What Could Go Wrong

 Whenever I go somewhere new, there's always the nagging feeling something will go wrong. In the best case scenario everything goes according to plan. Minor bumps in the road such as a late bus, a suitcase gone astray or finding a stranger sleeping in your room are inevitable. Worst case scenarios such as major injuries or death must be insured for. Coffin shipment home from overseas is expensive.

  One step below death or dismemberment is having to spend the night in an airport. I've only had to spend the night in an airport once. It was at O'Hare, an airport so big that when your flight is cancelled, no one has any idea why. They just give you a cot and some food vouchers and send you to Terminal X. Two hundred of us lost souls set up our cots in the abandoned terminal. There was a line all night for the one small M/W bathroom. The overhead announcements stopped at 1:00 am and at 4:30 a retired drill sergeant rousted us out of the terminal.  I can recommend the Wolfgang Puck Mediterranean breakfast omelet if you're ever stuck in O'Hare. 

  You can try to prepare yourself for a new place when traveling but life is unpredictable. Take getting to Venice. Venice is an island so the trick with Venice is getting from the airport to Venice itself. According to my research, the best way would be to take the ferry from the airport. We could supposedly buy ferry tickets from machines near baggage claim in the airport. We've had trouble buying tickets from machines in the past. It's always better to buy from a ticket counter, though there's generally a line to wait in as your bus, train or ferry pulls out.

 All my research did not reveal any ticket counters. Could we buy our tickets on the ferry? The internet was silent. So we confronted the ticket machines. There were several of them, no waiting. I could see other people getting tickets and moving on. After struggling with a couple of machines we finally got our tickets and started the long hike to the ferry. A half mile in an airport feels like two miles in the country. It took about twenty minutes to reach the ferries and the counter selling tickets. Now I know for next time, though we risk finding a closed for renovations sign at the counter. We boarded the ferry tickets in hand and were soon on our way to Venice- piece of panettone. 

  Yes everything worked fine getting to Venice. We had a couple of free days in the city then joined our tour group. If we had arrived in Venice the same day the tour started then the tour director would have met us at the airport, bought our ferry tickets, and escorted us to our hotel. That service is one of the main reasons people join tours. The tour company makes the rough ways smooth.

  Take the case of Angie (not her real name), one of the members of our group. At our first group meeting, we learned that Angie had missed her flight that morning in Los Angeles. Please remember there's a nine hour time difference between LA and Venice. Angie had arrived at LAX at 4:30 am to catch the first of her three flights that day. Her first flight was on an obscure airline the tour company had booked for her. These little airlines use bigger airline's counters and Angie went where she had been told to go but no one knew where her airline's check-in desk was. By the time she found out, her 6:30 flight had left. 

  Now the tour company support team sprang into action and rebooked Angie on another airline. Nevertheless Angie would be getting to Venice Airport much later than planned and our tour director was worried that Angie would miss the last ferry to Venice. It is the policy of this company that none of its customers will ever spend the night in an airport. Our director was prepared to hire a private motor boat to get Angie to Venice at great expense to the tour company. I understand now why tours are so expensive. It's not cheap to rebook flights and hire private transport. Fortunately Angie made the last ferry.

  Troubles are going to happen. That's life. The tour company holds your hand and makes them go away. Is this service worth the extra cost? Lots of travelers think so, especially older ones who have the money and hate sleeping in airports. Another benefit of being on a tour is the people you meet.  Angie had an interesting tale to tell. She was an excitable person so you could see why she might go astray at 4:30 in the morning. But she had been a psychiatric nurse in a jail for 20 years so she must have been a capable person. Despite having been up 33 hours the day before, she was raring to hit the tourist trail with the best of them, God love her.

 Airport ferry to Venice--Where's Angie?

Slice of Heaven

 

   On Sunday a guy at church asked me if Teresa and I were moving to town. What! If we ever did move it would be to Massachusetts where our kids live and there are no plans for that. He said he had seen in the paper that we had sold our land. One of the joys living in a small town is that everyone knows your business. This is helped by the fact that almost everyone is related at least through marriage and that the local paper publishes the court report and a list of land transactions.

