With the Palio behind us our attention immediately turns to the second huge event circled on our calendar for July…our trip to Berlin.
My relationship with Germany is admittedly a fragile one. My only experiences (and thus only things I had to garner any kind of expectations) of the place are as follows:
A) A 9-hour layover in the Munich Airport when I was 15 years old…and I had the Flu.
B) The second great war
a. The Holocaust Museum
b. Schindler’s List
c. Nazi artifacts discovered in my grandfather’s basement when I was 10 years old.
C) Lederhosen
D) An odd homoerotic affinity for David Hasselhoff
E) The asshole German team in Cool Runnings (really, those guys were dicks).
There were some pros on this list however and monumentous ones at that, most notably Beer and Pretzels…as I said it is a fragile relationship, not a lost cause. But all of those cons listed above had done something to me over the years. Though the idea of traveling the world and peeking into its every nook and cranny was one of my greatest desires, somehow Germany has washed off the list of places to go, it was probably somewhere on the list around Branson, Missouri or Oslo in the dead of winter. And that’s when Thom Yorke (in a perfect falsetto) beckoned me, “ Mr. Zimmerman, BRING. THIS. WALL. DOWN”
Radiohead is my favorite rock and roll band. They tour maybe once every three years. They are on tour this year in support of their latest album, In Rainbows, and would be playing their final show in Europe this year in Berlin on July 8. The instant I bought the tickets, the wall that I had built up in my head, the wall that was to keep me from Germany for the rest of my days began to crack. And then begin to crumble piece by piece. Berlin, here I come.
We arrived excited, with open minds but no expectations. My trepidation was not overt, but I was no doubt cautious. As we left the airplane, Joann and I started blurting out every German word we could see in an attempt to learn enough of the language to get by and also test the German’s level of patience with people who cannot even come close to pronouncing their words correctly. “AUSGANG” we shouted, “EXIT!” As it turns out most Germans speak English, so we would not truly be tested in the days to come. We approached an all too pleasant lady at an information desk in the airport to ask the best way to make our way into Central Berlin where our hotel was. She quickly explained to us our route on the S Bahn (the subway) and we were on our way. The S Bahn is phenomenally efficient, super clean and easy to understand. This would happily be our means of transportation for the entire 3 days we were there.
The train took us from the airport steps to the front door of our hotel (a four star little number we found for super cheap on the internet…score). We checked in quickly, dropped our bags on the bed, and headed back to the underground in search of a good meal and a good time.
A short train ride brings us to Heckersher Market. As we emerge from the train station something become painfully obvious to Joann and myself. And it was a most unexpected realization. Berlin is strikingly beautiful, clean, safe and fun. There were hip restaurants in every direction, great bars on every corner, and an energy that was impossible to deny. The first restaurant you can see when you exit the train is a tiny little Japanese number. Joann’s jaw hit the floor. This woman had not had Sushi in 7 months and was not to be denied tonight. I expressed my (very real) desire to have German food, but acquiesced and we agreed to sit down for just two rolls of sushi before we would continue. I don’t a new pair of Manolo Blahniks could have made Joann as happy as this Tuna Avocado roll did. She savored every grain of rice and every inch of seaweed. I guess in New York City we take for granted how great sushi really is…it is a lesson not soon forgotten. From there we headed down Oranienburg Strasse, a major thoroughfare through the revived and perfectly artsy East Berlin. We were planning on sitting down to a meat and potato heavy German meal as soon as we find a restaurant…but I would remain famished for a while. The neighborhood we came upon was fantastic, exactly where we would hang out if we lived in this fair city. The street had artists doing pieces on the side of the road, graffiti being painted in front of us down back alleys, and tons and tons of exotic food. We passed Kebab stands, Indian restaurants, Mexican restaurants, Thai restaurants, Indian-Thai fusion restaurants…but could not for the life of us find a German one, There was nary a schnitzel in sight. This seemed a bit weird to me, but we soldiered on. Finally after about an hour long search we came upon a Deutsche Kuche (German Kitchen) and grabbed a table outside. The waitress, in her adorable broken English, helped us through the ordering process and kind-of explained what we would be getting with the meals she suggested. She did so by using one remarkably effective phrase I never thought to employ in all my days in the service industry…”Are you BIG hungry?” Why yes, fraulein, I am BIG hungry. “Then you should have this”…and it was settled. We ended up having a lot of potatoes and a lot of sausage (some in a beer sauce) and a lot of beer. I could not have been happier. I love German food, it is official.
After stuffing ourselves silly at the restaurant we joined a group of tour guides who offered a pub crawl for a small price in the same neighborhood. It is kind of a cheesy idea and not something Joann and I would typically do, but the timing was right so we joined in. The tour took us to 5 bars and a nightclub and really did help us get an idea of what the nightlife in Berlin had to offer…we were nothing short of impressed. Especially with the first bar we went to called Zapata, which makes its home on the ground floor of the oldest squatted building in Berlin. It has about 4 bars, a dirt floor, metal welding artists working in the corner, a homeless guy sleeping on a couch, 1 euro shots of Jagermeister, a ping pong table, and a Spanish Ska band playing on stage…it is something close to what I imagine heaven to be like. After the last club, we call it a night and head home, eager for the next morning’s activities.
Funny thing about bar crawls. They usually turn morning activities into afternoon activities, and that is exactly what it did this time around. We are far too old to stay out that late and get up bright and early in the morning anymore…goodness gracious, college seemed a million years ago. We head into the center in the early afternoon for lunch and in time to go on our free bike tour of Berlin. The lunch we had at a stand on the side of the road (she had a kebab, I enjoyed some chicken lo-mein) was so delicious, we would be talking about it for hours. Things just cannot go wrong here. That was until we arrived for our guided free bike tour. Historically we do not do well with guided tours, but this one was free and afforded us the opportunity to ride bikes together so it seemed a win/win. As it turns out this afternoon the coordinators did not coordinate so well and they took on two too many customers. After a short stalemate, Joann and I did the noble thing and decided to let everyone else enjoy the tour that day and we would come back to do it in the morning. We headed out on our own and found some of Berlin that I had not expected to ever see. Since the wall fell in 1989 the place has flourished, not necessarily economically (it is in an America sized debt hole with the EU), but aesthetically. The old buildings feats and the new buildings (especially the new parliament buildings) are so architecturally stunning that they made us stop and explore. A government building did this…I, of course, did not know it was a government building until the next day because this place was so beautiful it had to be an new opera house or museum or something. But even with the knowledge of what goes on inside…I was simply awestruck with its beauty. This place is a government building like the Guggenheim in Bilbao is an art gallery.
We opt to take the day in a different direction and head to the Berlin Zoo. Anyone who knows me knows how I love a zoo. The weather is absolutely perfect and the zoo is in turn. A great outdoor park with little fencing between you and the animals, which makes for a really intimate experience. Highlights for me were: the hippopotami fighting (or mating, not quite sure), the rhinoceros (it looks like a dinosaur) and the great apes (who always entertain). After a few hours with our friends from the Animal Kingdom we head back to the hotel, wash up and hit up one of the Mexican restaurants we passed earlier in the day for a little comida. The food is nothing to write home about, but is the first Mexican Joann and I have had in quite some time so we are more than happy with our nachos and tacos. After a long day of walking around and trying to bait the Polar Bears into doing something noteworthy we agree its time to head home and get some rest.
Up early on Tuesday to catch our morning bike tour. This time we secure our vehicles and head out on the town with our enthusiastic and actually quite funny Irish tour guide. He is a student here and knows his way around very well. He takes us through a history of the city from its inception up through the fall of the Berlin Wall in a knowledgeable and insightful tour. We see many of the buildings we passed the day earlier and were shown many new ones, and got in depth descriptions of both. It starts to absolutely pour on us as we sail through Potsdamer Platz (the economic center of modern day Berlin), the rain, however, is short-lived and only serves to makes us soaking wet, not curb our tour at all. We move on to where the bunker that Adolph Hitler committed suicide in once stood and not far away visited the thought-provoking Holocaust memorial. The memorial is a beautiful one that essentially consists of a city block completely covered in stone blocks of various sizes. As you descend into the middle of the area the blocks become taller and the floor ramps down. Our guide describes the monument to us and tells us that the architect never really said what its meaning was and there had only been speculation and critical theories on the symbolism of it. One of the theories he told us, the one that I bought the most into, is that the memorial represents a time line in German history. The edges of the monument where the blocks are all very low and you can see all around you and hear people you are talking to very clearly would represent the democracy of pre and post-WW II Germany. As you descend into the 1930’s and 1940’s fascist regimes in the country your vision and senses become obscured by towering blocks in every direction all around you, until you arrive at the lowest point of the memorial where you are surrounded by the imposing stone figures and an eerie sense of helplessness crawls onto you. Needless to say the memorial gets the job done and we were all moved by it.
We pass the largest standing portion of the Berlin Wall and then the tour comes to an end with our guide dramatically telling us the series of events that led to its eventual fall in 1989…as it turns out it was an accident and it all happened in 8 minutes. I am happy to recount the story to anyone interested. But in the interest of brevity, lets save that for another day. As we are biking back Joann and I are discussing and recounting everything we have learned for the day and both agree on one of the reasons this tour and all of this information has peaked our interest so vividly. All of this happened less than 20 years ago. Our generation lived this stuff. We were alive for one of the defining moments in the 20th century. We were not there during WW II, but we were there when the Berlin Wall fell, I remember watching it on TV. Every kid under the age of 20 cannot say that now. Since this stuff is so recent and happened to people we can identify with, it hit kind of close to home (even though we are obviously far from it). We both felt pretty lucky to have learned more about the history of Berlin and of the fall of it’s famed wall, and to actually experience the places we saw on TV on November 9, 1989.
After the tour we have to hustle. Today is the day of the concert and we are running a bit late. We get showers and hit the S Bahn (which takes us right to the venue, of course). The venue Radiohead has chosen for this show is a great one. It is an amphitheater in the middle of the woods on the outskirts of Berlin. We arrive in time to see the first band (Mode Selektor…who absolutely rock, by the way), nosh on some Pad Thai, and grab some beers as we await the main event to begin. Jo and I secure some standing room very close to the stage, but a bit off to the left. We are not dead center, but we have some room to dance and sing, so I am happy. Radiohead make their way onto the stage in front of a rumbling crowd of 40,000, whom were pregnant with anticipation. They proceed to play an amazing set, as they always do, and every one of the smiling international faces in the crowd is happy…even through the sporadic downpours that did nothing but add to the atmosphere. There is something about a Radiohead show, for me, that is magical. I don’t know exactly what it is or why this particular rock band makes me so happy, but being able to see them live during this amazing summer was a treat. To discover a city that we fell so in love with so quickly and to see them there was doubly exciting. I wasn’t emotional, but I wasn’t far off. This is really happening, this is really happening…
After the show we get a little lost in the woods, but manage to locate the S Bahn eventually and head home. Our plane leaves around noon, so we are up kind of early to have a small breakfast of gummy bears (another gift the Germans have bestowed on the world) and head out to the airport on the train. As we are leaving Berlin, I am happy and anxious to return. It is impossibly sad to think this city suffered for so long and was divided for such close-minded reasons, but my solace is held onto tightly, knowing that Berlin has been re-born; and with it my relationship with this amazing city and country. The Berlin Wall fell after 28 years of keeping millions of people from accepting and truly understanding the whole package and potential of one of Europe’s hidden treasures of a city…my own private Berlin Wall fell in just under 25.
HERE COME SOME PICTURES OF THE ANIMALS (and other stuff...)
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Day at The Races (or One Shot, Two Shot; Red Shot, Blue Shot)
By now you well know that Siena is a vibrant, traditional, and energetic little town. And throughout the year you catch glimpses of what truly being Sienese is like. However, all of the planets that make up this little Tuscan universe align and explode in the one big culmination of energy called The Palio. It is a bi-annual horse race (one on July 2 and one on August 16) that evokes all of the tradition and gang-colors that make up this fair city. Here is the gist of it:
There are 17 neighborhoods in Siena, they are called cantrade in Italian. Each contrade has its own symbol, usually an intimidating animal, as well as a coat of arms, a flag and numerous songs that they cant. Ironically, every contrade shares the exact same snare drum beat (more on that later). The Palio (translation: banner) is the, er, banner that is given to the winning contrade of this horse race. Drastic understatement: it is a monstrous, gargantuan, epically big deal to native Sienese people. These people march with their flags, beat one another senseless (seriously…if every here they were issued ak-47’s the Bloods and Crips would fit right in, of course they would have to exchange the baggy jeans for salmon colored capris and the afro-puff for a gelled up monstrosity), drink and sing until the wee hours of the morning and then start doing it again in the wee hours of the morning…and this starts just over a month before the actual race. Of the 17 contrade, only 10 are actually chosen to race in The Palio.
As I said before the names, or rather, symbolic representations, of the contrade vary, but are usually of a domineering nature. They consist of a Tower (masked on the flag, by the tower actually being on the back of an Elephant), a Panther, a Dragon, a Caterpillar (not so tough), a Wave (anyone from Thailand would not argue this one), a Porcupine, a Giraffe, a Turtle, a Ram, a Wolf, a Unicorn (fabulous!), an Owl, a Duck, a Forest (again masked by having a prominent Rhinocerous on the flag), a Snail, a Falcon …and then there is the contrade within whose boundaries Joann and I make our home. It is perhaps the fiercest of all the contrade, and easily the most intimidating…Il Contrade del nicchio (the neighborhood of the Sea Shell); I am not at all sure how the names of these neighborhoods came to be, but if they were drawing straws hundreds of years ago, it is clear the guy who lived in this neighborhood was one of the laughing stocks of the selection process. I, suppose, if one ( a panther, for instance) were to somehow step on a fragile sea shell, it could theoretically shatter driving small, but sharp pieces of shell shrapnel deep into the arteries of the unsuspecting predator causing a nasty infection, but short of that I just don’t see the angle in naming your mascot after the expunges protection of a crustacean (this coming from a kid whose High School mascot was a Cardinal, followed closely in college by the Fightin’ Blue Hen…ugh, I sure can pick ‘em). Regardless, these names have been in place for hundreds of years so all of those associated with the neighborhood live and die for them.
