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gementFor the record, 2 updates in the first 2 days is 2 better than I expected. Like all forms of diary and correspondence, I have grand aspirations and truly horrible follow-through. Don't hold your breath for the trend to continue. :P
After strolling around in front of St. Peter's this morning (sense of. scale. broken.) we walked something like the #3 walk of Rome this morning(*). We took a subway to the Spanish Steps (meh), then looped past Trevvi Fountain (also far larger than the pictures), stared up into the dome of the Pantheon (**), had coffee in front of the Four Rivers Fountain (my mom's favorite, and I can see why; it's delightful) and wandered the market there.
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arjache got a donut the size of a Frisbee, heated on a panini grill and smeared with Nutella. It's a local specialty. It fed three of us. Among the things at the market were Christmas stockings shaped like high-heeled green leather boots, and many representations of La Befena, the witch who brings Italian children Christmas presents.
We meandered further to get an impressive view of Castel Sant'Angelo, which took me a while to parse, as I was pretty sure "Angel" was a pretty pretentious thing for people to name their male children unless they wanted said children to grow up to be brooding conflicted psychopaths. When I learned the statue on top is of St. Michael the Archangel, that made more sense.(***)
There may have been more "look at this" things on the way back to St. Peter's and our luggage and the train, but my brain was full. I'm spending most of the time so far doing the visual immersion thing. I'm looking at signs aimed toward tourists as little as possible. I'm looking at cell phone ads, writing on vans, clothing codes, tones of voice, and how the buildings fit together. I'd tell you what I'm picking up, but I don't even have conscious access to most of it yet. I'm getting damn good at correctly parsing what text probably says, though.
There was a short and stressful city train out to the real train station, then a two hour calm commuter train to Naples, which I think is when it really sunk in that I'm in Italy. Landscape different. No good articulation of how, but landscape different. It also sunk in that my migraine has not yet died and I'll probably be prone to them throughout the trip unless I whack the tension patterns from the plane out of my back pronto.
"Pronto" is the phone greeting in Italy, by the way. Maybe I should just answer the phone more.
Our hotel room in Naples is on the 2nd floor, and when we arrived the traffic island out front was swamped with a confusion of people hawking things, their wares, and piles of garbage; I can tell which bits are garbage more clearly now because it's night and the hawkers have gone home. We have a balcony over this! It has heavy slatted blinds so you can open the window to light and sound without flashing a dozen sock vendors. Even the sound is intense.
The first thing I was told about Naples, and I've been told it several times in different ways since, is that it's very alive. The market outside our window is my first tangible sense of that. I dig it.
* The #3 walk is, I am told, named after a long-past Rome McDonald's placemat promotion, which suggested several half-day walking tours one might take while visiting the city. #3 was the best.
** I am embarrassed to say that I had no idea what to expect from the Pantheon, as "the Pantheon" was just on the list in my head of 'stuff people talk about having seen in Rome.' I probably had it conflated with the Parthenon, and I'd have to look that one up too. Well, the Pantheon is an unremarkably sized Big Old Building and still-functional Catholic church which happens to be built around a TOTALLY KICKASS feat of Roman dome engineering. It's a gorgeous deep dome with square insets, which I would find pleasing in and of itself, and then the center is a huge, perfectly circular skylight.
I had to stare for a bit to convince myself it wasn't one of the standard sky-painted centers, as it was a clear blue day so I couldn't see any movement. Nope. Bright frickin' day up there, and a chained off section of the floor so people wouldn't slip where it had gotten damp the night before. The fresh air blowing through the room between the open doors and the skylight was wonderful. I was happy to see the Catholic owners had the taste to leave the spaces for the Roman gods blank instead of just piling the same sconces full of saints. Same sentiment, sure, but... I was just glad they didn't.
*** I didn't know any of the angels had dual saint qualifications. I'm still a little confused, but the statue is awesome, and apparently [[SPOILERS!]] this truly mammoth building is the setting of the suicide at the end of Tosca. The last part of the last sentence was foreshadowing for events scheduled later in the trip.
----------
I am now ending this entry without going and linking each of the locations to a picture or something mad like that. The trouble with me trying to summarize things is that to map things in enough detail to satisfy my picky, picky mind, I end up drawing the terrain to scale. So I can do it or I can capture it. *shrug*
When I need to rest but still have brains, I'll see how far I can get on the capturing without getting frustrated at the lack of a data jack suitable for uploading hours of sensory experience and reactions. But I refuse to just give a list of things we saw, so if I don't have energy for more than that, well, you'll just have to guess, and later I (hi, future Me!) will just have to continue remembering vague and inaccurate things.
