Chapter 23: Genius

Today we tried to go to Cortona. We went to Castiglion Fiorentino instead. We are dumb.

In all fairness, the main piazzas with the main bus stops look almost identical in the two different cities, and the bus goes to both of them. So if you’ve never been there before and you’re looking on the map for the semicircular Piazza di Garibaldi (yes they have the same name, too) with the ring of cypress trees on the edge, the town wall on the other edge, and the monument of Garibaldi in the middle… well how the heck are we supposed to know which town is the right one?

So we did finally make it to Cortona, which was nice but totally deserted and had the greatest little pastry shop ever.

We still feel like idiots.

Chapter 22: Finally

Today we went into Sansepolcro, saw a bit of the market, saw a chocolate shop where the owner made me a custom sample which was basically a decadent oozing mass of molten chocolate and hazelnuts, wandered the streets a little, and then sat down at a restaurant for lunch, by far the most important part of the day as all Italians know. I had complained to Sada Sat Singh that I had not yet had a fabulous Italian meal, so he took me to a little restaurant they know in Sansepolcro.

Before I continue any further I would just like to point out that alas, I am not Brian Jacques, and though I will do my best to describe this food as worthy of a Redwall feast, I know that I will fail horribly. And having put out that little disclaimer, I now set forth with gusto and determination towards certain doom.

For my antipasti I ordered honey-soaked pear with gorgonzola garnish, neatly lined up on a tripod of skewers like a sort of shishkabob, however the heck you spell that, I’m not even going to try to correct myself.

I’m not a professional food taster. I can’t tell you which sensation hit my tongue first or what kind of texture it had or what flavor should have been added or removed. The sensation that hit my tongue first was the taste of honeyed pear with gorgonzola, the texture was, well, pears and gorgonzola, and the only thing that should have been removed was the pears and gorgonzola from the skewers and into my mouth. How’s that for an analysis? To keep it simple, it was really good, ok?

My main dish was orrechiette (I have no idea where the double letters belong) with zucchini, pine nuts, and pecorino Romano, a particular kind of sheep cheese which will totally rock your world. It was a fabulous dish but I don’t have time to describe it because really what I wanted to talk about was dessert.

We each ordered a dessert so we could try some of each. 1 tiramisu and 1 chocolate soufflé. The tiramisu was excellent tiramisu. End of story. The chocolate soufflé however. I took one bite and almost died it was so good.

It’s brought out on a large white platter, the soufflé in the center looking innocently like a sort of chocolate cupcake thingy, drizzled artistically with creamy dark ganache. I dig my spoon into it to get a bite and whole thing sort of sags with warm chocolaty goodness. Then you put the bite in your mouth and it’s like your entire body simultaneously goes “CHOCOLATE!!” with a warm, moist explosion of chocolate flavor. No, I really mean explosion. I’m not just using that word because other people do (like craggy).

Ok get this. [The following story is based upon actual events] You’re sitting at some Japanese restaurant in Santa Fe, a city where life is not carbon-based but green chile-based. The Japanese restaurant tactfully has a green chile sushi option which you order immediately like any good New Mexican. The green chile sushi arrives with a heaping side of wasabi. You, like any good New Mexican, pick up a green chile sushi, pile on as much wasabi as you can reasonably fit on the circular top of a sushi roll, and then pop the whole thing in your mouth at once.

For anyone who’s reading this and has tried wasabi, I hope you just clutched your nose in pain as you read that. Because you know what it inevitably must feel like, right? All that spice slamming upwards through your nose and into your brain like a freight train? I mean it’s no longer a flavor, it’s physical force.

Ok, well that’s what I mean when I use the word explosion. This warm chocolaty flavor is so intense it hits you like a spoonful of wasabi. Except… chocolate. It’s that good. I mean, need a say more?

After that I spent the rest of the day recovering from lunch.

Chapter 21: The Eighth Wonder of the World

The greatest achievement of Italy is in fact the hot chocolate. Sure David’s cool, the Coliseum is big, the Pantheon is ahead of it’s time, aqueducts and political systems are helpful ideas, ravioli is pretty nifty… but nothing compares to the heavenly perfection of hot chocolate. That stuff is amazing. Rich and thick and chocolaty to the max. Why we do it any other way in America I may never know, other than our country’s possible relative lack of brightness.