On the Sunday after we return from the Cinque Terre, Joann and I are headed through to the Piazza Del Campo alongside a few thousand of our closest friends (all of whom are bearing the different scarves of their respective contrade)…it appears today is the day they horses whom are to race in next weeks Palio are to be divvyed out to the 10 neighborhoods…its Selection Sunday. We head to the center of the Campo gleaming red and schluffing off dead skin from our shoulders with every wind gust, excited to watch this spectacle. One by one the neighborhoods are called and allocated a horse. As each is announced the respective followers of that neighborhood cheer gleefully and follow the horse back to the stable they have in their hood singing as loudly (or obnoxiously, your choice) as they can. The horses seem less than trained and as they are walked through these massive crowds begin to buck and skittishly shuffle around in their obvious unease. Jo and I are right next to where they walk the horse by. My mother always told me I was born with a “horse shoe up my ass”…I was not about to prove her right, so we managed to steer clear of any introductions to the kicking limbs of there equines. The Sea Shell’s horse is a beautiful Arabian (maybe) who is the color of the middle of a Milk Way Bar and who just happens to make his home directly beneath our bedroom window. What an honor! For the first 30 minutes Joann and I get a huge kick out of watching this horse warm up by walking in circles, and getting a bath, and eating apples, but quickly tire of the sounds of metal horse shoe tap dancing on cobblestone. From now until the race was over we would know exactly when this horse was in the stable and when he was leaving or warming up. I tried to se the silver lining and pretended it was nice to be so close to the action and the tradition…Jo preferred a quiet nights sleep, and I cant say I blame her. Between the horse marching around, and the people singing their songs, and the damn snare drums beating their incessant beat…you could not escape the truly original sounds of The Palio, no matter which corner of this walled city you were in. They all march and sing the same two or three songs, but each neighborhood has different words (so they basically sound the same), however they could not muster the same kind of half-originality when it came to beating on their drums. Every neighborhood beats this antiquated snare drums (think Williamsburg, Va during a renaissance festival) to the same droning beat. It’s a simple one and an annoying by the fifth time you hear it. It is so unoriginal in fact that one morning as one contrade or another were marching past our window beating the skins and sinning (my spell-check wants me to type “singing” but at 7 A.M, I would beg to differ) at the break of day, one of the 15 or so drummers started rolling his third beat and mixing a nice little fill in between the 4 bars of actual music…this was such a nice change that my ever sleeping-beauty actually rolled over and said, “hmm, that kid was actually kind of good” before trying to ignore the cantankerous noise again, letting the drones march on and heading back to sleep.
One of the great traditions of The Palio (if you are sienese) is the elaborate contrade parties. These neighborhoods literally fence off all traffic, foot and motor, and set up tables after tables along the city streets. They have enormous meals and serve vats of wine to everyone associated with the contrade. We, not being part of the contrade, were not invited and had to watch 600 locals enjoy what sounded like an amazing time until 3 in the morning the night before the race. I was bitter at not being included, but understood and was simply happy for having an amazing view of the party.
Race day came quickly. And the city was eerily calm in the hours leading up to the massive event. The campo was all prepared. Bleachers has been set up all; along the circumference of the race track and dirt had been laid and smoothed as the racing surface. Joann and I descended on the scene around 4:30 pm. The doors that allow entry close at
5. We walked around the campo a bit handing out fliers for the party we were throwing in two days and then met up with some friends and decided on a nice place to watch the race. We had a good view of the course (notably the most dangerous turn), good company, some good drink, and were absolutely pleased. After about an hour of hanging out and shooting the proverbial shit, a cannon sounded and the pre-race parade was to begin. The first act were a dozen horse mounted soldiers (looking more like confederate soldiers than the modern day model). They politely trotted around the course once, then sort of cantered around twice, then out of nowhere the leader of the pack apparently yelled “CHARGE” and all 12 of them drew their swords and began galloping full speed around the track as if they had just encountered the enemy. I don’t know why I was so excited by this, but I was…and as they bolted off the course and into the center of the city (in my head to meet the oncoming opposition), my heart was racing….I was ready for the race. This would however prove to be the most exciting part of the parade. For the next 2 and a half hours a slow (and when I say slow, I mean even the turtle contrade had to reign it in) and deliberately paced procession of every contrade made their way around the track. It was unbelievable how long this took and how boring it was. Finally after and ungodly amount of time the (unremarkable) PALIO made its grand entrance. It inched around the track once before being placed high above the dirt oval in a flag pole. At this point the Canon rang out again and the horses emerged. This time they were finally being ridden by their hilariously dressed jockeys. Foolishly, I thought this meant the race was about to start…but once again, I was wrong. Quite impressively though, as the horses approached the start line the thousands of people in attendance simultaneously fell silent…you could literally hear the horses hoofs beat the dirt as they readied for the race. We would listen to this silence for the next 30 minutes, as the untrained horses had a bit of trouble lining up correctly. When they finally were in place…BOOM! The canon blasted and we were off!!!
As the horse blasted out of the gate The Sea Shells were far in the lead…this made us very happy, until we realized it was a false start…the damn Giraffe had jumped early. We would line up again. After yet another half and hour of getting the horses in line…BOOM. This time it was for real…the race had begun.
All of the horses seemed to be pretty even in the opening stretch and even around turn one…turn two is a different story. It is the only turn in the whole race that is padded, this being because it is so sharp that inevitably men hit the walls and fall off of their horses (this, it turns out, does not disqualify the contrade for it matters where the horse finishes….not the rider). As they round turn two, my week long nightmare comes to fruition, our beloved Sea Shell rider (in last place mind you) hits the wall violently and is quickly dismounted. Our horse is a bit dazed by the hit as well, and does not seem to have all of his wits about him…this would not be our year. Another rider hits the wall in the same turn and is thrust to the ground with angry force. They have tons of medical staff in this corner, so not 5 seconds after this happens, both jockeys are on stretchers and being carried off the track. Going into turn three there are 8 mounted horses and two horses running without direction, but still following the pack with all their might (I was very proud of our horse for nor simply calling it a day after the disaster moments before). The race lasts 3 laps, and to my surprise every rider manages to stay on his horse through most of it. As they come down the back stretch Istriche (the Porcupine) and Torre (the tower) and neck and neck. They come to the final turn and Torre makes a run for the inside…he does so, however, a bit too short and runs straight into the barricade knocking the horse down and throwing himself about 20 feet into the air. The Porcupine takes The Palio! Before the race is even over the members of the contrade have made their way onto the track to celebrate their victory. They are beside themselves, they are weeping tears of joy, they are jumping and clicking their heels with pure glee, they are…being trampled by the other race horses who did not finish first and do not know how to stiop on a dime!!! I could not believe the level of idiocy shown here. There must have been 20-25 people who were run into and consequently run over by the other 9 gigantic race horses…they clearly had not thought the whole celebration through.
It is a brief race but an unbelievably exciting one and I am happy to have been able to bear witness to it. You realize you are seeing something that only happens once a year, in only this place on earth, and its pretty impressive thing to try and wrap your head around. For all of the boring pageantry, it was something to behold and something not to soon be forgotten.
Joann and I had to head to work immediately after the race so we quickly slash our way through the crowd to head home. We have to walk through the contrade of the tower to get to where we need to be. Spielberg could not direct such a dramatic scene. People of every age, size and gender are draped over signs and tables and cars drenched in their own tears. Women are clutching their unknowing infants to their breasts as they drain their tear ducts onto their bonneted heads. We see a mass of people heading toward us so we step aside to see what the fuss is about…the lonesome jockey, tiny and dirty as a little rascal, limps through the crowd, two identical clean streaks split his cheeks where his tears have made a riverbed. I am not sure which part of coming in second hurt the most, the emotional defeat, the being hurled from a speeding race horse, or what the contrade members undoubtedly did to him upon his return to the stable…any way you look at it, it is not a position you want to be in.
2 days and 2 million snare drum slaps later it is the 4th of July and I am throwing a party at the Pub where Joann works. Yes, I understand the irony of throwing a party celebrating American independence from Britain, at an Irish pub, in Italy…but it is the best we could do and it actually turned out great. Never underestimate the power of “free shots”; poor college students showed up in hordes to enjoy their gratis libations. We offered two fruity concoctions, one red and one blue, that I am positive produced some purple regurgitation the next morning as well as a pretty generous special on Buweieser beer. The solid American turnout packed the place and danced all night long. By the time we were closing we had sold every bottle of bud in the house and gone through every ounce of free shots. Not a second of this party evoked feelings of liberty, justice or freedom for all…but goddammit it was American…for better or for worse.
By the end of the week Joann and I had spent most of our time engulfed in traditions. One a time honored race that defines a small city and one 232 years of a nations liberty packed into one debaucherous night…we were tired but proud, not only to keep the one we know so well alive, but to be a even a small part a new one as well.
CHECK OUT THE PICTURES!
There are 17 neighborhoods in Siena, they are called cantrade in Italian. Each contrade has its own symbol, usually an intimidating animal, as well as a coat of arms, a flag and numerous songs that they cant. Ironically, every contrade shares the exact same snare drum beat (more on that later). The Palio (translation: banner) is the, er, banner that is given to the winning contrade of this horse race. Drastic understatement: it is a monstrous, gargantuan, epically big deal to native Sienese people. These people march with their flags, beat one another senseless (seriously…if every here they were issued ak-47’s the Bloods and Crips would fit right in, of course they would have to exchange the baggy jeans for salmon colored capris and the afro-puff for a gelled up monstrosity), drink and sing until the wee hours of the morning and then start doing it again in the wee hours of the morning…and this starts just over a month before the actual race. Of the 17 contrade, only 10 are actually chosen to race in The Palio.
As I said before the names, or rather, symbolic representations, of the contrade vary, but are usually of a domineering nature. They consist of a Tower (masked on the flag, by the tower actually being on the back of an Elephant), a Panther, a Dragon, a Caterpillar (not so tough), a Wave (anyone from Thailand would not argue this one), a Porcupine, a Giraffe, a Turtle, a Ram, a Wolf, a Unicorn (fabulous!), an Owl, a Duck, a Forest (again masked by having a prominent Rhinocerous on the flag), a Snail, a Falcon …and then there is the contrade within whose boundaries Joann and I make our home. It is perhaps the fiercest of all the contrade, and easily the most intimidating…Il Contrade del nicchio (the neighborhood of the Sea Shell); I am not at all sure how the names of these neighborhoods came to be, but if they were drawing straws hundreds of years ago, it is clear the guy who lived in this neighborhood was one of the laughing stocks of the selection process. I, suppose, if one ( a panther, for instance) were to somehow step on a fragile sea shell, it could theoretically shatter driving small, but sharp pieces of shell shrapnel deep into the arteries of the unsuspecting predator causing a nasty infection, but short of that I just don’t see the angle in naming your mascot after the expunges protection of a crustacean (this coming from a kid whose High School mascot was a Cardinal, followed closely in college by the Fightin’ Blue Hen…ugh, I sure can pick ‘em). Regardless, these names have been in place for hundreds of years so all of those associated with the neighborhood live and die for them.
On the Sunday after we return from the Cinque Terre, Joann and I are headed through to the Piazza Del Campo alongside a few thousand of our closest friends (all of whom are bearing the different scarves of their respective contrade)…it appears today is the day they horses whom are to race in next weeks Palio are to be divvyed out to the 10 neighborhoods…its Selection Sunday. We head to the center of the Campo gleaming red and schluffing off dead skin from our shoulders with every wind gust, excited to watch this spectacle. One by one the neighborhoods are called and allocated a horse. As each is announced the respective followers of that neighborhood cheer gleefully and follow the horse back to the stable they have in their hood singing as loudly (or obnoxiously, your choice) as they can. The horses seem less than trained and as they are walked through these massive crowds begin to buck and skittishly shuffle around in their obvious unease. Jo and I are right next to where they walk the horse by. My mother always told me I was born with a “horse shoe up my ass”…I was not about to prove her right, so we managed to steer clear of any introductions to the kicking limbs of there equines. The Sea Shell’s horse is a beautiful Arabian (maybe) who is the color of the middle of a Milk Way Bar and who just happens to make his home directly beneath our bedroom window. What an honor! For the first 30 minutes Joann and I get a huge kick out of watching this horse warm up by walking in circles, and getting a bath, and eating apples, but quickly tire of the sounds of metal horse shoe tap dancing on cobblestone. From now until the race was over we would know exactly when this horse was in the stable and when he was leaving or warming up. I tried to se the silver lining and pretended it was nice to be so close to the action and the tradition…Jo preferred a quiet nights sleep, and I cant say I blame her. Between the horse marching around, and the people singing their songs, and the damn snare drums beating their incessant beat…you could not escape the truly original sounds of The Palio, no matter which corner of this walled city you were in. They all march and sing the same two or three songs, but each neighborhood has different words (so they basically sound the same), however they could not muster the same kind of half-originality when it came to beating on their drums. Every neighborhood beats this antiquated snare drums (think Williamsburg, Va during a renaissance festival) to the same droning beat. It’s a simple one and an annoying by the fifth time you hear it. It is so unoriginal in fact that one morning as one contrade or another were marching past our window beating the skins and sinning (my spell-check wants me to type “singing” but at 7 A.M, I would beg to differ) at the break of day, one of the 15 or so drummers started rolling his third beat and mixing a nice little fill in between the 4 bars of actual music…this was such a nice change that my ever sleeping-beauty actually rolled over and said, “hmm, that kid was actually kind of good” before trying to ignore the cantankerous noise again, letting the drones march on and heading back to sleep.
One of the great traditions of The Palio (if you are sienese) is the elaborate contrade parties. These neighborhoods literally fence off all traffic, foot and motor, and set up tables after tables along the city streets. They have enormous meals and serve vats of wine to everyone associated with the contrade. We, not being part of the contrade, were not invited and had to watch 600 locals enjoy what sounded like an amazing time until 3 in the morning the night before the race. I was bitter at not being included, but understood and was simply happy for having an amazing view of the party.
Race day came quickly. And the city was eerily calm in the hours leading up to the massive event. The campo was all prepared. Bleachers has been set up all; along the circumference of the race track and dirt had been laid and smoothed as the racing surface. Joann and I descended on the scene around 4:30 pm. The doors that allow entry close at
5. We walked around the campo a bit handing out fliers for the party we were throwing in two days and then met up with some friends and decided on a nice place to watch the race. We had a good view of the course (notably the most dangerous turn), good company, some good drink, and were absolutely pleased. After about an hour of hanging out and shooting the proverbial shit, a cannon sounded and the pre-race parade was to begin. The first act were a dozen horse mounted soldiers (looking more like confederate soldiers than the modern day model). They politely trotted around the course once, then sort of cantered around twice, then out of nowhere the leader of the pack apparently yelled “CHARGE” and all 12 of them drew their swords and began galloping full speed around the track as if they had just encountered the enemy. I don’t know why I was so excited by this, but I was…and as they bolted off the course and into the center of the city (in my head to meet the oncoming opposition), my heart was racing….I was ready for the race. This would however prove to be the most exciting part of the parade. For the next 2 and a half hours a slow (and when I say slow, I mean even the turtle contrade had to reign it in) and deliberately paced procession of every contrade made their way around the track. It was unbelievable how long this took and how boring it was. Finally after and ungodly amount of time the (unremarkable) PALIO made its grand entrance. It inched around the track once before being placed high above the dirt oval in a flag pole. At this point the Canon rang out again and the horses emerged. This time they were finally being ridden by their hilariously dressed jockeys. Foolishly, I thought this meant the race was about to start…but once again, I was wrong. Quite impressively though, as the horses approached the start line the thousands of people in attendance simultaneously fell silent…you could literally hear the horses hoofs beat the dirt as they readied for the race. We would listen to this silence for the next 30 minutes, as the untrained horses had a bit of trouble lining up correctly. When they finally were in place…BOOM! The canon blasted and we were off!!!
As the horse blasted out of the gate The Sea Shells were far in the lead…this made us very happy, until we realized it was a false start…the damn Giraffe had jumped early. We would line up again. After yet another half and hour of getting the horses in line…BOOM. This time it was for real…the race had begun.
