Prairie Home Compañero

After our obligatory stops in the northern coast's two major cities, San Sebastain and Bilbao, Duncan and I decided to rent a car and head west into Cantabria and Asturias, regions known for small towns, beautiful coastlines, cider, rain, and the lushest of greens abound. We'd conceived of this drive with the utmost of optimism, hoping to simply get off at the right exit onto a small road that would lead us straight through the quaint, idyllic towns that we may have very well made up.

This was for the most part foolishness, but we made a good go at it, and this part of the country made driving an absolute pleasure. We stopped briefily in Santillana del Mar, a would-be cute little medieval town, but because of the sickening number of tourist shops selling absolute shit, we decided not to hang around after our tour of the church.

We moved on to spend the night in Comillas, which had the right look to it but felt a bit dead. It was too late to move on, so we found a room above a bar, and went out for a pre-dinner drink. The bar was pretty much empty, except for a couple of older respectable guys who had come in just before us for a glass of wine or two each, which they promptly downed in about ten minutes before moving on. As soon as they'd gotten their drinks, the bartender asked them something I couldn't hear, and soon after produced a plate of about 15 small baguette slices topped with shrimp smothered in what looked like a mayonnaise sauce. After eating a couple each, the guys looked at us and slid the plate over. We accepted, slid the late back after taking one each, and I thanked them repeatedly, thinking they had ordered food for themselves and were sharing. They sort of laughed in a friendly way as if the thanks were not necessary. 'It's just to snack on,' they said, 'it's for anyone, have as much as you want.' My puzzlement deepened when the bartender slid another full plate of the things in front of us and carried dirty glasses into the back without a word. My first thought was, 'Never leave this place.' I mean, peanuts are one thing, but a free plate full of shrimp appetizers is, I mean, that's just something else. We of course chose to ignore that in eating the whole plate we might has well have been chugging from full jar of Hellman's.

The next day in Comillas we visited a small house turned fancy restaurant called Capricho de Gaudi, built by that most famous of modernistas, of whom I knew nothing about at the time, in 1885. It was as weird as it was cool, and unfortunately this picture doesn't do justice to the colors.

From there we took a drive up to the Universidad Pontificia, which was designed by another modernista, and has become a complete waste of stunning architecture and surroundings.

We then took a tour (with what looked to be the Cantabrian Geriatric Society on their weekly outing) of the Marques de Comillas' house, a bewildering Gothic...thing.

Turns out the Marques was not exactly entitled to his...er...title- he was born poor, went to Cuba and married some rich guy's daughter, then multiplied his fortune and came back and called himself the Marques de Comillas. Which really inspired my lifelong dreams of one day proclaiming myself a noble. Marques is a good one, but I think I'd prefer Baron, perhaps Viscount if I'm really feeling saucy.

Before leaving Comillas we purchased several blocks of fresh cheese from a small market in the town's square, and after tasting every one of the cow's, sheep's, and goat's milk cheeses the guy had to offer. Two huge baguettes and a few bananas in the bag, and we had lunch to go. On our way west, we got off the road and headed along a winding road that led, well, up.

We didn't really know where we were going and didn't really care much. That's how the days were- slow, peaceful; if we'd see a road we liked, we took it. After twenty minutes of winding and praying nobody would be speeding around a corner on this particular 'two lane' road, we parked and walked up to a peak to start working on that cheese; the only sights the rolling green hils and the tiled roofs of the distant villages; the only sounds the cool grey breeze, the faint ringing of bells dangling from cattle and sheep collars, and, for twenty or so seconds of natural splendor, Duncan's pee hitting the grass.

You know, it occurs to me that I haven't taken time to properly introduce Duncan to those readers who don't know him, so, let me digress for a moment...
Ladies and Gentlemen, the esteemed Duncan Randolph White:

So, yeah. I think that's good.

After our picnic, we turned back, caught the main road and kept heading west to what would be our destination, lovely Cudillero, a beautiful fishing town that we deemed, for our purposes, Perfect, or at least, Close Enough.

We managed to find a reasonably priced room managed by a sweet-as-can-be old lady and her middle aged son. They informed us of a big festival going on that night in the next town over, about a 2km walk, which celebrated the local patron saint's day. Turns out our timing and town choice was perfect. Excited, we split a bottle of wine we'd purchased earlier, and went down to the local bars to get out night started. Here was our first introduction to Asturian cider. It is served in liter bottles that cost 2 Euro apiece. The cider is kind of tart, almost bitter, so it is poured from a great height into a tipped glass in small amounts, and then drunk immediately so that the foam gives it a fresher, crisper taste. This takes practice (the pouring, not the drinking- the latter I went to college for). The bartenders would reach one arm up in the air as high as it could go, then lower the glass in their other hand as low as it could go, and tilt it slightly. The liquid being poured would fall about four feet and land on a tiny strip of tilted glass, and if the pouring hand oscillated slightly or tilted the bottle more or less (impossible to not do a little), the stream would shift and the bartender, staring not at his top or bottom hand but the moving stream, would move the glass accordingly. The bartender usually pours your first drink, then leaves you the bottle, and if you want more you can ask, or you can try to do this yourself, and inevitably pour half of the bottle all over the floor and/or your shoes. But it's cheap as hell, so whatever. Needless to say, this is an incredibly entertaining way to get drunk.

