Election Returns

Tuesday Events: We got up entirely TOO early after our late dinner, dragged our bags downstairs (the marble step tenth from the bottom is loose and has been ever since we arrived) and piled our baggage into the car -- Italian cars are MUCH smaller than those in America and getting all our luggage in was something of a puzzle.

We arrived at the airport in time, got our bags checked through to Salt Lake City (although they reminded us that we would have to recheck our bags in Cincinnati after customs) and, after kissing a few cheeks goodbye, made our way through security and to the gate area. Florence Airport (Firenze in Italian) is about a quarter the size of Salt Lake International. We took a bus to our plane and in short order took off.

I had a window seat and after the rainy flight out of Florence had a view of many clouds. These suddenly broke about thirty minutes later and I found myself looking down on the Alps. What magnificent mountains! I hope to see them properly from the ground next time.

As the flight wound down we were on our approach to Charles De Gaul International. My window once again afforded us a magnificent panorama: we were just east of the center of the city flying over the Montmartre and Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. I knew the city well enough that it all came into focus at once: there was the Eiffel Tower and Mars Park next to the Seine. There, too, was the Arc de Triomphe and Les Champs-Élysées running down to the Place de la Concorde. How I longed to abandon our flight home and just spend a few days in that magnificent city.

We found ourselves back in the same regional concourse we had passed through last week. We got back on the bus, back to the main concourses, passed through yet ANOTHER security checkpoint, bought a couple of sandwiches and once again settled in to wait for our connecting flight.

The flight to Cincinnati felt much LONGER than the flight from Salt Lake to Paris. Next time, we take a direct flight back. Everyone seemed interested in finding out what was happening with the American Election taking place that same day ... at least everyone but us. We had voted before we left so it remained entirely out of our hands and we were too tired to care.

We finally arrived at Cincinnati and, as on each of our returns from other countries, were truck with how tawdry our imigration areas seem. It's an embarrasement to have such a first introduction to the United States. The worst part was that the senior citizens who were in charge of moving the crowd along only spoke English. This is worthless to a Frenchman coming into the country. One elderly frenchman was confused and getting into the wrong line. The American Senior Citizen was speaking louder and slower at the man hoping that would help (it never does). Finally, I spoke to the man in the little french I knew and said, 'Excuse me, sir! That way, if you please' and motioned him into the correct line with my open hand. The Frenchman smiled at me, nodded and got into the correct line.

They can't teach the American staff that?

The four hour flight from Cincinnati to Salt Lake City was the LONGEST of the flights that day. We were exhausted by the time we arrived and, again, embarrased by the domestic airlines who offered either to toss a bag of peanuts at you or SELL you airline food if you preferred. Only in America!

We got our bags and found our car. In our haste, we had parked inside the garage rather than in the long-term parking. Our red car sat directly under a number of large signs, each one proclaiming 'No overnight parking.' We'd been parked there for over ten days.

The ransom of red car then took place ... after having our flights, hotels, and meals all paid for by Lucca it turned out to be the largest single expense of the entire trip.

But I got a Carls Junior hamburger out of the deal ... and we were home at last.

Musings: Oh, and by the way, we also have a new President Elect: Barak Obama. Huzzah. As soon as the announcement was made, we fell into bed. We'll watch the speeches tomorrow.

Quiet Monday in Lucca, Italy

Monday Events: Slept in this morning after a late night. The rain had returned and the show had left town, leaving the streets quiet. Only the empty shells of the tents remain in the various piazzas of the town to mark the passing of the convention.

Laura and I set out this morning to finish our circuit of the city wall. We went to the main area of the stage where we had begun our trip days ago and went the other direction both glad to have our umbrellas with us. We circled the town clockwise this time, glad to get to the same place at last where we had abandoned the wall last week. We dove back into the town intent on finding the 'ampitheatro' -- the location of the ancient Roman amphitheater in the town. Laura was disappointed when we discovered it, however, as she was hoping to see roman ruins. All that remained was the oval piazza space where the amphiteater had once been. That's much like the vaunted circus in Rome where the only thing remaining is the space where once the Roman chariots had raced; everything else was built over by later construction.