All of the horses seemed to be pretty even in the opening stretch and even around turn one…turn two is a different story. It is the only turn in the whole race that is padded, this being because it is so sharp that inevitably men hit the walls and fall off of their horses (this, it turns out, does not disqualify the contrade for it matters where the horse finishes….not the rider). As they round turn two, my week long nightmare comes to fruition, our beloved Sea Shell rider (in last place mind you) hits the wall violently and is quickly dismounted. Our horse is a bit dazed by the hit as well, and does not seem to have all of his wits about him…this would not be our year. Another rider hits the wall in the same turn and is thrust to the ground with angry force. They have tons of medical staff in this corner, so not 5 seconds after this happens, both jockeys are on stretchers and being carried off the track. Going into turn three there are 8 mounted horses and two horses running without direction, but still following the pack with all their might (I was very proud of our horse for nor simply calling it a day after the disaster moments before). The race lasts 3 laps, and to my surprise every rider manages to stay on his horse through most of it. As they come down the back stretch Istriche (the Porcupine) and Torre (the tower) and neck and neck. They come to the final turn and Torre makes a run for the inside…he does so, however, a bit too short and runs straight into the barricade knocking the horse down and throwing himself about 20 feet into the air. The Porcupine takes The Palio! Before the race is even over the members of the contrade have made their way onto the track to celebrate their victory. They are beside themselves, they are weeping tears of joy, they are jumping and clicking their heels with pure glee, they are…being trampled by the other race horses who did not finish first and do not know how to stiop on a dime!!! I could not believe the level of idiocy shown here. There must have been 20-25 people who were run into and consequently run over by the other 9 gigantic race horses…they clearly had not thought the whole celebration through.
It is a brief race but an unbelievably exciting one and I am happy to have been able to bear witness to it. You realize you are seeing something that only happens once a year, in only this place on earth, and its pretty impressive thing to try and wrap your head around. For all of the boring pageantry, it was something to behold and something not to soon be forgotten.
Joann and I had to head to work immediately after the race so we quickly slash our way through the crowd to head home. We have to walk through the contrade of the tower to get to where we need to be. Spielberg could not direct such a dramatic scene. People of every age, size and gender are draped over signs and tables and cars drenched in their own tears. Women are clutching their unknowing infants to their breasts as they drain their tear ducts onto their bonneted heads. We see a mass of people heading toward us so we step aside to see what the fuss is about…the lonesome jockey, tiny and dirty as a little rascal, limps through the crowd, two identical clean streaks split his cheeks where his tears have made a riverbed. I am not sure which part of coming in second hurt the most, the emotional defeat, the being hurled from a speeding race horse, or what the contrade members undoubtedly did to him upon his return to the stable…any way you look at it, it is not a position you want to be in.
2 days and 2 million snare drum slaps later it is the 4th of July and I am throwing a party at the Pub where Joann works. Yes, I understand the irony of throwing a party celebrating American independence from Britain, at an Irish pub, in Italy…but it is the best we could do and it actually turned out great. Never underestimate the power of “free shots”; poor college students showed up in hordes to enjoy their gratis libations. We offered two fruity concoctions, one red and one blue, that I am positive produced some purple regurgitation the next morning as well as a pretty generous special on Buweieser beer. The solid American turnout packed the place and danced all night long. By the time we were closing we had sold every bottle of bud in the house and gone through every ounce of free shots. Not a second of this party evoked feelings of liberty, justice or freedom for all…but goddammit it was American…for better or for worse.
By the end of the week Joann and I had spent most of our time engulfed in traditions. One a time honored race that defines a small city and one 232 years of a nations liberty packed into one debaucherous night…we were tired but proud, not only to keep the one we know so well alive, but to be a even a small part a new one as well.
CHECK OUT THE PICTURES!
Friday, June 27, 2008
The Complete Idiots Guide to Amsterdam
I am back.
After 2 months of eternity in America, some in DC; some in New York City, I am back. These 2 months were not a completely terrible thing. I was able to raise some money for a summer in Europe, Joann was able to have some time to experience life abroad on her own, and I have a renewed appreciation for my life in Italy now. All good things.
So here we go again. 27 hours of travel (including the time difference) and I am finally back in Siena. And what a homecoming it is. It is such a different sensation getting back here. Mostly because immediately I know my way around everywhere and I am running into people who graciously welcome me back. That and Joann is here. Home is where the heart is, after all.
Things move almost insanely quickly as soon as I arrive. It feels like a series of dreams, and I keep waking up in these crazy little scenarios.
I wake up and we are at Luna Park. The traveling fair that has come through Siena for a stint. I am catching this funland on its last leg, as it closes and meanders to another town in two days. It is a rainy and dreary night, but Jo and I head out anyway alongside our trusty friends Francesca (an amazing young woman from England) and Anja (who politely declines going on a lot of rides, but takes all the pics for us!). We hit the swings, the Fun house, the horse races (which Joann dominates), and then arrive at the game where you throw the ping pong balls into the fish bowls. Theoretically I will absolutely ruin this game with my (sometimes exceptional) beer pong skills...this, however, is not the case. We all fail miserably, but the carney feels bad for us and decides to give me a goldfish. A little backstory: this is not the first time the girls have been to Luna Park. They all came a few weeks ago and ALL won goldfish. I believe our friend Ashley's survived the longest...and that was less than 2 weeks. Anyhow, I am very happy to have a new companion, and one whom I speak more Italian than, at that. I name him Joe Pesce. And I love him. (as I write this, exactly 14 days later, he is alive and well...swimming frequently and once in a while debating with me on the possible influence of sustainable agriculture on the youth of tomorrow).
I wake up and it is our friend Malou's 21st birthday. It seems kind of a moot point since the drinking age in Wales (where she is from) is 18, and here in Italy it is 16, but we celebrate with vigor anyways. They throw a party for her at the Erasmus residence, which is basically a converted little country house that now acts as dormitory. The is, to say the last, debaucherous and yield more than a handful of great pictures...check those out at the end.
I wake up on a train to Bologna. Jo and I have a wedding to attend tomorrow. It will be both of our first Jehovah Witness' wedding. In all honesty they are not weird or different at all...in fact the only noticeable difference is the bride and groom sit on chairs in front of the Altar for the whole ceremony, which frankly seems logical and smart to me. This trip to Bologna (our second; We came for Easter as well) is the first leg of our first big trip outside of Italy. From Bologna we will head to Milan for one night and then off to the Netherlands for two nights.
I have never been to Amsterdam. And I want to go for a couple of reasons, some of which are not so obvious. My main driving force is beer. I know, I know this is often not the first substance people consider when traveling to Amsterdam, but whatever...I have been to college and know what the other stuff has to offer. My main concern is Heineken. For years I have had a terrible relationship with Heineken and knew deep down that it would take a trip to Amsterdam to mend. The reason is all about refrigerators. You see, Heineken is brewed in Amsterdam and then shipped to America in unrefrigerated boats. This means that basically all of the product we receive is, for lack of a better word, skunked. So what we know in America as Heineken, is likely not what it tastes like AT ALL in Amsterdam. Hence I am very excited to head to the Heineken factory and, once and for all, drink the beer as it is supposed to be drunk. I hope it will be as fresh and delicious as I imagine.
I wake up in Milan. This city is absolutely not as bad as people make it out to be. It is a CITY. in every sense of the word, and we found it to be quite nice. Jo and I have a bit of trouble checking into our hotel (more on that later), but settle quickly and hit the town. We take some showers and watch Italy lose in UEFA cup to Spain (on penalties!!). We are ready to paint this town couture red. We ask the strangely effeminate desk agent at the hotel for some direction on how to get the to area of the city that has bars, restaurant, clubs, etc. He quickly points us in the right direction and we hop on the subway. Its a bit dirty and covered in (pretty good) graffiti and we quickly arrive at our destination. We round the corner and find the strip of road we were meant to arrive at. It quickly becomes apparent why the clerk sent us here. Every club here is bumping Madonna's newest, serving drinks with umbrellas, and apparently do not allow sleeves on the shirts of the remarkably well formed male clientèle...oh and no girls allowed. So he sent us to the gay neighborhood in Milan, not a big deal, at least no one will hit on Joann and we are probably pretty safe. We amble around for a bit have a drink here, a panini there and then retire to our hotel...we have an early flight.
I wake up on a rock in the Cinque Terre. Funny, I don't feel drunk. How did I get here? We are supposed to be in Amsterdam.
Why did we have trouble checking into the hotel? You see, Joann and I have forgotten our passports in Siena. This means we have to go to the Milanese police station to gain permission to even stay in a hotel...and drastically more importantly it means neither she nor I will be taking any flights any time soon. Our own stupidity kept us from The Netherlands, but I am more than confident that we will make it there some day. (side note: I wonder how often this happens to stoners who are attempting to get to the motherland? I imagine quite often...)
So after we realize that we will not be traveling internationally this weekend and make the appropriate cancellations ...we have to decide what to do now. Luckily Joann and I are like fucking Peyton Manning when it come to audibles, so we decide (since we are already up north) to head to the Cinque Terre for a few days...not a bad plan B in anyone's eyes. With a new lease on time, we decide to check out a bit more of Milan before departing, so we head to their Duomo. It is pretty magnificent. Not really sure how to describe yet another Duomo, but look at the pics to get an idea...I think this one ranks number 4 on my list of Italian Duomos (still very unclear on the difference between a Duomo and a Cathedral, by the way). To refresh, my list is as follows:
1. Siena
2. Rome
3. Venice
4. Milan
5. Florence
After the Duomo, I literally have to physically force Joann into the Gucci store in Milan. This is the co-fashion center of the world, and I was not going to let her not go in. WE perused for a mere minute and a half before it became too much and we left. As it turns out I like playing the game where I go into these stores and pretend I can buy anything (case in point: when I took out my computer to make sure it fit in the Louis Vuitton messenger bag)....Joann, does not like this game. So we move on. Back to the train station and off to Cinque Terre.
We arrive in the picture perfect coastal town of Monte Rosso with many expectations, but very little ideas on where to stay. We, kind of quickly actually, find the tourist board in Monte rosso and they hook us up with a guy who rents out rooms in his apartment like hotel rooms. We agree to a two night stay and swiftly walk to his abode. The is nothing to write home about, but nice. We are sharing the apartment with two American girls who are pleasant if not semi-mute. We put our bags down and immediately head to the little beach shop that the guy who rented us his room owns with his wife. It is a very tytpical little shop, tons of little knick knacks and shot glasses labeled with the Cinque Terre logo. We have informed him that we came unprepared and will need to buy some swimsuits, so he agrees to give us a discount. Joann grabs a bikini that undoubtedly would have been cool in 1992 and I choose a bathing suit that is basically a spandex pair of boer briefs...you know the kind.
A defense of the tiny male bathing suit.
By Jay Maxwell Zimmerman
You know when its really early in the morning, like 5 or 6 am? And you know no one is around, so you go out to the sidewalk to get the morning paper in your boxers (or briefs or whatever), and you think, "wow, this really feels good. I kind of, sort of wish I could just walk around all day in my skivvies and no one would care...because, well, it just feels good". Do not pretend that that has not happened to you. And thats what wearing these little bathing suits is like. It is oddly freeing and remarkably comfortable. you simply have to get past the idea that, in all likelihood, no one is interested in looking at what your packing. So you get over it, you enjoy your newly liberated spirit, and you revel in the pure joy of having tanned thighs...for the first time since you were a toddler and you hobbled around Rehoboth Beach in your diaper. I digress.
We head to the beach for a few hours of the everlasting sunlight of an Italian summer before agreeing that tonight will be the one night we have a good nights dinner. We dress ourselves up in beach chic and head to a nice restaurant for the first time since I arrived back in Italia. Restaurants in tiny beach towns are kind of funny, the menus offer fish. And that is all. Nothing else. This works out because Jo has a hankering for Spaghetti with Fish. We get it and it is pretty damned delicious. The fish is as fresh as the Prince of Bel-Air and the pasta is cooked to the tooth. Another fun fact about the restaurants in this town: when the fish for the night runs out...they close. No matter what time it is. We literally went to one restaurant that turned us away because they just received their last order for clams. Sorry, non piu (no more). We retire to the warmth of a bonfire on the beach for a little bit before bed. Big plans for tomorrow.
We are up at 8 am (ungodly early for us) and head for the train station. We plan on taking a train to the farthest of the five towns in the Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore....the opposite end of the Cinque Terre from us) and hiking back. The train ride is swift, 20 minutes at best and suddenly we are in Riomaggiore. We hit the trail that links the 5 towns, through 5 mountains, with blind ambition and terrific smiles on our faces. Everyone around us is outfitted in CamelBaks, and hiking boots, and Poles (!), and Carabeiners, et al. Joann and I have flip flops and bathing suits on...we will show these people exactly how to do this, the right way.
We tackle the firat mountain with ease and stop in the next town to get a bottle of water and hit the beach for a bit. We actually find a stretch of rocks that extend out into the ocean aways, so we climb those and swim out where they touch the sea. The cool water is welcome break from the mid-day, mid-summer heat and feels great. At this point I put on a bow tie and greet incoming ships with my little man-bikini on. It makes everyone involved happy and sad at the same time. We hop back on the trail home and are making great headway. We spot yet another little spot to swim and stop to enjoy the ocean one more time. I find a little cave and explore it...but the impending doom of jellyfish and sharks gets us out of the water pretty quickly after that (no word yet on if jellyfish or sharks actually inhabit those waters).
As soon as we leave this second swimming paradise...things get a little dodgy. The perfectly bricked walkway gives way to gravel, the even sidewalk ascends to an incline, and then to a mountainous trek, the breath taking cliffside views are quickly covered by brush, then by full-on jungle. It quickly becomes apparent that Joann and I are not correctly outfitted for this journey, but we soldier on nonetheless. We trek through, legitimate hiking, trails for 3 hours. Up and down mountains, rarely talking, but huffing anf puffing the whole way. We eventually get to the 4th of the 5 towns, Vernazza, which is positvely beautiful. We decide to have a slice of pizza and hit the local beach there for an hour or so. The water is perfect, the sand is hot, as is the sun, and we are more than content to give our aching limbs a rest. As we begin to move again the debate as to whether or not we should actually hike the last bit flares up. We are pretty tired after all, and we did hike 4 mountains already...but alas, this is something I have to do. I came this far, adn something inside me was pushing to finish. No I can't run a marathon, No I cant be a professional athlete, but I can complete this. And I will.
The last bit is hard and arduos. We are fatigued and sweaty, some of us are a bit unhappy with the situation, but we both keep moving our feet. one after the other. And 2 hours later we arrive in Monte Rosso. I have this mountainous feeling of accomplishment inside of me and am quick to thank Joann for sticking it out with me. Now, I know that I am making this sound like it was torture and not fun at all...in reality it was jaw dropping-ly gorgeous and a fun excursion. We didn't kill ourselves, but were a little worse for wear...any thing worth doing will leave you this way I think anyways.
It should be noted that I did this entire 7 hour hike with no shirt on and in flip flops. Joann did it in a tiny sun dress and flip flops. Needless to say we both returned to Siena looking lobster-esque.
That night there is a big party in Monte Rosso. It is, as it turns out, John the Baptists' birthday. How could I forget? There is a long procession of people, some of which carry grotesquely realistic crucifixes. After the parade passes us, Joann and I head to the beach once again. Soon thereafter hordes of little childred storm the beach and start hopping in the pitch black ocean (this seems, to me, like bad parenting). Their parents are on the beach lighting candles and hanging them to the kids. These kids then float these candles out into the ocean. They light hundreds upon hundreds of candles and light the sea as far as the eye can sea...it was remarkably beautiful and an unexpected sight. Not half an hour later, as we watch the tea lights tickle the horizon, the fireworks start. The people in Monte Rosso take JTB's birthday seriously. And this firework show is on par with anything I have ever seen. And yes that includes the 4th of July in Washington DC, which is something to behold. We were right on the water as the lit missile after missile into the air. They exploded in every manner and color you can imagine. And right in front of our faces at that. They even went so far as to shoot the fireworks out into the ocean...level with the water, not into th air at all. They exploded at eye level...unbelievable. And absolutely unsafe...but unsafe in the way wearing stilettos while dancing is...certainly not the most sound idea, but it just has to happen.
