Pizza, Pasta, and Plants – Botanizing in Italy and Corsica (Final chapter)

September 10 – Those Pesky Details

Today is where the focus shifts from field work to paperwork, that makes all the fieldwork worthwhile.  We departed the Sud Hotel before dawn for the nearby ferry terminal. Compared to our trip coming to Corsica, the signage was slightly less confusing. This time the ferry was nearly 1/3 larger, and was carrying a huge number of tractor trailers back to Italy.  Because we boarded early for the 8am departure, we got to enjoy both breakfast and lunch aboard the ferry. Our only suggestion for improving the experience is to have more than a single cashier for a line of 80 people trying to pay for their meals, prior to eating. The long trip also provided a first opportunity to start labeling my 1000 images from the expedition.

The next piece of the puzzle was the one-hour drive south to the Pisa Agricultural Inspection Service in Pisa. Since we had scoped it out before we left Itay, it was much easier to make our way back, and meet the waiting inspector. In advance, we had to send a complete list of plants, along with the number of each.

The entire process took less than an hour, and we were on our way to find a copy center to print off all the import permits, plant lists, a proforma invoice, an original phytosanitary certificate, along with the green/yellow USDA shipping labels. Finding a parking place in downtown Pisa is at best a challenge, which would probably have been somewhat easier if we could read Italian.  The oddest part of this journey was seeing a portrait of American Uni-bomber, Ted Kaczynski, on a downtown wall…hmm.

After finishing at the copy center, we then needed to find a shipper for the plants. We located one in downtown Pisa, but after spending far too much time going around in widening circles in search of parking, we shifted to plan 2, which was to head for a large International FedEx hub near the Pisa airport. We were thrilled to find plenty of parking, so, in we went with our packages. As so many things that seem too good to be true, we were told that they don’t accept packages unless you are a registered international shipper. The worker there, directed us the same business, Mail Boxes Etcetera (MBE), that we had tried in downtown Pisa. Since we were now approaching 445pm, and most of the MBE offices closed at 6pm, so our situation was getting dire.

We knew that Pisa would most likely be even worse than earlier, in terms of finding parking, so we opted to head back to Florence, where our morning flight was departing, in the hopes we could make it to the MBE office there, before they closed. Fortunately, the main highway between Pisa and Florence had speed limits between 70 and 80 mph, which bizarrely changed, seemingly every mile. Google navigation landed us at the store with 12 minutes to spare, but then we had to find a parking spot. Finally, we located a single parking spot about four blocks away, in which we literally squeezed into, and then ran, packages in hand to the MBE office, finally walking into the office with four minutes to spare. This was to subsequently find out that this office actually stayed open until 650pm.

After chatting with the sales rep, we were informed that FedEx didn’t ship plants overseas.  Did we say plants…sorry, we meant botanical specimens.  It took several minutes, and a back-and-forth phone conversation with his boss, before they agreed to ship our box, but with no responsibility on their part if something died during shipment.  After an hour, we were finished, and ready to drop off our luggage at our hotel, then head to the airport to drop off our rental car, for which we were now more than an hour late. 

The Best Western hotel near the Florence airport turned out to be our nicest hotel of the trip. We dropped off our rental car, only to find the rental office closed, just as the last few minutes of daylight were fading. Then, it was how to find a taxi back to the hotel. Fortunately, Zac found someone nearby, who spoke enough English to suggest, and direct us to the airport shuttle departure point, which would take us back to the airport taxi stand. We thought our excitement for the day was over until we hopped into a cab with very angry gentleman of Middle Eastern descent. He sped back to our hotel like a lunatic, going the wrong way around roundabouts, ignoring all traffic signs, and then was furious that we wanted to pay with credit card, at first, demanding only cash. We were both quite relieved to get out of that episode alive. That led to a very quiet dinner…our last together, before a very early morning departure home.

Although we paid for a three day delivery, our shipment was allowed to lounge around the Memphis FedEx headquarters, because as it it turned out, the Italian FedEx shipper put the paperwork inside the box, instead of on the outside of the box. That caused a problem, because FedEx isn’t allow to open boxes in Memphis, but it also can’t forward them to USDA, with having access to the paperwork. You’ve got to love a bureaucratic Catch-22.

It took our amazing nursery admin team of Tiffany and Savannah, an uncountable numbers of frantic emails and phone calls, to finally discover that FedEx and FedEx International are two separate entities, who don’t communicate with each other. After getting them together with the USDA inspection office, our package was finally on the way to be inspected in New Jersey, then on it us…a mere nine days after shipping. In anticipation of a potential snafu, I had added extra moisture to each specimen just prior to shipping, which was just enough to keep them in good condition. The seed and spores are now sown, and divisions are potted, and on the road to recovery.

Should the opportunity and funding arise, I would certainly return for more exploration in what was a botanically fascinating part of the world.

– Tony Avent