The Final Year

Phew. I made it out of Rome with all my possessions. I can’t believe it. After all the horrible stories I’d heard, I managed to get out unscathed. Ahead was a rather straightforward train ride to my next destination, a small set of fishing and farming villages called collectively Cinque Terre. Five Towns? Five Lands? Something like that. Anyway, everyone who’s anyone who’s been to Italy has been to Cinque Terre and highly recommends it. So I went. It was on the way to Paris anyhow. I had seen some old, blurred, grainy still photos of the place that led me to believe it might possibly be the home of the Loch Ness monster, but had no other information about it. The towns are on the west coast towards the north of Italy, and are called, from north to south, Monterrosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manorolo, and Riomaggore. My hostel exists in Riomaggore, the belowest one. I arrived with most of the afternoon to poop around the place. There’s a pathway I was told about beforehand that allows walking between the towns, which are nestled into tiny furrows in the sheer Italian cliffs. The pathway was built over a hundred and fifty years ago by local farmers who needed to access their crops and their neighbors. In 1990, much like 1492, Cinque Terre was "discovered", and has been a booming tourist destination ever since. The buildings are old terra cotta squares painted in every Mediterranean color ever seen, so that the sheer cliffs seem to just meld into vertically-stacked cubes of color at each town. There is a fairly reliable train system between the towns, and a ferry that goes between them as well. The walk through all the towns was said to take 4-5 hours, so I left that for the next day, if I felt like it. Instead I went down to "the beach" of Riomaggore, basically some flat places on the rocks that allowed for both sunbathing and getting splashed with big sprays of crashing Mediterranean sea. To be honest, however, the ocean really wasn’t that tempestuous, rather calm and awfully turquoise under the punishing Italian sun.
   It has been a lifelong…um, dream is too strong, I guess interest, of mine to see the Mediterranean. I can’t really explain it except that growing up on sailboats where the smallest body of water I’d ever seen was the Pacific ocean, I wondered as a child quite often whether or not you could see the other side if you looked across this inland sea. I imagined standing on the toe of the boot of Italy and looking across the water to see a hazy Moroccan mountain range rising faintly above the horizon. I just couldn’t quite imagine it in my head, similar to how I couldn’t quite imagine the Midwest, because in my mind I’d always add little hazy peaks in the distance above the flat plains. So, it was a particular goal of mine to dip my feet in the Mediterranean, and to taste it a little, because I also wondered how any salt could make it in large enough quantities through the Strait of Gibraltar to permeate such a large sea. I always thought of the Mediterranean as much more fresh-water-ish than the Pacific. That was, of course, before I learned how the salt gets into oceans, and all that, but still.
   The above-explained beach at Riomaggore, however, left no room for dipping feet in. It was either out or in, dry or jump in to swim. So I left this little item on the agenda for the next day. Instead I walked up one of the spiderwebs of steep carved stone stairways on one side of the Riomaggore bay to a cafe on the point way up high overlooking the "beach" and the rest of the town. Everything in Cinque Terre is way up high or at sea level. There is little in between. This affords absolutely stunning views everywhere you turn, which is why it became so popular so fast as a tourist spot. As I sat there, just across from me on the cliffs on the other side of the inlet, a man climbed up to dizzying height wearing nothing but a bathing suit. Then, inexplicably, he just jumped off. Backwards. I almost had a heart attack as I watched his body tumble helplessly dozens of feet to the ground below, except that instead of ground there was a 3 foot square bit of shallow water. Except that this little tidal pool was not shallow at all, I saw it was incredibly deep as he disappeared into the watery darkness in a small explosion of downward thrusted bubbles. After a few seconds, his head emerged, he whipped his hair back like swimmers do when they know girls are watching, and launched himself out onto a low flat rock nearby. Cliff divers. Eventually he repeated the process, doing various death defying maneuvers in mid air each time, not turning all the vertebrae in his neck to powder again and again as he always managed to hit liquid instead of solid. I knew it couldn’t last for long, so I quickly finished my coconut ice cream served in half a coconut and paid the bill.
   I felt like testing this whole "walking" thing, so I decided to take the trek to the next town over, Manorolo, knowing I could always just hop on the tram back if it got too late or if I was too tired. I took the 200 or so 2′ steps up to the start of the path, which mostly cantilevers out from the sheer cliff face the majority of it’s distance. When I got to the top, a stern woman held me up for €3. I wondered what the world had come to that I would have to pay $4 just to take a walk, but I read the sign next to her which read my mind. "You may be wondering why you have to pay just to take a walk, but we assure you it is a good investment. All proceeds go to the maintenance and upkeep of this hand built masterwork." Sufficiently assuaged, I forked over and got my ticket, and set off. 10 minutes later, I was in Manorolo. So much for a tough walk. The distance had been turned into a sort of Lover’s Lane, with paintings and hand-written dedications (sort of like graffiti, except painted or drawn by hand by average people passing by. Ok, exactly like graffiti.) lining most of the distance between the towns. The stone path was sometimes precariously perched out over the water and rocks below, and sometimes carved into the cliff in a half-tunnel with arched openings looking out over the Med. It was quite pleasant, but I felt a bit out of place as I passed one couple after another trying desperately to eat the face off of their partner using only their lips. These were mostly violent affairs, as though one would eventually pull away to reveal the gaping fleshless skull of the other, and jab his/her hands into the air in triumph. It reminded me of my youth.
   Manorolo was nice as well, if not surprisingly fairly similar to Riomaggore. More steep stairways as main streets, more multi-colored cubes with clotheslines, more big craggy rocks acting as beaches.
The descent into the town was riddled with big signs that had a menacing skull and crossbones and said in several different languages something about an incredibly dangerous pathway. I think it was mostly dangerous because of the bevy of distracting topless sunbathers just beyond your toes 100 feet below. Yes, there were topless sunbathers. No, Nicholas, I did not take pictures of them. Manorolo explored, and the sun rapidly plunging, I set off back to Riomaggore, trying not to get attacked by a roving face gnasher.
   When I returned to my room to deposit my things and get ready for dinner I ran into my roommate, a guy named Dave from Pennsylvania. He asked if I wanted to get some food and then watch the game (France vs Portugal), and since that was exactly what I had planned, and he didn’t look like he wanted to eat face for dinner, I agreed. We went downstairs, a long and tricky process in these parts, and across the "street" (ramp) to an Italian place for some excellent food. Then we stamped our way downhill a few doors to a bar with a big tv and planted ourselves for the remainder of the evening. By the end of the extremely disappointing game (Dave was even wearing a Portugal jersey, so he was understandably upset) we had a group of people from all over the world gathered around us and we all yammered away in various languages until wee.
   The next morning I decided that I would take it easy. From various people I heard that Vernazza was the most beautiful of the Cinque Terre, and I also knew that Manterosso was the largest of the five, so since they were right next to each other I planned to take the ferry (I was seriously longing for a water ride) to the top, then hike down to Vernazza, then take the ferry back. Sounded like a nice day. I’d never get to see Corniglia, but I figured it would be enough. This sounds long written out, but was merely a fleeting thought as I raised my head at eight in the morning and put it down again, passed out. By about 11 I was stirring around the place, which was more like an apartment than a hostel room. I had four other roommates, Dave, who slept above me in the bunk, and in the other room three girls, two from America who were completely awful and one named Myra from someplace else I never discovered who was actually quite nice. The place was decked out with a kitchen, complete with refrigerator, microwave, and dishes, a TV with tons of channels, and to top it all of, the holy grail, a free (!) ensuite (in the suite) WASHING MACHINE. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. It had no dryer, but that was what all the clotheslines were for. I had put a load in before we went to dinner the night before, and now it was all dry and ready for me. It was like a really pathetic Christmas.
   By noon I had eaten breakfast, gotten rained on, went back upstairs to retrieve my umbrella, and was standing down on the craggy rocks as an impossibly large vessel slipped into the impossibly small landing area, where two crewmen tossed loops of thick line onto large cleats from an impossible distance. Then out came a gangway on rollers, one end attached to the bow of the boat on a hinge that rotated in all directions. This was to allow the boat, pitching a full 10 feet up and down in the much larger than yesterday swells, to maintain contact with the ramp, which, due to some laws of physics I hope they had thoroughly investigated, also maintained contact with the flat craggy rock below. I think it has something to do with the length of the lines they were using to tie the boat to the shore, but in any case the gangway bucked and rolled and generally threw enormous tantrums, but never once came close to dislodging. It was a blast. 25 minutes later I arrived at Monterosso. It really was larger, probably fitting 3 or 4 Riomaggores within it’s limits. And, eureka!, a beach. An actual beach, with proper rocks (small and rounded) to walk on. I got off the boat, ran to the end of the dock, stripped off my shoes and socks, and plunged into the water. It was beginning to rain again, which I was worried might throw off the results of my scientific test. I reached a hand into the crashing water, and tasted the end of my finger. Salty. Quite salty. I gazed as hard as I could to the horizon, still visible under the large gray clouds. Nothing. Just water as far as the eye could see. Of course, from where I was standing, if I was going to see anything it would have been France. But I couldn’t. Two life lessons in one minute. My mission complete I returned to my hastily cast off equipment (I had tossed my cell phone and ipod in my shoe, and left my camera with them, knowing I might get quite wet, and I was happily correct). With soggy bottom I wended my way through the expansive set of steep, multicolored cubes with clotheslines. Then a thought occurred to me. I had to catch an 8 am train the next day, and I would probably need a reservation, but I did not know how early the bigletterias would open, so I unhappily had to face the reality that a trip all the way down past Riomaggore to the main train station in La Spezia was in my very near future. I found out how to buy a ticket, hopped aboard, and spent the next hour and a half getting myself situated for the next day, and back up to Vernazza, the walk abandoned.
   Vernazza was quite beautiful, more than the others I do not know. But I still hankered for a walk, and I wondered if I might make it to Corniglia by foot, and in that way round out all five towns. I decided that even though the hour was late (4:30) I could risk it. I reached the entrance to the walkway and paid the one euro entrance fee (why so cheap on this end?!) and walked straight up and up and up to find…a castle. A castle turret, actually, which I ascended and looked out from to see the entire Italian coast line for many miles. But no walkway. I descended again, understanding the price difference, and found another entrance gate. This time I made sure I was in the right place. €3 later, I walked through the gate to find a British man taking a picture of a cat lounging at the base of a red doorway in the last multicolored cube of the town. He looked at me as if I was crazy, which I didn’t quite understand. I checked my fly and wiped my face in case there was some lunch left on it. That didn’t help. Finally I asked what his problem was (in a very very polite way). He sort of gently let on that I was in no way equipped for such a walk. I was expecting a longer version of Lovers Lane, sans face suckers, but he explained that the hike from Vernazza to Corniglia was the longest and by far the most difficult of the treks, beginning with thousands of rocky steps straight up the cliff face. He mentioned that I might at least get a bottle of water first, and tie my shoes really tight to help with traction and ward off blisters. He asked if I had a snake-bite kit, any splints for compound fractures, and whether I had packed a heat blanket in my trousers. Then he pointed to his sat phone and gps, and around the corner ambled his St. Bernard. I thanked him and returned back to Vernazza. Not about to be deterred, however, I bought the largest bottle of cold water I could find, and, ten pounds heavier, returned to the gate. The man was gone, and I laughed at his overcautiousness. I mentioned that he was already gone.
   I set off around the corner and smacked my shoulders into the first step. Hup, I climbed on top of it, feeling the rush of a new challenge ahead, and just kept on climbing until I was so exhausted that I had to take a rest. I gulped some water, now half gone, and stared up at the amazing vertical distance still looming, almost unchanged, above my head. I decided that I would feel better if I looked back to see all that I had already conquered, and marveled with pride at the three steps below me. Hup.
   After four days I wished I had at least thought to bring some toilet paper, as there were few leaves on this section of the trail and the rocks were starting to chafe. Still I climbed. Stair after steep stair, until I launched headlong over the edge, and found a pleasantly down-sloping trail stretching off into the distance, and the most dizzying panoramic view of Italy and it’s marvelous blue coast all around me. I had reached the top. I enjoyed the breeze and the sudden plant life as I strolled easily down the lane, drenched in dusty sweat. This was going to be an incredible walk, now that I had the hard part behind me. I turned a corner and gasped as I smacked my forehead into the tallest, steepest, endlessest stairway I’ve ever seen. I suddenly wanted a lolly.