As the plumes of smoke left by the blasts retired into the bay, we too decided to listen closely to aching, tired bodies. Our sunburns prevented us from hitting the beach again in the morning, so we instead decide to head home.
I wake up on a speeding train cutting through the Tuscan hills heading for Siena. 3 hours later, we arrive in Siena. Back home, red as apples, and having to explain to everyone how exactly we got such a great tan in "amsterdam".
Until the next...
HERE ARE THE PICTURES...
After 2 months of eternity in America, some in DC; some in New York City, I am back. These 2 months were not a completely terrible thing. I was able to raise some money for a summer in Europe, Joann was able to have some time to experience life abroad on her own, and I have a renewed appreciation for my life in Italy now. All good things.
So here we go again. 27 hours of travel (including the time difference) and I am finally back in Siena. And what a homecoming it is. It is such a different sensation getting back here. Mostly because immediately I know my way around everywhere and I am running into people who graciously welcome me back. That and Joann is here. Home is where the heart is, after all.
Things move almost insanely quickly as soon as I arrive. It feels like a series of dreams, and I keep waking up in these crazy little scenarios.
I wake up and we are at Luna Park. The traveling fair that has come through Siena for a stint. I am catching this funland on its last leg, as it closes and meanders to another town in two days. It is a rainy and dreary night, but Jo and I head out anyway alongside our trusty friends Francesca (an amazing young woman from England) and Anja (who politely declines going on a lot of rides, but takes all the pics for us!). We hit the swings, the Fun house, the horse races (which Joann dominates), and then arrive at the game where you throw the ping pong balls into the fish bowls. Theoretically I will absolutely ruin this game with my (sometimes exceptional) beer pong skills...this, however, is not the case. We all fail miserably, but the carney feels bad for us and decides to give me a goldfish. A little backstory: this is not the first time the girls have been to Luna Park. They all came a few weeks ago and ALL won goldfish. I believe our friend Ashley's survived the longest...and that was less than 2 weeks. Anyhow, I am very happy to have a new companion, and one whom I speak more Italian than, at that. I name him Joe Pesce. And I love him. (as I write this, exactly 14 days later, he is alive and well...swimming frequently and once in a while debating with me on the possible influence of sustainable agriculture on the youth of tomorrow).
I wake up and it is our friend Malou's 21st birthday. It seems kind of a moot point since the drinking age in Wales (where she is from) is 18, and here in Italy it is 16, but we celebrate with vigor anyways. They throw a party for her at the Erasmus residence, which is basically a converted little country house that now acts as dormitory. The is, to say the last, debaucherous and yield more than a handful of great pictures...check those out at the end.
I wake up on a train to Bologna. Jo and I have a wedding to attend tomorrow. It will be both of our first Jehovah Witness' wedding. In all honesty they are not weird or different at all...in fact the only noticeable difference is the bride and groom sit on chairs in front of the Altar for the whole ceremony, which frankly seems logical and smart to me. This trip to Bologna (our second; We came for Easter as well) is the first leg of our first big trip outside of Italy. From Bologna we will head to Milan for one night and then off to the Netherlands for two nights.
I have never been to Amsterdam. And I want to go for a couple of reasons, some of which are not so obvious. My main driving force is beer. I know, I know this is often not the first substance people consider when traveling to Amsterdam, but whatever...I have been to college and know what the other stuff has to offer. My main concern is Heineken. For years I have had a terrible relationship with Heineken and knew deep down that it would take a trip to Amsterdam to mend. The reason is all about refrigerators. You see, Heineken is brewed in Amsterdam and then shipped to America in unrefrigerated boats. This means that basically all of the product we receive is, for lack of a better word, skunked. So what we know in America as Heineken, is likely not what it tastes like AT ALL in Amsterdam. Hence I am very excited to head to the Heineken factory and, once and for all, drink the beer as it is supposed to be drunk. I hope it will be as fresh and delicious as I imagine.
I wake up in Milan. This city is absolutely not as bad as people make it out to be. It is a CITY. in every sense of the word, and we found it to be quite nice. Jo and I have a bit of trouble checking into our hotel (more on that later), but settle quickly and hit the town. We take some showers and watch Italy lose in UEFA cup to Spain (on penalties!!). We are ready to paint this town couture red. We ask the strangely effeminate desk agent at the hotel for some direction on how to get the to area of the city that has bars, restaurant, clubs, etc. He quickly points us in the right direction and we hop on the subway. Its a bit dirty and covered in (pretty good) graffiti and we quickly arrive at our destination. We round the corner and find the strip of road we were meant to arrive at. It quickly becomes apparent why the clerk sent us here. Every club here is bumping Madonna's newest, serving drinks with umbrellas, and apparently do not allow sleeves on the shirts of the remarkably well formed male clientèle...oh and no girls allowed. So he sent us to the gay neighborhood in Milan, not a big deal, at least no one will hit on Joann and we are probably pretty safe. We amble around for a bit have a drink here, a panini there and then retire to our hotel...we have an early flight.
I wake up on a rock in the Cinque Terre. Funny, I don't feel drunk. How did I get here? We are supposed to be in Amsterdam.
Why did we have trouble checking into the hotel? You see, Joann and I have forgotten our passports in Siena. This means we have to go to the Milanese police station to gain permission to even stay in a hotel...and drastically more importantly it means neither she nor I will be taking any flights any time soon. Our own stupidity kept us from The Netherlands, but I am more than confident that we will make it there some day. (side note: I wonder how often this happens to stoners who are attempting to get to the motherland? I imagine quite often...)
So after we realize that we will not be traveling internationally this weekend and make the appropriate cancellations ...we have to decide what to do now. Luckily Joann and I are like fucking Peyton Manning when it come to audibles, so we decide (since we are already up north) to head to the Cinque Terre for a few days...not a bad plan B in anyone's eyes. With a new lease on time, we decide to check out a bit more of Milan before departing, so we head to their Duomo. It is pretty magnificent. Not really sure how to describe yet another Duomo, but look at the pics to get an idea...I think this one ranks number 4 on my list of Italian Duomos (still very unclear on the difference between a Duomo and a Cathedral, by the way). To refresh, my list is as follows:
1. Siena
2. Rome
3. Venice
4. Milan
5. Florence
After the Duomo, I literally have to physically force Joann into the Gucci store in Milan. This is the co-fashion center of the world, and I was not going to let her not go in. WE perused for a mere minute and a half before it became too much and we left. As it turns out I like playing the game where I go into these stores and pretend I can buy anything (case in point: when I took out my computer to make sure it fit in the Louis Vuitton messenger bag)....Joann, does not like this game. So we move on. Back to the train station and off to Cinque Terre.
We arrive in the picture perfect coastal town of Monte Rosso with many expectations, but very little ideas on where to stay. We, kind of quickly actually, find the tourist board in Monte rosso and they hook us up with a guy who rents out rooms in his apartment like hotel rooms. We agree to a two night stay and swiftly walk to his abode. The is nothing to write home about, but nice. We are sharing the apartment with two American girls who are pleasant if not semi-mute. We put our bags down and immediately head to the little beach shop that the guy who rented us his room owns with his wife. It is a very tytpical little shop, tons of little knick knacks and shot glasses labeled with the Cinque Terre logo. We have informed him that we came unprepared and will need to buy some swimsuits, so he agrees to give us a discount. Joann grabs a bikini that undoubtedly would have been cool in 1992 and I choose a bathing suit that is basically a spandex pair of boer briefs...you know the kind.
A defense of the tiny male bathing suit.
By Jay Maxwell Zimmerman
You know when its really early in the morning, like 5 or 6 am? And you know no one is around, so you go out to the sidewalk to get the morning paper in your boxers (or briefs or whatever), and you think, "wow, this really feels good. I kind of, sort of wish I could just walk around all day in my skivvies and no one would care...because, well, it just feels good". Do not pretend that that has not happened to you. And thats what wearing these little bathing suits is like. It is oddly freeing and remarkably comfortable. you simply have to get past the idea that, in all likelihood, no one is interested in looking at what your packing. So you get over it, you enjoy your newly liberated spirit, and you revel in the pure joy of having tanned thighs...for the first time since you were a toddler and you hobbled around Rehoboth Beach in your diaper. I digress.
We head to the beach for a few hours of the everlasting sunlight of an Italian summer before agreeing that tonight will be the one night we have a good nights dinner. We dress ourselves up in beach chic and head to a nice restaurant for the first time since I arrived back in Italia. Restaurants in tiny beach towns are kind of funny, the menus offer fish. And that is all. Nothing else. This works out because Jo has a hankering for Spaghetti with Fish. We get it and it is pretty damned delicious. The fish is as fresh as the Prince of Bel-Air and the pasta is cooked to the tooth. Another fun fact about the restaurants in this town: when the fish for the night runs out...they close. No matter what time it is. We literally went to one restaurant that turned us away because they just received their last order for clams. Sorry, non piu (no more). We retire to the warmth of a bonfire on the beach for a little bit before bed. Big plans for tomorrow.
We are up at 8 am (ungodly early for us) and head for the train station. We plan on taking a train to the farthest of the five towns in the Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore....the opposite end of the Cinque Terre from us) and hiking back. The train ride is swift, 20 minutes at best and suddenly we are in Riomaggiore. We hit the trail that links the 5 towns, through 5 mountains, with blind ambition and terrific smiles on our faces. Everyone around us is outfitted in CamelBaks, and hiking boots, and Poles (!), and Carabeiners, et al. Joann and I have flip flops and bathing suits on...we will show these people exactly how to do this, the right way.
We tackle the firat mountain with ease and stop in the next town to get a bottle of water and hit the beach for a bit. We actually find a stretch of rocks that extend out into the ocean aways, so we climb those and swim out where they touch the sea. The cool water is welcome break from the mid-day, mid-summer heat and feels great. At this point I put on a bow tie and greet incoming ships with my little man-bikini on. It makes everyone involved happy and sad at the same time. We hop back on the trail home and are making great headway. We spot yet another little spot to swim and stop to enjoy the ocean one more time. I find a little cave and explore it...but the impending doom of jellyfish and sharks gets us out of the water pretty quickly after that (no word yet on if jellyfish or sharks actually inhabit those waters).
As soon as we leave this second swimming paradise...things get a little dodgy. The perfectly bricked walkway gives way to gravel, the even sidewalk ascends to an incline, and then to a mountainous trek, the breath taking cliffside views are quickly covered by brush, then by full-on jungle. It quickly becomes apparent that Joann and I are not correctly outfitted for this journey, but we soldier on nonetheless. We trek through, legitimate hiking, trails for 3 hours. Up and down mountains, rarely talking, but huffing anf puffing the whole way. We eventually get to the 4th of the 5 towns, Vernazza, which is positvely beautiful. We decide to have a slice of pizza and hit the local beach there for an hour or so. The water is perfect, the sand is hot, as is the sun, and we are more than content to give our aching limbs a rest. As we begin to move again the debate as to whether or not we should actually hike the last bit flares up. We are pretty tired after all, and we did hike 4 mountains already...but alas, this is something I have to do. I came this far, adn something inside me was pushing to finish. No I can't run a marathon, No I cant be a professional athlete, but I can complete this. And I will.
The last bit is hard and arduos. We are fatigued and sweaty, some of us are a bit unhappy with the situation, but we both keep moving our feet. one after the other. And 2 hours later we arrive in Monte Rosso. I have this mountainous feeling of accomplishment inside of me and am quick to thank Joann for sticking it out with me. Now, I know that I am making this sound like it was torture and not fun at all...in reality it was jaw dropping-ly gorgeous and a fun excursion. We didn't kill ourselves, but were a little worse for wear...any thing worth doing will leave you this way I think anyways.
It should be noted that I did this entire 7 hour hike with no shirt on and in flip flops. Joann did it in a tiny sun dress and flip flops. Needless to say we both returned to Siena looking lobster-esque.
That night there is a big party in Monte Rosso. It is, as it turns out, John the Baptists' birthday. How could I forget? There is a long procession of people, some of which carry grotesquely realistic crucifixes. After the parade passes us, Joann and I head to the beach once again. Soon thereafter hordes of little childred storm the beach and start hopping in the pitch black ocean (this seems, to me, like bad parenting). Their parents are on the beach lighting candles and hanging them to the kids. These kids then float these candles out into the ocean. They light hundreds upon hundreds of candles and light the sea as far as the eye can sea...it was remarkably beautiful and an unexpected sight. Not half an hour later, as we watch the tea lights tickle the horizon, the fireworks start. The people in Monte Rosso take JTB's birthday seriously. And this firework show is on par with anything I have ever seen. And yes that includes the 4th of July in Washington DC, which is something to behold. We were right on the water as the lit missile after missile into the air. They exploded in every manner and color you can imagine. And right in front of our faces at that. They even went so far as to shoot the fireworks out into the ocean...level with the water, not into th air at all. They exploded at eye level...unbelievable. And absolutely unsafe...but unsafe in the way wearing stilettos while dancing is...certainly not the most sound idea, but it just has to happen.
As the plumes of smoke left by the blasts retired into the bay, we too decided to listen closely to aching, tired bodies. Our sunburns prevented us from hitting the beach again in the morning, so we instead decide to head home.
I wake up on a speeding train cutting through the Tuscan hills heading for Siena. 3 hours later, we arrive in Siena. Back home, red as apples, and having to explain to everyone how exactly we got such a great tan in "amsterdam".
Until the next...
HERE ARE THE PICTURES...
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Picture me Roman! (or A Tale of Two Cities)(or Greetings From Michigan!)
It was the best of times; It was the worst of times in the Eternal City. Joann and I on a whim decided to do something very unlike us and join a tour group headed to Rome for the weekend. A tour group made up entirely of Erasmus (a fancy word for European foreign exchange) students. On paper this was a great idea. We would get guided tours of all that Rome has to offer, two meals a day, transportation and lodging all for about $120 each. It seemed too good to be true and indeed it was.
We arrive for our 7 am bus at the fortress in Siena with sagging tired eyes, but open minds. We are on time (for once) and excited for the trip. We are, as it turns out, the only ones on time…for the first of many times. After waiting for our guides for an hour and the other Erasmus kids from Bologna/Pisa for another hour we are just about ready to leave by 9:30 am. I am irked but still optimistic, Joann commences with calming me down and coaxes me into taking a nap as the bus coasts south towards the Italian capital.