  I could understand why my fellow parishioner was confused. The land transaction list gives legal descriptions such as "the northwest quarter of the southeast section" so that it's hard to know what exactly is being sold. I told my curious friend that we had only sold one acre of our land to a neighbor.

  In October our neighbor Mark asked if he could buy this acre and a very oddly shaped acre it was. Mark said he wondered if we would sell him a 33 foot wide strip of land (two rods) along the west edge of our property running south from County Road 8 to the south edge of our property, a distance of a quarter mile.. This strip would equal one acre exactly. A rod used to be an actual stick 16 1/2 feet long used by surveyors. It was a good measurement because there were 320 rods in a mile. According to folklore, this was the length of the rod medieval ploughmen used to goad their oxen.

  Mark had made his request one day as Teresa and I were walking on County Road 8 along on the north edge of our property. Mark had pulled over in his pickup to chat, something he often does when he sees us out walking. After a bit of chat, Mark asked if we'd ever be willing to sell him the above mentioned two rod wide strip of land. He offered a very good price for the land.  We were confused at first, but fortunately we were standing right at the north edge of the strip of land Mark had in mind. The strip would run straight south, across the gently sloping field, through a border of woods, across the river, through the spruce trees on the other side of the river, ending at the old barbed wire fence along the south edge of our land.

  Mark has recently retired from several decades of driving snow plow and road grader for Roseau County Highway Department. He has time to think. He lives along County Road 8 across from us and a bit to the west. He grew up another mile west along this same road. He told us when he was young he and his brothers used to fish along the river on what is now our land. They would work their way up stream till they were back by their home. Good memories. He lost his pocket knife along the river bank long ago. 

  He said if we sold him the land he would clear a 33' wide strip of woods to the river's edge and put up a deer stand. He would put his deer stand to the north of the clearing in a grove of spruce trees. He would always shoot to the south away from the road. He could put one of his grandchildren in the stand so they could get a taste of hunting. Mark and his siblings own a large chunk of hunting land a few miles away so this acre of our land would be a kind of play-hunting land and also a memento of his youth. Mark asked us to think it over.

  We did talk it over and saw no objections. This strip of land is across the river from our home. We would have no view of any hunting activity. We gave Mark a call later that day and told him to contact his lawyer and start the process. We could tell Mark was happy because stopped over every couple of days to describe every jot and tittle of the legal process.

  We were going to be gone for a month and would take care of the transfer when we got back. We told him to put up a deer stand if he wanted because hunting season was about to begin.  He didn't put up a stand, but while we were gone, he cleared his shooting lane and dragged the trees up by the road. These trees really belonged to him but he said we could have them for firewood. Nice!

  We signed the transfer papers at the lawyers office on the last day of the year. Mark's wife Vernell joked that Mark should rent a metal detector and see if he could find his old jackknife. I feel good about the whole thing because I now realize if we ever incur large gambling debts, we could sell off our land strip by strip. But I don’t see that happening  

Mark's shooting lane, looking north- two rods wide by 80 rods long

Roma

  I've been milking our trip to Amsterdam and Italy for my Friday post for the past two months.  That's seven or eight posts for a trip that lasted sixteen days. To be fair, we left home back in late October and drove to Delaware and Maryland to see family then to Boston to see more family. 

  From Boston we flew to Europe and back, then drove home. We got home on December 4 which would have been my mother's 99th birthday. My mother preferred her home to travel. My father's greater world was the bays and islands south of Boston seen from the cockpit of his sailboat. 

  My parental predilections are coming to the fore in myself. Do I really need to uproot myself from my la-z-boy and fly rough to put myself in the Colosseum in Rome? The answer is no. It would be different if I could return to 100 AD and see the place in its glory, though I'd have to leave before the spilling of gore began. I would try the bread though.

  We do need to travel around the US if we want to see the kids in Massachusetts and other family around the country. I like that kind of travel, especially traversing the back roads of Anywhere, USA. You see all kinds of weird and wonderful things wandering down small town alleys.

  I realized recently that one reason I travel is to have a conversation gambit. The only thing some people know about me is that we take trips. They're not interested in the trip we just finished or the one coming up. They just want to tell me how happy they are to stay home. The bus tour they took to Nashville several years ago filled their travel bucket. I could simply make up an exotic place we're planning to visit and then not go there. Everyone wins. But if Teresa wants to go somewhere, so be it. I'll just get some stronger pills.

