I was sitting in a café this morning at a table along the wall, sipping a café con leche, writing furiously, minding my own business in general, when a man who was not a waiter approached my table. He asked if I spoke English, and then he asked if I wanted to do an intercambio (in which he speaks English and I speak Spanish), to which I responded that I’m going back to my country in a few days. Adios.
I am continually astonished by the nerve European men have to just go up and talk to that girl across the room they’ve been staring at. In a normal daytime situation, American men will more often than not just walk away. The European man will approach and come up with something stupid to talk about in order to score a date or a number. Angela and I were minding our own business on a bench by the duomo in Florence when an Italian man who had been sitting nearby staring at us finally got up the guts to approach and ask us if we spoke Italian. We obviously didn’t, and he barely spoke English, but he proceeded to stand there for a full 15 minutes awkwardly trying to construct the “Do you want to go out to dinner with me?” question with all the wrong words in English, then Italian, then standing there saying “Mamamia, Como si dicce…” Angela and I were again minding our own business, eating dinner on the ferry to Greece when a pair of crafty truck-driving Greeks who just happened to be sitting next to us had the waiter pour us glasses of wine that we didn’t want, and gave us half of their dinner to accompany it, which we also didn’t want. A clown on drugs came up to Anglea when we were window shopping and eating McDonald’s ice cream cones in Athens and told her she had “The most beautiful eyes,” then going on to talk awkwardly about the disappearing rainforests until he saw it was time to make his exit, saying, “I’ll miss your eyes.”
I was warned about the “piropos” before I came to Seville, a custom among Spanish men (and it seems among European men in general) to yell or whistle at women when they’re walking along the street. I can handle that, like the flea-market in Greece or Halloween in I.V., look down, keep walking, and pretend you can’t hear. But then there’ve been times when I’ve been walking and I’ll hear some man muttering something in Spanish under his breath. It happened quite often in Barcelona, where I’d translate for Angela, “Oh, that man thinks we’re pretty.” It happened last week as I was walking on the street and I heard, “Hey, girl, wait and I’ll accompany you.” And then there are the all-too-frequent “Hi’s” and “How are you’s” that are more demeaning than they are friendly and some of the other English words that men pick up from songs and movies that they shouldn’t be saying.
It’s a distinct culture difference, I think, between Europe and the U.S., that plays off the power roles and differences that still exist between males and females, not just in Europe but everywhere. Being the foreigner that I am and will always be, I still don’t know whether European men direct their attentions at only foreigners or at women of their own country as well. In any case, foreign girls are easy bait, like c/ Betis along the river where swarms of foreign girls go on the weekends dressed in their impossibly short skirts and halter tops to be yelled at by all the moped-riding Spaniards with gelled mullets and white pants who congregate there to do the yelling.
Of course, as with every generalization, there are exceptions, and I would like to acknowledge that there are many European men I know who are very nice and respectful. Indeed, I ended up with a very nice and respectful American man right off the bat that did his best to fend off the cunning Spaniards who would surround our group of girls at clubs and try to dance with us. Well it’s been interesting to say the least, and I’ll probably get back to the U.S. and find that the nice, respectful American men I’m talking about have found their huevos since I’ve been gone… so I’ll keep my pepper spray in my purse and my eyes down, willing myself invisible. I have quite a lot experience at that already.
On a lighter note, I realize I have forgotten to comment on Greek male fashion. You see, man purses are big in Europe, but in Greece (and Spain and Italy, but not as much), the fanny pack is at its height. Teenagers, old men, big, small, the fanny pack is The Definition of cool. It's pretty fantastic.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Athina
(photo tech problems continue.)
Leave tourist-central, romance-language Italy, enter the world of anything goes.
There are a number of directions I could go with this post and none of them would probably give you a very good impression of Greece, Greeks, or Athens. Indeed, if I count and recount experiences, most of them will end up being or sounding negative. But looking back on it, an inordinate number of weird things happened to us in Greece or enroute and I can’t believe that that’s the norm. Aristotle, Sophocles, and Plato were Greeks for heaven’s sake, as were Zeus, Athena, and Dionysus. After everything, I still do hold Greece in high esteem, but it definitely deserves another look. I am willing to concede that some people and places fail at first impressions.
We got off the double-decker bus we took from Patras to Athens and had ni puta idea where we were, nor in which direction was our hostel. After an unsuccessful attempt at parking it and calling the hostel or finding the station on our teeny Let’s Go map, we ruled out walking because the area didn’t seem all that happening and the bus station itself was a dark, dirty collection of small, rundown store fronts and signs written in Greek. We directed ourselves to the ticket office and got chicken scrawl, questionably English directions on a little white piece of paper from the woman at the information window. Ok, bus number 50-something. A little disoriented with the language and luggage we got on bus number 50-something and Angela tried to hand the driver money. He started growling and pointing and opened the doors to eject us off the bus. We bought two tickets from the ticket window and got on the next one. No idea where to get off, we got off with everyone else at the last stop, because by doing a little letter matching between the posted route and our directions, it seemed like we were going the right direction.
We got off the bus and found that we still had no idea where we were and there were a lot of people hanging around. Like murienda time in Sevilla when everyone’s off work and the cafes and shops are bustling. We began to make our way down the street, past the people, looking for the metro stop our directions said should exist; two young, pretty girls with luggage, as if we didn’t stick out like sore thumbs already. We stopped at a hotel and got a map and real directions to Omonia, the nearest metro. Our map took us to a little plaza with crowded aisles and a dingy flea market of sorts on the ground. I clutched my purse to my chest, hid the map, and plunged in after Anglea, keeping my eyes on her and my head down. Greek. Everything in Greek, a language completely foreign and unrecognizable to my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I could feel the male stares and hear the “Hi”s and “How are you”s peppered in with a whole lot of gibberish. As I would do in Spain, I pushed on, my eyes down, my face deliberately not registering the English, not the stares, nor my discomfort. Keep walking. Don’t look back, as if not looking would make my skin and hair a little Mediterranean darker and my luggage disappear. As if it’s possible not to look terrified when I’ve never been more lost and uncomfortable and extranjera in my life. We cleared the crowd and entered the next Best Western we saw, this time getting real English directions and a real map. These streets were deserted but friendly, with red slippery tiling like in Seville and the weak setting sun shining, clean and tranquil. We didn’t leave the vicinity of our hotel until the next morning when the sun was already good and up and we had slept enough to almost forget about our welcome to Athens.
Athens is home to the Acropolis, it has the Parthenon, and it has the Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and the ancient statues at the National Archaeological Museum. All very ancient, amazing sights with so much history behind them, but after Rome’s ruins… well it’s hard to beat Rome. The Greek ruins aren’t much older than the Roman ruins but they’re considerably more “ruined.” The Acropolis, however, did seem pretty intact, but maybe that’s just thanks to the scaffolding that was all over the place. Impressive, yes, but even though it’s built on a rock overlooking the whole city and the ocean, it can’t beat the Colosseum. It did, however, beat the Colosseum in price, because we accidentally went on a free day. The only time, I think, we accidentally stumbled into anything good. The archeological museum is probably the funnest museum I’ve ever been to, besides the Children’s Museum in Las Vegas or was it Denver with the play supermarket. Its contents are super old, they’re not behind glass, there’s nothing super famous so it’s not as stressful as the major art museums, and photography is allowed. Taking photos is such a good way to internalize and appreciate the shapes and intricacies of sculpture. But the most memorable sight was the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Parliament building... the whole process was so ridiculous that it was hilarious and amazing at the same time.
