Wow I met ross!!

At the canadian grand prix

Busted by the Polizia in Italy

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Well, I wish I hadn't complained about the trip to Maranello, because the trip back was even worse... but at least I got a good story or 2 out of it.

After dining at Cavallino and farting around the museum, I set out back to my beachfront flat in Nice, France. I set the GPS to "shortest time" and figured it would be smooth sailing. WRONG!

The GPS information must be a decade out of date, and it sent me in circles... I MEAN: LITERALLY IN CIRCLES! Not cute little 10th of a mile circles, but big 15 mile circles. "Hey, haven't I been here before?".

If I heard "Make an authorized U Turn" once more I was about to lose my mind. So of course, I heard it again, "Make an authorized U-Turn", unfortunately this was directly before a toll booth. There were no cars around, and it was completely safe to do so, so I flipped a crazy-ivan and headed back for another version of the 15 mile trip to nowhere. ...at one point I burst out in laughter when I heard the lyrics on the radio "...right back where we started from". Holy crap!



Then the sick comedy increased, I got pulled over by the Polizia. They spoke almost no english. But they eventually made clear they wanted beer money, on the spot or they claimed they were going to seize the car.

"Follow us." "...ummm, ok." After 5 km or so we pull back over, and have the identical conversation. They let me know that Today's my lucky day: they're gonna do me a favor and let me go for 76 euros instead of seizing the car + charging me several thousand Euros, and according to some book they kept waving in my face, 6 months in jail(all this for an illegal U turn???). Um, gee, such a deal!

At no point was I nervous, they were doing the nervous act for me. They were young guys who were clearly shaking me down for money that was going to go straight into their pocket, and they seemed scared of being called out. I was friendly, polite, non-threatening. We smiled a lot and even laughed and joked around, but they still wanted money.

They were not openly confrontational. The closest they got to that was "If I [commit a violation] in United States, [I] must pay or go [to] Jail, yes? Why not you".

I decided to play along and see how this would play out rather than just forking the Euros over.

With patience and a lot of time I was able to communicate that I had only limited cash, and was using my employers American Express card for expenses and that I did not have a PIN for the AMEX. All of this was true, but I did not volunteer that I had another VISA, an ATM card, or that "my employer" is a company I own. I also actually had enough cash on me to cover the 76Euros, but was not going to volunteer that information either.

"You follow please!"

"Here I am following again". Where is this headed? This time while driving I remove all my other credit cards and all but 40Euros from my wallet and hide it in a suitcase. I call my friend Ed: "Ed, can you google what you're supposed to do when the Polizia are shaking you down for money? I remember reading about it in a travel guide but forget what to do".

He has a few laughs at my expense, texts me some phone numbers. "Where are they driving you?", he asks"

"To an ATM"

[uncontrolled laughter]

After driving 20 minutes we get to the ATM, I hang up on Ed, and I go in to make what I know will be [and want to be] a futile attempt to extract funds. I then invite one of the cops in to see that I'm trying. He looks disappointed but seems understanding and is becoming bored. He calls the bank tellers from inside over. He asks them if there is any way to get money out of the AMEX but they tell him there isn't. He's clearly flirting with them, and everyone is laughing and having a good time (mostly at my expense). I'm thinking: this is great, OMG, I'm going to get away with this charade... I'm going to get away for zero dollars!

Just then a blushing young teller who has been quietly smiling at me for 10 minutes emerges from the bank into the secured ATM closet area outside the bank. The cop tells me "She wants to pay for you". "Um, what?"

WTF?!??!?!?

"No no, please don't," I beg. That's very kind, but no, I can't accept it".

Oh no, she thinks she's doing the american boy a favor, but she's screwing up my charade. I can't believe what I'm seeing: She take the money out and hands it to the cop. I then gleaned from their conversation that the cop has just told her "You know he has a american girl, right?". She turns white, and all the other tellers start cackling with laughter (this time at her expense, for a change).

The cop rips up the ticket (I assume that's what it was), poses for a picture and is off to spend the teller's money.

