S.P.Q.R.

Nate has discovered, through observation and experimentation, that in Rome’s metro the escalator handrails move slightly faster than the escalators.  If you put your hand right next to you at the bottom of the escalator and hold on for dear life, by the time you get to the top you’re reaching three feet in front of you, if you can even still hold on at all.  The world is a mysterious and beautiful place.

I’m reading Howards End and remembering why it’s one of my favorite books.  Sometimes I forget that I love reading, but I think that’s largely because I forget to read books I love.  It’s good to hang out again with old and loyal friends.

We’ve been here two days, and I think I’m in love.  The first day, we set out from the hostel to visit Ancient Rome, accompanied by a Brazilian couple staying in our hostel just as lost and disoriented as we were, who asked if they could come with us.  We found our way down to the Colosseum, where Carolinha and Tiago had to go buy their tickets whereas we already had ours and could skip the line.  Did you hear that?  We were the ones on the ball for once! 

The Colosseum was a lot cooler than I expected it to be.  We got to walk around this very old and very enormous structure, reading explanatory blurbs that made the place seem frighteningly similar to the average modern-day sporting event.  They’d fill it up with 50,000 people by advertising that there would be prize giveaways or that the crowd would be sprayed with flower petals or perfumes.  There was even a canvas they could stretch over the top to protect the spectators from the sun—operated by sailors from the Roman fleet, who knew all about hoisting canvas with ropes.  There were underground tunnels they’d keep the lions and bears and boars in to surprise the gladiators as they popped out from any side of the arena.  Oh, and in early incarnations of the building, the tunnels could be dismantled and that space filled with water for reenactments of naval battles.  I mean it was a really cool venue.  They even had preserved ancient graffiti scratched into the stones from like 200 AD.

The rest of the ancient ruins were spectacular, but I don’t have time to tell you all about them here.  Briefly: the Forum, the original senate hall, a bunch of legal buildings, the rostrum where Roman citizens could stand up and speak their minds to the multitudes, temples, basilicas, palaces, an emperor’s private stadium, and my favorite: the huts of Romulus and Remus, Rome’s founders.  All these buildings were in varying states of ruin, but more than anything it was just cool to look out over the huge square containing all the ruins and imagine what it must have been like in its heyday.  This is pretty much where Western civilization as we know it took shape.

There are tons of Baroque churches in Rome, or medieval churches with Baroque facades.  In fact, we’ve come to the conclusion that most every church in Rome has the same history: ancient Roman basilica, burned in a fire, rebuilt by a later emperor, sacked with the fall of Rome, rebuilt as a fortress, burned, rebuilt as a Christian church, burned, rebuilt as a Renaissance or Baroque church. 

However: there is one church with a slightly different story.  The Pantheon, the most impressive of Rome’s ancient buildings because it was never burned or sacked, but has been in continual use since it was built in the first or second century after Christ.   It’s got this huge dome with a hole in the top you can feel raindrops come through.  The place is just stunning.

Nearby we found the best Gelato of our lives.  I’m not going to tell you where it is so it doesn’t get overrun with tourists, but it has a signed photo of Chris Cornell on the wall.  The pistachio tasted like pistachio, the hazelnut tasted like hazelnut, and the grapefruit tasted like grapefruit.  They were the most true- to-life, not-too-sugary flavors any of us had ever encountered.  I just, ah, there are no words.  There are no words. 

Tried going to a movie to get out of the rain that night, but we couldn’t find any original language theaters—“only Italian.”  Which was cool because walking around and talking to people, we got to just see a lot of Italians.  Rome is a COOL place to watch people.  Italians are awesome, and there are lots of Latinos and tons of Asians.  Bangladeshis stand on every street corner to sell you umbrellas when it rains—I bought one—and our hostel was actually in a very densely Chinese area of town.

Ah, our hostel.  There’s so much more to tell you about that, and about our second day in Rome, but I’m falling asleep at the keyboard and we’ve got another earlyish morning tomorrow, so I’ll leave it for now.  Oh, SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, or something, meaning, the Senate and People of Rome, in use since ancient times, and now the city’s motto, on ancient statues and modern manhole covers and taxis.   Oh, and on the old public drinking fountains everywhere.

