Stepping Back in a Stream

It’s a holiday weekend over here, Tuesday being Republic Day, commemorating the abolishment of the monarchy in 1946.  From what I gather, it’s the biggest secular holiday in Italy.  Tuesday will also mark my second month of residency here this time around.

I thought I would have had a few blog posts up by now but, truth be told, I’ve been having a Dickens of a time getting something cogent on paper.  (I make no promises that this will qualify but there’s been enough delay.)

I’m not entirely sure what the problem has been with that but I have a few ideas..  When I moved here in 2010 is was for what was to be a limited period of time .  I had been fascinated by the city in some prior visits and had always left thinking that it was a city that needed more time, that there was so much more here than could be seen in a weekend or a week or a month even.

So I moved here and it was just great and while it may have become a bit more wonderful in memory than fact, the experience was stellar.  So much newness, and when the time came to go home, there was a tug between looking forward to getting on with life, whatever that may be, and wanting to stay.

Still, shortly after I got back to the states, and I’m talking days here, I was thinking of coming back.  Rome had gotten its hooks in me as I suppose any great city can do and after working a few years and saving up some funds, I put just about everything back in storage and flew back.

Upon arrival, the darnedest thing happened.  I didn’t exactly love it, although I wasn’t quite sure why.  There were some of the usual irritants: The tourist crowds were intense.  (I had, after all shown, up on Holy Thursday, a busy time in a pilgrim city.)  The Roman every man (or woman) for his or herself attitude was jarring (more on that at some later time).  Then there was the gauntlet of touts surrounding the major attractions and the ubiquitous and determined selfie stick, rose, or shakalaka-boom-boom vendors. (For reasons that I don’t understand, Roman street vendors tend to call anything that doesn’t have a very specific name a shakalaka-boom-boom.)

So I suppose it’s possible that I’m just 4 years older and crankier than I used to be but I don’t want to contemplate that possibility.  I think it was something else.  If I were writing from the states, it would be appropriate to quote Thomas Wolfe.  You can’t go Rome again or something like that but this is the Mediterranean so we’ll go with Heraclitus’ line the no man ever steps in the same stream twice.  It’s not the same river he’s not the same man.

As mentioned, I suspect I’m somewhat different and, also, Rome is different, at least a bit.  Italy has been in a financial crisis for the last three years and it extends to Rome.  There appears to be more poverty.  There seems to be an increase in the working poor.  The streets are a mess, and the sidewalks are worse (I’m thinking that maybe 70% of  Roman dog owners clean up after their pooches). There even seemed to be less water flowing from the city fountains. All that ‘s true, again, at least a bit.

But even if the man and the stream were the same, the relationship changes the second time around and I think that has a lot to do with expectations and familiarity.  Ever go to a restaurant for the first time and order a dish you haven’t had before and have it turn out to be spectacular?  Ever go back a month or so later, order it again and find it to be, well, just good?  I think there’s some of that at play.  Also, as this is a return, there isn’t quite the same joy of discovery. I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve seen everything here, because I haven’t but that overwhelming rush of living in a foreign country for the first time, well, that’s not going to happen again.

And there is something else and this may be the biggest factor although one that I had forgotten until a conversation I had the other night. Moving from one country to another takes some adjustment. It takes awhile to settle in.

In the last week or so, it’s been starting to happen.  I got out of Italy for a long weekend a couple weeks ago.  Coming back to Rome was, in essence, coming back home and it felt like it (well, mostly).

Also, while I think I know the city pretty well, there are plenty of new things to explore.  Some are archeological.  A couple of quick examples: Sometime in the last couple years and in the process of digging a new subway route, workers discovered an auditorium form the time of the emperor Hadrian (around 110 AD) Similarly, portions of Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House), buried over shortly after his suicide (AD 68), are again open to the public.

And then some of those events that are purely Roman have been rolling around.  Last Sunday, Pentecost, I attended Mass in the Pantheon, consecrated as a church in 609.  It’s a popular service.  The pews and folding chairs are reserved for the regular attendees and numerous ceremonial attendees (including the small group that holds vigil at the tomb of the first modern king of Italy holding out for a return to the monarchy.) There’s plenty of standing room but it fills up pretty quickly. By 10, the Pantheon is full and they stop letting people in.  The service is a long one about an hour and 45 minutes.  It’s mostly in Italian but even the English parts are unintelligible because of the room’s echo.  On the other hand, that echo makes the choir and musicians sound great. All that’s well and good, but here’s the cool part and the reason the place is packed.: During the last 20 minutes or so, members of the Vigili Del Fuoco (basically the fire dept) scale the building and at the start of the recessional drop tens of thousands of rose petals through the oculus.  It, of course draws oohs and ahhs from the crowd and rightfully so.  Who would want to be anywhere else?

We’re also enjoying a streak of spectacular weather.  Warm breezy days and cool nights that are just perfect for walking without agenda.  The other night I found a great little burger joint (ok, not so sure about putting a slice of cucumber on the burger but they nailed the fries) in the Jewish Ghetto of all places.  Last night, I sat outside the Pantheon a little after sundown, watching the sky take on a deep and vibrating shade of blue that matches the lapis luzili that was so prized during the renaissance. As a bonus, the clown/mime (more clown then mime) was back at work in the piazza.  Greeted at the outset by pretty much universal indifference he managed over the next hour or so to amass a large and appreciative crowd.  There’s a metaphor in there someplace.

So it’s a holiday weekend.  Tomorrow’s officially a work day but most of the Romans have left town and, well, you know how that goes.  Tuesday there are parades and fireworks and flyovers but I’ll probably skip those.  On the other hand, June 2 is the only day that the gardens in the Quirinale Palace are open to the public and I shouldn’t miss that.  Never seen them before.