  I hope this doesn't sound like whining. I remember a story I heard during the Vietnam War. A village was being evacuated by helicopter. As they rose above the canopy the villagers were amazed to see the Pacific. None of them had ever been to the ocean. Their village was only five miles from the shore, but they had no need to leave home.

  When I was in my twenties a guy I'd bump into occasionally told me he was going to Rome for a few days. I envied him. That's when I should have gone. But I didn't need to. There was plenty to see in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Nebraska is greatly underrated. Even Iowa has its high points.

  We were finally inspired to travel overseas when our sons were doing post-graduation jaunts around Europe. We intended to meet Joe and Ned and Rome, but Pope John Paul II was dying at the time so to avoid the hubbub, we went to Paris instead. On a later trip we had a layover in Rome, but the airport doesn't count.

  My travel lust has been mostly sated. I'm no longer gobsmacked by new places like I used to be, but as they say, When in Rome, don’t pout. I'm glad I went. Teresa enjoyed it so there's that.

  Teresa enjoyed Rome partially because she found a yarn store and a couple of thrift stores. The thrift stores were disappointing. A European told me the best thrift stores are in the US. Finding the only yarn store in Rome was a mini-adventure. Facebook said it opened at three pm. But you know how reliable FB is. 

  When we arrived at 2:30, the shutter was down. Rome is a good place to wait because there are places to eat everywhere. Teresa got a lemon drink at a place that only sold lemon drinks. I went to a tiny coffee shop/bar and ordered a cappuccino. I never ordered cappuccinos at home because they're a ripoff. But in Italy they're cheap. La Dolce Vita and all that.

  There were two ancient guys in suit coats and ties running the shop. The bartender made my drink and said cioccolato? No one had asked me that before. Si, grazie, I replied. The chocolate powder he sprinkled on top represents the hoods of the Capuchin monks after whom the drink is named. 

  Back at the yarn store at three o'clock there was no sign of life. A guy selling posters across the way said they opened at three-thirty, but that Teresa should go to the clothing store up the street and let them know she was waiting. The yarn shop clerk showed up at 3:35. 

  Vatican City is surrounded by walls. Rome and Italy over the centuries have been at times as dangerous as Gaza or Somalia are today. As we waited to enter the Vatican Museum, we stood in line beside the Vatican's thirty foot tall wall. These few minutes brought to mind the ebb and flow of history that I feel today even here in the middle of nowhere. 

The Rome monkey got off my back and scampered over the wall. Ciao!

Bits and Pieces

 Pezzi e cianfrusaglie- That's how the Italians say bits and pieces. And that's what I have for this post about Italy. I've already posted a chronological description of our November tour, but I have some bits and pieces that I'd like to display.

  Before Venice, we had been in Amsterdam. I wondered if anyone swam in the canals there. Swimming is forbidden in most canals for safety reasons, but there are a few designated swimming areas in the canal system. The canals occasionally freeze so there's hockey too. 

  Swimming is forbidden in the Venice canals because the canals are part of the sewerage system. Also, you might get hit by a motorboat. But I can imagine a drunk tourist late at night risking the $500 fine.

  When we arrived in Florence, our bus dropped us off by a little park with a statue of Savonarola. I had a vague memory that Savonarola had been a bad dude. Sabra, our tour director, said that Savonarola was the bonfire of the vanities guy. 

  Savonarola was a fifteenth century Dominican preaching friar. He was disgusted with the voluptuous lifestyle of the Florentines and preached hellfire and damnation. 

He was a rabble rouser and got the young people on his side. They chased the Medici rulers out of town and established a republic with Savonarola as dictator. Savonarola ordered the gathering of objectionable items such as nude paintings, wigs and makeup, love poetry, games and dice, and music and musical instruments for the famous bonfires. 

  Savonarola and Florence itself did well for a few years. His mistake was in not cooperating with the pope who excommunicated him in 1497. The pope had lots of temporal power in those days and the Florentines got nervous. 

