Pompei and Pizza and Napoli

We awoke at 5 a.m. and were ferried down the hill from Crevari to Voltri so that we could catch the train that would take us to Genova Principe. Knowing that we needed to catch our train, Luciano sped down the hill avoiding parked cars on either side. It was a path he had probably done thousands of times. At 82 years of age, he had lived in Crevari since birth. He knew every edible plant and animal on the mountain and every place in the tiny road that widened just enough for two cars to pass each other (even if this meant that both drivers had to pull their mirrors in).

I  held onto the edge of the seat. Anyone who has ever ridden with me knows that I am not the calmest driver. Some would even call me “not safe.” But for someone who is used to going fast in traffice, I was a novice when it came to the 82-year-old Luciano. It was if he had a seventh sense that was geared toward driving a small car through smaller spaces while simultaneously detecting oncoming traffic and places in the road he could use to avoid it.

We arrived at the tiny station of Voltri and said our goodbyes. After grabbing a train at Principe we sat down to enjoy the ride to Napoli. This was the first time I had ever been this far south and I was nervous as to how the people were and how prevalent crime was. Since there weren’t any numbers on a couple of the train cabins, we counted the number and then shuffled ourselves and our bulky bags down the narrow aisles until we got to our assigned seats.

We put our bags up above our seats and the fit was so tight  that the straps from our bags dangled down. After about an hour we had dozed off. We were awakened by loud talking in a language I didn’t understand. A lady who looked she was Chinese boarded the train staring at a piece of paper and barking orders. A gaggled of other Chinese trailed in behind but not before taking pictures of themselves in front of the train. Once aboard they began to walk right toward our seats constantly gazing at the numbers above the seats until their leader stopped in front of our seats.

“Sixty five and sixty six,” the lady said to me in English and then pointed at her ticket. Sure enough, it looked like she had booked our seats as well. I showed her my ticket and pointed to the seats marked “sixty five” and “sixty six.” Her eyes got wide and she mumbled “double booking.” It was obvious that everyone in her group understand that term. The phrase passed from the guy standing next to the leader all the way down a girl at the end like some weird game of telephone. “Double booking, double booking, double booking,” they said as each person took a turn repeating the condemning phrase.

I told her that I spoke Italian and that I’d ask the train director why we both had the same seat. When he arrived he looked at me like I was stupid. And I was stupid. But it wasn’t entirely my fault. If the cabins had been marked I would have easily found our seats. Apparently we were in cabin one and our ticket was for cabin two. We gave the “double booking” chanters their seats and moved down a little ways so that we didn’t have to take all our luggage down. We arrived at the station in Naples without further incident.

We had about an hour or so before our train left for Salerno. I found a small supermarket inside the station and after paying a euro ($1.40) to use the bathroom, I grabbed a couple of salads and some other snacks so we could eat lunch before continuing our trip further south. As we walked over to the platform where our train was due, a woman ran into my side and appeared to hurt herself on my bag. She turned around after she passed and yelled at me. What she yelled was in such poor Italian that I couldn’t really understand her except that apparently I had “hurt her.” I was about to apologize when a train director pulled me aside and told me that she was a gypsy and used that tactic frequently to rob people at the station. The gypsies run into you and steal your stuff from your pockets upon contact. You are generally too distracted and alarmed that you ran into someone to check your pockets and valuables. By the time you realize your pockets have been empty they are long gone and you never connect the encounter with the theft.

We boarded the regional train for Salerno and sat down across from two men. One was tall and dark and seemed to be something other than Italian. The other was a little shorter and was constantly typing on a Galaxy pad tablet or his cell phone. It turned out the guy on his tablet was a priest who had just finished his training in Rome and was on his way home to start his priesthood. His name was Alfonso and he was heading to Salerno as well. Once the guy sitting next to him hear us speaking he joined in the conversation as well. We chatted about the States and Italy and why Naples has a problem with the city’s garbage. The told me of all the place surrounding Naples that we should visit. I asked Alfonso about a train we had to connect with at Salerno to get to Pompei and he pulled up the schedules on his tablet. The train we were on had wifi and he was able to log on because he was a subscriber. He found that we had about 10 minutes to find the platform and board our train before it left for Pompei. As a priest, Alfonso receives about 800 euro every month, which equates to about $1200 US dollars. Because he feared we might miss the train Alfonso told us to head to the 2^nd platform and he’d go buy our tickets for us so that we wouldn’t miss it.

We exited the train and hurried to our platform. After about five minutes, Alfonso arrived with a sweaty face and handed us each our ticket. We shook hands and thanked him for his kindness and boarded our train just in time to enter a packed commuter train. There was no room for us to sit so we stood in the breezeway.

Within minutes of the train leaving we began to see little dark-skinned adolescents walk back and forth between the cabins. They did this every 10 minutes or so with increasing frequency. I put our bags behind me so that I could watch them and any hands that might try to open them. Just before the next stop, two train directors corralled a band of gypsies and walked them through the breezeway. The adolescents that had been running back and forth were in the group accompanied by several other women. They were yelling at the train directors in broken Italian and were shoving and pushing inside the crowded breezeway. From what the directors had said, they gypsies had been riding the train without a ticket. Because of this, they were being forced off at the next stop. The gypsies continued do push and wail as we got closer to the station. When we stopped we all exited the train. They gypsies stood at the side of the train and made rude gestures at the people seated inside laughing and whistling.

Not wanting to draw any more attention to ourselves that we already had, Carolyn and I snuck down the stairs and walked to the front of the station to ask for directions. There wasn’t anyone from Pompei there so I went into the bar and asked where Via Carlo Alberto was. The directions from the barista were pretty straightforward: go up the street and turn right at the piazza. We followed the street up to a magnificent church several stories tall and walked past a fountain without water to our hotel.

The hotel Apollo was on the second floor and run by an Italian family. A mother was at the front desk and an elderly woman sat on a couch in the foyer ironing towels. A large man sat in a recliner in a wife beater watching television in the room behind the front desk. We checked in and the lady led us down a short hallway to our room. Once there, we opened up our shades and the window. It was smoldering outside and we noticed that there was no air conditioning.  We were so hot and tired from the train ride and all we wanted to do was get something to eat and drink. After spending 45 minutes walking down streets with closed businesses we realized that nothing was open on Sunday in Pompei. We finally settled on a couple bottles of water at a bar and a pizza from across the street from our hotel. We ordered a margherita (sauce and mozzarella) and one with mozzarella di bufala. This is a very delicious type of mozzarella that is from Naples. We returned to our room and sat on the balcony and ate our dinner. We were so tired from the travel and walking all day that after our showers we fell fast asleep. Until I was awaked about an hour later in pool of sweat. My hair was soaked. And my body had a thin layer of water all over it.