About an hour and a half into the trip the bus makes a hard right and exits into a town called Orvieto. This does not make me very happy as I just want to get to Rome already. Joann continues with the calming of Jay as we ascend into Orvieto, which as it turns out is a wickedly cool little Italian city. It is walled in, as many antique cities are here, but is built into a mountain side which makes it kind of unique. It also has something of a famous Duomo here, as from previous blogs you can tell many cities in Italy do as well. We take a series of about 400 escalators to get to what is the main floor of Orvieto, from the bottom of the mountain where we parked. We wander around the cute little city for about an hour. We hit the Duomo, which doesn’t even make my list of top 5 in the country and then head to the pubic gardens. The view from these gardens is out of this world. You can see all the way to….well, I’m not sure exactly what we were looking at or even in what direction we were facing but it was gorgeous nonetheless. Joann and I have started to converse with some of the English speaking students on the trip (most of whom turn out to be pretty cool and interesting) and stroll hand in hand around the gardens before heading back to the bus for our 12 noon departure, as insisted upon by our leaders, Wilmer and Antonello. By 1 pm most of the students have started getting impatient, Antonello is no where to be found as are about 5 of the students. This was the only time all weekend I was not incensed by these guys, as Joann and I found a nice wall overlooking, um, Italy and took a nap in the sun. So the small group we are all waiting for arrives around 1:45 with tales of a really beautiful and cool gigantic well (I know it doesn’t sound beautiful and cool, but it was…I saw pictures) that you could climb down into and there was free wine tasting at the bottom. It seemed out guides only told those in their immediate proximity about this place and decided to let those few be privy to its coolness. I know, I know it probably wasn’t all that, but when you are denies even the chance to go to such a place it seems like the Magic Kingdom in your mind. The grass is always greener, as they say.
So once again I am peeved, but suck it up as we are finally on our way to Rome. This will be the place where Mrs. Schuler’s 3rd grade Roman History class will come to life. Where I will finally do in Rome as the Romans do. And as it turns our where I will be expected to sleep in bed with another man.
Hotels in Rome are funny. Not the nice and classy ones you se in movies like The French Connection or An American in Paris, but the dirty ones. The ones that are only not called hostels because they have more than one bathroom. And all of the hotels in Rome that fit this classification feel it necessary to pull as hard as they can from the cigarette known as American culture….and have thusly named all of their hotels after various places in the states. We pass by the Hotel Miami, the Hotel Bel Air, the Hotel Delaware (not really, but how cool would that have been?!) and finally reach our destination…our home for the next two nights…the stunning Hotel Michigan. Now I am a patriotic sole and love America as much as the next guy, but even I know that naming your hotel Michigan does not invoke any glorious memories of America and probably doesn’t even attract Michiganders. I would only stay in a place thusly named if I were in fact in Michigan, and even then I would be weary. It’s a dumb name.
To further my irritation on the whole Hotel situation, We have been informed that the group would be split up by sexes and divided amongst three rooms per. This worked out to about 8 people per room. I am pissed about this. This is not how I envisioned my time in Rome with my girlfriend to be, We arrive and are split up like an eight grade dance. Because I don’t understand the damn language I am the last to understand my room assignment and when I arrive all of the single beds are taken and all that is left is a double bed that is half occupied by an unfortunately delightful German fellow. Steam is rocketing out of my ears, so I throw my bag on the bed, tell the German I am off to find the closest pub and leave the hotel Michigan behind.
Joann and I find the closest spot, a great Scottish pub down the street. The place is crawling with people in kilts, which I though hit the nail on the head a little too squarely, but I accepted it and ordered my beer. As it turns out, the Scots have invaded Rome for the weekend to watch their squad take on the Italian in Rugby (which I never knew was such a big deal in Great Britain). The city of Rome literally looks like the cast of Braveheart took a field trip.
Joann finally calms me down (well, Joann and Guinness) and we are off to meet the group. We follow the guides around the city on foot to all of the free places you can imagine in Rome. We see where the government meets, the Pantheon (one of the things I have been dying to see), Trevi Fountain (which is spectacular), the Spanish Steps (and their overpriced shopping), etc. The entire time we are with the group the Wilmer, Antonello and their Roman counterpart are vaguely giving tours, but not giving answers about dinner or bathroom breaks or anything. The hard truth kind of hits home hard for everyone at the same time. These guys are shit. The tour is shit. Everything about the weekend that involves them is complete shit. This, or rather they, is what made up the shitty part of the weekend in Rome. This was the bad part (and there will be more as you read on), but here is the thing. The good part. The tale of the other Rome is this. The place is absolutely amazing. Awe inspiring. Beautiful, bountiful and blessed (by the Pope). It is the only city in Italy that I could feasibly see myself living long term. It is New York, with ruins. It is DC, but its been the capital for a few thousand more years. It’s not really Miami, but thank god. I fell in love with this place as soon as I stepped foot in it and not even Wilmer and Antonello could drag me down from that kind of high.
Jo and I opt out of dinner with the group and instead meet up with her cousin, Enzo, and his fiancée, Laura, for a glorious meal at a Irish pub. It was only in the ballpark of being called an attempt at nachos, but they were good nonetheless. The dinner is great, the company is better, but we part ways around midnight to go to the nightclub with the group. The place the guides take us is small, hot and crowded. They seem to not have much liquor at all, but give it way on the cheap, so we stay for a few rounds and dance a little bit before heading home.
I am going to skip over most of the sightseeing stuff, as you can see the pictures at the bottom of this blog…except for three places. First, the Pantheon is amazing and a feat of human kind and should be seen by anyone in the vicinity of Rome. Second, is the Coliseum Joann and I got up before the group to head there on Saturday morning, because it has become apparent that the only tours we will be given by the guides on this trip are the free attractions and the Coliseum costs about 11 euro a head to enter. This place and the tower in Pisa are the iconic symbols of Italy and they both equally deliver. As we approach the coliseum we are approached by a very pleasant English speaking asian gentlemen who offers us a guided tour of the coliseum for 40 euro but (disappointingly) not egg rolls. We are literally in the shadow of one of the worlds 8 wonders when we are having the conversation with this guy, so I ask him, “But where is the actual Coliseum?”. The joke sails over his head and we walk away briskly giggling. The inside of the coliseum is everything I wanted it to be. Old, falling apart, but with just a hint of imagination, a completely magical place. Its kind of like standing in the middle of the court in Madison Square Garden when it is completely empty and making those crowd noises with your mouth and doing the mock ten second countdown as you hit the winning basket. It doesn’t take much, but in a second you can transport yourself back to ancient rome and the time of the Gladiators…that is how powerful this building is. Jo and I decide to only get one of those audio tour guides, so one person at a time had to listen to the info and then play tour guide for a few minutes. Some cool points from the tour that are of note:
1) One time they built a giant wooden whale that when it opened its mouth released 50 bears into the arena and the awaiting gladiators.
2) They had shows at the coliseum during holidays in Rome. Which was roughly 170 times a year.
3) The animals that they used to make fight the gladiators (when they were not fighting themselves) included lions, tigers, bears and the occasional Hippopotamus.
Ok, enough of the history lesson. We leave the Coliseum and make our attempt at taking the Roman subway. The train system in Rome looks insanely antiquated. Trains are still covered top to bottom with great graffiti and the underground is as dirty as it can be. However, the trains are remarkably punctual. Almost always right on time and they run every three minutes. Though they do not go everywhere in the city it makes getting around really super easy. We took the train to the third and final touristy spot that was of note…Vatican City.
Having gone to a Catholic high school, I had a vague idea of just how elaborate and gaudy the Catholic Institution could be (nothing to do with the actual faith…just the institution of the church), but this place goes above and beyond what my wildest dreams were. We enter the city and it massive piazza along with thousands of our closest friends (it is a week before Easter, but I have a feeling this place is probably always just as packed). There is a gargantuan line to enter St, Peters Basilica, but it is moving swiftly so we hop on its caboose. About an hour later we are inside. Religion and intention of this building aside, it is jaw-dropping. Truly an architectural and artistic feat. This is like the Mr. T (circa 1986) of churches…all muscle and gold (the mohawk being the astonishingly beautiful altar at its center). We breeze through the big guys house and meet up with the tour group outside. That lasts close to four minutes before we are again on our own and headed towards the Sistine Chapel.
The actual chapel resided within the Vatican Museum, which has numerous other chapels as well as a plethora of various depictions of Jesus (as one might imagine). We hardly stop to look at anything else, but are lost in conversation until we come upon the Sistine. It is kind of hard to describe the inside of the Sistine Chapel. It has a smell for sure. Not bad or good, but distinct. It is about the size of a small high school gym. It is packed to the brim with people. It has numerous guards who constantly are yelling at people to not take pictures and to keep silent (the irony of which kind of pushed my buttons). Finally, it is the home to probably the most impressive piece of art I have even bore witness to. It is astounding. I got lost inside Michelangelo’s Final Judgment….it has to be seen in person, in all its glory to be believed. The depiction of Adam touching God (which is smack dab in the center of the room on the ceiling) is a lot smaller than I would have thought, but was beautiful nonetheless. And lastly, towards the back, is Michelangelo’s depiction of the last supper which is not as good as DaVinci’s but is spectacular in its own right.
We finish up at Vatican City and wander around Rome a bit more before meeting up with the group for dinner. This would be the only meal we would have with everyone and it was hilariously bad. We drove about an hour outside of Rome for some reason to a small little restaurant, that served small little portions of decent food, and then they started singing. They have these rounds which would sound like traditional song if you did not know what they meant. Basically frat boy drinking songs that were projected by these guys as they encouraged everyone to binge drink red wine. It was fun in the sense that it is fun to get drunk and sing like an idiot…and in no other way. A long bus ride home and a short stint at yet another mediocre nightclub and we hit the bed for one more night at Hotel Michigan.
The morning is exhausting. We awake to the Roman Marathon, which was really cool to see and are out once again on foot with the tour guides. They cant figure out how to circumnavigate the race route in order to get us close to the Roman Forum and the Coliseum, so they audible. We end up just walking around and getting short explanations of whatever we happen to pass (given some of which was really beautiful and cool, especially the statues of Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, and the back part of the ruins of the Forum). On the program it said we would get a tour of the ghettos where Mussolini penned in the jews during the second great war, but the guide only pointed off in the distance and gave us one of those, “umm, its over there, behind those buildings…lets go we are late”.
Side note about Mussolini: he was a horrifically bad dude. However, his unhealthy and wasteful obsession making Rome what is once was procured some of the most beautiful and extraordinary buildings that are still standing in this fair city. A really really bad dude though.
Ok, so we are finally on the bus home, but are going to make a pit stop before we head for Siena. A place called Ostia. Kind of a neat story about Ostia. It used to be the major port city for Rome, the place where all imports came in and all exports went out. That was up until sometime in the 1500’s when a massive flood came a wiped out the entire city. After that it was just kind of forgotten and never rebuilt. The ruins are really fun to run around in and there were some Shetland Ponies around which I got a huge kick out of (I always do…I mean they are miniature horses!). We finally get back on the road with one innocently embarrassed tour guide, one blindly idiotic tour guide, and bus full of disgruntled European twenty-somethings…but at least we are on the way home.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MAGIC!!
We arrive for our 7 am bus at the fortress in Siena with sagging tired eyes, but open minds. We are on time (for once) and excited for the trip. We are, as it turns out, the only ones on time…for the first of many times. After waiting for our guides for an hour and the other Erasmus kids from Bologna/Pisa for another hour we are just about ready to leave by 9:30 am. I am irked but still optimistic, Joann commences with calming me down and coaxes me into taking a nap as the bus coasts south towards the Italian capital.
About an hour and a half into the trip the bus makes a hard right and exits into a town called Orvieto. This does not make me very happy as I just want to get to Rome already. Joann continues with the calming of Jay as we ascend into Orvieto, which as it turns out is a wickedly cool little Italian city. It is walled in, as many antique cities are here, but is built into a mountain side which makes it kind of unique. It also has something of a famous Duomo here, as from previous blogs you can tell many cities in Italy do as well. We take a series of about 400 escalators to get to what is the main floor of Orvieto, from the bottom of the mountain where we parked. We wander around the cute little city for about an hour. We hit the Duomo, which doesn’t even make my list of top 5 in the country and then head to the pubic gardens. The view from these gardens is out of this world. You can see all the way to….well, I’m not sure exactly what we were looking at or even in what direction we were facing but it was gorgeous nonetheless. Joann and I have started to converse with some of the English speaking students on the trip (most of whom turn out to be pretty cool and interesting) and stroll hand in hand around the gardens before heading back to the bus for our 12 noon departure, as insisted upon by our leaders, Wilmer and Antonello. By 1 pm most of the students have started getting impatient, Antonello is no where to be found as are about 5 of the students. This was the only time all weekend I was not incensed by these guys, as Joann and I found a nice wall overlooking, um, Italy and took a nap in the sun. So the small group we are all waiting for arrives around 1:45 with tales of a really beautiful and cool gigantic well (I know it doesn’t sound beautiful and cool, but it was…I saw pictures) that you could climb down into and there was free wine tasting at the bottom. It seemed out guides only told those in their immediate proximity about this place and decided to let those few be privy to its coolness. I know, I know it probably wasn’t all that, but when you are denies even the chance to go to such a place it seems like the Magic Kingdom in your mind. The grass is always greener, as they say.
So once again I am peeved, but suck it up as we are finally on our way to Rome. This will be the place where Mrs. Schuler’s 3rd grade Roman History class will come to life. Where I will finally do in Rome as the Romans do. And as it turns our where I will be expected to sleep in bed with another man.
Hotels in Rome are funny. Not the nice and classy ones you se in movies like The French Connection or An American in Paris, but the dirty ones. The ones that are only not called hostels because they have more than one bathroom. And all of the hotels in Rome that fit this classification feel it necessary to pull as hard as they can from the cigarette known as American culture….and have thusly named all of their hotels after various places in the states. We pass by the Hotel Miami, the Hotel Bel Air, the Hotel Delaware (not really, but how cool would that have been?!) and finally reach our destination…our home for the next two nights…the stunning Hotel Michigan. Now I am a patriotic sole and love America as much as the next guy, but even I know that naming your hotel Michigan does not invoke any glorious memories of America and probably doesn’t even attract Michiganders. I would only stay in a place thusly named if I were in fact in Michigan, and even then I would be weary. It’s a dumb name.
To further my irritation on the whole Hotel situation, We have been informed that the group would be split up by sexes and divided amongst three rooms per. This worked out to about 8 people per room. I am pissed about this. This is not how I envisioned my time in Rome with my girlfriend to be, We arrive and are split up like an eight grade dance. Because I don’t understand the damn language I am the last to understand my room assignment and when I arrive all of the single beds are taken and all that is left is a double bed that is half occupied by an unfortunately delightful German fellow. Steam is rocketing out of my ears, so I throw my bag on the bed, tell the German I am off to find the closest pub and leave the hotel Michigan behind.
Joann and I find the closest spot, a great Scottish pub down the street. The place is crawling with people in kilts, which I though hit the nail on the head a little too squarely, but I accepted it and ordered my beer. As it turns out, the Scots have invaded Rome for the weekend to watch their squad take on the Italian in Rugby (which I never knew was such a big deal in Great Britain). The city of Rome literally looks like the cast of Braveheart took a field trip.
Joann finally calms me down (well, Joann and Guinness) and we are off to meet the group. We follow the guides around the city on foot to all of the free places you can imagine in Rome. We see where the government meets, the Pantheon (one of the things I have been dying to see), Trevi Fountain (which is spectacular), the Spanish Steps (and their overpriced shopping), etc. The entire time we are with the group the Wilmer, Antonello and their Roman counterpart are vaguely giving tours, but not giving answers about dinner or bathroom breaks or anything. The hard truth kind of hits home hard for everyone at the same time. These guys are shit. The tour is shit. Everything about the weekend that involves them is complete shit. This, or rather they, is what made up the shitty part of the weekend in Rome. This was the bad part (and there will be more as you read on), but here is the thing. The good part. The tale of the other Rome is this. The place is absolutely amazing. Awe inspiring. Beautiful, bountiful and blessed (by the Pope). It is the only city in Italy that I could feasibly see myself living long term. It is New York, with ruins. It is DC, but its been the capital for a few thousand more years. It’s not really Miami, but thank god. I fell in love with this place as soon as I stepped foot in it and not even Wilmer and Antonello could drag me down from that kind of high.
