I had to pay a visit to my phone operator last week since my iPhone was playing up by deciding to go blank without giving prior notice. Since I was due to leave Luxembourg on a short holiday the urgency of having a working iPhone was all the greater.
The company’s offices are in the centre of town and the usual überfriendly guy was still munching through his breakfast when I turned up at an unearthly hour of the morning. I announced my desperation at having had to live through almost twelve hours without easy access to such iPhone applications as the weather station, twitter and email on the go and rather than being met by the usual derisory comments reserved for technogeeks I got a dose of commiseration.
In fact Überfriendly Phone Company Guy turned out to be just as much of an addict and flashed his own iPhone for my perusal as he fixed my problem in under 15 seconds (In fact such “fixing” involved pressing two buttons contemporaneously for 15 seconds – I had stopped at 10 fearing the worst). Having solved my problem in record time we took to comparing the iPhone applications – those geeky little programs that have placed the iPhone light years ahead of competition.
You see, you can download almost any kind of app (short for application) on the iPhone and although I have not yet found one that makes the morning coffee I have found ones that, among other things, turn your phone into a compass, a spirit level, a bill splitter, a gaming arcade, a meteorological office, a portable bookshop, a spiritual guide, a keep fit guru, a quiz-box, a super-camera and much much more.
Meeting fellow iPhone geeks now unearths memories of those years of youth when exchanging Panini stickers was the norm. “Ghandi, ghandi, ghandi” (“I’ve got that one” thrice repeated) was the mantra of the collector that would be sung to one’s counterpart indicating ownership of most of the unwanted doubles that were being exhibited. In the case of the iPhone there is a sense of shared secret embarrassment as the weirdest of apps are unearthed and compared.
In fact the comparison soon becomes a mutual admission of the most useless purchase one has made. “Coming out” and openly admitting that geeky app hidden somewhere on your iPhone is an important step in the quasi-masonic world of iPhone users. Which is the stage Überfriendly Guy (henceforth to be known as UG) and I reached, at which point I whipped out my coup de grace – the iStethoscope – an application that supposedly can check your heart beat using your iPhone and a set of headphones. UG just smiled the sort of smile Brasilian footballers would smile at the Bolivian football team in any game played at a normal altitude and pointed to a button in the middle of his iPhone app collection. There it stood, seemingly innocuous with a couple of squiggly lines as its identifying logo.
What was it? What was the Big Squiggly Unknown on UG’s iPhone? I would soon get to know as UG activated it and set his iPhone flat on the table. The screen immediately changed to a white picture lined with straight parallel lines. A needle ran along these lines leaving a thick black mark and as UG banged on the table the needle went berserk leaving wider black marks… “You see”, UG remarked smugly “a seismometer on my iPhone”. He had won. He was the Guru of Geekness for the day. For, as we both agreed, when in hell would any of us ever find a seismograph useful?
Umbria and Tuscany
The next day I was on a plane to Pisa with my final destination being Mercatale di Cortona in the south of Tuscany bordering on Umbria. The idea was a six day holiday during which we would discover the pleasures of both regions taking in the scenery, imbibing the great wines and, above all, eat the wonderful foods of these culinary heavens on earth. Thank God for the iPhone without which I could not have browsed through the net at Pisa Airport and got out of an ugly situation involving three rejected credit cards through no major fault of my own. I must here thank my Maltese global bank for their extreme availability in reactivating a card that I had not used for ages and that had had a death sentence decreed upon it for the simple fact of having missed a monthly payment back in October.
Anyway, words of thanks are due to the guys working at the credit card answer phones who gave the lie to the myth that credit card companies are only a phone call away for assistance 24/7. It’s not that easy and the truth is that they are only at the other end of the line for comforting words of understanding and to inform you that you best call during business hours to solve your “problems”.
This could have meant sleeping at Pisa airport until monday morning notwithstanding the fact that there were enough funds in my respective accounts. Thankfully a resourceful, forward thinking planning had led to my carrying the right amounts of cash on my self. A furious negotiation and a considerable monetary guarantee later I was finally in my rental car heading south to the Umbrian border – land of wild boar sauces, truffled delicacies and the occasional glass of Montepulciano.
Having surprised whoever we had to surprise in the tiny village of Pienza (stunning), having toured the beautiful views of the Trasimeno lake (site of the great victory by Hannibal over the Romans)
and having dined on a wonderful supper Chez Mimmi in Mercatale (absolutely divine) we settled down in the first of our B&B’s – a charming outhouse that used to serve as living quarters for a tobacco grower. Next morning, the wake up call from our fellow travellers included the big question: had we heard about the earthquake yet?
