There are a lot of great lines in State and Main, David Mamet's movie about Hollywood movie people invading a small New England town. One of our favorites is the simplest- Alec Baldwin, playing a big star with, let's just say hobbies, drunkenly rolls his car at the corner of State and Main streets, crawls out, bleeding a bit, smiles and says to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whose character happened to witness this, "So that happened!"
I felt ever so slightly like that after the past few weeks. There were moments of relaxation in Italy, but more of the trip was go go go. We got home early Sunday evening the week before final exams and since then schoolwork has been go go go. Reviews and getting exams ready dominated, all in a fog of jet lag (and given the weather, a fog of fog as well) that nabbed me a total of 20 hours sleep the first 5 nights we were home. By Thursday I was starting to feel a bit more human, but it was still go go go until I finished photocopying exams on Friday, then headed out to get to Chester County to pick up produce for our CSA. I finally got home at 4 and promptly fell asleep until 8:15.
After a day-long meeting in Connecticut and a Father's Day (or Dads and Grads day, as they say) trip to the ballpark, it was time for my final exam. I know that a teacher's perspective on final exams is probably different than the students', but it's more than a little stressful for teachers as well. For one thing, you've got to make up the exam properly. The students get so upset if you give them a multiple choice question with all incorrect answers. I seem to be prone to those kinds of mistakes, and I really need to fix it. One of my goals for next year, I think.
Also, those students have so many questions. A small pack of them descended on one of my colleagues an hour before the final and simply would not leave. I ended up kicking them out a few minutes before the test was supposed to start. I mean, you don't want to discourage their wanting to learn, but couldn't you have asked these questions during review or in, say, May? Or January? Or whenever it was taught?
The next stress point is getting all the tests situated at the tables. The way we work it is that every teacher has a different color cover page for their exam, and we put the exams on the table such that no table has more than one person taking the same exam. Considering that I had 27 students taking the test, this was not exactly routine for me. I also messed up, and made the two exams too similar looking, which caused all kinds of confusion, by the students and in one instance, myself.
Once the exam starts, it's a competition among the teachers for who has the lowest QPTT (questions per test-taker). I've been told that large sums of money used to be wagered on this, until it was learned that one of the teachers was paying off another teacher's students to ask questions whether they needed to or no. Okay, I just made that entire thing up. Never mind.
But one of my goals is always to minimize the number of questions you need to answer, because when you have 20 or 30 or even 40 students spread around a large room, you can put some serious mileage. I did 2 1/2 miles in my 3 hours there. Not too bad. Most of my questions were "should I write the answer on the answer sheet or in the test booklet?" although there were a curiously large number from some pretty advanced students about how to measure distance between things. Hmmm, straight line? Perpendicular? Anything else?
The next stress point comes as the time gets close to the end. Did I make the exam too long? If people are leaving after 20 minutes of a 2 hour exam you can be pretty certain you made it too short, but you tend to know who works quickly in a class and if they're not done 10 minutes before a 2-hour exam is supposed to end, you could be in trouble. Fortunately, I did a pretty good job timing things out this year, and nobody lagged more than 5 minutes beyond their allotted time.
And then comes the grading. English teachers are understandably jealous of the brief period of time it takes to grade math tests compared to, say, 10-page papers. But I'd say the onus is on them to make theirs easier to grade rather than for us to make ours harder. I can live with it. The fear is that either everyone will get 100, in which case you've learned nothing by giving the exam, or that everyone will get 50, in which case you can be pretty sure that you either did a bad job teaching them or made the exam too hard. Neither is a great option. But again, nothing wrong on that front.
After that it's report cards, but I enjoy those, even though they're time-consuming. Then it's a couple of days of in-service and we're done.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
And it all ends in chaos
The plan was to get up at 6:30 and get on the road by 7, getting us to Rome at around 10 for a noon flight. We packed up the last-second things, grabbed our passports out of the room safe, headed downstairs with our bags. There we were yelled at by the porters for using the luggage cart ourselves instead of asking them (I went downstairs intending to do just that but there were no porters, just a cart). Then the front desk clerk fussed at me because I wanted to redeem some vouchers that I supposedly had been sent but never received.
My observation at that moment was that Italians are often better talkers than listeners, and as warm and friendly as they are in general, they can get officious and unhelpfully bureaucratic if it strikes them. Any first class hotel deals with a situation like the vouchers withThis was not my only instance observing that this day, as it turned out. So all this fussing held us up slightly, and may have been distracting, but we got on the road a bit after 7 and everything seemed to be going smoothly.
Then, when we were about an hour from Sorrento, a bit past Pompeii, I asked Ronnie if I could have some money for tolls. She looked in her bag and couldn’t find her wallet, and I realized holy crap, or some similar 4-lettered thought, I had taken her wallet out of her bag to keep it in the safe when she wasn’t using it and forgot to retrieve it. She didn’t even know I’d taken it, so it was all on me.
Everyone graciously accepted that it was all my fault, so I called the hotel, who checked the room and found the wallet. Unfortunately, It’s Sunday, so the courier could not be contacted, but they promised to ship it to us the next day. It we hadn’t grabbed the passports we would have had to turn around, which probably would have meant missing the flight.
