So I mentioned I lost my belt at the Paris airport. What I didn’t catch you up on is the fact I hadn’t bought a belt until today. When we were in the belt capitol of the world (Sorrento) we were having troubles with the cash machine – I didn’t want to spend what little hard earned cash we had on a belt. In Orvieto, Bologna, and Parma all you could find were high fashion belts starting at about 40 Euros on up to pretty much anything you can imagine. Those of you that know me know I think $20 is excessive for a belt (or any piece of apparel) – no way am I getting a $50 belt. As I also mentioned I’ve lost weight – so I’ve been spending the last two weeks pulling my pants up all the time.
All this leads to today. There was an open air market out in front of the hotel (there’s a picture in the post below this one). We were walking through and we spotted belts for 10 Euros each (about $13). We started picking through them and an old Italian guy comes up and in Italian starts saying that these were great belts – much better than anywhere else (all these belts look exactly alike) and what a steal they were (all the belts in these markets from Sorrento to here are 10 Euros – and I’m sure they make about 8 on each sale). So I showed him my beltless pants and we pick out a color (actually 2 – black and brown). He grabs a belt off the rack and puts it around me. Unfortunately it only made it about 9/10’s of the way. He laughs, pats my stomach, and grabs another belt. This one went around me twice – he laughs again and says he can fix it. Sitting on the other side of his cart is a guy with leather working tools and the old man sends us off his direction. He measures me, takes both belts apart, and cuts then down. They fit perfectly. For 20 Euros I have two custom tailored Italian belts.
No comments:
Post a Comment