Greece has its beauty more than anything else. The bus ride between Patras and Athens was stunning, and because Greece is so uniquely shaped, the road was by the Aegean Sea for half the trip, and for the other half, the Mediterranean. I couldn’t believe the view, the deep deep blue ocean, the green green hills, even the ferry ride off the coast of Greece, with islands in every direction. I’m going to be bold and say it was infinitely more beautiful than even the ride between Ventura and Santa Barbara; those oil platforms do get in the way. And the Oregon Coast and Northern California’s coast, these are all incredible beautiful places, but there’s just something about the air in Greece that make the colors just that much more brilliant. Maybe it’s the Mediterranean heat. You will see in our photos of the Acropolis that it wasn’t a very nice day, but walking around on that cloudy day we just couldn’t believe the heat. It was a creeping heat, a still heat, a heat that surrounds your body until your skin screams for a breath. But what am I talking about; I live in Sevilla, now that’s heat. Greece also has its salads. Angela and I probably ate 10 blocks of feta cheese between the two of us that week, with all the salads we ate. Olives, tomato wedges, cucumber, red onion, a big block of feta, with olive oil, vinegar, and spices. The best gyros we ate were actually on the boat, and we cried a little on the way back when the worker informed us that the machine was broken. Some nice Canadians we met escorted us to a gyro place one night for dinner because we were scared to go alone, and those were pretty amazing too, but I still kind of like to know exactly what kind of meat I’m eating. I also would like to give Athens credit for having the nicest metros I’ve ever been on. In a city that diverse, the metros could have been the creepiest most disgusting, graffiti-infested tunnels in the world. On the contrary they were right up there with Washington D.C., and the way the tickets worked it wasn't really necessary to pay.
Even so, I will spare you the dozen crazy, creepy stories we have about Greek people or people that speak English in Greece and leave you with a photo that explains the ferry in a nutshell. The ferry was like a mini cruise ship except the pool and the disco were broken, and instead of a bed, we had an airplane seat. The most restful two nights I’ve ever spent, clutching my purse, bundled in every warm piece of clothing I brought, wearing sunglasses and a scarf on my head to counteract the light, headphones to counteract the noise, trying to get around the armrests and the seats that didn’t recline all the way to… sleep…
In spite of everything, Greece, Italy, it was all an adventure. A splendid once-in-a-lifetime adventure that, more than pages and pages of words and pictures, I have hundreds and hundreds of memories and a very good friend with which to share them. And for that, I am thankful.
Leave tourist-central, romance-language Italy, enter the world of anything goes.
There are a number of directions I could go with this post and none of them would probably give you a very good impression of Greece, Greeks, or Athens. Indeed, if I count and recount experiences, most of them will end up being or sounding negative. But looking back on it, an inordinate number of weird things happened to us in Greece or enroute and I can’t believe that that’s the norm. Aristotle, Sophocles, and Plato were Greeks for heaven’s sake, as were Zeus, Athena, and Dionysus. After everything, I still do hold Greece in high esteem, but it definitely deserves another look. I am willing to concede that some people and places fail at first impressions.
We got off the double-decker bus we took from Patras to Athens and had ni puta idea where we were, nor in which direction was our hostel. After an unsuccessful attempt at parking it and calling the hostel or finding the station on our teeny Let’s Go map, we ruled out walking because the area didn’t seem all that happening and the bus station itself was a dark, dirty collection of small, rundown store fronts and signs written in Greek. We directed ourselves to the ticket office and got chicken scrawl, questionably English directions on a little white piece of paper from the woman at the information window. Ok, bus number 50-something. A little disoriented with the language and luggage we got on bus number 50-something and Angela tried to hand the driver money. He started growling and pointing and opened the doors to eject us off the bus. We bought two tickets from the ticket window and got on the next one. No idea where to get off, we got off with everyone else at the last stop, because by doing a little letter matching between the posted route and our directions, it seemed like we were going the right direction.
We got off the bus and found that we still had no idea where we were and there were a lot of people hanging around. Like murienda time in Sevilla when everyone’s off work and the cafes and shops are bustling. We began to make our way down the street, past the people, looking for the metro stop our directions said should exist; two young, pretty girls with luggage, as if we didn’t stick out like sore thumbs already. We stopped at a hotel and got a map and real directions to Omonia, the nearest metro. Our map took us to a little plaza with crowded aisles and a dingy flea market of sorts on the ground. I clutched my purse to my chest, hid the map, and plunged in after Anglea, keeping my eyes on her and my head down. Greek. Everything in Greek, a language completely foreign and unrecognizable to my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I could feel the male stares and hear the “Hi”s and “How are you”s peppered in with a whole lot of gibberish. As I would do in Spain, I pushed on, my eyes down, my face deliberately not registering the English, not the stares, nor my discomfort. Keep walking. Don’t look back, as if not looking would make my skin and hair a little Mediterranean darker and my luggage disappear. As if it’s possible not to look terrified when I’ve never been more lost and uncomfortable and extranjera in my life. We cleared the crowd and entered the next Best Western we saw, this time getting real English directions and a real map. These streets were deserted but friendly, with red slippery tiling like in Seville and the weak setting sun shining, clean and tranquil. We didn’t leave the vicinity of our hotel until the next morning when the sun was already good and up and we had slept enough to almost forget about our welcome to Athens.
Athens is home to the Acropolis, it has the Parthenon, and it has the Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and the ancient statues at the National Archaeological Museum. All very ancient, amazing sights with so much history behind them, but after Rome’s ruins… well it’s hard to beat Rome. The Greek ruins aren’t much older than the Roman ruins but they’re considerably more “ruined.” The Acropolis, however, did seem pretty intact, but maybe that’s just thanks to the scaffolding that was all over the place. Impressive, yes, but even though it’s built on a rock overlooking the whole city and the ocean, it can’t beat the Colosseum. It did, however, beat the Colosseum in price, because we accidentally went on a free day. The only time, I think, we accidentally stumbled into anything good. The archeological museum is probably the funnest museum I’ve ever been to, besides the Children’s Museum in Las Vegas or was it Denver with the play supermarket. Its contents are super old, they’re not behind glass, there’s nothing super famous so it’s not as stressful as the major art museums, and photography is allowed. Taking photos is such a good way to internalize and appreciate the shapes and intricacies of sculpture. But the most memorable sight was the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Parliament building... the whole process was so ridiculous that it was hilarious and amazing at the same time.
Greece has its beauty more than anything else. The bus ride between Patras and Athens was stunning, and because Greece is so uniquely shaped, the road was by the Aegean Sea for half the trip, and for the other half, the Mediterranean. I couldn’t believe the view, the deep deep blue ocean, the green green hills, even the ferry ride off the coast of Greece, with islands in every direction. I’m going to be bold and say it was infinitely more beautiful than even the ride between Ventura and Santa Barbara; those oil platforms do get in the way. And the Oregon Coast and Northern California’s coast, these are all incredible beautiful places, but there’s just something about the air in Greece that make the colors just that much more brilliant. Maybe it’s the Mediterranean heat. You will see in our photos of the Acropolis that it wasn’t a very nice day, but walking around on that cloudy day we just couldn’t believe the heat. It was a creeping heat, a still heat, a heat that surrounds your body until your skin screams for a breath. But what am I talking about; I live in Sevilla, now that’s heat. Greece also has its salads. Angela and I probably ate 10 blocks of feta cheese between the two of us that week, with all the salads we ate. Olives, tomato wedges, cucumber, red onion, a big block of feta, with olive oil, vinegar, and spices. The best gyros we ate were actually on the boat, and we cried a little on the way back when the worker informed us that the machine was broken. Some nice Canadians we met escorted us to a gyro place one night for dinner because we were scared to go alone, and those were pretty amazing too, but I still kind of like to know exactly what kind of meat I’m eating. I also would like to give Athens credit for having the nicest metros I’ve ever been on. In a city that diverse, the metros could have been the creepiest most disgusting, graffiti-infested tunnels in the world. On the contrary they were right up there with Washington D.C., and the way the tickets worked it wasn't really necessary to pay.