It’s uncanny how often on this trip one sight or sound or word evokes the same response in two or all of us— recalling a piece of family lore or supplying a quote from Little Britain or something.  Annie and Nate even spontaneously started singing the same song at the same time once.  We really do share a culture.  It’s cool to be reminded of that.

Photos tomorrow.  Love y’all.

-W.

Vernazza

We slept in on Tuesday morning, ate breakfast at the hostel, and set off on the road toward Vernazza, town 4 of Cinque Terre.  After walking for a few minutes, Nate had the idea to see what happened if we tried hitch-hiking.  So when the next vehicle passed – a tiny pick-up truck with barely the umph to make it up the steep hills – we stuck out our thumbs.  The nice farmer driving it let us climb into the bed of his truck!  So we zoomed up the hills that would have taken us hours to walk.  

The engine was revving loudly, but we made it to a fork in the road where the driver let us out, refusing to take any coins for his trouble.  He said something to the effect of “jkdaos fjksda nfdkas nowndkj Vernazza,” pointing to the path on the left, and “sanogan osdagn owekgks qoasdets San Bernadino, cinco minute!”, pointing us straight forward.  We actually ended up taking the path on the right, which was a foot path towards San Bernadino.  Oh, I forgot to mention the weather.  It wasn’t raining yet, but the hills were immersed in a deep fog.  

As we squelched along the muddy path, we couldn’t see farther than 100 feet ahead.  We made it to the tiny town of San Bernadino, which was completely closed up because of the weather, and headed off for Vernazza.

We had some difference of opinion as to whether we should take the foot path or the road.  Just like last time we were hiking, Nate’s insistence that we keep going on the “path less travelled” turned out to be exciting.  Almost too exciting.  As we traversed the steep slope of rocky switchbacks toward Vernazza, the threatening grumbles of thunder became more frequent.  After a particularly loud one, it started pouring.  

The rain was heavy and wet (thankfully not too cold!).  We were lucky we had reached the outskirts of town by this time, where the paths were mostly stones.  If we had been caught on the muddy hillside, we would probably have slipped off the edge.  We could hear cheers and screams and see camera flashes coming from the train station below as we ran toward Vernazza.  It was epic.  The second time we have become a tourist attraction in and of ourselves in Cinque Terre.  Needless to say, we were soaked by the time we reached the train station, so we just trained back to La Spezia (there wasn’t much to do in Vernazza in the rain) and took the rest of the day to recover from the flash flood. 

We tried the two typically La Spezian dishes – a soup made of garbanzo beans, white beans, and wheat berries, and Farinata: basically a giant pancake made of garbanzo flour.  They were both really good, but probably our favorite treat in La Spezia was churros con nutella y chocolate blanco. 

-A

P.S. to B,J,C:

I write this from the train going to the place where all roads lead.

It’s not the city our family lived in while Wayne was in Elementary School.

It’s not the opposite of “less”.

It’s certainly not the way some Koreans might pronounce the name of the little red monster on Sesame Street.

Can you guess what it is?

Old Testament Experiences

Wow, what a day.  Cinque Terre is amazing.  We woke up in Florence yesterday and walked through those charming streets one more time on our way up to the train station.  The train to La Spezia was nice but nothing special.  My favorite trains so far have been the German trains.  We arrived in La Spezia and we were starving.  We found this place owned by a Pakistani guy that sold Doner Kebab sandwiches and it was totally bomb.  He loaded each one up with so much meat!  It was truly grande.  

We moseyed trough La Spezia down to the sea to catch a ferry to Cinque Terre.  We helped some Canadian people on the way and they gave us some brewskys. . . . .not!  But we did help them.  Unfortunately the ferries to Cinque Terre were not running because the seas were "too rough".  So we walked back through the town up to the train station and caught a train to Riomaggiore, the first Cinque Terre city. 

Okay, you really have no idea how awesome these little coastal towns are.  They are beyond picturesque.  They are so incredible, that they have made Cinque Terre an official national park.  Dead serious.  So we walked around Riomaggiore for a bit and then we started to hike toward the next Cinque Terre city, Manarola. 