Chapter 20: Morning

I’m up on top of the ridge again. It’s morning. When I woke up a little after 8:00 the mist was still sitting in the valley and the sun had not yet broken over the ridge. The morning light was beautiful so I quickly jumped out of bed and got dressed, though by the time I was done, the sunlight had already hit Passano. But as I walked up the ridge I would very often be in shadow while the landscape all around me was finding the new sunlight. Sometimes the sun was just a glittering lamp between the black tree trunks. There was still frost on the ground in the shady areas. It melts fast where the sun hits. Little brown oak leaves rimmed with crystal ice lie just waiting for a poet to crunch them underfoot and immortalize them in lyric.

As I came to the top of the ridge and was walking along it, I stopped to take some pictures and got to listen to a sound I’m not sure I’ve heard before—frost melting. It was delicate and fabulous. I walked along the frost-hardened mud, the dampened grasses, and here I am at the top where if I listen really closely I can hear the last of the frost sinking into itself. The valley is sending little tendrils of mist creeping up the canyons. I can hear a rooster, a car, and the occasional whir of the chainsaws of the woodcutters who live up here. The tiny town below me looks quietly asleep, though I don’t think that illusion will change with the further arrival of the day. There is a helicopter somewhere.

I think it’s amazing how I can be here at what is probably the least attractive time of year possible, and yet it’s still so beautiful. Everything’s asleep for winter, but there’s still no crowning glory of snow. The leaves are brown and dried. The branches are bare. The flowers are invisible. The grass is yellow and tough. Abandoned snail shells are littered everywhere. And it’s still gorgeous. Man, I gotta come back in the spring time.

It’s actually amazing how much I can hear from up here, especially considering how little I know to be around me. Down in the village I can hear a dog barking, even down to his smaller whines. I can hear a door closing. I can now hear traffic from pretty much all directions, which is surprising. I’m sitting up a road that has exactly two neighbors who share it. On the other side are two villages which combined are about thirty houses, one tiny country road between the two of them. Down in the valley we have the bustling metropolises (not) of San Giustino, Citta’ di Castello, a couple other tiny townships, and Sansepolcro a little further on. None of these are a whole lot bigger than, say, your average Wal-Mart. Maybe there’s a highway over the western ridge.

Chapter 19: Villages

Today Vanya and I went on a walk up the ridge. Nah, paths are for losers. When I say up the ridge, that’s exactly what I mean. Straight up the ridge. It was quite an adventure (it’s impressive how often I say that, is it not?). Had quite a fun time.

The view from the top was phenomenal. There was still mist sitting all through the valley, so from up there all the hills and peaks looked like islands jutting up out of a white puff of ocean. We could see a couple little towns over the other side of the ridge as well. One was probably ten houses, the other was maybe twenty-five. Very cute. We could see the one single winding dirt road which takes them down into town in the valley. It’s probably a two hour trip just to go to the grocery store, so they probably don’t, at least not often.

On the way down (we took the road this time) Vanya was telling me about the village and the family she stayed with in Mexico. Her village was maybe ten houses larger than the one we could see from here and many of the villagers had never even been to the next town. Each house had its own little shop, and that’s how the village ran itself. We were speculating that these little Italian villages might be similar to that.

Chapter 18: Dude

Today we saw a guy biking with no hands. Ok, big deal, we’ve seen it before. Except the reason this guy was using no hands was because his entire arm was in a cast. Yet here he is in full bikers’ spandex training away. Now that’s hardcore.

Chapter 17: Rome, Day 2

Early start today. We caught the bus to the Vatican Museum where we paid another €13 to see everything we didn’t get to see yesterday on account of our being too absent-minded to pay attention to closing times. We managed to beat most of the crowds, which was fantastic, and got to see the Raphael rooms, which were just beautiful. Of course the Sistine Chapel is amazing, and I love Michelangelo, but really Raphael is my personal Renaissance friend. The School of Athens is gorgeous. No silly little book can do Raphael justice.

Then just for the heck of it we saw the Sistine Chapel again with some sunlight this time. Honestly, because of the foggy windows it looked almost identical to the Sistine Chapel on a rainy day. Ah well.

We then got to see some Roman statues (snicker), Egyptian art (love that stuff) and Estruscan art, a wing which was completely empty, probably because no one can for the life of them remember who the Estruscans were. I also saw the statue of that god Minas I believe his name might have been, but I could very easily be wrong, the one slaying the bull with his Phrygian cap. Well, he’s slaying the bull with a knife, but he’s wearing a Phrygian cap as he’s doing it, right Mr. Gollogly?

From the Vatican we walked over to the Pantheon, which is incredible in two very important ways.