Two takeaways from this. First of all, I spent the next hour or so beating myself up over this. I’m a pretty forgiving sort, but there’s a certain amount of self-beating that needs to take place in order to learn from your mistakes. If you just decide it’s not a big deal, it’s just a screw-up. Hopefully I learned something about rushing departures. The other takeaway is that this is just like the kinds of things that happen to other skilled professionals, where you can do something really well, and I had been congratulating myself on my excellent planning and execution of this whole trip, and I screw up the simplest, most basic thing- bring home all your stuff. I’ll still be annoyed at myself until the wallet arrives, but I deserve that.
As it turned out, we didn’t need the cash- the toll road took credit cards and I had enough cash in any event. We zipped most of the way to Rome until we got pretty close to the airport, where things slowed down considerable. I’d checked earlier and knew that US Airways flew out of Terminal 5, because the airport sign just said US. Finding terminal 5 turned out to be quite difficult, in part I think because there is no terminal 4, so terminal 5 seemed to be in a different direction from 1, 2 and 3. There was a sign next to terminal 3 that said terminal 5 but there was nothing around it, so we kept going. Finally, seemingly in the middle of nowhere stood a small building with lots of police tape around it. It was the mythical terminal 5. Given that this place was really far from the rental car dropoff, we decided to check all the bags and check in and then I’d go take care of the car. Then our plans met the Italians.
The setup in this place was like no other I’d seen. Before you could go to check in, you had to answer security questions, and the check-in woman insisted that we had to drop the car off first and then check the bags, but that we needed to hurry because baggage check was closing in 20 minutes. I tried to explain that, though we were all one family, that R&C were on a separate reservation and should therefore be able to check in and then I’d follow, with my bag if necessary. “No, this is US security regulations, now I need to help the next people.” She had completely stopped listening and was doing the bureaucrat thing. Fortunately, another agent called someone and made it all okay. R&C could check all the bags and I could go drop off the car.
Whew! I rode off with the car and then pretty much ran from the office to that weird terminal 5 at terminal 3 which was in fact a bus stop for terminal 5. A bus pulled up as I was coming down the stairs, so I jumped on and was right back to the terminal. I said a friendly hello to the unhelpful agent who kind of pretended not to know me and shuffled me off to actual check-in place, which was around the corner. All of this was going pretty quickly, because the place was empty.
Got my boarding pass and met up with R&C at the tax refund place, then though security into terminal G. Where was terminal G? I have no idea, but it wasn’t at terminal 5, you had to take a bus there. So we piled on the bus and waited and waited and finally drove off to terminal G. None of the places I’d been since dropping off the car had been air conditioned, so at this point my clothes were soaked though with sweat and my head was dripping. This is not an exaggeration. I was drenched.
Anyway, we get to terminal G, and for some reason, they’d begun boarding our flight an hour before it was scheduled to leave. We hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we went and got food and were among the last to board…another bus. No room at terminal G for the US Airways plane, so onto another hot, airless bus until the very last person was boarded at which time we drove a few yards (I’m sorry, meters) from the terminal and then stopped for unknown reasons for about 3 minutes. Maybe there was a traffic light out there. Then we finally got near the plane, and after only another couple of minutes while the bus driver discussed something with the ground service people, we got off the bus. Then up a very long flight of steps and finally on the plane. This was over an hour since we’d arrived at the airport and we hadn’t stood still for a moment.
Then, the plane just sat there for 40 minutes, but it was air conditioned so I didn’t care. At least we were kind of on our way. We flew to Philly and arrived about 10 minutes early in fact, only to sit on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for an open gate. Wow, PHL can be an awful airport.
But we're home. Exhausted, but home.
My observation at that moment was that Italians are often better talkers than listeners, and as warm and friendly as they are in general, they can get officious and unhelpfully bureaucratic if it strikes them. Any first class hotel deals with a situation like the vouchers withThis was not my only instance observing that this day, as it turned out. So all this fussing held us up slightly, and may have been distracting, but we got on the road a bit after 7 and everything seemed to be going smoothly.
Then, when we were about an hour from Sorrento, a bit past Pompeii, I asked Ronnie if I could have some money for tolls. She looked in her bag and couldn’t find her wallet, and I realized holy crap, or some similar 4-lettered thought, I had taken her wallet out of her bag to keep it in the safe when she wasn’t using it and forgot to retrieve it. She didn’t even know I’d taken it, so it was all on me.
Everyone graciously accepted that it was all my fault, so I called the hotel, who checked the room and found the wallet. Unfortunately, It’s Sunday, so the courier could not be contacted, but they promised to ship it to us the next day. It we hadn’t grabbed the passports we would have had to turn around, which probably would have meant missing the flight.
Two takeaways from this. First of all, I spent the next hour or so beating myself up over this. I’m a pretty forgiving sort, but there’s a certain amount of self-beating that needs to take place in order to learn from your mistakes. If you just decide it’s not a big deal, it’s just a screw-up. Hopefully I learned something about rushing departures. The other takeaway is that this is just like the kinds of things that happen to other skilled professionals, where you can do something really well, and I had been congratulating myself on my excellent planning and execution of this whole trip, and I screw up the simplest, most basic thing- bring home all your stuff. I’ll still be annoyed at myself until the wallet arrives, but I deserve that.
As it turned out, we didn’t need the cash- the toll road took credit cards and I had enough cash in any event. We zipped most of the way to Rome until we got pretty close to the airport, where things slowed down considerable. I’d checked earlier and knew that US Airways flew out of Terminal 5, because the airport sign just said US. Finding terminal 5 turned out to be quite difficult, in part I think because there is no terminal 4, so terminal 5 seemed to be in a different direction from 1, 2 and 3. There was a sign next to terminal 3 that said terminal 5 but there was nothing around it, so we kept going. Finally, seemingly in the middle of nowhere stood a small building with lots of police tape around it. It was the mythical terminal 5. Given that this place was really far from the rental car dropoff, we decided to check all the bags and check in and then I’d go take care of the car. Then our plans met the Italians.
