nuns on the run

For some reason, Wayne loves taking photos of nuns.  And there are plenty of cute gelato-eating nuns in Rome :)  Enjoy!

Naples

Rome is, of course, what we compare Naples to.  Life is hard for most Italians -- Romans and Neopolitans alike.  But Romans in particular seem to have this unique ability (passion? determination?) to enjoy life no matter what life throws at them.

Naples is raw and gritty.  Graffiti greets you from nearly every angle.   Hard, resigned looks adorn most faces you encounter on the sidewalk.  Neapolitan drivers are a little quicker with the horn, metal grates are pulled down over storefronts at night, trash is freely thrown in the street.

There are no public restrooms (thank God for Burger King!), and signs of hard living are impossible to miss—cigarette butts, broken bottles, panhandlers, well-worn shop-keepers, well-worn cars and motorbikes parked any which way, laundry hanging desperately from balconies.  This is Europe’s most densely populated city, and it shows.

We had a fantastic hotel – the Grand Hotel Europa (thanks, Rick Steves!) – a two minute walk from the train station, quiet, friendly, with a small balcony, and breakfast included.

And great beds for jumping!

The best part of Naples?  Great pizza!

a day in the life: part 2

Sunday, March 25

I went to mass at a local parish, Santa Maria de Buonconsiglio.  At the rear of the church were two “walk-up” confessionals.  It was a box in which the priest sat, with the upper half of the front open.  One would stand there in front of the opening and make a confession.  I watched as each Italian stood there for at least 15 minutes, gesturing wildly.  It seems as though they are passionate about EVERYTHING, even their sins.  Confessions were being heard, as far as I could tell, all throughout mass.

After a lunch at home, the three of us took the Metro into town and walked up Via Veneto, through the east entrance of the Roman city wall, and in to Villa Borghese.  We had visited Villa Borghese (and gotten lost) the week prior with Paul, Helen, and Megan – enjoying the works of (mostly) Caravaggio and Bernini in the Galleria Borghese.  On this day, however, we had our eye on a riscio (rickshaw), a four-wheeled cycle we propelled by our own peddling.  

The riscio proved to be a great time – winding around pedestrians, dodging other riscio, bikes, roller bladers and skateboards.

We stopped for a snack – a crepe con formaggio for me, a caffe for Wayne, and a cioccolato caldo for Riley.  This was our first attempt at hot chocolate in Italy.  Is this an American creation?  I don’t know.  But the Italians take it literally – it was as if they took a bar of chocolate, put it in a cup, and melted it in the microwave.  It was simply chocolate, heated.  Hot chocolate.  We ended up throwing it out.

After a bathroom break, we returned the riscio, and got gelato (of course) on our way out.

At home, we prepared a feast for dinner.  I made lasagna (in two batches, as I only had one small pan I trusted in the oven), then washed and reused the pan to make something from a box that we found in the store we nicknamed “lava cake”.  One major thing missing in Italy is brownies.  We have found applesauce, an abundance of very good garden peas (that we can’t even get most of the time in the states), good fresh milk, wonderful coffee, fantastic bread, and even Skippy peanut butter.  But no brownies.  I suppose no place is perfect :)

A gallery of the Rilester

Riley and Italian food get along famously!

               

Gotta love that face :)

This is a favorite shot.

Building a dam at the Museo di Roma dei Bambini (Rome Children's Museum)

a day in the life: part 1

For those who are looking for some more of our day-to-day activities, this one's for you :)

Saturday 24 March

Riley was not feeling well -- still fighting to get over a cold that we had all picked up, probably on the wonderfully efficient but germ-ridden Metro.  So, Wayne and I decided to switch off trips to town for exploring.  I went in to the Piazza Repubblica and visited the church Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.  Michelangelo designed the majority of this church, built around the ancient Baths of Diocletian.  While in the Plaza, I noticed about a dozen (seemingly professional) photographers following two men and then a man and a woman around, so I took some photos of them, too.  But I have no idea who their are.  If you do, please let me know :)

do you know who these people are?

