Dena Taylor’s Musings

After saying our goodbyes to Carol, HK and I made our way to the Termini and eventually the airport. At the international terminal we said our goodbyes. I’m not a fan of this ritual because it can easily make my face leak. I watched her walk away, not much bigger than her back pack, facing another seven months of travel around the world, and felt a rush of emotion. We travel well together and that’s a priceless find.

Getting to my plane was a lot like getting to the Sistine Chapel. It was another maze, itself a journey. First I was in the wrong terminal. I went outside and caught the shuttle to my terminal. After check in and security I took another bus to the building that housed my gate. At the gate I had to walk down a ramp to a stairwell where me and my fellow passengers would wait for our turn to get on yet another bus that would take us to our plane. I’m pretty sure we flew out of Heathrow.

In Detroit I lied. I was asked if I had brought any alcohol and I said no. I forgot about the two bottles of limoncello that were in my suitcase. After picking up the goods, I was approached by an official looking sort who seemed to be randomly stopping people and asking them if they had any oak barrels full of wine or scythes in their bags. Seizing the opportunity to right my earlier wrong, I blurted out that I did have two bottles of limoncello in my suitcase, a little too eagerly as if I had just consumed them both. He marked my form in green pen, which meant I had to plod through the special-whatever line with all the other people they suspected of sneaking in things you’re not supposed to like Italian dirt, lemons, chunks of the Colloseum or David. After waiting behind a couple, their two sleepy-but-kind-of-stoned-looking toddlers and two luggage carts with what must have been everything they have ever owned in their entire lives, I passed through without incident.

I was picked up by an angel named Alice who had picked me up an order of pad kee mao–my favorite. I ate it all. I went to bed. And as I turned out the light I thought, I’ve been to Rome. I’ve tasted a little bit of beautiful Italia. And I loved it.

But it was good to be back home, too. If just for a awhile.

Quick like a bunny, I made my way through Trastevere’s cobblestone streets, across the bridge over the suspicious Tiber and back down to the Internet café. Heather and I were finishing lunch at the Ditta Trinchetti, when I reached in my purse and realized my passport was missing. The worst thing that would happen is the café would be closed for an indeterminable and unexplained amount of time. I would be flying back to Austin the next day. I would wait.

 

The day before, after another night of crap-sleep at the non-vent, we bummed around Cortona fueled solely by the two Illy americanos we sucked down at a cafe. I may have bought a rich pumpkin-colored purse from a man who said they were handmade by his sister. We were back in Rome by late afternoon. HK and I went to the outdoor park cafe for a beer before dinner. We asked if they had Peroni or Moretti. No, the waiter said. We have imports: Corona and Budweiser, he said. There’s something not right about drinking a Bud in Rome so we went Mexican and ordered two Coronas.

 

The Internet café manager handed me my passport and brought his hands together in a prayer position as if to impart an impassioned, Sorry. I clutched it, smiled and went back to Trastevere where I caught up with HK. That night we reunited with Bonnie at Aristocampo for two bottles of red, bruschetta, ziti with eggplant and ricotta, and a few shots of chilled limoncello. Shopping under the influence, one of us bought three amazing dresses—perfect for fall on the U.S. East Coast.

Madonna and child and cowboy truck? Odd juxtaposition in Trastevere.

 

 

Fireman piazza di S. Maria, Trastevere

Jesus, it’s hot. Carol arrived today and we had a delightful lunch at an outdoor café. We shared some bruschetta, aqua minerale and red wine. I enjoyed an insalata di tonno (tuna salad). The food tasted fresh and was just the nourishment we needed to make the trek up the hill to the Basilica di Santa Margherita (a single-mom-turned-saint, b. 1247). We wandered through the church, each making an offering and lighting a candle for our individual reflections, then headed back to the non-vent to recoup before dinner. After Carol headed back to Rome, Heather and I went to Pizzeria Fufluns (Etruscan for Dionysus) for the meal that would tie for my favorite: ravioli with zucchini, carrots and other delicious veggies. It was the perfect portion. We reprised our gelato-in-the-piazza before heading back to the non-vent convinced the slight breeze in the air promised a night of fitful sleep. Plus, we had a plan. We would move the wardrobe away from the window where it was likely blocking airflow and we would leave the front door open sooner and for longer to encourage maximum breeziness. I would also move my mattress from the chainmail boxspring to the floor for better support.

Maybe it was the colorful words I used to describe how my calves felt walking up to the basilica, or all those office supplies I “borrowed” from previous corporate employers, or the time I left mom’s homemade zucchini bread on the train from Salem to Seattle. Whatever the reason, that night in the non-vent was more stifling than the night before and I was certain I was being punished. And instead of a 12:30am curtain call, the summer concert rocked on until a solid 1 am. I woke up three times between 2 and 5am to open the front door and redampen the towel around my neck. The last time I was up it dawned on me that it wasn’t necessarily something I did that was causing this sweltering punishment. It was probably something Heather did.  I felt better knowing this and finally drifted off to sleep.