As soon as he is gone, I break the news to my new italian fan. "Um, you are so sweet, and generous, but you ruined my plan sweetheart. I have the money, I just didn't want to pay it!" The roaring laughter returns to the hen-house...er, I mean--- BANK.



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Lunch at cavallino.

where enzo used to eat lunch.

wow an f1 car testing on track now!

Who says u can't take pics at the Ferrari factory

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It wasn't as hard to get up in the morning as I thought it would be after such a long day and very little shut-eye. My alarm rang out on the Treo and I was pretty much ready to get moving. I headed down to the complementary breakfast, what a spread!




Italians sure know how to eat! I took my time sipping a capaccino and headed over for the tour. Actually I arrived 5 minutes late ("za tipicol american, no?") and the tour had left without me (!), so I never actually got told the rules, which apparently includes RULE #1.

RULE #1: No cameras

They put me on the Ferrari red bus with the italian speaking tour and shouted into walky talkies about "the american..." "the american...". After entering the main part of the factory they synced me up with the english speaking tour, who were waiting for me. I was holding a small camera in my hand when I synced up with them and immediately one of my fellow tour mates ratted me out and started screaming "he's got a camera, he's got a camera". The tour guide couldn't be bothered but I put that camera away to shut Poindexter up, and I promptly pulled out another one (my cellphone). I mentally made a note to have Poindexter pose for a shot with me later in front of Romeo&Juliet (the couple of valve seating robots that uses liquid nitrogen), but the rat slithered away before I could trap him. haha. I did shoot some video of R&J though. Hell, if it's been on National Geographic, I don't think it's a company secret. I later fessed up to one of the others, as I was snapping a shot, and she said something to the effect that she just thought I was some jerk who "was checking text messages during the tour" (which I was also doing, btw).

The tour was pretty neat. The robots involved in engine assembly were impressive to me, as were the painting process, and the leather interior assembly (all women working there).

As we moved around, numerous Ferraris could be spotted and heard darting around the internal factory roads and parking lots at a respectable speed and RPM. We spotted black test-mule car a couple times, which was rumored to be one of the upcoming "Dino" baby ferraris. I was not able to get a picture before it was out of view.





After the tour, other members of the tour who were following the rules were returned their cameras. A guy outside was taking delivery of his 430.



And it was lunchtime, so the factory emptied out into the street. Most of the employees went into a building behind Restaurante Cavallino.



I spent the rest of the day soaking up Maranello. The shops, the test track. A Ferrari F1 car was on the track (mostly when I was out of seeing distance), but I did grab some video.

There was plenty of F1 noise to go around though, as the engines run on a dyno/simulator in a building between Planet Hotel and Fiorano pretty much nonstop during the day. It took me a second to figure it out but you can clearly hear an F1 car going up and down through the gears, but they are not moving and there's no doppler effect.

I attempted to find a crappy Italian wine, but even a 1.5 Euro bottle was extremely good.

That night I had dinner at Montana's, near the test track, where the F1 team eats regularly. I didn't spot anyone I recognized (although a few distinguished looking gentlemen had me thinking "I bet you're someone famous that I don't recognize...")

My good friend Dennis had advised me to tell the waiter to feed me, without overly constraining the menu choices. This was great advice. The food kept coming and it was superb.

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Made it to ferrari country

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No rest for the wicked... After a long day partying at the track I had to get on the road to Maranello for a tour of the Ferrari factory. 10am the next day. I packed up the unidentified turbo diesel rental, a GPS of pure evil, and a liter of coca cola, and headed for the open road. More on the evil GPS later.

My rental car had plenty of pep, handled well at high speed (unless there were bumps) and it barely sipped gas. The big problem was that the headlights were terribly out of adjustment. At anything over 50km you were basically flying blind unless you had high beams on. The Autostrada was fun. For the first couple hours Ferraris, Lambos, and Porsches were flying by me, while I hovered mostly around a pedestrian 160-175kpm.