1. The engineering involved in building a dome with no center back in the day is absolutely phenomenal, not to mention it’s a beautiful effect.

2. It’s free.

Then we wended our way towards what looked like an important building on our map and was conveniently located at the head of the old Roman Forum, which was where we were trying to get to. The important looking building turned out to be the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and also turned out to be within sight of the Coliseum, a straight shot down the road. Thus the realm of the gladiators seemed like a fairly obvious place to head to next, so we did. We stopped to have lunch outside before going in (this time we brought lunch with us. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that earlier). After being offered an English tour about fifty million times (“And you get to skip straight past the forty-five minute queue!”) we got in line and had tickets in our hands within fifteen minutes if that. Psh, forty-five minutes, freaking marketing people.

Let me tell you something about tours in Rome. Don’t take them. If you find that you want some information about something that you feel would be more interesting if you knew what it was, then find a tour that’s already there and listen to what the guy is saying. Then when he starts saying something boring you just leave because you don’t have €15 of down payment making you feel obligated to enjoy it.

So then we saw the Coliseum (which I could’ve sworn had a double letter in it at some point in my education), a somewhat somber visit because it’s a very serious place. It’s also an oval. I was surprised by this. It also takes a lot of imagination to try and picture what it would have looked like, though I suppose it’s in pretty good condition for a BC building. The section of tour which we eavesdropped on was talking about the stage manager of the Coliseum and his nifty set of pulleys and levers and contraptions so that if at any time he felt the fight needed a bit more spice he could suddenly open a trapdoor for a gladiator to fall through or launch up a set of spikes for a gladiator to run into, or release a starved beast for a gladiator to be eaten by. Basically it wasn’t a level playing field, excuse the pun. That sort of information and the place in general was getting a bit depressing so we decided to go hunt down some of the glory of Rome instead of the insanity.

I wanted to find the catacombs but had no idea where we should begin, so we just headed towards ancient Rome. Along the way we also learned, thanks to a guidebook vending stand, that in some language Rome is spelled Rzym. I would very much like to know how that is pronounced because I doubt it’s anything like English.

We decided to head up the Palatine Hill. Not that we had any idea what the Palatine Hill was, but the €11 ticket we had purchased for the viewing of the Coliseum included entrance to the Palatine Hill, and the thought of free sightseeing was too much to resist, so we climbed the stairs. The first thing we came to was a totally awesome moss-encrusted fountain thing all lumpy with rocks and moss and dripping everywhere with overhangs and crevices and caves and I’m making it sound really gross but it looked like a fairy house, it was very cool. We each want one in our gardens.

From there we climbed more stairs and suddenly found ourselves entering a beautiful orange grove which I would love to say smelled fragrantly of citrus, but unfortunately that would be lying. Of course we wanted the oranges, but all the fruit remotely within reach had already been plucked away, illegal as that may be, hehehe. I went down some stairs into a dark tunnel thing which Vanya didn’t really want to follow me into, so she didn’t. I went all the way through the long tunnel, which turned out, upon reaching the other side, to be some sort of crypt, but the signs were bad and our touristy knowledge was worse, so I must admit I really have no idea what it was. I saw more of the gardens, I saw a cat walking around (he was very cool), and then Vanya found me at a terrace that has a fantastic view overlooking the whole Roman forum down below. From there we went across to some more ruins (wow!) but we were really starting to get wiped out and had little to zero idea of what we were looking at even if it was all cool anyway. We were also beginning to feel a little guilty, as in “Man, we’ve spent how many thousands of hours on Ancient Rome in that lovely Waldorf school of ours and we still can’t recognize one single historically important landmark when we see it?” Seriously, all I could remember was that time I wrote a story about a gladiator in sixth grade. Actually I don’t remember the story at all but I remember the little picture of a gladiator that I drew in my main lesson book. It was a cool picture. I also had many, many Norse myths popping into my head, but they seemed neither very relevant nor very helpful at the time. Sorry, Mr. Johnson.

We were just about to head down to what looked like some cool and colossal ruins, when we stopped for a moment to listen in on an English tour that was passing by. He was telling the legend of the establishment of Rome—Romulus and Remus and giant wolves and all that sort of thing (hey, I remember that!). He turned out to be so fantastic and hilarious that we followed him for the rest of his tour, another half hour or so. We learned that the unidentified ruins had in fact all been the same ruin—it was one enormous palace covering the entire hill, and the huge long building that we thought was maybe some sort of political meeting hall was actually a giant indoor stadium on the second floor, basically a home entertainment system. We learned that the Romans had communal toilets. Ok we knew about the baths, but the toilets were a new idea to me. We learned that the Romans washed their togas in urine. Guess those communal toilets come in handy. We learned that the Vatican owns 80% of all the most valuable marble in the world, the red kind. I think the Vatican probably owns 80% of all the most valuable anything in the world, but whatever.

