Have you ever wanted to make a change?  Take on an adventure? Tell your story to the world? Change your life? 

Well, here’s your chance.

Jet Set Zero is looking for 1 or 2 more cast members for season 8.  This season starts in August and we’ll be closing applications as soon as we find the right person for the job.  The sooner you get in your information, the better.

Click the image above or right here to read more about how to apply and what happens next.

Good luck.  We’re waiting to hear from you.

Look what the bastard urchin did to my foot! Not cool, not cool at all

Let me tell you a scary story.

It begins on a placid pleasure cruise around the Amalfi Coast. The setting was sublime. A little too perfect…

JS0′s resident klutz (me) made it through the day without incurring any cliff-related concussions or bellyflop-induced stomach rashes. As the trip neared its end, the JS0 crew splashed off the boat one last time to see the one, the only, the Blue Grotto of Capri. 

That’s when it happened. While other visitors gasped at the beauty of the blue cove, I gasped at the pain in my black and blue ankle. It was a poignant moment for everyone. Of course, being used to bumping things and being weary of my bandaid box, I ignored the sharp pain in my leg and did a few laps around the grotto. The water was so blue it illuminated its occupants like a strobe light: too cool to miss.

Upon finally crawling back aboard the boat, I saw that my foot was gushing blood and my ankle appeared to have grown a beard. It was filled with sea urchin stingers. Even the tough Australian children on board, who had spent the day fearlessly cliff jumping and dodging jellyfish, shouted in disgust. They forked over their two best bandaids without hesitation. (At this point, I was feeling quite heroic for not crying: “I meant to kick the urchin,” I bravely pronounced.)

What Italian Grandmothers Do to Urchin Stings

Urchin stings are so common in Sorrento, Italy that the pharmacy is stocked with a tailored remedy called After Urchin. One slathers one’s spikes with rubber goo and waxes them off with a sheet of gauze. The tactic worked on the big pieces, but the remaining ones remained submerged in my heel, which now also reeked like a gas station and stuck to all surfaces like superglue. Sigh.

1 week later: Still conducting daily spike excavations. I am now in Ancona, Italy, where the local pharmaceutical grandmother has recommended that I soak my foot in white vinegar. I always wanted a recipe from an Italian grandmother, now I’ve got one. I bet it’s delicious! We’ll see how this goes…

Blue Grotto of Capri: the Scene of the Crime

Villa La Terrazza's billion dollar view

It’s pretty f***ing cool to have friends of friends who have friends who have villas in the Amalfi Coast.  It’s even cooler when they let you stay there as a “room filler” between their vacation bookings.  Jet Set Zero got the ultimate chance to close out our season doing just this, at the legendary Villa La Terazza in Sorrento.
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“Why do I waste any time not living the life I’ve imagined?”

-Christine from Boston, reflecting on Thoreau’s advice to ‘Live the life you’ve imagined.’

Italian breads are like Italian dialects, some are hard, others are mild.  The Tuscan dialect is soft and pure, just like their bread which is baked without salt.  While in Napoli where some breads are deep fried, the dialect is hot and heavy.

Deep fried dough with ricotta and tomatoes

And in Genzano di Roma, whose dialect has been influenced by the North and the South, the bread strikes a delicate balance of texture and taste giving it my vote for the best in Italy. The bread here is baked in a wood-burning oven which makes the inside doughy and porous and the outside encased in a thick charred crust.  It’s the dangerous kind of bread.  The kind that you find yourself snacking on in the middle of the night.  The kind that need not be embellished.  It’s bread like it should be.

Genzano di Roma's famous bread

“Who does this chair think he is?”

-Ryan, trying unsuccessfully to sit down for lunch

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You saw in our brand new teaser a place we’ve dubbed Magic Mountain (Bajardo).  Part of Bajardo’s magic comes from the old people who have endured a lifetime here.  I’ve written about 100-year-old Yolanda who smiled at us every day from her chair beside the restaurant she used to own. I’m happy she made a cameo in the teaser.

Yolanda's Office

But there was also this woman with the scarf on her head, who I became fixated on as I marched in an ancient procession in my final hours on the mountain top.  She was somber and pensive and as I walked with her, I wondered what she was thinking.

Lady of the procession

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