After a while I got hungry. Wow, my friend Ed was completely right about the Italians having delicious food at gas stations. I stopped around 2am at a highway stop. A tall beautiful italian woman, who always repeated herself twice to make up for an extremely thick accent served me some kind of combination pastry/pizza/bread hybrid which was warmed in a GeorgeForman grill type contraption. "You want toasted - You want toasted?". "Si! Graci!". It was delicious and probably 2000 calories per bite.

Without realizing it my GPS was set to shortest distance, which meant I soon was taken off the highway straight into the alps, complete with death defying hairpins and cliffs. Those who watch the Tour de France, can picture it. A grin came over my face as I pushed the rental car as hard as I dared. Really fun... for an hour... and then... not so fun.

Long story short, what I thought would be a 4 hour drive turned into 7. Average speed through the alps approximated average speed of some bicycle races I've been in. I grew tired of the turns and then I just grew TIRED, VERY VERY TIRED. For a little while I sped back up to my hard-as-I-dare pace, just to keep me awake. That worked for another 15 minutes, but then I caught myself in the very bad combination of dozing off at the apex of corners at hard-as-I-dare pace. NOT GOOD AT ALL!

I arrived at Hotel Planet just as the sun was coming up. The JSuite (with a view of Ferrari's testing track), is a beautiful 2-floor room, with a huge balcony right above the entrance to the factory and Cavallino restaurant.

They were expecting me (hours earlier actually). The man at the desk simply asked my last name and immediately put me on the elevator with a keycard without any of the usual paperwork, confirmation numbers, or hunting-n-pecking on the computer that we've all become accustom to (tolerant of?). Very nice, I wish more hotels would de-automate to save time!

The room has some kind of smart-power thing that confused the crap out of me at first. The lights automatically shut off unless you put your card in a slot (and sometimes they do anyway).

Off to bed for a few hours and back up for the tour.

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Race Day

Race Day

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11am, I still haven't left for the track today. It's nasty and raining out, which, while great for racing, will suck for getting to and from the train. ...I've got Eugene on my cellphone, I might need another balcony. . It’s temping just to watch on TV, it’s easier to understand what’s going on and I won’t get wet. I think I'll call about tickets after they start the installation lap. ;-) That's how we do F1 glamour on a budget, Puff style.

Well, I planned on being late for the start…but maybe not this late. The trains just aren’t coming.

Finally they put a new train on the track and everyone rushes over. There is plenty of seating, but they’re not exactly rushing to get moving.

As always happened on this trip it was easy to strike up conversation with interesting people. Students from Brazil, Ireland. Even some NASCAR fans attending the F1 race on their honeymoon. Their idea of fun was cheap vodka in a coke bottle and watching cars run in circles for 5 hours in the blazing heat (at least I could relate to the first part).

The train finally roll in leisurely just after the start. Some other Ferrari gents from the US invited me to join them at table near the Casino, so I decide to venture over there, first. I get turned around, and can’t get where I want to be. I’m wasting time walking….

I bought a poncho, so of course the rain has completely stopped, so this is good. I venture up high where I was for practice to try and get a bearing for what is going on in the race. There is now a security checkpoint where there hadn’t been one before. (No matter, if you are determined to get a good few for free, just walk AROUND the check point near the water. It’s a long walk, but you can head right back to the security checkpoint from the other side. WARNING, as the name implies, the nice view “up high” involves a lot of walking up hill. If you’re not used to moving further than the buffet table, this might not be the plan for you.)

I return to start finish. Security at the door knows me and I’m allowed to pass without a ticket. SWEET! DUH, why didn’t I do this before?