The setup in this place was like no other I’d seen. Before you could go to check in, you had to answer security questions, and the check-in woman insisted that we had to drop the car off first and then check the bags, but that we needed to hurry because baggage check was closing in 20 minutes. I tried to explain that, though we were all one family, that R&C were on a separate reservation and should therefore be able to check in and then I’d follow, with my bag if necessary. “No, this is US security regulations, now I need to help the next people.” She had completely stopped listening and was doing the bureaucrat thing. Fortunately, another agent called someone and made it all okay. R&C could check all the bags and I could go drop off the car.
Whew! I rode off with the car and then pretty much ran from the office to that weird terminal 5 at terminal 3 which was in fact a bus stop for terminal 5. A bus pulled up as I was coming down the stairs, so I jumped on and was right back to the terminal. I said a friendly hello to the unhelpful agent who kind of pretended not to know me and shuffled me off to actual check-in place, which was around the corner. All of this was going pretty quickly, because the place was empty.
Got my boarding pass and met up with R&C at the tax refund place, then though security into terminal G. Where was terminal G? I have no idea, but it wasn’t at terminal 5, you had to take a bus there. So we piled on the bus and waited and waited and finally drove off to terminal G. None of the places I’d been since dropping off the car had been air conditioned, so at this point my clothes were soaked though with sweat and my head was dripping. This is not an exaggeration. I was drenched.
Anyway, we get to terminal G, and for some reason, they’d begun boarding our flight an hour before it was scheduled to leave. We hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we went and got food and were among the last to board…another bus. No room at terminal G for the US Airways plane, so onto another hot, airless bus until the very last person was boarded at which time we drove a few yards (I’m sorry, meters) from the terminal and then stopped for unknown reasons for about 3 minutes. Maybe there was a traffic light out there. Then we finally got near the plane, and after only another couple of minutes while the bus driver discussed something with the ground service people, we got off the bus. Then up a very long flight of steps and finally on the plane. This was over an hour since we’d arrived at the airport and we hadn’t stood still for a moment.
Then, the plane just sat there for 40 minutes, but it was air conditioned so I didn’t care. At least we were kind of on our way. We flew to Philly and arrived about 10 minutes early in fact, only to sit on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for an open gate. Wow, PHL can be an awful airport.
But we're home. Exhausted, but home.
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Last day in Sorrento
At this point it's clear I'm in a different place from my traveling companions, who arrived in Italy a week before I did. They are definitely ready to go home. I'm ready to stay.
Sorrento is a really nice place. The town is a funny mix between fancy kinds of things and cheap trinkets and regular town kinds of stores. Beach towns are the same everywhere, and though technically this isn't a beach town (because of the lack of beach) it's a shore resort town, and that's what they have around here. You can here all you want about the Amalfi coast (which Sorrento lies just north of), but you won't here much about beaches. Positano, probably the most famous town around here, has no beach to speak of. I was talking with someone in a store today whose son is spending a few months in Cape May, and I was saying that he would see what a real beach looks like.
That said, we went to the beach today. If the purpose of said visit was to get fried, we succeeded. Celia and I both got burnt. Her worse, but both of us got it. If the purpose was to see where the locals go to the beach, we succeeded at that too. For once in a long time, we were in a place where nobody else was speaking English. But there were lots of Italians with their kids, jabbering away. I should say that the Italian language is structured such that even a sober, rational conversation will sound like jabbering to a non-Italian person, but most of it really sounds like jabbering anyway and it probably is. People are very expressive here, in whatever way you an think of.
After all that time in the sun, it was nice to get back to the hotel, sit in the shade and have lunch. It was very pleasant. We spent the afternoon inside. I went for a dip in one of the hotel pools (they have 5, each spilling down into the next) and had a beautiful view of the bay and the town.
After a few hours, we decided to get dinner, so we walked through a few of the side streets, which are all full of shops selling all kinds of things with lemons. Sorrento is famous for their lemons, which grow to about the size of large navel oranges and are a little sweeter than the ones we’re used to. You can buy lemoncello everywhere, and many other things made into sweet liqueurs and with lemons painted or pictured on them.
The street was packed with people, some local, many of them tourists. We ended up in the main square, where we ate at the sprawling café smack in the middle of everything. It was fun peoplewatching and the food was pretty good. Then a last stop for a last gelato and then back to finish packing. Home tomorrow.
Sorrento is a really nice place. The town is a funny mix between fancy kinds of things and cheap trinkets and regular town kinds of stores. Beach towns are the same everywhere, and though technically this isn't a beach town (because of the lack of beach) it's a shore resort town, and that's what they have around here. You can here all you want about the Amalfi coast (which Sorrento lies just north of), but you won't here much about beaches. Positano, probably the most famous town around here, has no beach to speak of. I was talking with someone in a store today whose son is spending a few months in Cape May, and I was saying that he would see what a real beach looks like.
That said, we went to the beach today. If the purpose of said visit was to get fried, we succeeded. Celia and I both got burnt. Her worse, but both of us got it. If the purpose was to see where the locals go to the beach, we succeeded at that too. For once in a long time, we were in a place where nobody else was speaking English. But there were lots of Italians with their kids, jabbering away. I should say that the Italian language is structured such that even a sober, rational conversation will sound like jabbering to a non-Italian person, but most of it really sounds like jabbering anyway and it probably is. People are very expressive here, in whatever way you an think of.
