DSC_4302.JPG
Image by Rich Gibson
Masks.
11/22/2004 - Monday: in Rome Roma, the Vatican, train to Florence Firenze
tags: italy
Monday Reality
Left hotel a bit late...not too bad. Tried to get on the subway but there was a line up the stairs. We were going to take a bus, but then we got a cab. 10 euros to take a cab two metro stops...I sort of think that wasn't strictly kosher...but maybe it was. it was still fun. We got to go under a tunnel that we saw yesterday during our ordeal march of being lost.
the idea was to catch the capucin crypts on the way to the vatican. But they were closed...still. so we slipped down back into the subway. We had used our single use tickets when we were turned back by the line at the Termini station, but we decided that the moral constraints were met, so we slipped through and re-used the tickets to get to the vatican. AFter all, we had gone through the gate, but we hadn't gotten on a train...
so the train left at 4:48ish, maybe 4:47...basically right on time ...
Off we rushed to the Vatican museum. We arrived at 10:00...and the english tour was at 10:30, so just enough time to get oriented and rest a bit before the ordeal by marbel floor!
We had a nice tour guide. First she showed us a sort of parchement view of the sistine chapel-two rulls of text and pictures with details of the different scenes. She would wind it down to get the next view.
This was fascinating...I am phenomenally underinformed of art and cultural matters...it is almost a cliche to say that, but egads it it true.
on the other hand, there are things we know today that were unknown 200 years ago. Amazingly...apparantly the whole forum area was under dirt until 18-something. So much dirt that only the tops of the columns were exposed. and even now much remains.
The archeologists cringe over the techniques used to clear what is now exposed. There have been several recent archeological 'campaigns' among the ruins of palatine hill that have excavated pre-roman huts. one of the write ups discussed the findings of 27 flakes of flint, indicating tool maing. So infering thngs based on bits of things found...which is the whole point of archeology.
And it made me realize that they are not done excavating Rome Roma...an odd thing to realize, since only a moment's consideration would reveal how obvious that is! There are Indian mounds that the archeologists are intentionally leaving alone for now, with the expressed plan of letting future archeologists examine them when they have better techniques.
my ears are popping...and the gps lost its lock...I then look out and realize we are going through a tunnel. ah...sense is made.
maybe...perhaps it wasn't a tunnel...I can't tell. several more episodes of pressure changes are occuring.
There are sliding head rests on the cabin walls in back of the seats. they are padded and have vertical supports so that you can lean on them to sleep without falling into the window, or onto your neighbor. they slide up and down to allow you to adjust to your preferences.
We didn't see the capucini crypt, because it was closed, and it was getting dark as we got on the train, but we are doing pretty well.
The vatican tour took two hours...and it seemed that we were moving much of the time. they have these slick radio receivors so you can hear the tour guide even if you are in the next room back.
I had a strong response to a tapestry depicting the slaughter of the chilidren by herod. One baby is being held, barely, by its mother and a soldier has a dagger to the child's heart. The baby is about to die. Other mother's are using their bodies to shield their infants. it is truly horrible.
damn! the pressure changes are really frequent, and amazingly annoying.
I downloaded a bunch of stuff from 'hex'-a friend of Jo and Schuyler's. I'm reading
how to build a reality that doesn't fall apart two days later...file:///Users/admin/wa/web/downlode.org/etext/how_to_build.html
I'm on the train...fighting sleep. I need to pee, but to do that I worry I'll have to wake the gentleman seated in front of the door to our compartment.
passing through orte...at 5:27:00---possibly even got a track point. I had a signal for a moment.
well..more than a moment, but not too long. there is crying in the hall....
The GPS showed us going 115 mph, for a bit. not just one observation. interesting. fast.
The hall of maps was cool because I realized it was, or could have been, not about art and instead was about the simple matter of managing an empire.
I enjoyed the museum, duh, and the Sistine chapel...and then we climbed the dome! I loved that! I truly loved it. We got to the top and I could see radio vatican and the quiet parts of the vatican and various 'stuff.' I don't know why, but seeing vatican radio made me happy.
We descended...heather waited while i ran about St. Peter's one more time. I went back into the catecombs...and reflected again at st. peter's grave, and the crypts of the popes. different passageway's were open from last time...you went in and out on different sides. Saturday we went through more passageways, past bits of monuments, even broken bits, supposedly the memorials for past popes there had been recovered via archeological digs and the like...little rooms, with gates, and some stones mounted on the walls.
Today I looked through a grate and down at a compartment that seemed to be set up as a small chapel. maybe a particularly holy pope was buried there.
When they embalm a pope, or remove anything from one, they send the bits to a particular church in room so the bits don't become relics.
I was struck by how clean and non-catacomb like the area was that we were allowed to tour. There were passageways that looked like they might get more 'creepy' small and twisty, but it was all clean...I guess marble does that for you.
Heather was whipped. We walked the .4 miles to cafe ruggio (is that it? The antipasto bar place by gellati millenium. it is in the Rick steve's book. We tried for it Saturday, but it was still closed, and we tried today, but closed Monday. Both faux paws (sic) could have been avoided if we had looked at the book and actually _read_ that listign first.
I have so many books and things that I don't really need...