Now I’m set. Sure, I don’t have a balcony and the food/beverages isn’t quite to the level as yesterday, but who care, now I’m even CLOSER to the cars!!! It feels like they are driving straight through one eardrum and out the other. WOW! The atmosphere, believe it or not, is somewhat rowdy. And, as before “everyone is friends in Monaco”. A few drinks later my new best friends are from Holland. A tax lawyer who resembles Flavio Briatore, both in appearance and action, has semi-adopted me as part of his drunken start/finish family. He introduces me to his wife, and then he introduces me to his girlfriend (NO, I AM NOT KIDDING. This guy’s game is tight. haha). He’s just ordered a 575, and his friend has just ordered a 430 Spider (and when I say “just”, I got the feeling it was that very day). The list of cars in the guys stable was as impressive. A slew of Porsches, Mercedes, and Aston Martins, apparently the dude buys a car per month.

The crowds in K are obscuring the view of the bigscreen, so I’m completely lost what’s going on (this happens to me in Montreal too). I ask a few people and realize, nobody knows what lap we’re on, nobody cares… everyone is wasted. Haha. Ok, I can roll with that. Mr. DC needs more of the red vino stuff… or white, who cares.

;-)

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retard means what?

the train schedule is calling me names now.

Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying

Ok, first off here's a little secret confession to the blog-o-sphere. I started this blog on the train from Nice to Monaco on my phone. But here's the thing-- since I don't know any French I'm hopeless in buying my train ticket and it's always a mad dash to make the next train before it leaves. I initially was told I could pay on the train. But I can't figure out how to pay, so now... I just ... DON'T PAY. Ever. Schweew, feels good to have that off my chest, I'm a Euro-rail thief, I'll burn in hell for it I'm sure.

So then, here I am, at Monaco for qualifying without a ticket, and pretty much without a clue. I only _START_ talking to scalpers with qualifying a mere 30 minutes away. But I must admit --I love a buyers market. I can taste the blood in the water. Said to a scalper: "Dude, let me remind you: this ticket will be worth precisely zero in a few minutes"). Met a decent gent from Poland, let's call him "Eugene". He had a few seats in the private stands in front of the wine shop at start finish. He was nice enough to actually walk me to the stands, and show me the layout (buffet style food, a few tables to eat at). It was a great location at start/finish. His asking price was either 160euros or 130, I wasn't clear, but no matter, I was planning on getting an even better deal.

So, we haggled a little bit and I pointed out that the stand he showed me (101) was not the same as on the ticket he offered (103), and that 103 was pretty crowded. He acknowledged and asked his boss (the owner of the wine shop, it turns out) if I could sit in 101.

After some back and forth the proprietor lost his patience with both of us a bit. In, what I assume was his best Soup Nazi voice, he barked: "You want best seat in house? Balcony, VIP service, champagne, 5 course meal, blah blah... 200Euros!!" ["No soup for you!!!"] So that's the deal. More than I planned to spend, but this was gonna be well worth it!

I couldn't believe my luck, and I was a little shell shocked, as it was happening pretty fast. I went from one of the many peasants scrounging for loose change to pay for a crappy official grandstand ticket (starting around 180 euros for cheap/crappy seats), to being whisked away by 2 beautiful hospitality girls to the 3rd floor balcony.

Yup, once I was paid up, we skated effortlessly through not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 busy security checkpoints without even flashing the ticket, all while people stood in lines at the same check points. Then we took an elevator labeled "VIP hospitality only". (Holy crap, holy crap!) The only source of delay was that the hospitality girls (I forget their names), knew everyone, and the time for 2 girls to kiss everyone on both cheeks starts to add up.

Once on the 3rd floor, I interrupted the beginning of a 5 course meal, I was offered a seat and introduced to my balcony-mates: 4 swiss-germans who knew how to party, (um, sorta). They were polite and friendly, with only a tasteful hint of condescension thrown in for good measure. "Hey VashingtoonDCee... do you guys know the difference between vhite and red vine?". "Um, yeah, zip it and keep pouring".

Anywho, the sites and sounds from the balcony were as amazing as expected. I was right above the Johnny Walker banner after the start finish banner. The view extended from the exit of Rascasse through start/finish, Sainte Devote was just to my left, then up the hill, the cars disappeared for a bit and re-emerged out of the tunnel, and could be seen until the chicane, where the view was partially obstructed, but you could still tell what was going on all the way back to Rascasse. TV on the hill was in plain view.