Oh, and Thursday the Pope processes through the neighborhood.

It’s nice to be back.  I believe I can do this for a few more days.

Firenze

I’ve made a number of trips to Florence in the past couple months. An hour and a half by train, it can seem a world away from Rome. Smaller and quieter, a bit more reserved, Florence packs the tourists in come summertime but somehow the town seems to absorb them better. While areas around the shop lined Ponte Vecchio (literally, the old bridge ), the Uffizi gallery, and the Accadamia run thick with folks, most areas of the city remain passable. The streets and sidewalks seem wider, the traffic slower and the motorinos fewer.
In general the city carries itself with a little more dignity. A friend of mine recently remarked that Florentines seem to appreciate their city while Romans love theirs. She was making a point about the Roman’s joie de vivre (excuse the French) but the Romans do seem more comfortable in their city. They put their feet up on it, leave still burning cigarettes still burning cigarettes balanced on the woodwork, rarely curb their dogs (and that one’s literal). That Florentine appreciation includes a little more respect. A couple of years ago I climbed up to the Piazzale Michelangiolo to catch the sunrise. A cold and cloudy morning, the joke was on me but I did run into a young Florentine couple who had drifted by on their way to work just to spend some time looking at their city. I don’t think that happens in Rome, at least I haven’t seen it.

Actually, It’s much more common to run into a Roman who is longing for the Rome of a few decades ago when the government wasn’t as corrupt, the city’s little green space wasn’t quite as scrubby, and the graffiti wasn’t as thick, or a Roman who is still grieving (and stuck in that anger stage for that matter) for the empire. I was on a tour a couple weeks and our cabbie took offense at my reference to Castel St Angelo, saying “That is not the Castel St. Angelo, that is the mausoleum of Adriano, one of the greatest emperors of Roma. It was stolen by the Catholic church. We do not need the popes. I am not Italian, I am Roman. Rome is not part of Italy, Italy is part of Rome” But, I digress-back to Florence.
I don’t entirely trust my sense of Italian history but I’m pretty sure that while Florence didn’t enjoy the heights of power that Rome did, it also didn’t suffer the depths of the indignities: barbarian invasions, brutal sackings and all that. Romans still display an every man for himself philosophy. You make your own breaks and waiting for one’s turn is the sign of a sucker. Stand aside at a doorway and let a Roman pass, they won’t thank you. I’m not sure if it’s embarrassment or they think they’re getting away with something, but they won’t even make eye contact.
A Florentine will actually stand back and let you through, especially if you arrive moments ahead. There is a general sense of fair play. A friend of mine, a young Irish whip who works with hotels throughout Italy explained it this way- In Milan, the banking capital, they want to know that you’re thorough and precise. In Venice, long the trading headquarters, every conversation, every seemingly offhand comment, is, in some way, an attempt to make a more profitable deal. Florence is looking for fairness, and a Roman just wants to see that you have a pair.
Now, I don’t want to give the wrong impression; Florence can play rough when it has to. Prime example is the feast of San Giovanni which falls in late June. Rome celebrates the holiday with a candlelight vigil procession between two of the great Vatican basilicas. Florence marks the blessed feast with one of the most brutal sporting events on the planet.

They call it Calcio Storico, historic soccer, although it bears only a passing resemblance to the game as we know it and seems more similar to rugby only more chaotic. The game is played between two teams of 27 players. There is one 55 minute period. There are no substitutions and no time outs. If someone gets hurt (and someone always gets hurt), he is removed from the field of play while the game goes on and his team continues a man (or 2, or 3) down. Points are scored when the ball is thrown into the goal. Beyond that there don’t seem to be any rules and it’s no holds barred. Much of the time is spent trying to tire out the opposition by, well, beating them up. Teeth are loosened, bones are broken, there’s nothing particularly sporting about it. It is, though, immensely popular. I couldn’t find a ticket anywhere.

Like so many events in Tuscany, the game is preceded by a medieval parade. The town fathers dress in heavy period garb (don’t know why they always hold these things in the middle of summer). Dragging cannons and carrying crossbows, they precede the players. Borrowing a phrase from my nephew, the players look like Grade A badasses. They’ve been through a couple of preliminary games so there’s a fair number of black eyes, slings and bandages. The story I get is that many if not most have served prison time and all have the thousand yard stare down pat. The parade rounds out with some Tuscan flag throwing.
In general Florence is a carnivorous town. Menus run towards game, particularly boar, and steaks. Generally, Italians display an elegant brilliance in the kitchen but the steak seems to evade them. I rarely order steak in Italy (or anywhere else, for that matter) and when I have, the results are reminiscent of Ponderosa. Florence is the exception. Here they serve 2 to 3 inch think mammoth cuts that they price by the etto (100 grams) and cook perfectly. They are worth the red meat hangover.

Florence is also where I had my first encounter with lardo and while it can be found throughout the country, it seems to be more popular in the north. Restaurant menus describe it as fatty ham but only because the more accurate description, ham fat, sounds disgusting. It is milky white and silky to the tongue. I ordered it at a humble little sidestreet place that is run by a food historian and expert in Etruscan cooking, and it came on crostini, topped with walnuts and drizzled with olive oil and, of all things, honey (Tuscans do some surprising and wonderful things with honey). It was delicious, particularly that honey/olive oil mixture but, minding my cholesterol count, I figured it was a once in a lifetime thing (until I ordered a salami sampler in Verona and a few thin sheets of lardo showed up naked on the plank in all their unctuous glory. What was I supposed to do?).
Carnivores and semi-organized brawling aside, Florence is rightly known as the epicenter of the Renaissance and, of course, holds some wonderful museums. The previously mentioned Accadamia and Uffizi are worth braving the crowds to wander through, although the Uffizi is massive and can wear a visitor down with its sheer quantity of its contents. The Bargello, relatively small and devoted to sculptures, tends to be quieter and more easily digestible.
When museum torpor starts to set in, the city itself offers beauty enough. I already mentioned the view from Piazzale Michelangiolo and I’ve been told by a few people that it is a great place to catch the sunrise, the city virtually changes color as the air warms and brightens. I’ve tried to catch it a few times but either the weather doesn’t cooperate or I time it wrong and oversleep by a few minutes. Easier and equally impressive is sunset from atop the hill. Mark Twain called it “the fairest picture on the planet” and described the suns “pink and purple and golden floods…that make all fine lines dim and faint and turn the solid city into a city of dreams.” If it can make an old curmudgeon like Twain go all squishy, it is certainly worth the climb up the hill.