Well Heather felt really crappy...but we ate at the little place by millenium gellati. It was great. The woman dished me up two plates. First a bowl of pasta, and then a plate with veal, mushrooms, zucchine, and peas with ham. It was in little bowls and I got to pick...heather had a panini. I was jsut positive that I was suffering eyes bigger than my head syndRome Roma, but
(and here the laptop powered down, I was writing on the train, and now it is the next day and some, 1:20 am on the 24th) I ate everything, and had a gellato after. And we went to the big 'M.' We found the M, but there was no metro...it was up another block. We metroed to the train station. Identified a train time, then grabbed our stuff at the hotel.
We spent time at the internet cafe DSC_4285.JPG, DSC_4286.JPG, DSC_4287.JPG ... They didn't support ssh! well I finally did send an email to folks via the webmail at work.
Then the train! The train was great. And we whisked into Florence Firenze. We wandered streets for a bit, then I got lock on the GPS, and knew we were .15 miles, and we wandered. I didn't remember the street name (via nazzionale, #10), but when we stumbled onto it Heather identified it. And we were a half block away.
Check in went smoothly. We fooled around, and then took to the streets. We ate at trattoria Sostanza-Troia (see p285 of Rick Steves). There were tour de france pictures on the walls, and signed photos dating back. We enjoyed it! A bottle of table wine. Tortellini with a house sauce, and then pot roast with beans. Heather had a bean salad and a salad.
Then we wandered back and bought a bottle of wine and some chocolate. Heather studied our books, and I sort of watched the Tony Gatuf movie Swing. I think it was in Italian with French subtitles. After all of that Art, and trying to read the pictures, I watched it in a different way. Paying attention to the cultural signifiers and all of that jazz. Having thoughts like 'why did he frame that shot that way? What does that use of open space say?" etc...
hole in the wall
Image by timsnell
so, after almost killing myself on a mountain bike trail the evening before, for some crazy idea i thought i'd be ok to go for a hike the next day. well, it wasn't sold to me as a hike, at the time i was under the impression it was just a walk. and i mean what's so hard about going for a walk... everybody walks... you learn to do it when you're just a baby... that's why i won't call this a walk, it was fucking hard so it must have been a fucking hike. it began in patterdale in the lake district and was supposed to go up to helvellyn and then back down again. well, as you may tell from the tone of my voice, and the fact that you're not looking at a picture of helvellyn, i didn't make it. this was as far as i got, a place called hole in the wall. not particularly impressive, but it had a name so i didn't feel quite as bad for bailing on the original plan and heading back down. the original route to helvellyn was supposed to take about 3 and a half hours. the amended hole in the wall walk took exactly the same amount of time, and it was probably half the distance. what can i say? fail? well technically i guess, but 7 hours exercise in one weekend. that was more than i'd done in the last 7 months.
here's the original
Day camp
Image by Ed Yourdon
This was taken at 74th Street & Amsterdam Avenue, as I walked north.
This is a common scene in NYC at this time of year: young kids attend day-camp, usually right outside Manhattan, but sometimes in Manhattan; and when it's over, they are picked up by either a parent or a babysitter.
I didn't know that's what I was dealing with when I decided to take this picture. My attention was first drawn to the little boy with the sunglasses; then it struck me that he and his sister (I assume) made a symmetrical pair, and that they were nicely set off by their mother (I assume) in the middle. I have no idea if there really is a baby (as I presume there is) in the stroller.
Oh, by the way: if you zoom in on the t-shirts, you'll see that these kids apparently attend the "JCC" camp in Manhattan, which is located at Amsterdam and 76th St.
Note: this photo was published in a Jun 23, 2009 blog titled "Stroller travel system: stroller safety standards." It was also published in a May 21, 2012 blog titled "Top 4 Tips for Traveling With Kids." And it was published in a Jul 26, 2012 blog titled "Day Camp."
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This is part of an evolving photo-project, which will probably continue throughout the summer of 2008, and perhaps beyond: a random collection of "interesting" people in a broad stretch of the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- between 72nd Street and 104th Street, especially along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.
I don't like to intrude on people's privacy, so I normally use a telephoto lens in order to photograph them while they're still 50-100 feet away from me; but that means I have to continue focusing my attention on the people and activities half a block away, rather than on what's right in front of me.
I've also learned that, in many cases, the opportunities for an interesting picture are very fleeting -- literally a matter of a couple of seconds, before the person(s) in question move on, turn away, or stop doing whatever was interesting. So I've learned to keep the camera switched on (which contradicts my traditional urge to conserve battery power), and not worry so much about zooming in for a perfectly-framed picture ... after all, once the digital image is uploaded to my computer, it's pretty trivial to crop out the parts unrelated to the main subject.
For the most part, I've deliberately avoided photographing bums, drunks, homeless people, and crazy people. There are a few of them around, and they would certainly create some dramatic pictures; but they generally don't want to be photographed, and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of them. I'm still looking for opportunities to take some "sympathetic" pictures of such people, which might inspire others to reach out and help them. We'll see how it goes ...
The only other thing I've noticed, thus far, is that while there are lots of interesting people to photograph, there are far, far, *far* more people who are *not* so interesting. They're probably fine people, and they might even be more interesting than the ones I've photographed ... but there was just nothing memorable about them.
