My final reflections

Nell:

What an amazing trip. Italy truly is, as Dad described it, a different place. Different people, different food (good god.), different landscape, different history... the list goes on.

New worries.....

Every time I think I'm calming down and beginning to enjoy the excitement of world travel,  I come up against new travel-associated worries. These moments are often associated with calls from my friend Lisa Grey aka The Travel Voice of Doom who was in Thailand last fall.

Latest issues: 

1.  First Issue: How to deal with the money --which cards will work where and for what purposes? 

Associated Worry--ending up begging behind a wooden bowl on the streets of Bangkok, dressed only in a Gandhi- like loin-cloth. 

2. Second Issue: How to  dial Thai phone numbers which include the symbols for "+" and parentheses? 

Associated worries--enduring disdainful-looks from English -speaking Thai people when I ask them to dial numbers for me or the bewildered looks of non-English speakers who can't imagine why this idiot can't operate a phone.

Three days to go. Is it to early to start the drug therapy? 

kf

ROME JANUARY 9-10

Kate: We spent two great days in Rome with David and Iris guiding us to the signts and sites. David made sure we saw all of the piazzas with their splendid baroque fountains and provided Kevin and Nell with a more contemporary museum experience--a show about Grace Kelly which they all enjoyed. Iris continued our art history and religious educations by guiding us into every church we saw--and, in Rome, this is about every other building. The magnificence of these buildings is impossible to describe: we would walk into a church and there, with no fanfare at all, would be a Michelangelo or a Bernini or some other amazing sculpture or painting. Since we were touring Rome on a Sunday, we often viewed the churches with choirs in the background or bells chiming. Kevin and I actually tried to sit through a mass at St. Peter's but the sermon did us in. Nell caught both of us dozing despite the intense gesturing and loud Italian pontificating of the presiding priest. Street music in Italy is classical--an opera singer at a corner in Florence and violinists in Rome. Amazing.
Our one contribution to the Rome experience was the reservation at the Hotel Donatello, a nicely appointed but well off the beaten track hotel with Norman Bates covering the desk during the day and Count Dracula at night (really, you had to see this guy-we all slept with crucifixes under our pillows). Sorry, Iris and David!

Rome-ing

Kevin--Have spent the last few days wearing our feet to bloody stumps on the seven hills of what I have come to think of as "Roam." I think of it as a city composed of equal parts historical debris, high end shopping, churches (hundreds of churches), unbelievably cheap and delicious restaurants--and all of these elements are covered with a thick layer of graffiti, the 20th century's gift to the grandeur that we call the eternal city.

Of course, visiting all those churches doesn't just broaden one's cultural background--it outs money in the bank of God. The dividends in our case were respite from the rain that often threatened our sightseeing plans but then miraculously would stop. Thanks baby Jesus!

Coming soon...the Vatican as seen through the eyes of two lapsed catholics and two heathens. Maybe some food descriptions too!

More from Florence

All right..I confess we've neglected this enterprise. Part of the problem is the lack of free W-Fi here. Europeans are cheap with their access. The other reason is that we have been too tired at night to think of writing. Here is a post from several days ago:

JANUARY 9^th:

Nell: Florence. We have picked up four new, very prominent members in our caravan: Iris, David, and the Madonna and child. In addition, every time I close my eyes, I see a marble penis or a deranged baby Jesus (seems that artists could only agree on one thing: he wasn’t cute). I’m a bit tired as we board the train to Rome due to the fact that Fin and I spent a majority of the night dealing with/worrying about our toilet that had sprung a leak (charming). Aside from that, I have also begun making plans to sell all my personal effects and move to Italy for good (now accepting donations). Florence was breath taking from both the top of the Duomo (another new good friend) and even more so from the hills on the outskirts of town. They know how to live over here. I’ll take my coffee with a corrector, my milk whole, a work day that ends at 2, wine with my lunch, and all of my food grown locally and presented fresh at the open market any day. Touché Italy, touché.