After the fabulous tour we meandered down through the forum, marveled at a lot of broken columns with stories behind them, and then reemerged out into regular Rome where we got a gelato and a bus ride home. Vanya cooked up the best Italian meal I’d yet had in Italy, something which I found quite ironic, and now I’m exhausted after a very long day and writing more than is strictly necessary for the well being of my mind and body ever increasing hand cramp. Good night.

Chapter 16: I Can’t Think of a Creative Name for this Chapter *or* Rome, Day 1

We now return from our scheduled break (a.k.a. the lack of technology on the Indian Subcontinent) to continue our travels through Italy. Where were we… Ah yes. Rome. With no camera.

First you may be wondering how the whole Rome thing came about anyway. True, you’re probably not, but the point is you should be, because we weren’t planning to go to Rome at all, and it’s only by great good fortune that it managed to become a possibility, so just stop whining about the camera, alright? Oh yeah, that’s me whining, not you, I forgot. Sorry.

The reason we weren’t planning to go Rome is that it’s really not that nearby at all to San Guistino. A day trip to Rome would involve something along the lines of waking up at 3 am so you could get to Rome by 11 am and then having a nice 8 hour day in Rome so you could get home by 3 am the next day. Which of course is all hypothetical anyway because what kind of train operator in his right mind is going to be running the trains at that hour? Ok, the point is, you don’t do a day trip to Rome if you’re staying in San Giustino. So what about an overnight trip? Yeah right. That involves money and youth hostels, which in Rome are notorious for being, well, somewhere you wouldn’t really want to spend the night if you can help it. So we weren’t gonna go to Rome.

Wow, it just occurred to me what a fantastically anticlimactic story this is going to be, but hey, I’m too far in to stop now, so I will just brave onwards, although I’m not convinced you can do that. I think I just made that up. Brave onwards? Whatever, my English has been pilfered by the foreigners, don’t make me use it correctly.

Back in anticlimactic story world, the Sada Sats mentioned that they had a friend in Rome who we could very possibly stay with if we wanted to go there. And we did. And we could stay with him, except he was out of town, so it was more like we could stay in his apartment and feel all cool because we got to do our own grocery shopping in Italian and make our own dinners, which was awesome because food in Rome is expensive and mediocre.

Ok, that’s the story, there, I anticlimaxed, happy now? moving on.

So, after spending our first night in Rome we woke up the next morning (I know, shocker, isn’t it?) and started with a leisurely breakfast that I should probably be skipping over to get to the good parts. We then caught the 98 bus downtown (an adventure), accompanied for the last little stretch by one of the coolest dogs I’ve ever met, but alas we had to part ways. We walked towards the Vatican, and the dog didn’t. I suppose I should be more specific and say that we walked towards St. Peter’s square, since saying we walked towards the Vatican is kind of like saying we walked towards Texas. It covers a lot of ground.

Upon arriving at St. Peter’s Square we were a bit miffed, because it really should be called St. Peter’s Circle. There is absolutely nothing square about it. So we decided to show it just what we thought about that and promptly ditched it for the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museum in other words. We forged our way through the maze of statues and tapestries and maps and relics and other expensive paraphernalia until we arrived in the Sistine Chapel were we spent a decent long time gazing at the ceiling like good little tourists to the background music of “no photo” and “silencio” in the sort of nasal monotone announcement voice of a guy who can’t believe that his daily job consists of repeating the same two phrases in an Italian accent all day long to an ever-changing group of bumbling oblivious tourists who can’t even figure out that shorts and gleaming white socks are not a style. Maybe some days he gets to sit in a chair a few rooms away and ask them to please stop poking the Raphaels as it’s really not too good for the paint.

We then tried to head on to the Raphael rooms ourselves, only to be reminded the hard way that the Vatican Museum closes irritatingly early, at about 1:00 in the afternoon. Well, that’s what happens when you don’t pay attention.