After strolling around in front of St. Peter's this morning (sense of. scale. broken.) we walked something like the #3 walk of Rome this morning(*). We took a subway to the Spanish Steps (meh), then looped past Trevvi Fountain (also far larger than the pictures), stared up into the dome of the Pantheon (**), had coffee in front of the Four Rivers Fountain (my mom's favorite, and I can see why; it's delightful) and wandered the market there.
arjache got a donut the size of a Frisbee, heated on a panini grill and smeared with Nutella. It's a local specialty. It fed three of us. Among the things at the market were Christmas stockings shaped like high-heeled green leather boots, and many representations of La Befena, the witch who brings Italian children Christmas presents.We meandered further to get an impressive view of Castel Sant'Angelo, which took me a while to parse, as I was pretty sure "Angel" was a pretty pretentious thing for people to name their male children unless they wanted said children to grow up to be brooding conflicted psychopaths. When I learned the statue on top is of St. Michael the Archangel, that made more sense.(***)
There may have been more "look at this" things on the way back to St. Peter's and our luggage and the train, but my brain was full. I'm spending most of the time so far doing the visual immersion thing. I'm looking at signs aimed toward tourists as little as possible. I'm looking at cell phone ads, writing on vans, clothing codes, tones of voice, and how the buildings fit together. I'd tell you what I'm picking up, but I don't even have conscious access to most of it yet. I'm getting damn good at correctly parsing what text probably says, though.
There was a short and stressful city train out to the real train station, then a two hour calm commuter train to Naples, which I think is when it really sunk in that I'm in Italy. Landscape different. No good articulation of how, but landscape different. It also sunk in that my migraine has not yet died and I'll probably be prone to them throughout the trip unless I whack the tension patterns from the plane out of my back pronto.
"Pronto" is the phone greeting in Italy, by the way. Maybe I should just answer the phone more.
Our hotel room in Naples is on the 2nd floor, and when we arrived the traffic island out front was swamped with a confusion of people hawking things, their wares, and piles of garbage; I can tell which bits are garbage more clearly now because it's night and the hawkers have gone home. We have a balcony over this! It has heavy slatted blinds so you can open the window to light and sound without flashing a dozen sock vendors. Even the sound is intense.
The first thing I was told about Naples, and I've been told it several times in different ways since, is that it's very alive. The market outside our window is my first tangible sense of that. I dig it.
* The #3 walk is, I am told, named after a long-past Rome McDonald's placemat promotion, which suggested several half-day walking tours one might take while visiting the city. #3 was the best.
** I am embarrassed to say that I had no idea what to expect from the Pantheon, as "the Pantheon" was just on the list in my head of 'stuff people talk about having seen in Rome.' I probably had it conflated with the Parthenon, and I'd have to look that one up too. Well, the Pantheon is an unremarkably sized Big Old Building and still-functional Catholic church which happens to be built around a TOTALLY KICKASS feat of Roman dome engineering. It's a gorgeous deep dome with square insets, which I would find pleasing in and of itself, and then the center is a huge, perfectly circular skylight.
I had to stare for a bit to convince myself it wasn't one of the standard sky-painted centers, as it was a clear blue day so I couldn't see any movement. Nope. Bright frickin' day up there, and a chained off section of the floor so people wouldn't slip where it had gotten damp the night before. The fresh air blowing through the room between the open doors and the skylight was wonderful. I was happy to see the Catholic owners had the taste to leave the spaces for the Roman gods blank instead of just piling the same sconces full of saints. Same sentiment, sure, but... I was just glad they didn't.
*** I didn't know any of the angels had dual saint qualifications. I'm still a little confused, but the statue is awesome, and apparently [[SPOILERS!]] this truly mammoth building is the setting of the suicide at the end of Tosca. The last part of the last sentence was foreshadowing for events scheduled later in the trip.
----------
I am now ending this entry without going and linking each of the locations to a picture or something mad like that. The trouble with me trying to summarize things is that to map things in enough detail to satisfy my picky, picky mind, I end up drawing the terrain to scale. So I can do it or I can capture it. *shrug*
When I need to rest but still have brains, I'll see how far I can get on the capturing without getting frustrated at the lack of a data jack suitable for uploading hours of sensory experience and reactions. But I refuse to just give a list of things we saw, so if I don't have energy for more than that, well, you'll just have to guess, and later I (hi, future Me!) will just have to continue remembering vague and inaccurate things.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 08:39 pm (UTC)I'm picturing this in my head and I love it!
Your Current Music made me laugh. I've had "Vale Decem" in my head for about a week. I sympathize. Oh, wait. There's Boten Anna! It seems to have taken Vale Decem's place. At least for the next minute or two.