Sunday, July 15, 2012

Hamtackle Abroad: pt2

Well I have escaped the urban nightmare that is Rome and left the heat and humidity with it. Now after another day of last-minute train travel and stress I have reached the tuscan villa just outside of the city of Ponsacco, but is it everything I was hoping it would be? Unfortunately, not really.

 

Here we see the ouside entertaining area. Sure the view is magnificent, and there are hardly any other homes in sight, and the only dirt road leading to it is behind three gates, but just look at the state of it! They tell us the canopy is hand painted and imported from Morocco... I mean, what the fuck were they thinking? Here I am expecting a relaxing break from the tuscan sun and you are telling me that I have to drink wine and eat fresh locally-grown tomatoes with homemade mozarella under a fucking MOROCCAN canopy? False advertising, to say the least.

 

And here is the living room leading into my bedroom. Would you believe that the upstairs is the ONLY part of the villa with air conditioning? Of course the weather is superb and the sound of the birds and gentle breeze rolling over the olive trees and vineyards is extremely pleasant, and I would certainly prefer the open double doors and shudders to the boxed-in feeling upstairs, but when I ask for luxury that means AIR CONDITIONING! Fucking europeans don't know comfort.

 

And here we have the state-of-the-art kitchen, complete with stainless steel appliances, marble table, three refigerators, and restaurant-quality meat slicer. What, are they expecting me to slave away in the kitchen all day? I guess they did stock the fridges with pre-prepared pastas and sauces, fresh produce, local wine and beer, and a delicious selection of cheese and dairy, but I don't like being under all this pressure to cook over the weekend until the staff returns Monday afternoon and the master chef gets back to preparing our meals. Our hosts are treating us like fucking savages.

 

And here we have the pool. Have you ever seen anything so depressing in your life? It's not even heated!! The few times I swam it may have been a perfectly refreshing temperature, and makes a sublime retreat from the warm surroundings, but it is only 8 feet deep! I am 6'4 and that means if I go diving off the board I might scrape my face on the bottom. Unacceptable.

 

And how's this for a slap in the face? The property sits opposite a 16th century Medici family castle that is just bearing down on us! So now every time I look out my window I have to be reminded of exactly how much better the whole experience could be. When I am trying to enjoy my meager taste of the high life I don't want some castle-dwelling assholes looking down on me! I mean, I came here to escape the everyday shithole I live in, not to find out I upgraded to a slightly less shitty hole.

 

And can you imagine my disappointment when I found this awesome bookcase stocked with reading material for my week long getaway and I discovered that all the books are in fucking italian?!? What, do the think anyone but americans are going to be renting this property? The fact that they made no additional adjustments to cater to their clientele just makes me sick. Guess I'll just have to read one of the dozens of books loaded in my ipad! Bullshit.

 

I was also thrilled to see that there were a set of billiard balls at my disposal! So I ran all over the place looking for a pool table and guess what... The fuckers forgot to put one in the villa! God damn it, people, how big of an asshole do you have to be to get my hopes up for a game of pool and then pull the rug out from under me by forgetting the table? Sick bastards.

So I guess the next week won't be all I had hoped it would. All the 5 star meals and lovely weather is only going to piss me off more, and don't even get me STARTED about the church bells that ring through the valley on a regular basis! Oh well, I will have to try to make the best of it. Until next time I'll just say "champagne disappointments and caviar nightmares!"

 

-

 

No comments:

Post a Comment