  Savonarola offered to undergo a trial by fire to prove God was on his side. But he had second thoughts at the last minute and lost all credibility with the people. Machiavelli was a contemporary and observed in his book The Prince, "Once you lose the mob, you're done for.” Savonarola was tried, hanged, and his body burned on the site of the vanities bonfires. 

  The soon-to-emerge Protestants loved Savonarola because he called the Church a whore. Martin Luther was a fan. The statue of Savonarola went up in the nineteen hundreds when Italy was trying to unify and the pope was getting in the way. The statue was saying- In your face, papa. 

"All is vanity..."

   While passing along an arcade outside the Uffizi Museum in Florence, we saw a line of 28 statues of famous men of Florence. Genius needs the proper setting to flourish and Florence in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries provided that setting, at least for men.  I was proud of myself for recognizing 12 of the 28 heroes, including Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, etc.

  Good old Amerigo Vespucci's statue was among the greats. Amerigo had worked in Spain for a Florintine businessman during the age of discovery. When his patron died, Amerigo married a Spanish woman with connections and he travelled on a couple of voyages to the New World. He may or may not have written letters about the land he visited, which is now known as Brazil. Whoever wrote the letters realized this land was not Asia, but a new continent or continents. So when the German mapmaker Waldseemüeller made his world map in 1507, he named the new continents Amerige. 

  I've always felt funny having my home continent(s) named on such flimsy grounds. But Amerigo's statue in Florence inspired me to look up the meanings of the names of the other continents.

Europe: Princess raped by Zeus

Asia: East 

Australia: South

Antarctica: Opposite the Bear

Africa: No one knows

So America looks good enough as a name after all. 

Better than North and South Columbia.

Wait...there's more.

Bits and Bobs

 Bits and bobs is what they call collections of small items in England. Bits and bobs is what I gather on trips to Europe. I like refrigerator magnets. Also postcards and medals of saints. Things that won't make my suitcase any heavier. 

  I also end up with my memory full of bits and bobs which once home I try to put together like pieces of a puzzle. I think this is why I travel- to gain insights while seeing the world from a different angle. 

  It helps to talk about what I’ve seen, but an acquaintance bumped into in the grocery store can only spare so much time. Their kids are waiting for dinner, or so they say. 

  It’s better to flip through my hundreds of trip pics and embody my thoughts in the form of a blog post. 

  Allerlei dingen is what they call bits and bobs in the Netherlands.  I wondered while walking around Amsterdam why the city felt like such a human place. For one thing the streets were not dominated by cars. Everyone seemed to be getting around on bikes. 

  Bikes in Amsterdam are a conscious decision. After World War II, some people saw that cars were taking over their city and they convinced the authorities to favor bikes. 

  It seemed like everyone who was not on bikes was either riding the tram or walking. There were definitely cars and delivery trucks but they were in a minority. 

  In November the city felt cozy, with cafes and coffee shops on every corner. It might get too cozy in summer when the tourist arrive. I don’t know. I won’t be there. 

Museums:  Museums are a problem for me. They're time consuming and expensive. I read once about an old man who when he visited a museum, stood in front of one painting for an hour and then left. How silly I thought. Now I am that old man. Or I would be if it didn't cost twenty dollars to get into the museum. I'm a cheapskate. Yes we can afford it, but it wouldn't be prudent. If I'm going to pay that much I'm going to stay half a day and I'll be in a bad mood and won't enjoy it so why even go.

  We did go to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam just because it was there and we had developed an affinity to Van Gogh on a trip in Provence earlier. The museum is a huge likable place. It was crowded even on a week day in the off season. The Van Gogh phenomenon is odd. This building which has cost close to half a billion to build celebrates the work of an artist who sold one painting in his life and killed himself at age 37. The museum's star attraction, Starry Night, was on loan in New York. One more reason for disgruntlement.

At the Van Gogh, Three Views

Why Travel

 Some people hate driving. I love it. Any time, and where. People who hate to drive end up getting speeding tickets. I just get lost. The great thing about retirement is that we can take extra days to drive east to see the kids. Who would have thought Indiana could be so fascinating? Once you get off the Interstate you find out. 