I got to my feet and went over to the window and looked out it. Crowds of people began appearing on the streets, well-dressed and speaking in loud tones. From my groggy state it seemed as if everyone on the entire street was yelling at each other. Despite all this noise, I could easily hear the entire phone conversation of the girl parked right below our window. I closed some shutters and the sound diminished substantially. Whatever breeze existed was now shut off in favor of quiet. I went to the shower and grabbed a towel to lay on and climbed back into bed. With my earplugs snugly in my ears I lay flat on my back so that my arms and legs wouldn’t come into contact with my body lest they stick there. Less than 30 minutes later I got up to open the window. It was too hot to sleep. The noise on the street had gotten progressively louder until it finally died at about two in the morning. Not to be outdone by the noisy people, a noisy garbage truck drove along the street collecting glass and smashed the brittle material in his truck for 30 minutes. During this battle with my surroundings I keep feeling something jump on and off my body. Before we’d hit the lights, I’d seen a couple of smashed mosquitoes on the wall near the headboard so I figured that they must be landing on my occasionally. The strange thing was they never bit.

I cant’ write that we awoke the next morning because I don’t think we ever really slept. Carolyn had mysterious red bites on her body to garnish her already swollen mosquito bites she received in Genova. We had decided to spend a couple of hours at the ruins of Pompei and then head to a small village on the outskirts of Naples to sleep that night. The decision was an easy one: we couldn’t spend another night at the hotel Apollo.

It was only a couple of minutes to the entrance to the ruins from our hotel and we were excited to see the site especially since there were remains of people and dogs among the things that were uncovered. Lining the entrance to Pompei were street vendors whose sales approach was similar to that of carnies at the circus. Once I responded in Italian they left us alone. In fact, I told one woman I was Italian when she gave me her pitch in English and her response was “meno male,” or thank goodness. I got the sneaking suspicion that these carnies didn’t prey on fellow Italians – just foreigners. Speaking in Italian worked well to keep them at bay.

We approached the ticket office and had read online that tickets for people ages 19-25 were eight euro. Being on a tight budget, every savings, even small ones, were welcome. As we began to pay for the tickets the guide told us that the eight euro price only applied to the European community and not for anyone else. I was really annoyed by this and told the guy when he came to American I hoped that there was a separate price for us Americans and something more expensive for him since he was Italian. Not only did we not get the discount like the rest of the Europeans there, that were all out of booklets in English that described the sites of Pompei that was supposed to accompany our tickets.

Pompei was interesting for the interested. I enjoyed all the ruins and the craftsmanship of the streets but after a couple of hours all the houses started to blend together. In fact, it was difficult to orient ourselves because the small map they had given us had writing so small that it would have taken a microscope to see it. We walked down many dead end streets trying to find our way out of the ancient maze only to come to a dead end sign that would have been more appropriately placed at the entrance to the street instead of the end. When you are at the end of a dead end street a sign only adds insult to injury. Dripping with sweat from walking around an ancient, shadeless city for two hours in the blistering heat we decided we’d head back to our hotel and pack our things for the 11 a.m. checkout.

We said goodbye to the family that operated the hotel and promised we’d be back (a polite gesture only) and headed down the street to the station to catch our train to the stop where our hostel was on the outskirts of Naples. The train was so packed that we stood in the breezeway again and waited the 25 minutes for our stop. We got off the train at Portici Erculano, a small town on the edge of the Mediterranean. With the sea at our backs, we crossed the tracks and followed the directions to the hostel. Navigating Italy is difficult even for someone who speaks the language and has lived there. Not every street has a sign in the same place, numbers are mixed, streets stop and start at different places in the city and when someone tells you make a left at a roundabout you have to choose between three streets that go left. We chose the one in the middle and walked uphill for about 25 minutes. If the sidewalks had been smooth like in the States it wouldn’t have been nearly a challenge. Unfortunately, they were typical for smaller Italian cities and were made of irregular cobblestone that made pulling our luggage difficult. I wondered how many high heels had been broken off walking on these disjointed rocks.

Exhausted again from train rides and walking we arrived at the hostel in a slightly shady area of Portici. The hostel, called Fabric, was in a poorer residential area and actually shared a courtyard with neighbors. But what the hostel lacked in curb appeal it made up for in service and comfort. Our room, although on the third floor, did have air conditioning. We turned it on as soon as we entered the room and set the lowest setting possible. We flung our bags on the ground and I hung my shirt up to dry on two cabinets.

The hostel had a recreation room, a music room that had a full bar and a piano, wifi and clean showers. The rooms were small but comfortable and after my shirt dried we walked back downstairs and left to explore the city a little before dinner. Besides a small market we’d found and a delicious bread shop, there wasn’t a whole lot to the small city. We came back and drank from bottles of aranciata as we checked our email and used skype to contact family to let them know of our whereabouts. A small group of Australians was noisily laughing and telling stories and after a guy named Michael came over and introduced himself. There were four of them from Sydney all traveling together through Europe. Shy, Patrick and Jeff rounded out the foursome. As they recounted some of their experiences from their journeys we realized they were quite fearless. We met a couple of Americans as well, Matt and Susan, both nurses. We all watched clips on YouTube. I shared some of Australian spiders that they had never seen and they shared some of what they call “stacking.” The word means anything from stubbing your toe to eating it on a snowboard. If you go to YouTube and type in “big stacks” you won’t get big stacks of anything but will get nutty Aussie’s posting video clips of themselves that would make JackAss producers proud.

The group decided that we’d go eat at a restaurant that Michael had heard of. We walked down toward the station and my skills as a translator seemed to impress. I could see all the Italian locals eyeing us as we all clambered for our chairs. When the waitress came up to us I discovered that you couldn’t get anything to eat there, that it was only a bar. She left briefly and came back with a suggestion of a place to eat that had good food near the center of town where we’d come from. We got up and were off walking to the Reginella. The eight of us walked at least a mile along the road while locals zipped by in their vehicles narrowly missing us as they sped along the narrow streets.

I’ve had to reeducate myself on how Italians judge distance. Every time I’ve asked for directions the response has been “just right up the street.” An American would have said something along the lines of, “it’s pretty far, I’m not sure I would walk if I were you.” I’ve come to understand that, because they walk everywhere all day long, it IS “just up the street” to them. To an American however, that is NOT used to walking 10 miles a day, it is a long ass walk. Some cultures would define a walk of this magnitude as exercise and dress themselves accordingly with running shoes, headphones and running shorts. For Italians, it was just part of their normal daily routine.

