A Word From the Weiss

        Contrary to the old movie, some don’t like it caldo. It’s so ironic, not to mention outright misleading, that the Italian word for “hot” sounds like its exact opposite in English. But trust me, not one measly degree of heat or humidity is lost in translation. Southern Italy is an oven in summer. How hot is it? When you’re there, it feels almost as painful to compute Celsius into Fahrenheit as it is to contemplate the exchange rate while you’re paying for that new leather jacket. Let’s just say it feels toasty enough on most days to bake a pizza right on the sidewalk. You step outside of your hotel and wilt like a week-old begonia before you can even bid “Buongiorno!” to the bellman.
        So if you’re thinking of Italy as one of the most romantic places on the planet, then think again. There’s only one thing less appealing than touching the drenched back of someone who’s shvitzing bullets in the midday sun, and that’s having someone touch yours.
        So it was no big loss that on our recent family vacation to the incomparably scenic Amalfi Coast, the four of us somehow ended up spending more than half the nights sleeping in one room. After all, when you go away with your children, even grown kids, romance is pretty much the last thing on your mind. You’re just hoping that you can all tolerate one another’s sleeping habits, bad moods, bitchiness and bodily noises long enough to enjoy a rare taste of family time together.
        Anyway, when we last left our heroine (OK, it was only me), she had just disembarked in front of our lovely accommodations on the mesmerizingly gorgeous Isle of Capri only to discover that one of her two suitcases was missing. Evidently, when loading all the luggage into his van, the owner of the secluded bed & breakfast where we were staying had overlooked my carry-on and left it sitting at the bus stop. This was the large black patent leather satchel in which I’d been transporting all of my valuables – not just my toiletries, cosmetics and carefully printed-out travel plans, but my camera, medications and an abundance of jewelry, of which I’d inadvertently packed too much.
        Worst of all to consider losing was the exquisite multicolored mezuzah that my daughter had just brought us two nights earlier as a special gift from her trip to Israel. How would I tell her that it was gone, along with the pretty earrings she’d bought me in Istanbul? Our first full-family vacation in eons had just begun. Was the fun already over?
         Assuring me that Capri was crime-free and I had nothing to fear, the innkeeper, Costanzo, drove me back to town at breakneck speed while my family remained behind.
        As we retraced our circuitous route along the perilous perimeter of the Capri coast, the queasiness mounting in my gut was less about motion sickness than despair. I like to view myself as a non-materialistic person – someone to whom relationships, integrity and other intangibles are paramount, and far more precious than anything you could ever load into a suitcase. Yet let’s face it. We all have nice stuff we treasure and would loathe to part with. Not to mention how inconvenient the rest of the trip would be without deodorant, my pills, my battery-operated toothbrush and directions to our other hotels.
        My hopes sank further into the churning pit that was my stomach as we rounded the final hairpin turn, and I saw a huge glut of tourists milling about at the bus stop. Abandoning the bag here was about as close as you could have come on the Isle of Capri to leaving your most prized possessions in the middle of Grand Central Station.
        Had I been kidding myself to even hope against hope? Of course it wasn’t there.
        Then two women who’d been hugging goodbye parted, and I took a second look. Wait. What was that thing with the sunlight glinting off it behind the crowd? It was black. It was beautiful. It was bulging. It was… it! And clearly it had not escaped public notice. Did my nice bag look remotely like anything planted by a terrorist? All I know is that when I bounded over, seized it and clutched it to my chest, half the crowd broke into applause.
        As we braved the meandering island roadways once again in reverse, Costanzo reiterated his assurances that any twinge of alarm I’d felt had been unwarranted.  “It is a good life here,” he said. “On this island, there is no crime. Everyone knows everyone. We are like one family.” Indeed, he had 500 cousins living on Capri, the result of a great uncle having sired 25 sons – by two different wives, of course. Later, I would laugh when relating the last of these facts to my family. But over the next two days, we’d learn that what he had said was true. I can’t vouch for his assertion that there was no crime. But this was certainly a very good life.