As advised by everyone, we headed out to the festival at close to midnight. It was a nice quiet walk up a slight incline that we knew was over when we heard music blaring from the middle of nowhere. There, we found a big white tent, and locals of all ages. I mean from 1 to 75, midnight on a Friday, these people were out there. The older men and women danced in pairs the whole night, maintaining perfect rhythm without thinking, smiling or showing any signs of enjoyment. Young kids scurried about, a cheesy band led by a man in all black and a terrible toupee played salsa and pop music, and everyone got wasted. Duncan and I spent our time staring- puzzled- and pouring as much cider on the floor as we did down our throats. Here's us not being very good at it:

So, this whole shindig was kind of bizarre. Maybe it was the giant tent, maybe it was the binge drinking taking place directly alongside the wholesome family entertainment, maybe it was the rhythm guitar version of Sultans of Swing that had no vocals or lead guitar but still brought the house down, I don't know. The most amazing thing was that when we got tired at 3:30 in the morning, the old people were still dancing, the younguns were still scurrying, and poeple were still showing up. I thought we'd made it a late night, but apparently we were the first to go home, because the walk back was deserted. Little town Spain's big night out I guess. Way to go, I say. Way to go.

Eating Feet, Marinating Words

At midday I met Duncan in Nice, where the wedding he attended took place, and we sat down at a cafe so a French waitress could treat us like idiots. We walked through the town, along the beach (which was made entirely of pebbles, actual small rocks that people were lying on, which, if this is where they go to relax, perhaps explains the French) and up to a nearby waterfall/city view. The town was pretty nice (absolutely no pun intended, it's just really unfortunately the exact word I want to use here), if extremely touristy and gaudy.

We spent the afternoon in the hotel of some of Duncan's family friends and were treated to some luxury- a pool, a nice bathroom to shower in- before heading to the train station that night. On the way, I saw three familiar German looking guys across the street. Unable to think of anything better, I shouted 'Hey Namibia!' The backpacker circuit in full force, these guys had made their way north after Napoli and were going to stay in Nice for a few days. They gave me email addresses and said they could probably help me find a place to stay in Munich, where they would be working.

We took an overnight train to Bordeaux and then another train to cross the border, and a third to get to San Sebastian, which was at the time covered in thick grey fog. This did not suit the city well. Our walk up to the castle and Jesus figure topped hill revealed a long sandy beach backed by boxy ugly modern apartment buildings that were on their way to looking pretty run down.

We were thinking about renting a car to take west to Bilbao and into Cantabria and Asturias, and I saw a rental car sign in an internet place so I stopped in to ask the attractive blonde at the desk about it, and another guy overheard my questions and stopped to listen. We talked for about five minutes in Spanish until she asked if we spoke English because it would be easier to explain, and I said yes and the other guy did as well. Turned out she was American, a graduate from Syracuse, had come to San Sebastian after graduating to learn Spanish, and was an idiot. After terribly misunderstanding what travel recommendations we were looking for, she kept saying, 'if you can pick up a bit of Spanish , you can just ask people along the way,' having forgotten that she was the one who suggested that we switch to English. She said that she came here instead of South America to learn 'real' Spanish, and then went on a long diatribe about how South American Spanish is corrupted by English. She cited as an example the fact that in Spain, they call a computer an ordenador, whereas in Mexico it is a computadora, because in English it is computer. I pointed out that the advent of the modern personal computer took place almost entirely in America, and ordenador is equally similar to the French ordinateur. She found this very confusing. She then repeated that she wanted to learn real Castillian Spanish, not some cheap Americanized version like in Mexico or Colombia. This I loved. I was about to ask her why, then, did she come to the Basque country, where they prefer their own completely non-Spanish language and are decidedly not a part of Spain, have violently sought independence from Spain, but realizing the argument would be lost, I opted for the diplomatic solution and put her head through the ordenador.

Later that afternoon we stopped in a tapas bar, where we ate a little meat stuffed thing, some kind of shrimp salady (using the America version of the word 'salad,' meaning smothered in mayo) thing, and I finished the snack off with a big bite of my foot. When the 50 something friendly carmudgeon sort of bartenders served us our glass of the local cider, and poured themselves one, I lifted my glass towards them and said, 'que viva Espana,' forgetting where I was. After a minute, the bartender said, brusquely, 'this is not Spain.' Not realizing my mistake, and without any idea what he was talking about, I said, 'What?' 'This is not Spain, it is Euskedia' (the Basque word for the Basque country). I apologized sincerely, wondered if Basque terrorists ever pose as aging barmen, and slowly backed out the door.

We met a friendly Spanish couple that night and sampled the local wines, which are cheap and good, and the next day we set out on the bus for Bilbao. The highlight there is the Guggenheim museum designed by Frank Gehry, a building so bizarre and incomprehensible, and yet so sublime that the art on display inside hardly seemed worthy.

Some of the exhibits were very impressive, but others, a 'sculpture' that was a large undecorated steel plate, square on three sides and curved on the other, for example, were of the kind that makes you wonder if something becomes art when somebody hangs it on a wall. And still others- a large spiderweb-like metal cage enclosing a horizontal screen that repeated a 12 minute video of a young Eastern European man receivng electroshock therapy and being held down at the face by a nurse whose right hand had only little stumps for fingers, but he could use the fleshy pads of his mangled or birth defected palmy stubs to grip the screaming and contorting patient's features as necessary- that make you wish all modern artists were content to suspend scrap metal. And then you wonder why you can't stop watching.

On the walk back to our hotel from the museum we were met by a parade of mostly young, poorly dressed (by choice), chanting Basques, who looked like they had been recently been attacked by a mob of disgruntled barbers (more on Spanish haircuts to come), and whose front rank held a white cloth banner that said something in Euskedi about someone named Sandra.

I asked a guy smoking while he watched what they were going on about, and he explained that they were demanding the immediate release of a well known, vocal Basque activist/terrorist, who may have played a leading role in several deadly bombings. I asked how long she had been in jail, and he said, 'she was arrested the day before yesterday. She was brought in to face the judge in Madrid who will decide if there is enough evidence to put her on trial.' 'When will he decide?' 'Tomorrow.' I have to give credit for the spontaneous mobilization of the protesters here, but, um, not to be politically insensitive or anything, but that is just fucking crazy. Shouldn't they be waiting until after the judge decides whether she will even face trial? I imagine their chant went something like 'NO TO TIMELY LEGAL PROCEDURE. RELEASE THE FAIRLY TREATED SUSPECTED MURDERER. NO TO LEGAL PROCEDURE...'