Jo and I opt out of dinner with the group and instead meet up with her cousin, Enzo, and his fiancée, Laura, for a glorious meal at a Irish pub. It was only in the ballpark of being called an attempt at nachos, but they were good nonetheless. The dinner is great, the company is better, but we part ways around midnight to go to the nightclub with the group. The place the guides take us is small, hot and crowded. They seem to not have much liquor at all, but give it way on the cheap, so we stay for a few rounds and dance a little bit before heading home.
I am going to skip over most of the sightseeing stuff, as you can see the pictures at the bottom of this blog…except for three places. First, the Pantheon is amazing and a feat of human kind and should be seen by anyone in the vicinity of Rome. Second, is the Coliseum Joann and I got up before the group to head there on Saturday morning, because it has become apparent that the only tours we will be given by the guides on this trip are the free attractions and the Coliseum costs about 11 euro a head to enter. This place and the tower in Pisa are the iconic symbols of Italy and they both equally deliver. As we approach the coliseum we are approached by a very pleasant English speaking asian gentlemen who offers us a guided tour of the coliseum for 40 euro but (disappointingly) not egg rolls. We are literally in the shadow of one of the worlds 8 wonders when we are having the conversation with this guy, so I ask him, “But where is the actual Coliseum?”. The joke sails over his head and we walk away briskly giggling. The inside of the coliseum is everything I wanted it to be. Old, falling apart, but with just a hint of imagination, a completely magical place. Its kind of like standing in the middle of the court in Madison Square Garden when it is completely empty and making those crowd noises with your mouth and doing the mock ten second countdown as you hit the winning basket. It doesn’t take much, but in a second you can transport yourself back to ancient rome and the time of the Gladiators…that is how powerful this building is. Jo and I decide to only get one of those audio tour guides, so one person at a time had to listen to the info and then play tour guide for a few minutes. Some cool points from the tour that are of note:
1) One time they built a giant wooden whale that when it opened its mouth released 50 bears into the arena and the awaiting gladiators.
2) They had shows at the coliseum during holidays in Rome. Which was roughly 170 times a year.
3) The animals that they used to make fight the gladiators (when they were not fighting themselves) included lions, tigers, bears and the occasional Hippopotamus.
Ok, enough of the history lesson. We leave the Coliseum and make our attempt at taking the Roman subway. The train system in Rome looks insanely antiquated. Trains are still covered top to bottom with great graffiti and the underground is as dirty as it can be. However, the trains are remarkably punctual. Almost always right on time and they run every three minutes. Though they do not go everywhere in the city it makes getting around really super easy. We took the train to the third and final touristy spot that was of note…Vatican City.
Having gone to a Catholic high school, I had a vague idea of just how elaborate and gaudy the Catholic Institution could be (nothing to do with the actual faith…just the institution of the church), but this place goes above and beyond what my wildest dreams were. We enter the city and it massive piazza along with thousands of our closest friends (it is a week before Easter, but I have a feeling this place is probably always just as packed). There is a gargantuan line to enter St, Peters Basilica, but it is moving swiftly so we hop on its caboose. About an hour later we are inside. Religion and intention of this building aside, it is jaw-dropping. Truly an architectural and artistic feat. This is like the Mr. T (circa 1986) of churches…all muscle and gold (the mohawk being the astonishingly beautiful altar at its center). We breeze through the big guys house and meet up with the tour group outside. That lasts close to four minutes before we are again on our own and headed towards the Sistine Chapel.
The actual chapel resided within the Vatican Museum, which has numerous other chapels as well as a plethora of various depictions of Jesus (as one might imagine). We hardly stop to look at anything else, but are lost in conversation until we come upon the Sistine. It is kind of hard to describe the inside of the Sistine Chapel. It has a smell for sure. Not bad or good, but distinct. It is about the size of a small high school gym. It is packed to the brim with people. It has numerous guards who constantly are yelling at people to not take pictures and to keep silent (the irony of which kind of pushed my buttons). Finally, it is the home to probably the most impressive piece of art I have even bore witness to. It is astounding. I got lost inside Michelangelo’s Final Judgment….it has to be seen in person, in all its glory to be believed. The depiction of Adam touching God (which is smack dab in the center of the room on the ceiling) is a lot smaller than I would have thought, but was beautiful nonetheless. And lastly, towards the back, is Michelangelo’s depiction of the last supper which is not as good as DaVinci’s but is spectacular in its own right.
We finish up at Vatican City and wander around Rome a bit more before meeting up with the group for dinner. This would be the only meal we would have with everyone and it was hilariously bad. We drove about an hour outside of Rome for some reason to a small little restaurant, that served small little portions of decent food, and then they started singing. They have these rounds which would sound like traditional song if you did not know what they meant. Basically frat boy drinking songs that were projected by these guys as they encouraged everyone to binge drink red wine. It was fun in the sense that it is fun to get drunk and sing like an idiot…and in no other way. A long bus ride home and a short stint at yet another mediocre nightclub and we hit the bed for one more night at Hotel Michigan.
The morning is exhausting. We awake to the Roman Marathon, which was really cool to see and are out once again on foot with the tour guides. They cant figure out how to circumnavigate the race route in order to get us close to the Roman Forum and the Coliseum, so they audible. We end up just walking around and getting short explanations of whatever we happen to pass (given some of which was really beautiful and cool, especially the statues of Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, and the back part of the ruins of the Forum). On the program it said we would get a tour of the ghettos where Mussolini penned in the jews during the second great war, but the guide only pointed off in the distance and gave us one of those, “umm, its over there, behind those buildings…lets go we are late”.
Side note about Mussolini: he was a horrifically bad dude. However, his unhealthy and wasteful obsession making Rome what is once was procured some of the most beautiful and extraordinary buildings that are still standing in this fair city. A really really bad dude though.
Ok, so we are finally on the bus home, but are going to make a pit stop before we head for Siena. A place called Ostia. Kind of a neat story about Ostia. It used to be the major port city for Rome, the place where all imports came in and all exports went out. That was up until sometime in the 1500’s when a massive flood came a wiped out the entire city. After that it was just kind of forgotten and never rebuilt. The ruins are really fun to run around in and there were some Shetland Ponies around which I got a huge kick out of (I always do…I mean they are miniature horses!). We finally get back on the road with one innocently embarrassed tour guide, one blindly idiotic tour guide, and bus full of disgruntled European twenty-somethings…but at least we are on the way home.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MAGIC!!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Two Guys, A Girl, and A Birthday (or Cinque Dolce Vita)
Behind every good story are two crazy men. Whether it was a cooky waiter and wine maker, Jay and Flavio putting together a birthday party, or some great Britains building the 007 set.
We had one of those weekends where unexpectedly one exciting thing after another just popped up and handed us a good time. This couldn’t have come at a better time, as this weekend was Joann’s birthday. A weekend I had been anticipating and hoping to make fun and memorable. Admittedly the planning was a bit sparse and the means to fund anything crazy had long been gone, but the universe had my back on this one and we came out on top.
Friday night was amazing for a different reason than the rest. Joann and I, after planning to go out and paint the town red, end up staying in drinking some bottles of wine, singing some Weezer and doing a puzzle. Yes, on paper this is not exciting. But when you deal with long distance for a year, these are the kinds of little nooks and crannies in a relationship that you begged for and are what make seemingly mundane, boring evenings achingly fun.
We woke up earlier on Saturday with great intentions. We were going to rent a car for the weekend to head out to the Tuscan countryside and tour some vineyards. It turns out all the cars are manual. This would not present too large of a problem except that Joann does not drive stick and I am out of practice (and the last place I want to be rusty is on a steep cobblestone street where once I ram some old Italian lady in her Alfa Romeo I could not even charm my way out of a lawsuit). The car idea is out and so, in turn, is the sun so we opt for a walk around Siena to start our day. As we are happily strolling hand in hand it becomes apparent that every woman we are passing is carrying the same lock of golden flowers. Curious, I know. As it were Saturday, March 8th is La Festa Della Donna (international women’s day). This seemed redundant to me as I thought, as men, we spent our whole lives trying to make women feel special and loved, this, after all, is why they bless us with kissing, common sense, and the like. But I was mistaken, and this is a day dedicated to the woman, Venus, The Omega, Joann, Nancy, all things fallopian and uterine. Now growing up in a household where equal rights were served daily with my Frosted Flakes, I was fully prepared and embraced the festivities (read: scrambled to find Joann some of those damn golden flowers as soon as I could).
Clouds start to loom, so we break for a nice lunch in the Campo. There is a big to-do going on, so we decide to investigate. It seems that the equivalent of the Tour De France in Italy is ending today, and will finish in our very own Siena, our very own little Piazza del Campo…in about fifteen minutes. We do the only thing we can think of, grab some Fritelle (dough fried in desert wine…umm, yes please) and become instant cycling fans cheering on God knows who as they race toward the finish. Literally as the race ends so does my interest, so we head home to get ready for the big Birthday night out.
We decide on dinner in Piazza Del Mercato and a great little place called Papei. We sit down in the back and are quickly greeted by one of the two quirky characters that would stick out this weekend. Our waiter, a man of about 70 years, arrives and immediately starts guessing our nationalities. “He is Israeli and you are Spanish”…umm, close, but no, We go through this routine two more times before he decided it is ok to serve us now. Dinner is delightful but nothing of note. I leave in the middle to go to the “bathroom” and inform our waiter, well our busboy, that it is Joann’s birthday and if we could have a small piece of cake after our main course it would be really nice. He nods in half-agreement, half-whatthefuckareyousaying. I return to our table to find that our waiter has begun listing his Jewish friends (in my honor) one of them including “the best plastic surgeon in the world”…he makes a bit boobs gesture and scurries off. Soon after, our bus boy returns with two pieces of cake, no candles, but a good effort indeed. He starts to sing the classic birthday song but only gets as far as , “Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to…is this ok?”. I assured him that it was perfect and he quickly scampered back toward the kitchen. We enjoy them happily and are more than stuffed. It seems somewhere along the way our busboy conveyed to our waiter that it was her birthday and he hurriedly brings us dessert number 2, a small piece of a new cake, complete with an unlit birthday candle. He half-heartedly looked for a lighter on the walk over but decided that it would be just fine with the candle sans flame. We, after all, would get the point. I borrow a lighter from our friendly neighbors one table over and Joann blows out the candle making her wish. Not two minutes later the friendly waiter returns with dessert number 3. A small apple tort. Joann insists that she is full and cannot eat anymore, but implies that perhaps I would eat it. I do take one bite then do the “spread it around the plate so it looks like we ate more” move and set it aside. At this point we ask for our check, but instead receive dessert number 4. Another piece of yet another cake. I swear this one could have been the estranged Italian cousin of the chocolate éclairs at River Road Bakery. It was delicious. Some biscotti and dessert wine and we are on our way.
We arrive at our favorite little Irish Pub around 10 pm and most of the friends whom I have arranged to be there are there. Among them are the group of British girls Joann has befriended at her school (a young lass named MaLou being their leader), Flavio and our Brazilian buddies and two Brits named John and Steve who are in town working on the new James Bond Film (whom I befriended a few nights before).
Aside: They are filming the opening scene of the new James Bond film here in Siena. The guys who I met are building the set and are really, really pleasant. The scene is a chase scene through the sewers, Palio and rooftops of Siena. It should be cool, so look for that.
Steve the painter of the set upon learning of the reason for the celebration immediately starts buying bottles of champagne at the bar…2 at a time I think e got through 6 or 7 with our little group as the night progressed. They asked me if I would like to work on the set, which was a very encouraging thing to hear. I told them I was more than qualified to paint any set, carry any props, rub down any Bond Girls, be Daniel Craig’s butt double, or, if need be, be presented as 008 to the masses. Oddly, no one from the studio has called me yet, but I am holding out hope.
At midnight we brought out dessert number 5. A cake I had gotten made up the day before at a local bakery. Joann was happy and surprised, but quickly whispered that she would not be having ANY MORE cake for the remainder of the night. We passed pieces around the bar and soon the pastry was all but gone. As closing time approached we decide to head to another nightclub for some drinks…well, A drink. We enter the actually pretty nice club and I head to the bar to get Joann and I a drink. 1 glass of Prosecco and a Bourbon and Ginger…20 Euro (roughly 32 dollars)…umm, no. I offer my credit card, but they do not accept them. So I smile, take the drinks and walk away. My problem was not the price of the drinks (Ahem, Hudson and SkyBar), but the fact that they expected me to have this cash on me and not take my card was insulting. I graciously took my now free drinks and exited the club. The high heels have made their presence known and we head home for the night.
I am up early to enact plan B. I rent a scooter for a day trip out to Chianti through the Tuscan vineyards. The weather has turned and it is freezing and rainy, but we are determined. We have a huge breakfast at home and then hit the road. We are heading for a tiny little town in Chianti called Castelnuovo (New Castle), which is about 20 miles outside of Siena. A friend of ours, Giuseppe, has a restaurant there and he is expecting us for dinner. Giuseppe (or Peppe) gives us the vaguest possible directions. Only telling which road gets you in the vicinity and which exit has the name of his town on it. We make our best effort but are quickly lost. This is not a bad thing as it turns out. I believe that Peppe should have followed his really bad directions with, “oh and I want you to get lost because this is God’s country and you will see the most beautiful, breathtaking things you have seen in a while…and its wicked romantic, so don’t be an idiot and get lost with your girlfriend in the rolling hills of Tuscany, idiot”. This would have at least set me up for the beauty we were about to experience. Let us not forget that I am a man. And when I get lost all I want to do is find my way the fastest possible way and will never ask directions on how to do that. Somewhere on the road I let all of that go. It literally floated away with the wind behind our speeding scooter. And as the sun peeked out and a shadow of me and Joann riding through this postcard appeared on the road, something beautiful washed over me. I had this moment that I can only aptly describe as my “it is ridiculous that this is my life” moment. Everything was beautiful and perfect. A smile I haven’t produced in a while suddenly took away my sagging cheeks and all was just right.
We rolled through this countryside for about an hour before we found Castelnuovo. We check in with Peppe at the restaurant have some quick lunch and then check into our little bed and breakfast. As far as birthdays go, this one should have been in a romance novel. We decide to head back out on the scooter and just drive around to soak up some of the scenery. We drive for miles and miles, stopping here and there. We find and even smaller town about 10 miles away from Castelnuovo and stop to peek around. We happen upon a little shop that houses one mousy old man and some gigantic wine vats. Thus enters the second memorable character of the weekend. He opens the door for us and invites us into his house, not his store, his house. He makes wine, dessert wine, grappa and olive oil. He is the official supplier of wine to the American ambassador in Italy. This man takes us hand in hand and shows us around. His vats of impeccable chianti classico, his pungent olive oil, his private stash of vintages (’83,’81’, and ’71…I tried to buy an ‘81thinking it would be a great birthday gift, but he would not sell). He chats up Joann for an hour as we try different wines, (some of which we purchase) and then he shows us around this little town. This is pretty much the gist of his tour:
Cute old man: “There is a restaurant. I own that. There are a few buildings. I own them. Those building over there…I own them. There is a nice little café. I own that. Can I buy you some coffee?”.
