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11/30/2008 What's in a name? A Margherita is NOT a Margarita! OK, fess up... how many of you have ordered a Margherita pizza and assumed it was some sort of Mexican pizza? It has green stuff on it, right? A Mexican margarita is green, right? That's where the similarities end; for it was the Queen of Italy, Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna di Savoia, (or Margaret of Savoy) who inadvertently started this pizza tradition. What happened was, she was hungry and she wanted a pizza. Her chef, wanting to impress the almighty Queen, baked a pizza with the colors of the national flag, green, white, and red. Tradition holds that green represents the country's plains and the hills, white, the snow-capped Alps and red, blood spilt in the Wars of Italian Independence. The good Queen's pizza held Bazil, fresh Mozeralla cheese, and of course, homemade tomato sauce. She loved the pizza, and the Margherita pizza was born. Had the good Queen enjoyed a Tequilla ridden Margarita at the same time, an entirely new dish would have probably been named, the "Double Margie" or something even cooler! Prison Today, we walked another six miles (according to the GPS) and logged another 300 steps for a total change in elevation of 432 feet down and back up. We saw (and climbed) the Spanish Steps, Trajan's column, the Piazza di Veniza which is home to the Altare della Patria (Alter of the Father) and resting place of Italy's first King. We also saw the Pantheon and actually witnessed a Sunday morning Mass service there. The most humbling thing we saw today was the prison where the disciples Peter and Paul were kept. The prison is right on the edge of the ruins of ancient rome and by golly, when you walk into the prison and take the spiraling stone steps down, there's no doubt that if you were chained to a marble column down there, you were definately stuck for a long, long time. There's a hole in the roof through which prisoners were lowered into the cell below. At the base of the stairs, there is a tiny room (enough space for two people to comfortably stand it) and the walls, ceiling, and floor were all covered with huge stones. The pillar that Peter was chained to is still standing in place and a crypt with an upside down cross is there to commemorate the fact that the bodies of Paul and Peter were both kept there after their deaths. The upside cross represents the fact that Peter was crucified upside down at his own request, stating that he was not worthy to be crucified the same way that Jesus was. If memory serves, there's a passage in the epilogue of the gospel of John where Jesus hints at the end that Peter would suffer. Jesus said something like, "You will stretch out your hands where someone will help you pass to the place where you don't wish to go." The Prison was constructed around the time of the first "Sack" of Rome around 3 or 4 hundred years before Christ. It was originally created as a cistern for a spring in the floor of the second lower level (there were two, the lower of which was where prisoners were kept by lowering them through the floor of the upper room). This is the likely source of the water Paul used to baptize his fellow prisoners. Eventually a passage from the cistern drain was constructed, reputedly for flushing out the dead prisoner's bodies. Typically, only higher profile prisoners were kept in the prison, usually foreign commanders who were defeated and became the centerpiece in a Roman triumphant procession. They usually remained incarcerated until they were paraded and killed in public. Standing in this prison cell was humbling, indeed. I took a small pinch of dirt for my Mom, who was unable to come with us on this trip. I'll send it home to her in a small glass bottle. Home Tomorrow! At long last and after walking at least 70 miles in 10 days (I lost count of the stairs), we fly home tomorrow! To our mutual surprise, there is quite a bit of our trip budget left over. Also, we were never robbed, pilfered, injured, lost, or hospitalized! Although, Lisa encountered some pick-pockets who were running a "pregnant woman" scam (she read about the scam in the travel book). Honestly, it was just like the book said, one woman would dress as a humble, begging, pregnant mother-to-be, and the other older woman (presumable her mother?) would walk alongside with a message written on a HUGE piece of cardboard. They would approach, flash the big board in your face to distract you, and steal your stuff. Lisa recognized it right away as a scam and pointed a finger in the old woman's face before barking, "NO!" Then, she barked at me, "WATCH YOUR POCKETS!" Both women and I were frightened enough to scatter at that point and Lisa was honestly ready to slam a pregnant woman into the wall, even if she WAS faking... Good times, good times... I will post the last of the photos, but honestly... we took more than a thousand. They don't sell film here anymore, they sell memory cards instead. If your camera is full, you can always buy another 1Gb card to take 100 more. We're not the type of people to force anyone to watch a slide show of our trip to Italy, but if you ask me to bring my laptop to the next small group or dinner party, I'll be happy to leave the full slide show running so that anyone who wants to can look at ALL of the pics. There are some that would make nice wallpapers or postcards too, so if you want one, all you need do is ask. kjw 11/29/2008 Just not enough...I'm not sure what to say today. Today, we saw/covered the following sites: -Ancient Rome -The Forum -The Cupola over St. Peter's Basilica -The "Actual" St. Peter's Basilica -The