  The other great thing is that you have time and funds to go to Europe where our ancestors came from. So we visited Ireland (me) and Sweden and Scotland (Teresa) and checked them off the list. Next we did France so I could learn that my years of studying the French language had been a waste of time. Next was England. The language barrier was much lower there. There was nothing about England I didn't like. Then to Spain so we could fulfill Teresa's dream of walking the 500 mile Camino de Santiago. Except we had let so many years slip by we had to content ourselves with hiking just 40 miles and spending the rest of the time in Barcelona, Andalusia, and Madrid.

  We slipped Greece in there at some point. There was nothing about Greece I didn’t like either, but that may have been because our Greek friend Alex was along to translate. So we were getting a lot of Europe checked off the list. Now it was Italy's turn. People kept telling us Italy was primo. The best. Should we do a hiking tour of the hill towns? That was our first thought. But then people would always be asking: did you see Rome, did you see Florence. Oh, it's a shame you missed the canals of Venice. You'll have to go back.

  So we bit the bullet and signed up for a tour. We had  only done one tour before. It was on a boat on the Columbia River. We had our own cabin. We could eat at the buffet and not in the stuffy dining room. We could poke around the little towns along the route. There was a soft serve ice cream machine available 24/7. My only complaint as that it was expensive. My friend Steve always says "You can afford it," but I was tortured by the thought that we could have rented a motor boat and done the trip for the half the cost, though without the ice cream machine of course.

  This bus tour we were taking in Italy would hit the big three, Venice, Florence and Rome over nine days. We had been advised to get to Venice a couple of days early, which we did. We had two days on our own to walk around this unique city. We had one more day in Venice with our tour group then traveled on to Florence for a day and a half. This was not long enough to see Florence, but we could have taken a longer tour.

  We liked Rome best. We saw the Colosseum and the Vatican with the group. After three days the tour was over and everyone flew home except us. We spent another day in Rome and on our last day took the train to the nearby hill town of Orvieto. So we've seen the main things people think of when Italy is mentioned. If anyone asks if we've been to Sicily I'm going to pretend I'm hard of hearing, which I am.

  Would we go back. Yes, if I could be put to sleep for the flight. Or if they build a tunnel to Europe. I hear blimps are coming back. Top speed is 100 mph. I could get a couple of books read during the thirty hour flight. Then there's the question of tour versus do-it-ourselves. If I could ignore the price tag, I'd take a tour. It eliminates 90% of the anxiety of travel. Maybe we could do a hybrid like we did this time: part tour, part on our own.

 The big question is do we even need to go to Europe again. I really don't know. I think I travel so I have something to say to people when they ask if we have any trips planned. They listen politely to my chatter then I'll ask them about their interests, baking, astrophysics, pickle ball...

  We're talking about a hike along England's Thames River. At least the terrain is as flat as Roseau County and we speak the language. And first class seats don't cost that much.

Move over Teresa, we're going to Thief River, first class.

Orvieto

 As we sped along the freeway between Florence and Rome, Sabra, our tour director, pointed out the hill town of Orvieto looming five hundred feel above the plains of Umbria. "Look," she said. "You can see the walls of the old fort. You should go there. It's only an hour by train from Rome. It's wonderful."

  Right. Only an hour. No, I'll just stay in little old Rome. Have a cappuccino. Go to bed early. But it was too late. Teresa had been bitten by the Orvieto bug. I hoped she'd forget about it. But she never forgets these little jaunts into the wild.

  So, after we had seen the Colosseum and the Vatican, and while the other tour group people were sensibly descending into the catacombs of Rome, we were entering the gigantic Termini train station near our hotel.

  It was a mild sunny Saturday morning. In the busy station were rows of ticket machines. We selected English. But something was being lost in translation. The train we wanted disappeared on the English screen. And the prices were much higher.

  A guy, noticing our confusion, tried to help. His English was not good and Teresa said his clothes were raggedy. He whipped through the screens.  Did we really have to put in our home address? Both of us? Teresa said she saw a screen that said, "Don't let strangers see your card number. I didn't see that.

  Eventually we threw up our hands and walked away.  We found another machine, but it was just as hopeless. I noticed a line of people entering an office. These were ticket buyers in need of a human. They probably had complicated itineraries to Istanbul or Vladivostok. Fortunately a man at the office put us in a much shorter line for duffers. 