   I had really only started the ascent, but it got a bit easier as I found a rhythm. Besides, the views were so breathtaking that I sort of just forgot about the steepness of it. And, eventually, yes, it leveled out again, this time for a good portion of the distance between the towns. The problem is that Corniglia is the only of the Terre that is above sea level. Well above sea level. So you have to ascend to it, either on one end or the other. After the stairs had abated I found myself walking through big steep fields of wonderful smells. The plants in this part of Italy are similar to those of Southern California, tall green brush and prickly pear dominate most areas. The path suddenly reached a forested clearing, and I’m sorry that that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s undeniably what it was. I wandered through this rather odd place, sprouting up out of the rest of the plant life with trees all of the same variety. Moving on I found that these strange forested clearings would crop up every now and then, so I became increasingly curious as to their motives. It wasn’t until I turned yet another corner and came face to face with a small, vertically stepped vineyard that I remembered that these people were farmers. When the fish were out, they caught, when it was time for growing, they farmed, and in their considerable free time in between these, they built incredibly dangerous roadways. What did they farm, do you think? Well, I hate to be cliche, but they grow only grapes, olives, and tomatoes. How Italian is that? Those little forested clearings were olive…um…orchards, I must name them, though I have no idea what a gathering of planted olive trees are called. The rest of the journey went through these spectacular growing areas, until I finally emerged past a vertical stream into the town of Corniglia. I had left Vernazza at 5:15, and it was exactly 6:45 when I arrived, meaning that the whole thing lasted just an hour and a half, and yet I felt as though I had traveled hundreds of miles.

   I went through Corniglia rather quickly, there’s not much to see in this place except vertically stacked multi-colored cubes with clotheslines, and ran into a couple from England from whom I could ask directions to the train station. "It’s quite a walk," they said sceptically, "You have to descend a ton of stairs all the way down to the beach below." ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME.

"Um, ok, thanks, I’ll just go do that then." Sigh.

These stairs were different than the others, thankfully. They were wide flat brick affairs, and before long I was hopping down at a decent rate. When I got to the bottom, I had a decision to make. I knew that the walk from Manorolo to Riomaggore was a piece of cake, so I decided that if I could find out how difficult the walk from Corniglia to Manorolo was, I might just keep going. I found a nice lady behind the counter of the snack store at the train station and asked her in the best hand-gestured pidgin English I could to tell me how difficult the terrain was from here to the next town south. She gave a single welcome response, a horizontal swipe with her flat hand across her body indicating a completely flat walk. Ok. I was in business. 20 minutes, she said. Well, I have learned to multiply all walking times given by Europeans by three, and sure enough when I got to the trail head the sign said 1 hour to Manorolo. I set off. This time I got to go over a creepy but solid suspension bridge on my seaside trek. The path ascended slightly as it reached the end of the bay and got ready to go around the point, but not before going over a nude beach (no, Nicholas). It was getting late, and the sky was the image of threatening. Grey, dark, windy, oh, yeah, and lightning hitting the water at regular intervals about a mile out. I was worried that I might get caught in some bad weather, which would make this dangerous path downright fatal, but before I knew it I was walking through Manorolo, and this time I knew exactly how to proceed through the vertically stacked multi-colored cubes with clotheslines.

   After a few moments of walking this easy part of the trail, I came to a bar/restaurant I had forgotten about from the previous day. All their seating was outside, on a metal grate cantilevered out over the cliffs. You sit down at a table and look between your knees to the crashing ocean a hundred feet below. It’s quite thrilling, just as long as nothing falls out of your pockets. I looked around at the tables of face suckers around me and decided they were sufficiently occupied so that I could have a bit of dinnerIwasstarving unmolested. Fried calamari. With lemon. Mmm. By then the weather was telling everyone to just get out of the damn way, so I scooted back as quickly as I could to my little town of Riomaggore. Home sweet home. I left Vernazza at 5:15, and arrived in my town at 8:45. A short time for the best hike I’ve ever done. It was absolutely breathtaking, as I think I’ve already mentioned. Please don’t skip Cinque Terre if you ever go to Italy.

   After a big argument with the clerk in the office of my hostel about being late, he finally allowed me to pay and grudgingly gave back my passport, which I thought for a moment I was going to have to wrestle him for. He was mad that I showed up at 8:45 when the office closed at 8, except he was just sitting there on the porch outside not doing anything, not waiting for me, in any case, so there was no problem, but he was upset.

"Why you so late! Come back tomorrow!"

"Sorry, I can’t, I have to-"

"We closed now, why it take you so long?! Where you be?!" as he led me through the door to the office.

"I’m sorry, I was-"

"Yes, yes, you miss the bus! You always miss the bus! Get another bus!"

Genuinely confused, I replied, "But, actually-"

"How many people?!"

"What?"

With a look of isn’t-this-guy-just-the-dumbest, throwing his arms in the air, "How Many People Are You?"

"One." Grr.

"45! CASH!"

I threw the money on the table. He took out my passport from the drawer and looked it over. He opened it, held the picture up to me, scrutinizing the resemblance. The picture was taken about two months ago, so there really should be no problem. He was just being an ass. "How do I know this is you?!"

"Give me my passport. Now!"

He just sat there, looking at it. So I snatched it out of his fingers. He began to protest, but I looked at him in the way that says I’ve had just about enough of your attitude, so he shrank back into his chair. "Check out is at 10 am SHARP. No 45 minutes late!" Believe me, I won’t be.

   I went back upstairs and deposited my things, then took a very welcome shower after I put my clothes from that day in the washer. Hey, it was free. It had begun to rain again, so I went down to the bar where I saw my roommates Dave and Myra flirting with each other. I said hello, but didn’t want to intrude, so after a few minutes I left, realizing that if I wanted a good night’s sleep I’d have to get to bed at 10.

   The next day was going to be a doozy, as my first of four trains was scheduled to leave at 6:45 in the morning from the Riomaggore train station. I set two alarms and went to sleep, being awakened at midnight by the two awful girls who did not know I was there, then again at one by Dave, coming home drunk from the bar and clumsily climbing up on the bunk bed, then again at two when Myra came home, and Dave went back down off the bed to drunkenly hit on her some more. By six the next morning I was fried. I packed as silently as I could, something at which I’ve become somewhat of an expert, and gave the free washing machine a hug before I left for good. I found a key drop box outside the manager’s office and wedged it in there, then picked up the train from Riomaggore to La Spezia. My train from La Spezia to a place called Parma was scheduled to leave at 7:52, but a notice next to it on the board said it would be 35 minutes late. This was bad, so I looked up on my phone how much of a layover I had in Parma. It said 50 minutes, so I was ok. My train actually came 40 minutes late, so I got on hoping the delay would not worsen as we went along. I had to catch a 10:40 train from Parma to Milan, but when I got to Parma I found that that train was also delayed, by 20 minutes. Again, I consulted my phone which told me I had a 30 minute layover in Milan before my train for Geneva left at 12:25. I would still be ok if it didn’t get any later than that. The problem was that I was switching from the incredibly unreliable Italian train system to an incredibly precise Swiss one. I knew that the train to Geneva would leave the station exactly on time. I stepped off the train in Milan at 12:22, and in two minutes had found my next train listed on the departures board and run to the track, sitting down in my seat just as the train pulled away 30 seconds early. It was only then, after 3.5 hours of wrenched gut, that I was finally able to relax.

   Through the Italian and Swiss alps we glided, with views of spectacular cliffs and green trees and deep, clear blue lakes. The largest of which was lake Geneva, which took a full 45 minutes to get around before we arrived in Geneva. This lake is so large that if you look at it lengthwise you can actually see the horizon drop away before the other side. Geneva is situated at one end of it, surrounded on three sides by France. It’s as though Switzerland was a drop of water that landed with a plop in the middle of Europe, and Geneva is situated at the end of one of the tendrils of splattered water. I emerged from the train station after changing some money into Swiss Franks to find a  clean, bustling city full of people of all colors. It was quite different from many of the all-white northern European cities I’d seen. Everyone seemed to be smiling as they went about their business, and I just kind of strolled around looking at things in a non-specific way. I liked it here. It felt safe and crisp in the way Italy felt mean and smelly. I wandered until I found an internet cafe at about 8pm and went inside to see what the news of the world was. I was in there until about 10:30. And that’s when I discovered the real truth about Geneva. If you’ve read The Time Machine, by HG Wells, you know about the Morlocks and the Eloi. The Eloi are a quiet, happy race of people in the future who live above ground and play in temples and fountains all day. But at night, they crowd into a single room to sleep, because it’s then that the Morlocks emerge from underground, evil and strong, destroying everything in their path and eating whatever Eloi they can get their hands on. I walked out of the internet cafe to find riots in the streets. Disgusting old prostitutes and their cigar-smoking pimps mobbed me as I walked down the street, littered with upturned burned-out cars, homeless people under blankets of newspaper, and the distant wail of people being assaulted. A warm and eerie breeze blew through the streets, before quaint and small, now narrow and menacing. I turned a corner to get back to the main street, but it had gone. I was hopelessly lost, confused tremendously by the fact that earlier I had known exactly where I was, but now couldn’t find anything that looked familiar. Tough-looking guys sized me up as I hurriedly walked past, throwing nervous glances over my shoulder, hoping I wouldn’t get hit by a thrown beer bottle or trip over a sleeping foot. I saw a sign atop a large building that said HILTON in big green letters. It was a couple blocks away, but I felt like it might be a safe place to pull out my map to find my way back.  By the time I got there I was nearly in tears, totally turned around and disjointed. The woman behind the counter looked at me, frightened, as I pulled out my map and tried to convey how hopelessly lost I was. I think she thought I was trying to pull something on her, but she was obliged to help me until she knew for sure. She gave a terse look at my map, put an x where the Hilton was, and pointed to the nearest exit. It was all I needed. I hurried back through the screaming mob, ducking projectiles and hopping over impromptu street arson. Eventually, I turned down the dark, scary street of my hostel, completely deserted but for a few thieves competing with each other for my possessions. Before they got it sorted out, I ran for my hostel, slamming the door in their face as I reached the safety of my secure home. Geneva is scary.

   This morning I awoke to find a bright, clean, beautiful, sunlit city out my window, with no evidence of the previous night’s activities. The upturned cars were gone, the charred marks on the pavement washed away. No broken glass or graffiti remained, and old ladies walked their dogs as though everything was just peachy. I guess there’s just a normal-person 10pm curfew here. I will not forget. Today I want to take a ride out on the lake, if that’s at all possible. Anyway, I have a lot to do before hell returns tonight. More later!

-C

Well, we’re reaching the end of our time here. I say our because through this blog it’s felt like you all are here with me. Without the smell. I leave Rome tomorrow and head to a place called Cinque Terra (five towns, or something). After two nights there I head to Geneva for two nights, and then into the forbidden land of France to meet my parents in Paris. Then it’s three nights there and four nights in England, and back home. I can unfortunately for the first time see the finish line.