        I’d selected his B & B in sedate Anacapri, named Le Ginestre after the flowers that proliferate there, mostly as a matter of default. Having started making reservations little more than a week before we’d left, I’d discovered that, on this relatively small island, few vacancies were to be found. We’d really hoped to stay at Da Gelsomina, a wonderful inn that close friends had raved about, but it was all booked up for a wedding there that weekend. Then Costanzo had listed a vacancy, and his place happened to be just a short walk away. So I’d booked it, then made reservations for dinner at Da Gelsomina’s well-reviewed restaurant. We also hoped to use the inn’s swimming pool, which I’d read was open to the public for a fee.
        By the time we’d changed into swimsuits and strode down the road, it was nearly 4 p.m. So I felt a little dismayed to learn that it would run the four of us about 60 bucks to take a quick swim. But to our delight, the inn said that since their pool was closing a bit early for the wedding, they were not going to charge us anything. (It didn’t hurt, we assume, that the owner, Gelsomina, was one of Costanzo’s cousins. Then again, who on Capri wasn’t?)
        The kids were famished, so we sat down at one of their poolside café tables first. What would you possibly eat on the Isle of Capri other than the famed salad born there? How about scrumptious Caprese salad sandwiches – crusty Italian baguettes loaded with thick-cut slices of snow white, fresh mozzarella and ruby beefsteak tomatoes, accented with emerald basil leaves and a golden drizzle of olive oil? We washed these down with what may be the most sensational thing I’ve ever slurped – cappuccino semifreddos, which were essentially slightly melted coffee ice cream in small glass coffee cups, crowned with a tuft of whipped cream and gently dusted with cinnamon.
        But if you really want to talk about delicious and refreshing, imagine plunging moments later into the sparkling turquoise waters of that pool, which overlooked a breathtaking stretch of sea and was curtained by panels of white cloth swaying in a gentle breeze. We swam until our fingertips were as crinkled as albino figs, then strolled calmly back to our room to shower and dress before returning to ogle the sunset.
        And yes, eat yet again.

       
        The beauty of the violet and indigo sky at dusk, admired from our dinner table with its panoramic view of the Gulf of Naples, was eclipsed only by that of the bride, who swept through the dining room, making a cameo appearance before the ceremony.
        It was daunting to choose between the wide variety of house-made fresh pastas with embellishments culled largely from the inn’s own garden. But we unanimously concurred that my husband’s humble choice, spaghetti prepared to the height of al dente and garnished with chunks of fresh tomato and shredded basil, although the simplest, was the best.
        Having first sampled the house assortment of hot appetizers, including zucchini blossoms fried so delicately that they melted on the tongue, we hesitated to follow our entrees up with more than a single order of cloud-light tiramisu and four forks. But no one seemed to object when another guest traversed the dining room and asked if we would mind helping finish off the remains of her own dessert. As this lovely woman from outside Philadelphia explained, she was there to celebrate her tenth anniversary, having been married on the island a decade earlier, and her husband had surprised her by having ordered an entire chocolate and walnut torte, a popular local confection.
        “Mazel tov!” I said in congratulations as the rest of my family thanked her profusely. She smiled broadly, without even a hint of bewilderment.
        “How did you know she was Jewish?” my daughter whispered after our beneficent benefactor had rushed off to fetch her tempting offering.
        I shrugged. “I say 'Mazel tov' to everyone. The question is, how, in this entire room full of diners, did she happen to choose us?”
        Encountering owner Gelsomina’s husband Pasquale on our way out, we didn’t hesitate to express our admiration for the premises, whereupon he volunteered the inn’s shuttle service to take us into town, a perk complimentary only to guests staying there. So once again I found myself clutching my seat as a van whipped around blind turns through two-way thoroughfares barely wide enough to accommodate a single vehicle.
        After touring tropical downtown Anacapri -- the more unpretentious of this exclusive island’s two main cities, but still replete with stylish boutiques -- we realized that our only way back was to take a taxi. We were reluctant to shell out the 20 euros (about $30) demanded by all of the waiting cabdrivers, which struck us as exorbitant for a relatively short hike. Yet I blanched at the prospect of walking back in the dark, navigating narrow, winding streets filled with racing vehicles. I’m as frugal as the next nice Jewish mom, but not when it comes to my children’s safety. (Only later would we learn that there was a separate, well-lit walking path a mere 20-minute stroll from town.)
        So we bit the bullet, assuming that our free rides were clearly over. Or were they?