At Home He's a Tourist

I’ve been here for over a year now and it does feel like home, mostly. The language continues to be a struggle. There’s progress but it’s still frustrating. When I ask a question in Italian I usually get one of two responses: either an answer in English which makes me wonder if I had really mangled the language that badly, or a answer in very rapid Roman slang which carries only a passing resemblance to Italian and is, for me, usually indecipherable.
That aside, the city does feel like home. I know what time to hit the grocery store in order to avoid the long lines. The folks at the Tavola Calda on the corner nod and know my order. The guys at the Sri Lankan grocery on Merulana give me a “Salve” when I walk past and the guy at the other Sri Lankan grocery on Poliziana, who used to ignore me because I was one of the faceless masses, now ignores me with intent. I’ve got my favorite coffee shops, pizzerias, and gelaterias, even a couple of favorite restaurants, although I don’t eat out all that often. It’s all gotten very cozy, which may not always be a good thing.
I don’t want to say that I’ve gotten to a point where I’m taking the city for granted but it gets close. From time to time, I walk by the Colosseo without looking up, or pass through the Piazza de Rotunda without stepping into the Pantheon for at least a minute. The other day I even walked by Giolitti’s and didn’t go in for a pistachio cone, even though there was no line (I know, an appalling lack of discipline).
The real danger is that there are some things that I haven’t seen yet. Hadrian’s villa, for one, and a handful of small and not so small museums around town. I haven’t even been to Naples yet, unless you count the ten minutes I spent switching trains there last December (which was just enough time to have my wallet lifted.) The danger is getting too familiar with the place and putting things off indefinitely. I’m afraid I’ll end up like my landlord who has lived here his whole life and never set foot inside the Forum.
Then again, there are the other things that I didn’t really intend to do: those touristy things that a local or ex-pat, no matter how temporary, would shun. Things like sticking my hand in the Mouth of Truth or taking one of those tour around town in a horse drawn cart, or a Segway scooter, for that matter (although that does look kinda interesting). High on the list of never-dos is eating in one of those high visibility tourist priced spots like the Piazza Navonna . Too cool for that school. Luckily though, I have friends who aren’t.
When I first decided to come over here a number of friends said they’d come visit. Few did. A little disappointing but I can’t squawk. Budget, schedules and family responsibilities can make travel vacations hard to pull off and I understand that. May, however, found me entertaininging a couple traveling parties from home and it was a ball. Fun to be spending time friends and family and, between you and me, fun to carry on like a tourist for a change.

While I was flying back from London, old friends Espen and Patty (and, again, that’s old as in enduring, not old as in aged) were winging there way over from Texas. We met up the next morning and I mushed them around town for a couple days showing ‘em the obvious (Pantheon, Colosseum) and the not quite so obvious (the Borromini perspective, that turtle fountain). Late in the second day, foot sore and hungry, we were trying to come up with a dinner plan. Patty and I were looking through guide books and maps trying to come up with some great out of the way spot that no one had ever heard of, ever, when Espen, undoubtedly a little tired of our foodie pretensions, said “Why don’t we go over to that place and people watch.”
The “place” he was referring to was the aforementioned Piazza Navonna, a long narrow piazza built on the site of a 1st century stadium and currently filled with fountains, sidewalk artists, street entertainers and lots of people. It’s also lined by a string of overpriced and indistinguishable restaurants at which no self-respecting ex-pat would be caught dead eating, but, what the hey, it was his vacation and it was close by. Again, what the hey?
Turned out to be a brilliant idea. The food was fine. Truth be told, I don’t even remember what I had so it’s safe to say that it wasn’t spectacular but it was by no means bad. It may have been a euro or two more than one would pay off the beaten track but the location was worth it. Relying on the tourist trade, the waiters were a little more inclined to schmooze. Ours was an Albanian transplant who was hoping to make it to the states where he figured he and his self-reported six pack could find a wife. (He had a thorough understanding of the states and when he heard that E & P were from Texas, he immediately recognized that they must be cowboys or cattle barons.) Just watching him and his fellow waiters trying to lure in the strollers would have been entertainment enough but add in the music on the breeze, the perambulatin’ masses, and the cloudless skies drift from pastel to something much deeper (all that and the secure knowledge that the walk back to the hotel goes right past Giolitti’s) and, well, what do you want, an egg in your beer?

And it was like that for a few days. A quick trip up to Florence where we saw the mandatory David (I’ve seen it a number of times and it never fails to astonish), followed by hours of, well, shopping. It’s what people do in Florence, and it gave me a chance to try on a few park benches. Oh, and we ate a lot of gelato. Builds strong bones, you know.