After all that time in the sun, it was nice to get back to the hotel, sit in the shade and have lunch. It was very pleasant. We spent the afternoon inside. I went for a dip in one of the hotel pools (they have 5, each spilling down into the next) and had a beautiful view of the bay and the town.
After a few hours, we decided to get dinner, so we walked through a few of the side streets, which are all full of shops selling all kinds of things with lemons. Sorrento is famous for their lemons, which grow to about the size of large navel oranges and are a little sweeter than the ones we’re used to. You can buy lemoncello everywhere, and many other things made into sweet liqueurs and with lemons painted or pictured on them.
The street was packed with people, some local, many of them tourists. We ended up in the main square, where we ate at the sprawling café smack in the middle of everything. It was fun peoplewatching and the food was pretty good. Then a last stop for a last gelato and then back to finish packing. Home tomorrow.
Saturday, June 07, 2014
Capri tour, part 2
The next stop on the Capri tour was the chair lift, a single chair that took you from Anacapri up to the highest point on the island, around 4000 feet high. Pretty f-ing impressive.
The views were incredible (we had a perfect day for this- sunny and warm and clear with a slight breeze- warm in the sun and cool in the shade). Once at the top, there was a simply incredible view. Neither Ronnie nor I are huge "get up as high as you can and look" kinds of people, but this was pretty great.
On one side you could see the famous rocks (not famous enough for me to remember their names, but famous enough for me to know that they have names) and a view of all the other islands dotting the Bay of Naples. Vesuvius is omnipresent. The color of the water is just plain ridiculous. I've been to miniature golf courses where they dye the water blue for effect and this looks bluer.
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| Best to hold your flip flops on the chair lift |
The views were incredible (we had a perfect day for this- sunny and warm and clear with a slight breeze- warm in the sun and cool in the shade). Once at the top, there was a simply incredible view. Neither Ronnie nor I are huge "get up as high as you can and look" kinds of people, but this was pretty great.
On one side you could see the famous rocks (not famous enough for me to remember their names, but famous enough for me to know that they have names) and a view of all the other islands dotting the Bay of Naples. Vesuvius is omnipresent. The color of the water is just plain ridiculous. I've been to miniature golf courses where they dye the water blue for effect and this looks bluer.
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| The famous rocks whose name I don't know |
There are plenty more pictures where those come from, but this gives you a taste. It's just beautiful in a way I'd not seen before, and I've seen some pretty beautiful things. Capri is just special.
Back down the chair lift and into town for a walk to yet another (yawn) incredible viewpoint. Michele took a picture and suggested we Photoshop in our other daughter. Not sure she'd like that, but maybe. Time for lunch!
Up a (what else?) even more narrow and winding (guide: "Look at this road- it's still two-way") road up to a farm house restaurant (and piscina) on the hillside. Delicious fresh food and wine. Hey! Caprese salad comes from Capri!
Then we took the cab over to the town of Capri. When the cabbie tried to drop us off, the turnaround spot was full, so he started yelling at one of the cabbies sitting there, and they went back and forth for a couple of minutes before the other guy moved. Our guide told us that they were good friends and they were just giving each other grief for fun.
From town, we took a funicular down the hill to the port, where we caught the boat back to Sorrento. An amazing day.
A tour of Capri, part 1- The Blue Grotto
This post is long and has lots of pictures, so it'll be broken into 2 or 3 parts. Capri is oneof the prettiest and most photogenic places I've been. I apologize for the weird formatting. Sometimes it's hard to get Blogger to do what you want it to.
Today was the last tour, a visit to the Isle of Capri, emphasis on the first syllable. Not like Capri pants, though we saw plenty of them today and every other day wherever the cruisers gather. The tour started early, for reasons that were clear once we were there, though that didn't keep us from being grumbly on our way into town.
Today was the last tour, a visit to the Isle of Capri, emphasis on the first syllable. Not like Capri pants, though we saw plenty of them today and every other day wherever the cruisers gather. The tour started early, for reasons that were clear once we were there, though that didn't keep us from being grumbly on our way into town.
It was a 15 minute walk to meet up with our guide, Michele (a guy- pronounced more like mickehleh), a guy who looked around 30 and resembled a former frat brother and advertising assistant named Don. This guy was a cool guide. He had a very good time doing his job throughout, and he was an excellent companion for the day.
We started by taking a boat over to the port of Capri. He told us that we were fortunate in that the famous Blue Grotto was likely to be open because the sea was flat and the tide was low. It'll all be moot in a few years, I guess. It'll be under water. Anyway, we were excited to see this mythical thing. We did not go to the grotto by boat, like most people. We took a car instead, over the hill on steep, twisty narrow roads just big enough it seemed for 1 1/2 cars but suddenly big enough for 2 when they passed each other.
He prepared us for this trip by introducing out driver by saying, "Look at his face. His nickname is Pazzo. You know what that means?" I've had Italian friends and know exactly what that means- crazy. "Tu e pazzo!" Michele motioned us into the car and noted, "It's big enough for 6, or 12 Japanese." The Japanese are a fact of life around there and they travel in a very specific way- in a group, take pictures of everything, get in and get out.