Even so, I will spare you the dozen crazy, creepy stories we have about Greek people or people that speak English in Greece and leave you with a photo that explains the ferry in a nutshell. The ferry was like a mini cruise ship except the pool and the disco were broken, and instead of a bed, we had an airplane seat. The most restful two nights I’ve ever spent, clutching my purse, bundled in every warm piece of clothing I brought, wearing sunglasses and a scarf on my head to counteract the light, headphones to counteract the noise, trying to get around the armrests and the seats that didn’t recline all the way to… sleep…
In spite of everything, Greece, Italy, it was all an adventure. A splendid once-in-a-lifetime adventure that, more than pages and pages of words and pictures, I have hundreds and hundreds of memories and a very good friend with which to share them. And for that, I am thankful.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Vaticano
The Vatican made me sick.
Alright, maybe it was the muffin I ate for breakfast, but after waiting in this line for two hours to enter the Vatican Museum:
(Incidentally this is the wall that Tom Cruise scaled in MI3, and the sign that you can’t quite read says Vatican Museum with an arrow to the right.--->) I felt sick enough upon finally getting inside that we had to sit another two by the bathroom and so I could get rid of all the muffin and Rome tap water in my stomach. After that stellar entrance to the museum I proceeded to spill hot tea on myself in the cafeteria. Well, from the family I come from, a vacation just wouldn’t be complete without incidents like that.
We had originally planned on doing the entire Vatican in one day, but because we like to see things in a relaxed manner (or lazy, whatever you want to call it), we spent almost a whole day at St. Peter’s Basilica, so we had to return the next day to fit the museum in. We had planned on getting to the museum before it opened like we did in Florence to minimize waiting time, but after eating the muffin and catching the over-crowded metro we were about ten minutes too late and instead ended up arriving at the worst time ever, right after they’d let it reach capacity. I’m trying to capitalize on our mistakes here, because I hear those sell better, and as you might’ve gathered by now, the vacation was pretty much perfect and problem-free.
We entered the basilica not really knowing what to expect, and by the second glass coffin with a preserved cadaver, we found it to be far beyond our comprehension. We bought an audio guide. The wax-preserved cadavers turned out to be ex-popes awaiting sanctification, but unfortunately the audio guide said very little about this rarity, something I didn’t even know existed before I read “La santa.” (Márquez’ story is slightly more magical realistic with the preserved cadaver being that of a little girl who had died and been buried eleven years earlier). Apparently there’s a spooky little church in Florence that also has a preserved cadaver that we didn’t get to see due to reasons already stated.
Michelangelo was all over the place, beginning with his famous Pietá, that is, Mary with Jesus’ body in her lap. Unfortunately the statue is small, and it’s hidden way back in a corner behind bulletproof glass because an “axe-wielding fiend” (so says my Let’s Go) actually succeeded in breaking Christ’s nose and Mary’s hand way back when in 1972. The altar is a magnificent monstrosity of wood and bronze, apparently some of which is taken from Roman ruins. There is a bit of discrepancy on the exact location, but our audio guide and an annoying umbrella-wielding English tour guide said the Vatican also houses a piece of Jesus’ cross. Indeed, the basilica itself is said to be built on St. Peter’s tomb, and the obelisk in the middle of the square is the site of his crucifixion.
All this New Testament stuff is interesting, but the highlight of the day, besides eating peaches just outside the front door of the basilica and watching the Swiss Guard, was climbing to the top of the dome. There were a hell of a lot of stairs, and the Italians that said there were no stairs in Rome while we were in line to continue climbing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona were lying… Regardless, we got to walk around the dome on the inside and see the artwork and mosaics up close, as well as look down upon the wooden altar and the people below. We then continued climbing in the space between the inside and outside domes (Michelangelo’s design), which was a weird dizzying sensation, because we were walking on a flat walkway, but the walls were curving inward. The view from the top was priceless (alright, 4€), and we got our coveted photos of the entire plaza and the unfinished backs of the saints that line the top of the church. Of course, there was a gift shop run by nuns on the lower roof. We ate more pistachios, but decided it was not okay to deface St. Peter’s roof with the shells. I think the Swiss Guards speak for themselves.
And finally, the museum (after two hours of reading/skimming all this text). Considering my condition, we decided to go straight to the Sistine Chapel and then go from there. Unfortunately, that is not easily done because the road to the Sistine Chapel pretty much encompasses the entire museum, halls and halls of religious art and thousands and thousands of people waiting to see the chapel. The Sistine itself doesn’t allow photos or talking or sitting on the stairs, but we took good standing, visual advantage of Michelangelo’s masterpiece that is the ceiling and the walls. And then we took good standing, visual advantage again when, after I spilled tea on myself, we realized we missed the Raphael rooms and we had to go back through the whole museum again. It’s unfortunate, but after seeing all these famous, original works of art and dealing with the amount of people that also want to see them, I think it’s almost better and easier to appreciate them by just looking in a book. It is rather exciting to be able to say, “I saw the Sistine Chapel, the School of Athens, the Birth of Venus, and the Pietá in Italy,” but I still won’t really begin to understand them or appreciate them until I type them into Google and stare at them for awhile in the comfort of my own home. Maybe that’s why I study literature. I am not talking about David.
Alright, maybe it was the muffin I ate for breakfast, but after waiting in this line for two hours to enter the Vatican Museum:
(Incidentally this is the wall that Tom Cruise scaled in MI3, and the sign that you can’t quite read says Vatican Museum with an arrow to the right.--->) I felt sick enough upon finally getting inside that we had to sit another two by the bathroom and so I could get rid of all the muffin and Rome tap water in my stomach. After that stellar entrance to the museum I proceeded to spill hot tea on myself in the cafeteria. Well, from the family I come from, a vacation just wouldn’t be complete without incidents like that.
We had originally planned on doing the entire Vatican in one day, but because we like to see things in a relaxed manner (or lazy, whatever you want to call it), we spent almost a whole day at St. Peter’s Basilica, so we had to return the next day to fit the museum in. We had planned on getting to the museum before it opened like we did in Florence to minimize waiting time, but after eating the muffin and catching the over-crowded metro we were about ten minutes too late and instead ended up arriving at the worst time ever, right after they’d let it reach capacity. I’m trying to capitalize on our mistakes here, because I hear those sell better, and as you might’ve gathered by now, the vacation was pretty much perfect and problem-free.
We entered the basilica not really knowing what to expect, and by the second glass coffin with a preserved cadaver, we found it to be far beyond our comprehension. We bought an audio guide. The wax-preserved cadavers turned out to be ex-popes awaiting sanctification, but unfortunately the audio guide said very little about this rarity, something I didn’t even know existed before I read “La santa.” (Márquez’ story is slightly more magical realistic with the preserved cadaver being that of a little girl who had died and been buried eleven years earlier). Apparently there’s a spooky little church in Florence that also has a preserved cadaver that we didn’t get to see due to reasons already stated.