From there, Venice with its dank and smelly hotel rooms but otherwise, still a stunner. Lunch on St. Mark’s Square which, truth be told, is second mortgage material but charming as hell with all these little café orchestras with their accordions and clarinets, playing music that was simultaneously anachronistic and perfectly appropriate. Wander through at night and the ensembles are taking turns drawing the crowds from the edge of one seating area to another with everything from the overture to La Gazza Ladra to Yesterday to that Andrea Bocelli piece that still seems to be everywhere.
I left E & P in Venice because my sister was arriving for a second round. A few more cultural sites (she’s a cultural gal) but, well, basically another week of vacation. (I think I may have conducted a tour in there someplace.)
So is there a lesson here? Pretty much the basic ones. Suspend judgment. Sometimes the masses are on to something. You know, all that obvious stuff but often times, the obvious evades me. I need reminding.

Home and Away

I know, I know. I’m way behind on the blog. It’s been a busy month and I need to catch up. April ended with a flurry of work. Easter (always a busy time in Rome) was only a prelude to the crowds that poured into the city for the Beatification of John Paul II (or JPII as he was named on the bulk of the associated merchandise). Hard to believe that there was concern in early April was that no one would show. Hotels reported that they hadn’t booked anywhere near as many rooms as they had expected and the general expectation was for underwhelming numbers. Not a chance. Even on my quiet side of town, the sidewalks were clogged with folks who had poured in from all over the globe. Lots of Poles of course (One wag commented that if anyone had any interest in invading Poland, this would be the time as it appeared that everyone had left the country.), but plenty came in from Africa (sporting aquamarine dashikis emblazoned with the visage of the late pontiff), the US (I heart JPII), and just about anywhere that’s home to Catholics.
I was conducting a tour the evening before the main event and had my hands and eyes full trying to keep my little group from being tossed asunder by the masses. As usual we stopped at the Trevi Fountain, a mob scene under normal circumstances, but this night a total clog, especially when a light rain started falling which prompted everyone to open their umbrellas, totally immobilizing the crowd.

We eventually worked our way free and continued on til we reached St Luigi dei Francesi, home of a trio of Caravaggio paintings and, on this night, a remarkable example of Italian crowd behavior. Caravaggio’s St Matthew paintings fill the three walls of a side chapel on the front left side of the church. Usually there’s a crowd of no more than 10-20 people taking them in, a manageable number that can find its way in and out on its own. This weekend, though, the numbers were nuzzling up to a hundred and the church had set up a velvet rope to establish an orderly in and out flow.
Of course, nobody just walks up, gives the paintings a glance, and walks out. They linger, understandably. So, in no time, the “in” line had backed way up, while the “out” had slowed to a mere trickle. Understand, Italians don’t do well with lines under the best of circumstances. (I don’t want to say they’re rude, but they sure seem to associate waiting patiently with being a total sucker. Turn and look around when you’re standing in line at the market and when you turn back, someone new is standing in front of you.) Anyway, within a few minutes people are ducking under the rope and heading in the “out” line. Soon, they’ve overwhelmed the old “in” line and effectively reversed the orchestrated flow. The church officials, seeking the path of least resistance, go along and all is well, until, of course the process reverses itself again. I suspect it went on like that all night, God’s own executive desk toy.
Now, my original plan was to stay as far away from the Vatican as possible throughout the weekend but somewhere in the midst of all this madness, I decided (foolishly, it would turn out) that I really should try to at least get in the vicinity of the next day’s ceremony. So, I went to bed early and got up (kinda) early. I figured that the Metro would be totally overwhelmed and it was a beautiful day so headed across town on foot.

I never even got close. I had hoped to at least get a picture of the size of the crowd but I couldn’t even get close to a clear view. Later I spoke with a friend who had attended the previous night’s prayer vigil in the Circus Maximus and followed the procession to St Peter’s Square where he waited all night. (I guess that’s why they call it a vigil.) Another friend who lives on the Vatican side of town reported that she could barely get to her apartment as the streets and sidewalks were full of young folks in sleeping bags. (Which I guess accounts for that lack of hotel reservations.)
What I did see looked like the fringes of a rock festival. People racked out in whatever shade they could find. Some folks sucking on Peronis, others listening on portable radios and TVs, occasionally responding with applause. (I was raised Catholic and spent a number of years as an altar boy. I don’t remember applause during mass.) I picked my way as far towards the front as I could, stood around for a bit realizing I had gone as far I was going, and picked my way back out. I went home and took a nap.
With all that excitement at home, it made sense to head out for a bit. Besides I was coming up on 90 days and needed to get out of Schengen. Originally I had planned to go to Egypt this Spring but world events being as they’ve been, I decided for something a little more staid, like England.