Its pretty much how I imagine tours of New York City to be when I give them to my friends in about 25 years. Hey, a man can dream can’t he? We hop on our scooter and get all the way to Brolio before turning back as the sun was going down. The ride back is quick and frozen. We enjoy a very nice a quiet dinner at Peppe’s restaurant (we are literally the only customers on this night) and settle into our B&B for a cozy sleep.
A quick but once again cold ride back to Siena on Monday morning. We drop off our scooter and decide to head to the Sienese equivalent of city hall to see if I can maybe swing a work permit to work on the movie set…no such luck. I give a shout to Steve the painter to pass on the news (he is legitimately bummed, which is kind of flattering) but insists that Joann and I come by the set for a minute. We are in the neighborhood (nothing is very far in Siena) so we swing by. Steve whisks us away and soon we are decked out in our finest neon vests and hard hats. We get a really cool tour of the set! He shows us the story boards for the movie and then takes us inside one of the fake buildings all the way up to the roof where the action for the scene will take place (once again, keep an eye out for the opening scene where James will have to jump from roof to roof in Siena…we were on the roofs!). When we get to the top of the set the view is amazing and one of Siena we have not yet seen. Joann, Steve and I chat about the movie business and how cool of an experience this is for us before we climb back down, it is lunchtime after all and since we have befriended some good guys from Great Britain that means its beer drinking time. Honestly these guys drink until they are red in the face in the middle of the day,.,I decide then and there that I have to go to Britain. So we head to the pub and bullshit about anything and everything. As we are about to leave Joann gracefully gives me a look that says it all, “what a great end to a great weekend”.
CHECK OUT THE PICTURES!!!
We had one of those weekends where unexpectedly one exciting thing after another just popped up and handed us a good time. This couldn’t have come at a better time, as this weekend was Joann’s birthday. A weekend I had been anticipating and hoping to make fun and memorable. Admittedly the planning was a bit sparse and the means to fund anything crazy had long been gone, but the universe had my back on this one and we came out on top.
Friday night was amazing for a different reason than the rest. Joann and I, after planning to go out and paint the town red, end up staying in drinking some bottles of wine, singing some Weezer and doing a puzzle. Yes, on paper this is not exciting. But when you deal with long distance for a year, these are the kinds of little nooks and crannies in a relationship that you begged for and are what make seemingly mundane, boring evenings achingly fun.
We woke up earlier on Saturday with great intentions. We were going to rent a car for the weekend to head out to the Tuscan countryside and tour some vineyards. It turns out all the cars are manual. This would not present too large of a problem except that Joann does not drive stick and I am out of practice (and the last place I want to be rusty is on a steep cobblestone street where once I ram some old Italian lady in her Alfa Romeo I could not even charm my way out of a lawsuit). The car idea is out and so, in turn, is the sun so we opt for a walk around Siena to start our day. As we are happily strolling hand in hand it becomes apparent that every woman we are passing is carrying the same lock of golden flowers. Curious, I know. As it were Saturday, March 8th is La Festa Della Donna (international women’s day). This seemed redundant to me as I thought, as men, we spent our whole lives trying to make women feel special and loved, this, after all, is why they bless us with kissing, common sense, and the like. But I was mistaken, and this is a day dedicated to the woman, Venus, The Omega, Joann, Nancy, all things fallopian and uterine. Now growing up in a household where equal rights were served daily with my Frosted Flakes, I was fully prepared and embraced the festivities (read: scrambled to find Joann some of those damn golden flowers as soon as I could).
Clouds start to loom, so we break for a nice lunch in the Campo. There is a big to-do going on, so we decide to investigate. It seems that the equivalent of the Tour De France in Italy is ending today, and will finish in our very own Siena, our very own little Piazza del Campo…in about fifteen minutes. We do the only thing we can think of, grab some Fritelle (dough fried in desert wine…umm, yes please) and become instant cycling fans cheering on God knows who as they race toward the finish. Literally as the race ends so does my interest, so we head home to get ready for the big Birthday night out.
We decide on dinner in Piazza Del Mercato and a great little place called Papei. We sit down in the back and are quickly greeted by one of the two quirky characters that would stick out this weekend. Our waiter, a man of about 70 years, arrives and immediately starts guessing our nationalities. “He is Israeli and you are Spanish”…umm, close, but no, We go through this routine two more times before he decided it is ok to serve us now. Dinner is delightful but nothing of note. I leave in the middle to go to the “bathroom” and inform our waiter, well our busboy, that it is Joann’s birthday and if we could have a small piece of cake after our main course it would be really nice. He nods in half-agreement, half-whatthefuckareyousaying. I return to our table to find that our waiter has begun listing his Jewish friends (in my honor) one of them including “the best plastic surgeon in the world”…he makes a bit boobs gesture and scurries off. Soon after, our bus boy returns with two pieces of cake, no candles, but a good effort indeed. He starts to sing the classic birthday song but only gets as far as , “Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to…is this ok?”. I assured him that it was perfect and he quickly scampered back toward the kitchen. We enjoy them happily and are more than stuffed. It seems somewhere along the way our busboy conveyed to our waiter that it was her birthday and he hurriedly brings us dessert number 2, a small piece of a new cake, complete with an unlit birthday candle. He half-heartedly looked for a lighter on the walk over but decided that it would be just fine with the candle sans flame. We, after all, would get the point. I borrow a lighter from our friendly neighbors one table over and Joann blows out the candle making her wish. Not two minutes later the friendly waiter returns with dessert number 3. A small apple tort. Joann insists that she is full and cannot eat anymore, but implies that perhaps I would eat it. I do take one bite then do the “spread it around the plate so it looks like we ate more” move and set it aside. At this point we ask for our check, but instead receive dessert number 4. Another piece of yet another cake. I swear this one could have been the estranged Italian cousin of the chocolate éclairs at River Road Bakery. It was delicious. Some biscotti and dessert wine and we are on our way.
We arrive at our favorite little Irish Pub around 10 pm and most of the friends whom I have arranged to be there are there. Among them are the group of British girls Joann has befriended at her school (a young lass named MaLou being their leader), Flavio and our Brazilian buddies and two Brits named John and Steve who are in town working on the new James Bond Film (whom I befriended a few nights before).
Aside: They are filming the opening scene of the new James Bond film here in Siena. The guys who I met are building the set and are really, really pleasant. The scene is a chase scene through the sewers, Palio and rooftops of Siena. It should be cool, so look for that.
Steve the painter of the set upon learning of the reason for the celebration immediately starts buying bottles of champagne at the bar…2 at a time I think e got through 6 or 7 with our little group as the night progressed. They asked me if I would like to work on the set, which was a very encouraging thing to hear. I told them I was more than qualified to paint any set, carry any props, rub down any Bond Girls, be Daniel Craig’s butt double, or, if need be, be presented as 008 to the masses. Oddly, no one from the studio has called me yet, but I am holding out hope.
At midnight we brought out dessert number 5. A cake I had gotten made up the day before at a local bakery. Joann was happy and surprised, but quickly whispered that she would not be having ANY MORE cake for the remainder of the night. We passed pieces around the bar and soon the pastry was all but gone. As closing time approached we decide to head to another nightclub for some drinks…well, A drink. We enter the actually pretty nice club and I head to the bar to get Joann and I a drink. 1 glass of Prosecco and a Bourbon and Ginger…20 Euro (roughly 32 dollars)…umm, no. I offer my credit card, but they do not accept them. So I smile, take the drinks and walk away. My problem was not the price of the drinks (Ahem, Hudson and SkyBar), but the fact that they expected me to have this cash on me and not take my card was insulting. I graciously took my now free drinks and exited the club. The high heels have made their presence known and we head home for the night.
I am up early to enact plan B. I rent a scooter for a day trip out to Chianti through the Tuscan vineyards. The weather has turned and it is freezing and rainy, but we are determined. We have a huge breakfast at home and then hit the road. We are heading for a tiny little town in Chianti called Castelnuovo (New Castle), which is about 20 miles outside of Siena. A friend of ours, Giuseppe, has a restaurant there and he is expecting us for dinner. Giuseppe (or Peppe) gives us the vaguest possible directions. Only telling which road gets you in the vicinity and which exit has the name of his town on it. We make our best effort but are quickly lost. This is not a bad thing as it turns out. I believe that Peppe should have followed his really bad directions with, “oh and I want you to get lost because this is God’s country and you will see the most beautiful, breathtaking things you have seen in a while…and its wicked romantic, so don’t be an idiot and get lost with your girlfriend in the rolling hills of Tuscany, idiot”. This would have at least set me up for the beauty we were about to experience. Let us not forget that I am a man. And when I get lost all I want to do is find my way the fastest possible way and will never ask directions on how to do that. Somewhere on the road I let all of that go. It literally floated away with the wind behind our speeding scooter. And as the sun peeked out and a shadow of me and Joann riding through this postcard appeared on the road, something beautiful washed over me. I had this moment that I can only aptly describe as my “it is ridiculous that this is my life” moment. Everything was beautiful and perfect. A smile I haven’t produced in a while suddenly took away my sagging cheeks and all was just right.
We rolled through this countryside for about an hour before we found Castelnuovo. We check in with Peppe at the restaurant have some quick lunch and then check into our little bed and breakfast. As far as birthdays go, this one should have been in a romance novel. We decide to head back out on the scooter and just drive around to soak up some of the scenery. We drive for miles and miles, stopping here and there. We find and even smaller town about 10 miles away from Castelnuovo and stop to peek around. We happen upon a little shop that houses one mousy old man and some gigantic wine vats. Thus enters the second memorable character of the weekend. He opens the door for us and invites us into his house, not his store, his house. He makes wine, dessert wine, grappa and olive oil. He is the official supplier of wine to the American ambassador in Italy. This man takes us hand in hand and shows us around. His vats of impeccable chianti classico, his pungent olive oil, his private stash of vintages (’83,’81’, and ’71…I tried to buy an ‘81thinking it would be a great birthday gift, but he would not sell). He chats up Joann for an hour as we try different wines, (some of which we purchase) and then he shows us around this little town. This is pretty much the gist of his tour:
Cute old man: “There is a restaurant. I own that. There are a few buildings. I own them. Those building over there…I own them. There is a nice little café. I own that. Can I buy you some coffee?”.
Its pretty much how I imagine tours of New York City to be when I give them to my friends in about 25 years. Hey, a man can dream can’t he? We hop on our scooter and get all the way to Brolio before turning back as the sun was going down. The ride back is quick and frozen. We enjoy a very nice a quiet dinner at Peppe’s restaurant (we are literally the only customers on this night) and settle into our B&B for a cozy sleep.
A quick but once again cold ride back to Siena on Monday morning. We drop off our scooter and decide to head to the Sienese equivalent of city hall to see if I can maybe swing a work permit to work on the movie set…no such luck. I give a shout to Steve the painter to pass on the news (he is legitimately bummed, which is kind of flattering) but insists that Joann and I come by the set for a minute. We are in the neighborhood (nothing is very far in Siena) so we swing by. Steve whisks us away and soon we are decked out in our finest neon vests and hard hats. We get a really cool tour of the set! He shows us the story boards for the movie and then takes us inside one of the fake buildings all the way up to the roof where the action for the scene will take place (once again, keep an eye out for the opening scene where James will have to jump from roof to roof in Siena…we were on the roofs!). When we get to the top of the set the view is amazing and one of Siena we have not yet seen. Joann, Steve and I chat about the movie business and how cool of an experience this is for us before we climb back down, it is lunchtime after all and since we have befriended some good guys from Great Britain that means its beer drinking time. Honestly these guys drink until they are red in the face in the middle of the day,.,I decide then and there that I have to go to Britain. So we head to the pub and bullshit about anything and everything. As we are about to leave Joann gracefully gives me a look that says it all, “what a great end to a great weekend”.
CHECK OUT THE PICTURES!!!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Death of The Elephant (or Berrie Bonds)
I am guilty. I have not written in a while, but I swear I have a good excuse. Quite simply: I had to wait for some stuff to happen. But these past two weeks have yielded some good stuff, so here is what's been goin' on:
Valentines Day was fantastic. For a holiday that is impossibly overrated in America, it is almost pleasant here. No big hooplah, not giant teddy bears, just a few hints from the lingerie stores and florists and thats about it. This being the first one Jo and I have had together, I did take it a little more seriously though. I scoped out the most romantic restaurant in town, even the right table for the evening. We get all snazzy, take the bus into town (high heels can be a bitch on the cobblestones) and stroll into a half empty, fully candlelit love palace of a restaurant. We are greeted with the brilliant smile of a young hostess, who innocently asks for the name of our reservation. A quick but easily decipherable conversation takes place between Joann and this girl. A conversation which ends with Jo giving me a little smirk. The boyfriend of the year did not make reservations for Valentines Day dinner. To be fair, it seemed as if this would not be a roadblock, I mean this city didn't even seem to notice that this was International Love Day (or so Hallmark has ingrained in my head). Jo is giggling as we walk away, but I am a little ashamed. And the next half an hour doesn't help. We walk into restaurant after restaurant, osteria after osteria, and are consistently laughed at for not having a reservation. I know these poeple are laughing because, c'mon who doesn't make a reservation for tonight, but I feel like they are laughing at me. I become mildly enraged (to cover my embarrassment), but we move on. We find a nice little restaurant just of the Piazza del Campo and enjoy a very nice dinner (the highlight being an Angus Carpaccio with White Truffle). Lubed up on wine and sated from the fresh meat, we head to a new pub called The Tea Room. This place is a find. Completely hidden away but packed at all times. They have the most extensive tea menu I have ever seen and will actually make us real cocktails, which I enjoy. I finally get a my first Bourbon and Ginger Ale in Italy and could not be happier about it. At this point our feet are killing us from the special occasion high heels (well, I had sympathy pains) and we head home completely satisfied with our first Valentines Day together realizing it is entirely possible and almost a certainty that we don't need a special day at all to be in love. Valentines Day seemed normal. I think because we have had so much practice.
School has started...for both of us, actually. Joann has nearly finished her month long accelerated Italian Grammar course, which she breezed through and has begun the real classes at the Universita Di Siena. She is (very happily) being challenged and learning a ton from these classes. I am mainly excited because she no longer has to go to school five days a week, but rather three. More time for us to hang out...this is a good thing. I have started classes as well. I learned of some free Italian language classes at a community center and have started to attend. The place is called Corte dei Miracolo (center of miracles). This logically leads me to believe that this is where Jesus of Nazareth chose to study (sometime between the ages of 18 and 33)...I mean its the CENTER OF MIRACLES, an obvious choice for he who is called I Am. This is both exhilarating and discouraging. The former because its almost as cool as telling people that Dave Grohl (Nirvana;Foo Fighters) went to my high school (fact). It is however discouraging because something tells me that no matter how much progress I make, I will likely not be the most accomplished or revered student to study here. (Corte dei Miracolo supports none of the above speculation by the way). Honestly, it is a really good class. It is filled with people of all ages from numerous countries, whom all speak better Italian than me, but are very accepting. I, we, are learning a lot every day.