Michelangelo was all over the place, beginning with his famous Pietá, that is, Mary with Jesus’ body in her lap. Unfortunately the statue is small, and it’s hidden way back in a corner behind bulletproof glass because an “axe-wielding fiend” (so says my Let’s Go) actually succeeded in breaking Christ’s nose and Mary’s hand way back when in 1972. The altar is a magnificent monstrosity of wood and bronze, apparently some of which is taken from Roman ruins. There is a bit of discrepancy on the exact location, but our audio guide and an annoying umbrella-wielding English tour guide said the Vatican also houses a piece of Jesus’ cross. Indeed, the basilica itself is said to be built on St. Peter’s tomb, and the obelisk in the middle of the square is the site of his crucifixion.
All this New Testament stuff is interesting, but the highlight of the day, besides eating peaches just outside the front door of the basilica and watching the Swiss Guard, was climbing to the top of the dome. There were a hell of a lot of stairs, and the Italians that said there were no stairs in Rome while we were in line to continue climbing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona were lying… Regardless, we got to walk around the dome on the inside and see the artwork and mosaics up close, as well as look down upon the wooden altar and the people below. We then continued climbing in the space between the inside and outside domes (Michelangelo’s design), which was a weird dizzying sensation, because we were walking on a flat walkway, but the walls were curving inward. The view from the top was priceless (alright, 4€), and we got our coveted photos of the entire plaza and the unfinished backs of the saints that line the top of the church. Of course, there was a gift shop run by nuns on the lower roof. We ate more pistachios, but decided it was not okay to deface St. Peter’s roof with the shells. I think the Swiss Guards speak for themselves.
And finally, the museum (after two hours of reading/skimming all this text). Considering my condition, we decided to go straight to the Sistine Chapel and then go from there. Unfortunately, that is not easily done because the road to the Sistine Chapel pretty much encompasses the entire museum, halls and halls of religious art and thousands and thousands of people waiting to see the chapel. The Sistine itself doesn’t allow photos or talking or sitting on the stairs, but we took good standing, visual advantage of Michelangelo’s masterpiece that is the ceiling and the walls. And then we took good standing, visual advantage again when, after I spilled tea on myself, we realized we missed the Raphael rooms and we had to go back through the whole museum again. It’s unfortunate, but after seeing all these famous, original works of art and dealing with the amount of people that also want to see them, I think it’s almost better and easier to appreciate them by just looking in a book. It is rather exciting to be able to say, “I saw the Sistine Chapel, the School of Athens, the Birth of Venus, and the Pietá in Italy,” but I still won’t really begin to understand them or appreciate them until I type them into Google and stare at them for awhile in the comfort of my own home. Maybe that’s why I study literature. I am not talking about David.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Roma
Rome is for the hardcore sightseer. Every traveler we talked to stayed for a couple days, went to bed early, got up early, pumped out the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, St. Peter’s, the Vatican museum/Sistine Chapel, the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, maybe the Pantheon, some gelato, some other plazas or fountains, the Roman Holiday sights, and left. We did the same. In our trip rankings Rome turned out to be our favorite city, with our favorite sights, the best food and gelato, and it was the least creepy.
It’s actually amazing the multitude and diversity of famous sights in Rome, ranging from the oldest of the old Roman ruins, to the Catholic Jerusalem, to some of the hippest and most expensive high fashion in Europe. Angela and I sat around a map and my Let’s Go the first night, reading about the sights and circling everything we wanted to do on the map. We circled pretty much everything. In light of the constant walking and seeing we did in Rome, it didn’t even matter that our hostel was at the bottom of our favorite hostel list and we had to take glacial runoff showers the first two days and deal with the rancid smell of mold in the bathroom and the smelly, loud Australians and unhappy couples who were also staying in our room (they were all actually very nice, though).
Without knowing it we decided to forgo seeing the Pope on Wednesday at 10:30 and instead went straight to the Colosseum. I think what is most amazing about Rome (and most old European cities for that matter) is that the old is mixed in with the new, the modern Romans live on top of and along with the historical Romans, ruins from BC coexist with newfangled things like cars, asphalt-paved streets, and high-rise buildings. Gabriel García Márquez says it best in his story “La santa/The saint” about his/the narrator’s return to Rome 22 years after he first saw it: “Pues la Roma de nuestras nostalgias era ya otra Roma antigua dentro de la Antigua Roma de los Césares.” Translated: “So the Rome we remembered so fondly was already an ancient Rome, preserved with the Ancient Rome of the time of César.” (Of course the brilliance and simplicity of this sentence in Spanish cannot be translated into English, not by me not by anyone, but I’m a recent graduate of a translation class and, well, I try.)
The Colosseum is particularly amazing because it is, well, completely colossal. We found it without trouble, by literally walking down the street from our hostel and turning our heads to the left. And there it was, a remnant from 80 AD just chilling there with cars zooming past on all sides and apartment buildings across the street. Though it’s pretty much intact, the bleachers are gone, and once inside it’s hard to visualize exactly what it would be like to be one of the 70,000 spectators there to watch the day’s bloody events (that’s what Gladiator’s for, right?). Along with the ridiculous (that seems to be a trend) 9€ we paid to enter; we had access to the few informational signs. And it sounds so idiotic to me, but like all buildings, the Colosseum had a lifespan and when it was abandoned the people reused pieces of its substantial amount of building material to build new things… I guess we do it now sometimes with old buildings, but imagine the Colosseum defunct, left to rot, be buried, and disassembled. And now they charge thousands of tourists a fortune to enter each day.
Arguably even more amazing than the Colosseum was the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill right next door. This is BC stuff, seriously old and in ruins, but completely amazing. They’re still excavating this whole area too, a work in progress, a whole city buried by layers and layers of sand. Truth be told, Anglea and I were expecting Caesar’s Palace, but what we found was considerably more impressive: buildings, columns, Romulean huts (like Star Trek), the oldest street in Rome. Most of it appears to be relatively unrestored, so it feels more authentic, each piece of marble touched by ancient Roman hands. I don’t know how I feel about restoration. The Parthenon in Athens is under restoration and the scaffolding certainly makes for ugly photos. It depends what one thinks is amazing about seeing old things: the fact that they’re old and partially still around, or the fact that ancient people built amazing things, in which case it would be okay to restore them to their original state. Even though ancient people would probably be sad to see their city in ruins like it is, they might be even sadder to see that it’s been rebuilt, slightly erroneously, and touched all over by modern hands and machines. Do we have to control everything? Obviously more impressive in real life than in photos and certainly in my description, the Roman Forum with its Corinthian columns, which I particularly like, beats David hands and sling shot down. Michelangelo is contemporary in comparison. Angela and I sat for a long time next to what we thought was the senate house, eating pistachios, defacing the forum with their shells, marveling at the old ruined marble we were sitting on, and listening to German and French speaking tourists. Fabulous.