Shocking
It turned out that as I was fast asleep snoring off the house wine and cinghiale a huge tremor had struck in Abruzzo – a region away, a few hundred kilometres away from Perugia (one of our planned visits) causing huge damage and probably many deaths. You know the story by now but to me, lost in the misty Tuscan morning with the sound of birds as the only signs of life this was a shocking piece of news. My mind did not immediately wander back to UG’s seismograph but you do get that little tingle down your spine when you notice how close to the epicentre of a major earthquake you were.
The signs in our area were minor. The chickens on the farms laid less eggs than usual but on the whole there were no horses going wild or dogs baying through the night as one would expect. I must confess that for the first few days of my holiday, cut off as I was from most forms of news, the full extent of the damage and scale was not clear to me. As I wandered from tiny village to tiny village completely entranced by the sights, sounds and tastes of this beautiful heart of Lo Stivale I was quasi-oblivious to the tragedy unfolding a few kilometres south-east to where I stood.
Even visiting such historic places as Assisi, Siena, and Perugia one is reminded of just how exposed to danger the regions of Italy are. If it is not an earthquake then it is a volcano, a flooding river or, in the case of Venice, the sea, that is threatening your existence. I had visited Pompeii when on another holiday and seen first hand the horrible reminders of a volcanic explosion. The roof of Assisi’s main temple was another stark reminder of the unquantifiable damage that can be caused to the cultural heritage.
Ground-Breaking
The trip back to Luxembourg gave me enough time to read and catch up with the news. Berlusconi’s government was doing its utmost to react in a timely and efficient manner to the crisis. Gone was the Presidente Internazionale full of swagger and bravado that we had witnessed during the G20 summits and here was a down-to-earth Presidente setting time-frames for recovery. I must say that although Berluska’s refusal of foreign monetary assistance was somewhat baffling, his handling of the early reaction was somewhat encouraging. As he had done with the Campania Rubbish Crisis, Berlusconi is intent on setting time frames for rebuilding and reconstruction. He is very wary of the diffidence of the people who have seen similar tragedies take ages to heal (think Florence in ’66, Irpinia in ’77 and Avellino in ’80) and tent villages that remain standing years after the tragedy is forgotten.
Berlusconi wants time frames for reconstruction and the opposition, disparate as it is, seems still intent on the sensational opportunism that is often engendered by bipartisan systems. The latest call is for Berlusconi to scrap the “Progetto Sul Ponte” and dedicate all resources to the rebuilding of L’Aquila and Abruzzo. There is a sense of lack of belief in what can be done and ironically it is coming from the supposed left side of Italian politics.
Don’t lay too much blame for their defeatism. They are discouraged by a system that allows faulty buildings (cheap cement and substitutes), that allows buildings in areas that have been declared unviable due to their being exposed to seismic shifts, that denies necessary funds to be dedicated to Rapid Reaction Planning and that ends up inaugurating a hospital in a region fully exposed to earthquakes that is absolutely inoperable the day after the first earthquake strikes. The story has a familiar ring to it. Friends of Friends taking the appalti (tenders) and delivering sub-quality structures not caring one bit about the people who live there. Politicians allowing such farces to happen either because this brings them the mazzette (backhanders) or the voti (votes). It’s sad really, but you really get to see how Italy is just another home away from home.
Under the Tuscan Sun
So I spent my run up to the Easter break in the hills and valleys of Toscana. The trip is highly recommendable. It is a pity that the best link to this region is run by FlyUnfair. The latest farce with FlyUnfair is the idea of adding checked luggage. I was worried that the extra sughi and aceti I had bought would bounce me into the FlyUnfair second tier of 15 euros per extra kilo. So I went online and tried to check in extra luggage.
You can. Of course you can. You can check in as many extra suitcases as you like at the added cost of 10 euro per item. What the FlyUnfair site does not tell you while you are punching in the credit card details under the false hope that you are thus gaining extra 15kg leeway is that the Total Combined Weight of All Your Suitcases can never exceed 15kg anyway. Thankfully I checked the FAQs in time and did not incur any extra useless costs. Really, the only reason I will go on using FlyUnfair is that certain connections are only reachable through them.
Ca’ di Gosto
Before I wish you a Happy Easter I have to share a wonderful secret with you. There’s a Bed and Breakfast carefully hidden in the hills close to Umbertide in the province of Perugia. It is a paradise on earth complete with farm animals, lovely places for walks and an interior décor that is absolutely stunning. David and Jenny who run the place are a charming couple. Their food is out of this world coming straight from the farm to your table. A good rental vehicle is strongly recommended for the visit (as is a good sense of orientation to find the place) but it is definitely worth the while. You can find a little corner of paradise right here: http://www.slowcooking.homestead.com. Trust me on this one.
Have a great Easter and take it easy on the food.
Jacques has been away from http://www.akkuza.com and will be away for a bit more for the Easter break. We’ll be back before you can download another iPhone app.
This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared in the Malta Independent on Sunday (12.04.09).
