Europe 04: April 2004 Archives

Today, we felt so overwhelmed by Rome (it takes up six pages of maps in Lonely Planet, has 900 churches, et cetera) that we thought we would just learn the whole thing on foot, before choosing what activities to actually DO or pay for. You can't just museum-hop when it costs €8 per entrance. We walked to the Tiber River, Colosseum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza di Spagna, a big park, and then we stuffed ourselves into the subway during rush hour. SMART.

Now, we are armed with knowledge of Rome by foot, and have some chance of processing what we read in the books. For instance, we know how to get to the Vatican. We have to see the Sistine Chapel, right? Right. This kind of thing.

Okay, now the gross thing. This morning, I saw a stain on the pavement and guessed that it was the result of a pigeon's death; it was red and had feathers in it. Later, we learned exactly how such an event occurs. These two pigeons were chilling in the middle of the road, eating some garbage, and this truck comes rolling down the street. It was just a normal-sized truck, not moving very fast. The pigeons, they just didn't move, at all! One lucked out, he was right between the wheels. The truck rolled straight over the second one, at which point I quickly looked away, but I was pretty sure of what happened, because... well, it POPPED. Pigeons must be mostly filled with air. There was a loud pop, like if a soccer ball had slipped under the tires. And when I looked back, there was, like before, just a feathery stain.

I felt bad for the pigeon, but like I said to Jessica, live by the city, die by the city.

The browser on the computer in the internet cafe stores what you type in fields, for auto-completion. When I started a subject line on an email with the word "You", I was surprised to see "you are... nothing but a dream... i hope i never wake up. <3". I was writing to Steve, so that subject line would be accurate, but still. I hope I never wake up, Steve.

Other choice auto-completes include:

• italian men wear tight pants
• Whatever, I'm totally cuter than Sandra Bullock
• i sat next to a really stinky person on the bus- yuck!!!!
• VIBRATION. some real penetration .....

Li'l old Siena, with its public squares and gothic church, turns out to be quite a sporting town. We stumbled upon "Planet Basket" yesterday, not just a sports bar, but a basketball bar. They had old wool jerseys from Italian teams 30 years back, pictures from the 1960 Olympics in Rome, and group photos of Siena's local team. And cheap beer.

Last night, distant shouting drew us in the direction of the stadium, where Siena was playing Milan in front of a shouting, chanting, drumming sold-out crowd.

This morning, as we stumbled out of our hotel, numbered runners kept picking their way through the crowd on the main street outside the Piazza del Campo (the central square in town). There was a massive race, beginning and ending a couple hundred yards from our hotel.

So much sport! Not what I would expect from the wine-drinking, chain-smoking, fashionably-dressed Italians.

Florence is a huge tourist trap!

Not the whole thing, I'm sure. It has amazing old buildings and lots of art, so people come from EVERYWHERE to check it out. Most places in the center of the city, there are more tourists than locals. We don't really like that scene. But what can you do? The best stuff is likely to attract the most people. That's the law, or something.

So we're going to go on a big walk into neighborhoods more on the edge of town, to see if we can escape the wandering hordes. Wish us luck.

We are in Florence now but no report on that yet, cause we just got here. We been hanging out in the Italian part of Switzerland with Cyrille's family, including some aunts, uncles, and cousins, and chilling deep. Lots of eating over the Easter holiday. Easter is big out here. Especially for the Italians. Literally everything in Italy was closed Sunday and Monday. I guess Sunday is the Jesus day and on "Easter Monday" everything's still closed, for some kind of family day. Nice tradition, I guess, but it seems like everything is always closed in Switzerland. Like, it's illegal to have stores open past 6 or 7 pm, so the workers can go home and spend time with their families. Enlightened, perhaps, but inconvenient! One time, we were trying to buy beer, and all the stores in Fribourg Canton (it's like a state) were closed by law, so we went to the train station, which is federal property, so the train station stores can be open later. Dumb, right? But we got our beer.

Today I went skiing in the Alps! How crazy is that. The mountains are the border between Switzerland & France, so at the top they have immigration & customs! Cause you can honestly just ski into France.

As a skiing day, however, it was pretty awful. The thickest clouds I've ever skied in. We got so lost because we couldn't see anything or anyone. At one point, we got just a little bit off the main trail but had no idea which direction to go to get back. Objects would appear and disappear as the clouds' thickness changed.

A weird thing happened. With such flat light, combined with heavy clouds, I couldn't see the terrain or any reference points. I was just looking out ahead and skiing by feel. I went over a hill, and as I came down, I must have accelerated. A building and a fence came into view, and I suddenly couldn't process the speed at which they were coming at me. For a moment, they felt like they were getting closer far faster than they should. It made me feel dizzy, so I just bailed out and fell down.

What was that? Some kind of skiing vertigo? Is it related to what happens to scuba divers when they can no longer tell which direction is up? Give me the scoop. It felt interesting, but ultimately scary.

My web site has been down since I got to Europe, so I haven't written anything since that first day. But suffice to say, we have been busy. Been going all over this country! It's really not that big.

Dairy here is the best. We ate this stuff called "double cream." It's just cream, I guess, but thicker than yogurt. So rich! You can put it in your coffee, or on meringue, which is the best. Or eat it straight. Double cream is a real highlight of the trip, so far. Weird, I know.

We spent the other day in Basel, which is a nice-sized city in the north of Switzerland, right on the border with France and Germany. You can walk to either of those countries from Basel. This city was way smaller than Portland, but seemed to have far more art. The Rhine River runs through, and there's easy access to it. Between each of the bridges, there's a ferry you can take across. Like Vera's legendary "river taxis," but actually real. It felt like the "European city" everyone talks about. Really compact and easy to walk around. Streetcars that go to all parts of town. Plenty of public art and art museums. All in all, it felt like it had as much to offer as Portland, culturally, even though it is far smaller (165,000 residents). Wow. I could definitely live there.

I have pictures to post, but I've had very limited computer time, so I will have to get to them later.

We must not have jet lag, because we couldn't have just biked 40 miles if we did, right? We got in yesterday afternoon, and were instantly whisked away on a comfy, quiet train, to the comfy, quiet town of Belfaux. It's rural (there are cows and such), but you can very quickly get to a medium-sized city by train. Or even a big one. The President of Switzerland, he lives in this little house that we biked by today. He commutes into Bern daily. I guess there's no security or anything special. He just chills out.

Cows. Every little town seems to have its own dairy. They make their own cheese and yogurt in this little laiteries (we're in a French-speaking part of the country). I guess there are all these techniques for getting milk with the most cream -- picking carefully, coming at a certain time of day, or just knowing the right person. "Cholesterol" is not part of the national vocabulary.

We're staying with Cyrille's family, who are smart and active. We didn't bike those 40 miles today with Cyrille -- he slept in. They were with his dad, Hubert. And now he's out mowing the lawn. Do these people ever quit?