He prepared us for this trip by introducing out driver by saying, "Look at his face. His nickname is Pazzo. You know what that means?" I've had Italian friends and know exactly what that means- crazy. "Tu e pazzo!" Michele motioned us into the car and noted, "It's big enough for 6, or 12 Japanese." The Japanese are a fact of life around there and they travel in a very specific way- in a group, take pictures of everything, get in and get out.
The ride was fun, but not the scariest I've had. It's very impressive that they can go as fast as they do on these roads and not crash. They do keep both side view mirrors in. Not like you're using them for anything.
Our guide liked to talk. Not just to us, to everyone. He chatted with people on the way to the boar and on the boat, the cab driver, people walking on the street- he seemed to know everyone. Jokes for everyone.
He was also a good guide; not only did he have lots of information to offer, but he was able to guide us from place to place quickly and efficiently in a way that was responsive to the way we wanted to travel. His approach to the Blue Grotto was perfect. We got there quickly by cab, and though boat may be quicker, there were 3 people in front of us on the steps down from the road, and a couple of hundred in boats.
He explained that there were hundreds of students who day trip to Sorrento on a fairly regular basis and pretty much take over wherever they decide to hang out. That was who was on the big boats. The little ones are the rowboats that go into the Grotto.
If you don't know about the Blue Grotto, it's this legendary things, first known as the swimming hole of the Emperor Tiberius, who was also, as we found out in Pompeii, the inventor of the pay toilet. Although Tiberius got to the grotto by a passageway from his villa, we have to enter from the water, which is difficult. The opening is very small and if the sea is too rough or too high you can't get in at all. They estimate one out of every 3-4 days is okay. On our day it was okay in the morning but not in the afternoon because the tide was too high.
The way it works is, you get in a rowboat with a guy who first solicits a tip "Only tip if you make it out. Don't make it out? No tip." Then he jockeys for position with the other rowboats (there's a dozen or so, each holding 3-5 people) to buy a ticket (really, there's a ticket booth boat and the rowboat guy has to go each time to pay) and then get in line to get into the grotto. Wave goes out, people shoot out through the opening. Wave goes in, you duck and slip in.
Once inside it's dark and spooky, with this beautiful blue glow in the water coming from the light at the opening. I can show you a picture but it will only give you the slightest sense of being in a dark cave and seeing this glow everywhere.
The boatster (I think that's what they're called I didn't ask) says to us, "I take you around twice, not like the Japanese, okay?" And in fact he does. I'm not sure we stayed inside longer than anyone else and I'm not honestly sure how long you'd want to stay in without swimming (which is not allowed but not strictly enforced) for which I was not equipped.
He did serenade us (and everyone else in there as well) with a chorus of O Solo Mio. And then we came up to the door and when the wave went out, we shot out.
He was also a good guide; not only did he have lots of information to offer, but he was able to guide us from place to place quickly and efficiently in a way that was responsive to the way we wanted to travel. His approach to the Blue Grotto was perfect. We got there quickly by cab, and though boat may be quicker, there were 3 people in front of us on the steps down from the road, and a couple of hundred in boats.
If you don't know about the Blue Grotto, it's this legendary things, first known as the swimming hole of the Emperor Tiberius, who was also, as we found out in Pompeii, the inventor of the pay toilet. Although Tiberius got to the grotto by a passageway from his villa, we have to enter from the water, which is difficult. The opening is very small and if the sea is too rough or too high you can't get in at all. They estimate one out of every 3-4 days is okay. On our day it was okay in the morning but not in the afternoon because the tide was too high.
The way it works is, you get in a rowboat with a guy who first solicits a tip "Only tip if you make it out. Don't make it out? No tip." Then he jockeys for position with the other rowboats (there's a dozen or so, each holding 3-5 people) to buy a ticket (really, there's a ticket booth boat and the rowboat guy has to go each time to pay) and then get in line to get into the grotto. Wave goes out, people shoot out through the opening. Wave goes in, you duck and slip in.
Once inside it's dark and spooky, with this beautiful blue glow in the water coming from the light at the opening. I can show you a picture but it will only give you the slightest sense of being in a dark cave and seeing this glow everywhere.The boatster (I think that's what they're called I didn't ask) says to us, "I take you around twice, not like the Japanese, okay?" And in fact he does. I'm not sure we stayed inside longer than anyone else and I'm not honestly sure how long you'd want to stay in without swimming (which is not allowed but not strictly enforced) for which I was not equipped.
He did serenade us (and everyone else in there as well) with a chorus of O Solo Mio. And then we came up to the door and when the wave went out, we shot out.
From the grotto we got back in the taxi to the town of Anacapri, the second city of the island. I'll pick that up in the next post.
Headed to Sorrento.
From Pompeii we drove to Sorrento. No main roads, just twisty mountain narrow roads with lots of rush hour traffic. Nearly 2 hours to go 60 miles. There's just no other way to do it.
Finally got to our hotel, which is a big, fancy, kind of formal thing late afternoon. Our room is beautiful and has a view of the bay and a small balcony.
That's Vesuvius in the distance, by the way. It's a very nice, big, bright room. It's about 1/4 mile walk down into town, and then further depending on where you want to go. I'm hoping to get up early one of the mornings and walk the whole thing.
We went out for a very strange dinner. It was in a 16th century building off an alleyway. The food was okay, but the service was really weird. The waiter looked like Abe Vigoda (still alive, as far as I can tell) and he was very difficult to communicate with. He was assisted by a young guy who seemed to need to ask Abe how to do anything. We were also visited by a guy, a greeter of sorts, in a black, sparkly cowboy hat. He was very friendly, though not necessarily appropriately so. The whole scene was strange.