The Basques we met were all very friendly and generous, but many projected their pride on too big a screen for me to find it admirable. Understandably, there is a historical context of language and culture oppression that you don't hear much about these days, but the independence seekers seem concerned with what distinguishes them from the Spanish rather than what unites them. They vehemently cling to their language, which is spoken nowhere else in the world-language being primarily a system of communication- instead of embracing an international language that affords them a connection to a broad global community. I understand that language is also a strong symbol of identity, but the very need to express a distinct identity from those who are so otherwise culturally similar suggests a worldview that is best eradicated. This is indeed a vibrant and warm culture, but one that is disappointingly-because they are educated enough to know better- committed to difference in a way that stinks of regressive tribalism. And now, my hypocrisy: when I meet new people and they ask me where I am from, I always say 'New York' instead of 'America.' When they ask me about Bush and America's political climate, I say that New York is New York, and not America. That revealed, you won't ever see a New Yorker clamoring for independence from the red beast of the middle, or wasting his precious time to blow up anyone from said beastly red middle for said independence. Though perhaps I will be eating these words come November '08.

Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre are five small harbor towns clustered along the Northwestern Italian coast and connected by a footpath. Each town has its own distinct look and feel, but they all share the brightly tackily colored and boxy architecture, that anywhere else would be vomit inducing, but here just seems to work. From the train I got off at the second town from the bottom, Manarola, but was unable to find cheap accomodation. I did, however, find eight or ten hole in the wall joints selling foccacia smothered in olives or cheese or meat or whatever. I am usually good about getting my bags into a room before heading back out to chow, but unable to contain myself, I just flung my bags into a corner of the street and ate my heart out. For the three or four days I was in the Cinque Terre, I don't think I ate a single foccacia unrelated meal.

I was told I could find something cheap in the southernmost town, Riomaggiore, and indeed, as soon as I got off the train, I was stopped by am old woman, who at first glance looked completely insane, but turned out to only be a little batty, and maybe a tiny bit smelly, but a real sweetheart. Her name was Mamma Rozza, and she had a sort of unofficial hostel of questionable habitability, but it was cleanish and cheap and I got my own room, and was able to wash everything I own for free.

During my time in Riomaggiore, I ate foccacia, drank espresso, ate some more foccacia, read, and watched sunsets from the rock formations by the harbor.

One evening I met four fourty something Austrian bikers who bought me a beer and enlightened me on the pleasures of riding unbelievably fast Italian motorcycles on unbelievably windy roads while wearing unbelievably colored jackets. At night I drank at the only bar in town, where an unfriendly bartender became my best friend when I recognized Toots and the Maytals, and then a Clapton cover of a Stevie Ray Vaughn song. He said, 'It's good to meet an American who knows good music and doesn't scream a lot.' I then sat down and chatted with six American college students from North Carolina who asked the owner/bartender if there was a 'real bar' they could go to after and later proceeded to get drunk and scream lots. I guess he had a point. At the bar I made a couple of friends, Gian Lucca and Luigi, who were too cool for me to not go find the next few nights, even though I was supposed to be saving money.

Luigi spoke Spanish, and Gian Lucca kind of spoke English, and this guy took our picture.

The next day I hiked from Riomaggiore to the last town, Monterosso, with a couple of Kiwi sisters I'd met the day before. The walk was stunning and just difficult enough, and in each town we consumed something as if to make the visit official. Gelato here, foccacia there, espresso there, foccacia and gelato there, focaccia and focaccia there.

That night at Mamma Rozza's I met a pair of American girls and struggled to keep interested. (One was about to move to China with her husband to be missionaries, and you can just imagine the plethora of common interests that sprouted from that little factoid, and the other was in her sixth year of undergrad at Eastern Michigan state. Yeah.). I also met a group of Erasmus students, Erasmus being the European student exchange program, who were studying in Bologna. Four Portuguese and a German. I couldn't have had an easier time getting along with them.

We played silly word games for about five hours and talked about whatever. I was impressed by how well the Portuguese spoke English, and found out that they all learn English from a very young age in school. I asked what they thought about that, and one said that he thought that eventually English will be the primary language everywhere, and that it kind of makes sense to have an international standard. I asked how they felt that people from English speaking countries rarely speak another language. They said it's annoying, but they don't mind being taught English. After a while, one, Teresa, said, 'it's nice to finally meet a nice American...' and then added a shrugged 'for once.' I laughed and said I was starting to feel the same way. Teresa then explained that there is an American military base near where she grew up, and most of the Americans she meets aren't great. This I could understand. I would imagine that the troops stationed in Portugal don't have much on their plates, and thus have lots of time to devote to being meatheads.

Later that night, the German guy Nicolas asked if I've felt weird being an American out in the World right now, and it was the first time I'd thought about it since I'd left. The fact is that everyone has been incredibly friendly, and loved hearing that I was from New York. And once I shit on Bush, they let their guard down and open up completely. But even Nicolas, who couldn't have been nicer, said that there really is an anti-American sentiment in Europe, and he wanted to know if I've experienced that. Unfortunately, we are completely underrepresented by friendly open minded travellers, and overrepresented by our military, our President, and tour groups. And none of those makes the best ambassador, it turns out. An individual American is one thing- a welcome thing- America, or AMERICA, is a different thing entirely.