After asking a couple more people where the Reginella restaurant was we finally arrived. The metal gate was closed over the restaurant windows and there was no sign of life inside. The group, although happy, was also hungry and was not happy that the recommendation hadn’t panned out. I asked a man that was talking to his friend in a Chrysler if he knew why the restaurant was closed. He informed me that it was always closed on Monday. I asked them for another recommendation for a place to eat and made sure to point out that we didn’t want to eat where tourists eat but somewhere the locals hung out. They began to give me directions that started with the usual kiss-of-death phrase “just go right up the street.” I then heard the guy on the street say to the guy in the car, “you think they’ll fit?” I looked at the guy in the car and said, “Ci stiamo,” or “We’ll fit.” He motioned us to all quickly get into his car. Carolyn and I got in the front with her on my lap and the six others got in the back with two lying horizontal across the laps of the others. Matt and Susan looked a little skeptical of the whole situation while the quartet of Aussies welcomed the adventure with a cheer.

Arturo drove down the road and we made small talk. He works as a mechanic and lives in Portici. We drove about 10 minutes or the Italian equivalent of “just right up the street” and arrived at a pizzeria. Arturo entered before us and spoke to the owner. The owner made a signal to a waiter who then disappeared through the back of the restaurant. Arturo explained that his cousin worked here and that they had great food. The waiter had gone to prepare a large table for us in the back of the pizzeria. We all ordered a different pizza and Alfonso (the owner) cut each pizza into eight slices. While we waited, Alfonso brought out some fried appetizers that appeared to be nothing more than salted, fried dough. It was a great snack to tide us over before dinner. Once the pizzas arrived we all ate a piece, waited for everyone to finish then passed the pizzas clockwise so that everyone got to taste one slice of eight different pizzas. We were so synchronized that the whole operation seemed like a giant machine. We spent the night stuffing our faces until we were so full that we couldn’t eat another bite.

Genova: Gente di Mare

           Stazione Principe was just as I had remembered. It hadn’t undergone the major facelift like the one in Milan and it still retained much of its charm. We got off the train and exited the station. We were looking for wifi. I hadn’t reconnected with Enrico for a couple of days and I’m sure he thought we were still in Morocco. After asking several people I quickly determined that Italy wasn’t up to Spanish standards yet when it came to wifi in the larger cities. We walked down a busy street toward piazza Ferrari with Carolyn holding out her phone trying different connections as we walked. We stopped in front of a gelateria that had wifi and this gave us a great excuse to buy some ice cream. Italian gelato is one of a kind, and although many countries claim to sell it, it doesn’t compare to eating it in Italy.

            

           Using Skype (the ONLY way one should use a cell phone while in Europe) we contacted Enrico and let him know we were there. He was shocked and thought for sure we have been in Morocco. We told him how our plans had changed and he agreed to come down the hill to meet us at the end of  bus line one. We hiked back up the hill to the station and bought two tickets for 100 minutes each. It would take about 45 to arrive at the end of the line changing from the bus 20 which we now found ourselves on to the bus one.

            

           The weather was uncommonly humid. We were already drenched and the hairs on my arms were curly. The bus ride was the usual jostling jolting experience that is synonymous with bus travel in Italy. There were an inordinate amount of foreigners on the bus heading to Voltri. In fact, I had never seen this many on buses in Genova. A very large woman with two children sat in seats a small ways down from where we stood. She seemed to speak some sort of Spanish to her children both of whom sucked on cherry popsicles that had already drizzled down the hands and onto their seats. At the next stop a ticket reader got one. These are people who work for the transportation system and enforce bus and train jumping. He walked by and asked people for their tickets. We showed him ours. He stared at the stamp carefully and was satisfied that we hadn’t exceeded our time allowance. Every time you board a bus in Italy, you need to validate your ticket by inserting it into a small orange machine on the bus. This machine stamps the date and time so that the ticket expires eventually. Some people try to keep their ticket in their pocket and not stamp it so that they can ride for free. Others have been known to board and hope that the ticket enforcer wouldn’t happen to select their bus to audit.

            

           The auditor stopped at the foreign mother and her two children. She hadn’t purchased a ticket and he shook his head and began to write her a ticket. An elderly Italian lady chimed in and said that she wouldn’t pay it anyway because foreigners never paid their tickets and that there was no way of enforcing it. While she was right, and the lady probably would never pay, this opinion didn’t sit well with the couple from Ecuador that sat behind her. They began to yell at the old Italian woman speaking only with infinitives (unconjugated verbs, i.e. “You to be quiet, we to pay, you to want) but their message was clear. They said that she lived off of her retirement which was deducted from all the working people’s checks. They said she was a fool and some other worse profanities and they sat there fuming and gesturing after their verbal onslaught. The auditor tried to calm them down and eventually they all exited the bus.

            

           As we stood waiting for our stop I made eye contact with an Italian woman waiting to get off. In Italy, this is usually all you need to do to guarantee some type of conversation. She began to explain that the non-Italians (extracommunitari: people who aren’t from the European community) were moving in and taking over the city. The tension was apparent that the Italians tolerated the foreigners but didn’t exactly welcome them.

            

           We exited the bus without further incidents and met Entrico at the end of the bus line in the tiny faction of Voltri. Genova is divided into many sections, each with its own name and identity. From Centro (at the center of Genova) they are Cornigliano, Sampierdarena, Sestri, Pegli, Pra and finally Voltri. Enrico and his family lived about the town of Voltri in a tiny community called Crevari. He greeted us with the typical hug and kiss on each cheek and helped us put our bags into his Fiat Panda. We traveled up the hill that in the States would have been a one way street as it was just barely wide enough for a car to drive with ample room on each side. Cars came at us and squeezed by at an alarming speed with little space between us and the side of the mountain. I chatted with Enrico a little more about how he and his family had been until we got to Luisa and Luciano’s house. Carolyn sat and listened and tried to understand what was going on. I stepped out of my Italian every now and then to give her the gist of what was being said.

            

           After greeting Luisa and Luciano they showed us to our guest room and then to the most important room in any Italian house – the kitchen. Luisa had already prepared pesto with fresh pasta and mozzarella “di burro” and we sat down and filled ourselves to our necks. This “mangia fest” forced us to our rooms where we quickly went to sleep.           

