Posted on 03/19/2002 4:17:31 AM PST by mountaineer
All sorts of rentals - I'm off exploring and dreaming. ;-)
I don't even know which sisters are going...one can never tell if they're going to get cold feet as it gets closer. But I'm going. And anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome. I've put it off all my life and now I intend to travel every year. That's why I think maybe we should leave Paris off this 10-day trip and just concentrate on Italy.
Oh, and the mention of Switzerland is simply because we intend to see the Lake Como area and I've heard the drive over the Alps is magnificent there. I'd be happy to just drive up into the mountains, find a little Alpine village inn, eat some German food and and return to Italy the next morning.
Look at it here///You can page through the photos for examples of the exquisite photography in this book. And it's only $25, a great price for such a book.
There is a truly insightful "safety tips" section, a/w/a suggestions as to "off the beaten path" places that most tourists never see because they're always doing the typical tourist trail.
Page 10 in the book gave me a start: it looks just like The Red Door restaurant that we visited in Venice on Mr. Frommer's recommendation. We were seated across from a young couple on their back-packing Europe honeymoon, before going to Africa or some such challenging place, to begin their life together as missionaries. These kids had even less $$$ than we, so they ended up back at our hotel to enjoy their first shower in more than a few days. The wife was just singing like a songbird while enjoying the nice hot shower.
One time while driving back to Madrid from the Gold Coast, we stopped in a small village for dinner. It appeared to be the only restaurant in the town, and after being seated we noticed what had to be a rehearsal dinner in progress. The wedding party was at a long table decked out in all their finery, toasts, many toasts, were proposed throughout the meal and a terrific time was had by all. Just before adjouning for the evening, the groom got up to pass out his attendants' favors - each received a carton of Marlboro Reds. I had to join in the applause. (Marlboros are just like currency in some parts of our planet.)
Another good source is fodors.com, particularly the discussion forums.
Note from me - my husband received this email from several friends in the tech field. It may be nothing, it may be something. I figure better safe than sorry!
John Edward Robinson Sr., 56, was arrested on 2 June 2000 and charged with sexual assault on two women in the Kansas City area. Robinson lured the women (as he had others) into participating in sadomasochistic sex by contacting them over the Internet under the name "slavemaster." The two women filed charges after Robinson "brutalized them in a way that went beyond what they intended."
After Robinson's arrest, law enforcement authorities discovered two 55-gallon industrial barrels, each containing a woman's body, on land Robinson owned in Kansas. A few days later, they discovered three more bodies in barrels kept in a storage space Robinson rented in Missouri. All five women appeared to have been bludgeoned to death.
Robinson was also suspected in the mid-1980s disappearances of three women and an infant whose bodies had not yet been located. One of the bodies Robinson had stored in barrels was later identified as being one of these women, and the missing infant was discovered to have been adopted by Robinson's brother.
The "slavemaster" is monstrously real, but so far he's well short of the 56 victims claimed for him, and he remains behind bars, not out trolling the Internet for additional victims.
Hi Red! The above was found at snopes.com - where experience has taught me to check many of my email warnings. JL
Page Six:
LIZA Minnelli's new husband, David Gest, sets off Elton John's gay-dar. The pop star jokingly mocked the eyebrow-plucking, Lalique crystal-collecting producer while taping a performance for British TV Saturday.
While Minnelli and Gest were tying the knot downtown, the rocker was shooting "Elton John's Greatest Hits" at Sony Music Studios on West 54th Street. According to witnesses, John began playing "Here Comes the Bride" during a commercial break. He then told the audience, "I'm so glad I'm here so I don't have to be at that wedding!"
Titters turned to laughter as John continued, "If you want to get married, get married. I mean, I love publicity, but puh-lease!" And when the show's hostess asked Elton what he would give Liza as a wedding present, he replied, "A heterosexual husband."
"The audience went ballistic," a source tells PAGE SIX's Ian Spiegelman.
Gest's rep, Warren Cowan, insists that Gest is 100 percent heterosexual and does not believe John would say such things about him. "Elton John has never met David Gest," he says. "Not once."
....
As for Gest, now that he's married Minnelli, even his charitable work is getting a closer look. According to financial disclosure forms posted on thesmokinggun.com yesterday, the single largest expense Gest's American Cinema Awards Foundation incurs each year is "production costs" for its annual gala, which Gest pays to his own company, David Gest & Assoc.