I heard more than once this weekend "Everyone is friends in Monaco". It's true, we had a great time, and I'm never one to shy away from trading barbs, especially from a 6'4" blond, cheese-loving... OH THAT REMINDS ME-- the cheese! I've never seen anyone so excited about cheese. I actually took pictures of them taking pictures of cheese, because they were sooooo losing their shit over it. I mean there was nonstop caviar, fois gras, shrimp and free booze everywhere you looked. (yes it was hard for puff to pretend not to be impressed by the free booze). But these guys completely lost it when the cheese plate came. Apparently it was very nice/expensive stuff, they tried to educate yours truly, Mr. VashingtonDC.

..but all I could think was "yea, yea, whatever, I smell feet".

vip means puff will be drunk shortly.

Holy crap

I have a vip balcony at start finish!!

trains

here's a secret confession to the blogosphere. Since I don't know any french I'm hopeless in buying my train ticket. I can't figure out how to pay, so... I DON'T pay. Ever.

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The country is smaller than central park, but it's more peaceful and tranquil, even with F1 chassis screaming around every which way. Every square inch of this hilly principality is manicured, you could basically throw a dart at a map of Monaco and wherever it lands, is probably a nice place to have a picnic. Even the beach has been tamed... complete with the same type of ladders that swimming pools have.

Upon arriving, I expected to buy a ticket from a scalper, but the views just from the free spots are so amazing. The key is to go high, not low, and not stick with the crowds. From above you have views into the pits, of the straights out of the tunnel, chicanes, it's great. If you're adventurous you can climb the walls and get even more interesting views. You can see the majority of the track (can any other F1 venue claim this, even from grandstand spots?) and there are plenty of big screens around.

What an experience. Can't wait for qualy. Hmm, I have a line on a VIP ticket for Sunday... should I do it?

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This place rocks!

Well, the long rainy trip was worth it. The place on the beach in Nice is everything is was supposed to be, and it's fast and easy to get to Monaco. I actually had a helicopter flight booked in to Monaco tonight but will have to cancel it... I'm just too tired. I'll go tomorrow for F1 practice.

Weather is great here. The rain really sucked on the way here. We spent lots of time on the tarmac at both BWI and JFK. At JFK at one point the pilot said "only 25 more planes ahead of us and then we'll be taking off". Amazingly we made up over an hour of delay "in the air". We experienced some impressive turbulence... passengers were literally screaming out in terror. I enjoyed it, turbulence is fun.

Next to me on the flight was the director of No Subtitles Necessary ( and here) which was selected to premier at Cannes. The film in a documentary about the great boom of Hungarian directors (which produced Close Encounters, Easy Rider, Deer Hunter, etc.) Great guy to talk to. He was also kind enough to extend an in invite for the screening and the afterparty tomorrow. What luck!

Driving in Nice is a love/hate proposition for me. I love how nutty it is (scooters will pass each other on the side walk 3 abreast), but parking is the stuff of nightmares. I first rented a turbo charged Fiat, which I liked, but it was too big to park in Old Town, Nice, so I traded it for something I can't even identify. ;-) HINT: It has a logo that looks like how you draw seagulls in the distance in a sunset.

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beautiful day to travel!

Live Webcam of Monaco

...40 hours or so till I head to Europe.

What's so special about the Monaco Grand Prix

Big boats, billionaires, and babes aren't enough to get impress you? Watch F1 drivers over many years manhandle cars around this same tight historic street circuit: http://tinyurl.com/5pz24z.

I've also added these videos compiled by f1-togo.com with some others in a youtube playlist.

Puff Google maps

I leave Tuesday, I'm so excited. I've already received so much help and advice from the Ferrari guys here in the US and in Europe.

On google maps I've flagged a few locations from my itinerary.

More geekagetry soon....

Ferrari factory tour

...and after Monaco I really am visiting the Ferrari Factory in Italy the next Monday. Mama-mia, somebody pinch me!

Monaco

...yes I really am going for the f1 race next week.