We went on to discover more ruins, the Fori Imperiali, still being excavated and located right across a big road from the Forum. The contemporary Roman government building is right there too, and the way the elevation is, it appears to be on the top of a hill, a huge, white marble building with columns, overlooking the city and dwarfing the ruins right next to it. (This was really our most productive day EVER). Then we made our way to the Trevi Fountain, which though beautiful, had far too many tourists, vendors, and possible pick-pockets for it to be enjoyable. The Spanish Steps were just a short walk away, and well, not deserving of their reputation. Attempted pictures failed because of the amount of people sitting on them, and the building at the top had scaffolding. Coming right out the bottom, was of course, the high fashion, and though it was interesting to see all of the expensive stores, we would never dream of actually entering them.
The other days were mixed in with the Vatican, which is another city and another post in itself. Most memorably, we stood on Corso and watched a truly magnificent violin player and the confusion surrounding a huge and possibly special bird that had landed right there in the street in front of her. We attempted to see an Egyptian obelisk stolen from a pharaoh, but it was under restoration. The Fountain of Four Rivers was beautiful when we finally found it, and there was a guy there pretending to be Charlie Chaplin who kept messing around with the passersby. We sat on the steps of the Pantheon, spitting cherry pits, eating olive oil potato chips (only in Europe), and watching a precious little Italian girl run around while her grandfather tried to keep track of her. European kids are 100 times cuter than American ones, because they are either dressed like their siblings or in cute little designer clothes. It’s amazing the control mothers have over wardrobe; I saw a little boy yesterday, too old to be dressed by his mother, who was wearing tight yellow shorts with pink butterflies and flowers, a pink polo shirt, and jellies. The Pantheon was pretty cool with its dome, and it was free, and old, but it was also taken over by the Catholic Church which slightly ruined its authenticity, just like everything in Spain. We ate the most delicious gelato. And I finally, finally, on our last day in Italy, ordered the right kind. Angela showed me up all vacation with her amazing, rich chocolaty flavors; I always got the fruity flavors and then regretted it after trying hers. Maybe when I return to Rome I’ll have the same nostalgia as García Márquez about when I was there in June 2006. For now, it was pretty much the most amazing manmade place I’ve ever been.
It’s actually amazing the multitude and diversity of famous sights in Rome, ranging from the oldest of the old Roman ruins, to the Catholic Jerusalem, to some of the hippest and most expensive high fashion in Europe. Angela and I sat around a map and my Let’s Go the first night, reading about the sights and circling everything we wanted to do on the map. We circled pretty much everything. In light of the constant walking and seeing we did in Rome, it didn’t even matter that our hostel was at the bottom of our favorite hostel list and we had to take glacial runoff showers the first two days and deal with the rancid smell of mold in the bathroom and the smelly, loud Australians and unhappy couples who were also staying in our room (they were all actually very nice, though).
Without knowing it we decided to forgo seeing the Pope on Wednesday at 10:30 and instead went straight to the Colosseum. I think what is most amazing about Rome (and most old European cities for that matter) is that the old is mixed in with the new, the modern Romans live on top of and along with the historical Romans, ruins from BC coexist with newfangled things like cars, asphalt-paved streets, and high-rise buildings. Gabriel García Márquez says it best in his story “La santa/The saint” about his/the narrator’s return to Rome 22 years after he first saw it: “Pues la Roma de nuestras nostalgias era ya otra Roma antigua dentro de la Antigua Roma de los Césares.” Translated: “So the Rome we remembered so fondly was already an ancient Rome, preserved with the Ancient Rome of the time of César.” (Of course the brilliance and simplicity of this sentence in Spanish cannot be translated into English, not by me not by anyone, but I’m a recent graduate of a translation class and, well, I try.)
The Colosseum is particularly amazing because it is, well, completely colossal. We found it without trouble, by literally walking down the street from our hostel and turning our heads to the left. And there it was, a remnant from 80 AD just chilling there with cars zooming past on all sides and apartment buildings across the street. Though it’s pretty much intact, the bleachers are gone, and once inside it’s hard to visualize exactly what it would be like to be one of the 70,000 spectators there to watch the day’s bloody events (that’s what Gladiator’s for, right?). Along with the ridiculous (that seems to be a trend) 9€ we paid to enter; we had access to the few informational signs. And it sounds so idiotic to me, but like all buildings, the Colosseum had a lifespan and when it was abandoned the people reused pieces of its substantial amount of building material to build new things… I guess we do it now sometimes with old buildings, but imagine the Colosseum defunct, left to rot, be buried, and disassembled. And now they charge thousands of tourists a fortune to enter each day.
Arguably even more amazing than the Colosseum was the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill right next door. This is BC stuff, seriously old and in ruins, but completely amazing. They’re still excavating this whole area too, a work in progress, a whole city buried by layers and layers of sand. Truth be told, Anglea and I were expecting Caesar’s Palace, but what we found was considerably more impressive: buildings, columns, Romulean huts (like Star Trek), the oldest street in Rome. Most of it appears to be relatively unrestored, so it feels more authentic, each piece of marble touched by ancient Roman hands. I don’t know how I feel about restoration. The Parthenon in Athens is under restoration and the scaffolding certainly makes for ugly photos. It depends what one thinks is amazing about seeing old things: the fact that they’re old and partially still around, or the fact that ancient people built amazing things, in which case it would be okay to restore them to their original state. Even though ancient people would probably be sad to see their city in ruins like it is, they might be even sadder to see that it’s been rebuilt, slightly erroneously, and touched all over by modern hands and machines. Do we have to control everything? Obviously more impressive in real life than in photos and certainly in my description, the Roman Forum with its Corinthian columns, which I particularly like, beats David hands and sling shot down. Michelangelo is contemporary in comparison. Angela and I sat for a long time next to what we thought was the senate house, eating pistachios, defacing the forum with their shells, marveling at the old ruined marble we were sitting on, and listening to German and French speaking tourists. Fabulous.
We went on to discover more ruins, the Fori Imperiali, still being excavated and located right across a big road from the Forum. The contemporary Roman government building is right there too, and the way the elevation is, it appears to be on the top of a hill, a huge, white marble building with columns, overlooking the city and dwarfing the ruins right next to it. (This was really our most productive day EVER). Then we made our way to the Trevi Fountain, which though beautiful, had far too many tourists, vendors, and possible pick-pockets for it to be enjoyable. The Spanish Steps were just a short walk away, and well, not deserving of their reputation. Attempted pictures failed because of the amount of people sitting on them, and the building at the top had scaffolding. Coming right out the bottom, was of course, the high fashion, and though it was interesting to see all of the expensive stores, we would never dream of actually entering them.
The other days were mixed in with the Vatican, which is another city and another post in itself. Most memorably, we stood on Corso and watched a truly magnificent violin player and the confusion surrounding a huge and possibly special bird that had landed right there in the street in front of her. We attempted to see an Egyptian obelisk stolen from a pharaoh, but it was under restoration. The Fountain of Four Rivers was beautiful when we finally found it, and there was a guy there pretending to be Charlie Chaplin who kept messing around with the passersby. We sat on the steps of the Pantheon, spitting cherry pits, eating olive oil potato chips (only in Europe), and watching a precious little Italian girl run around while her grandfather tried to keep track of her. European kids are 100 times cuter than American ones, because they are either dressed like their siblings or in cute little designer clothes. It’s amazing the control mothers have over wardrobe; I saw a little boy yesterday, too old to be dressed by his mother, who was wearing tight yellow shorts with pink butterflies and flowers, a pink polo shirt, and jellies. The Pantheon was pretty cool with its dome, and it was free, and old, but it was also taken over by the Catholic Church which slightly ruined its authenticity, just like everything in Spain. We ate the most delicious gelato. And I finally, finally, on our last day in Italy, ordered the right kind. Angela showed me up all vacation with her amazing, rich chocolaty flavors; I always got the fruity flavors and then regretted it after trying hers. Maybe when I return to Rome I’ll have the same nostalgia as García Márquez about when I was there in June 2006. For now, it was pretty much the most amazing manmade place I’ve ever been.