Coliseum -Caesar Augustus' Palace -Trevi Fountain -Walk through the shopping district back to our hotel I'm so tired, I'm having trouble sitting up straight enough to write this. I think for this entry that in lieu of writing something pithy, humorous, or informative, I'll just post a bucket-load of pictures and go to bed. If you have questions about anything, shoot me an email and I'll do my best! 11/28/2008 Brothels and Rome and History, oh my The Red Lights of Pompeii I struggled with whether or not to write this in the blog, because it's a bit on the naughty side. However, our trip is all about history and these are, after all, the facts! So here goes... While in Pompeii, we would occasionally these stone phallic symbols in the streets or on the walls of shops, all pointing in one general direction. Our guide told us that those were original stones, set by the builders of the town to point to the red light district. Sailors and merchants from all over the world would come (remember, Pompeii was an international sea port) and the arrows pointed them in the direction of the girls and their rooms. Moreover, above each room, there was a painting that illustrated precisely what that particular girl's uh, "specialty" was. All of those paintings were still extremely well preserved (see pictures) and we certainly got a kick out them! A Latin sign inscribed on the wall says, "Show us your money!" There were lamb-skin condoms available, as well as an antiseptic cleaner available, made from boiled vinegar. I shook my head and thought, "How sad that the more things change... the more they stay the same." Fast Coffee We set a new record on the train... 190 miles per hour for about a solid hour of travel! The Eurostar trains are fantastic, we have consistently booked second class tickets and that gives you an assigned window seat, a place to stow your luggage, access to the nice restaurant car, and free access to clean toilets. The restaurant car has all sorts of hot food, espresso, cappuccino, wine, beer, coke, diet coke, you name it, they have it. Their espresso is growing on me, I must say. I found it a bit acidic at first, but I think that's only because I let it cool down too much. If sipped while steaming hot, it's quite delicious. It is a bit sad though that a shot glass full of strong espresso is about six U.S. dollars... Still; I won't be going back to Starbucks any time soon. It's amazing to me that even the lowliest little pizzeria places have espresso machines worth many thousands of dollars! They take their coffee very, very seriously. Most of the time when they see us, they assume we'll want "Cafe, American" which is their version of American style coffee. It's a shot of espresso with a ton of hot milk poured in so the average American can stomach the acid. We Wintered at the Vatican in '08 If I haven't mentioned this yet, Winter is definately the time to see Italy if you have an interest in the museums. If it's the country side, the flowers, fruits, green rolling hills, sea birds nesting in the craggy rocks of Capris, and green majestic mountains you want to see, come in the summer with the other billion tourists. If you hate waiting in line at the museum, come in the Winter. Seriously, most people make reservations to see Michelangelo's David at least six months in advance. We walked right in. At the Vatican today, we managed to seed the Sixtine Chapel AND the Vatican Museum in less than five hours! We took an early train out of Naples and arrived in Rome at 1pm. We walked about a mile to our hotel (The Marriott Grand Flora Hotel, look it up, it's off the hook) and immediately took a Taxi to the Vatican, hoping to see something, anything, before the day ran out. To our surprise, we walked right up to the ticket window and bought two tickets to the Chapel and Museum. We walked (and walked and walked and walked) through what seemed like MILES of painted ceiling, pre-christ statues and paintings and tapestries (oh my). I commented to Lisa, "Wow, it sure seems like we've walked at least a mile and we're still not even to the Sixtine Chapel yet!" Lisa said, "Honey, these double-wide hallways are usually packed, because we're in the LINE that goes to the Sixtine Chapel." <SNAP> Sure enough, I remember now how people have told me that they stood in line for HOURS to see the paintings in the Chapel. We walked at whatever speed we wanted, slowing down to see the incredible tapestries (literally, 30 feet high and 50 feet long), and speeding up past the creepy Jesuses. Most of the pictures of paintings included with this blog entry were way up on the ceiling. I zoomed in and stood as still as possible to take them without a flash. The Chapel was breathtaking. Just when you think you can't stand another museum... you look up and the paintings are so realistic, that they seem to be walking right out of the walls. You get a bit of vertigo too, because the ceiling is SO high, it's easy to get dizzy staring up at it. I marveled at the hordes of people holding onto one another with their necks all craned straight up at the ceilling! Michelangelo's masterpiece was there, (God Touching Adam, or as I like to call it, the "Pull my Finger" painting) along with many, many others. We found a seat on a near by bench and stared upward till our necks hurt, then we stared for another fifteen full minutes. We left the chapel and still had two hours to see the museum! I had no idea, but the Vatican museum has so many things besides historical Pope, Catholic, Apostle, and other artifacts related to Christianity. There were endless Roman warrior pieces (I saw my first complete chariot), armor, Egyptian mummies and artifacts, I could go on and on. The pictures here are the best I could do, no flash bulbs were allowed so they might be a bit blurry. Lisa actually stood still as a tripod a few times and it worked well!. Thanks? I should have mentioned yesterday, when Lisa and I were inquiring at the Concierge desk, the man asked me, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" "Sure," I replied. "In America, you have this Holiday of Thanksgiving, is that right?" I said, "Yes, that's right." He asked, "Well, do you mind, uh, can I ask, well... 