The whopping fee in 1999 was $175,500, which jumped to $190,000 the next year. Cowan says the foundation has given $4 million to the Motion Picture Home for aging actors over the last several years.
_______________
Elton John certainly is catty, considering he also got married several years ago (before he was officially "out"), as you may recall.
____________
Liz Smith:
"ANYONE WHO is fair and who was there, can't criticize Liza and David's wedding. It was flawless," said the social observer Dominick Dunne.
And I agree. Truman Capote's "Black and White" ball back in 1966 is often rated as America's greatest party. (It had top names like Babe and Bill Paley, Kay Graham and other swells.) I'm here to tell you that Liza's controversial wedding falls into the same category. It may not have had the class, but it had smash and pizzazz.
I have lots of dish. From the moment the artist Peter Rogers picked me up to go to the Marble Collegiate Church I began having a good time. And that prevailed through the friendly and informal atmosphere of the ceremony and the fabulous party after at Wall Street's Regent Hotel. In a lifetime of celebrity watching, party-going, reporting and being a guest, I have never had such a good time.
SO PHOOEY and a big Fap! to all the naysayers. I am stunned and amazed at the efficiency and command of entrepreneur David Gest, the most enthusiastic bridegroom since the Duke of Windsor or King David. He pulled off the impossible and he all but kissed his bride to pieces before she could say "I do!" It was delightfully funny.
Liza herself masterminded the wedding rehearsal on Friday night. David was busy downtown organizing his 52 performers and urging the lighting titan Bentley Meeker and the flower maven Preston Bailey into feats of beauty at the hotel, which must resemble Grand Central Station when it isn't festooned with flowers, people and perfect pink lowered lights.
Liza ran her wedding rehearsal like World War II's General Patton with a touch of her director father, Vincente Minnelli. To the flower boy, Spencer Hoge, age 3, she admonished as he tossed his petals like grenades, "A little less sound effects, kid-o!"
Missing two of her bridesmaids, Claudia Cardinale and Esther Williams, Liza blithely rearranged her chosen 15. She had already made life supremely easy. They all wore black of their own choosing and carried wonderful red bouquets. The most impressive - Mia Farrow, who came down the aisle in a kind of Quaker frock coat and felt hat with a beatific smile on her lovely face. Marisa Berenson, the matron of honor, was utterly divine in a Gianfranco Ferre outfit that exposed her back. And I loved the black lace-beaded affair Arnold Scaasi created for Cynthia McFadden of ABC News. But every single woman looked great. I even bowed to my gorgeous confrere, Cindy Adams, as she passed.
There was no traditional music. It was all popular, sentimental and romantic, save for a few "come to Jesus" gospel songs (Shirley Caesar did "Amazing Grace" to a rock beat.) Liza is a believer and hers seemed to be a wedding with explicit Christian overtones. She came down the aisle wearing a crystal cross, smiling and radiant in a glorious Bob Mackie gown with a long train, stepping to "Daddy's Favorite," "Embraceable You."
Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson, those big stars, participated the least. They appeared only far away, at the altar, and mostly disappeared soon after, but let's give them credit. They came. And contrary to those nasty rumors, Miss Taylor had her own borrowed private plane. I am told David Gest didn't pay her anything and, in fact, he says, not a single person in the party even accepted a plane ticket.
When Natalie Cole was asked to stand in for Whitney Houston, she refused even to let others pay to fly her up from Nashville. She came on her own. Participation in this wedding was as a gift to Liza.
Let me say that Whitney simply wasn't missed. Natalie Cole did a great offering of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable." The bride and groom did the rest, welded in an embrace at the altar before the minister could say a word. Liza finally calmed David down before they both said, "I do!" There was lots of laughter, even a little tap dancing as vows were exchanged.
The only glitch in the night was the 50-minute wait while someone went back for Miss Taylor's forgotten shoes. She sat through the wedding in a little black hat with veil, looking for all the world like a leading lady in Durrenmatt's drama "The Visit." She nixed the party after. But even the wait couldn't dim an audience of old Hollywood hands, longtime pals, family and friends. People schmoozed in the church. Two beauties, Anne Jeffreys and June Haver, offered my group candy during the wait and Jill St. John filled us in with stuff about life with her beloved, R.J. Wagner, who was a groomsman.
I visited on the aisle with the newlyweds Joan Collins and Percy Gibson and everybody else I'd admired in the days when MGM had more stars than there were in the heavens.
Ah, yes. There's nothing quite like a little tap dancing during the vows......
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