After three days of beautiful weather, fantastic people, and enough bread, olives and cheese to last a lifetime, I set out from Cinque Terre to meet Duncan in Nice and continue on to Spain, for, well, some more bread, olives and cheese.

You're Shakin My Confidence Baby

When I got off the train at Pollina, the station was empty, except for two station employees. At first they ignored me, so I just picked a direction and started walking off the platform. They whistled behind me and said something in Italian, which I presume was, 'hey asshole, where do you think you're going?' 'Pollina?' I asked. They smiled and looked at each other and waved me over and explained that thought I was technically headed in the right direction, the road to Pollina went from the other way and kind of wound around for 2km before getting there. They also explained six or seven other things about it, but they lost me pretty quickly. Love friendly Italians. They confirmed the presence of hotels there, at least, so I set off on the windy road- meant explicitly for cars, I should add. Six gallons of sweat and half an hour of wondering just what the fuck I was doing here later I got to what looked like a main drag of a street, where everything was closed, it being Easter Monday. The town was plain and unnatractive, far from the quaint and distinctly architectured Sicilian village I'd hoped for. Huh. Interesting. At least it was on the water.

After crossing through the entire town, I finally stumbled upon one hotel, and a sign for another one, and opted for the latter, assuming the one off the main street would be cheaper. I passed by it but was waved in the right direction by some locals, and finally found the doorbell. After ringing, waiting, ringing, waiting and ringing, I backed away and looked around. Nothing. From up above me I heard a woman's voice.
'Sonna, sonna,' she said, and I looked up to a third floor porch where one elderly woman stood, talking to another woman on the third floor porch of the building across the street.
'Sonna, sonna' she said again as she made the push the doorbell motion. I rang a few more times, forcefully now.
Then she started shouting down the street around the corner for about a minute, until she said something to me that implied that it was all taken care of. A minute later and a thin but older woman with a mustache I could only dream of sporting opened the door with a smile. Priceless. The ladies on the porch continued their conversation, and before I walked in, I accidentally dropped a penny and reached over to pick it up, when I saw out of the corner of my eye a Black man walking by eating fried chicken, who was almost struck by a swerving truck driven by an Asian woman, who screeched to a halt right before a soaking wet Mexican hopped onto the flatbed and said, 'need any drywall, meng?'

I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering why I had been sent to this place, but was temporarily entertained when some young (mostly) people rolled a ping pong table out into the middle of the street, started blasting music from a car stereo and began playing competitive mixed doubles with vivacity and joy that I thought was only attainable after 4-12 Natural lights.

It was pretty fun to watch, if only because their energy was contagious. That night I splurged on a Sicilian dinner of Pasta alla Pescatore, which was loaded with so much fresh mussels, squid, and fish that the pasta was gone well before the seafood was. After the wine and the food, I sat and wondered why I was here, and when the last time I had a conversation I understood was. I came up with answers to neither.

But the next day, I figured out that I was only maybe actually in Pollina. In the distance I could see a town on a hill, and there were signs that pointed sort of that way and said Pollina.

Asking my mustachioed hotel proprietor 'Pollina?' and lots of pointing at the ground and at that distant hill helped me understand that they were both called Pollina, or something, and that to get up there, I could take a bus at 2:30. One question answered. At 2:30 a big tour bus packed with middle aged Germans, presumably coming from Cefalu, swung through and brought me up to this awesome little town.

Tiny windy little alleys, a medieval theater and tower, a bunch of old Italian men gesturing and talking about God only knows what, considering they live on a huge hill twelve kilometeres from the nearest tiny fucking town, the place, minus the fifty ill fitting bright colored shirted and white tennis shorted despite the fog and brisk weather Germans, was the small town wonder I was looking for. The whole tour bus thing must be bizarre for the locals- they live in a town of a couple hundred people, but every day fifty Germans wander around for the afternoon.

From Pollina I took the train to Siracusa, which the Lonely Planet described as a highlight of a visit to Sicily, and coming off of two highlights, I was pretty psyched. Indeed, the paltry one day I'd alloted to Siracusa would be completely insufficient, and I could have stayed for weeks. The air was perfect, the scenery perfecter. The night I arrived, I wandered by an open door that had this inside:

In case you can't make them out, those are old peope dancing. I could have stayed there for hours watching, but after five minutes I felt creepy. Still, there is something inherently enjoyable about watching old Italians enjoy life.

The next day I got up early to make the most of my short time. The tourist attractions were split between the island of Ortigia, and the archeological zone across the city. In the morning I wandered through Ortigia, eyes wide and camera poised, unable to stop myself from taking pictures at every turn through the alleys and piazzas and along the coast.

The whole place was a veritable feast of architectural wonder, and I hadn't even gotten to the secondi piatti: Siracusa's extravagant Duomo. When I arrived, the sight was almost too awesome to behold:

Nemesis thy name is scaffold. On the inside it was nice though.

Despite that disappointment, Siracusa was an exercise in retinal orgasmica. After my a'wanderin' I spent an hour at the old castle on the water, and even waited until a large tour group passed by so I could sneak up past a barrier to get a prohibited view from the turret.

The photo was just okay, but the tingly exhilaration of minor mischief was pathetically satisfying, especially after I hopped the barrier on the way out and kind of spilled into the main hall where two people looked up after the thwap-crack of the wooden gate flapping after released from the burden of my weight, and gave me a puzzled where-did-you-come-from? look while I swept the dust off my trousers and said 'buon giorno.' (I feel that dust tends to be swept off of trousers, as opposed to pants).

I then walked across the city to the archeological zone, where they've got Greek and Roman stuff, some cool caves backed by impressive views over the city, and the Ear of Dionysus, a big cave supposedly named by Caravaggio.

Siracusa might be the most beautiful city I've ever seen, and certainly wins the I am a dickhead for not coming here with more time award. Still, with the Cinque Terre on my next day's plate, I couldn't lament for too long.