We headed back to the hotel and found Mark and Andre there in the cafe space in front of the lobby. We chatted for a while there and discovered that not only was the convention covering our lunch for that day but also would be taking us out to dinner that night. Laura and I went next door to the Restaurante Giglios and ate inside this time. The room was rather oppulent and the Italian waiter there was grumpy ... Laura believe that's because he thought that she was keeping me from having wine during lunch. Such disapproval! We secured an English-speaking waiter and had a wonderful lunch. We even enjoyed the grumpy waiter, who was VERY formal!

After lunch we went back into the down. The day was very dark and there wasn't much we felt like taking pictures of. We went into the church in the center of town and right back out again; very cold and oppressive. We were in search of something to bring home as presents but realized that there just wasn't anything special that was catching our eye. We returned to the hotel and started packing up for our trip home the next day.

I have to say that we took great comfort in our video iPod. I had loaded a number of movies onto it before we came and then discovered that with the connecting cable we had purchased (of all places) at the truck stop we usually stop at on the way to Angel's would play the movies on the rooms television. One can get weary of hearing foreign language that one barely understand for long periods of time. The movies were a welcome relief.

Packed up, we went down to the lobby at 7:30 pm to join our hosts for one last meal before leaving the next morning. Mark and Andre, the 'Magic' card artists, joined us along with our hosts, Emanuele, Silvia, Anna, Nicola, the guy in charge of the writing workshops and our publisher Alessandro. They took us to the one restaurant that Laura had wanted to go to all week (and while we could walk right to it we cannot remember the name to save our lives).

We had a wonderful conversation over the fabulous meal that ran well into the night ... as most Italian dinners do. I asked why there wasn't any Italian fantasy being written. Everyone at the table seemed to think that Italian writers somehow automatically feel the need to become instant snobs and entirely too full of themselves; that it is required by Italian tradition. Emanuele, however, said something that I found deeply insightful and sad; that during the Second World War, what most people do not understand is that in front of the places where the Americans were killing Germans, Italians were killing Italians. There was a civil war between the Fascists and the Reformers which did not end in 1947 ... and, in fact, probably didn't end until well into the 1970s. The fabric of what fundamentally represented Italy in the Italian mind was torn assunder. I commented that this is similar to what has happened in Iraq; that we have robbed them of their cultural story, their heroes and their underlying mythology. How sad that the cradle of western civilization should be in such distress.

I then felt impressed to tell my story about Sturm, Chris and how one fictional character had lead a man to an act of true heroism. I never tell that story lightly nor do I tell it unless I feel moved to do so; I worry that I might start telling it for my own agrandisement. Everyone was deeply moved and, I hope, inspired by it.

It is time to go home. I am hoping for a cheese burger with actual mustard and ketchup on it somewhere at the end of the long flight home.

Musings: It is hard on a people to have their mythology stripped from them ... their national story shattered and with nothing to replace it.

Dungeons with Dragons

Sunday Events: Breakfast once again in the Sala Rossa of our hotel was charming and pleasant. We watched part of 'American Prophet' this morning as we prepared to go out. It turns out that the television in our room would accept inputs from my video iPod so we have been watching our own movies in the evenings. Today began with broken clouds and that maintained throughout the day ... occasional sunshine and no precipitation ... perfect for fall. We had lost our schedule and so we decided to go over to the convention around 10:30 am and find someone with our schedule so that we might get an idea of what was expected of us today.

It turned out to be another roller coaster of a day.

We first had a scheduled interview at 11:30 in the morning. This was being set up with a small camera crew to film an interview for the internet. Our interpreter had gone over the questions with us when suddenly we were whisked away to join Larry Elmore, the President of Lucca Games and ... of all things ... the Mayor of the City of Lucca to tour one of the Live Action Role Play (LARP) areas that had been set up for the convention. In particular, this one was set up in an actual dungeon (which had been named by the Mayor in honor of Gary Gygax for the duration of the convention) and which was rumored to contain a huge dragon.