Firenze
If Venice was charming and restful, then I would have to call Florence a disaster. Part of the problem was our timing: arrive late Saturday due to lack of space on trains from Venice and leave Tuesday. Student travelers sometimes like to stay out late on Saturday nights if they find the right company, and if they do, then Sunday is basically useless. No matter because everything’s closed on Sunday, and what’s not closed on Sunday is closed on Monday. All of this being true, Angela and I jammed the Uffizi and the Academia (Michelangelo’s David) into Tuesday morning before we took the train to Rome, making the other days pretty much big disasters in comparison.
We arrived at our hostel Saturday evening after walking a grueling ten blocks from the train station with 12.5 kilos on my back and Angela pulling a rolly suitcase with a broken wheel… we found the city to be a city and not nearly as beautiful as everyone said and we finally found the hostel with a little sign that said “Call when you arrive.” Travelers don’t generally have reliable access to phones. In my frustration I yelled into the building intercom “Call you? How are we supposed to call you, coño?” (coño is a rude word I have picked up due to its common use in Spain and it will not be translated or repeated). We were buzzed in. The man that runs Emerald Fields was not, in fact, a coño, but a cool Italian with a cool hostel. He went over Florence’s geography and highlights with each traveler in his broken English before inviting those hanging around to a bar or out to dinner. A small, friendly, clean, homey, cheap hostel really can be the key to a city, because though Let’s Go can give food and bar advice, the best advice comes from friendly, English-speaking locals and the best fun is found in the company of a random assortment of English-speaking travelers, other locals, and of course Angela.
We spent Sunday in silly fatigue, deciding to forgo the Academia and the Uffizi because the lines were too long, instead hiking to the other side of the river and up to Piazzale Michelangelo where we sat admiring the view of the city and, of course, David’s bottom half. They’re really ridiculous about that. Italians apparently really like their body parts.
We sat outside San Croce church for awhile, thinking 6€ was defiantly not worth it to enter. We wandered around for hours trying to find a restaurant that was recommended both by our hostel roommates and my guidebook, but went somewhere else when we were convinced that it didn’t exist and it wasn’t open on Sundays. We marveled at the thousands of bottles of red wine and couple bottles of absenthe in a wine bar, and stood outside of Dante’s house cursing Mondays. We were ripped off on gelato, iced tea, and breakfast, but were actually quite successful on purchases at the flea market. We admired the gold doors and the beautiful duomo inside and out and were kicked off the stairs as we sat admiring it some more. We actually saw the synagogue, the most ornate and beautiful and high security I have ever seen. We also eventually found the restaurant we were looking for on Monday, but the food was mediocre and one of the waiters was being creepy.
Alright, maybe it wasn’t as idle as it seemed at the time. I wish I knew more about art and didn’t have to ask Angela every five minutes, “Is this famous?” at the Uffizi. But we did see a few pieces I recognized, and a really cool exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci, and we didn’t have to wait in line because we were serious and got up at seven in order to be there before it opened. We did have to wait in line for two long hours and pay too much to see David, but the Academia did turn out to be, according to our official trip rankings, first on our list of favorite museums. David is David, I mean, we’ve all seen him. But to see the original statue in person, its SIZE, its perfect human detail, an experience I really can’t quite recount or repeat. Truly amazing, breath-taking, awe-inspiring… and worth the time and money to circle the statue for half hour, head up, mouth open, trying to comprehend how in the world Michelangelo took a block of marble and sculpted it into a living, breathing human being. We went out with a bang.
We arrived at our hostel Saturday evening after walking a grueling ten blocks from the train station with 12.5 kilos on my back and Angela pulling a rolly suitcase with a broken wheel… we found the city to be a city and not nearly as beautiful as everyone said and we finally found the hostel with a little sign that said “Call when you arrive.” Travelers don’t generally have reliable access to phones. In my frustration I yelled into the building intercom “Call you? How are we supposed to call you, coño?” (coño is a rude word I have picked up due to its common use in Spain and it will not be translated or repeated). We were buzzed in. The man that runs Emerald Fields was not, in fact, a coño, but a cool Italian with a cool hostel. He went over Florence’s geography and highlights with each traveler in his broken English before inviting those hanging around to a bar or out to dinner. A small, friendly, clean, homey, cheap hostel really can be the key to a city, because though Let’s Go can give food and bar advice, the best advice comes from friendly, English-speaking locals and the best fun is found in the company of a random assortment of English-speaking travelers, other locals, and of course Angela.
We spent Sunday in silly fatigue, deciding to forgo the Academia and the Uffizi because the lines were too long, instead hiking to the other side of the river and up to Piazzale Michelangelo where we sat admiring the view of the city and, of course, David’s bottom half. They’re really ridiculous about that. Italians apparently really like their body parts.
We sat outside San Croce church for awhile, thinking 6€ was defiantly not worth it to enter. We wandered around for hours trying to find a restaurant that was recommended both by our hostel roommates and my guidebook, but went somewhere else when we were convinced that it didn’t exist and it wasn’t open on Sundays. We marveled at the thousands of bottles of red wine and couple bottles of absenthe in a wine bar, and stood outside of Dante’s house cursing Mondays. We were ripped off on gelato, iced tea, and breakfast, but were actually quite successful on purchases at the flea market. We admired the gold doors and the beautiful duomo inside and out and were kicked off the stairs as we sat admiring it some more. We actually saw the synagogue, the most ornate and beautiful and high security I have ever seen. We also eventually found the restaurant we were looking for on Monday, but the food was mediocre and one of the waiters was being creepy.
Alright, maybe it wasn’t as idle as it seemed at the time. I wish I knew more about art and didn’t have to ask Angela every five minutes, “Is this famous?” at the Uffizi. But we did see a few pieces I recognized, and a really cool exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci, and we didn’t have to wait in line because we were serious and got up at seven in order to be there before it opened. We did have to wait in line for two long hours and pay too much to see David, but the Academia did turn out to be, according to our official trip rankings, first on our list of favorite museums. David is David, I mean, we’ve all seen him. But to see the original statue in person, its SIZE, its perfect human detail, an experience I really can’t quite recount or repeat. Truly amazing, breath-taking, awe-inspiring… and worth the time and money to circle the statue for half hour, head up, mouth open, trying to comprehend how in the world Michelangelo took a block of marble and sculpted it into a living, breathing human being. We went out with a bang.
more than you ever wanted to know (Venezia)
As the true American west coast twenty first century girls we are, while in Venice, Italy, Angela and I kept repeating “This is just like the Venetian!” And though there is no comparison for the blue-green ocean, the stark contrast between the basilica and the Doge’s palace in St. Marc’s Square, the amount of pigeons, and the hundreds of precious streets and canals off the beaten tourist’s path that capture the beauty and Italian charm of the city… Well, as terrible and blasphemous as it sounds, but for the contentment of my jealous readers, the real thing does look a lot like the Venetian in Las Vegas.