You're Breakin My Heart

On the train from Napoli to Palermo I shared a sleeping cabin with a friendly middle aged Italian couple who didn't speak a word of English and didn't understand any Spanish, much like most of the Italians I would meet. This seemed amazing to me, considering I could indeed understand some Italian- at first I thought that they knew they couldn't speak the language they were hearing, so they wouldn't even dare to try. But then I realized it was because they just preferred to do all the talking. Despite my minimal comprehension and puzzled looks, these two people did not stop trying to talk to me while we were awake. This reduced, all too incompletely, the awkwardness of sharing a room with a married couple who would have otherwise been alone.

When I got to Palermo, I scoured the platform for any backpackers who might know of a place to stay. I saw one girl with a backpack who walked up to the coffee stand and tried ordering. She pointed to a sign that advertised a price for a coffee, a juice and a brioche. They guy pointed at the rack of pastries in front of him and responded with, 'brioche alla marmelada?' She looked stunned. She stared, he stared back. She threw up her hands into an exasperated shrug and said, 'sure, whatever,' as if communication was impossible. He did not understand 'sure, whatever.' Half not believing her lak of ability/attempt to comprehend, but delighted, as this was my in, I said, 'he wants to know if you want one with marmelade on the inside.' She said, 'oh, okay, thanks' and nodded yes to him. After the standard introductions I found out that her hotel's manager was coming to pick her up, and she didn't mind if I waited to see if they had anything left. She asked, 'so how did you learn Italian?' I said, 'well, I don't, I just...understood... that... uh... that happened to me yesterday.' When her hotel guy arrived, he said he was totally full but he sort of pointed me towards a place that might be cheap. They were full. The place I found after that was 40 Euros per night, way too much. The full/expensive pattern repeated about twelve times. I found a place about three hours later, sweaty as could be, and it was about as nice as the place in Napoli, but sans syringe drawings, and it was cheap enough, I guess.

That morning I found Palermo to be empty, and relatively drab, but mostly because of the weather. After a snack of a few Arancini, breaded and fried balls of rice and meat and peas and sauce, mmmmmm, I happened upon a large photographic exhibit called The Earth From Above, probably the single best photographic display I've ever seen. The project's focus is sustainable development, and its subjects range from natural and man made wonders, to methods of agriculture across the world, to endangered animal species, to industrial products and by-products. Incorporating informative paragraphs describing each photo, it demonstrates the way humans interact with the environment in both positive and negative ways, and without beating you over the head with its point, shows you what incredible things we are doing and what we need to change. I highly recommend a visit to the website, though the photos are much more impressive when in a huge display instead of a screen. You could still kill a whole work day here: http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/index_new.htm
I like the Worker Resting on Bales of Cotton from the Cote d'Ivoire.
As I wandered through the exhibits the any Palermitans, as well as the sun, slowly crept out and by late afternoon the squqare was filled with people and shine, and the city began to reveal its beauty.

I found the Sicilians to be attractive, warm, and less prone to stupid haircuts, a relief. However, their bag ladies, and the marketing of their political candidates are puzzling.

For those of you who don't read Italian, the caption says, 'one confused frowning man for Sicily, two microphones for Guido Loporto.'

The city was active and vibrant, but not bustly, and as I continued to walk, stopping at the Quattro Canti, (Due of which I bothered to photograph)

and the Fontana Pretoria

I felt like I could stay for a month. Unfortunately I had dwelled a little too long at the photos and just barely caught the very end of Easter mass at the huge Cathedral, which is supposedly a prime example of Sicily's unique Arab-Norman architecture.

I never thought I'd lament missing church, but, there you have it.

From Palermo I decided to head to a tiny town called Pollina, which had been recommended to me by the Italian girl I'd met on the boat in Turkey. Along the way, the train stopped in Cefalu, a tourist town I'd read about that sounded quite nice, and as the train lingered about thirty seconds longer than expected at the station, I grabbed my bags and hopped off. That was dumb. Cefalu was really nice, but all of the available rooms were way out of my budget. After about two hours of wandering/schlepping, I ate a calzone and walked back to the train station.

Luckily the train came pretty soon, and Pollina was only about fifteen minutes along the coast. Here I learned that on the older, local Italian trains, the doors don't open automatically- you have to push a button. Or, in my case, you have to stand behind a middle aged German couple while they search and push everything circular they see for the first fifteen of the thirty seconds that the train will wait before starting again, while you stand, positive you could figure it out if you could just get in there, cause how many passenger pushable buttons can there be?, and you try to squeeze in but these are some thick, stout Germans, so you back away again and watch as the station starts to move, then you account for the relativity of visual perspective, and the conductor arrives to tell you, Gunther, Ilse, to get off at the next stop and come back on the next train, which will arrive, according to the schedule he produces, in twenty minutes at 14:36, but he neglects to inform you that this is not the holiday schedule, of which you are completely unaware, both the it still being a holiday and the existence of a distinct schedule, which is concerned about as little with your awareness as it is with a 14:36 train; after the conductor condescendingly pushes the button you get off, and sit here:

reading Atlas Shrugged for two hours, while the Germans, after the first train does not arrive as scheduled, set off to walk the supposedly 6km back to Pollina, which you are just not about to carry your bags across, as neither Gunther nor Ilse appears equipped to manufacture English sentences, hefeweizen, or sauerbraten, the only bait within your estimate of their productive capability that might be worth biting, other than a lovely blonde blue eyed Freulein, but that immediately goes back to the productive capability issue, and its theoretical irreconcilability with anything remotely lovely, given the independent but would in this case be combined genes that produced four 16 pound black forest hams for calf muscles that carry these two brick walls posing as friendly humans away, so you wave, and sit, until some friendly Italians arrive to talk loudly, wave their hands about, and inform you of the holiday schedule, but that the train would be coming soon, and yes, Pollina has hotels. In short, you must push the button to open the doors.

