Our warp drive is damaged Captain!

Today marks the beginning of the "Edward Jones" portion of the trip.  Let me tell you, the pace is VASTLY different from what we were doing!  It's like flying at Warp speed in the Enterprise and the powerrr goes out, leaving you to cruise at a gentle pace.  We got to "sleep in" this morning (2pm is sleeping in for me) and we all had breakfast out in the kitchen/dining area.  Our host, Antonio, had arranged for us to have breakfast from 8:30 to 10:00.  Jeni and Doran were in the kitchen at 9:00 and he still wasn't down there so they decided to make themselves an Espresso.  Having owned a coffee shop, they clearly knew their way around a coffee machine so Doran did his first.  When Jeni was in the middle of hers, Antonio came down and got very mad that she was doing that.  But what we didn't really get is that maybe he was mad that HE wasn't able to serve us and not that they were using the machine themselves.  You just never fully know!  After breakfast and listening to Doug's video taping of Wendy sleeping (to document how "bad" her snoring was) we packed the Mondeo up for the last time and started our "quick jaunt" to Sorrento.  It was supposed to only be a 20 min drive that turned into at least an hour and a half due to traffic jams, city driving and general parking disorder.  I could never own a car in this country, unless I lived outside the city and NEVER needed to go to the city.  People park right next to someone that is already parked against the curb, not only leaving them with no way out but also blocking another lane of the street!  It's so messed up and just throws traffic completely out of whack.  We all cheered upon our arrival to The Hilton Sorrento Palace, elated to be in a more permanent space.

We checked in and our room has a great view of the water and the hills/mountains!  It was a bit overcast today so it wasn't as nice as it will be if it ever clears up.  The entire trip so far, Wendy and I had been noticing in the showers that there are these strings coming out of a plate in the wall and when you pull them they don't do anything.  Not until we got to Pompeii did this change and we discovered a buzzer went off when we pulled it this time.  We all figured it was the "I've fallen and I can't get up" string.  Well, the one here in The Hilton says ALARM right underneath the plate in the wall.  Curious George, I mean Doug, decided he wanted to find out what it did anyway!!  Everyone reading can guess that an alarm in the room went off and the phone rang immediately, the front desk asking if everything was alright.  We said yes and got it shut off, crisis averted.  Jeni and Doran brought up some "welcome mimosas" that all the Jones folk received after check-in and told us they were going down to the indoor pool.  Before we went down there, we checked out the rest of the hotel and Wendy had come up before us.  When Doug and I got up to the room, it was dark and Wendy said that when she got up there, the now famous alarm went off again.  She told us that she snapped a picture of the room and right at that instant, the alarm went off.  I told her that there is no photography in the room, as it was built and designed by an extremely famous architect and that's why it went off.  Doug and I chuckled quietly as she was buying into my ruse.  Finally Doug and I were cracking up and it was obvious to her then that I was yanking her chain and we all had a good laugh about it.  The pool was amazing!!  It was 3 stories underground with Fresco paintings all around and 3 story high cliffs with vines and plants growing on it.  The first thing I did was to climb up on to some part of them and "cliff jump" off, it was only 15 ft max though and the pool wasn't even 6 ft deep so I could only jump instead of truly dive.  We spent the better part of 3 or 4 hours in there I think until we decided we had had enough laughter and horsin' off.  Some of us napped for an hour before the Welcome Dinner started and some us are still napping and didn't get the rental car back in time.  The Welcome Dinner was tasty as usual, with a great pasta dish, Lasagna and Sea Bass for the main courses and some grilled veggies, octopus anitpasto and some Sweet Berry Mousse!!  They say you're supposed to spit it out but....no way hosay!!  Tastes like fruit!  (We've been quoting the Sweet Berry Wine sketch by John C Riley from the Tim and Eric Awesome Show all trip long and it still has legs!)  Afterwards we tried to figure out internet service, 88 Euro for a full week is the best deal available but that is still ridiculous!!  That puts it somewhere around $120 for only a week of wireless internet, that is more than the bottle of wine I bought in Montalcino!  But my body was starting to shake from Facebook withdrawals and I needed it, BAD!!  We talked with mom's friend Bonnie Bakke and her sister Grace for a while and then came up to the room, did some internet until our Wendy mandated lights out at midnight was enforced and went to bed.  Like I said, the pace is vastly different.  All we did was eat twice, swim and hang out...killer day!  Til tomorrow, take it easy loved ones!