Sorrento was hopping by the time we got out of dinner. The Italians don't eat as late as the Spanish, but they're close. The streets are pretty deserted at 6 but are very busy at 8 and most of the shops are open. It seems like a nice town.
Finally got to our hotel, which is a big, fancy, kind of formal thing late afternoon. Our room is beautiful and has a view of the bay and a small balcony.
We went out for a very strange dinner. It was in a 16th century building off an alleyway. The food was okay, but the service was really weird. The waiter looked like Abe Vigoda (still alive, as far as I can tell) and he was very difficult to communicate with. He was assisted by a young guy who seemed to need to ask Abe how to do anything. We were also visited by a guy, a greeter of sorts, in a black, sparkly cowboy hat. He was very friendly, though not necessarily appropriately so. The whole scene was strange.
Sorrento was hopping by the time we got out of dinner. The Italians don't eat as late as the Spanish, but they're close. The streets are pretty deserted at 6 but are very busy at 8 and most of the shops are open. It seems like a nice town.
Friday, June 06, 2014
Is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Sorry for the Frank Zappa non-sequitur. I just want to start off by saying that I'm a good driver. I put a lot of effort into it, take a lot of pride in it, and have a basically spotless record to show for it. I've even driven in Manhattan plenty, but there's only so much you can do to prepare for driving in Rome. If I could never do that again, I'd be very happy.
Today was yet another busy day, with a visit to Pomeii and then on to Sorrento on the dividing line between Amalfi and the Bay of Naples. But to make any of that happen, we needed a car. So I went to the train terminal, creatively named Termini, to pick it up. This seemed like a good idea, because it was close to the hotel. Pretty nightmarish though. Termini is huge and because the Italians clearly fear anything being orderly, they prefer to not have maps anywhere that they might be useful. So it took me a while to find the rental car office. The transaction didn't take long, but the car was just parked outside somewhere. Or was it? It was hard to tell. The clerk said to just press the button and listen for the beep, but this car didn't beep. I eventually found it using the license plate. Not quite like Hertz Gold Canopy service, if you know what I mean.
The car, at least, was a nice one- a Volvo with a good-sized trunk and an impossibly complicated information center that occasionally beeped or spoke to us in Italian. But we were already late by the time I got the thing, so Ronnie just threw all my unpacked stuff into bags and checked out while I slowly made my way back to the hotel- 8 blocks in 20 minutes.
Once in the car, we had to get out of town. Awful. Poor Celia was terrified. The Italians in general and the Romans in particular seem to make every encounter between cars or cars and pedestrians like when dogs sniff each other to determine dominance, seeing if the other one will roll over onto its back. If you hesitate or show any fear you're toast, and there are motorcycles and scooters buzzing around you on both sides at any moment with no notice except for the "bzzzzzzzz." All told, it took another 20 minutes to get far enough away from the center of town to not be desperately trying not to hit another car or a person and then all it took was a U-turn on a 6 lane road (legal, mind you and suggested by Google Maps) to get on the highway.
Finally underway, we headed to Pompeii. Finally got there 15 minutes after we were supposed to meet our guide and we hadn't eaten lunch yet so she had to wait for us. Ultimately, this turned out not to be a problem. She stayed with us long enough to make it a full and rewarding visit. And Pompeii as a place to visit is oh my god.
Today was yet another busy day, with a visit to Pomeii and then on to Sorrento on the dividing line between Amalfi and the Bay of Naples. But to make any of that happen, we needed a car. So I went to the train terminal, creatively named Termini, to pick it up. This seemed like a good idea, because it was close to the hotel. Pretty nightmarish though. Termini is huge and because the Italians clearly fear anything being orderly, they prefer to not have maps anywhere that they might be useful. So it took me a while to find the rental car office. The transaction didn't take long, but the car was just parked outside somewhere. Or was it? It was hard to tell. The clerk said to just press the button and listen for the beep, but this car didn't beep. I eventually found it using the license plate. Not quite like Hertz Gold Canopy service, if you know what I mean.
The car, at least, was a nice one- a Volvo with a good-sized trunk and an impossibly complicated information center that occasionally beeped or spoke to us in Italian. But we were already late by the time I got the thing, so Ronnie just threw all my unpacked stuff into bags and checked out while I slowly made my way back to the hotel- 8 blocks in 20 minutes.
Once in the car, we had to get out of town. Awful. Poor Celia was terrified. The Italians in general and the Romans in particular seem to make every encounter between cars or cars and pedestrians like when dogs sniff each other to determine dominance, seeing if the other one will roll over onto its back. If you hesitate or show any fear you're toast, and there are motorcycles and scooters buzzing around you on both sides at any moment with no notice except for the "bzzzzzzzz." All told, it took another 20 minutes to get far enough away from the center of town to not be desperately trying not to hit another car or a person and then all it took was a U-turn on a 6 lane road (legal, mind you and suggested by Google Maps) to get on the highway.
Finally underway, we headed to Pompeii. Finally got there 15 minutes after we were supposed to meet our guide and we hadn't eaten lunch yet so she had to wait for us. Ultimately, this turned out not to be a problem. She stayed with us long enough to make it a full and rewarding visit. And Pompeii as a place to visit is oh my god.
There aren't that many things that you hear about when you're a kid that stick with you the way Pompeii stuck with me. The terror and random tragedy of it really struck me even when I was little. It was the most frightening thing I could imagine.