I tried to hit three other churches, but they all seemed to be closed for pranzo (the midday "lunch" that can last 3-4 hours).  As I walked, I stopped for a green olive pizza taglio (a large rectangular cut of pizza that is folded in half and handed to you wrapped in brown paper with the top portion showing, so as to be easy to eat on the go).

Before going home, I decided it was time to try something that I hadn't yet here in Rome.  A caffe corretto.  I love the name for this.  A corrected coffee.  The coffee (which is actually espresso as we know it) is "corrected" with a shot of liquor.  Mine was "corrected" with sambuca, a black licorice-flavored liquor.  I wasn't impressed -- although I love both the flavor of coffee and the flavor of black licorice, I don't think they go together.  So, I'll have to give it try with whisky or grappa (a grape-based brandy) next.

Once home, we switched and Wayne went out for some evening photography of the city.  He took some fantastic photos, especially of the Colosseum.

Body space, parking rules, and traffic laws. Just a suggestion?

It is, of course, impossible not to comment on the vast (though sometimes subtle) cultural distinctions between us American gringoes and our Italian (and, by extrapolation, European) counterparts.  To try and assign a single adjective to the Italian mindset...  I might use the term "laid back."  

Although belied by the sporadic outbursts of loud, public drama (a woman yelling at her husband, a driver loudly honking his irritation), Italians are remarkably laid back.  Jaywalking is rampant.  As are graffitti and street litter.  And dog droppings.  

Everything is relative.  Shop hours for the markets and businesses here are rarely posted--and even then are malleable and meant to be broken.  The "lunch hour" is rarely less than two, and most shops close in the mid afternoon for a nap and some downtime.  (Seriously--imagine the customer outrage if your local Starbucks was closed between 3:00 and 5:30.)  Dogs are loud, here, and bark incessantly.  Mothers and wives seem to bark incessantly, too--at their husbands, their kids, their dogs, and anybody else passing within earshot.  Somehow, even after a couple weeks, it's still somewhat musical and soothing--there's nothing quite like the sweet music of a couple of Italians barking at each other in the rhythmical, opera-like cadence of the world's only language that seems to require all its speakers to communicate in verse.  

And it's frankly hard to tell the difference between outright animosity and brotherly bonhomie.  Just as you're expecting punches to fly between two barking Italians on the street--they break out into grins and kiss each other on both cheeks.  What you were previously certain were curse-laden diatribes turned out to have been sincere and animated expressions of greeting and affection.  

Probably the most striking social norm witnessed here (through an American lens, of course) is the general sense of body space.  Here, body space is minute--Italians think nothing of bumping and jostling and elbowing their way past you onto the subway train (with nary a "scusi" muttered over the shoulder), or practically standing on top of you in line at the market--even the concept of a "line" (what the Brits call queueing) is far-fetched here.  Any piece of unoccupied space is fair game.  

Especially for parking on the crowded streets.  It's amusing to imagine the typical suburban-American parking lot, then mentally add twice as many (but half the size) cars jammed in between dumpsters, on sidewalks, in tiny alleyways.  Here, it's common to see tiny toy-looking cars parked perpendicularly in between parallel-parked cars on the street.  Those that *do* parallel park are often boxed in by drivers blatantly double- and triple-parking--some of them presumably very short-term arrangements (as signaled by emergency flashers).  But "short-term" is surely relative, here--more than once I've seen a driver return to his car, and lay on the horn until the driver of the vehicle that had boxed him in returns (from enjoying his cappuccino, presumably) to let him pass. Cars are crammed into every available square meter of space--on curbs, sidewalks, medians, building entryways...

With motorcycles and scooters filling in all the cracks.  Clearly, there are little to no parking laws (observed, anyway), when it comes to scooters.  I've seen scooters parked in absolutely every configuration imaginable.  Between cars.  Leaning against trees.  On sidewalks.  On urban staircases.  On median strips between lanes of major roadways.