            

           We awoke refreshed. And sticky. The weather, according to the Canepas, was uncharacteristically humid and they complained about it two to three times a day (the television said it reached 93%). Because the house has no air conditioning, we walked around sticky and warm. We ate a breakfast of homemade apricot jam, steamed milk and Carolyn had a caffe macchiato. We left with Luciano to do errands. We dropped the car off at a mechanic near the store where Luciano needed to shop because his horn was broken. While we walked down the small street to the store an approaching car sped by and its mirror hit Carolyn in the hand. She still walks a little too close to oncoming traffic and probably isn’t used to the tight spaces in which Italians are used to operating.

          Walking around the small town of Voltri with Luciano was a test of patience. Luciano is 82 years old and because he’s grown up in the same town and has never moved away, he knows every third person on the street. He stopped often to introduce us as his “friends from California” to everyone he knew. Carolyn was getting  a lesson in Italian greetings and was learning to say “piacere” (it’s a pleasure) and salve (hello, formal) and she was getting her lessons in the best way possible – through constant repetition.

            

           Luciano goes down to the market and store every single day. Along with introductions, he stops every 10 meters or so to tell a tale about something. Instead of walking while telling the tale, he comes to a complete stop. “There was a flower that grew here that had special properties. It got its name from an early Roman emperor who used the seeds from this flower to cure an illness that was widespread across the land. On one of his early travels he…” and so the tale would go. This story would continue for five to ten minutes and would occur every time we passed something he found interesting. In the last case it was a flower. It took us an hour and a half to walk three blocks to shop for five things and go to the bank.

             After the shopping we stopped into a bread shop (foccaceria) and bought some foccacia. We ate several large pieces and a slice of foccacia pizza. The salty, oily bread is best served warm in the morning and best eaten in Genova. The town is where pesto and foccacia are the local specialty. Because we left the car at the mechanic we bought a bus pass at the newsstand to go back up the hill. Luciano told the guy that worked there one of his favorite phrases in Latin and introduced us. We boarded our small bus and headed up to the top of the hill above the sea. When we arrived, the smell of food filled the house. Luisa had prepared a sauce of mushrooms that Luciano had cultivated on the hill above their house the day before. Normally, polenta isn’t made during the summer months but Luisa had prepared it because we wouldn’t be here for the winter and she wanted to give us a variety. Carolyn stared at her plate with wide eyes as Luisa spooned a healthy helping of polenta into it. We had Luisa reduce her portion by about half because Carolyn had eaten so much foccacia earlier. We both struggled to finish our plates. The polenta hit hard and fast and I was probably full before my sixth spoonful.

            

           Having gorged until the point of gluttony, we decided that a walk was in order. Actually, I was ready for nap. It was Carolyn who decided we should probably take a walk to help things settle. We walked up the tiny cobblestone roads up to the top of the hill. Along the way we met and stopped and talked to several of Luciano’s neighbors; a guy with a couple of cool Vespas, a man with a lab that had had seven pups and two men working on a project for the city that would connect an autostrada from Centro to Crevari. We might as well have thrown breadcrumbs on the ground. After we reached the top of the hill and took in the view of the entire coastline of Genova we saw a familiar figure walking up toward us. It was Luciano. He said he found us because he stopped and talked to the guy with the Vespas, the guy with the dog and the two workers and they had all told him where to find us. Needless to say, the walk back was punctuated with stops by many trees, bushes, plants and insects as he taught us their names, if they were edible and if they were indigenous to Italy or not. I learned that all the chestnuts in Italy are ruined this year because of a worm that arrived and has bored into all of the nuts. I also learned that the tiger mosquito arrived in the water left in rubber tires from China and wasn’t indigenous to Italy either.  Carolyn and I hit the beds once we got home and laid on our backs covered by a small layer of sweat.

We awoke just in time for dinner. Enrico had made plans to take us to his favorite pizzeria for dinner where we were going to meet up with his girlfriend Christina. We zipped down the hill in the Fiat Idea and picked up Christina on the road near the pizzeria. We said our hellos and introductions were made and we all got out to get some dinner. We walked into the narrow take out restaurant called Pizzeria d’Asporto and up to the counter. A short middle-aged woman was calling out instructions to two young muscular guys in their 20’s that were making pizzas and sliding them into a wood burning oven with long poles. A young guy on a Vespa pulled up with a small box on the back and came in to load it with pizzas and drinks. We ordered our pizzas and chatted with the guys behind the counter. The woman was on the phone calling other pizzerias to purchase dough, she had just run out and ours were the last pizzas to be made. A guy behind us poked his head in and asked if he could order 17. The woman looked at him and laughed and made a typical Italian gesture for “no” while she clicked her tongue twice. Enrico had told me this place was popular and with margheritas priced at 3.80 euro you could see why.

The next day our pattern was pretty much the same. We awoke to Luisa bustling around in the kitchen. She was preparing a sauce that wasn’t very common. It was a sauce made of walnuts, garlic, oil, parmeggiano reggiano and pine nuts. After we pulled the skins of the walnuts, she put it all into a small food processor and blended it until it was a paste. She then salted it to taste. Carolyn watched intently and took notes as Luisa explained how the walnuts might not taste precisely right because they weren’t in season. She also explained how the walnuts in California were a little more clear and had a slightly sweeter taste. Luisa combined this sauce with homemade lasagna she had laid out and some pesto and we ate until we were ill. After eating, Carolyn and I went down to sleep yet again.

We awoke about the time that Enrico came back with his six-year-old son Danielle. The two wrestled around a little bit before settling down and eating some of the pasta Luisa had made. After the two had eaten Enrico two us down to exchange money at his bank. He came out extremely annoyed that his bank didn’t understand what he wanted to do, couldn’t calculate the exchange rate correctly, and then ran out of cash in euro to give him. He walked across the street to another bank and tried there. While he was inside Carolyn and I were approached by a dozen street vendors from Senegal at least one every couple of minutes.

            

          Later on that day back up on the hill in Crevari Carolyn began to feel sick with all the food she was eating. According to Luisa, it was lack of proper digestion. While Carolyn lay in bed feeling like she was going to throw up, I feasted on tortellni filled with mortadella and parmeggiano and topped with a cream sauce. I checked on Carolyn every 15 minutes or so and she lay in the same fetal position, sweating and feeing nauseous. Luisa decided to prepare a tea made of Camomille flowers that she had picked in Menorca. She told me the best way to dry them was to wait for a sunny day and dry them in the shade, never in direct sunlight. She placed 12 of the tiny dried flowers into a cup of hot water, added some lemon juice from their tree and then a small spoonful of sugar. I brought this to Carolyn who had to be persuaded to drink it down. She eventually finished it and was asleep 30 minutes later. I played down in the garden with Danielle. He had brought a soccer ball with him and we kicked the ball back and forth until we were sweaty and tired.