Aww, Christ

The ferry to Bari, Italy left from Patra that evening, and I had to take a few trains to get there. I validated my Eurail pass, which I was pleased to know actually worked, and got on board. Having not been doing much talking- at least not worthwhile talking- since the boat trip, I was hoping to run into some fellow backpackers on their way to the ferry. Sure enough, right across the aisle of the empty train was a young American couple. After listening for a while I asked one of the questions that really just means 'hi, I speak English.' Turned out they were juniors in college on spring break from their abroad program. Great. Well, at least they were travelling. They were also very nice, though very young seeming young kids (as opposed to my many years of wisdom, right?). When I asked where they stayed in Athens, the girl grunted and said, 'oh God, this awful hostel. Athens International.' I said, 'oh that's funny, I was there too. I didn't mind it.'
'Oh well, I guess it was whatever, but the neighborhood was full of prostitutes and junkies.'
Quoth the Lonely Planet "The Hostel is clean and cheap, as long as you don't mind the junkies and prostitutes that roam the neighborhood."
'Oh that's funny I think I read something like that in the Lonely Planet.'
'Yeah we have that too. I don't know...I just thought it was sketch. Also the room's bathroom was so weird...and the shower curtain made the shower so small.'
I had been so surprised to find a bathroom-one with a shower in it, no less-inside the room that I had walked into the hallway in my towel and stared at the doors trying to figure out which was the shower until a staff girl came up the stairs, gave me a puzzled look and took me inside the room to show me the bathroom.
'Huh. I was just happy it was clean.'
'Yeah I guess it wasn't so bad.'
'I didn't actually see any prostitutes, did you guys?'
'No.'
'Oh, I see. You're pretty much a blank slate for others' opinions?'
'Pretty much.'
No but they were good people and I ended up hanging out with them throughout the evening on the ferry, along with another girl on spring break from her semester abroad, who was studying in Copenhagen and seemed to be a real person already.

The ferry was comically nice. It had two bars, a dance floor, a casino (just slot machines, thank god, or I would be writing this from home), and several fancy shmancy restaurants. The boat was also empty, so the couches in the lounge areas were all empty and ripe for sleeping. Except that the staff wouldn't let us lie down there, the heartless pricks. They told us we had to go to the airplane seats, or pay for a cabin. The only place with couches that was dark enough to escape attention was right next to the dance floor, where they were blasting heinous dance pop. Real sick sonsabitches, these ferry people, but I respected the challenge. I ended up finding a couch that was facing away from the walkway to the dance floor, so if I just lay flat enough or right up against the couch back the boat staff wouldn't see me. The music was still terribly loud, but I was content to be prone, and I'm pretty sure I slept through some part of the night.

As soon as I got to Italy, poorly slept and grimy, I felt a surge of pure bliss. This happens occasionally to me on this trip. Often it has to do with arriving in a new place, sometimes it comes from making plans with a person after not meeting anyone for a while, but other times it is completely inexplicable. My three companions hopped in a cab to the train station so they could catch a train, so I just walked into the first coffee shop I saw and ordered an Espresso. In Italian. Not fucking Greek. I could read the menu, I could sort of understand what people were saying, and they were Italians. Life was good. I was the only person to sit down to drink my coffee. Everyone else stood at the bar-I don't think breakfast really exists in Italy. I asked someone for directions and soon found three people trying to help, or just thinking that first guy was wrong and wanting to tell him so. Either none of them knew the way or I could walk in any direction that wasn't water and get to the train station, because they were all saying different things. Well, it was better than the Greeks, I thought. I asked at the ferry office three doors down where they speak everything and, indeed, I could walk in any direction away from the penninsula and I would eventually arrive at the train station. As I walked the three kilometers through the port town of Bari, I hid my shiteating grin frequently to ask people if I was going the right way, thrilled that I could, that they would help, and that I could understand their answers. Fucking Greek(s).

I took a train to Taranto, where I would have to get a bus to Napoli. While waiting for the bus I met three German looking guys who were actually from Namibia. 'Ohhh, cool,' I said, the same way people from the West Coast react when I say I went to Amherst. 'It's just west of South Africa,' one said, either presuming-correctly- my American style ignorance of world geography or knowing all to well the sound of feigned recognition. 'Oh yeah, sure.' On the bus I met an Australian couple- adorably dorky but really nice- and an American guy from California, finally, the first other American I'd met who was travelling for a long time, about five months. He was in a similar situation, having applied to graduate schools to study Architecture before taking off to see some of The World. On the bus we were informed that it might be incredibly difficult to find a spot in a hostel in Napoli, it being Easter weeked. 'Fucking Christ,' I kept to myself, but apparently he heard me: Zach let me tag along on the way to the hostel he had a flyer for, and at the first hostel, the guy told us it was full, and then proceeded to do us the favor of caling every hostel in the city that he knew of, and they were all full. Sweet. After walking around for about an hour finding out all the hotels were too expensive, we happened upon a little one star that was run by some Nigerian women who were more than happy to give us a room and make fun of us in French while we were still present; each and every one of our departures from, and even some entrances to the reception area caused uproarious laughter. It occurred to me at this point that I hadn't seen a black person in months, and no more than four or five throughout the entire trip. I have no explanation for that, but it's interesting.

Our room cost 45 Euro, and was equipped with a sink, a shower, and a bide. That is all. I couldn't explain that one either, so I peed in it. Was that wrong?