It's amusing (and it's not without a touch of irritation) to recall the parking ticket I'd once received in California, for parking in the wrong direction (against traffic) on a sleepy, suburban, residential street where my car was nearly always the only car on this side of the street for a block or more.  Here (in Italy, and presumably much of Europe and Asia), people cram their cars and scooters into every last square inch of navigable space.  There (in the States), you get a ticket if your car isn't lined up perfectly and aesthetically with all the other cars.  It's hard to argue with the common perception that Americans are inordinately "uptight"...

Driving (though I've only been a passenger) is a similar affair.  Motorcycles and scooters travel absolutely wherever they want--between lanes, on the left, on the right, on the sidewalk.  And the timid, suburban American driver beware--it's a very Darwinian exercise to navigate the streets of Rome behind the wheel of a car.  It's amusing, once again, to compare this attitude with that of Americans.  Here, you don't wait for an opening in traffic to merge or turn onto a cross-street.  You wait for a 3-foot gap between cars, you step on the gas, and you know that other drivers will respond accordingly (otherwise, you'll sit idle for hours).  And you don't use turn signals.  Stop signs are a suggestion.  And if a pedestrian is not DIRECTLY in front of your car, then that space is fair game.  I have witnessed the following scenario: One pedestrian a third of the way across a crosswalk, another pedestrian two thirds of the way across, and a motorino zooming between the two at 40 miles per hour.  You really must give both drivers and pedestrians a lot of credit.  Italians decide what they're going to do, and do it.  They take care of themselves, take responsibility for their own actions, and assume that others will do the same.

It's refreshing, frankly, to contemplate such a mindset.  Picture the typical, road-rage-prone, American, alpha-male SUV driver, angrily shaking his fist at you for driving too slowly, or for merging into his lane too close to his precious bumper.

Seriously?  La vita e dolce.  Get over it.

Site seeing highlights

My in-laws Paul and Helen and my niece Megan spent nine wonderful days with us.  We enjoy traveling with them -- they are easygoing and don't mind me bossing them around while playing tour guide :)  We crammed so much site seeing in I could barely keep up with my journaling.  Here are some photo highlights from the past 10 days around Rome:

The Colosseum (Colosseo), the iconic Roman site.

Riley helped our fantastic tour guide fill in the gaps of 2,000 years of historical context.

Four laborers, enjoying their pizza on a Roman wall :)

Learning to "read" Roman art.  For example, whenever you see a sculpture of a man with a beard sitting/lying in this position, the sculpture represents a river.  You then use the other objects in the sculpture to interpret which river is being depicted.

Gelato, of course!  And my niece, Megan :)

The gems of the Vatican Museums.

Hard-working street vendors.

The incredible work of Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona.

Miniature-sized vehicles of all kinds :)

There are lots more photos in our Flickr feed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynesaucier/sets/

Ciao!

On trying to blend in. Or not.

We are staying in a residential neighborhood - very Roman, very little English, and I haven't met another tourist yet.  So we're having to learn quickly how to get by.  Wayne gains an advantage when he finds someone who speaks French.  It's a humbling (but very educational) experience to feel clumsy in the grocery store trying to figure out which milk might taste "right" to us (turns out it's the Parzialmente Scremato, part skimmed) or when you learn (a little too late) that you have to weigh and tag your own fruits and vegetables before taking them to the checkout (which makes a lot more sense to me than wasting time having the checkout person doing the weighing), or in the cafe you have to take your receipt to the "bar" where they will then make for you whatever you paid for at the register.


We wonder what the merchants in this little section of our neighborhood think of us.  Do they already know who we are?  Do they comment to one another about us?  "There go those Americanos who order watered down coffee and only know how to say Non parlo Italiano..."


I have found that if I can make them smile (sometimes it's easier to try to be entertaining rather than just try to blend in with the crowd), I can make a little more progress.  Une Metro Ticket, per favore.  Tre (point to the croissants) de portar via (to go).  Grazie!

This experience has already changed us...and we still have two more weeks in Rome.  La Dolce Vita!

Maratona di Roma

We made it! Wayne and I crossed the finish line approximately 35 minutes faster than our finish in San Diego last June. We were hurting. Between a faster pace and a few sections of cobblestones, those 42 kilometers were rough on our bodies.