            

          The next day Carolyn woke me at about 5:30 a.m. refreshed and bored. She bugged me until I got up around 7 or so. We decided that we’d take a day trip to Florence. After some online planning using Enrico’s internet connection we were driven down to the train station in Voltri where we caught the train for one of the main stations in Genova, Stazione Principe. By the time we had arrived, a long line had already formed to buy tickets and we only had a 15 minute window before our train left. We used the automatic vending machines to schedule our train ticket and punched in the code on our Eurorail pass. Success! We looked for the place to put our money in and didn’t see a slot. I asked a guy in line if we could use cash in this machine and he shook his head and pointed to another machine down the hall with a small design of a bill and coins above it. We cancelled our ticket and ran down to wait in line for that machine. We had eight minutes left. We reached the front of the line, selected the trains, punched in our code and saw that many of the trains were full. According to Enrico, 4 million Italians were heading to vacation this weekend. Carolyn thought that we should probably buy our return tickets as well seeing as how seats were filling up fast. We started over and instead of a single trip, chose round trip. We had about four minutes before our train was supposed to leave for Florence. We put the six euro in the machine, it printed our tickets and we were off running down flights of stone stairs to find which platform was ours. We ran up and onto the platform for our train just to see it begin to move and leave the station. Our tickets were non-refundable and we were pissed. I blamed it on Carolyn’s decision to start over and purchase round trip but it wasn’t her fault. I was just so frustrated that we missed the train and lost the euro.

            

           Because we missed the train we decided to stay around central Genova and then return to Voltri earlier than expected so that we could adequately prepare for our long journey south to Pompei then following day. We didn’t want to be rushed and wanted to get adequate rest because we’d be spending eight and a half hours on trains and travel was grueling if you were running with heavy luggage up and down stairs. Still fuming from our change of plans, we bought some foccacia and sat down by the station to eat. Pigeons surrounded us and we fed them and stuffed our faced with the fluffy, salty bread. After eating we were in better spirits and we spend the next several hours wandering the vicoli (tiny streets) of Centro Storico (historic Genova) where tiny shops lined the walls and people crowded the cobblestones so close the brushing shoulders was common. We saw piazza de Ferrari and the house the Colombus lived in before grabbing a train and heading back down to Voltri.

            

            Carolyn found a wifi connection that didn’t have a password and we used it to call Enrico so that he could take us up the hill to Crevari. He told us he and Danielle were preparing to go to the beach and that we were invited. We joined them in the car as they picked up Danielle’s cousin Stefano and we headed to the beach.

            

           The beaches on the coat of Liguria have small rocks that are the size of golf balls and to walk on them makes your feet ache. The sea was a great reprieve to the muggy warm air we’d be continually exposed to and we both jumped in. The only problem I have with the sea near Genova is the salt content. Several times a random wave would wash over my head and the water would splash in my eyes and nose. The water may as well have been gasoline for the stinging it caused. An old paper mill used to dump its waste into the sea near Voltri and for decades the sea had been to dirty to swim in. The last 10 years saw a change in the attitudes of the Italians and they decided to change the waste system for the mill and for the inhabitants of that area. Nowadays, all the waste from the area is pumped to a sewage treatment plant inland and the water is clean and beautiful. Because of this, scores of Italians were on the beach to take advantage of the cool water. Vendors from Senegal wandered amongst the sunbathers easily visible like flies on a white wall. One came wandering by with coconut, selling pieces for a euro. Carolyn didn’t have any money on her and when she went to get some, they vendor had left the beach. Of all the vendors that came by several times each, he was the only one that never returned. We ended up stopping at a Pam (small chain supermarket) for some coconut and other food for our trip the next day.

            

           Our last night at the Canepas we ate tortellini with sugo (red sauce) and prosciutto, spicy provolone, swiss cheese and bread. We stood on the balcony and watched the city lights of Genova that competed with the tiny lights of fireflies that flashed directly below. Enrico held out his lighter and watched the flame flicker. There was no wind. He was hoping that the north wind would pick up because that meant that the humidity would cease and the weather would cool back down. We said our goodbyes and went down to bed because we had to wake up early the next morning to head to Pompei.

Into Italy: Hot and Hungry

           The Chinese boy didn’t make a peep all night after his first few bouts of yelling and the ride was peaceful all night. There is nothing like sleeping on a night train in Europe. The rhythmic sway of the cars and the hum of the rails is the equivalent to white noise. The complimentary breakfast consisted of a single slice of toast, several slices of apple and pear garnished by a single grape, matchbook-sized chocolate pastry, a small glass of orange juice and a tiny pot of tea. It is no wonder the Italians don’t have an obesity epidemic – they eat like birds and walk around all day up and down stairs and all over town. My calves have been sore every single day so far and I figured I’d have gotten used to it by now. Hopefully, they won’t hurt in a couple of days.

            Stazione Centrale, Milan’s main train station has received a major face lift over the last several years. Where there were walls and open space, retail shops have been added. Centrale used to be a simple station to navigate with no signs necessarily because the ticket counters, bathrooms and other serviced were in plain view. We spent 25 minutes looking for a bathroom until we finally found one with a line about 20 people long. We waited 20 minutes in a line that was swollen with about 100 people in front of us to buy tickets. Because the services have deteriorated to the point where they can’t serve the current demand, a small group of entrepreneurs has appeared to take advantage of the excess of clients that the authorized ticket booths can’t accommodate. This unassuming man asked me if I needed help and brought me over to an automated ticket machine. I was under the false impression that we needed to go to a window because we had Eurorail passes. He showed me how to choose where I wanted to go, how to set the departure date and most importantly how to insert the Eurorail code (printed on the pass) so as to discount our tickets. While he said his service was free, the “ticket rogue” accepted tips and I tipped him 3 euro (about $3.50).

            We headed to dump our luggage off at the lockers and spent another 15 minutes following signs that seemed to point at each other like a cartoon.  When we finally arrived we were once again dripping with sweat. We’d carried our bags up and down hundreds of stairs looking for the lockers and when we arrived a small sign was posted next to the hours of operation: “Sciopero Oggi” (strike today). I had forgotten that strikes occurred on a regular basis in Italy and shut down everything from trains, to planes to cement workers. I convinced Carolyn that the panzerotti at Luini’s was worth dragging our bags into the metro.