'Thanks' for what, exactly?" I laughed out loud... I told him the whole story; Pilgrims, yada, yada, Maize, yada, yada, Indians, etc... He said, "Oh, that's lovely. We have a similar Thanksgiving day for the day we won out our independence after World War II, with help from you Americans, of course." He shook hands, and vowed to be thankful for the day... He was a very nice man. That's all for today, tomorrow is more stuff from Rome, I'm sure I'll have more to write about. If you have questions or comments, please send them to us at KJLMWalker@msn.com. Thanks! 11/27/2008 Naples and the CoastParking
Parallel parking presents a challenge to some people. In Italy, I’ve noticed that the cars parked along the curb in parallel are closer to each other than you might be comfortable with in the good ol’ U.S. of A. A LOT closer! There’s maybe, oh, six inches of space in front and behind most of the cars. “How do they parallel park that closely,” you ask? Simple…
You start by backing into the space, like you normally would under any other parallel parking circumstance. In Italy, however, you proceed until you hear the “THUMP” of your rear bumper against the front bumper of the car behind you (an immediate “failure” of your attempt at any driving school in America). Then, you turn your front wheels inward and you ease forward until you hear the “THUMP” of your front bumper against the rear of the car in front of you. You repeat this procedure, forwards and backwards until you’re “in.” Simple.
When it comes to finding a space to park in, having a small car certainly comes in handy. Having been here over a week now, Lisa and my combined counted total of SUVs being driven around is one (1). People get around on scooters, motorcycles, and in tiny, tiny cars. “Smart” cars are everywhere. Our guide told us that his brother drives a Smart car and when he goes out at night to discos, he always finds a place to park… He told us that one night, they simply rolled a trash bin out of the way and parked in the space it had occupied!
Liquid Cheese
Tonight was Thanksgiving for Lisa and me. We knew that turkey and dressing and yams, etc, were not an option, but we did want to have something nice, so we asked around and the locals pointed us to a small family owned restaurant that specialized in serving the local cuisine of Naples. It was a short walk and we found the place extremely “homey.” So much so that the family that runs the restaurant was eating together at a table next to us. Whenever a new customer would come in or a new dish would arrive from the kitchen via the Dumbwaiter, one of the family crew would hop up and take care of the situation. They were very helpful with the menu and dinner couldn’t have been more delicious! We had pasta with garlic and chili peppers, pasta with Mussels, a medley of local vegetables (lightly fried), Calamari, and Filet Mignon in a Parmesan cheese sauce. The sauce was liquid gold and it flowed like gravy! We had dessert and a bottle of wine… it was Thanksgiving Italian style and we loved it.
Pompeii
We saw Pompeii today through the eyes of an educated guide. He was marvelous! He took us through the entire city and told us of all of the different rooms, the geography, the streets, and all of the different things to see and do, through the eyes of a local Pompeii resident. He told us stories and all about the ways of life in Pompeii, prior to the monstrous volcanic explosion. In the pictures, you’ll see two peaks of Mount Vesuvius. If you trace the slope from each peak to draw a single high peak in the middle, that’s how tall the volcano used to be, prior to the explosion! As you can see, it was nothing short of Apocalyptic… Pompeii was a thriving sea-port before the explosion. Ironically, it was built out of volcanic stone which was very prevalent in the area. Remember, this city was bustling at least 500 years before Christ was on the earth and they had:
- Graded streets with rainwater runoff - Elevated sidewalks to cross the streets - Sewers and running water (with pressure to run the fountains) - Toilets and sewage treatment facilities where they would harvest ammonia to clean their laundry - Aqueducts - Sliding barn doors and garage doors (wooden) - Reflective stones to find your way through streets at night - Tiled entry-ways - Tiled roads, with smoothed grooves cut for chariot wheels - Named streets, complete with Latin names and numbers, laid out in a grid - Gold jewelry - Surgical tools and needles - Glass bottles - Fast food restaurants and cafeterias - Farming, fishing, open air markets - Sundials and AM, PM time demarcation - Red-light district (it was an international seaport) - Painted stucco walls and frescos - Covered sidewalks and multi-story homes and shopping areas
The sights of Pompeii were a real eye-opener for me. No matter what you study about the city or the people, it is amazing to walk in the shadow of that volcano and see how civilized they were and how they lived their lives. These weren’t meager people, searching for sustenance to “get by.” These were a thriving people who sent their kids to universities, spoke Latin, and enjoyed life.