        The next day, doubtful that we’d be allowed to swim in that pool gratis again, we chose to venture to a public beach instead. The island, by definition, may be surrounded by water, but don’t expect the sandy beaches to which we Americans are accustomed. Most of Capri meets the sea via towering, rocky cliffs, so there are few venues to swim. We’d already seen that the public beach at Marina Grande, where the ferries arrive, was pebbly and mobbed. Instead we opted for Faro Beach, named for the lighthouse nearby. This turned out to be equally crowded. And instead of pebbles, hordes of local bathers spread their towels chock-a-block atop boulders or hard cement slabs before jumping into the bay.
        We followed suit and dove in. Refreshing? Yes. Relaxing to lie there afterwards? Not so much. So we consoled ourselves with more Caprese sandwiches at a nearby café.
        Afterwards, we decided to forego the most widely touted local attraction, the famed Grotto Azura (“blue grotto”), which Costanzo had warned us was just a lame tourist trap. Instead, we took the bus to the main town of Capri, which was inundated with tourists and designer boutiques, but offered sea views so stunning as to be well worth the trip.
        Getting a gander at the high-end life on this tony isle only accentuated the modesty of the accommodations that we’d chosen. I’d booked Le Ginestre having been told that it had only one room left, outfitted with a queen-sized bed and two singles. Yet the so-called “queen” turned out to be so narrow that I’d opted to share it with my daughter, and my husband and son had been relegated to the pair of twin beds across the room. That room, despite its pretty, colorfully patterned tile floor, also was far from as spacious as I might have hoped, and the four of us were limited to sharing a single compact bathroom.
        Yet there was something that made the place memorable and delightfully pleasant: Costanzo himself. He possessed every fine quality and skill you might desire in a host. (“My hands, they do not just make this cake,” he declared one morning, indicating the lemony bundt he had baked for our breakfast. “This whole house, I build myself.” He was so talkative and affable, and his English was so polished compared to almost everyone else we met, that we lingered at breakfast each morning, forming the closest bond we would forge with any Italian on our entire trip. Most of all, the joy of life that he exuded was contagious. Beyond his bevy of cousins, at 45 he had a pretty, 29-year-old wife and adorable toddler son. Plus, owning the B&B allowed him to work in this paradise only six months each year and take the other half off. Yes, it was a pretty good life.
        Apparently, the connection we felt was mutual. When it came time for us to leave, he drove us not just back to the bus stop, but all the way to the marina on the opposite side of the island, refusing to accept anything in return beyond a big, heartfelt hug.
        The next night brought us yet another complimentary ride. Unlike Le Ginestre, our hotel in Sorrento, the biggest splurge of our trip, was situated right in the center of town. (In addition to cake – 22 varieties of pastry daily, to be exact – the lavish “American breakfast” at this four-star haven also featured eggs in three styles, bacon, assorted cheeses, yogurt, sliced meats, fresh fruits, and endless cappuccinos made to order.) Also, unlike rough-and-tumble Naples, Sorrento is oriented toward catering to visitors; around 60 percent of the locals work in the tourism industry, we were told. So nearly everyone speaks some English, and many of the restaurants on the outskirts of town offer transportation to and from their establishments in order to attract more customers. The first night that we arrived, we were fetched by one of these, La Kambusa.
        I was a little disappointed initially to be deposited in front of the harbor at a rather ordinary-looking outdoor café and pizzeria. (As we would soon begin to realize, every restaurant in this part of Italy, no matter how elegant, labels itself a pizzeria, because they all serve pizza, and this presumably helps attract foreigners.) But everything that we ordered there, from my daughter’s pennezetti with gorgonzola cheese and fresh pear to my son’s juicy mixed grill, could not have been more delicious. A sizable pitcher of the house white wine brimming with fresh, sliced peaches, a refreshing variation on sangria, set us back only 8 euros ($11.50). And our waiter, who turned out to be the owner, treated us afterwards to a round of limoncello, the lemon-scented liqueur for which the Amalfi Coast is famous. Then, when my daughter noticed a small bottle of this elixir on the shelf and inquired how much it cost, he readily handed it over, exclaiming, “It’s a gift!”
        Welcome to Sorrento! Yes, we felt welcome indeed.
        Searching out some gelato after being escorted safely back, we discovered that this city was not quite the serene, picturesque refuge I had envisioned. If the Italian economy is floundering, you wouldn’t know it from coming here. The downtown area was more like Disney World, lit up like (pardon the expression) Christmas in July, with tourists of every age and nationality overflowing the outdoor cafés and swarming the streets like locusts -- locusts carrying credit cards, that is.