It was an incredible course, winding through Rome's beautiful streets passing just about every tourist site possible. Among the 16,000 participants, we met someone from Nebraska, someone who was born in Escondido, and saw countless runners and fans from all over the world.

Paul, Helen, Megan, Riley, our fabulous landlord and tour guide Pina and her husband Leonardo were there at the finish to meet us.

Then food, shower, nap. Ahhh...

more to come...

We have been doing so much the past few days!  We have welcomed my in-laws and my niece to Rome and visited (among others) the Colosseo, Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, and Borghese Gallery.  And I have not had time to catch up.

But tomorrow is the marathon and then we will have a down day for blogging :)

Roma Maratona poster displayed inside many Metro stations.

Also, Wayne is doing famously at trying to keep up with the hundreds of photos we've been taking.  View the latest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynesaucier/sets/72157629605726713/

Stay tuned...

A whirlwind day in London

Ah... the lost, ancient art of getting real sleep on a large commercial jet aircraft...

It's difficult to tell how much sleep we actually got on the overnight flight from JFK to London Heathrow.  My guess is between two and three hours.  Riley maybe a little more.  Though he takes a long time to go to sleep, once he's there, he's a solid sleeper.  Us adults, not so much.

Practicing with the eye masks before boarding

We arrived at LHR at roughly 7:30am.  After about an hour of customs line and baggage pickup, we exchanged dollars for some British Pounds, grabbed a croissant and muffins at an airport cafe, negotiated with the Tube ticket machine, then were on our way.

We got off the Tube at Kings Cross Station, in search of our hotel.  We passed Kings Cross train station (though we didn't visit Platform 9 3/4) and the huge British Library.  Barely 30 seconds after we realized we were walking in the wrong direction, a very nice, old (and slightly amused) Londoner pointed us in the right direction.  He even walked with us for a few blocks.

Luckily, the fabulous Holiday Inn Kings Cross Bloomsbury had a room ready for us at 11am!  So we showered, changed, and headed our sleep-deprived selves back out for a day in the city.  

Here are some of the highlights of the day:

Picnic lunch in Green Park

Riley reporting on location for Live at the PLC
view the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BGEwn5p9-0&feature=youtu.be

The view from the London Eye

After the ride on the London Eye, we raced off toward the meeting place for the London Walks Harry Potter film sites tour.  I dropped Riley and Wayne off at a Starbucks to go in search of some food and a bathroom (preferably clean--and free, as we didn't know how much the tour would cost and we were down to our last 20 pounds) in the financial district.  I returned to find Riley asleep on the Starbucks table, and Wayne chugging coffee to avoid the same fate.    He denies it, though :)  (Riley, that is)

This was probably the best walking tour I have ever experienced.  Our guide was fantastic -- animated and extremely knowledgeable of both London and the Harry Potter books and films.  Richard showed wonderful talent at engaging both adults and children equally and simultaneously for two hours.  He pointed out several settings for on-location scenes of the various Harry Potter movies (this is where Hagrid and Harry walked down the street while discussing the list of school supplies Harry needed...).  He was also full of information on various general London sights, pointing out the Millennium Bridge, Renzo Piano's new office tower, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, etc., etc.

Richard, our Harry Potter tour guide

After the tour, we were exhausted, chilly, and fulfilled.  Back on the Tube, back to Kings Cross, back to the Holiday Inn, and into the most inviting beds we'd ever appreciated.  And slept for 11 hours.

Wayne took many fabulous photos.  Enjoy them on our Flickr feed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynesaucier/sets/72157629584575095/with/6836294264/

Next stop, Roma!  Ciao :)

the pre-trip

Ciao friends and family!

We begin our adventure this evening most appropriately, in Little Italy, San Diego.  With an early flight in the morning, we decided to get a head start and stay close to the airport.  Tomorrow we set off for a 30 hour stop in London, then on to Rome.  We aim to keep family and friends abreast of our adventures through this blog.  Stay tuned!

3 people, 3 1/2 weeks.  There's even a Ghiradelli brownie mix in there!