All Roads Lead to Rome
Tomorrow morning after
breakfast, we’ll head to Rome
on another train. It’s the last city of
the trip and while we’ve seen so many fantastic things, we’re ready to stop
packing and unpacking. Getting
everything we’ve bought, home in one piece, will be a challenge, but we’ll find
a way.
11/25/2008 Walking and Walking and Walking and WalkingMy Bathtub Epiphany So, I was laying in a bathtub with the water 2 degrees hotter than I could possibly stand it, trying to soak some of the day’s walking out of my feet and legs and I had this epiphany… I had a pizza box in my lap and a slice of the most wonderful pizza in my left hand, and a very dry Martini in the right, and I thought, as I took another bite, “In America, Grandmothers all over the country have figured out the dichotomy of tender and flaky. Somehow, when you put a fork through a nice pie crust, it flakes apart; but it’s still a bit tender as your teeth gnash their way through the base of the crust.” I thought about this as I thoughtfully chewed some pizza crust. “The Italians, on the other hand, have invested their culinary wisdom into the simultaneous concurrence of crunchy and chewy.” God bless the Italians, for when it comes to pizza, a three day old piece of the worst in Florence, is still better than a fresh pie from Pappa John’s any day. I went on to finish the pizza, the martini, and I almost needed a crane to set me back to vertical after my soak.
Manly Toilet Seats
Rejoice men, the toilet seat war is indeed one for the ages; but the Italians are on it! It would seem that every single public toilet seat in Italy is secured in the “UP” position. In fact, if you put it down, it will spring back up again… the way John Crapper originally intended it to be. It even mists a nice fragrant deodorizer when its slow climb back to vertical finally climaxes. Saints be praised!
Creepy Baby Jesus
OK, after looking at hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Renaissance paintings today, Lisa and I want to know one thing. Wasn’t there anyone alive in the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth century that could paint a likeness of the baby Jesus that wasn’t just downright creepy? The poor child looked balding, scary, stern, angry, confused… We started naming them, “Hey honey, did you see the painting in the other room with “Vampire Jesus?” There was “Moe Jesus,” and “Curly Jesus,” and “Larry Jesus.” We saw “Bob Newhart Jesus” and the list went on an on. I understand that Catholicism runs deep in Italy, I totally get that. Seeing Mary and Jesus on canvas, wood, in sculpture, etc, is to be expected, but wow. Give the poor boy a pleasant countenance, is that too much to ask?
I shouldn’t complain. The history of this place is just awesome. I was trying to think of a way to express it that would really drive home the point… I just can’t even begin. This is another one of those things that leaves you slack-jawed if you pause to think about it for any length of time. Think about this… Leonardo DaVinci was SURROUNDED by priceless works of art (dating back to the time before Christ) when he started painting at the age of 20. At roughly the same time in Spain, a man named Chris Columbus started thinking that the world might not be flat after all, and he set sail to prove it, discovering a new continent in the process. Roughly three HUNDRED years after that, some men in the Colonies decided that they’d had enough of merry old England and they had themselves a revolution. Two HUNDRED years later, I was in the fifth grade heaving water balloons at Jerry Snow because I thought she was cute. Ten years later at twenty, I was in College and most certainly NOT painting the next Mona Lisa.
We saw so many paintings from this time period that they almost started to get boring. “Here’s another creepy Jesus, again, OH, here’s another disciple… LOOK, there’s the original painting they must have used for the opening of ‘Desperate Housewives,’ more disciples… Goliath’s head on a sword… John the Baptist’s head on another plate… OOOH, here’s one from Michelangelo…” There was more history and art in that one museum than I’ve seen anywhere in our country, ever. We felt very fortunate, just to be let into the place.
Big Dave
Michelangelo’s David is… well; just… breathtaking. Literally. You find yourself walking through the museum, checking your guidebook, looking around, feeling a bit more educated about art since you’ve been in 23 other museums… you’re wondering just what the big deal is about David, and when you turn the corner and see him for the first time, well, you just stop breathing for a minute. I stopped walking, he was still a full football field away from me and I stopped in my tracks and thought simply, “He’s awesome!” Up to that point, every single painting or sculpture I’d seen of David and Goliath was violent. It was bloody. There was David, holding Goliath’s head up, with blood literally spraying all over his body. There was David, Goliath’s sword raised over his head, standing on his dead body, etc.