I guess this thought comforts me, knowing I can at least make it to Italy again in representation, because after living in a foreign city for six months (well, five and a half by now), it’s impossible to go to a new city, a beautiful city filled with culture and charm, and be content with being a tourist. I’m still a tourist in a sense in Seville, but my señora says I’m half Spanish because she’s my Spanish mother so I’ll go with that. I have seen so much more of Seville than I will ever be able to see in Venice in the 65 hours I’m here, at least 25 of which are designated for sleeping. We try though. While Vegas has a good representation of Venice, there’s no way to recreate the little things like the largest oil painting in the world (Paradise, Tintoretto, Doge’s palace), trying to speak Italian with my Spanish to Italian translation/pronunciation guide, the man playing wine glasses on a forgotten street (yes, like Miss Congeniality), the look on kids’ faces when they are attacked by pigeons in St. Marc’s Square, the gondola men, the taste of a fresh-out-of-the-oven slice of pizza margarita for 1.50€ as we’re winding through the darkening streets trying to find the bus station… I’m into lists today because even though we didn’t scratch the surface in 40 hours, we did quite a bit.
That’s the marvelous thing about student tourists, because we’re on a budget but not on a schedule and we like to learn. It’s okay to get on the wrong bus in Venice Mestre because we have nowhere to be, there are no protests to eating gelato before lunch at four in the afternoon, sitting for a half hour watching David’s bottom half flap in the wind, and skipping the art museums because we’re going to see more than enough of that in Florence. I guess the main idea of being a tourist is to take what one can from a city — what experiences, what pictures, what sights — and run with them. If I lived in every city in Europe I found interesting for at least a year, in 20 I’d be 40, unmarried, bankrupt, and an extreme mess of languages and cultures. Though an interesting experiment, not really where I see myself. So I do what I can while I’m here now and when I’m back in Santa Barbara scoffing at the Italian food on State Street, the cars, and the wide width of the streets, or in Las Vegas trying to actually find the Venetian charm at the Venetian, I’ll know that I did enough — at least for now.
I realize that I haven’t actually yet said anything of substance about Venice.
By the tail end of our second and last day there we had pretty much exhausted all the touristy things that could be done in Venice, so we were wandering without direction, waiting until it was dark enough for us to experience Venice at night. We came upon a plaza with a leaning tower in the distance (because Venice is sinking), and since we didn’t make it to Pisa this trip, we took advantage of the fun and picture opportunity to the laughs and strange looks of the passersby. We decided to get closer to the tower, so we crossed the canal and walked with our eyes to the sky until we ran into another plaza with a crowd of people and a group of musicians singing opera songs. It was a fun and lively show, the kind that would never exist in the States because most operas are in Italian and most people don’t have the time or the passion to sit on the street and play (that’s a bold statement, but I think it would be fair to say that I’ve seen more quality street performers in Europe than I’ve seen in the U.S.). Once we had clapped our enjoyment sufficiently we followed a group of older Italians to a closer view of the tower. Upon seeing us taking photos of the tower the Italians started chattering about how their leaning tower is better than Pisa and we smiled and nodded at the rest because though Spanish and French are similar, it’s impossible to catch everything in Italian when you haven’t actually studied the language.
In an effort to get more of a multi-cultural view of the city and Europe in general we also went to visit the Synagogue and Jewish museum. The old Jewish ghetto of Venice is one of the oldest in Europe and looks like a ghetto should with small tunnels through which to enter and skinny streets. Like most things we look for, we had trouble finding the synagogue and when we finally found it we were afraid to go inside because there were a crowd of people outside. So we instead browsed through a used book store that sold mostly English language books and approached the synagogue a bit later. A man outside addressed us in English and told us that the temple was closed that day because it was Friday, of course, but we were invited to come back for Shabbat services later that night. We didn’t return because we didn’t have acceptable clothing, but instead we continued on the “yellow brick road” of crowds, touristy shops, and 1€ public WCs.
Arguably the best Italian food we had while in Italy was our first night at a little restaurant in Venice Mestre. We ordered in Italian with the help of my Italian conversation guide and had a lovely romantic meal of a pannini, a pizza Capricciosa, and acqua naturale. When we got the check everything didn’t appear as cheap as it had appeared on the menu, so we tried to communicate to the waiter that we were being overcharged. He claimed he didn’t speak English even though he did and after trying to find language barrier answers in my Italian/Spanish guide and being told by an English-speaking couple at the table next to us who thought we were trying to speak Spanish that Spanish isn’t the same as Italian (duh), we paid the extra 6€ and ran, never again to return to a sit-down restaurant in Venice. Indeed, never again to have a similar experience. I still don’t understand why every European country insists on speaking its own distinct language. I would love to learn Italian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Mandarin but the language center in my brain doesn’t have the capacity for me to maintain flawless English and Spanish and develop the others without making a complete mess of everything. I have enough trouble with two. And they all really start to sound the same after awhile. The ferry boat to Greece had five official languages for the announcements, Greek, English, Italian, German, and French, and I swear I could understand bits and pieces of all of them. Or maybe that’s just the self-fulfillment prophesy.
Anyway. De todas maneras. Alora. I think I’ll work on Italian next.
We had good wine everywhere, but I haven’t yet developed a taste for red wine so I really can’t taste the difference between Italian wine and Spanish wine except that it’s a bit more expensive in Italy. I could taste the difference in Greek wine because it was super red and strong, but I guess it has to be if it’s what Dionysus drinks.
I still haven’t really said anything of substance about Venice. It was our second favorite city out of the five we’ve visited together and compared to some of the ripping off and creepiness we came across in other cities, our visit was relatively innocent, safe, carefree, and uneventful. There are far too many tourists, pigeons, and gondolas in Venice, but if you don’t look at your map and wander around seeing what you can see, it really is very charming and refreshingly small.
I guess this thought comforts me, knowing I can at least make it to Italy again in representation, because after living in a foreign city for six months (well, five and a half by now), it’s impossible to go to a new city, a beautiful city filled with culture and charm, and be content with being a tourist. I’m still a tourist in a sense in Seville, but my señora says I’m half Spanish because she’s my Spanish mother so I’ll go with that. I have seen so much more of Seville than I will ever be able to see in Venice in the 65 hours I’m here, at least 25 of which are designated for sleeping. We try though. While Vegas has a good representation of Venice, there’s no way to recreate the little things like the largest oil painting in the world (Paradise, Tintoretto, Doge’s palace), trying to speak Italian with my Spanish to Italian translation/pronunciation guide, the man playing wine glasses on a forgotten street (yes, like Miss Congeniality), the look on kids’ faces when they are attacked by pigeons in St. Marc’s Square, the gondola men, the taste of a fresh-out-of-the-oven slice of pizza margarita for 1.50€ as we’re winding through the darkening streets trying to find the bus station… I’m into lists today because even though we didn’t scratch the surface in 40 hours, we did quite a bit.
That’s the marvelous thing about student tourists, because we’re on a budget but not on a schedule and we like to learn. It’s okay to get on the wrong bus in Venice Mestre because we have nowhere to be, there are no protests to eating gelato before lunch at four in the afternoon, sitting for a half hour watching David’s bottom half flap in the wind, and skipping the art museums because we’re going to see more than enough of that in Florence. I guess the main idea of being a tourist is to take what one can from a city — what experiences, what pictures, what sights — and run with them. If I lived in every city in Europe I found interesting for at least a year, in 20 I’d be 40, unmarried, bankrupt, and an extreme mess of languages and cultures. Though an interesting experiment, not really where I see myself. So I do what I can while I’m here now and when I’m back in Santa Barbara scoffing at the Italian food on State Street, the cars, and the wide width of the streets, or in Las Vegas trying to actually find the Venetian charm at the Venetian, I’ll know that I did enough — at least for now.