We went to our first soccer game. Siena vs. Torino. It was so much fun, but freezing. Once the sun sets on the stadium it is close to sub zero. The match itself was only mildly interesting, but ended in a 0-0 tie. We cheered mightily for Siena, and in the Torino section for that matter, which it turned out can be life threatening, but we survived. Soccer (or Calcio) here is a religion, and sundays is when they go to church. At around 3 pm on any given Sunday, every cafe is packed with screaming fans who live and die by their team. It is fun to participate in this, but I don't quite know how to curse properly in Italian yet, so screaming during the matches is out of the question thus far.
I played soccer...well, calcio. If you can believe that. My fat, lazy ass got out and played with some friends, all of whom are Brazilian or Italian. The conversation on the walk to the field went something like this:
Flavio: Jay, you are about to play with the best in the world. The champions. Italians and Brazilians.
Me: And you will soon know why American soccer is not respected.
But something amazing happens. I HOLD MY OWN. It should be said that this is not a full soccer field, but rather a thunder dome of calcio made for 5 on 5 action and caged in. It is, of course, in the backyard of a church, and literally looks like it would be a place to play in EA SPORTS FIFA STREET 2008. Its perfectly worn and dirty and run down. The game makes me feel involved, more than I can say for any sport I have played since 7th grade. I run, I pass, I shoot, I SCORE...an own goal, I run some more, I nearly puke, and then...I am chalking this one up to my lessons at Miracle school...I. JAY ZIMMERMAN. SCORE. A. GOAL. And it wasn't trash either...full on legit. I was glowing. We finish up and my new friend Daniel and I decide to go for a beer. This is when he informs me that he has been recruited by FC ROMA (one of the best soccer teams on earth) from his home in Brazil to be groomed for their starting squad. Needless to say, he was taking it easy on us out there on the field. Either way, I am very pleased with my performance and need to celebrate...and thats where Jerry Lee Lewis comes in.
Our favorite little bar, The Dublin Post, has decided to host a Rock and Roll night. Complete with Jerry Lee Lewis cover band. This is very exciting to me. We meet up with all of our friends at one of their apartments to pre game and head on over to the packed bar. I am in no shape to drive a car, but am fully prepared to steer this party straight into a frenzy. We grab a bottle of wine and head to the front of the crowd. In seconds we are dancing like madmen, swigging a bottle of pinot with the band and just having the time of our lives. It is packed and it is sweaty and it is loud and it is perfect. Somehow, in the mix of everything, my friend Heraldo's greaser wig has made its may to my bald head and I am being beckoned by the lead singer to join him. Thanks to Joann. I cat call the crowd until they are chanting my name, fists pumping and dancing on the tables....and I proceed to belt out the greatest version of Earth Angel that I could muster. As I canted the last bars of that really amazing song, I fall back into the waiting arms of my friends and become (likely) the first person to crowd surf this little Irish pub. It was an amazingly fun night.
I get an email from a close DJ friend of mine from New York, DJ Berrie...he is going to be spinning in Florence this week. Jo and I decide to take the hour long bus ride to Florence to see our first "American visitor" and have an actual night out at a club. Something we have not done since we arrived here. We arrive early in Florence and are able to have a full day to explore more of this amazing city. We do something Joann never did when she studied here and climb to the very top of the dome of the Duomo. This is a feat. It includes hundreds and hundreds of steps in tiny stone spiral staircases, but the view is worth the trek. It is breathtaking up there. You can see the expanse of Florence, it is actually quite large, and all of the landmarks from up there. We spend a few minutes soaking up the view and breathing in the thinner air before we climb back down. On the way up the stairs you make a little pitstop IN the dome and see the frescoes up close, which is really cool. When I mean up close, I mean you see the brush strokes of this masterpiece. And the way the dome was painted it is a scene that is all hellfire and brimstone on the bottom and then the characters and scenery rises into a heavenly depiction as the dome peaks. The references of the ascension into heaven from the darker base of hell is obvious, but in a twist that seems entirely too un-catholic, there are more people depicted in heaven than in hell, and its mostly animals and children residing with Lucifer and co. Either way, I find the hellacious creatures more intriguing and am lucky to get better pictures of them (Cerberus and skeletons and the like). From the Duomo we stroll around only half-shopping, until that is we stroll into the right store. We mutually decide that we have to take a gun and once and for all kill the elephant that has been residing in our room since we arrived.
Joann buys her first pair of shoes in Italy.
They are quite nice and it is a good feeling to have this first step behind us. We stop by the real church in Florence, Gucci, for a minute to tease ourselves then head back to the hostel for a quick nap before dinner. We meet up with Berrie and his manager for dinner at, of all places, Acqua Al Due (see the Florence blog). We are excited to return to this really great restaurant. This time around we decide to try the Blueberry steak, instead of the famed balsamic variety that we enjoyed so much last time. Gabriela, I am sorry to say this...but it was just as good, if not better. I never thought steak and blueberry sauce ("A1 and Blueberries" as DJ Berrie described it) could be so damn scrumptious. But it was and we were truly happy with the meal here once again. We were now ready to hit the club and start our night out on the town.
Its true that we were spoiled by the clubs in New York and Miami, and are probably too critical of the quality of clubs here, but this place turns out to be kind of nice and will draw a bottle-service guzzling band of American exchange students, so it will feel like home. Having grown up a little now, I see how close to being socially unacceptable college students can be, but the night goes smoothly. As usual, Berrie plays a set that has the room in a frenzy of dancing, drinking and erotic rubbing. The place is going nuts for this kid. I resume my managerial post (force of habit) behind Berrie in the DJ Booth...and decide to grab the microphone. It may not have been the right thing to do, but it seemed appropriate at the time and Berrie was into it, so I went ahead. I was every New York City radio DJ I always hated, but was truly enjoying myself..."DJ BERRIE IN THE PLACE....PUT YOUR HAND UP FLORENCE, WHERE YOU AT?"...as with most things I do, I cringe in hindsight, but have no regrets.
So that pretty much brings up up to date. We will continue with school and I am getting closer to finding work, but not closer to not being deported (yet).
Until the next.
CHECK OU T THE PICS
Valentines Day was fantastic. For a holiday that is impossibly overrated in America, it is almost pleasant here. No big hooplah, not giant teddy bears, just a few hints from the lingerie stores and florists and thats about it. This being the first one Jo and I have had together, I did take it a little more seriously though. I scoped out the most romantic restaurant in town, even the right table for the evening. We get all snazzy, take the bus into town (high heels can be a bitch on the cobblestones) and stroll into a half empty, fully candlelit love palace of a restaurant. We are greeted with the brilliant smile of a young hostess, who innocently asks for the name of our reservation. A quick but easily decipherable conversation takes place between Joann and this girl. A conversation which ends with Jo giving me a little smirk. The boyfriend of the year did not make reservations for Valentines Day dinner. To be fair, it seemed as if this would not be a roadblock, I mean this city didn't even seem to notice that this was International Love Day (or so Hallmark has ingrained in my head). Jo is giggling as we walk away, but I am a little ashamed. And the next half an hour doesn't help. We walk into restaurant after restaurant, osteria after osteria, and are consistently laughed at for not having a reservation. I know these poeple are laughing because, c'mon who doesn't make a reservation for tonight, but I feel like they are laughing at me. I become mildly enraged (to cover my embarrassment), but we move on. We find a nice little restaurant just of the Piazza del Campo and enjoy a very nice dinner (the highlight being an Angus Carpaccio with White Truffle). Lubed up on wine and sated from the fresh meat, we head to a new pub called The Tea Room. This place is a find. Completely hidden away but packed at all times. They have the most extensive tea menu I have ever seen and will actually make us real cocktails, which I enjoy. I finally get a my first Bourbon and Ginger Ale in Italy and could not be happier about it. At this point our feet are killing us from the special occasion high heels (well, I had sympathy pains) and we head home completely satisfied with our first Valentines Day together realizing it is entirely possible and almost a certainty that we don't need a special day at all to be in love. Valentines Day seemed normal. I think because we have had so much practice.
School has started...for both of us, actually. Joann has nearly finished her month long accelerated Italian Grammar course, which she breezed through and has begun the real classes at the Universita Di Siena. She is (very happily) being challenged and learning a ton from these classes. I am mainly excited because she no longer has to go to school five days a week, but rather three. More time for us to hang out...this is a good thing. I have started classes as well. I learned of some free Italian language classes at a community center and have started to attend. The place is called Corte dei Miracolo (center of miracles). This logically leads me to believe that this is where Jesus of Nazareth chose to study (sometime between the ages of 18 and 33)...I mean its the CENTER OF MIRACLES, an obvious choice for he who is called I Am. This is both exhilarating and discouraging. The former because its almost as cool as telling people that Dave Grohl (Nirvana;Foo Fighters) went to my high school (fact). It is however discouraging because something tells me that no matter how much progress I make, I will likely not be the most accomplished or revered student to study here. (Corte dei Miracolo supports none of the above speculation by the way). Honestly, it is a really good class. It is filled with people of all ages from numerous countries, whom all speak better Italian than me, but are very accepting. I, we, are learning a lot every day.
We went to our first soccer game. Siena vs. Torino. It was so much fun, but freezing. Once the sun sets on the stadium it is close to sub zero. The match itself was only mildly interesting, but ended in a 0-0 tie. We cheered mightily for Siena, and in the Torino section for that matter, which it turned out can be life threatening, but we survived. Soccer (or Calcio) here is a religion, and sundays is when they go to church. At around 3 pm on any given Sunday, every cafe is packed with screaming fans who live and die by their team. It is fun to participate in this, but I don't quite know how to curse properly in Italian yet, so screaming during the matches is out of the question thus far.
I played soccer...well, calcio. If you can believe that. My fat, lazy ass got out and played with some friends, all of whom are Brazilian or Italian. The conversation on the walk to the field went something like this:
Flavio: Jay, you are about to play with the best in the world. The champions. Italians and Brazilians.
Me: And you will soon know why American soccer is not respected.
But something amazing happens. I HOLD MY OWN. It should be said that this is not a full soccer field, but rather a thunder dome of calcio made for 5 on 5 action and caged in. It is, of course, in the backyard of a church, and literally looks like it would be a place to play in EA SPORTS FIFA STREET 2008. Its perfectly worn and dirty and run down. The game makes me feel involved, more than I can say for any sport I have played since 7th grade. I run, I pass, I shoot, I SCORE...an own goal, I run some more, I nearly puke, and then...I am chalking this one up to my lessons at Miracle school...I. JAY ZIMMERMAN. SCORE. A. GOAL. And it wasn't trash either...full on legit. I was glowing. We finish up and my new friend Daniel and I decide to go for a beer. This is when he informs me that he has been recruited by FC ROMA (one of the best soccer teams on earth) from his home in Brazil to be groomed for their starting squad. Needless to say, he was taking it easy on us out there on the field. Either way, I am very pleased with my performance and need to celebrate...and thats where Jerry Lee Lewis comes in.
Our favorite little bar, The Dublin Post, has decided to host a Rock and Roll night. Complete with Jerry Lee Lewis cover band. This is very exciting to me. We meet up with all of our friends at one of their apartments to pre game and head on over to the packed bar. I am in no shape to drive a car, but am fully prepared to steer this party straight into a frenzy. We grab a bottle of wine and head to the front of the crowd. In seconds we are dancing like madmen, swigging a bottle of pinot with the band and just having the time of our lives. It is packed and it is sweaty and it is loud and it is perfect. Somehow, in the mix of everything, my friend Heraldo's greaser wig has made its may to my bald head and I am being beckoned by the lead singer to join him. Thanks to Joann. I cat call the crowd until they are chanting my name, fists pumping and dancing on the tables....and I proceed to belt out the greatest version of Earth Angel that I could muster. As I canted the last bars of that really amazing song, I fall back into the waiting arms of my friends and become (likely) the first person to crowd surf this little Irish pub. It was an amazingly fun night.
I get an email from a close DJ friend of mine from New York, DJ Berrie...he is going to be spinning in Florence this week. Jo and I decide to take the hour long bus ride to Florence to see our first "American visitor" and have an actual night out at a club. Something we have not done since we arrived here. We arrive early in Florence and are able to have a full day to explore more of this amazing city. We do something Joann never did when she studied here and climb to the very top of the dome of the Duomo. This is a feat. It includes hundreds and hundreds of steps in tiny stone spiral staircases, but the view is worth the trek. It is breathtaking up there. You can see the expanse of Florence, it is actually quite large, and all of the landmarks from up there. We spend a few minutes soaking up the view and breathing in the thinner air before we climb back down. On the way up the stairs you make a little pitstop IN the dome and see the frescoes up close, which is really cool. When I mean up close, I mean you see the brush strokes of this masterpiece. And the way the dome was painted it is a scene that is all hellfire and brimstone on the bottom and then the characters and scenery rises into a heavenly depiction as the dome peaks. The references of the ascension into heaven from the darker base of hell is obvious, but in a twist that seems entirely too un-catholic, there are more people depicted in heaven than in hell, and its mostly animals and children residing with Lucifer and co. Either way, I find the hellacious creatures more intriguing and am lucky to get better pictures of them (Cerberus and skeletons and the like). From the Duomo we stroll around only half-shopping, until that is we stroll into the right store. We mutually decide that we have to take a gun and once and for all kill the elephant that has been residing in our room since we arrived.
Joann buys her first pair of shoes in Italy.
They are quite nice and it is a good feeling to have this first step behind us. We stop by the real church in Florence, Gucci, for a minute to tease ourselves then head back to the hostel for a quick nap before dinner. We meet up with Berrie and his manager for dinner at, of all places, Acqua Al Due (see the Florence blog). We are excited to return to this really great restaurant. This time around we decide to try the Blueberry steak, instead of the famed balsamic variety that we enjoyed so much last time. Gabriela, I am sorry to say this...but it was just as good, if not better. I never thought steak and blueberry sauce ("A1 and Blueberries" as DJ Berrie described it) could be so damn scrumptious. But it was and we were truly happy with the meal here once again. We were now ready to hit the club and start our night out on the town.
Its true that we were spoiled by the clubs in New York and Miami, and are probably too critical of the quality of clubs here, but this place turns out to be kind of nice and will draw a bottle-service guzzling band of American exchange students, so it will feel like home. Having grown up a little now, I see how close to being socially unacceptable college students can be, but the night goes smoothly. As usual, Berrie plays a set that has the room in a frenzy of dancing, drinking and erotic rubbing. The place is going nuts for this kid. I resume my managerial post (force of habit) behind Berrie in the DJ Booth...and decide to grab the microphone. It may not have been the right thing to do, but it seemed appropriate at the time and Berrie was into it, so I went ahead. I was every New York City radio DJ I always hated, but was truly enjoying myself..."DJ BERRIE IN THE PLACE....PUT YOUR HAND UP FLORENCE, WHERE YOU AT?"...as with most things I do, I cringe in hindsight, but have no regrets.
So that pretty much brings up up to date. We will continue with school and I am getting closer to finding work, but not closer to not being deported (yet).
Until the next.
CHECK OU T THE PICS
Friday, February 15, 2008
PIctures....
OK, so what I am going to do i post all the pics form our adventure on Flickr...a free photo website....since I am an idiot and cannot get it to work on Blogger......so at the end of the entries....try and check out the link to the FlickR site and see our pics!!!
Happy Valentines Day from both of us!!!
CHECK OUT THESE PICTURES
Happy Valentines Day from both of us!!!
CHECK OUT THESE PICTURES
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
