Back for Another Round of Italian Cocktails

No matter how much fun I have on a trip to Italy, I am always happy to get home. This time, of course, I returned home to my TV show, which makes it possible for me to relive all the experiences. This trip was not only great, but also contained experiences never before experienced by me, being a "celebrity". Of course I do not consider myself anything more or less than what I've been for the past 64 years, but just whisper to someone the two magical words "Alan's Italy" and doors open, mouths become agape, and the world stands still !!! There is a big difference between Laura and I going into a restaurant and having dinner, paying the bill, and leaving and first telling the waiter that I am thinking of putting the place on my show. All heck breaks loose ! Not only is this true for proprietors of places, but also for the local diners. Case in point: Rome on our last day in Italy. A family of four at the next table found it remarkable that they were sitting next to someone who does a TV show on cable access, and spent most of the next 2 hrs being very admiring. I, of course, view all this in a very levelheaded and reasonably humble manner. I did an interview with them which we video taped, and promised them they would be on some future show, which I certainly will do. In all we did quite a few videotaped interviews with many people and groups from restaurant and hotel owners to people we met in restaurants. We even made some new friends, taped a food preparation demo by Giuseppe at La Spada in Florence, interviewed the owners of the Hotel Royal Victoria in Pisa, Nicola Piejaya, and the Hotel Duomo in Orvieto, Gianni. We spent considerable time with our friends in Alto Lazio, Orvieto, Figline Valdarno and Florence, saw some amazing new things (and some old things), had fabulous food, and came home with about 20 potential TV shows. I did the show on the Dolomites last night reliving experiences we had in 2007 and 2009 traveling through the mountains of northern Italy. The show was out together before we left assuming that I might be too jet lagged to do any serious show preparations. I just basically picked up with Show # 21, where I left off with Show # 20 three weeks earlier. This show featured stunning photos of the mountains, a video of one of the great hotels at which we ever stayed, and a highlight of one of my favorite museums, the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology dedicated to displaying the remains, clothing, and tools of the world's "oldest" man, Otzei a frozen corpse found thawing in the northern mountains of Italy just south of the Austrian border. After a decades long dispute between Austrian and Italian officials, the 5300 year old copper age individual named after the region of the Alps in which he was found was placed in a museum which has only one client, Otzei. Retracing how he lived, died, and survived as a mummified corpse for 5300 years is absolutely fascinating. So the Show on The Dolomites is there now for everyone to see on Youtube, complete with my brief summary of my 20th trip (Laura's 13th) to Italy, and my promise to show everything over the course of the next year. This morning my good friend asked me the question asked to me probably over a 100 times, "don't you ever want to go anywhere else besides Italy ?" Well, duuuuuuhhhhh !!! If ya have to ask, then you just would probably never understand anyway !