What remains of the town is a ruin, of course. We started with a look at a small Greek theater with perfect acoustics, much to the delight of the cruise passenger from the group behind who sang "Fly Me To The Moon."
From there we started learning about life there. We saw pots that were kind of like steam table food for snack bars. We looked at the roads and saw grooves from the wheels of chariots, and we saw crosswalks, raised above the pavement because Pompeii had no sewers and walking down there was chancy.
Pompeii is a familiar enough story that I won't re-tell it, but until you start walking around the place it's hard to get a sense for what it feels like. This is not your monuments or scattered ruins. This is an entire, decent sized town, 15,000 people or so, poisoned by gases and then buried in ashes 20-30 feet deep. And most of the town plan is still there, rows and rows of house and shops, public spaces and brothels and baths and temples. You can almost feel a living town there. I found it incredibly moving.
I know that most of the so-called treasures were looted out, either by robbers (though we saw the skeletons of a few who came to loot the town before the poison gas had cleared) or by the government. By all accounts, all the best artifacts are in the Naples museum. Maybe another time, but you can see artifacts in museums almost anywhere. This was a real place with normal people doing normal things with real stuff.
We saw a beautifully appointed house, with great decorative elements and style. A real rich person's villa. We also saw a public bath (the rich house had its own bath and sauna) and market. Real stuff also includes a red light district, where the "menu" is illustrated with frescos, some of which remain.
We were wiped out by the touring, but I found it pretty thrilling. As Ronnie said, so now I can say to people, "Awesome? You mean Pompeii awesome or 50% off online awesome?
We were wiped out by the touring, but I found it pretty thrilling. As Ronnie said, so now I can say to people, "Awesome? You mean Pompeii awesome or 50% off online awesome?
I'm just going to upload all the photos later. It would take too long to describe them all. Just go there if you have a chance. I try to to keep myself open to being amazed, but it doesn't actually happen that often. It did today though. I'll never forget it.
Thursday, June 05, 2014
This is getting bit much
As opposed to much too much, but it really is way too much. See, I was using the literary technique of understatement. In many cases, understatement is a code word for lying, like Republicans calling the latest gun slaughter an unfortunate incident. But this has been great,though more than I would really want to do in this short a span of time.
Yesterday, we did the Vatican museum in 3 1/2 hours. That was pretty quick, but it seemed endless. So much walking up and down hallways- looking at cool things, mind you, but long.
Both this guide and the guide we had last time we came here made it clear that the Vatican was far more interested in quantity than quality when they were creating their collection, and so the occasional great piece always attracts huge crowds, like the statue above. It depicts the one Trojan guy who was trying to tell people not to bring the horse inside, being engulfed by a sea serpent sent by Athena, who was rooting for her home team. the Greeks.
The hallways are all like this, with all kinds of ridiculous artwork on the ceilings, along with that on the walls
Yesterday, we did the Vatican museum in 3 1/2 hours. That was pretty quick, but it seemed endless. So much walking up and down hallways- looking at cool things, mind you, but long.
Both this guide and the guide we had last time we came here made it clear that the Vatican was far more interested in quantity than quality when they were creating their collection, and so the occasional great piece always attracts huge crowds, like the statue above. It depicts the one Trojan guy who was trying to tell people not to bring the horse inside, being engulfed by a sea serpent sent by Athena, who was rooting for her home team. the Greeks.
The hallways are all like this, with all kinds of ridiculous artwork on the ceilings, along with that on the walls
But the main thing you're doing is walking down a very well-decorated hallway to catch a look at the Sistine Chapel. Because you're not even supposed to speak in the chapel, not to mention take pictures, the guides spend copious time before you get there preparing you for what you were going to see.
But it's hard to be prepared. I've been there once before, but it was better for me this time. Everything seemed closer and more rich, though I still got a stiff neck after a few minutes. Brilliant is such a throwaway word now (at least for Americans, the British usage is more fun), I can't really thing of what to say about it. It's like Louis CK reacting when someone calls a basket of chicken wings "amazing." "That's amazing? What if Jesus Christ returned to earth, made love to you all night long and left the future Lord growing inside you? You just used 'amazing' on a basket of chicken wings!" The Sistine Chapel is, simply, a masterpiece. Or a bunch of masterpieces all together in one harmonious space. Amazing.
After that, we went out and looked at St. Peter's Basilica from the outside, since the pope had been doing something in there earlier (I guess he's allowed, and the guide called him 'capricious'), the tourists had queued up for hours and the line was easily a half mile long. So we passed on it and went to have lunch at this place, which was well reviewed on Yelp and we all agreed.
We went back to our room for a while, then decided to go on a shopping trip along with another stop by the Trevi Fountain so we could see it during the day. It was still quite busy there, of course. Practically the same as at 10:30 at night.
From there we moved on to a really nice area near the Spanish Steps.
We also went through Piazza Navona, which contains another insane fountain, this one with an obelisk stuck in the middle of it. So weird.
I never really got the whole Spanish Steps thing. It's a nice staircase and it's outdoors and near the Spanish Embassy, but so what? Maybe there's more to it. That plaza is full of aggressive street vendors, including one who only left us alone when I started yelling at him and who left a woman nearby in tears. Worst part of Rome. So many aggressive vendors. This guy was definitely the worst.