This was different. The first thing I thought was, “He’s humble.” Here’s a depiction of David, with his famous sling casually tossed over his shoulder with one hand and a rock, loosely cradled in the other. His face is so incredibly, meticulously detailed that you can see in his eyes the look of a man who’d just killed another man; and regardless of how pre-ordained the outcome might have been, he looks a bit “sad” about it. As I walked closer to him, he grew HUGE! He’s much bigger than I thought he was. His body is eighteen feet tall and he stands on a seven foot platform, so his head is a solid twenty five feet in the air when you finally get really close to him. You can see the scars on his knuckles, the cracks in his toenails, the veins in his hands, and the pupils in the corneas of his eyes. Every fold of skin, every dimple, even the flex of the standing calf muscle in his right foot is obvious. How a man cut him from stone is just baffling and yet, several other statues that were commissioned to Michelangelo, ones that he did not finish, were on hand to show a bit of the process and it was still awe-inspiring. I can’t remember who the prophet was who said it, and I’m paraphrasing a bit but it was something like, “When I compare the proportion, the detail, the countenance, and the emotion that David shows his viewers, I am convinced that no other sculpture needs even to be studied.” I couldn’t agree more.
463 Steps to Heaven
From the moment I saw groups of people WAY up in the tippy-top of the Duomo of Florence (the Cathedral), I knew I had to go up there (this is the reason why I’m now in the bathtub). Lisa had walked enough for one day (it was a LONG day) but I wanted pictures of the sunset over Florence from 400 feet high or whatever, so I went. She went shopping, I went climbing. There are 463 steps to the top of the Duomo. These steps are built and carved out of the original stone they used to build the Cathedral. They go up, spiral staircase fashion, and the way up is narrower than my shoulders and shorter than my height. In other words, I had to walk up sideways with my head cocked to one side! Somewhere about 30 steps into the journey, I had some second thoughts. I couldn’t quit though because the only way back down at that point would have been “through” the people coming up behind me. Nope, the only out was up… so up is where I went! It took a long time, but the journey was worth it. I got some great pictures and I got to see the fresco that was painted on the ceiling, way up close! See the enclosed pictures to get an idea.
Italian Wine to the USA?
Lisa and I are trying like crazy to find a way to bring some wine home. Since we didn’t check a bag, and since liquids on the plane are a “no-no,” we considered shipping home some bottles. Well, we discovered today that that the cost of the shipping is $120 for six bottles, plus the tax and oh yea… the cost of the wine! Seriously, $250 for six bottles of wine is beyond our budget. Plan “B” is to buy the cheapest suitcase we can find, wrap some bottles in our dirty clothes, and check that mother on the airplane! Time will tell.
Stuck Bus
One last funny story…
on the way home we were seated (for the first time all day) in the back of the
#22 bus. According to my GPS, our stop
was only .13 miles from our hotel, and according to our current pain factor,
that was just about right at the limit of what we could tolerate for the
remainder of the day. We approached our
stop and we hit the button to signal the driver that we wanted to stop. The usual “DING” didn’t sound. “Hmmm,” we thought, “Will he stop?” Well, the answer was “no.” In fact, Lisa and I weren’t the only ones who
wanted to stop. As the driver sped past
the stop, screams of “ALTO, ALTO!” reached his ears and about a half mile past
where we wanted to go, he made a decision.
History is littered with bad decisions.
The one our driver made was colossal!
For some reason, he thought the best idea would be to attempt a “U-turn”
in the middle of the busy 4-lane street!
I have all of this on video and I will eventually put it up on YouTube
so stay tuned… Anyway, he turned left across two lanes of traffic into a
parking lot. Please realize, this is a
big city bus; it’s one of those extra long ones with extra seats. He turned, miscalculated the ramp that led up
into the parking lot he was aiming for and “Scraaaape, WHACK!
SSSSSssssssssssssss” is what we heard next!
Lisa diagnosed the problem immediately, “He broke the bus; holy crap, he
broke the bus!” It gets better, he tried
to BACK UP into traffic to complete the U-turn.
Now, I don’t know if the “SSSSSSSsssssssssss” was a loss of pressure or
transmission fluid or what, but no mater how high the engine revved, all we
heard was a grinding of metal as the bus refused to go anywhere. Surprisingly, the people ON the bus were
quite calm (which is more than I can say for the drivers of the cars trying to go
either direction on the street). He
finally opened the doors, and we walked back to the hotel… I felt sorry for
him, I’m sure the broken bus was the least of his worries!
