Day 32 - The Olive Oil Journey

Bologna, Italy —> Tel Aviv, Israel  | November 26th, 2022

I get to my car at 12:52am, sleep till 2, then drive to the airport. What a disaster. My car had half gas so I pull up to a gas station. But in Italy I had never before administered my own gas, but since it was 2:30am attendants weren't around. After 15 minutes of not figuring it out (and being very sketched out by the area), I opt to pay the double gas Noleggiare would charge - whatever.

I pull into the self-park area and see no Noleggiare signs. Then I drive to the Noleggiare spot in apple maps (terrible idea). Then on the way out I see a police car and ask him for Noleggiare and he directs me to the rental car return area. I check again but to no avail.

Then I check my email and see in the fine print to leave the car at the Park and Fly late night, so I put it in the navigation and 8 minutes later arrive and see a dude smoking a cigarette in a shirt that resemebed Park and Fly. Success.

25 minutes later I make it into the shuttle for the 10 minute ride. Walk 15 minutes to check in, and by this point its 4am and 40 people are in front of me on the check in line.

30 minutes later it was my turn. I paid for the 10 kg bag and mine weighed 13.6 kg, so I take out my laundry bag to get to 11.5 kg, which the attended accepted though hinted I couldn’t bring the backpack and laundry bag on the plane (of course I snuck it on).

Then the security line, must have been 80 people in front of me. AN hour later I'm through security and I'm not so early after all. AND 200 PEOPLE WERE STILL WAITING IN LINE.

Then it was time to charge the devices get my final Fresh Mozz sandwich on Italy and head to Tel Aviv. Given the 1 hour of total sleep up to this point I sleep pretty much the whole plane ride (thankful for the randomly assigned window seat).

After passing through a not-so-easy customs, I have to buy some more phone data (outside EU) and once verified I got into a GETT to my hotel.

Somehow at 11:45 my room was ready so I go up and basically decompress, shower, and do some computer work. I quickly realize 2 things, everything is closed because it's Shabbat (Saturday = Day of Rest in Jewish Religion), and researching Israeli olive groves online is next to impossible. So what do I do? Door to door sample requests at the open restaurants. Not an easy task.

After 6 mediocre oils I finally got one that tasted decent, noted the name, and now plan to visit the grove. It actually ended up being one of the 4 groves I had noted from the research earlier (pat on the back).

And there was no shot I was continuing…sun was setting, I had to get to the beach. Turns out I spend about 2 hours in the sunset area and eventually make it back to the hotel, pass out for an extended nap, then head for dinner.

I pretty much fasted all day as I had trouble finding open food establishments. But wine, dips, challah, and fish took care of my hunger quickly.

1 Olive Oil Takeaway

I'm not going to name any names but when [most] olive oil companies have big holiday or black Friday discounts, DON'T BE FOOLED: they're just clearing last year's inventory.

But remember Olive Oil gets worse with age (via oxidation). So it's not like last years shirt style that still is in perfect condition. The Olive Oil is definitely worse than the product they'll be selling at full price come January.

So don't fall for those "only discount of the year" or "x.xx % off for the first time ever." BS. They know their customers would fall for it.

-Jack

Thank you for reading and welcome to the blog! I'm traveling through Europe on a quest to find great Olive Oil.