   After stowing my things and locking the room, I went out through the throng of pickpockets, who actually aren’t so bad once you get to know them. I keep slapping their hands away as they reach for my pockets and we laugh and laugh. I bought a fantastic thing at the train station called a Roma Pass, which for €18 gives free (or whatever you call it when you pay ahead) access to all forms of transportation in Rome for three days, and also gives a 50% discount at any Roman museum or attraction, and free access to the first two of these, also for a three day period. Most places cost approximately €12 to enter, so it is a very good deal. But there was really only one thing on my mind at that point. I wanted to see the Pantheon.

   The Pantheon is a large room with a dome on top of it. The inside of the domed room looks exactly like any of the dozens of domed rooms I’ve seen so far on this trip, with one unique exception. It was built 1500 years before them. Yes, one thousand five hundred years before the Renaissance. That’s about 2000 years before now. Two Thousand Years. And it is in basically perfect condition. As you might guess, it being built two thousand years ago and it being in Rome, it was built by The Romans. The dome is 6-19 feet of solid concrete (it varies from top to bottom) mixed so well that after two millennia there is not a single crack in this massive curved roof. It has a hole right in the center of the dome, called an oculus, that allows any type of weather, mostly sunshine and rain, to fall inside 24 hours a day. The floor is therefore shaped ever so precisely to allow for drainage but not make you think you were walking on the surface of a very small planet. After seeing the floor of the Basilica in Venice, which was 600 years old, I was shocked at how utterly perfect that slight curvature still is. There are little drain holes around the perimeter of the room to let the water flow off into the Roman sewers. Also, the dome is so precisely crafted that you could fit a sphere into the inside of the dome, resting on the floor in the center, and it would clear by only millimeters all the way around. This is the most geometrically perfect building made by the Romans, and the dome was the largest in the world until St. Peter’s was constructed in the Renaissance. Thus, the Pantheon is a sort of Architectural Mecca, the penultimate pilgrimage point for all those studying or interested in the field.

   I got to the building at 5:35, knowing that they closed at 6:00. It was enough time, however, to snap a few hundred pictures and investigate this no-crack thing thoroughly before deciding it was indeed true. The mean Italian usher lady began her job of crowd removal at an insultingly early 5:50, but I kind of just hid in the shadows until I was the last one there, standing by the doorway, snapping photos of the completely empty space. The first item on My List checked off, and it being too late to really tackle much else that had an entrance, I looked at my map to see if there was anything else I could see. I found I was across the street from Trevi Fountain.

   This I knew from various pictures and movies and stories my mother told me. I went to the point on the map where it said Trevi was, and was astonished to find a place the size of a small city block, all carved marble and clear blue flowing water. And also a half a million people. There were people throwing coins into the basin, but not like you or I would. Some were throwing them over their shoulder, some were each holding half of a coin and tossing it in together, and I even saw one spinning around in circles until he got dizzy and fell down, forgetting the coin altogether. It was very strange. Not wanting to look like too much of a tourist (a futile gesture as my gigantic camera swung from my neck and I wore my "what the hell is going on here" face), I just sat down and tried to listen in on people’s explanation of the coin tossing techniques. The tossing over your shoulder maneuver is to one day bring you back to Rome. If you like this city, you go to Trevi fountain, turn your back to it, and throw a coin in behind you. The couple thing was if you were going to get married. When you got engaged, you went to the Trevi fountain, each gripping one half of a coin, and tossed it in together. The spinning around until you are dizzy thing is what you do if you’re a 6 year old boy and you’re bored at Trevi fountain, which he was, so that fit. I turned around, giving Rome, in my opinion, quite the benefit of the doubt, and threw five EuroCents in to the massive pool of perfectly colored water.

   I kept walking and found myself in front of an enormous white columned building that stood gloriously over a large grassy circular area that no one could reach because of the 125 or so honking taxis that wended their way around it at 40 miles per hour. Past that massive thing, whatever it was, I found some really old ruins of Roman stuff, with broken columns and decrepit archways on either side of the road. Past that I turned the corner and slammed my face into the Colosseum. It seems like I find all the most amazing, famous things in Europe by complete accident. It was closed, but I walked around it as a little taste of what I would see when I took the tour inside sometime in the next couple of days. The sun was setting, casting a bright orange light on the ancient thing, and I just stood there salivating. Then I ate dinner at a quaint sort of place with very nice waiters, a rarity in Italy, and, it being dark by then, caught a cab back to my place. No muggings for Chris.

   In my room I found a homeschooled daughter from just outside of Baltimore who was 18 and just graduated from college (COLLEGE), and the thing that made her a daughter, her mother, who is The. Most. Annoying. Woman. In. Rome. She is Polish by birth and quite embarrassed about it, and has lived in America ("the greatest land in the world, I mean it’s just the greatest place, and everyone is so wonderful that it just makes it the greatest place I can think of, I mean really it’s just so wonderful.") for more than 20 years while somehow holding on to her accent which I don’t think she knows she still has. During this time, or perhaps before, she got into the habit of saying one thing five times in every sentence. Her favorite subject was the rude Italians and how you have to deal with them. "These Italians are just so RUDE, they don’t have any respect for anyone they meet, and they don’t even respect each other, have you seen the way they talk, they just yell and are so rude, I mean I’ve been to all fifty states in America and I’m telling you that the Italians are the rudest people in the whole world, I’m not kidding at all, but you just have to ignore them because it’s not personal at all, no you just have to let it roll off your back but my daughter Alicia is so sensitive and she just doesn’t know how to deal with these types of people who are just rude all the time, I mean I’m telling you the Italians are the RUDEST people in the whole world and I’ve been to a lot of places let me tell you…" Except you don’t hear the last half of that because by then you’ve locked yourself in the bathroom to cover the sound of her dribbling mouth with the resultant toots of your own gas.

   The next morning I was going to rise at 6:30 am so I could end up near the front of the considerable line at the Vatican Museum, which has the Sistine Chapel at the end. It is called the Sistine Chapel and not the Sixteen Chapel, or even worse the Sixteenth Chapel, as though it is the last one standing after the other fifteen fell down. Despite this I have heard it called nothing else by Americans since I’ve been here. Sigh. So, my itinerary set, I promptly blew it by waking up at 7:15. Also up were the daughter and that mouth "gosh I just really hate Gypsies a lot (x5)," who got to the bathroom before I did, and being female they stayed in there to meditate for 20 minutes each. By the time I got set and dressed it was 8 in the morning. Also by that time the three of us had discovered that we were all going to the same place, which almost made me say "wait I forgot I’m actually going to the other Vatican today" but I didn’t. So I was stuck with them. We went downstairs and ate breakfast, which I wasn’t planning on doing, then they told me they knew a shortcut to the bus station, which surprised me because it is across the street. I followed them anyhow, and five blocks later we at last reached the bus station across the street. I fended off pickpockets in the crowded space, but was not able to keep a well dressed man in a suit from groping my testicles with the back of his hand, which seemed to follow my crotch everywhere I turned. Thoroughly disgusted, I hoped and prayed that the two women were better at finding the end of bus lines than the beginning of them. We departed in the correct place, thankfully, and immediately ran into the back of the line for the Vatican Museum.

   There is a sweet spot for lines, a bell curve if you will, where early and very late in the day are great times to avoid them, while 9:00 am is perfect if you wish to see how long the line can possibly be. It is purely for research, as no one would be foolish enough to actually get in at that time. We arrived at 9:05, well after the peak of the bell curve, and, grateful at our tremendous luck, took our spot in the back. I could see the string of unmoving people turn a corner just before they disappeared over the horizon, so I was unable to determine its actual length, but those around us speculated confidently that we would be inside the Sistine Chapel by 10.

   Ten, eleven, and twelve rolled past before we entered the museum, and by then I knew that the Italians are very very rude and that Gypsies are one mosquito’s eyelash away from actually having demonic blood coursing through their veins. I also knew the order in which Alicia’s mom had gone through all fifty states, and in what years she went. I knew the history of her skin disorders and Alicia’s troubles with the opposite sex and finding a man who could respect her for her mind and look past her physical figure, and I also knew the nationality, ranked best to worst, of every man Alicia’s mother had ever slept with. If you think I am kidding about this you have not met Alicia’s mother (and you are undoubtedly hugging yourself at this fact). I kept looking over at Alicia with that look that says, "don’t worry, I would never judge you by your parent, and don’t be embarrassed by what she says about you even though we don’t know each other, and isn’t this all rather amusing," but she just stood next to Alicia’s mother smiling and nodding vigorously as though the topic was the falling US Dollar or the strange European McDonald’s menu. By noon I had bits of olive tree stuffed so dense into my ear canals that I was sneezing out oil.

   We went inside. In the throng, I found my opportunity, and lost them, sprinting through most of the Vatican Museum with stops only to snap some quick pictures of Raphael’s University painting with all the greatest philosophers and scientists of all time in one place, and burst headlong into The Chapel, slipping precariously on the floor after I sneezed for the last time. I reached up with my camera, snapped a picture of the ceiling, and was tackled to the ground by five armed guards. "NO PICTURES!" they all yelled in unison. Then they quickly turned like a school of fish and dove at a mother with her infant son strapped to her back. They made their way around the room, causing ruckus after ruckus, until an astonishingly shrill, blaring loudspeaker clicked on somewhere and blasted in five languages, "No talking. Please keep silent in the Chapel." I almost oiled myself with laughter. And then I took some more pictures.

   So, here’s the part where I got to play Secret Agent Chris. I knew a secret, a secret so powerful that it threatens to topple the greatest power in Rome. In the Sistine Chapel, a mistake you’d think they would have learned about from the other fifteen, there are two doorways. One leads to a tunnel and is filled with people streaming happily out the Chapel. The other, smaller one has a sign nearby that says simply, "exit for tour groups only". This doorway, this little hole out of Michelangelo’s room, is so amazing that it can cause you to travel forward in time by three hours and still be right when you were when you started. Confused? Well, with no guard stations to pass and no gates to jump and no ropes to cross, you walk out of this doorway down a grand staircase, across a courtyard where every pope who ever lived is buried, and walk straight into St. Peter’s Basilica with no waiting in line at all, and no payment of any kind. I don’t know why they do this, and I don’t know why more people don’t know about it, but it is possibly the best thing in Rome. And there are a lot of cool things in Rome. So it was that by 1 pm I was entering the greatest cathedral ever built.

   St. Peters, the church of the Pope, has a problem. Most of these grand cathedrals have this problem, but St. Peters, being the biggest and fanciest, has this problem the worst. The problem is blasphemy. Every single person who walks in stares up at the ceiling agape and says the same thing. "Holy Jesus! Oh shit, whoops. DAMNit! Oh, just fucking forget it." They go from incredulity to realization to attempted correction to acceptance in the span of just the moment they walk through the considerable door. These types of places are built to create as much initial blasphemy as they can, that way you are forced to come in and confess your sins, Catholic or not. Maybe it’s not a problem after all. Anyway, I’d studied several of the sculptures in this place in my first semester architecture history class, so I was happy to see them in person. Also there’s a bronze Michelangelo sculpted thing towering over the altar, and of course the Pieta 50 feet behind a great wall of bulletproof glass. St. Peters. Damn.

   That done I found a quaint little Italian place and passed by it, preferring instead the quaint little Italian place next door, but obviously not the quaint little Italian place one beyond that. Inside as I was eating the antics of a small child became increasingly disruptive. Her mother kept saying things like, "If you crawl under that table and out onto the floor again I will whip you!" She said this so offhandedly that it took me a second to take in the full meaning of it. Also, by the time she finished, the girl would be under the table and out onto the floor, rolling around in the filth. I decided I’d had enough of this kind of talk.