I’ve been to London a few times in the past and was looking forward to going back. Just being in a city where English is the accepted language was a welcome thought. I understand the arrogance implied in that statement and am embarrassed by the fact that so many Italians speak English while my progress towards being minimally conversational in Italian has been so feeble, but the thought of being spontaneous in speech and not having to plan out in advance the simplest question or conversation was appealing.
Provided they let me in the country. England has a reputation for asking a lot of questions of those attempting to enter the country and they earned that reputation. Italy barely glances at your passport but English passport control wants to know all kinds of things. How long have you been traveling? Why are you traveling alone? Do you have a ticket back to the States? Can I see it? (Does anybody actually carry a ticket they’re not going to use for weeks or months?) Do you have a job? (and by the way, the last thing they want to hear is that you work as a tour guide.) Finally, and after a long and studious pause, the woman questioning me stamped my passport. I was good for six months.
Of course I only had a couple of days, but what a great couple of days. I’ve been back for a few weeks but already the days have started to blur together but a number of things stand out:
The London Underground and Overground system- Thorough city access but expensive. A one way ticket is 4 Pounds (around 7 bucks), although nobody (smart) buys one. A day pass runs six pounds sixty and if you’re a daily user you can get an Oyster card (no idea where the name comes from) for a reasonable savings. Fares change between off peak and peak (rush hour) and peak is very intense. My first morning I arrived at the station around 9. The track was crowded thick with people and every minute or so a train would show up, spit out a few folks and take in a few more before the door would slide shut, usually leaving someone’s face jammed up against the glass. The train then would be sucked into a tunnel like one of those pneumatic tubes in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. The masses on the platform, being British, acted as if this were the most normal thing in the world and waited for the next train.
Museums: From what I saw, all the museums in London are free. There are prominently displayed donation bins and occasionally you might have to pay for a special exhibit but mostly you can just waltz on in during your lunch break and digest a couple of masterpieces before heading back to the office. Come back the next day and take in a couple more. I didn’t have that luxury and emerged a little loggy after a few hours in the National Gallery but what an astounding collection! I also found that following the (quiet and well behaved) school groups around and eaves dropping on their docent lectures was a nice little art history seminar.
The docents are ridiculously polite. I asked one in the Tate as to the location of some Blakes I had seen there before. I was kindly informed that, being somewhat fragile and sensitive to light, they are never displayed for long but (and this amazed me) if I called the print counter and gave them a little notice, they could probably get them out for me. I was stunned and felt the need to explain that I was Mr. Nobody from Nowhere but that didn’t seem to be an issue. Try that at the Met and see what happens. (I am embarrassed to say I didn’t take them up on the offer. My mind was already jellied from the National Gallery and besides, I have no understanding of protocol in a situation like that. If they’ve gone to the trouble to pull them out, how long are you supposed to look at them? 10 minutes? 45? Frankly, I was afraid that I’d give them what I thought was a thorough going over only to have them scowl “Listen wanker. We went to the trouble of digging these out. We expect three hours minimum.)
Shakespeare’s Globe: One of the perks of running tours through Rome is that I get the chance to meet English speakers from all over the globe and pick up some travel tips. I had a Londoner in the group a few weeks ago and asked what he would recommend someone see in that city. He gave me two recommendations: The Tower Bridge (whose upper walkway offers a great view of the city and an interesting exhibit on the structure’s history) and Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. Brilliant idea. Relatively inexpensive and a great space on a beautiful afternoon (which was fortunate because the center of the theater is open to the elements and the only house rule seemed to be no recording equipment and no umbrellas).
The show was their “touring” production of Hamlet. With the exception of the titles character and the actor who played him, the parts greatly outnumbered the members of the company who, in many instances, looked vaguely familiar and I suspect have been appearing in mid to minor roles in BBC and Kenneth Branaugh productions for years (and did I read that right? Did he really direct Thor?) There was a lot of doubling up but it worked just fine.
At the risk of dwelling on the obvious, there is something astounding about the Bard’s ability to shift mid-stream from gut wrenching drama to slapstick comedy and back again without diminishing impact. For example, at the end, after Hamlet dies (didn’t see that coming!), Fortinbras comes on gives some final words of portent and goes marching off but as the actor approaches the wings, he slows, and his march transforms into a…softshoe. Music plays. The dead rise. Everybody laughs, applauds, and heads for the doors.

I head across the Millennium Footbridge over the Thames that, as luck would happen, leads right to the entrance to St Paul’s Cathedral where they are just beginning evensong which leads to another interesting thing about the city…
Stuff just happens: Now, it may be because it was the week after that royal wedding but it seemed like there was a lot of pomp going on. I got of the underground at St James Park as a phalanx of Royal Guards were marking down the boulevard, the sergeant bellowing fiercely in that British martial way. Later in the afternoon I was strolling through Hyde Park when a contingent of mounted military trotted by, chrome helmets gleaming. In fact, throughout my time there, things regularly happened reminding me that this was London and I found that enjoyable.
I have to admit that. The Irish in me is a little embarrassed by it. Not the pomp but the enjoyment of it. I mean the sins of the empire were often aimed at my ancestors and maybe I should be holding more of a grudge. For that matter all that celebration surrounding the Beatification is a little suspect as well. The fast tracking (Santa Subito) of John Paul II can pretty easily be construed as the church’s attempt to get some good publicity to offset all the abuse scandals, and that may be so but this ain’t no black and white world.
I’m reminded of a Blake piece that was displayed in the Tate. It was one of a series of small pieces that was recently discovered that apparently have left the critics a little baffled regarding providence and meaning. The particular one I’m thinking is a curious piece featuring two figures with flames and bones and binding and beneath it, in his graceful and small hand he has written “Everything is an attempt to be human.”
I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be ennobling or forgiving or condemning. Whether it’s a judgment or an observation. I mean, there’s something really beautiful there, giving value to every action. On the other hand, is being human the apotheosis of behavior or the brick on which we bust our shins? I’ve got no idea. I suppose, as always, the truth lies somewhere in between and sometimes it’s ok to just enjoy the effort.

Prague

I first came to Europe in 1978. I was traveling with a pair of college chums, Dan McCormick and Bruce Greene and no finer traveling partners can be imagined. A couple of Cleveland boys, Danny was in possession of a remarkably consistent temperament and an unerring ability to blindly point to any entrée on any menu in any language and come up with a pork chop. Bruce’s urban perspective kept us from getting carried away with how friggin’ continental the whole adventure was. His rudimentary knowledge of the romance languages got us understood in places we didn’t ourselves understand, although it didn’t keep us from asking a trio of Bordeaux gendarmes where the war (guerre) was. (We were looking for the train station (gare). I suspect it’s a common mistake.) He also came close to sparking an international incident in the same town when he suggested to the proprietor of a cafeteria that the rabbit in the warming tray was actually cat. We were armed with backpacks, Eurail passes, and what was, at that point, the cheap travel bible, Arthur Frommer’s Europe on 15 dollars a day. (That may seem like an impossibly low budget but I kept track of every peseta and centime on that trip and averaged out at $12.50 a day, remarkable when you consider that we rarely went to bed sober, but wine was cheap and sleeping, whenever possible, on overnight trains knocked a good bit off the expense column.) My recollection is that the book focused on about 15 key cities on the continent. While it was a valuable book in terms of finding cheap sleep and eats, its real kick was in its ability to describe every city with such hyperbole that we would stumble off those overnight trains, bleary-eyed and funky, but energized with the knowledge of the marvel that awaited us. (For the record, it was usually right.)