11/24/2008 Wayward Carts and the Bathroom Budget Another Fabulous Breakfast This morning presented another unbelievable opportunity to eat. I had a prosciutto omelet with smoked mozzarella in extra virgin olive oil with Italian peppers and a side of baby greens in a balsamic vinaigrette reduction. It was unbelievable. Lisa had another bowl of Cocoa Krispies. If anyone knows of a support group for foodies who live with people who just don't give a rip, I'd love to hear about it. Here are some of Lisa's rules, maybe some of you can offer me some insight:
She says that her mother used to tell guests who hosted them for dinner, "Please don't even try to feed her, she makes her own food." If there's a place on the planet that she might try new things, it's here in Italy... Hope springs eternal, and I will keep trying. Carts from hell There was a grocery store across the street from our hotel and we needed some things like band-aids, tweezers, hair gel, and one other thing... Oh yea, Vodka! A bottle of vodka is 12 euros. Most drinks at the hotel bar are 12 euros each, while mixers like 7-up are free. Do the math, we're not stupid. We walked over to shop. I was excited to see an Italian grocery store (call me weird, but I love to watch people and I love grocery stores). On going in, you see a pile of shopping carts... normal, right? Wrong! Each cart was connected to the cart in front of it with a small cable and a key. You had to insert a Euro coin to turn the key and release your cart! Also, the carts each had four swiveling wheels, as opposed to just the two front wheels we have in the U.S. I LOVED the cart! That thing turned on a dime and was a breeze to drive. We shopped, noting that there were indeed 5 different kinds of fresh calamari to be purchased over the seafood counter. After paying for the goods, we learned that the only way you can get your Euro back is if you dutifully put your cart back in line and hook it up to the other carts so your coin would be returned to you. Guess how many wayward carts were blowing around, loose in the streets? That's right, ZERO! Bathrooms It costs 1 Euro to use a public restroom. I've been playing these games with my bladder, telling it, "You can wait for 42 minutes, then we'll be on a train and you can go for free!" Lisa has been very good about budgeting her bathroom needs, so far we've only spent about $7.50 going to the bathroom. Line? What Line? There's no Line! Italians are funny. On one hand, they're a very chivalrous group. Take the subway, for example. If you're not sickly, handicapped, elderly, "Holy" (nun or priest), or a woman, you'd better not be sitting down. As far as I can tell, that's the general pecking order for seats. If you're a healthy young male, expect to be rousted by any of the other healthy men on the train. Fortunately, I witnessed this second hand before I had the urge to sit down... They are polite to a fault, constantly saying please, thank you, you're welcome, etc. But on the other hand... when it comes to waiting in line? Forget it. There's no line. It's all about assertiveness and wanting to be "first." During the early part of our trip, we were quick to yield, not wanting to offend any of the locals. Lisa has since learned to "hip check" with the best of them though, and we haven't lost a spot since. I love that woman's booty... Train We took a high-speed train to Florence today and it was awesome! Rocketing along, well over 100mph in comfy seats with a nice table between us was very cool. For roughly $120, two people can zip from Milan to Florence in just over two hours. The train had a cool restaurant car in it, was very clean, quiet, and it will baffle me silly to wonder why we don't have trains like this all over America between popular cities. Mnpls to Duluth, Houston to Dallas, L.A. to Vegas, etc. Reservations for David Michelangelo's David is a popular guy. You need a reservation to see him. I called the concierge at our hotel some time ago and when we checked in to the hotel, he presented us with an envelope that had reservations not only to see David, but for the Academia Museum as well! The Academia is famous for holding many paintings from anybody who "was" anybody in the art world. Expect more pictures to be posted tomorrow, but I don't believe they're allowed inside some of the museums. We'll do our best. Art and Leather Word around town is that there are many, many student artists here who are quite good. To earn their tuition, they frequently sell their work, on original canvas, in tubes to carry them home. We're definitely on the lookout for that. Also, the leather goods here are supposed to be second to none. I'd like a nice pair of driving gloves, myself. Lisa is drooling over a new purse... More to come tomorrow, as the only exciting thing left for this day is to do some laundry in the hotel basement...... Ciao! OH, we have a view of the mountains from our room, very cool! 11/23/2008 Smacked in the Tally with a Long Red Whacker! There are trains in the U.S. but they're nothing to get very excited about after you've reached the age of oh... 6. The train we took to Milan was different. It was purely for passengers and it sailed along the tracks at an incredibly smooth 122 miles per hour! The seats on this train were arranged so that four people could sit together and share a small table. Two people faced forward, and the other two faced the rear. Lisa and I had seats, side by side, that faced the front and we rolled the dice on who might be assigned the seats across from us. As luck would have it, it was a family of three from Africa. Husband, wife, and 