Kate: Iris and David (and Bernard for an evening) are fabulous hosts. Iris has made sure that we’ve seen more of Florence in two days than most people can in a week: museums, churches, beautiful scenery. She’s also made sure we’ve eaten a great variety of the local food: chestnuts, artichokes, amazing cheeses and, my favorite, gelatos. Florence is a beautiful place—that immerses the visitor into a level of Catholicism I haven’t experienced since Sister Dora’s class in sixth grade. I had forgotten how much we loved the torture of saints and the keeping of relics. We saw many pictures and statues of John the Baptist’s beheading but I’m happy to report his finger and tooth remain, both encased in more gold and jewels than you can imagine. Off to Rome with Iris beside us enriching our experience in every way—and making sure we waste not a minute!

Firenze

Kevin here:

It's actually our last day in Florence but we have been too busy pounding our feet into bloody stumps to write anything. Iris Gowen and David Parker met us at the train station and we blissfully allowed them to do all our planning for us. It was sort of like the "assisted-living" version of touring. Iris is now known as "Iris--She -Wolf of the SS" for the way she has whipped our rather lax methods of sightseeing into something resembling the Nazi march into Paris. Not only has she made sure we leave the city with no Madonna and Child left unviewed, she cooks Italian food like that Lydia woman on PBS. It is impossible to imagine how we can pay back her largess--and they are coming to Rome with us next. Are they mad?

Finnigan has promised to begin his participation in this blog with a description of out climb (463 steps) to the top of the Duomo. Kate and are are too busy trying to catch our breathe and Nell is too busy checking out yet another jewelry store to offer her insights. More later including--I hope--my descriptionof out hotel here--the Pedro Almodovar Arms

Well, giving up regular Posts but....

Kate: I haven’t read what Kevin has written since we left Maine. Let me make sure to clarify a few things: first, despite any complaints he may have made about the flight (and there were many to make), he ate not one but two of the chicken entrees—we were amazed.

We love Italy so far. Venice is a walker’s dream and we explored much of the city—most of it unintentionally. Spent our first morning there celebrating La Befano Day which includes a regatta where all the competitors are dressed as old women and they race to the voices of a choir singing Venetian songs. Luckily, you get to enjoy all of this while drinking mulled wine and hot chocolate. We then went to St. Mark’s Basiico and wandered into a high mass with more priests than I’ve ever seen in one place…both transporting and terrifying. Kevin and I believe there is only one manufacturer of church incense since it smelled exactly like our own memories. By chance we wandered into the Vivaldi museum which Fin loved because they had mandolins and lutes from 700-800b.c. on display.

I suspect others in the family will talk about my problems with the bathrooms (I’ve had some trouble distinguishing between the men’s and women’s-with some embarrassment) and my attempts to mingle with the locals ( I thought quite well; Nell and Fin think otherwise

Kevin: Part of exploring Venice today involved refinding “La Zucca” Venice’s own gourmet health food restaurant. We had made reservations to celebrate Kate’s birthday but and had the address. However, addresses , like maps, are meaningless here. Arrived a bit late with the help of a couple who assured us that the restaurant was indeed “straight ahead.” We forced ourselves to eat like Europeans and the meal lasted two hours from Proseco to cappuccino. Not by design, we took an innovative and ,well, leisurely new route home to the hotel.

Nell: Let me first say that it will probably take the Venetians that came in contact with our family a lot longer to forget than most. Yes, as Mom mentioned, she’s taken to peeing in urinals, and using hand gestures with shop keepers ten minutes deep into conversations where they have proved themselves quite fluent in English (how would you gesture “glass blowing”?). Dad, in a fit of photo madness, stepped directly in the middle of wallets for sale that were spread out on the ground in San Marco square. The men to whom those wallets belong were still laughing about it when we walked by again half an hour later (so was I).