Anyway, there were a few of cities described in that book that weren’t accessible by way of the Eurail network and therefore not in our budget. The ones I remember were Berlin, Budapest, and Prague. They’ve been on my bucket list since and I’d hoped to visit a few while living on this side of the Atlantic. Though the quiet months of winter and early spring offer time to travel, the lack of income makes the thought of such seem a little frivolous and my tendency now id to avoid avoidable expenses. Still, with the expectation that the double whammy of Easter and Beatification would bring tourist business to the end of the month, I boarded a plane for Prague a couple weeks ago. (and the crowds did arrive, which is why I’m so behind on the blog… that and my dog ate my laptop.)

It’s a short flight from Rome to Prague but it seems to be a world away. I left to bright blue skies and temperatures brushing up against the 80s and landed amidst a rapidly approaching line of grey and leaky clouds with winds in the 40s. Coming in from the airport, Prague looks like any other place but gets more distinctive as you enter the city. My driver informed me that I had just missed a blast of spring, which accounted for the fact that the trees were blooming against the grey backdrop. Actually, grey seemed to suit the city. Part of that’s a carryover from my early conception of Soviet dominated Eastern Europe being a drab place but the old cathedrals with their acute steeples and sooty looking statues seem to call for a muted backdrop.
I was dropped off at my hotel near the old part of town. My room was tiny, but tiny in a good way-cozy, bare beams and a gabled window, a small bed pushed up against the wall. The bed had a nice brocade coverlet and an old mattress (uh, that was old in a bad way). I decided to walk around a bit.

Like most great cities, Prague has a river running through it and I headed in that direction. Prague architecture falls into three categories. First there are the medieval cathedrals and towers.  Then there are long wide, streets, particularly those along the river, which are lined with tall colorful buildings, covered with decorative sculpting. Finally, there is the occasional Art deco or modern building of eye-catching and improbable design.
Sculptures are everywhere. Some are recent and whimsical, a man hanging with one hand from a wire across the road was one of the more striking ones, while others are obviously a part of the city’s history. Where most of the pieces in Italy are white stone, the Czech pieces are black and grimy, although the occasional patch of shiny bronze or brass emerges. Fountains and bridges are covered with tableaus of folk in peasant dress. They look like something out of Grimm’s fairy tales but more often are scenes from the lives of saints, although not saints I’d ever heard of. They are Saints like Ivo and Vitus, and Saint Hubert, who converted to Christianity after he encountered a stag with a crucifix nestled between his antlers.

The Charles Bridge, which connects both sides of the river, holds an amazing collection of these pieces on the span between its two towers. Odd scenes with curious groupings and imploring poses. One particularly striking group featured the saint, a dog, a Turk and a couple more guys chained up within a rock. I have no idea what any of them are up to.
One of the most distinctive things about the city is how quiet it is, at least during the two days that I was there. It’s not a ghost town by any means, Wenceslaus Square was bustling and the Old Town Square was full of food stalls and entertainment in preparation for Easter (You got to love a town that sets up candy and pastry stalls for Lent). It also has a thriving cultural scene with numerous chamber performances nightly and a healthy appreciation for jazz. Still, I walked around for two hours my first night there and had the sense that something was amiss until I realized that what was so unnerving was the fact that I hadn’t heard a horn honk or a siren wail and that no one had tried to sell me anything. Apparently I have become too accustomed to the clamor of Italy.

The people also appeared to be much quieter, particularly the adults. While Italians never seem to have any unexpressed thoughts, the Czechs seem to travel the streets in solitude, brooding over some internal monologue. By evening, they meet in twos and threes in restaurants or little shops devoted to coffee and cake, but even in those places, which tend to be small and cramped, and are invariably a half flight of stairs below street level, the conversations tend to be hushed and earnest.
It’s an interesting vibe and one that felt appropriately Eastern European. I don’t know that I’ve ever visited a city before that made me want to sit at a table with a cup of coffee and read a book before (my Kindle just didn’t feel right) but Prague did. It doesn’t hurt that whenever you ask for coffee, they ask if you would like some cake (That, by the way, may be my favorite question of all time.), but cake aside, it carries itself like, well, like an adult city. Italy, by contrast, can at times feel like a nation of children so the change of pace was nice, at least for a few days.

April Cruel?

Based on some random Facebook posts and e-mails, it seems that winter is still holding on back home. Over here, and I’m not saying this to gloat (at least, I don’t think I am), spring has announced her presence with a firm but gentle hand. There were hints that it was coming. The last few weeks have been pretty mild, though the nights and evenings have stayed cool. Still, I caught myself thinking twice about putting on a flannel shirt the other week and by last weekend it was shirtsleeves at dawn (or what passes for dawn with me these days).

There have been other signs that the seasons were changing. Daylight savings time arrived over here a couple weekends ago. (By the way, I failed to get the memo, strolling in at noon for an eleven o’clock Sunday class. Pretty slick.) The Colosseum and Forum are staying open into the evenings and the crowds are swelling. The umbrella vendors have traded in their wares for sunglasses and parasols, and the Italian women have retrieved their cleavages from winter storage. I tried to stop by Giolitti’s for gelato on Sunday and the line was out the door.