 

Nun on Via Nazionale reviewing her orders to keep our room temp at a steady 98 degrees.

 

 

Pretty penance. The Italy in my head is all about Tuscany and its rolling hills, gardens with bright red tomatoes and cypress trees lined up at attention. I had to experience it. But first we would drop by Florence for a walk around the Duomo, through the crowded Piazza della Signoria and across the Ponte Vecchio.

After fleeing tourist-packed Florence, we caught the train to Camucia-Cortona stazione. Once there, we bought bus tickets at the neighboring kiosk for the steep ride to Cortona. The bus dropped us in Cortona’s main square, Piazza Garibaldi. We had booked a room at the Casa Betania convent the night before and having spotted the entrance on the way up the hill, were able to walk there in minutes.

The convent was sturdy, clean, and having spied some nuns outside the building next door, presumably safe. Our room was on the top floor with a stunning view of the countryside. After depositing our daypacks, we ventured to the city center, walking down the quaint main street–Via Nazionale–and window shopping before stopping for dinner. After dinner we stopped in at Gelateria Snoopy for dessert, then took our gelato to the Piazza della Repubblica sat on some steps and watched the people go by.

Back at the convent, there seemed to be an invisible shield between the wide open window and our room.  The cooler air milling about over the window ledge refused to come inside creating a stifling hot atmosphere in which we would grasp for sleep. Turns out the convent was more of a non-vent. But Heather had an idea: open the front door for a while to create a breezeway. While this moved the hot air about, it did not seem to draw in the cooler air from outside. What did waft in was the sounds of the summer concert series taking place at the bottom of the hill. I resigned to sleeping on top of the sheets with a dampened hand towel around my neck to help cool down.  But when I sat down on the center of the bed, the ends of the mattress rose up, like a taco—my butt, the filling. I lifted up the mattress to find a boxspring of chainmail. No wonder the nuns prayed all the time, I thought, inserting my earplugs to drown out the rock music concert that bellowed until sometime after 12:30am.

 

 

Statues-R-Us. Everyone was on their own today. HK needed time on the Internet. CK needed to work. And I had some holy errands to run over at the Vatican and to see the Sistine Chapel. From Trastevere I made the long walk along the Tiber until I felt that familiar guilt, made a left and walked to the St. Peter’s square. After stopping in at the Vatican Post Office to mail some postcards, I made my over to the Vatican Museums, bypassing an endless procession of tourists along the way. I followed signs for the Sistine Chapel. Along the way I glimpsed a large collection of statues including several dogs and various other animals, along with a hallway of even more statues. There were so many in single spaces it almost looked more like inventory than display. It reminded me of Seattle’s Lucca Statuary and its collection of European garden ornaments.

After navigating the labyrinth of galleries, hallways, stairwells and corridors to the Sistine Chapel, I half expected to join Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory in winning the Triwizard cup. Instead, I stepped into a room with a ceiling that would take my breath away and a floor carpeted with people from all over the world. After waiting for a seat, I plopped down, propped open my guide and proceeded to read about every one of the nine stories from the Book of Genesis that graced the ceiling. I was really engrossed when from somewhere behind came, “SHHHHH! SILENCE! NO VIDEO!” The din of the chapel died down. There was such urgency and passion in the man’s voice, I thought the Pope might be walking through or that there was going to be an announcement. But nothing came except another, “SHHHHH! SILENCE!” The quieted din lasted about 30 seconds then rose back to its natural level. This time the plea came from the front, “SHHHH!!! SHHHH! SILENCE! NO VIDEO! PLEASE SILENCE!!!” Again, the decibel dropped for a matter of seconds before rising again. Upon hearing the third “SHHHHH!” I was done. I tried to be in the moment; to shut out the distractions and appreciate the grandeur overhead. But then I had a vision: me, in my pajamas, on the couch with a glass of chianti and a coffee table book of the Sistine Chapel, and plenty of time to study what it all meant. Fulfilling this vision became my goal, starting with getting out of the Chapel as fast as I could.

The quickest way out of the chapel, according to Rick Steves, is to “squirt out” the exit toward St. Peter’s Basilica. While “squirting” sounded kind of gross and almost sacrilegious, it saved me another 10 minutes of hot walking and for that I gave thanks.

For dinner we couldn’t help but try the one place that was against war and tourist menus. As it turns out, Aristocampo in Trastevere was home to my favorite meal, thus far: ziti with eggplant and ricotta cheese.

Chicken breast milk: rare breast feeding Italian chickens or black market dairy implants?