I never really got the whole Spanish Steps thing. It's a nice staircase and it's outdoors and near the Spanish Embassy, but so what? Maybe there's more to it. That plaza is full of aggressive street vendors, including one who only left us alone when I started yelling at him and who left a woman nearby in tears. Worst part of Rome. So many aggressive vendors. This guy was definitely the worst.
Went back to the room and were exhausted enough to consider room service, but decided to go into the hotel restaurant instead. This was fine and it was easy. Tomorrow is Pompeii and then down the coast to Sorrento.
A few words from our host
I've been writing lots about what we've been doing because we've been doing a lot. And that's okay. It's kind of the idea. This was supposed to be a basics tour for our daughter's graduation present so that she could get a sense for what a few parts of Italy were like and decide if she would like to return and maybe spend some real time somewhere. I think that was accomplished.
This has been nice in its own way. It's also been a little frenetic. How many tours can you take? I mean that literally. I've been here since Saturday, today's Wednesday, and I've already been on 3 tours, ranging from 3 1/2 to 7 hours. Tomorrow we have another one, when we visit Pompeii, and then yet another one the next day for a visit to Capri. The nature of a visit somewhere is necessarily affected by the guide. Obviously, you hope that all of the guides will be wonderful, but that's never then case. If you can hit 80% you're doing very well.
Since the beginning of my visit We've had one excellent one, one good one and and one maybe not so good one, though even she had her merits. Today, the whole mood of our visit to the Vatican Museum was colored by this guide, who, at least by her account today, hates the Vatican, hates the pope (though not as much as she hated the previous pope) and isn't so fond of the people who work in the museum. Just the thing to put us in an upbeat, spiritual mood to fully experience the Sistine Chapel (or sixteenth chapel, as Justin Bieber would say).
Look, this woman really knew her stuff, so I can't really complain. She had tremendous historical knowledge and understanding of the context of what we were seeing, which is a gift. But on many levels she was an awful guide. She never made any attempt to relate to us or find out what we were interested in. She just imparted information. If we asked about things, she was very informative in response and had really interesting things to say, but I never had the sense that she was with us.
I guess that isn't really necessary. It doubt our guide from yesterday will remember us in month as anything more than a pleasant small group who were fine to spend the day with. And we thought she was great. But at least we felt like we were with a person. Today we felt like we had a teacher for a while and then she left after imparting her knowledge.
But back to the larger point, doing a survey trip like this almost has to sell a place short. Usually I try to short circuit that for myself by getting up early and going for long walks around wherever we're staying, which lets me get a sense of place. But because of my weird sort of non-jet lag let lag, that hasn't been possible. I'm getting up just in time for breakfast, just like everyone else, which never happens. So I'm left experiencing places for a couple of days at a time, highly influenced by guides. And I don't know where the nearest supermarket or drug store is and it really bothers me.
As someone who really loves to travel and has traveled a decent amount under a variety of circumstances, I always want to know where I am. In Chianti that wasn't such a huge deal because I knew we were in the middle of nowhere and there was a town a couple of kilometers up the road. But in a city I'm used to knowing the area- I just feel more at home that way. And though we've done a fair amount of walking, it's all been either south or west, and I have no real idea what's north or east. That bothers me. Rome is a huge city, the size of Chicago, and if you don't know your immediate area, you're just a visitor. So I guess I'm just a visitor. I can dress like a local and get a kick out of people thinking I am a local (even though I can't help it, I do enjoy it when people think I'm Italian and ask directions) but when it comes down to it I'm just a tourist- a properly dressed, respectful tourist, but a tourist just the same. Oh well, can't be helped this go round. We'll do better next time.
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Well then we actually got to the forum
So we started walking around the forum. The scale is just hard to imagine until you get there. The thing is huge.
We saw the place where Marc Antony burnt Julius Caesar (he was dead at the time) and left his tomb there for people to throw coins on.
From a historical perspective, I guess Marc Antony was expecting to succeed Caesar, but Caesar apparently had a secret son who succeed him instead. Not sure how he managed to enforce that after he was dead, but it worked out okay I guess, at least for a couple of centuries (for you kids out there, that's even enough time to catch up on Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, and maybe even watch all of the Harry Potter and Twilight movies again).
So from there we moved up to Palatine Hill, where first Augustus lived (since supposedly that was where Romulus founded Rome after being raised by a she-wolf and before being foiled by Captain Kirk) in a regular size mansion and then other emperors built larger and larger houses until they started to spill off the hill and onto the plains down below. Nero had a country estate created for himself in the middle of the city. It was around this time that we started to hear our guide use the world megalomaniac with increasing frequency and accuracy.
Not much left of these houses, especially Nero's. Some brick work and small sections of the marble floors.
After all of this it was time for lunch. Yes, all of that before lunch. Four hours of walking around. I had a very nice tuna salad at a place across the street.
After lunch, it was time to move on to the Colosseum. We had the kind of VIP thing where you can go onto a private viewing area, then down into the lower level, then all the way up top. I have to say, of for all its faults (countless acts of bloody cruelty, and it's full of holes) it's a pretty impressive piece of business. I had not realized, for example, that it had a retractable roof. Okay, it was more an awning than a roof, but I'm sure the people staying out of the rain or heat because of it didn't complain.
Downstairs was dark and strange and vaguely frightening. I also learned about the existence of the flat arch. Not quite as strong as a rounded arch or a solid beam, but it fits better in some circumstances and cost less in others.
Then up to the top, which was pretty frigging amazing.
And that was the day. Then back to the room for a rest and eventually to dinner. More commentary later.
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