On my way out of the room I noticed a simple sign on the wall written on a white piece of paper with a bic pen. It was all in Italian and looked like a bullet pointed list, possibly of the hotel's do's and don't's. Here's the funny part: a huge careful drawing of a syringe was the focal point of the sign, and there was no graphic indication of whether that was considered a 'do' or a 'don't.' Lovely. On our way out, the woman at the desk asked us to leave the key. We looked, um, uncomfortable, with this arrangement. French was spoken. Laughs were had. She said, 'you can't take the key.' Another one of the women said, 'don't worry, no one is going to touch your things.' More laughter. Oh, well, now I'm reassured. It did occur to me on the way out that a few well selected photographs of this place sent to the right people might get me a whole lot of hotel money: 'Dear Mom and Dad, arrived safe in Napoli. I am sharing a room in this lovely crackhouse with some dude I met on a bus today. Please send my freebase pipe. No time to write more, Luigi's fixing me a hit.' Sadly, I forgot to take pictures.

Zach and I had pizza at Don Michele Pizzeria, supposedly one of the best in Napoli, and by extension, The World, as pizza was supposedly invented here. It was very good, cheap, and filling. As for the best in the world thing, I'll leave it at I miss New York.

Zach left for Sorrento the next morning, and since then we've exchanged only a couple of emails. It was one of those hilarious and bizarre acquaintance episodes that can only come from long term travel. Four hours after meeting, we were sharing a room, and the next morning, we were parting ways, probably for good, though we might cross paths in Andalucia.

My train to Palermo, in Sicily, left late that night, so I stored my bag at the train station and went walking around Napoli. My first stop was the duomo, which was impressive, of course.

It's funny how much I enjoy sitting in churches. I guess they build them like that for a reason don't they? As I sat, I lamented over the fact that almost all of the World's most beautiful buildings are religious. But I suppose that it makes sense that secular edifices are not constructed to project that sort of magical aura- who is going to come to take solace while seated in the pews of the Temple of Posthumous Eternal Nothingess or donate their spare change to light a candle before the Altar of Existential Depression?

And then I found the most unfortunate of the modern secular institutions in one of Napoli's large piazzas: a live taping of MTV's Total Request Live.

The place was mobbed by Italian teeny boppers, and the day's special guest was Alessandro de la somethingi, an Italian pop rap star. The action on stage was broken up to fit into the television program, so every five minutes some girls would scream, some dickhead would ask if people were having fun, some more girls would scream, and then everything would stop again.
As I watched I noticed two things. One, the hopelessness of youth culture is not confined to America. Two, Italian men have the stupidest fucking haircuts immaginable. They are comprised of three distinct elements: 1. The mullet 2. Long hair on the top of the head fixed upward using what looks to be rubber cement 3. Bangs. If you're the least bit cool, your hair will combine two of these elements (any two, take your pick), but if you've got all three, you can expect women to throw themselves at you.

I hadn't wanted to pay to store my little guitar, so as I sat this kid came up and asked if he could play it. Right away he asked if I would give it to him as a gift. I said no. He then proceeded to take it around to everybody sitting there watching the 'show' and strum it loudly and obnoxiously in their faces, and then ask for money. I let him do this, amused by people's annoyed reactions to him, but once he took it out of sight I had to go catch him and take it back.

That afternoon I visited Napoli's archeological museum, which featured a tour of the Gabineto Secreto, a display of ancient pornographic paintings found at Pompeii and elsewhere. That the Catholic Church managed to impose its notions of sexual propriety in this place, considering the shit depicted here is utterly baffling.

For dinner I went to another pizzeria considered to be one of Napoli's best, and it was absolutely excellent, and the pizza was too big for me to finish.

Napoli is a cool city: narrow streets and crazy drivers keep you on your toes, absolutely gorgeous women and greasy men warrant gawks of all kinds; it is edgy, raw, dirty and fast paced- almost as much as New York- but it is not without its beautiful spots and historical and cultural significance.

But I was Sicily bound. My overnight train would deposit me in Palermo on Easter Sunday with no place to stay, no map of the city and no tourist office open to guide me. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Well, at least I'd gone to church.

Misery Loves Company

The girl on the bed above woke up as I came in and put my things down. She asked the time, and then the standard who are you questions. When she got out of bed, I saw that she had the squat, bottom-heavy frame of a garden gnome, and the buck toothed grin to match. After ten minutes of introductory chit chat, I learned that a garden gnome, inanimate or not, would make a far more interesting sightseeing companion as well-especially if Amelie had anything to do with it (though I suppose that visiting Athens with an animate garden gnome would be hard to top). She was a French Canadian (strike one) Au pair (ball one), who hadn't been to or thought about going to college (strike two), and one of her huge chompers was noticeably more yellow than all the rest (slow trickling ground out to the pitcher...As she galumphed back to the dugout, her low pitched voice, which farted words at a pace that suggested a recent donkey kick to the forehead, caused the manager to kick her off the team).

After showering and dressing quickly, I said, "well I'm only here for a day, so I'm going to head off to the sights," knowing that she had two days and wasn't all that into motion. "Okay, well, maybe I'll run into you at the Acropolis," she said. "Yeah..."

The heart of Athens is relatively small, and after a coffee and some spinach stuffed pastry thing at a coffee shop (where a crazy old Greek man, who may have been at the time considering a career as a crazy old Greek bum, sat at my outdoor table and spouted what I presume were words of wisdom, without even the slightest inkling that I had no idea what he was talking about, since he never so much as paused to see if I had anything to say, even continuing to ramble without so much as an incomprehensible farewell or acknowledgement of my presence as he walked away), I began to walk south to the center of tourist activity, where all of the historic sites are clustered. I stopped briefly to stroll through a fish and meat market I saw on the way, a sight that is interesting in every city, usually because it is a good chance to see the locals doing their thing, but this one also because it featured innumerable whole hanging lamb (I think) carcasses.