Let me tell you how these hikes work: The five Cinque Terre cities are connected by a large paved path that goes right along the shore.  This is the path that most everybody takes because it’s the most direct, the least strenuous, and the most popular.  We took this route from Riomaggiore to Manarola, called the “via dell’ amore”.  But this shore line tourist path was closed from Manarola onwards, so we had to take the mountain trails.  These trails are 10 times cooler.  They aren’t paved and they often go through people’s vineyards and gardens.  It’s radical.  We took one of these routes to Corniglia.  It was one of the coolest trails I’ve ever done.  It seemed like we were in New Testament times, hiking through the mount of olives, or going to the sermon on the mount.  There was even this little stone structure that looked like it could’ve been the place where they laid Jesus in the tomb.  Plus, we got to go through this tiny village at the top of the hill called Volastra, and there were countless vistas overlooking the Cinque Terre that were too beautiful to even try to describe.  So we took this round-about mountain path to Corniglia but it was well worth it.  Seriously it is one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. 

Manarola.

Steep mountain paths.

Garden tomb?  There were olive trees AND fig trees all around the path.

Vineyards.

Okay, before hiking from Manorola to Corniglia, we wanted to swim.  Unfortunately, we all forgot our swimming suits, so we dropped 52 euros on swimming suits and goggles.  We changed into our trunks and then headed down to the rocky cove at the seaside edge of Manorola.  It was pretty cold, but it was so worth it.  There was this big rock that you could climb up on and I went to go check the depth next to it because I wanted to cliff jump.  It was plenty deep so I climbed up this rocky mass and jumped off.  It was SOO AWESOME!!!  It was probably a good twenty feet maybe 25.  Anyway, we all did it and got some sweet pics too.  Other tourists were watching us, and we got some applause and I even heard a ‘bravo’. 

 

After swimming we were faced with a dilemma; we wanted to change into dry clothes for the hike, but we didn’t know where we could change.  Wayne decided just to strip down and change right there on the rocks.  So he did.  After all, as he said, it’s Europe right?  So a few people in Manarola saw a full-moon on the shore yesterday.  Classic.  Annie had the guts to do it too, with the help of Wayne providing some privacy with a towel.  I was the chicken, so I hiked in my swimming suit. 

We got in to Corniglia around 9:00ish PM and checked into our hostel.  Then Wayne and I went to search for food while Annie showered.  We found this excellent restaurant called La Posada and sat down, planning to just get take out.  When we tried to explain this to the man who seated us, we had some problems.  First of all, he spoke very little English or Spanish, so communicating that we wanted to take the food to our sister in the hostel was a challenge.  Finally he understood, and he was very adverse to our proposal.  It was preposterous to him for us to not eat in the restaurant.  So Wayne and I decided to just eat there and just save food for Annie to take back after we finished. 

The meal was AMAZING.  It was legit---super good spaghetti with pesto sauce and incredibly fresh, delicious sea food.  We set aside portions of everything to take back to Annie.  When we tried to explain to the man that we needed a box or something to take back the food to our sister, he rolled his eyes, but consented.  He was actually a really sweet guy.  He came back out with nice ceramic dishes---they had no boxes for take out.  That’s how authentic this place was.  He was so nice, he let us take his own dishes and asked us to bring them back tomorrow morning. 

Thus ends the 18^th day of the Europe trip of Wayne, Nate, and Annie.     

-N.

not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4: 5 lands.

Today was a landmark day.  I want Nate to tell you about it.  But there's been so much beauty and such fantastic smells that we're all tired like dead baby log-dogs.  So we'll tell you about it soon-- maybe even when we wake up from a deep, dreamless, and refreshing sleep-- but in the meantime, we'll let your brains chew on THIS to figure out where the heck we are.  

Yeah, you read that right:  crossword puzzle!!!!  Maybe if you just click on that picture, guys, you can get a big version of it to print off.  Anyway:  here's the rules of the game.

The only clues in this puzzle are down.  The bold-outlined boxes going across the middle spell the name of the city we're sleeping soundly as dead log baby rock dogs in.  

Down.

1. Concentration camp outside Munich
2. "Exit", in Paris
3. Burts' dog
4. Letters in David's calf
5. "Bless you", in Berlin
6. Beatles drummer's first name
7. 3 ne. 11:12.  3^rd line, 2^nd word
8. "Los Suns" hometown
9. Best point guard in the NBA, no matter what happens in today's game.