4 year old child. They packed themselves into the two seats across from us, and with all of our knees touching, we settled in for the 2 hour ride. I fell asleep almost instantly... my feet were burning from a full day's walking in a new pair of shoes (my own fault) and I was just flat out tired. Meanwhile, the young African boy directly across from me disassembled the long red stick from beneath his shiny new balloon. I was passed out cold when suddenly I was roused from my dream by a sharp and very deliberate poke to the crotch. I came fully awake, instantly, and was ready to hit somebody. Hard! I saw a young boy's smiling face as it retreated from my own while his father yanked him backwards. I saw the devil in that face... and some of my anger turned to fear. Fortunately, the family wasn't going all the way to Milan and they left the train only two stops later. I thought back to my own childhood and tried to imagine what my parents would have done to me, had I stabbed someone with my balloon stick... It wasn't pretty, I can assure you. Lisa's new Boyfriend! Lisa has a new boyfriend. He's about 70 years old, 4 foot 10 inches tall on a good day, and he might weigh 85lbs. He's from Sicily, and he owns a restaurant (you can see his picture below). We ordered dinner tonight and he was so thoughtful and gracious that I, myself, almost fell in love with him. He approached the table and I began to tell him what I thought Lisa might like. He shushed me, and turned to her and said, "What is it you liiike, ha? Do you like-a the pasta? do you like-a the pizza? Maybe ahhhh the seafood, hah?" She said, "I like spaghetti." He got very excited and said, "Lemme tell-a you, this-a one here... she's a mah favorite-a, my momma... she used to cook-a this one, she taught me how to make-a the sauce... You gotta make it-a very slow, and you stir the sauce like-a this..." and he pretended to stir some sauce and hypnotically, Lisa fell under his spell. She ordered spaghetti and loved it. She ordered the Tiramisu and loved it! Please understand, Lisa never eats dessert and even more rarely eats Tiramisu. She HATES Tiramisu, won't eat it, won't even have a bite, but she devoured Gissepi's Tiramisu... I think it might have been because he was so smitten with her. He escorted her to the dessert showcase, he was a man in love. Simba, the Restaurant Yorkie Have I mentioned the dogs? There are dogs everywhere here. My new favorite dog is a Yorkie named Simba! He's the local restaurant owner's dog and he comes and goes as he pleases. To see a small dog roaming around the restaurant while you eat is a bit "new" for Americans, but as dog people, we really dig it. Simba doesn't beg and he completely understands the business. I twas pretty cool to see. Day Two... Now THAT'S a Church! Here's a riddle, "How do you tell the Americans, as you walk the streets of Milan?" The answer is, "They're the ones dressed like crap!" Everyone here in Milan looks fabulous. It's incredible, they all look like they're prepared for a fashion photographer to walk around the corner and say, "Hello, can pose for a quick pic for next month's Cosmo?" They're all in $1,000 worth of clothes, men and women alike. I think I'm wearing less than $100 worth right now, and I got new shoes last week! At any rate, Milan is as new and fabulous and Venice is unique and historic. We started the day on a quest to see DaVinci's Last Supper. Reservations to see it are typically made months in advance and we were hoping for a cancellation, but alas, it was not so. We "settled" for the DaVinci science museum. It was amazing to see his notebook and to see everything he'd invented from the pile driver to helicopters, parachutes, paddle-boats, war ships, you name it, and the detailed drawings of human anatomy were just stunning. We left the museum and went to the Duomo... Duomo means "Cathedral" and boy, does Milan have one. Looking at the towers, the spires, it's just more than enough to leave you awestruck. No wonder they warn you of pick-pockets, a thief could have stolen my clothes while I stared, slack-jawed, at the collection of towers around the cathedral in front of me. It must have taken an army to build it, I couldn't get past that. They started building it 1386 and didn't get done until 1888. To put that into perspective, the Italians have spent more time building it, than we Americans have spent building our whole country from the day we left England! As we stood on the ground, we were trying to get some scale on the whole thing, it was just too darned big. Walking inside was a treat! They were having Sunday mass while we were there and to hear the organ and to stand 20 feet from the first pope (his bones, anyway). I lit a candle there for my friend Dave and we left to go "mountaineering" on the roof! You can climb up on the roof and walk amongst the towers. it's a bit like walking around an Escher painting, but it's worth it to climb the endless stairs up there. There's a mall across the street, built of equally impressive architecture (it's the picture with the entrance built as a huge archway). And we had lunch at a small cafe with excellent meats and cheeses. I posted some pics, it's amazing. Tomorrow, we head to Florence! I'll write more as we get connected to the Internet. Connectivity is fairly good, but it's expensive, too. Day one... PARIS! I used to believe that the international flights were the ones that always ran on schedule. After all, a full 747 can hold almost 400 people and some of them paid close to $10,000 for the privilege so you would want to get that plane to its destination as a