        Fortunately, our hotel, the Antiche Mura, although centrally located, boasted a quiet, very private swimming pool out back nestled in a tranquil lemon grove. It was here that we eagerly repaired late each afternoon after our day’s activities – a shopping excursion with my daughter one day, then an excursion to the fascinating yet steamy ancient ruins of Pompeii, which were a short train ride away. And although its shimmering waters were a perfect place to seek solitude, as well as relief from the scorching heat, we spent most of our time here gabbing and splashing around with a pair of fellow guests, a fun-loving mother-daughter duo from Dallas.
        We’d encountered them in the lobby our first night and become friends at first sight. Amy Loughridge, a dynamic divorcee, and her high-spirited daughter Samantha were among the few other Americans staying there. (All the rest, mysteriously, were Brits.) Samantha, a senior at the University of Texas, was just my daughter Allegra’s age, and the two of them bonded almost on contact. I remained convinced, however, that their keen interest in us stemmed, at least in part, from Samantha’s possible interest in my 24-year-old son, Aidan. Or perhaps her mother's interest in him for her.
        Despite Aidan’s customary reticence and natural reserve, I remained mystified and even a bit frustrated that he proceeded to keep to himself and behave almost as though she were invisible. Finally, one day, I dared to ask him why. He admitted that she was attractive. Very, in fact. The problem was that our whole family was there, and these people had become what he considered to be family friends. Besides, she lived in Texas. He’s a New Yorker. Beyond Sorrento, this twain was never gonna meet again.
        He pronounced me delusional to imagine that she was remotely interested in him, anyway. But I persisted that I knew otherwise.
        I knew because one afternoon, apropos of almost nothing, Amy had asked me out of the blue if Aidan had a girlfriend. As a mother myself, I knew that she wasn’t asking out of idle curiosity. She wanted to know for a reason, and that reason was Samantha.
        This added some element of heightened drama when we began contemplating taking a day trip as a group. We were eager to visit the neighboring town of Positano. They wanted to go there, too. Why not make a party of it and venture there all together?
        As I noted last week, I was absolutely terrified of the driving along the Amalfi Coast, having heard that the roads were perilously winding and impossibly steep, without the benefit of railings to keep cars from catapulting over high cliffs into the sea. I had embarked on this vacation only on the condition that we travel strictly by water after flying overseas. Fortunately, I’d been assured, Positano was an easy boat ride away.
        The day that we wanted to go, however, our last before leaving Sorrento, I learned that there were only two boats a day. We’d already missed the first, and the other was that evening. Should we scrap our plans and settle for more shopping and swimming? The fellow at the front desk suggested visiting a mozzarella factory instead. But my family isn’t keen on tourist attractions, and this one sounded especially cheesy.
        Besides, how pathetic to spend a week on the exquisite Amalfi Coast and see so little of it. So we hit upon a plan. I suggested that we hire a driver to take us all to Positano, then hop a boat back. The hotel offered to call a car service for 90 euros. But my husband hondeled with a cabbie outside instead, who settled for 75 euros ($108, or $18 per person).
        Amy and Samantha met us in the lobby a little past noon, as planned. Anticipating overwhelming heat, Allegra and I had opted for casual clothes and gone to little effort with our grooming. Samantha, on the contrary, was dressed in an elegant skirt, her face made up to perfection. Maybe young women in Texas just make it a rule to always look impeccable.
        Or maybe my nice Jewish mom’s intuition was right.
        Although I had helped orchestrate this excursion, I was secretly filled with dread. Compounding my anxiety about the roads was that motion sickness runs in my family. To combat queasiness, I’d taken the precaution of putting on my Sea Bands, gray elastic wristbands equipped with small plastic buttons that compress a pressure point just below the wrist. Normally, I reserve these for airplane travel, for which they help ward off nausea. But I was anticipating the worst and wasn’t taking any chances.
        Samantha, admitting a susceptibility to car sickness herself, opted for the van’s front seat. Allegra, dismissing my jitteriness, joined Aidan and me in the middle row. Expressing hearty bravado, Amy valiantly clambered in beside my husband in the back.