"Listen, let me say something to you," I said in her direction so she’d know I was talking to her. "This is no way to speak to your child, not just because it’s so very wrong. Look at her. She’s not even listening to you. Do you know why? It’s because you’re threatening her with a whip, of all things! I mean, if you actually whipped her as often as you’ve threatened to in the last half hour, you’d be the worst kind of abusive parent. But I am unwilling to accept that you do that, so all that means is that you are throwing out these rediculous threats that, even by the age of three, your daughter has learned are empty. If you’re going to threaten her, at least choose some consequences you can actually enact. You wouldn’t tell her to stop throwing her lettuce or you’ll make her sleep on the sidewalk tonight. You wouldn’t say that unless she stops picking her nose you’ll withhold food for a week. Pick something bad for her that she likes, like ice cream or something, and start to show her that her actions have consequences! I’m sorry if I’m butting in here, and feel free to loathe my arrogance and presuption as much as you want. Explain to me that I have no right to tell you how to raise your child, I deserve it. But that doesn’t at all mean that I’m wrong." She stared at me dumbfounded, or would have if I’d actually said any of that. Instead I went on pretending to ignore the scene. Lunch successfully consumed I bolted for the Colosseum. As I appeared before the thing, this time careful not to smack into it, I was approached by a nice looking Italian woman who was just hoping beyond hope that I spoke English. I delighted her to no end when I replied in her favorite language, so she cheerfully sold me a ticket to a guided tour that would allow me to bypass the hour and a half line. The man leading it was really great, hilarious even, if you’re into that sort of thing, and we strolled through the complex hearing about all the different ways in which no one was ever killed in there. Unless you had four legs, and then it was curtains. I really liked seeing the inside of this place, because it finally gave some scale to something I’d seen so often. It’s big. There, scale.

   My tour continued on to the Forum and Palatine Hill, but without me, I having learned that I could finish it the next day or any other day for that matter, and I also having learned that my feet were very very upset with me. I went home, nursed my feet, ate at the cheap place across the street (next to the bus station) that the guy who works at my hostel begged me not to patronize (but I don’t like him and my feet were just beginning to stop planning my death), and tucked in early to read my book. I had seen a lot today, and I had taken a big bite out of My List, so I was in the mood to take it easy. I fell asleep at 10pm.

   I woke up at 10 am. Boy was that good. By then my feet and I had signed a tenuous treaty provided I not spend the day slamming them against uneven cobblestones. I was prepared to accept their terms unequivocally. I would also end up going back on my word, but I honestly didn’t know that at the time. I just hung around the room reading and showering and all that morning stuff you usually do hours before then. At 11:30 I felt the time was right to head to the train station, which is also the bus station, which was within the subpoints of our agreement. I stood in line for a half hour to not buy a reservation and not be helped in any meaningful way, so I went into the "International Books" section of the gigantic glass bookstore there in the station and purchased yet another quickly devourable thriller. I think it’s number 14 so far. Then I decided to make the two stop subway trek back to the Colosseum to finish the tour. Boy my feet were about to be angry.

   I walked with purpose through the round courtyard that you spill out into when exiting the stadium, my trusty shirt sticker from the previous day safe in my wallet in case they wanted to see it again. I immediately found a tour group departing toward the Forum. "Is this the tour that goes to the Forum?" I asked the leader.

"Maximus Tours? Golden Dot?" This may seem an odd response, but I knew what he was referring to. The dot in my wallet that had previously clung to my shirt was indeed a shade of gold, actually I would have called it yellow, but I didn’t think it was the time to argue semantics. I fell in step, the rest of the tour group behind me. I found out very shortly thereafter that this tourguide did not hold a candle to my previous one. Actually, he didn’t even hold a turtle to him, which is way worse, believe me. That’s when I turned around and saw everyone else wearing big golden dots on their chests. Big shiny and golden, not yellow in any way. Mine was tiny, and not shiny at all, and so very very yellow. Suddenly I wished I had at least debated a little semantics. I kept it hidden in my wallet and hoped that this was not the "Tour of all the Places in Rome to Get Mugged" or the "Polish Mothers of Alicia Very Slow Tour of Planet Earth". It was not. It was just a bad tour of the Forum, which is quite a place. Quite a place indeed.

   After 45 minutes of incomprehensible explanations of Roman politics, the guide explained that in another 45 minutes his very bad guided tour of the Palatine Hill would begin back at the something or other arch of which there are hundreds. I decided to go it alone. Up up up. The Forum lies at the base of a large cliff, one side of Palatine Hill. I really had no idea what was at the top of Palatine Hill, except that the guide had mentioned something about the word "palace" coming from the word Palatine. I George Bushed my protesting feet into submission up some extremely steep stairways and through a small gate with a confused looking woman sitting beside it. I continued up the stairs through a three dimensional maze of brick walls and crumbling arches. A thought occurred to me as I strolled between these ancient walls, and I will write it as it came to my mind.

The greatest game

Of Hide and Seek

Ever played

By Humankind

The Palatine Hill is so awesome. It turns and rises up and slides down and curves around and suddenly you’re standing above an ancient stadium and then you’re shooting down a narrow hallway past closed-off tunnels that descend into the center of the earth and then you’re high atop a parapet that looks out over the whole city and then you’re staring at the center of a millennia-old garden with a large artificial hill in the center with the tallest straightest tree you’ve ever seen growing out the top of it. There are so many different things to see that it was only after a couple of hours that I began to hear the cries from below my shins, and also began to understand that this was a place you paid to get into. It was then that I understood the confused look on the woman’s face as I strolled confidently the wrong way through the exit below. Oh well, another trick learned. I sat down to alleviate the suffering and just took in the gorgeous 1)Ancient priceless architecture  2) fat wallet  3) gorgeous weather and 4) no tour guide or Alicia’s mother. Then I started thinking what would happen if the tour guide and Alicia’s mother had a child, an got up to leave before I finished.

   I was beat, and it was time to head home for many reasons. I was really pleased with how the day turned out, because when it began I didn’t think there was much left to do, but now I know that if you study architecture (think of the spelling of that word) and you do not go to the Palatine Hill when in Rome, you should be forced into a locked room with no one but Alicia’s mother and Alicia, the latter just for the sheer cringeworthiness of having to hear about her intimate details while she stands there nodding relentlessly in front of you. More later.

-C

ps - sorry about the blasphemy

   The buses in Florence are large, square, newish things with bright orange sides and a forest of metal orange gripping poles inside. The interior contains a ballroom dance floor and five seats, two on each side and one in the back, taken up by four of the tiniest hunchiest wrinkliest sundressiest old ladies in the world, and one young guy who doesn’t know enough to let another of the tiny hunched wrinkled sundressed ladies have his seat. The other inhabitants of the enormous orange jungle are every walk of life in Florence, pressed like Jello(tm) into the mold of the windows. Now I’m sure you’ve heard a bit about the streets of Italy and their famed lack of consistent movement. Bedlam, is how I would accurately refer to it. So, you take 2 (the crammed in populace of the orange Jello mold) and add it to 2 (the hectic, unpredictable street traffic of any city in Italy) and you get, not surprisingly, 4 (pureed orange painted sacks of formerly human-shaped bio matter). I immediately upon arriving at my hostel on the first day in Florence ceased calling it "the bus", which seemed so dramatically understated, and began thinking of it more as a large agitation-type machine designed to pulverize its contents, like a washing machine or an egg beater. I chose a centrifuge, because of that machine’s ability to separate liquids from their solids, and because of the pooling of blood I always noticed around my ankles when I got off at my stops.

   That said, having a reservation to see David at five pm, I awoke on Saturday as late as I could, anticipating the hostel’s closed-door policy starting at 10:30 am by only a few minutes. I managed to catch a centrifuge before it pulled away from the stop and watched for half an hour as people’s limbs were removed and replaced at random. When I arrived in the center of town I traded ears with a girl of six and placed my feet back on my swollen purple legs and just kind of spun around looking for something to occupy my considerable time. First was lunch, then to an internet cafe across Ponte Vecchio, then a look at my map which told me I was on the correct side of the river to see Palazzo Michelangelo. The nice internet guy told me exactly where and how to get up there, so I walked a half mile to the nearest centrifuge stop. With only the four from the wrinkle-sundress brigade and the other punk to cushion my hurtlings, I had a particularly anticoagulating ride up to the top of a nearby hill. I stepped out onto a carefully designed flat white marble sun reflecting station the size of a football field with absolutely stunning views of the entire city and a bronze copy of David at the center. I took some video of the panorama and some video of the pigeons in heat and the pigeons ignoring the pigeons in heat which led to some fleeting amusement not shared by the rest of the throng, but within a few minutes I felt I had adequately experienced Palazzo Michelangelo. I crossed the street and spotted another centrifuge about to leave, so I sprinted madly towards it like a glutton for punishment and hopped aboard, only to discover to my embarrassment that it would wait another five minutes before dismem-barking (<– I’m rather proud of that one). So I sat panting and sweating in the heat until it (the operator) had decided that it (the centrifuge) was ready for some more separating.

   Re-assembled back at river level (The Arno, ha) I had to accept and confront this little nagging itch scratching at the back of my skull. When I had checked in at my hostel, they had charged me approximately $40. It seemed odd, but I had other things on my mind at the time. I was to stay in Florence for 3 nights, so $40 is low, but not so low as to be immediately suspect. I suspected now, however, that when I had first made the reservation for two nights, then an hour later added a third, that maybe, just maybe, they were under the impression that I was only staying for two nights, not able to put together that the Christopher Ward who used my mastercard for the first reservation would be the same Christopher Ward who used my mastercard for the second reservation an hour later. The itch began to spread and converge with the itching of the 100 or so mosquito bites all over me, and so it was that I went back to the centrifuge stop and sloshed back to the hostel at 1:30.

   When I got there and explained that I might need to pay for another night, and they realized who I was, they were absolutely furious. I mean FURIOUS. Over the course of the morning they had gone from polite (a fleeting thing for these people) to rude to mean to, upon my afternoon arrival, positively fuming. I’ll admit that I forgot I had made the reservation in two pieces, and I’ll admit that I had wondered at the time of making the second one if I would have to check out and check back in again, but that was two weeks ago, and as these blogs can attest, a lot happens in two weeks, and I’ll admit that I completely did not consider it again for one moment. So they ripped my card from my fingers and slammed a free breakfast voucher onto the counter in front of me and screamed at me in Italian and at each other in Italian and stuttered through angry explanations of calling my name over the loudspeaker since 9:30 this morning and trying to figure out what to do with my stuff and all kinds of, frankly, completely ridiculous things that could have been avoided by simply looking at the next-day’s reservations under W. So, the abuse handed out, and a condescending lecture about checking out before 9:30 the next morning out of the way, I surveyed the damage in my room. There was none, but there was a youngish chap from Wellington going through his belongings. He was a new check-in, so I gave him my priceless information about how to see the Duomo, Uffizi, and Palazzo Piti in one day. Then, at 3:30, I caught yet another centrifuge back to town.

   I was now so beaten and battered that I heard squishing when I walked, which I did, to the Gallerie Academia, a place so nondescript as would be rendered completely invisible were it not for the 5 deep line of people encircling it like a hideous and unruly boa constrictor. The stupid line. I walked to my appointed velvet rope, first in line, and after a few minutes subjected myself to a strip search, MRI, and lie detector test ("do you or do you not have any hammers up your bum?"), and handed over €6 for a useless audio guide before sliding into the first room that did not have David in it. I went through a second room that did not have David in it, realized I’d gone the wrong way, turned around back through the first room did not have David in it, and stepped through a doorway into The Room that had David in it. Holy. Crap.