            We bought four tickets for the yellow line and headed to the piazza del Duomo. After four stops we got off the metro and headed up another couple hundred stairs. As we began to exit the metro we saw the magnificent structure of the Duomo in the sky before us. It stood in the square adjacent to the Galleria. Easily singling us out as tourists, the Africans approached us immediately trying to tie bracelets around our wrists as we tugged our luggage up the last couple of stairs. We said “no” repeatedly and finally they relented and walked off toward other tourists.

            We were starving and sweaty once again. In fact, if our travels were put to music and we were to give them a name, the album would be called “Hot and Hungry.” The Duomo was filled with tourists from all over the world, much like the one in Barcelona at the Sagrada Familia. When facing the Duomo, if you go left along the church and then turn left after three streets you’ll be on hallowed ground. The restaurant Luini has been making panzerotti and selling them here since 1949. It is the only place in Milan that is worth traveling four stops on the metro during a layover. We ordered two fantas and 4 panzerotti, 2 with tomato sauce and mozzarella and 2 with prosciutto and mozzarella. The tomato and mozzarella ones are by far the best.  Unable to find shade along the steps of the Duomo we sat in full sun and baked as we ate our lunch. The square was active with Africans selling bracelets and putting pigeon food in your hand and then asking for euro after you’ve fed the seed to the birds. Tourists were snapping pictures in front of the Duomo and we snapped a couple ourselves before we headed back to the metro and back to Centrale.

            The are a couple of places that should be visited by everyone that intends to go to Milan and they don’t disappoint. The Duomo (four stops on the yellow line from Centrale. Costs one euro to get there and one euro to get back), Luini’s panzerotti’s, Michelangelo’s L’Ultima Cena (The Last Supper) and the Galleria. Inside the Galleria are many shops but most importantly is Il Toro (the Bull). This bull has a huge indent in the marble floor where his testicles are. It is common knowledge in Italy, if you walk past this bull and step on his testicles, it will increase your fertility. If you don’t step on them yourself it is still makes for an amusing sight. Italians will walk out of their way to come over and step on the bull’s testicles, give a small spin with the ball of their foot and then continue on their way as if nothing of importance just happened.

            We made it back to Centrale and boarded a train for Genova, and specifically, Stazione Principe (Prince Station). The famiglia Canepa has beena longtime friend of mine and we are looking to crash their tonight and tomorrow night. It will be nice to see them again and so good to take a shower and do our laundry. (I’d forgotten how muggy Italy is in the summer. And I’d also forgotten that Italian’s don’t believe in air conditioning – even in first class. It’s a balmy 80 degrees inside the train with windows that aren’t designed to be open)

Barcelona

Arco de Trionfo, Barcelona, Spain.

Temple de Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain.

The train ride to Barcelona from Tarragona went quickly and we were able to make it there ahead of schedule. Because of the schedules for the trains we arrived at the Estacion de Franca at about 1:30 p.m. but didn’t depart for Milan until 7:30 p.m. Instead of sitting in the station (although beautiful) we decided to hoof it around the city a little and see what we could see around the station. We still had our bags and this made us not nearly as mobile. I asked a security guard at the station if they had lockers and he shook his head. The nearest place with lockers was the bus station Estacion de Nord and that was about a 15 minute walk. We decided it was impossible to see anything lugging around two backpacks each so we headed off to the station. A nice man in the station, who didn’t speak Spanish very well, gave us a map of Barcelona and off we trudged out the door.

The city was bustling with activity. I was surprised at the many different ethnic groups represented. Chinese, Americans, Japanese, Australians, Mexicans and many others that I couldn’t identify all bumped us and chatted as they walked by. We walked about ten minutes before we saw the Arco de Trionfo. It stood out against the skyline and was situated at the end of a long park that stretched for several blocks. Tourists were taking photos in front of the Arc and one German girl did a handstand while her friend took her picture.

We arrived at the bus station dripping with sweat and muscles straining. Relived to find the lockers, we searched our pockets for the five euro it took to rent them. Only able to find a couple of euros worth of change, Carolyn stayed to watch the bags and I went in search for more. I had asked my sixth retail shop owner for change without any success when one finally told me that at 2 o’clock someone from the station comes by and empties all their tills – it was 2:15. I walked back to Carolyn and gave the thumbs down sign from across the parking lot. A woman at an information desk (that I had originally asked before heading into the station} gave Carolyn change and we stuffed our bags into the locker and pulled the key.

We were so happy to have the weight off our backs. In Seville there are bikes you can rent to explore the city and we’d seen several banks of bikes on our walk to the bus station. Our plan was to ride these bikes all over Barcelona and give our feet a small break from the beating we were putting them through. We approached the rental kiosk and read the instructions on the screen. It required a tarjeta (card) to rent them. I asked a woman passing by where we could buy the cards to rent the bikes. Unlike Seville, these bikes were rented out on a monthly basis only and couldn’t be rented for just a couple of hours. Just as it looked like we would be walking around with our daypacks on we walked past a small Chinese store with all kinds of imports. We had been to one of these in Seville and had decided to buy a luggage roller for our heaviest bag but it hadn’t opened before we had to leave on the train. We bought our rollers and set off for downtown Barcelona with a sigh of relief.

We walked along the vias and saw the catedral down in central Barcelona. I’ve been sending postcards home from each city we go to and we stopped into a small tourist shop and bought a couple of the Temple de La Sagrada Familia. This was a beautiful church that reminded me of the Duomo in central Milan. On the map, the temple looked to be quite far from where we were. Carolyn pointed out the metro symbols and we saw that we were near an entrance. We descended into Barcelona’s metro system, which was surprisingly well organized. A woman working there was kind enough to give us the fastest way with the least amount of connections and a warning: watch out for ladrones. She pointed to our bags. The metros of major European cities all crawl with pickpockets. Because the laws are minimal to non-existent for their prosecution, they hit unsuspecting tourists in broad daylight with increasing regularity.

Without incident we exited the station at our last stop and looked up to see the temple’s shadow covering the entire square – it was massive. Just as massive was the construction going on all over the temple’s face. Large cranes and scaffolding circled the structure and the wind was blowing dust as if polishing a discovered relic. We grabbed a couple of pictures of the temple and an L.A. couple  (him with shiny white teeth and perfect hair and her with fake breasts) asked us to take their picture. The guy had noticed my shoes of all things – he wore the Reebok version of my Nikes.