        To my enormous relief, all the roads turned out to have barriers along their outside perimeters after all, and none zigzagged notably more than the coastal routes we'd endured on Capri. Also, my trusty travel aids easily did the trick, and I was feeling perfectly fine. So I was a little surprised when Allegra soon started to complain about an unsettled stomach, and Amy began begging the driver to make a quick stop along the road. Granted, the seaside views were spectacular, and we were all eager to take pictures. But from the urgency in Amy’s voice, I could tell that this tough-talking Texan was rapidly turning green.
        Finally, the driver paused around a convenient bend, and we all bounded out and took turns posing beside the sea. Amy snapped us. We snapped them. Then the driver captured us all, arms around each other’s waists, not just fellow travelers but true friends.
        Emboldened by my sense of equilibrium, I proposed changing seats with Amy, but she insisted on persevering. And after only 10 more minutes of swerving and swaying, we reached our destination at last.
        The pretty town of Positano is perched on a series of narrow, boutique-lined roads snaking up from the sea. My husband soon wandered off and promptly vanished for nearly two hours. The four women in our group, with poor Aidan in patient pursuit, spent the duration of that time parading from door to door in search of the perfect white cotton dress, an item so ubiquitous on the Amalfi Coast that it’s practically the local uniform.
        Yet most styles we saw were so overloaded with ruffles, lace and other frills as to be ongepotchket (that’s Yiddish speak for excessively embellished and way too busy). Others were too short or small, or featured spaghetti straps (an automatic deal-breaker, since all four of us were too well-endowed to consider going without a bra). But, despite the provincial look of this village, all of them were much too pricey.
        Finally, I came across a long, tasteful, understated version in just my size that was only 20 euros (about $29). “Why is this dress so inexpensive?” I asked the shopkeeper.
        She studied this garment, which was in pristine condition, and shrugged. “That dress? It is last year’s model,” she replied. As far as I could see, there were countless models, and no distinctive difference between this one and any of the others. I slipped it on to everyone’s approval and (despite some guilt toward my companions, who remained empty-handed) bought it.
        Finally, we found my missing husband, who’d apparently been shopping (not drinking birra), and we sat down by the shore for a quick lunch, after which Amy insisted on our all tasting a local pastry she’d heard about, delizia al limone (“lemon delight”). This circular confection, consisting of a half ball of airy sponge cake soaked in lemon syrup and coated with a pale, citrus frosting, was so ethereally light, and so subtle yet mouth-watering, that I may never forget my single bite.
        I also noticed, as Wikipedia confirms, something provocative about its appearance. Being hemispherical in shape, much like Hostess Sno Balls, and customarily decorated with a single pointy wild strawberry protruding dead center on top, these delicacies, seen in pairs, resemble a woman’s cleavage. I often joke that gazing at pastries in a bakery is like looking at pornography for me. So I can only speculate that for a man who loves sweets, these are truly a way of killing two birds with one stone… or, as you might say, yeast meets breast.
        After changing into the swimsuits we’d all brought along, we bounded out to the beach. This one was neither pebbly nor lined with concrete. It was strewn with flat, dark stones so hot from the sun that we had to wear our shoes right to the edge of the shore. Then we padded out and immersed ourselves in the gently lapping waters of the bay. After floating out a short distance, I looked back toward shore and caught my breath.
        Rising on the hills behind me was the most dazzling vision I had ever seen. The town, although touristy up close, was unimaginably quaint and charming when viewed in the distance, filled with tier after tier of pastel-hued homes and buildings, many of them fully encrusted in rosy bougainvillea, rising up to the azure sky from the glistening sea.
        This was what I had dreamed of. This is what I’d traveled all the way to Italy to see. Floating in the temperate waves, we all gazed up in awe, jokingly claiming ownership to various houses and visually trying to commit this postcard-perfect scene to memory, knowing that even the finest panoramic photograph could not begin to do it justice.
        What if I had let a little anxiety about windy roads and aggressive Italian drivers make me miss the view of a lifetime? What if I’d come all the way to Sorrento, yet sacrificed the chance to see this? What if I hadn’t had the nerve to take this entire trip and had settled for weekend visits to our swim club and the safety of my own back yard?
        All that seems unimaginable now. I can only continue to envision myself still drifting in that bay, gaping upwards toward those cliffs. And any time I ever feel stress, or doubt the purpose of life, I will close my eyes and try to conjure up that magnificent sight once again.