  I really had no idea how utterly huge this thing is. In pictures, you sort of think of it as being at most twice normal sized. No. You can see the little places on David’s back where Michelangelo lived as he was carving it, with little windows and little stone cutting tools inside. The audio guide declared ostentatiously and, for once, honestly that this was the greatest sculpture in the world. The Greatest. Not only is it a mastery of anatomy (under his raised left arm you can see where his ribs separate slightly), and a mastery of psychology (typical visions of David standing with one foot on Goliath’s head were eschewed by Michelangelo, opting instead to portray him as quiet, thoughtful, purposefully non-violent, but playing with the natural proportions of hands and feet to suggest a hidden strength and power), but it was also a mastery of technique, the gigantic block of marble having been previously discarded by two master sculptors, whose names I’m not surprised I’d never heard before, as too large, too fragile, and too flawed. That was a long sentence. I circled around the statue over and over again, weaving between equally awestruck (the word had to have been created for this statue) tourists gaping open mouthed at the tremendous white person above. I snapped a few surreptitious pictures until an undercover operative of the museum told me to stop and I had to pretend I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed even though we both knew I did and we both also knew that I didn’t care because I’d flown across the planet to see this thing and their little rules were not going to stop me from recording it for my own posterity. Then I just stood in front and gaped like everyone else, until I heard, "Do you think it’s hollow? It looks hollow to me." Followed by "I don’t know, I guess it could be." I turned around, wiping the spattering of utter ignorance off the back of my neck, and found myself face to face with two American girls and an American guy. I smiled at them carefully, trying very hard not to yell at the top of my lungs, and thought about all the ways that that may have been the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Then they said, "The hands look wrong. Do you think the hands are wrong? They’re too big." Points for observation. I mentally kicked myself very hard over and over and over as I opened my stupid big fat mouth and replied with politeness, "uh, actually, they’re like that on purpose," kick, kick, kick. Then the dreaded question. "Why?" Oh god. I could feel myself slipping into the nerdiest of places, trying desperately to hang on to some modicum of coolness as I tried to explain the reason without making them laugh at me. I opted for terse cool instead of disinterested cool, which seemed to at least delay the ridicule until I could make my way across the room. I don’t know why I do that stuff. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I should have never listened to them in the first place. But they were just so incredibly ignorant it literally made my vision fuzzy. So I left, keeping my eye on the statue as I rounded the final corner, wondering if I’d ever get to see it again.

   My List complete, I centrifuged back to my hostel, hoping to maybe find a game. England was in the process of being eliminated by Portugal, of all travesties, so I hoped to catch the last half (not knowing, of course, the horrific ending). Instead I ran into an Australian girl I had sat next to the previous evening watching another game in the crowded tv lounge. She was wandering around near the centrifuge stop with a confused look on her face. She explained that she was looking for her boyfriend, who had come down here from on high to watch the game at a local pub, of which there were none. We walked the short path back up to the grounds, and tried to turn on the game in the aforementioned tv room. No go. I had her ask the front desk girls what gives (not wanting to show myself to them again), and she said that the afternoon game was not being played on a channel they receive is what gives. So we just kind of sat and chatted while she waited for her boyfriend and their other traveling companion to return. They did not, and it was time for dinner, so we had some, and then it was time for the evening game, and that’s when they arrived. The four of us found a table close to the action and watched in horror as France destroyed Brasil. Figuratively.

   Time for bed it was, and it suddenly went through my head that oh my I was going to Rome tomorrow, and I was not mentally prepared. I’ve heard two competing reviews of Rome from various fellow travelers. One, it is stunning. Two, you will get your stuff stolen. The next morning I made sure I checked out at the appropriate time and centrifuged down to the bus/train station, finding only an hour and a half train ride on the other end.

   I spent most of it trying desperately to find my hostel on a map, made more difficult by not having the address of my hostel and not having a map. I eventually resolved to find it once I got there, kind of like jumping out of a plane with no chute, assuming you’ll find another skydiver that will let you hitch a ride on the way down. Or perhaps it is like a scavenger hunt, where if you lose you are stripped of all posessions, money, and forms of identification and left in a foreign country by yourself, and if you win you get to lock yourself into a 5th story sweatbox. I sat back in the seat, cracked open my book, and the train stopped at the station. I was in it now. Picturing pickpockets everywhere I looked, I tried desperately to find someone non-thief-like to help me get where I needed to go. But instead I just found pickpockets. Dressed as train captains, nuns, housewives, and backpackers, they circled me waiting to make their move for my passport. A trash collector ventured nearby and I swung at him, spinning for the second attack in case the first was just a diversion. A gaggle of elementary school children ran by and I pushed a particularly menacing girl to the ground, where she pretended to cry to catch my attention so that the elderly couple behind me could steal the cell phone charger out of my backpack. Pretty soon there were pickpockets dressed in fake train station employee outfits and forged Italian police uniforms shouting at me and chasing me down the platform. I ran as fast as I could out of the station pushing pickpockets to the ground as I went, and crossed the street in front of a busload of incoming pickpockets. I raced down the sidewalk and turned the corner into a small street that inexplicably was having a pickpocket convention. I screamed really loud to scare them and pushed my way through, my hands clutching my phone, wallet, camera, and passport simultaneously, and stumbled over the door sill of my hostel. I had somehow run right up to it without knowing where I was going. Safe! More later.

-C

   So. Florence. A short hop from Venice on the train got me here in just a few hours, the time spent talking to a transgendered lesbian couple from Manchester about the differences in slang between England and America. I emerged from the air-conditioned train into the inferno of the Florentine sun. Here is not as humid as Venice, but more like the oven of a hot Los Angeles day. In fact, much of Florence’s surroundings look just like the Hollywood hills. Wasn’t that a Mike Meyers joke? Anyway, I had a few chats over the phone with my mother in Pasadena as she helped me find my completely out of the way hostel way up in the forest. It’s a Renaissance Villa, capitalized because it’s not just a renaissance-style villa, but the actual thing. To get there requires a lengthy bus ride and then a few minute hike up a trail into the woods. When I reached the point of hikation, I ran into an older woman from Australia. We both looked up at the steep semi-paved path with sweaty faces and decided to just take a slow hike up through it. I had my 40 pound pack on my back, and she had a large backpack and a rolling suitcase that wanted nothing to do with going straight. I saw her struggling and sweating, so I gallantly offered to help by taking charge of her roller. Boy was that a mistake. She pushed the handle over to me and I discovered then that she was a traveling brick saleswoman. The wheels on the bottom, the size of ball bearings, bounced and swerved at every little pebble, of which there were few replaced instead by large rocks and potholes. Eventually I was simply dragging the thing behind me, as though the wheels did not exist. She was panting beside me as we walked saying things like "well, at least it’s a glorious day for a hike haha!" as I wrestled her stone alligator up the hill. Eventually we reached the Villa and went to the front desk. I was thankfully given a room on the ground floor, and could hear the Australian woman saying something like "no lift? Isn’t there some way I could have a room on this floor?" as I skittered past as silently and unobtrusively as I could. Yes "gallant" I said.

   Dumping my pack into the cubby (it’s like pre school!) I returned to the front to ask about lockers when I heard a loud "Hey, I don’t like that guy!" behind me. Turning (I don’t know why) I saw myself face to face with Tiffany and Steve, my friends from Brussels! What a small Europe! Actually, I recalled that they were to be in Florence that night, but long ago I had given up hope of seeing them. Little did I remember that they were staying in the same hostel as me! Oh boy ready-made friends! We said our hellos and decided to grab some dinner and talk about what we’d been up to in the last month. We were joined by some of their friends they had made in Florence in the last couple of days, which was nice, because they could sort of pass them on to me, which is the way these things work here. This hostel is strange. It has a 12am curfew that is extremely strict, and it also has a 10am-2pm lockout in which you are required to leave the premises. It being 7 pm at that point, we were all pretty uninterested in making our way back into town that night. We resolved to get some beers at the bar and sit out in the gardens and talk. We sat down and I noticed a familiar looking guy standing across the square a little ways off. He looked a lot like an Australian guy I hung out with one day in Amsterdam, but I wasn’t quite sure. I looked again. When I looked away, I saw him look at me. Then I looked back and caught his eye, which is when he grinned and came over to say hello. Sure enough, not only did I find Steve and Tiffany, but I also found Cameron! And his two friends from Australia and England! More people! We made room and sat out on the porch talking and laughing and having a grand old time the seven of us until the bell tolled midnight and we had to go inside and have "quiet time" for eight or so hours.

   The next morning I was to meet Steve and Tiffany in the lobby at eight for a trip down to the Uffizi (you feet stink) museum before their train left for Cinqua Terra at noon. I braved the communal showers and got down to the lobby as the other two were checking out, which took forever. Finally, at nine, we left the place. An hour later, we were standing in front of the museum standing in line, they with their gigantic Canadian packs and me with a day’s worth of anticipation. Their schedule being as tight as it was, we decided to check and see how long the line would be, and when Steve came back with the answer of 2 and a half hours, we realized that there was no way they would be able to go in. He also relayed the information that I could make a reservation for later in the day and not waste time standing in line. I did, for 12:30, and we left the line in search of other stuff. When we had passed the Duomo 45 minutes previous, there had been about 20 people in line, so we headed a block and a half back there to maybe see inside. Arriving we were greeted to a snaking trail of 500 people backing out the front entrance. These things form fast. It was longer than the line at the Uffizi, so we said our goodbyes and they went off to catch the train. I walked to the end of the Duomo line and planted myself.

   I sat there not moving for only a few minutes, thinking that I would wait and see if I could get inside and still make it to the Uffizi in time. If not, I would leave the line. Instead, I saw a cutout doorway in some plywood surrounding the base of scaffolding that rested against part of the enormous structure. Above the cutout doorway was bolted a very official looking sign that said "to the dome" in several languages. There was no one going inside it, though it was right next to the line. I asked the nice lady behind me to save my spot, and ducked in. Boy am I glad I did. I went straight into the cathedral to a ticket booth, where I was charged €6 to go through a turn style and take the first of 509 steps to the top. Spiraling up and up with no one in sight I ascended hundreds of feet, the last few hunched over as I stepped up between the slanted curves of the two domes. Halfway up I emerged onto a walkway inside the cathedral, with a glorious painted ceiling above me. The inside of the dome of the Duomo is why the place is particularly famous, as it depicts the "entire universe" as it was known at the time. The top around the cupola is heaven, the bottom around the base is hell, and in the middle is earth. The hellish part was quite disturbing, with people having their skin torn off and ghouls and demonic skeletons whipping people into slavery. Yeesh. After walking around this and ascending through the bent passage, I emerged on top of the dome outside with a 360 degree panoramic view of Florence. Yes!

   Back on normal people level, I still had an hour or so before I could go inside the Uffizi, so I went to gape at the line for David (as in Michelangelo’s). Haha, so many people. I saw that there was again a place to make a reservation, so I laughed and pointed at the suckers standing in the "stupid people" line as I walked into the reservation office (in Italian, the uffizi, which led to some confusion at first) and walked confidently to the counter. "One reservation to see David today please." Laughter. So, yeah. Today was sold out. Tomorrow, she’s have to check. As. Slowly. As. Possible. I deserved it for my misguided overconfidence. Eventually she came back and told me that there were only seven more tickets available for tomorrow, at five. Fine. Done. I walked out of the office and looked sadly at the "stupid people" line, which didn’t look so stupid anymore, because while they waited two hours I was going to have to wait a day and a half.

   Wiping the egg from my face, I returned to the plaza outside the Uffizi and listened in discreetly as a tourguide talked about the building and the incredible replica statues guarding the entrance. One was Michelangelo’s David, for instance. I learned that the Medici’s had had the place built for their government offices, thus the Uffizi name that was so confusing. I hopped in the longer-than-I-had-expected reservation line at 11:45, thinking that I had waited in line to buy a ticket to let me wait in line to get into an entrance that would keep me from waiting in line. By noon, however, I was inside and a half hour early, which was a detail overlooked by the staff as I removed my clothes and they searched everything in my pockets for bombs.