Prego.

Italians are saying the word "Prego" all the time.  I think it can mean "you're welcome" and "don't mention it" and "please" in some contexts.  I say it all the time.  


Dude, I don't know where you guys live, but where I am right now, you can find a lot of Peruvians.  We stopped by a Panini shop on the way home for some delicious sandwiches, and the place was run by a Peruvian couple named Alberto and Rosa (with their nine-month old son Carlos Immaneuele).  I asked Alberto how he liked living in Florence and he said he liked New York better-- business moves faster, things get built faster, it's more orderly (?!?!) and no one tells you you can't make any changes to your store's historic, picturesque architecture.   Being in Europe has made me realize that speaking one foreign language doesn't really make me that special at all, but it has also made me realize that if you're going to know just one, Spanish is a great one.  Latinos are everywhere.  I have three new latino facebook friends I met in youth hostels.


I know you're bored.  Well if you don't like descriptions of art galleries you're going to stay bored.  We paid the four euros to get into the Museo San Marco in the morning, even though we only had like a half hour to be there before our reservation time at the Accademia museum around the corner.  Totally worth it.  San Marco is where Fra Angelico painted the Annunciation 

*Most of the pictures in this post are just google images.  They didn't allow photos at these museums.

and a whole bunch of other paintings on the walls of the cells in a Dominican convent.  It was so cool-- the nicest museum venue I've seen yet, you just walked around the corridor of this old convent and looked at the frescoes in each cell, each with light streaming through its small window.  Gorgeous.  


Then it was off to the Accademia, the home of some of Michaelangelo's statues.  We saw some of his "prisoners," unfinished figures that got left behind when Michaelangelo left to live in Rome.  They're really cool-- you get more of an idea of how Michaelangelo just had to start chiseling away at a huge rock, miraculously transforming it into human muscles and skin.  

The highlight of the Accademia museum was without doubt Michaelangelo's David, a huge masterpiece.  It really is incredible to see it in person-- pictures do it no justice at all.  The way he makes marble look like veins and knuckles is unbelievable.  The thing is just awe-inspiring, it's overwhelming.

Also, I uncovered a mystery:

*Yes, I took this picture.

Do you see that?  On the outside of David's right calf are carved the letters M N.  I asked museum worker after museum worker what they mean, and no one had any idea.  A prize to whoever can provide clues leading to the solution of this mystery.  No riddle-- I'm seriously curious.  It's like From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenwelier.  

Also in the Accademia was the Musical Instruments museum, including a Stradivarius cello, viola, and violin, as well as Hurdy Gurdies (AWESOME) and early trombones and a whole bunch of weird instruments.  Apparently the inventor of the piano worked for the Medici in Florence.

After the Accademia we got some gelato-- it's pointless to try to attach any superlatives to the gelato here because it's all awesome.  Oh, and we had a beautiful lunch-- Anne got ravioles, I got gnocchis al pesto, and Nate got a humongous calzone.  They were sincerely some of the best noodles I've ever tasted, both the ravioles and the gnocchis.  Ahhhhh.  We forgot to take a picture!  They were beautiful.  

From there we went to the Uffizi gallery, where there are a lot of Renaissance paintings.  We were there four hours.  My highlight was the whole roomful of Botticelli they had.  I don't have the emotional stamina to try and describe what the Uffizi gallery was like, so, just imagine something awesome.  Oh guys.  I sat in the Botticelli room for at least half an hour, without exaggerating.  Probably longer.  He had all this really tender devotional stuff from later in his life that I never even knew about.  Also one called the Madonna of the Pomegranate.  

By then it was late so we went off to try and find a park to sit down in and share some scriptures, you know, since it's sunday, but Florence doesn't have public parks.  I still love the town, but that's a serious shortcoming.  All the parks shut their gates in the evening.  So we sat down on some benches in a grassy spot by the road.  

Italy is like California but more Europey.

And with tinier urinals.

-W.

UFFIZI!  Don't the Jawas in Star Wars say that?

(That reminds me: we saw in the Hohensalzburg a gun that looks exactly like the one Han Solo kills Greedo with.)

this one's for you, mom and dad.

And this one's for you, mom.  Happy mother's day.  We missed you.