        Amy, Aidan, and Samantha lingered so long on the beach afterwards that they nearly missed the boat back. (I’d like to imagine that the latter two were making some sort of secret pact, or at least finally engaging in some actual conversation, although my better judgment suspects otherwise.) Yet everyone made the ferry in the nick of time, and we all sat comfortably up on deck, letting the wind whip through our still-wet hair as we continued to relish glorious coastal views, not a twinge of sea sickness among us.
        Then we reconvened at the hotel pool in the lemon grove and swam a little more.
        We chatted briefly with our traveling companions at breakfast the next morning, and planned to bid them goodbye before checking out. But it took us so long to pack that when were ready, they’d already departed for a day in Pompeii. I left them a note at the front desk inviting them to come East. And now that we’re back home, I see that Samantha and Allegra have become friends on Facebook. But who knows if we’ll ever see them again?
        It seems funny to me that we have so many close friends at home whom we love but would hesitate to travel with, yet we meshed so well with these complete strangers.
        It also seems funny in retrospect that we went away seeking some much-needed family time and ended up diluting our limited days alone by incorporating other people. Then again, it’s always nice to make new friends and expand your social circle together. And testy family members tend to be on their best behavior when outsiders are around.
        In the end, I’d say we had an incredible trip, and (other than learning to mind my own business about my son’s love life) there’s only one thing about it I would change.
        Although we didn’t go to Italy to save money – rather, most of what we did there involved spending too much of it -- in the interests of slight economy, we ended up also sharing a single room in Sorrento. The so-called suite I’d viewed online had looked like multiple rooms, and what they gave us instead turned out to be so large and elegant, with floor-to-ceiling windows lining two of its four walls, that I decided not to make a fuss.
        Also, there was something strangely comforting about this arrangement at this juncture in our lives, when our youngest child had just graduated from college and was about to go off and live the rest of her life completely independently. Still, we were once again obliged to sleep cozily almost side by side and to share a single bathroom. This provided a bit too much togetherness for a family of four, even one as close as ours.
        So I returned home painfully conscious of the fact that half the things I do or say seem to instantly get on my children’s nerves. (Everything I do or say gets on my husband’s nerves, as well as vice versa, but after 27 years of marriage, who really cares?)
        So, was this the tail end of our taking family vacations, as we have known it? Subsequent to Sorrento, will our twain ever meet? Or must the kids and we codgers part ways?
        Judging from the way they described the earlier segment of their trip, my offspring had much more fun when they were traveling without us, even if we stayed and ate in much pricier places. And I don’t blame them.
        I also must admit that there was less bickering when my husband and I went to Italy alone for our 25th anniversary, if only because there were half as many people to butt heads.
        Allegra chalks up the problem to the fact that by the time she’d met us in Italy, she’d been to Israel on Birthright for 10 days and spent another week in Istanbul. “Maybe I was just tired already, and I was sick of being pushed around by other people,” she says. “So sick of it that I didn’t want to compromise anymore, even with my family.”
        Sensing this, we tried to give her as wide a berth as possible within the confines of a single room. But it wasn’t always easy. “I just think we could have been more tolerant of each other and a little less combative,” she says. “I also think that Aidan and I travel at a similar pace, and you and Dad travel at a similar pace, and they’re just different paces.”
        Maybe realizing that will make it a little easier to let her go off into the world now, knowing that, at least for the moment, she’s had her fill of us. Maybe it will also help me to miss her just a little less, knowing that she needs her space, and I may even need mine.
        “But in the end, I think it was a good family experience,” she says, “and I’m really glad we did it.”
   Me too. Shared experiences, even combative ones along rocky coastlines, can help bring people closer together. And wherever we go, or wherever she may be, I still adore her beyond words. Aidan too, of course. I’m their (nice Jewish) mom, so I always will.
        I also count my blessings that I have two grownup kids who’d even want to go away with us. And not just go away with us, but actually be with us. The one night that I urged them to go out for a night on their own, Aidan staunchly declined. "Why would we want to do that?" he asked. "That's like every night of the rest of our lives."
        And so I realize that, whether we’re traveling in magical places or just wasting time at home, ours is a pretty good life, too. Knowing that is the most precious thing I can imagine, and also something that I hope I never lose. Fortunately, it’s nothing you could ever put inside a suitcase.