   I was looking at a long, scarcely planned afternoon, so I decided to make the most of the museum by spending another €6 on top of the €10 ticket and €3 reservation for an audio guide. For three hours I wandered among medieval and renaissance masterpieces as I actually learned something about the process of developing from one to the other. Usually I skip all rooms with art from the 1200s, because I do not need to see yet another doll-faced gold-painted Mary with naked baby Jesus perched impossibly on her un-perspectivized lap. But this time I actually saw the progression from stiff, Egyptian-style medieval composition to the ultra-realism of Da Vinci and Michelangelo and how one came from the other. It was like watching the Discovery channel, except instead of the TV there were priceless masterpieces.

   Emerging from the impossibly cooled museum three hours later with pained feet and stiff legs, I walked a short ways down to the Ponte Vecchio, an old bridge with built in shops along it that spans the Arno. It’s one of those bridges that’s much more interesting from a few blocks away, as being on it is roughly akin to walking along the diamond district downtown. You can’t see anything but glass displays with gold and jewels gleaming from them. And old, old arches. But it’s one of Florence’s Things, and it was on My List, so I went across it. A block from the other end is a place called the Pilazzo Pitti. Not to be confused with the Uffizi. Uffizi, Pitti, different places. However, I was quite unclear as to exactly what the Pitti is, assuming from the picture on the back of my map that it was a large plaza or something. I wasn’t too interested, but again, it’s a Florence Thing, so it was on the periphery of My List, strictly if I had time, which I did. Color me surprised when they demanded money. I had a choice, go into the palace, which I didn’t know what that was, or go into the gardens, which I didn’t know what that was. €8 or €8.50. Or €16.50 for both. You decide. Which do you choose? You have as much information as I did at that point. I called my mom. "Hey, mom, what’s the Pitti?" After the call I chose the "less expensive" option, and went into the palace. Another museum. I was rather upset, because it seemed to be not worth my time at all, especially after seeing a place like the Uffizi. It would be like going to LACMA then the Getty right afterwords. I decided that to get my money’s worth, I would test my new knowledge from one of my classes first semester. The ceilings in this place had been painted over a 150 or so year period in the 17 and 1800s. I would go through the place and try to discern which were Baroque and which were Rococo. Ha. I know stuff now. The game, however, was not so thrilling. Most were Baroque, but beyond that most of the rooms were so overwhelming with ornation (typical of both styles) that I just got bored. Also typical of both styles. I saw the throne room and the bedrooms and tons and tons of Renaissance paintings with which I’d just finished spending 3 hours. Burnt. Out. I left the place feeling ripped off, and searched for some Gelato to cool me off. Pineapples and currants and berries and apple slices and raspberry and vanilla scoops with whipped topping. I told you the Italians know how to cream ice. Anyway, it’s now after seven and I should start heading back to the hostel. Tomorrow I see David, the only thing left on My List, so it should be a quiet day. More later!

-C

   I returned from my Linz excursion to find an old man standing confidently with his hands on his hips in the center of the room wearing nothing but blue speckled underpants. Introducing himself as Georgo he dropped his last remaining shred of clothing and stepped toward me. I almost fainted until he slipped by and entered the shower. He turned out to be a single guy (widower?) who lived in a small town in the middle of Austria. He drove for two days to go to a ballroom dance in Linz. He seemed like quite the ladies man, which is a feat at 70 or so years of age. We talked, my eyes resolutely riveted to the pages of my book, as he thankfully began to cover himself with layer after layer of clothing until before me stood a sly dog in a smart-looking blue pinstripe suit. He even wore a hat. Out the door he went, shouting at me over his shoulder not to wait up. Heh. I read for a while, but wanted more from the evening. I decided to go for a nighttime walk along the Danube. I got two blocks before I realized I needed dinner, so I found a hotel cafe nearby and sat down at a table near the bar. Immediately there were five middle aged guys, watching the football match on the tele, who came over and wanted to know all about where I was from and such. I ended up having some drinks and some dinner and talking and laughing and just having a grand old time until almost midnight in that bar. When I got back to the room, sure enough, Georgo was nowhere to be found.

   The next morning I was awakened by a gentle slamming of the closet, and there was Georgo standing over me back in his customary underpants inviting me to breakfast with him downstairs. I was tempted to voice my terms, but I finally decided that he would probably not walk through the hostel without adding at least a couple more layers. Probably. Thankfully, I was right. In a few minutes he was again dapper and sophisticated, sans hat this time, so we headed downstairs. We spent the next hour talking about how the world was going downhill and no one had any manners anymore, and how America was the worst offender of all, no offense, and how in modern dance clubs these days no one learned the moves and every time you put your drink down someone tried to make you addicted to drugs by putting drugs into your drink. I didn’t say much during this conversation. Soon, however, he reached for his fork and upturned his coffee onto his dapper pants, and ran screaming from the room. I never saw him again.

   The train trip from Linz to Munich was an absolute breeze compared to the trip from Prague. The early checkout time of the Linz hostel allowed me to catch an early train, where I spent the next three hours or so talking to a rather belligerent Austrailian guy about everything that’s bad with the world. Time flew, and before I knew it I was in the Munich Hauptbahnhof with no idea whatsoever how to get to my hostel, or even if it was in the city center. Looking up the address I finally found someone willing to answer my questions (there were a few people sitting behind desks that said "Tourist Information" that answered my pleas for help with "I’m sorry, this is not a city information desk".) and set off for the underground. It’s a clean, reliable system, so by 1 pm I was at the front door. I found my room empty, but, alas, it was not to last. My roommate was a Japanese world cup maniac. He had already been to all three Japan games, and had another three to go. He had purchased tickets assuming Japan would get a long way into the cup, but they had exited in the first round, so I heard about how upset he was to be watching Australia play Italy and such. I was jealous, but nodded my agreement at his terrible plight, not wanting to upset this powder keg of a man. Much of the day remained, so I headed out to the Olympia Stadium (O leem pia Stah dee oom). It was created for the 1972 Munich Olympics, and is still the center of sport in the city. When I got there, I found also the under-construction headquarters of BMW that had been a source of inspiration for my final project this past year in school. Wandering around the Olympic complex I found a gigantic stadium filled with people. There was no entrance fee, so I walked in and saw a gigantic jumbotron in the center. The game was about to start, England vs Ecuador. As you might imagine, there were a few more English fans than Ecuadorians. But there was a large and vocal contingent of Argentineans. I sat in the backbreaking heat and throng of half naked people drinking loads of expensive cold water and enjoying the atmosphere. When the game was over I headed back into town. There are many pizza places in Europe, but the pizza is completely different, not to mention it is considered a Middle Eastern type of food. It’s very good in any case, so I sat down at an outside cafe, and three minutes later was punished for my crime. The sky darkened, sent bolts of very loud electricity overhead, and dumped buckets and buckets of water on my unprepared head. I skittered the last 7 blocks home jumping from awning to awning but getting soaked to the bone nonetheless. There were a bunch of wet world cup watchers in the hostel, so I sat with some young England fans and talked about their victory as Holland got eliminated by Portugal on the tv and the thunder rattled the windowpanes.

   Today I slept. I think the trip is catching up to me, as I find myself utterly exhausted in the mornings. At 12:30 my new roommate checked in, from Mexico he is, and I showered and headed out to see the sights. I started with the FrauenKirche, the big cathedral in Munich, that was advertising a visit by the pope in a month. Jeez. Next was a wandering, leading to the world famous and previously visited by me in 1992 Hofbrauhaus. It’s a brewery and biergarten, and I had awesome goulash (mit schweinfleish) and a gigantic bier and a pretzel the size of the Roman Empire. I left an hour later unqualified to operate heavy machinery, tilting down the middle of the street enjoying the lively German horns. I found a park and a river and the parliament building (asked to leave) and an island with a beach covered with sunbathers (!) right in the middle of the river. You wade over to it through the water. How cool is that? I’m probably missing something spectacular, but I just can’t think of what else. So I’m going to wander some more now. Enjoy your days! More later.

-C

So I switched hostels to one that came highly recommended by Brian, called the Boathouse Hostel. It’s not so much a boat house but more of a house for boats. It’s situated right on the river (whatever river that is…hmmm) and is about as pleasant a place as one could ask for. I spent the next day just taking it easy, wandering into town to see the Fred (Astaire) and Ginger (Rogers) building by Frank Gehry, one of the main reasons for my trip to Prague and almost forgotten amid all the old churches and castles. Thankfully, I heard some of my fellow hostellers debating a visit to "that weird glass building" up the road. I instantly knew what they were talking about, as I could hear my favorite Gehry building from a thousand paces. Unfortunately, the restaurant up on the top was closed for a private party, but I was able to snap some good pictures outside and walk amongst the strange curved columns.

   Next was the National Museum across town. I was able to use the same tram ticket to get there, good times, and walked up the steep wide double-wide street to the imposing front entrance. The terrace out front looked out over much of the length of downtown Prague, behind which flowed the green river, finally framed by the large rolling forested hills in the distance. I expected to find a large and lavish collection of art and sculpture inside the museum, so I was completely taken aback by the rooms and rooms (and rooms and rooms and rooms) of rock samples. You read that right. The largest geology exhibit I’ve ever seen, short of the Grand Canyon, is housed inside this massive, ornate building. I think this is where the term "geeking out" was invented by Georg Hünstel in 1856, because these were seriously the coolest rocks on earth. They had actual diamonds, uncut and still in their natural rock formations, they had 2 foot wide clusters of perfectly cubical, perfectly clear crystals. They even had a cubical crystal that was just one by itself and 3 feet tall. It is fair to say I’ve never seen earth formations like that. Anyway, I’ll shut up about it now, because I am aware of the social ostracism that comes with adoration of rocks. And I’ll admit that there might have been just one too many rooms of them.

   The rest of the museum was equally non-art-ish, with an entire floor dedicated to skeletal reconstructions of just about every animal that walks the face of the planet. Not just horses and chimps, but lemurs and guinea pigs and walruses and mammoths and sloths and narwhals and swans and alligators and otters and oh my the bears. Bears have frightening skeletons. Anyway, the rest of the museum had other less interesting (to me) natural science-related exhibits, including a gigantic wing of all kinds of stuffed exotic animals, which reeeeaaally creeped me out.   

   The museum tackled, I went back to the hostel, intending to just sit on the shore and read. When I got there, I sat down on my bed to take off my shoes, and woke up 4 hours later. Music was blaring from some unseen location within a mile of my room, unlocatable because of the numerous echos bouncing back and forth between the hills on either side of the river. Now nighttime, and having missed dinner at the hostel, I set out for a bite to eat. The only problem with staying at a place that’s on the outskirts of town is that it’s on the outskirts of town. I finally found a restaurant that was about to close but was willing to sell me a "takeaway" order of chicken and peaches with cheese and ham. It was surprisingly good. I managed to get back in time to see the last of the world cup games of the day (the US was eliminated, sigh). Then at about 11 I headed down the path in front of my hostel towards the likely source of the sounds. After 5 extremely frightening minutes walking completely alone in the absolute pitch blackness of an eastern European forest, I arrived at a music festival that had apparently grown up out of the ground in the course of the afternoon. I almost at once found two Irish girls who were staying in the room next to mine at the hostel, and we bummed around the site for a few minutes. There was an enormous rock stage at one end, and a gigantic DJ tent at the other. As no one was on stage at the moment, we headed inside. Ok, so I thought I’d pretty much seen the depths of depravity of the tobacco industry, but I had not even scratched the surface. If you’ve ever wondered why so many people in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, smoke, this was it. The tent was sponsored by Marlborough Cigarettes, and had all kinds of fun activities for teens inside. There were stations for music downloads, computers where you could design your own t-shirt, and games with prizes like lighters and other smoking-related items. To play, you had to have tokens. To get tokens, I’m not kidding you, the kids had to buy "limited edition" packs of cigarettes from one of the booth babes that were lining the giant space. It was absolutely disgusting. Thump thump thump went the DJ, cha ching cha ching went Phillip Morris. Outside the band was starting up, so we went out. Their name was Living Room, but the five of them might as well have been called One Chord Guy and the Feedback Boys. They sang in English, but it was obviously phonetic, because nothing quite made sense.