We made it back to the train station with about an hour to spare and sat on the marble benches. Carolyn looked destroyed. When I came back from taking pictures of the station I watched her head bob up and down, fighting sleep. She was exhausted from what appeared to be food poisoning the day before and all the walking we did in Barcelona. The night train would be a welcome respite from all the travel and walking. We boarded the train like zombies and listlessly rolled our bags down the narrow corridors of the sleeper train. Finding our cabin, we opened the door and sat down on the seats to wait for the conductors to come pull our beds down. The cabin had a set of bunk beds, places to hang your luggage and bags, a small sink and accompanying mirror and a large window. Carolyn was already asleep in her chair.

I got up after about 20 minutes and asked one of the conductors when someone would be coming by to release the beds. He said it would be about 10 minutes. I knew exactly where this was going already. I sat back down next to Carolyn to wait when a young Chinese boy in the neighboring cabin began to scream. Shit.

Tarragona

Pronovias: One of my favorite wedding dress designers.

Looking toward the sea in downtown Tarragona, Spain.

We arrived in Tarragona (a small town about an hour and a half from Barcelona) greeted by a downpour of rain. The locals said it was very uncharacteristic for this time of year and promised me that this would be a small break from the heat. When we booked the hotel it said in the description it was less than five minutes from the station. Because of the rain, we decided that to spend a couple of euro to avoid getting drenched was a good value. We hailed a taxi just outside the Camp Tarragona station. We had taken a train that traveled at speeds exceeding 300 kilometers an hour (186 mph) so we made great time coming from Seville. We jumped in the back of the taxi and told the driver the name of the hotel which he was familiar with. I asked him how far the hotel was and he said it wasn’t far at all. As the euros ticked upward on his meter it was apparent that our versions of “lejos” (far) were very different.

            

            We finally reached the hotel and jumped out very annoyed. The meter had stopped at 22 euro and with a push of the driver’s button on the console he added three more for good measure. As we got out I read on his door where his rates were posted that it was an extra three euro if he’s coming from the train station. The Catalunya Express was the equivalent of a Motel 6 in the states only with marble and tile all over the reception areas. Ernest, the young Spaniard at the reception desk, was pleasant and very informational. He gave us a map of Tarragona, told us of a couple of eateries popular among locals and told us to avoid the taxis. I told him that the hotel was listed as being right by the train station. The Catalunya Express is located a street over from the Tarragona train station – very different from the Camp Tarragona station from which we arrived. Enerst told us that the Camp Tarragona station is reserved for the “rapidos” (fast) trains that come racing down from Seville and other big cities. That small bit of information cost us a 25 euro taxi ride. This is huge for people on a budget of 34 euro a day (50 dollars).

            

            Carolyn came down with vertigo while on the train. All she wanted was a bed and some quiet. Ernest offered her some packets of sugar that he said would calm her stomach. We took the packets and our bags up the several flights of stairs to our room and Carolyn hit the bed. I laid down too and in about 10 minutes I was sound asleep. About 30 minutes later the hammering began. Bam. Bam. Bam. Every couple of seconds the sound would come again. Bam. Bam. Bam. It sounded like someone was hitting our wall with a hammer. It turns out they were. The hotel had some workers there mounting some things in a couple of the rooms one of which was luckily adjacent to ours. Carolyn didn’t hear a thing. From the looks of her fetal position she was so focused on not puking that the hammering didn’t even phase her. It phased me. Although I explained myself in carefully refrained Spanish the girl at the reception desk told me there was nothing she could do but that it would be finished in about ten minutes.

            

            Two hours later the worker was still hammering. I think my concept of time is much different than that of Europeans in general. At first I thought I was impatient. Actually, I know I am impatient and because of this I figured I would cut them some slack. I went down to the reception and the girl told me again it would be about ten minutes. I looked at her, shook my head and went back to my room. In ten minutes the hammering had finished and I closed my eyes to rest. Just as I began to lose consciousness a baby began crying from the bar below. Shit.

            

              I didn’t know how Carolyn could sleep. I decided I wasn’t going to get any so I grabbed my camera and headed up to the main plaza. The walk up to the Roman Cathedral was all uphill and I had a glistening film of sweat over my entire body within ten minutes. I wasn’t the only one either. Men and women passed me with glistening faces, breasts and legs.

            

             Tarragona has two main avenues that were built for rambling. In fact, they are called Ramblas. I’m not sure what this means in Spanish yet but in Tarragona they have a Rambla Nova and a Rambla Vella (the new and old Ramblas). The ramblas were thick with locals walking and enjoying the evening. The walked their dogs, a group of protestors sat in a circle in the square below the cathedral and a street performer juggled. I took some photographs of the square, a couple of the streets and largely felt uninspired. It may have been the energy it took to deal with the people at the hotel or I could have been exhausted, either way, I wasn’t feeling it.

            

             We awoke the next morning and booked a sleeper train from Barcelona to Milan. They were more expensive than ones I had taken in the past from Paris to Rome. Use the same strategy in dealing with the train company Elipsos as you would when defending yourself from pickpockets in the metro – keep your hands in your pockets because they will take all your money. When I plan another trip I’ll be sure to avoid this company.

Seville

It’s the 4^th of July today in the States. I always expect other countries to celebrate our Independence Day simply because I’ve done so all my life. It’s the same with Thanksgiving. I can understand why though. And it’s probably a gloomy day for England. Why would they celebrate the day we dissolved our connection with the king and his oppressive taxes.

We got up this morning at seven a.m. to catch a train to Barcelona. It was early for us and probably early for most in Madrid as well, but Seville has been different. Besides our trip to Morocco being postponed until later in our stay abroad, Seville has been my favorite city in Spain. We found our hostel easy enough and the reception there was very warm. Pablo was from Argentina and Rachel from Ireland. The only problem we had is with dormitory stay. There were 10 to our room and not all of them kept the same hours as two weary travelers. A French couple from Paris partied all night and got in at six a.m. They made enough noise to wake up several floors by tossing their belongings around, letting doors slam and speaking in hushed tones. After about an hour they left. I found out later they had to catch an early train.

For breakfast we found a nice place a couple of doors down from the hostel. For 1.90 euro we got an herb tea, freshly-squeezed orange juice and two halves of a toasted baguette along with butter and jam. During breakfast we met a group of Italians, two couples vacationing for a week in Spain. I took some pictures of them on the busy Seville street with traffic going by in the background. They enjoyed it and asked me to email them some. They also suggested we try their hotel because it was close to our hostel and it was cheaper and more private. We went to a website they told us about which discounted our price from 48 euro to 36 euro. This might not seem like a significant amount but it equates to about $17 dollars. After we said goodbye to the Italians we decided to rent bikes and head out to the Torre de Oro (tower of gold) along the river. The weather in Seville has been about 33-35 Celsius. This is even warm for Seville standards. A breeze was blowing in and made the day bearable as we rode our bikes past the section of the city that lies in the shadow of the Alcazar Cathedral. The day before we had walked to the cathedral and decided that biking would be an easier way to see more of the city.