Our adventurous group set out with a film crew to document the confrontation. We knew we were on the right path when we saw the sign: "Dungeon with Dragon!" and pointed down the path toward the exterior of the Lucca wall. We entered the dungeon at the base of the city wall. High arched stone ceilings rose above our heads, water dripping down ominously from the ceiling and various denizens of the underground lair (outfitted in particular fantasy flair) lurked in costumes at every turn. It was quite a magnificent setting even if the dressings were a bit gentle. We came to a great (if light weight) pair of closed doors at the end where Larry Elmore and I were invited to pick up a battering ram and blow open the door. We did so with great success but this took us to the lair of the DRAGON!

It was a huge creature reminiscent of a cross between a gigantic stuffed plush toy and Jabba the Hut. It was a tremendous puppet with an animated head, jaws and arms with fixed claws. Laura found it rather gentle, with a charming innocence about it. It looked like it had a pleasant smile and not terribly menacing. Perhaps it looks better with smoke billowing from it's nostrils. We may never know. We paused for photographs before the dragon who took it all in good stride before making our way back out into the sunshine and returning to the convention.


We were in a bit of a hurry to slay that dragon since I had an event at 12:30 pm ... called 'Meet Tracy Hickman.' Emanuelle from the convention and Alessandro from our Italian publisher were there to make sure that the event was properly structured after the Italian style which seems to require long and very flamboyant speeches of praise. Both the interpreters were there for the event ... Gabrielle helping me with translations in and out and Valerio helping Laura who had thought she was sitting this one out but was told she is a celebrity, too. We recorded the event and will see about using it as a special Italian podcast ... since it was essentially conducted entirely in Italian. We answered their questions and received a very warm and delightful acceptance from the audience.

Afterward, a number of people there were ushered into the 'Living Room' backstage. It seems that they all had a train to catch and would we please allow them to have their books signed then instead of at our scheduled signing at three in the afternoon. We consented, having our picture taking with a dwarf and his party of adventurers. We then signed an amazing number of books there and had a number of pictures taken with fans.

We made a quick return to the hotel for a few minutes in the afternoon and then headed straight back to the gaming tent for our three o'clock signing. We were once again stationed in the artists area and still had to fend of an occasional person thinking that I was an artist named Mark Tedin but it was wall to wall signing until the end with many pictures taken there as well. Gabriele assisted with that for occasional translation. Both of the translators were hoarse this morning ... it is really taking its toll on them.

We still had not had lunch and it was approaching 5:00 pm. Our assistant Nicola took our tickets and went to the food tent for us. He returned with a 'hot dog', lasagna and three Coke Light. Italians do not believe in either ketchup or mustard so the hot dog was a bit on the plain side. While we were eating, ANOTHER interview was arranged and we gave this video interview while seated with our lunch between us. I talked a little video production with the producer/camera operator as we waited for the set up.

Lunch woofed down late and exhausted we gathered our things together and headed toward the exit. We had done our duty for Con and Country and were ready to get some rest. As we had just exited the tent no more than ten feet, we waved to a man we remembered from earlier in the day ... but apparently had not remembered well enough. He was the producer of the segment in the morning that we were supposed to shoot when we first arrived. He asked if we had forgotten our scheduled interview with him that was to take place in a few minutes back in the 'Living Room.'

Back into the tent.

We had a good interview and his questions were actually very pointed, informed and good. It was a good and enjoyable interview although Laura's biggest problem was exhaustion. She just kept telling herself "Don't fall asleep on camera! Don't fall asleep on camera..."

We returned to the hotel at last, took of our too worn shoes and tried to relax. The show was closing down but we had one more duty to perform: the closing night dinner. Evening means usually start between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm with people lingering over their food and wine until around 10:30 pm. OUR dinner with the heads of the convention and all the other guests of honor was not scheduled to start until 10:30 pm.