This is Rome at its most enchanting. (Well, except for that line out the door for Gelato. I don’t do well with lines.) What look like redbuds and a number of other flowering trees have popped and the blooms, being a little more tightly tethered than those famous cherry blossoms back home, seem to be sticking around for. The sun is just warm enough to make you appreciate the shade and the shade still holds enough of a chill to welcome full sun. A person with a balanced mind could live these days in constant gratitude, or so I would imagine.
There is a slight mix to this blessing. The crowds in general are swelling and Rome’s sidewalks tend to be on the narrow side. Add the usual weekend increase and walking around town gets a little challenging. While winter tends to be pretty dismal over here, the upside was the fact that there was rarely a line to anything. You could walk up to the Vatican Museum in early afternoon and there was virtually no line. That window has closed for the season. It’s time to learn to share.
Then there’s the other thing-what lies on the other side of spring. I’ve already heard a few grumblings about the impending summer. Heck, one friend even suggested that I bump my return to the states up by a couple months in order to avoid July and August. That’s not going to happen. In fact, let’s not even go there. Let’s stay, more or less, in the present.
I conducted my first afternoon tour of the season the other day. Two families of four from different parts of Australian who listened and asked questions and were fun to take around. That morning I had taken a friend through St. Pete’s including the climb to the top of the cupola, all 362 steps. Anyway, after the afternoon tour I was walking up the hill to home. I was a little tired, a little sunburnt, probably a little, uh, ripe. There was something very familiar about it, like I’d done it before, because I had. Last year.

I’m approaching a year over here. Four seasons. Spring, which I suspect is the shortest, is also the most pleasant. Always leave ‘em wanting more. Still there’s something both reassuring and surprising about realizing that a year has passed (well, almost a year).
My first few years after college, I worked in a small record store and, ahem, audio salon in a little village in Ohio. When winter rolled around and the temperature plummeted, something, probably ice under the threshold, made the medal frame of the front door stick and squeak. I still distinctly remember hearing that squeak for the first time of that second winter. Up to that point I hadn’t lived in the same house (or dorm) or held any job for over a year. That’s no surprise. All my jobs til then had been of the summer variety and annual moves around campus or town were de rigueur during college years and those immediately post. Still, it was a sudden realization that a year had gone by and that maybe this is how patterns are set.
I had a similar awareness walking home from the Colosseum the other day, nothing startling, more along the lines of settling. A year had gone by, or at least the better part of four seasons. It’s been a reasonable chunk of time. Patterns emerge, routines, friendships. A life gets re-aligned. This is hardly a news flash and I suspect it happens whenever anybody relocates but I have to say that I’m at least mildly surprised that the city, and probably more accurately, living in the city, feels as comfortable as it does.

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I have my end date. I started out saying that I was hoping to be in Rome for a year and it now looks like it’ll be 15 months. I head back in August and (knock wood) it appears that I have a job and a place to stay waiting for me. (Sometimes the best plan is to have a little luck.) There’s something comfortable about returning to the familiar but I’m really hoping that when I get back, I can see beyond the familiar.
Within an hour of landing in Rome, I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The drive in from the airport goes by ancient ruins and mammoth basilicas. The ubiquitous tourist maps that all the hotels give out are thickly dotted with fascinating sites. It was easy to see things with new eyes. The trick is trying to keep the familiar stuff new. The stuff you see every day.
I taught high school English for a half a dozen years or so ago. It was 11Th grade, American Lit and there was a little bit of Thoreau in there. It was that excerpt from Walden where he talks about a Chinese lord who had carved in to his morning bath tub the command to “make it new, day by day.” That’s a hell of a commandment. Let me tell a tale on myself.
I’m lucky enough to be working as tour guide over here and my usual beat is the Ancient City but sometimes I work in the Vatican Museum. This means I get paid to walk people through an amazing collection of art that culminates with the Rafael rooms and the Sistine Chapel. This is not a bad job to have. A couple weeks ago I had a single client, a woman from California who seemed to be carrying a mild case of Attention Deficit Disorder and was more interested in taking a picture of everything than actually looking at the works. (Not that I would hold any opinions on that.)

Anyway, we get to the chapel, I give her the overview, and then encourage her to walk around and take it in. “I’ll be right here,” I tell her “Don’t leave the room without me” and she goes walking off. 5 minutes go by, then 10. I start to get a little antsy because she hadn’t spent more than about 20 seconds in front of anything yet. I look around the room and don’t see her, but the rooms crowded. I let out a sigh, roll my eyes, and check my watch again. 15 minutes have gone by and I’m thinking “How much longer am I going to have to wait here?” IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL!!! (This is the point at which the chapel guards all turn and “shush” me.) You get the idea.
So it’s Spring and, though there was Spring last year and the year before, this one’s pretty spectacular. I met a friend for coffee the other night in a very cool part of the city that I hadn’t been through before. At some point in the conversation I was asking him how he found himself over here and, as is often the case, it started with an extended visit and a return to the states with a little bit of Rome lodged in his internal resume. As I was listening to him, I was aware of an unpleasant sensation growing in my own belly, right below my heart. It’s going to be hard to leave this place…but I don’t have to do that today and not for a few months.
Like the man said…I believe I can do this for another day.