Orange trees line many of the streets in Seville. (I’m thinking the abundant source of oranges was the reason the juice comes with every breakfast). The city center is full of labyrinth-like streets, some of which are so narrow that I had walked down them with my hands touching each wall. An occasional Vespa had been the only traffic interrupting our walk to the Alcazar Cathedral. Like many ancient churches in Europe, it could be used as a landmark to escape the labyrinth.

There are bikes you can rent called Sevici (Seville + bici) which is a combination of the Spanish word for Seville and bikes. There are docking stations in strategic locations throughout the city. You simply swipe your card and pull the bike from the station and are billed for time the bike is used. People all over were using them. We didn’t get those. But we should have. The ones we rented didn’t have a basket, which was much to the chagrin of Carolyn who was hoping to avoid carrying her heavy satchel over her shoulder while she road. In fact, her satchel kept her off balance most of the time she was on the bike and she narrowly missed leaping pedestrians, pigeons and other obstacles that proved problematic in her steering endeavors. There are bike paths all over the city and the flow of traffic is the same as motorized vehicles – you drive on the right hand side. Spaniards shot us some looks every now and then as Carolyn crossed over the center divide. In her defense, the bikes were a little sketchy and didn’t stop on a dime. And they probably couldn’t have stopped on a dollar bill for that matter. My brother Ben (who works at a bike shop) would have adjusted them immediately. The seats are sure to leave me with sore cheeks for the next couple of days. I might as well have been riding on the pole itself. Next time, I’m looking for a big grandma-type seat with a ton of cushion.

The bike ride represented the only low point in Seville (if you can even call it that) and the highlight was surely Los Coloniales, a tapas bar popular with the locals. In fact, it was a local guy who stopped us in the street and asked us if we were looking for a good place to eat. He may have wanted to practice his English with Carolyn or he could have just wanted to help out some travelers. Either way, his suggestion was mint. Many of the plates come with potatoes, especially if they are served with meat. Sauces, both red and white, are poured over meat, potatoes and breads. The special of the day was Arroz Iberico, which was a type of Spanish rice cooked with pork and beef. You could taste the flavor of the meat in the rice itself and it was a dish I ended up wiping clean with a piece of bread.

Carolyn and I ate at Los Coloniales on three different occasions and on the third, brought the Italians with us. We met them on the road near the hostel and they had been looking for somewhere to go to dinner. After meeting them at breakfast that morning I doubted we’d meet up again. It may have been for the size of Seville and the proximity of our lodging but I’d like to think it was due to the fact that here in Europe, the lifestyle put us in closer contact with one another. While at the restaurant it was incredibly difficult keeping my Italian and Spanish separate as I answered questions for the curious Italians about the food and relayed their requests to the annoyed waiter. The main concern of the Italians was the sauces which they considered to be too “pesante (heavy)” for their delicate palates. The phrase “sin salsa” accompanied several of their plates as I translated. Carolyn stared at us as we talked about politics, the economy and the differences and similarities between life here and in the States. It’s difficult for her that she doesn’t speak the language and she’d really like to. I think she understands how important speaking a language is to fully understanding the people and their culture.

We are on the train now bound for Tarragona, a small city just outside Barcelona. It’s a five-hour ride and crosses a large part of the country. With Barcelona near the French border we are excited to head to visit Marseilles and Nice on the way through the Riviera.

Gli Italiani! Forza Italia!

La Torre de Oro, Seville.

Catedral Alcazar, Seville.

Walk This Way

It was only the second time we had breakfast at the small “cafeteria” below our hostel and the lady who worked there was already warming up to us. My Spanish isn’t as refined as my Italian and I consistently make mistakes using the latter as a crutch. Notwithstanding my inadequacy, the woman acted like she understood me completely. This nicety was not lost on me.

While Madrid wasn’t the most beautiful city I have seen, it reminded me of something that I forget every time I leave Europe – proximity increases intimacy. Because many of the countries are smaller than my home state of California, the people there have had to be incredibly resourceful with their use of space. Instead of building out, they build up. When they’ve exceeded the limit of traffic on the surface, they go underground. They drive smaller more compact cars or scooters. Instead of driving long distances they take the train. And instead of driving short distances they take public transportation or walk.

When I lived in Italy I sat by my neighbors on the metro everyday and walked by them when I shopped in open markets. There was a sense of community and familiarity. So many people crammed into such a small area forces human interaction. What many think would create friction instead created harmony.

In the States we have a lot more space. While this luxury provides for large lots of land, mcmansions and ample separation between neighbors, it also creates a humanity that is detached. For the religious, one of the greatest laws is to love thy neighbor. This becomes more difficult if you don’t know your neighbor and never actually meet them. Most of us awake, eat breakfast and slip into our garage undetected. We open the door to our car and shut ourselves in. We open our garage and roll down the road toward our daily routine. Despite a couple of breaks in the process, it’s almost a completely contained passage. In this same sequence, Europeans have come into contact with dozens of people already. The increased frequency with which they see and actually talk to one another increases their closeness and solidarity. The more you have to interact with humans the more skilled you become at human interaction. Like ants bumping into each other along their trail it seems as if they are distracted and not focused. Instead, the daily reinforcement of community makes their sum larger than their parts.

The next time someone new moves into the neighborhood make sure they receive a warm welcome. Instead of getting in the car to do errands, try walking. You might just reconnect with some people you know along the way.  Walking is also a great way to clear your mind and be alone with your thoughts. The walk will come with some sacrifice though – you won’t get nearly as much accomplished. But who cares about accomplishment really? Americans take the least vacations of any people in the world. To make things worse, a study just came out that says more Americans are now working weekends as well.

I ran a successful photography studio for more than a decade in a town of half a million people. I worked seven days a week for many years arriving early and leaving late. I missed many family functions, birthdays and baptisms. If it wasn’t for an illness that forced me to leave my studio and move out of the area where I’d spent years developing a reputation, I would have never left. It was a blessing I initially viewed as a curse.

It will take some time before I can relax and enjoy the natural pace of the people here in Europe. I’m trying to slow down my stride and have to keep reminding myself that I’m in no hurry to go anywhere. I am using the same transportation that my neighbors use. And while my feet are sore, with every step I’m becoming closer and closer to the people around me.