   Braving the dark walk back, this time (thankfully) with two completely freaked out Irish girls in tow. I zonked into bed and awoke the next morning totally unaware that it was my birthday. These things seem so trivial when you’re on the road. Having met and become friends with just about everyone at the hostel by that time, remembered the day quietly to myself and in a few minutes the whole place knew. It was a nice sendoff from the place to have everyone wishing me happy birthday. Little did I know the drama and triumph that awaited me on this day. Intrigued?

   I made my way to the train station, now an expert at the Praguian public transportation systems, and found the 30 minute line to buy an international ticket. I managed to tell the non-english-speaking woman behind the bulletproof glass where I wanted to go, then I even managed to have enough Praguian money to buy the ticket. The train was to leave at 1328, in an hour and a half. I went upstairs to buy a large bottle of water and check the departures board. After an hour and fifteen minutes, my water was half gone and the train to leave at 1328 still had not appeared on the board. I went back downstairs to the line, then the window, where another woman told me that my train did not leave until 1437. I went back up, drank my water and waited. Eventually this train did appear, but it indicated reservation only. I went back down, waited, and found out that the 1437 train was completely full, but that a train was leaving at 1523. I had to switch at Czesky Burnjevovich however. Would I ever get out of the Czech Republic? Finally, my water finished, the train appeared on the board, non-reservation, and I made my way to the platform. The lack of people there was entirely misleading, because though I rushed onto the thing when it pulled up and grabbed a seat in a cabin, within just a few moments the train was standing room only. I did, however, manage to find one of the few empty seats that was not already reserved (yes, reserved, I do not understand), which gave me a comfortable place to wait out the 45 minute delay in departure.

   I rumbled slowly to Czesky Budejovich and arrived there wanting very badly to have not consumed that large amount of water at the Praguian station. I had to run, however, to catch the next train, which had amazingly waited for us to arrive. I stepped on as it was pulling away and found a place to stand by the window, my bladder throwing a tantrum at each bump. A man was standing next to me. He was about 40 years old, pockmarked face, greasy hair, holding a cigarette like it was made of tissue paper between his fingers. He immediately attempted conversation. I really had no idea until this moment how utterly out of my element I was. I understood absolutely nothing, I mean nothing, that came out of his mouth. It was like a nightmare, except I was still wearing my pants. For two hours I clenched my pee and tried to speak to the greasy man beside me, while a large contingent of Czech high schoolers poured beer out the window and laughed when it blew back on everyone else down the train.

   After a while the crowd thinned, and the creepy guy and I moved to an empty cabin, continuing our non-conversation. He was very persistent about it, and I found myself answering more and more questions in the affirmative, following his lead, no idea what I was saying, before it occurred to me that maybe I should be less agreeable in this situation. Just a few moments later, the train stopped and people began to get out. We were far from the Austrian border, so I stayed where I was. The man got up and motioned me off the train. "Umm, no thanks, crazy dude, I’ll just stay here and not go to your basement to see your collection of chains." He was extremely insistent, to the point of grabbing  my hand an pulling. Not in a forceful way, just an insistent way. I shook my head and made it very clear that I was not leaving. He ended up outside, yelling at me like I was completely daft. The train was empty, and another one sat a little ways down on another track. Finally, I made the incredibly difficult decision to walk off the train. I found a trainworker and said "Linz?" to him. He pointed to the other train very insistently, indicating that it was about to leave. I ran as fast as my backpack would allow across the loose gravel, over the tracks, and through the first train door I got to. As soon as I did, it closed behind me and left the station. The man was standing with a scowl in the aisle in front of me, so I went up to him and smiled really big and patted him on the back and said thank you as clearly as I could. That seemed to decrease his frown somewhat, but just at that moment something incredibly welcome happened. For one thing, the train was night and day different from the other. Where the first was slow, this was fast, where the first was dirty, this was clean, where the first was crowded, this had only a few people. And standing next to me were two girls from Seattle. They even spoke English. The three of us were utterly perplexed but so glad to be with some fellow countrypeople. These girls were the type I would never bother speaking to in other circumstances, but in this situation we became "friends". I sat back in my large, comfortable seat and for the first time since I left Prague, relaxed.

  Arriving in Linz was a little scary, as the city was basically shut down at that point. The train station was completely deserted, and the bus station next door said my bus would be 24 minutes in coming. I eyed the line of taxis and decided 8 euros was a small price to pay for being someplace with a bed. My hostel turned out to be deserted as well, but the front door was unlocked and after a bit of searching around the gigantic, dark, abandoned lobby I miraculously found an envelope labeled "Herr Ward" with a key in it. I trudged up to my room and exhaled when I walked in and found it completely empty of people. To my utter astonishment, I had a room to myself. It even had a little cubby with an outlet just for charging cell phones. And no more communal showers! I had seen a tv downstairs, grabbed some dinner from a strange vending machine, sat down, and watched the game. Triumph!

   This morning I woke feeling all my 27 years and set out for downtown Linz. This place is so beautiful it makes you sneeze. Or it did me. I first went to the Electronica museum, where you can see all kinds of really cool new electronic inventions, like a large paintbrush that you touch to anything, and then paint with that image on a digital canvas. There was also a bizarre straw-interface design, where you suck and blow to interact with the screen. Also there was a pool of magnetically-charged liquid that would defy gravity by surging upward when a magnetic field was applied. The next stop was a modern art museum that was so wonderful that, had I a larger supply of digital camera storage and the authorization to do so, I would have taken a picture of every other item in there. I then headed up up up to "The Castle" on a hill overlooking the river and the city. It being Saturday, I expected crowds, but was pleasantly surprised to find the place practically deserted. In fact, pleasant basically describes the whole dang place. And the most pleasant place in the most pleasant city is high atop the hill behind the castle in a little garden that overlooks the entire valley for miles and miles in each direction. The river that cuts through Linz is huge, so I looked it up, and it is in fact the Danube. Go fig. I never knew that was here! (I believe I have previously explained my geography skills.)   So, last stop was a ginormous cathedral in the center of town, that had the requisite awestriking lofted, ribbed ceilings and buttressed tower and intricate stained glass windows. Just around the corner, I found a little piece of Hollywood, a Rock bar with posters and album covers all over the walls and ceilings, and, inexplicably, a bank of computers. I absolutely love Linz, and wish I could stay a bit longer. Alas, I leave tomorrow for Munich. More later!

-C

   Well, there’s not so much to specifically see in Prague, just more of a city to wander around in. Everything’s reeeeeaally old. My goal was to set out across "Old Town" and walk the Charles Bridge, a brick arch-y thing covered in sculptures of Biblical figures. Prague, however, had another idea. Thwarted by winding alleys and my utter lack of a map, I rummaged around the streets until I ran smack into the river, not anywhere near Karlov most (Charles Bridge). Instead, across the water from me, stood a gigantic complex atop a rather mighty hill. Up up up. 89 steps and a mile and a half later, I was looking out at a breathtaking view of Prague’s rooftops. It’s hard to explain what it looks like, because there’s just an endless sea of tile roofs punctuated sporadically by futuristic-looking antenna towers. Anyway, in this complex is the Prince’s palace and an incredible old carvy cathedral. There are grey-uniformed sentrys posted at all entrances, doing their best impressions of Buckingham palace guards, but looking a bit too serious without any gigantic fuzzy hats. Their hats were more Eastern Europe practical. Anyway, the complex is huge, and is more like a true medeival city than just about anywhere on the planet. The cathedral is centered in the walled-in complex, towering over just about everything for a hundred miles. I went in, purchased a "photography liscence" for 30 Crowns (approximately $1.25) and shot away at the incredibly high ornate ceilings and giant, intricate stained glasses. I don’t know the plural of stained glass. I suppose it would just be stained glass windowS. Anyway, it was nice, and also must have been air conditioned up the wazoo, because outside it was 100 degrees, and inside you wanted some fuzzy slippers.

   I left the cathedral and wandered the grounds for a bit, watching the precisely prescribed changing of the guards, looking a lot less comical with their 3 foot bayonetts. I kept worrying they’d skewer themselves. I suppose they’d practiced enough to avoid the odd impalement. I had a bit of lunch overlooking the expanse of city while watching a three-piece band consisting of a stand-up base, an accordian, and a flute, and three guys singing as they played them (well, aside from the flautist who did not sing while he played). The flautist had a mustache that was perfectly horizontal and stuck out off his head to a seemingly impossible distance to either side, so that when he placed his instrument to his lips, it followed the line of the flute perfectly. Any longer and he would have begun covering up some of the holes. They sang these beautifully haunting chant-like songs together in Czech and it was just a pleasure to listen.

   I eventually headed back down the hill to the water again, and followed it to the Charles Bridge, finally. There were people everywhere, including the occasional contingent of bikini-clad advertisements for various strip clubs in town. There was a guy sitting in the middle of the bridge that sang just like Louis Armstrong but looked like an overweight Czech dockworker. Brian had told me about him from his trip 5 years ago, and sure enough, he was still there.

   Back in town I was roasting again, so I went to a place to order a bottle of water. Getting water in Europe is always a challenge, but not always for the same reason. In much of the northern countries where they speak flawless English, it’s because of their terminology. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark (at least), you walk up to the counter and say, "May I please have a bottle of water?" Then you have to steel yourself for the inevitable response. I’m not sure why it makes me cringe so, but I remember the first time I heard it feeling rather ill.

"Gas or no gas?"

GAS? Can’t they call it something else? If I’m going to drink a bottle of sparkling water, I do NOT want to be picturing the process by which the sparkling is added if it is called gas. Can you see the factory? Lines of open water bottles conveying down the belt, with five or six big guys sqatting over each one after a big lunch of franks and beans.

"Please GOD, NO GAS!" I think was my first startled reaction.

"Uhhh, okaaaay." I clutched the handed over gas-less bottle and drank with fury, elated that mine had bypassed the gas-adding process.

   Well, in a country that speaks absolutely no English, getting water is equally difficult. Their responses typically sound like they could be English sentences, but are not.

"Excuse me, could I have a bottle of water?"

"Wow, that’s the best ski."

"I’m sorry?"

"Mai’s love aparts rainy."

"Uh, yeah, WATER," miming drinking.

"Out of rain comes sky."

"Yes, the large one."

"It’s a perv nearby?"

"NO, please, no gas." Then I ask for directions to the nearest metro station.

"Does that meal usually say ‘chesty’? Star of plum man. Fiends saulder and the rest erase."

"So, right, left, into the mall, and downstairs?"

"Da."

It’s an interesting place.

-C

   So I have just one thing to say about the Czechs, they love their inline skates. There are signs posted everywhere deliniating where one can or cannot Rollerblade. It’s funny. What bikes are to the Dutch, inlines are to the Czechs. It just confirms my theory that continental Europe is always 10 years behind the US when it comes to fashion and fads.