We were picked up in a car and taken outside the city walls and seemingly out into the Italian countryside. There we gathered in the upper floor of a charming country restaurant. Joe Dever and his charming wife sat across from us with Larry Elmore on Laura's right. Chris and Gretchen Peterson sat down the table from us. Chris called down the table that his Italian friend next to him said that 'too much water is bad for a bridge!' Chris laughed as he found our being in Italy and not drinking wine to be remarkable and he loved to tease me about it.

This was the quintessential Italian celebration meal: Antipasta, Plate One of Pasta, Plate Two of Meat and a desert with many other sides in between. Wine on the table readily available and spumanti served strong in narrow glasses as well. The warmth of the evening wore on into the night. Two of the Italian men at the next table began singing. The conversations rolled on like the tide. Bella Notte.

Around two or three in the morning we made our way outside to head back to the hotel. I was momentarily captured by a very large and very drunk Italian from the convention staff who, it turned out was a fan and who was enthusiastically insisting on telling me how wonderful I was. The evening closed with goodbyes to new, wonderful friends and how we will miss them. I could have spent days with the Devers and never truly begun to say everything that needed to be said. Our translators are fine men and the staff has taken care of our every need. Falling into bed a 4:00 am still left us with the sweet sadness of the parting.

Musings: If you had told me a week ago that I would have ended this evening kissing the rough cheeks of drunken Italian men and enjoying it ... well, what would YOU say?

The Rain Stops ... the Madness Begins

Saturday Events: Today dawned brightly for 'All Saints Day' ... the rain clouds had parted at last and the morning ws fresh. It was a promising day after so much rain. We had discovered only yesterday that our accommodations came with breakfast, so we gladly had our yogurt, bread, fruit and cheese in the Sala Rosa (the Rose Salon) before we rushed off to our suddenly full schedule at the convention.

The great walls of Lucca has withstood any invasions in the past but would fail today. With the sunshine came the invading hordes of Comics and Games enthusiasts that could not be denied. The narrow streets of Lucca were wall to wall with fans and the gateways through the walls to the games tent were choked with bodies rampart to rampart. The firemen were actually in the tunnels trying to keep traffic to one side or the other (an organization of Italian group dynamics that was necessitated by safety concerns that would be otherwise ignored in favor of traditional 'Italian lines'). As we had a number of events today, we were in full battle-dress: I had my computer backpack with all of our seminar presentation materials in it, our camera case (containing both my HD camera and Laura's digital still camera), our coats and umbrellas and a will to fight our way through anything to get to our events.

We started with an interview for a games magazine. The man doing the interview was very astute and knew all the hard questions to ask. "What was the story behind the third Dragonlance book being canceled?" "Will there be any Dragonlance in forth editions?" We navigated the mine field adroitly and believe to have managed an escape without damaging anyone.

Following our interview was our official book signing of the day. We were to be in the Armenia booth but this proved impractical as the booth was directly adjacent to the main entrance of the show and doing an official signing there would have clogged the firehose of people coming into the show from the outside. They moved our signing to the booth space of an artist nearby who had vacated his booth for a couple of hours while he attended another event. The chaos of our own book signing was then punctuated by the occasional fan of this artists who wanted me to sign the artists artwork. This I gladly did because (1) I wanted to be polite and (2) I had no idea what I was doing and (3) didn't understand enough Italian to get what they were asking me.

Shell-shocked from the signing, we regrouped in the 'living room' -- the local equivalent of a 'green room' -- and examined our options. Our handler had brought us rations from the adjacent food tent; hamburgers and fries although as neither was accompanied by any condiments whatsoever it was a rather dry experience. Laura needed a restroom and, as we had already experienced the myriad of Italian porta-potties the day before, she declined that idea in favor of a retreat back behind the Lucca walls to the relative safety of our own hotel room. We had an hour before our next interview and she was determined. So, shouldering our field pack, cameras and gear, we set off.

It shall forever be remembered as the dreaded March to Universo.

The crowds had swollen to enormous proportions by the time we set out. I cannot estimate how many people there were but accounts by those who had attended before placed the number well into six figures. Merchants claim that the attendees who would have come in previous days had held back and then all rushed the convention today. Three days worth of business is rumored to having been done in that single day.

