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.