  It turned out we couldn't make the train we wanted. The next one was in an hour but we were worried about being back at the hotel in time to join the group for our farewell dinner so we postponed our trip till the next day, Sunday. We walked back to the hotel and had a second breakfast at the fabulous continental breakfast room just before it closed.

  When we were trying to buy tickets I saw something on the screen about service interruptions due to a work stoppage. That night Sabra confirmed there would be no trains on Sunday. The unions call these one day strikes to warn management not to be stingy during contract negotiations.

  Sunday was mild and sunny. A perfect day for visiting a hill town. It was also a perfect day for walking around Rome, my new favorite thing to do. We had seen Sabra at breakfast Sunday morning. She had just gotten the last of the tour group off to the airport. The train strike wasn't starting till ten am and before she left for her train home, she drew us a map of Orvieto on a napkin.  This would prove useful on Monday. Thank you Sabra. You were great!

  Monday dawned cool and cloudy.  We left the hotel at 8:30 planning to catch the 10:00 am train. These hourly inter urban trains run all the way to Florence. Things went smoothly at the ticket office for newbies. Now we had an hour to kill before our train. American train stations are nightmarish. Any restaurants there are an afterthought for people silly enough to take the train.

  In Europe, trains are a vital part of life.  The cafes in Termini were the equal of cafes on the street. We logged onto the station Wi-Fi and dawdled over our drinks. At twenty to ten I suggested we head for our train. No one warned us our train was an 18 minute walk away. A fast walk. Now we know for the next time.

  The train took a long time getting through the not so historical parts of Rome. At least out here there'd be no men on every corner getting in your face to buy a ticket for the Hop-on Hop-off tourist bus. Once out of the city, the train hit speeds of 100 mph. We arrived in Orvieto at 11:30. Across from the station was the funicular railway up the hill to the city.

  The high town area is kidney shaped, about a mile long and a half mile wide. I had looked up Orvieto before we left Rome and saw there was a place there called St Patrick’s Well. Had St Patrick gotten to Italy in his travels?

  It turns out the pope back in 1527 had retreated to his palace in Orvieto while the Holy Roman Emperor sacked Rome.  The pope had brought his personal army along and worried about the water supply in case Orvieto was besieged. He ordered his engineer to dig for water. What? The engineer asked. You want me to dig to St Patrick’s Purgatory? 

  So there's a well in Ireland that is so deep, people thought it went to purgatory.  It became a saying that any deep hole was called St Patrick's Purgatory, which is exactly what the pope wanted. So they began digging through the volcanic rock until they hit a good supply of water 175' down. There's a walkway spiraling around the well for the mules carrying water jugs to the bottom. They didn't want the mules going back up bumping into the mules coming down so they built another path going up. Yes, they dug a double helix, like DNA.

In Italy, when someone is asking for too much, you say, What do you think I am, St Patrick’s Well?

 I'm a sucker for anything St Patrick related. If I could walk down into this well, my trip to Orvieto would be worthwhile. According to Sabra's map, the well was a short walk to the right out of the funicular station. And there it was covered in scaffolding. Oh great, it was going to be closed. But no, it was open for the few tourists in town on a gloomy Monday. Five euros to walk down and back up the 248 steps. Only 3.50 for seniors. ID please. Teresa had left her purse back in the room. "Look," I said, rather ungallantly, "she's at least 65." Anything to save a euro. 

  Walking down into this well was the high point of the trip for me. Sure the Colosseum is nice and St Peter's is pretty, but no one goes to Italy to go down into St Patrick's Well. It's unique. That's what I loved about it. I was now ready to catch the next train home and have a late lunch in Rome. But Teresa wanted to see the cathedral. Yawn. After getting lost in the maze of medieval streets, we got back to the funicular down to the train station. On the funicular, we chatted with a woman who taught Greek and Latin in Orvieto. She had never been down in St Patrick’s Well. Unbelievable.

  We caught the two-thirty to Rome. Back in the room we (Teresa) packed for the flight home next morning and then we dined at the Cafe Washington on chicken fingers, burgers and fries. Our stomachs were getting homesick. 

Ciao Roma. Ciao Italia.