New York's Bryant Park is the WiFi Refuge

I write this from Bryant Park. Which apparently is the only place in NYC where you can get free WiFi. I am sure there are many more but this was the best and only I could find after much trudging. It's busy here, people filling up the park, sitting on the grass, and a band made up of police officers is playing jazz on the bandstand.

This morning I went to an event at the Italian Tourism Board, it was a showcase about Abruzzo and Trentino, lesser-known regions of Italy. The provincial governors of the areas were there and they addressed the standing room only crowd of journalists in Italian, as a young woman patiently translated. I felt a bit out of place since every man in the room except me was in a formal suit. Oh well, I am a dot-com guy.

Abruzzo, reads one of the brochures, "is a great producer of silence, an archaic silence that hosts animal sounds, and the rustlings of vegetation, all subdued, as if absorbed in the great image of the scene." This was what Giorgio Manganelli once said. The Abruzzians are excited about a new airline route, NY to Pescaro. This route has been a success for Ryanair for years, now it will be a summer experiment out of JFK.

We hope to take this flight and drive up to Le Marche to write about the historic villages there in September. This visit to NYC is all about laying the groundwork. It began with my short meeting with Giulio Silenzi, the President of the Province of Macerata. Tomorrow I'll hear a bit of opera from this famous city, and meet more officials who will help us plan our trip there.