Defeated, we headed back towards St. Peter’s (I’ll just be politically correct and refrain from making any geometrical judgments) in the now slightly more threatening weather, though we didn’t mind a little rain and still refused all the umbrella salesmen we passed on the way there, not willing to shell out €3 just to avoid a few measly drops. By the time we made it through the shuffling line to go into St. Peter’s Cathedral, the few measly drops were turning into quite a few more drops with a quite a bit more vigor and determination. We dashed valiantly inside and followed the signs to the Coppola, only to find that it had gone from little rain, to not so little rain, to torrential downpour. I’m talking some serious rainfall here.

Still, we didn’t want to pay the extra €3 to take the lift so we bravely, and possibly foolishly, dashed out across the square to the steps. And then we climbed all 202 of them (I personally found this to be a somewhat disappointing number) to the incredible view of the interior of St. P’s Cathedral from up inside the dome. That place is HUGE, and to properly convey just what I mean by huge I’d need to devote an entire page just to writing the word huge, except even that still wouldn’t do it would be wasteful and unnecessary and contribute to global warming, so I’ll save a penguin and let you just imagine it for yourself.

The view from up there was incredible. All the little people look like tiny little toys that I want to pick up and arrange on top of things. We then climbed many, many more stairs (I didn’t bother counting for fear of further numerical disappointment) all the way up to the tippy top circle of the dome where there was a fantastic and very wet 360 degree view of Rome. I figured heck, I’m only in Rome once, I’m not gonna let a few raindrops defeat me, so I defiantly ran out from the cover of the little overhanging and ran all the way around the circle a few times to be sure I got my proper view of Rome from above and my proper drenching for the day. I wanted to try and count the seven hills, but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible if you live in any time period much later than Romulus himself.

After that little shower we went all the way back down onto the floor of the cathedral where we spent a very long time just staggering about and being totally floored by the sheer magnitude and incredibleness of it all. Something about all that grandeur really emphasizes an empty stomach though, so pretty soon we came to the conclusion that it was about time to go track down an expensive and mediocre meal. We did find one that far outstripped the tasteless mush they tried to feed me in Florence, but still was nothing like the legendary Italian meals we’d been led to believe that we’d find in Italy.

By the time we finished with that it was starting to get darkish, but we wended our way to the Spanish Steps anyway, through what seemed to be the happening designer shopping district of town. I guess we’ll just have to make a lot of money and come back. Let me tell you, Rome is a fun city, the kind that is undaunted by the setting of the sun. If we weren’t already so tired (it’s like a three mile hike just to get from one end of St. Peter’s Cathedral to the other) we probably could’ve had a blast joining in the crowds of people who were just starting to come out of hiding for their evening enjoyment.

We ended up taking the world’s most crowded metro (I’m not kidding and yes I’ve heard of Tokyo) on which happened to be a guy who looked exactly like a Roman statue. I am dead serious, if you took one of those curly haired marble Apollo guys, brought him to life and gave him some clothes… THAT guy was on the metro with us. Vanya and I were both marvelling at this completely independently of each other, which just proves that it’s true. There, I can say I’ve met Apollo.

Speaking of Apollo… we found some statues in the Vatican which looked very much like they could have been Apollo statues after Biff and Josh were done with them. This made me laugh incessantly, but then again, a lot of things do that. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then I think it’s high time you checked out Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. Read it and weep, because you can’t stop laughing. Consider it exercise. All that cracking up is good for the abs. And when you reach Apollo, think of me in the Vatican, and then think of the Roman security guards who can’t for the life of them understand why I’m pointing at a god with tears streaming down my face.

P.S. Further consolation for those still upset about the camera: it was raining so much today you couldn’t take any pictures anyway.

Chapter 15: Intermission

I now take a short break from the general flow of the story to offer up a quick greeting from Amritsar, India. Of course a million exciting and tell-worthy things have happened since I got to Rome without a camera, but here in India I've been electronically disconnected for the past few weeks and now of course the one time that I manage to get myself to a little internet cafe with its slow yet valiant internet connection and its sticky keys that I have to press four times if I want to spell correctly--I don't bring my little black book in which is contained all those million tell-worthy occurences.

As things are right now: I got back from the 84 steps at Goindwal yesterday and my calves feel like they just might turn to stone if I don't keep convincing them not to. I'm drinking a coke, which always seems to be better in third world countries, or in anywhere other than America for that matter. I'm also roasting hot and it's only March, so I don't even want to think about what it feels like in the summer here. Ach, too late, I thought about it. Now I need a hug.

Well anyway. We have a rickshaw waiting for us outside, no matter how it's spelled, and we're all about ready to get back to a hotel room with a fan and a pot of chai, so further details will be forthcoming in, say, several weeks. Okfine.