The Stuff that Slips Away

I started taking yoga classes a few weeks ago. It was about time, flexibility has become something that lives only as a vague and distant memory, but that’s not what I want to talk about. (And don’t worry, there will be no yoga photos. Nobody, not you, not me, wants to see that.) Anyway, while I value and enjoy the practice, one of the cooler aspects of the experience is the fact that the studio is in one of the upper rooms of the Chiostro de Bramante, a three story courtyard and accompanying structure designed by Bramante, the original architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s a lovely building with a rather unusual design of more columns on the second than the first floor.
Cooler still is the building next door, the church Santa Maria Della Pace, the current façade with its semicircular, columned porch, being the work of the baroque architect and painter Pietro da Cortona (more on him later). While the outside of the church has a stately and harmonious grace, it’s what’s inside that draws the most interest. Partially because the church houses a small but remarkable fresco by Rafael but also because it is just about impossible to get inside.

There’s a sign out front that states it’s open from 10:00 AM to 12:45 PM daily but prior to a couple weeks ago, I’d never seen the gates unlocked. For that matter, I didn’t even know anyone who’d ever been inside. (Although I have to admit that’s not usually something that comes up in most conversations.) However, and I don’t know whether it’s because I’m in the neighborhood now a few mornings a week, or because the custodian has given up over sleeping for Lent, but I’ve been inside twice in the last few weeks although since then it’s been locked up tight every day. (If you are in town, you can catch an angled glimpse of the fresco through a window installed in the tea room of the Chiostro.)



The Story of Aeneas (about as close as you can get)

 Santa Maria della Pace isn’t the only building holding impressive works but for all intents and purposes blocked off from the general public. The aforementioned Pietro da Cortona seems to be particularly snake-bit in that regard. Along with Bernini and Boromini he was one of three key baroque architects, but his current popularity and recognition lag far behind his contemporaries in part because his two key buildings, della Pace and Santi Luca e Martina, are basically never open. Not only an architect, he is better remembered as a painter of frescos but his fame doesn’t fare much better in that regard. His most important work, The Story of Aeneas, adorns the ceiling of the Long Gallery of Palazzo Pamphilj, which currently serves as the Brazilian Embassy and isn’t open to the public. It can only be seen through the high windows that front Piazza Navonna. Thankfully his fresco in the Palazzo Barberini can be viewed directly and without obstruction.
Of course, there’s always the chance that a change of policy or organization will open some of these buildings up. Last fall some new areas of the Colosseum were sporadically reopened to the public. The few remaining rooms of Nero’s Domus Aurea are currently quarantined for safety’s sake but they were open to the public just a few years ago and probably will be again before too long. Some say that only about 30% of the city has been excavated so who knows what else will turn up.
Still, there are plenty places that aren’t coming back. If you walk up the Palatine Hill and look through the ruins of Domitian’s Palace, you find just enough to intellectually get an idea of how magnificent a building it was, but it’s been little more than floor plan since the Normans wrecked the joint back in the 12th century. Don’t get me wrong, I love walking through the ruins of this city but looking at the forum at night and mentally trying to reconstruct it is a different experience entirely than walking into a near-fully preserved building like the Pantheon. I hear grunts of appreciation on the hill and in the forum, in the Pantheon I hear gasps.
When I was kid, I was particularly captivated by the Colossus of Rhodes. I remember reading about all seven wonders of the ancient world but the Colossus was the one that really captured my imagination. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the renderings always showed this inaccurately huge statue astride the harbor entrance. Regardless, I had a difficult time accepting that it no longer was and that actually may have been my first protracted experience of yearning (but I could be getting carried away).

From the sublime to the ridiculous, lots of things don’t last, get lost, or we just miss ‘em by that much. I remember visiting the Parthenon back in the 70’s and wondering if the mammoth statue of Pallas Athena would ever be retrieved from its watery resting spot somewhere in the Atlantic and what it might look like now. Similarly, but not at all, a couple years prior, half way through an all-night road trip from Granville, Ohio to Austin, TX, I sat staring into the darkness of Natchez Trace State Park in TN, where a posted sign informed me that the world’s largest pecan tree was somewhere just beyond the reach of my headlights. (Actually, I didn’t much care about the pecan tree but I know a metaphor when I don’t see one.)
One way or another, things slip away. There’s a great but little seen movie called Funny Bones in which one of the characters asks “Why is it that all the good things are in the past?” Fair question, but where else would they be? The future’s an unknown and the present moment is such a small window (probably a good thing), most of what we know is in the past and often out of reach. I remember hearing some smart guy say that all literature is about the loss of the past. Off the top of my head I can think of a number of things that I really miss or missed entirely. The original McDonald’s fries, the United States steel industry, and the Pittsburg Crawfords warming up with a game of shadowball immediately come to mind.
There’s an interesting exchange in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, itself currently being revived on Broadway. At one point, a young and brilliant character bursts into tears while studying her lessons and when asked as to their cause by her callow and not as brilliant tutor, she responds that she is weeping for the lost volumes from the great library of Alexandria. He’s unruffled by her concern, responding matter-of-factly that over time other people have rewritten them. There is, of course, a lot of truth to his point, but probably not enough to invalidate that feeling of loss. Ideas do float around and come back again but the manifestations are a onetime thing. When the Taliban destroyed those Buddhas a few years back, it didn’t change the basic tenants of that religion but even the Dalai Lama said that was a very hard thing to accept.
Then again, sometimes things that you would swear were gone, come back again. Did anybody who remembered Bonomo Turkish Taffy expect to see it back on the market? In the fall of ’09, archeologists actually found Nero’s famous dining room with its revolving constellation studded ceiling, a structure that had drifted into near mythology. I suspect that one of these days somebody is going to turn up an old kinescope of a shadowball routine, and for that matter, I was reading the other week that after carefully sifting through the pieces, researchers were reasonably certain that they could reconstruct at least one of those Buddhas.
So there’s comfort in that. I doubt that fifty years ago, anybody expected that we would see the Titanic again. Now if only the same holds true for my flexibility.