priority, right? Well, we sat on the ground in an Airbus A330 (wide body) for over an hour while they tried to shoe-horn in a cargo box that "wouldn't fit" properly. To me, that seems like something they'd do all the time, but they sure were confused on this day, I can tell you. We were so late, that we missed our connection in Paris. Not to worry, though, they had us re-booked before we even got off the plane. A perk of flying first class perhaps? Anyway, we got to relax in the elite lounge and we even did some shopping there in Paris before leaving again for Venice. Venice was amazing. I can't begin to describe it, there are times when you just stand and look at things and wonder. The engineer in me wonders, "How did they do that? Why did they do it that way? Wow, that's clever. Oh my, that's amazing." At the same time, the artist/photographer in me just looked at things. Some things, like St. Mark's Cathedral are so stunning that you just stand there and look at it until you weep. To know that you're walking around a plaza that one of the 12 disciples walked around in... it really erases the pictures you had in your head from your children's bible, and it brings to the forefront the realism and truth of what happened here. We shopped like crazy in Venice, too. We stumbled, quite randomly, into a Venetian glass factory and met the son of a master craftsman. He was extremely proud of his father's work and we were awestruck at the amazing things he did with glass. We sent a piece home, of course, and I might even sleep with it for a few days before it finds a place on our travel shelf... we noticed that as you walked around Venice, things got more expensive as you got closer to St. Mark's Square and Cathedral. Obviously, that's the big tourist place to be and the closer you were, the more ridiculous the prices were. Diet Coke? $5... but it was $3 cheaper near the train station, a mile away. Maps? There are no maps... How do you map out a city with no streets? Even worse, there's no such thing as East, West, North, or South in Italy. All of the roads have been built around ancient roads that were built, well, "a long time ago" and those roads didn't take "growth" into consideration. They simply connected the dots between the cities. When they say, "All roads lead to Rome," they mean that every other city in Italy got itself a new road to Rome as soon as the Romans conquered it. Today, the city's streets are all in an odd grid pattern that fills the gaps between the ancient primary roads. It's very likely that you'll travel North, East, AND South, all while on the same street. Or not. It's pretty crazy. In Venice, you must keep telling yourself, "I'm on an island that's only 2 miles across... I can't be THAT lost... Just keep going..." Lisa and I probably walked 5 miles, the track on my GPS looks like a drunken snake was chasing its tail. Italians take food very seriously. Very. Even the smallest cafes have waiters in Tuxedos who take the time to explain every nuance of the menu to you, how fresh the tomatoes are that day, where they got their cheese this morning, what's good today, not so good, etc. Then, they expect you to stay for at least two hours. You'll finish your appetizer long before they start cooking the main entree. The fried calamari here is done with the lightest possible breading, and it's so wonderfully firm, yet soft. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like butter! The olives too, they're not brined the same way. Olives always taste a bit salty to me, but the whole green olives I've had here are more "nutty" tasting and they're just delicious. At breakfast, there were exotic fruits, veggies, meats, cold cuts, breads, eggs, etc, etc, I was in heaven. Lisa, true to her predictable form, headed straight to the cereal table and had herself a bowl of Cocoa Crispies. *sigh* I can't force the woman to try new things, but I hope she knows what she's missing. "You went to Italy for a week and ate Cereal?" "Yes. And Pizza... I ate Pizza." I can't blame her for that... the Pizza is firm, crispy, fresh, chewy, fresh, hot, amazing, fresh... We noticed that there are tons of dogs in Venice. All well-mannered and well behaved, but the weird thing is, there's no grass. Not a blade, just water, ancient stone, and cobblestone walkways. I'm sure the dogs potty, but we never saw any evidence of it. Without further ado, here's some pics of Venice. I've also posted them on my facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2294&id=1661047120&saved 11/13/2008 Flying Out!OK, something must be wrong here, because the day could not have gone more smoothly. We slept in (yay)! and woke to a house full of clean laundry and empty suitcases. Some of you know, we're attempting 11 days in Italy, across 5 cities, without checking any luggage. I'm so proud of Lisa for only packing two pairs of shoes, I could cry! Everything is in two roll-aboard bags and my backpack. We left money for the house sitter, and food for her in the fridge, Ken's car is in the shop for a tune-up while we're gone, and Lisa's is parked at the dealership where they offer free rides to the airport and free car storage while you're gone. Right now, we're sitting in thie airport lounge. I'm enjoying some awesome coffee and Lisa's working (of course). I'll make her stop as soon as we actually leave, for I have the only laptop and I plan to change the password. NOTES: Thanks for calling, Dave... that's AWESOME news! Shelly, 98 hours on a tilt-a-whirl just can't be beat. No wonder you're only three feet tall! |
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