Episode One of Jet Set Zero Italy captured just a small piece of the massive chow-downs we experienced nearly every day. Check out this video for some of my favorite food moments from this summer’s adventure! It was so nom-worthy that I’m bringing all my recipes from the road home for a new cooking show, Really Easy Italian.  Good luck and hearty appetites to the Thailand cast.  Enjoy!

Wanna stay in touch with Jet Set Zero’s past and present casts?  Here’s the most up-to-date blog roll call.  Who am I missing?

Tyler: lessonsfromavagabond.tumblr.com
Jean Pierre: pencilfingers.tumblr.com
Evita: nomadnesstv.com
Courtney: courtneyuncubed.tumblr.com | www.courtneyscott.tv
Sarah & Perrin: sistersbailey.wordpress.com
Jenna: jetsetmeister.tumblr.com
Laurene: laureneworld.wordpress.com

Initial Eat, Pray, Love reviews are in and looking good.  One critic said, “Shot in burnished magic-hour light (the crew must have toiled feverishly over a hundred dawns and dusks), with rapturous attention paid to dishes of prosciutto and melon…”  Sounds like my kind of Friday night.

Let us know what you think of the movie, and stay tuned for more Italy sneak peeks in the works.  Until then, my Eat Pray Love Mashup (via Tumblr):

Getting in Touch with Nature (Chang Mai, Thailand, 2007)
Bike-Happy (Paris, 2008)
Eating Too Much Pizza (Florence, Italy 2010)
Looking For Answers (Bajardo, Italy 2010)

The Nemi Lake Crew

Check it out!   Jet Set Zero Italy Week 4: Best-Of Edition

While Season Eighters are busy bucket listing their pre-departure To Do’s, Season 7′s cast has been getting closer to bucket list domination with a few setbacks and close calls.  So far we’ve ridden bikes through farm country,  been featured in the Italian news, saw Venice by Gondola, and made pasta from scratch.  But we won’t be complete until all 10 items are crossed off.  Here’s where we’re hitting a wall:

Nutella hotness

#8: Take a Nutella bath
Nutella bath parties do exist in Italy and they are thrown by the unofficial Italian mayor of gelato, Antonio Cafiero. His famous gelateria on Corso Italia in Sorrento is dripping with photos of hot Nutella-covered babes. We asked him the date of his next “Festa di Nutella” and he said to check back later. When we came back later he was being yelled at by his 7-year-old daughter in the middle of the tourist-laden street so…that’s where we stand on that.

Look at her...

#9: Fit the cast in a vintage Fiat 500
In Quito Beetles rule the road, in Italy, it’s this little beut, the Fiat Cinquecento.  Infatuation doesn’t begin to explain my love for it.  When I get married, it’s the car I want to tie cans to.  I’ve even looked into buying one in the States.  They are scarce. It’s so compact and clown car-ish that I’m jonesing to hitch our cast a ride. We’ve seen a bunch on the road, but no one who actually owns one and is willing to part with it.

And the quest continues…

In late 2007 John Carter was living in New York, working for an investment bank, hating his job, his routine, and asking himself “Is this what I have to look forward to for the next 50 years?”  He had just decided he was going to quit and start adventuring, when his boss offered him a position in their Hong Kong office.  This is when his life got interesting.

John’s story really resonates.  He could have been the typical “NYC banker type”..the Soho-lofter, corner officer, the bottler popper…but he chose the route less taken by most 27-year-old urban dwellers, he chose to hit the road.  Now three years later, he’s travelled the world and is about to start a new chapter studying with a 2-year MBA  program in Barcelona.

John at the Perito Moreno glacier on the Argentine side of Patagonia

Nationality: American

Job(s): MBA Student

Currently In: somewhere in South America but heads to Barcelona in three weeks

Blogs At: therunaround-jmc.blogspot.com

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After 3 days of pretending to “deliberate” and “consider my options” I accepted the  job transfer and was in Asia three months later. While the job wasn’t drastically different or inherently more interesting it provided me the opportunity to explore a new part of the world, which is all I really cared about. Second best decision of my life. Quitting that job a year and a half later to go travel was the first.

As my last adventure in Asia I ran the Gobi March – a 250 kilometer foot race across the Gobi Desert in northwest China. Over five days we ran the equivalent of six marathons while carrying 20 pound backpacks.  We slept in tents and cooked for ourselves under the stars. The extraordinary challenge, scenery and camaraderie of the Gobi March changed me.  Since I had already quit my job to go travel through South America I signed up to be a volunteer when the race series went to the Atacama Desert in Chile in 2010.

My Atacama days were arduous — 15 hour shifts in the hot Chilean sun. But I felt lucky to have the chance to get to know the competitors of the race, particularly one – Paolo Giannerini.  He is a 42-year-old Italian racer who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2009.  When I witnessed  him crossing the finish line, eyes filled with tears to a crowd filled with cheers, it was one of the most inspiring moments of my life.  It was validation that you really can do anything if you are determined enough.

John Finishing the Gobi March in China

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It was brought to my attention by @CatholicTravel that TrenItalia now posts their strike schedules online. How 2.0, Italy.  Problem:  we didn’t know this until after we stranded ourselves at a train station right in the middle of a big annoying strike. Solution:  take inventory of the situation and make the best of it with a bag of cookies and a digital camera.  Here’s how:

Stranded at the station

First Hour: Eat cookies until you’re high on sugar

cookieeeeeeees

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Get ready to be inspired, folks.  Our third Jet Set Hero is Steve Bramucci, a travel writer, professional misadventurer and wordsmith whose got a hell of a lot of perspective on life at the ripe age of 30.  He’s managed to do what we at Jet Set Zero would all secretly love to do…turn that zero into a figure that actually pays the rent without sacrificing life on the road.  His job is his passion, the world is his “research” and going back to his position at Merrill Lynch…well, that’s his nightmare and we don’t blame him.

Steve in Kenya

Nationality: American
Job: Travel Writer
Currently In: Laguna Beach, CA
Check out his Travel Series: www.bootsnall.com/howitravel
Twitter: @stevebram

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I worked at Merrill Lynch and my boss told me: “every day I come to work and I feel like I’m shooting hoops.” I loved that philosophy.  I quit Merrill the very same day.
I didn’t feel like I was shooting hoops in the finance world.  But I do feel like that with writing, teaching, storytelling and all of the other assorted work that I do in order to make sure rent is on time. Most of all, I feel that way about travel.  It might technically be work but it feels 100% like recreation.

Everything I do on the road I attribute to the “grand adventure” and chalk up as “research.” Those are my go to phrases—especially when the car gets stuck in eight inches of muck, the ferry is a day late or the hike that was supposed to take a day ends up taking three.  If I was looking for a job title I think I’d call myself a Professional Misadventurer. The hardest days on the road inevitably become my favorite days of “work.”

Besides day labor, short stints in hostels and volunteering, my only experience working abroad has been as a travel writer.  People always tell me how lucky I am to have that chance.  Those people are right.  Don’t worry, I work hard for it and appreciate the hell out of every trip.  I get to indulge my curiosity, talk to people, tell stories and trust my instincts.

Over the past ten years, I’ve left a lot to go traveling. I’ve left jobs with the casualness of a person who has no clear conceptualization of the economic crisis.  I’ve left cities that felt safe and comfortable.  I even left college.  Every one of those times it was the right choice.
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