The immediate and more personal result was that Laura and I found ourselves blocked at every turn. We had long abandoned any American notion of personal space in favor of something of a sort of semi-permanent mosh-pit environment. The crowds strongly reminded me of a group from our new 'Drakis' book ... the mud-gnomes ... whose social dynamics were more like watching a bee-hive operate without really knowing what was going on or how they were communicating their intent to each other. Italians seem to stop and stand in groups wherever it suits them regardless of the surrounding dynamics. They tend to choke access points and just expect everyone else to flow around them. They will stop at any given location, plant themselves and just wait for things to happen. Occasionally if the situation gets very bad, they will get someone official to stand up and organize the traffic in their own way.

The result was that we were unable to find our way OUT of the tent. We stepped into the aisle and tried to merge with whoever was there. Crushed hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder, my backpack like an elephant on my back, we found ourselves at an intersection blocked in all directions. Pushed through (literally) to the food exit we were outside but fences in by the Game Tent perimeter (no guard towers, just fences). We tried to circumnavigate the exterior of the tent but were blocked by the main entrance. We had no choice: we found ourselves back INSIDE the tent. We tried to leave by the main entrance but it was a firehose of people and there was an official person there warning us that -- for now -- the main entrance was one way only and that we would have to leave by another exit. We plunged back into the tent's interior searching for some avenue. We forced our way again outside the tent at the back, this time managing to find a break in the fence. We could see the walls of Lucca now calling us but all around the base was a solid mass of humanity breaking against its stone. We pushed into it as well, pressed and compressed as we were funneled into the close quarters of the ancient gates. We were carried more than anything else through that narrow tunnel and at last erupted into the first piazza of the town. The avenue before us was just as choked so we broke right. One of our interpreters from Australia explained to us that when dealing with Italian lines it is better to think side to side rather than front to back. We broke right down the street behind the Lucca wall and then left again. Our hotel was in sight.

What usually was a five minute walk had taken twenty-five minutes. We had barely staggered into our hotel room when it was time to leave if we had any hope of making our appointed interview. Fortunately, the firemen had taken control of the main Lucca gate and our return only took us fifteen minutes.

As it turned out, Nicola had accidentally scheduled us for TWO interviews at the same time. I went to one interview with an internet radio station while Laura fielded the second interview. My publisher acted as my interpreter and we had a pleasant radio experience. Being in front of a microphone is a natural habitat for Hickmans.


No time to think about that much, however, as it was now a rush to once more escape the tent and teach our writing workshop. This was being held at an academy across the street (crosswalks are only suggestions in Italy). We found ourselves in what appeared to be an elementary class room filled with people. Some were film, some were writers, some were game designers. We gave them the full up workshop through our interpreter. It was a fascinating experience in communication. Each of them got an elaborate certificate which we signed.

No time to think again. We had promised our publisher we would return to his booth after the workshop. Cross the road (wherever ... only a suggestion) and plunge back INSIDE the tent. We signed a number of books, had our photograph taken with everyone who had a camera (read 'everyone') and then another fight back to the hotel. This time the firemen had decided on a different tactic for the Lucca gate ... they would let people go only one way at a time. We were held up on our end while the crowd streamed OUT of the city then that tide was stopped and we were allowed to stream INTO the city.

We were glad to be back in our room for a couple of hours as we had a dinner appointment at the Restaurante Giglio (next to our hotel) with Chris and Gretchen Peterson. Chris is the president of 'Fantasy Flight Games' -- a company whose games I absolutely love. His wife had just arrived a couple of hours before and I had wanted to talk a little business with Chris hoping that he would be interested in taking on the games for our 'Dragonships' series. It turned out to be a fabulous evening: both Chris and Gretchen are our kind of people and we hit it off right away. We talked well into the evening -- nearly closing the Italian restaurant which is NOT an easy thing to do.

It turns out that we are about as much in accord as possible over games. It is a promise end to a well fought day.

Musings: Story transcends language. Here we are in Italy telling stories to Italians. I can barely manage hello in their language and yet we are connected. It is a powerful thing.