   Also, I’m currently staying in a hostel in Pasadena. You may have gotten the impression that I was in Eastern Europe, but you’d be wrong. I am at the Rose Bowl. There’s a wide green valley, a golf course, a large old-fashioned bridge spanning just to the north, bike (or, more accurately, Rollerblade) trails up and down, and a river running right through the middle. The only thing that may give my true location away is the sporadic overweight (to be kind) middle-aged topless ladies dotting the shoreline every 100 yards or so. They are easily located despite their attempt at arborial concealment due to the intense blasts of light reflecting off their expansive pale flesh. Occasionally they will flop about on the rocks, turning to get maximum roasting coverage, causing the shorelines to positively shimmer. It’s breathtaking really.

-C

I awoke with purpose, knowing that I had but 24 hours to see the entire city of Berlin. I knew I was kidding myself, (the American girl next to me just turned to her friend and asked how to spell "geenormus", as in gi-normous, as in the combination of gigantic and enormous, as in not a real word, to which the girl next to her replied "I don’t know, I never paid attention in English class". Sigh) because Berlin is no Copenhagen, and could take a month to see everything. But I was forced into this truncated visit because of the World Cup and it’s fans, so I made the day what I could. I exited the front door of my hostel and ran smack into one of the most famous Meis Van Der Rohe buildings in the world, a gallery/museum space that was not open, but was all glass, so I was able to take a few good pictures. The thing I’m pleased about is that I recognized it for what it was before I knew to look for it because of the plus shaped columns. Oh yeah, I know my stuff. Anyway, I ran into an older local couple there who were happy to show me a vague and recommended route through the city. I set off in the general direction they said, and found after a few minutes a big open space with a large spherical balloon floating in the center. After a cursory exchange of money, I climbed aboard this contraption with a father and his pre-school daughter and a Captain Kangaroo-looking, well, captain. He released a lever and we began to soar at a dizzying pace up and over the rooftops, tethered to the ground with a single robust-looking steel cable. 150 meters later, we were all puking contentedly over the side as the gentle wind buffetted us in wide, sweeping arcs. It was a wonderful way to see the sights in one place, and would have been even better if the 20 minute tourguide narration had been in English. I was actually fine with the breathtaking height if I looked out the side to the horizon, but god forbid I should turn around and look down the center along the cable to the ground. Which I did, often enough that I began to wonder if there’s something wrong with me. After the rather slow decent, the father and I took a look at my map and he spelled out exactly the route, turn for turn, to take through the city in order to see the absolute best stuff.

   First was a block away, Checkpoint Charlie. The block-long walk was along the last remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, where an exhibit about the Holocaust and the Russian Occupation was erected to form a makeshift museum. It was quite fascinating, tempered only by the fact that it was all in German. I was surrounded by several hundred Koreans. I knew they were Korean because they were all wearing the same bright red shirt emblazoned with the word KOREA across the front. It’s a world cup thing. I was contentedly worming my way through the crimson sea looking at the pictures when I saw one that made my head twinge. It was a grainy old black and white photo of three German officers, guns drawn, standing behind three bound, gagged, kneeling Jews in the last moments of their lives. The expression of terror on each of their faces haunts me still, and set the tone for much of the remainder of the day.

   Thoroughly shaken, I walked over to the wooden shed of a checkpoint in the center of the street, suddenly unconcerned with tourist attractions. I wanted to move on, so I continued along my prescribed route to a central square the man from the balloon had highly recommended. I figured if I saw some breathtaking architecture, my mood would improve. In the square was a display of painted bears. At first I was not interested, as it was a very similar exhibit to the painted cows of New York. But I wended my way through the throng nonetheless, and found that the bears were not just done by various artists, but were each a representation of the art of a different country. Every different country. In the whole world. Even Burkina Faso. My spirits lifted as I contemplated the wonderful universality of art and creation. Every culture on this planet (except for the US, apparently, as the bear was just turned into a statue of liberty, with added crown and torch and painted green robes. What pish) has evolved a creative visual outlet, and seeing the lines of colorful bears stretching around the perimeter of the square was enlivening. That was until I came across the bear for Serbia. The artist had painted it with bright blocks of color, but perhaps in a moment of personal truth had scrubbed the bear as clean as possible with some sort of bleaching agent, leaving only the faintest remnants of the color that had been. He then took a gun and shot a few dozen holes into the stained fiberglass. When placed beside the others, this bullet-riddled bear was a stark reminder of the all-encompassing destruction that war brings, down to the very soul of the people. A lump formed in my throat and I hurried across the street to get away from it.

   There I found a large old-looking building with a single giant stone-walled room inside. At the center was a sculpture of a woman holding her soldier son in her arms, weeping over his lifeless body. A plaque below informed that on this 300 year old place of memorial two bodies had been buried in the 1950s, the body of a fallen unidentified German soldier and the body of an executed unidentified concentration camp victim. That’s when everything went fuzzy and I had to leave. I wandered through the streets of Berlin, openly weeping behind my sunglasses as the weight of the atrocities of the world buckled my knees. After a few minutes I found a long, square colonnade. I was wandering between the columns when I noticed that one side of each of them was absolutely unrecognizable with bullet holes. Someone had stood behind each of them, lead showering down from the nearby rooftops or from behind the trees in the neighboring park. Sometime in the not too distant past, someone stood right there and prayed for their life. Someone thought about their wife, or mother, or brother. They thought about everything they had ever loved, every wrong they had ever done, everything they had ever accomplished, and stepped out from behind the column to shoot back at an equally terrified enemy, knowing that it might be the last thing they ever did. They may have even thought about how utterly fruitless it all was. I sat and cried.

   I think I was really feeling homesick at that point, and it may have been that as much as anything that sent me to the bad place. But I challenge anyone to see the things I saw, knowing that in 50 years the danger and destruction had not abated but simply moved on to another temporary home, and not be completely overwhelmed.

   I knew if I just sat there I could let this important day slip by. So I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and walked into a big beautiful building that I came to understand was the Berlin Cathedral, also called the Berliner Dom. The interior was breathtaking, soaring painted ceilings of gold and great carved tendrils of dark wood and stone. I found a staircase (the first thing I look for in any cathedral. up up up.) and ascended into the cathedral’s upstairs museum. From there it was a devilish set of spiral stairs to the base of the dome, where stepping outside gave another breathtaking 360° city vista. It was good for me, the exercise and the cool breeze and the distant views. By the time I was on terra firma, I was much rejuvenated. So I set out once again.

   After a few more miles, lunch, some three-boxes-with-a-nut-underneath scam artist entertainment, and a scoop of "authentic" Belgian ice cream, I reached the tower of Berlin. I don’t exactly know what it is truly called, but it’s a big space-needle-like tower thing that’s in Berlin. Thus my moniker. Thankfully this one had a lift (wow, I mean elevator. My vocabulary has been officially hijacked). At the top, my highest excursion at 205 meters, was a glassed in circular walkway. This time I got the audio tour, in English of course, and spent an hour or so hearing about the history of the Soviet occupation and its influence on the architecture of the city. A fascinating trip. When I reached bottom again, I had just one more stop, which was good because it was getting a bit late.

   I braved the underground system and reached the newly refurbished Parliament building. There was a line out front, and in it was an older group from Los Angeles (less and less of a surprise as the trip wears on) who were in Berlin visiting their hosted exchange student, a very attractive girl of 18 who had done a semester of high school in Laguna in a program a few years ago. I showed one of the guys how to send a picture email from his new Razr phone, and we sat in the sweltering heat in front of the Adidas Football Fun Zone (it’s a world cup thing) for a little more than an hour awaiting our turn. The 2004 renovation of the Berlin parliament building is much talked about in architecture circles, and I have encountered it in classes many times. It’s a glass dome, similar if you imagine to a Gothic dome on a cathedral, but made of glass with a central column of angled mirrors, and a spiral ramp that swings its way to the apex. At the top is a large viewing platform and a central circular bench-like thing that allows you to lay down and look up at the open-air oculus opening in the top of the dome. The blasting sun rays, enclosed glass space, and reflecting mirrors made it the perfect solar-powered sauna, however, and we spent only a few minutes there before the six of us were completely drenched. We wound our way down rather quickly and back onto the streets, where I bid my new friends goodbye.

   My List completed, I walked across the way to the giant central-park-like area. It was host to the main world cup festivities, and after a long wait through security where big men touched me in private places, I crammed into the throng. The park was absolutely mobbed with people, wall to wall as far as the eye could see. There were vendors, games, rides and general festivities. It was also hot, as I may have mentioned. Protecting my pockets, I pushed my way through to the other side of the park and headed home. At the hostel there was a game being projected onto the wall creating a 20 foot wide tv. A single chair was available, so I plunked my weary butt down and caught the last minutes of a game. Afterwords, I forced down some hostel food in the dining hall, thinking that just vegging out in front of a giant tv was a very attractive option for the evening. France was playing S. Korea, so I found a comfortable chair (of which there were a surprising amount) and, joined by about 30 other hostelers, cheered mightily against the French. In the final minutes Korea tied the game, to much fanfare. Bed.

   The next morning I learned a lifelong lesson. Never trust a Scot. My Edinburgh-accented roommate and I each had dates with the train station, so we set off together. Well, at least I got to see a lot more of the city, because we managed to turn a 3 mile walk into an all-morning affair of wrong turns and confusion. At least we never saw the Christiansborg. But a couple sweaty hours later we finally arrived at the truly monumental Berlin Houptbahnhof. I made my reservation and, after a much needed lunch, hopped on the train. Sitting next to me was, what else, a couple of guys from Los Angeles, Whittier to be exact. They were getting ready to start at MIT for graduate school next fall, and were spending the last few months of freedom in Europe. Also next to us was a guy from Seattle and a couple of girls from Leeds University in England. The six of us spent the next six hours having fun on the train, talking and laughing and speculating about the nature of our final destination, Prague.

   I set foot onto Czech Republic soil and managed in just a few minutes here to anger the gods mightily. Seattle dude (Dave) and I had split off as our hostels were in another direction from the group, proceeded to get completely lost, found our way again, and were then absolutely drenched in the most sudden torrential downpour I had seen since I was in Florida. We were caught very unaware, so we found a hotel parking garage driveway and stood with a local couple and the parking attendant watching the world get flooded, lightning streaking ferociously overhead. The thunder shook the surface of the rapidly pooling water which was doggedly sweeping away all the empty plastic garbage cans still on the street. Standing in the rather small opening while a still-upright cans tootled by without a care in the world made me laugh. You could almost hear the "wheeeeeeeeee" as they drifted slowly past.

   Seattle dude, being an expert on rain, knew exactly when to leave, and sure enough the moment we stepped onto the sidewalk again the clouds parted and the sun dried up all the wetness. By the time I arrived at my hostel (after a rather terrifying few moments of being lost by myself on the streets of an Eastern Block city) the tremendous humidity had absorbed much of the rainfall, and the sidewalks were almost dry, as though the rain had consisted of mostly pure alcohol. I dumped my stuff into the provided locker in my room and set off for the Old Town square. I stopped in at a middle-eastern place and had a Gyro with a New York couple and their son who was about to start undergrad at the University of Arizona. Saying our goodbyes, I continued on. The city had erected a jumbotron in the central square for people to watch the game, which meant that it was wall-to-wall Spanish people, as Spain was taking on Tunisia that night. I called Brian to tell him I had finally arrived in his favorite European city, but the call was drowned out for minutes at a time whenever Spain scored a goal. There seemed to be two rival factions of Espanians, each with their own increasingly loud chants and songs. It was a lot of fun. After the game, the crowd disappeared and I went back home, where my clean, dry bed awaited. A good couple of days. I have three more nights here in Prague, so I’m off to see the sights. I hope everyone is doing well! More later!

-C