A few minutes later and I was at the base of the hill upon which the Acropolis stands, pretty excited to see the Parthenon, which I was expecting to be the most impressive ruins I would ever see.

No sooner had I reached the top of the hill and approached the ticket window than a voice behind me, which I could only hope was Eeyore's and not whose I knew it was, said, "oh hello." Great. She took the train here. Well, I had been alone for a few days, so it would at least be company.

The Acropolis was horribly mobbed. Worse, it was mobbed by middle school groups, i.e. loud, marauding bands of uncontrollable hormones, enthusiastic disinterest, and confident irreverance. The rest of the human interference present was made up of American college students on spring break from their abroad programs, okay fine, at least they're trying, and ignorant middle aged Americans from those parts of the country. Yes, you know which parts I mean. I hadn't seen a fellow patriot in weeks, if not months, and the irony struck me as suddenly as the thought: 'fucking Americans.'

The main structures, the entry gates and the Parthenon, were pretty much covered in scaffolding, my new nemesis, and to be honest, weren't really all that impressive. Okay, The Parthenon is really old, and that it still stands- sort of- is impressive. But in and of itself, it fails to project a sort of aura, albeit perhaps because of the eyesore that comes with necessary restoration work, that would make it anything more than a bunch of columns. The picture does it more justice than it deserves.

Next to the Parthenon is the Erechtheion (no clue), whose six Caryatids support its southern portico (and here, my lovely companion demonstrates that she also sucks at taking pictures).

These would have been cool, if they were real. These are instead casts that replaced the originals, four of which were moved inside the on site museum, with good reason I suppose, but, what the fuck? One of the originals is in the British Museum in London, because they stole it way back when...when...I don't know, during lunch one day when all the Greeks were smoking cigarretes and sitting around, and the location of the other one remains a mystery. Not to them, but to me. There were six. One is in England, four are inside the museum. I felt like I was the only one doing the math.

The museum holds many impressive artifacts that I couldn't learn about because the place was a fucking madhouse, and nobody stopped moving long enough to look at or read anything. It was like they were all making their obligatory pass so they could pretend that they learned. Trying to stop and appreciate anything was like trying to hang on to a twig that extended into a white water river of Greek acne and Texas blubber.

From the entrance to the Acropolis, we did get a good view of the Theater of Herodes Atticus, which had been well restored, but completely blocked off so you couldn't get inside, which was crap.

From the Acropolis we began a tour of the other various must see monuments: the Theater of Dionysus, the Temple of Olympian Zeus (which was in fact quite impressive), the Ancient Agora, which included the well preserved Temple of Hephaestus, and the Roman Agora, with its Tower of the Winds.

To be fair, I've never really seen anything this old, and I should hope that some of our modern architecture lasts so long, but I didn't ever feel like the actual visit gave the structures any more significance than would a photograph. What's worse, you couldn't enter or get close to many of these monuments, most of them again with good reason, but it still made appreciation difficult. Plus I kept thinking that the girl with me smelled like diapers. Clean ones, but still. It's an odd smell.

While in Athens I kept a strict diet of souvlaki, which they really know how to do, smothering them in frecnh fries and sauce. This is something that, surprisingly, the Turks really couldn't do. Their kebabs (the sandwiches that is, because in Turkey kebab could mean a platter, depending) were dry, low on fillings, and sauceless. Even if you'd ask, the best they could offer was ketchup or mayonnaise, both unacceptable. But the Greeks generally buttered up the bread before grilling it and tzatzikied (yes, that's the verb form of tzatziki) the shit out of the things, and served them up overstuffed for 1.50 Euros, which for me was irresistable.

My exasperation climaxed with my next day's visits to the Greek War Museum, and the Roman Stadium, rebuilt in 1896 for the first modern Olympic games. After about an hour of trying to find the museum due to that same faulty Lonely Planet map, I arrived, ready to be fascinated by Iliadesque tales of heroic dismemberment and awestruck by the recovered ancient tools of death. The museum was divided into two sections, 'Ancient-1938' upstairs and '1938-present' downstairs. With a quick scoff, I trotted up one flight of stairs, but then stopped, as the section was roped off. I asked the attendant if it was closed, and he informed me that they were fixing the exhibit space, and it had been closed for almost two years, but would be open again next month. It is at this point that I decide to locate and explode the main Lonely Planet office once my trip is finished. But, the attendant informed me, they did have a whole exhibit on the Greek military since World War II. Oh, well yes, I've often heard of the heroism of the Greek Army in the Great War, of the many young men who sacrificed their vocal chords while sitting around kvetching, of the gruesome casualties: the thousands of spilt olives and pounds of moldy feta, of the millions upon millions of cigarretes gone unsmoked. No, wait...the cigarrettes were definitely smoked. In any case, who cares about Greek wars after 1938, or 938 for that matter? Well, apparently not the group of fifty middle schoolers on their way in either. I left immediately.

My last stop, before catching a train to Patra, where I would get the ferry to Bari Italy, was the Roman Stadium. I expected a ruin, forgetting that the thing was really only 110 years old, and found a beautifully rebuilt stone stadium, perfectly clean and undamaged, with a fresh, new rubberized running track.

It was, of course, completely closed off. They wouldn't let anyone walk on the stands to get a picture, or say, run on the fucking track. It was the stupidest thing I'd seen yet. It was simply a massive waste of space and concrete.

Why keep the people out? To prevent it from getting worn down? Worn down by, what? Use????

The monuments of Athens, while I'm glad I saw them, were something of a disappointment, making good photos but uninspiring sights.

The rest of the city was no better, souvlaki aside, as it simply could have been any city. Just a bunch of streets and buildings. I was not going to be missing any ferries out of here.