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The GPS information must be a decade out of date, and it sent me in circles...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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