I realize that I haven’t actually yet said anything of substance about Venice.
By the tail end of our second and last day there we had pretty much exhausted all the touristy things that could be done in Venice, so we were wandering without direction, waiting until it was dark enough for us to experience Venice at night. We came upon a plaza with a leaning tower in the distance (because Venice is sinking), and since we didn’t make it to Pisa this trip, we took advantage of the fun and picture opportunity to the laughs and strange looks of the passersby. We decided to get closer to the tower, so we crossed the canal and walked with our eyes to the sky until we ran into another plaza with a crowd of people and a group of musicians singing opera songs. It was a fun and lively show, the kind that would never exist in the States because most operas are in Italian and most people don’t have the time or the passion to sit on the street and play (that’s a bold statement, but I think it would be fair to say that I’ve seen more quality street performers in Europe than I’ve seen in the U.S.). Once we had clapped our enjoyment sufficiently we followed a group of older Italians to a closer view of the tower. Upon seeing us taking photos of the tower the Italians started chattering about how their leaning tower is better than Pisa and we smiled and nodded at the rest because though Spanish and French are similar, it’s impossible to catch everything in Italian when you haven’t actually studied the language.
In an effort to get more of a multi-cultural view of the city and Europe in general we also went to visit the Synagogue and Jewish museum. The old Jewish ghetto of Venice is one of the oldest in Europe and looks like a ghetto should with small tunnels through which to enter and skinny streets. Like most things we look for, we had trouble finding the synagogue and when we finally found it we were afraid to go inside because there were a crowd of people outside. So we instead browsed through a used book store that sold mostly English language books and approached the synagogue a bit later. A man outside addressed us in English and told us that the temple was closed that day because it was Friday, of course, but we were invited to come back for Shabbat services later that night. We didn’t return because we didn’t have acceptable clothing, but instead we continued on the “yellow brick road” of crowds, touristy shops, and 1€ public WCs.
Arguably the best Italian food we had while in Italy was our first night at a little restaurant in Venice Mestre. We ordered in Italian with the help of my Italian conversation guide and had a lovely romantic meal of a pannini, a pizza Capricciosa, and acqua naturale. When we got the check everything didn’t appear as cheap as it had appeared on the menu, so we tried to communicate to the waiter that we were being overcharged. He claimed he didn’t speak English even though he did and after trying to find language barrier answers in my Italian/Spanish guide and being told by an English-speaking couple at the table next to us who thought we were trying to speak Spanish that Spanish isn’t the same as Italian (duh), we paid the extra 6€ and ran, never again to return to a sit-down restaurant in Venice. Indeed, never again to have a similar experience. I still don’t understand why every European country insists on speaking its own distinct language. I would love to learn Italian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Mandarin but the language center in my brain doesn’t have the capacity for me to maintain flawless English and Spanish and develop the others without making a complete mess of everything. I have enough trouble with two. And they all really start to sound the same after awhile. The ferry boat to Greece had five official languages for the announcements, Greek, English, Italian, German, and French, and I swear I could understand bits and pieces of all of them. Or maybe that’s just the self-fulfillment prophesy.
Anyway. De todas maneras. Alora. I think I’ll work on Italian next.
We had good wine everywhere, but I haven’t yet developed a taste for red wine so I really can’t taste the difference between Italian wine and Spanish wine except that it’s a bit more expensive in Italy. I could taste the difference in Greek wine because it was super red and strong, but I guess it has to be if it’s what Dionysus drinks.
I still haven’t really said anything of substance about Venice. It was our second favorite city out of the five we’ve visited together and compared to some of the ripping off and creepiness we came across in other cities, our visit was relatively innocent, safe, carefree, and uneventful. There are far too many tourists, pigeons, and gondolas in Venice, but if you don’t look at your map and wander around seeing what you can see, it really is very charming and refreshingly small.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
read the ending first
In the last two days I have taken almost every form of transportation available to man. In order, beginning Thursday afternoon: Train. Ferry. Train. Bus. Bus. Taxi. Plane. Bus. I think í'm missing a moped, and maybe a bike, and a helocopter, but that's about it. When I think back to all those connections I had to make, it's a wonder that i'm here in Seville again safe and sound. Last night at 9:00 I had no idea how I was going to make it to the airport in the morning, but this morning at 5:05 I was waiting on the street for my taxi. Today at 5:00 in the afternoon i'm tired... but i'm home.
Home?
I called my señora when I was in final approach to the apartment and she called me cariño and asked if I was ok and said she'd be waiting. When I arrived un cuarto de hora later sweating from the walk (but not the heat -- we're having a one-day cold spell) and the weight of my bag of dirty clothes she recieved me with open arms and multiple kisses on each cheek. After not speaking Spanish for two weeks except when I wanted to pretend I was speaking Italian and when I was talking to the old Spanish truck drivers on the ferry, I really did slip back into it and we were talking about celebrities and current events like old times.
And though it seemed like before I left that I would have a lot of time when I returned, now that i'm actually here it's really short. I can smell California, I can see it on my calendar in about two weeks time. I forget how little time there is in Spanish days to do anything, between waking up late, lunch, siesta, the heat, and dinner, there are really only a couple good hours in the day.
Leaving one home and going to another, leaving the other home and going to still another; I've gotten to be a pro at leaving. If it weren't for the heat, well I don't think I would mind staying. But it will be nice to go home home home, I just hope once i'm there I don't forget Sevilla.
Home?
I called my señora when I was in final approach to the apartment and she called me cariño and asked if I was ok and said she'd be waiting. When I arrived un cuarto de hora later sweating from the walk (but not the heat -- we're having a one-day cold spell) and the weight of my bag of dirty clothes she recieved me with open arms and multiple kisses on each cheek. After not speaking Spanish for two weeks except when I wanted to pretend I was speaking Italian and when I was talking to the old Spanish truck drivers on the ferry, I really did slip back into it and we were talking about celebrities and current events like old times.
And though it seemed like before I left that I would have a lot of time when I returned, now that i'm actually here it's really short. I can smell California, I can see it on my calendar in about two weeks time. I forget how little time there is in Spanish days to do anything, between waking up late, lunch, siesta, the heat, and dinner, there are really only a couple good hours in the day.
Leaving one home and going to another, leaving the other home and going to still another; I've gotten to be a pro at leaving. If it weren't for the heat, well I don't think I would mind staying. But it will be nice to go home home home, I just hope once i'm there I don't forget Sevilla.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
It's about time.
It is true, my trip is almost over and I have not yet posted. Truth be told, internet access and interest in recounting has been low. HOWEVER, I will leave you with this photo as I begin my journey home to Seville...
That's me and Angela. The first day, in Venice, on a bridge overlooking the Grand Canal. Obviously. I was going to post an infinitely more exciting photo of Ang in a tan shirt actually blending into the Parthenon in Athens, but it's still on my camera. Indeed, there's also a fabulous one of me falling in love with a statue. But alas.
(Photos and stories to follow. I promise.)
That's me and Angela. The first day, in Venice, on a bridge overlooking the Grand Canal. Obviously. I was going to post an infinitely more exciting photo of Ang in a tan shirt actually blending into the Parthenon in Athens, but it's still on my camera. Indeed, there's also a fabulous one of me falling in love with a statue. But alas.
(Photos and stories to follow. I promise.)
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