had it right.  It's a drag to burden you with all the details, so let's just concentrate on two important events:  

First, after years of secret calendar checking, web surfing and conspiring with her big brother (me), my lovely sister finally put together the trip of a lifetime that involved taking my Dad and Step-Mother to The Motherland (Ireland).  When she called me in April and said that the plan was now rolling forward, I was excited to tell her that yes, of course, I would join them on the December trip. 

Now, it was my turn to surf the interwebs in search of that perfect flight, along with throwing suggestions to Sis about where we should stop along the way to our ancestral home, Sligo, County Sligo, in Free Ireland.  Since it doesn't take much to entertain me, I thought all of this was great fun.  Until it wasn't.  Around the 4th of July, I happened to look at the calendar for the rest of the year and realized that I was on-call at work through the 26th of December, meaning there was no way that I could board an international flight on December 20th, which was my sister's plan.  After uttering every curse word I knew in English, French, Spanish and Persian, I put on my best French accent and surrendered to the inevitability that I was not going back to Ireland this year.

Given the undulating, festering pile of guano that 2012 had become, however, I, like most mature adults who have a bad go of it, still had an irresistible urge to run away.  Somewhere.  Anywhere...

This is where we fall over Important Event Number Two.  There's this TV show called House Hunters International.  The premise is simple - each episode follows one person or family as they search for housing in a new country.  I love the show because of the high degree of escape-fantasy it fulfills in me.  Even though each show is basically the same formula, I love almost every episode.  So, here I am, relaxing late one night on a lawn chair in the garage, watching the contents of my DVR while flicking the ash from my cigarette into my forest green ashtray which was supported by extending the ratchet drawer of my Craftsman tool chest, when a new episode of HHI comes on.  This one featured a Scottish painter named Clare Galloway, who was relocating from Edinburgh to a little town in southern Italy so that she could improve the quality of her life - better food, better weather and cheap housing.  That little town was Guardia Sanframondi, in the Benevento region, not far from Naples.  I watched the episode intently.  Several times.  It was all there - architecture, food, great people, history, culture and no fat Americans wearing fanny packs and black socks with their sandals.  BAM!  Off to the internets go I!