“Procrastination at it’s best” or “Congratulations, suckers”

To all those of you who sent me your addresses so I could send you a postcard, I have an announcement:

Gotcha, suckers!

Okay, not really. The announcement is that I mailed your postcards yesterday. Mailing them from Italy would have been prohibitively expensive and I am slightly retarded when it comes to figuring out the postal system anyway, so I finally got stamps, got all the postcards made out and sent out. You should be expecting them any day now.

Yesterday, I went to the local State Farm insurance agent, a nice man built like a football player whom I’ve interviewed for stories before and who is left-handed (I notice odd details). As we’re talking, I tell him about the fire on Saturday at the neighbor’s apartment building.

“Yeah… The funny thing is the same thing happened when I was a kid in Detroit. The kid next door burned the house down playing with matches.”

My agent looks up from writing my policy, says, “Oh? Is this a pattern?”

Flustered, wondering if he’s really not seeing that I’m joking, I reply, “Yeah. Just a coincidence.”

He shakes his head. “Do I need to get the arson investigator in here?”

I am completely confused at this point and stammer out a, “What?”

“You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” He gets up, exits the room and returns with a man in a polo shirt and fleece vest.

“Show him your shirt,” my agent orders. The man complies, revealing a State Farm arson/fraud investigator logo on his polo.

I look back at my agent, now about ready to hit the panic button inside the brain command center, and he’s grinning at me. He had me going all along, and not just going, but terrified.

It was a good joke, and it was just his lucky day that the investigator was stopping by his office investigating another case.

So there we have it. I’m insured now. That’s my big news for the day. But I will leave you with this, something someone forwarded onto me via Craigslist and which has spawned the phrase which I will now use as my self-describing catch-phrase:

Buffet of manliness!

“I’d be the world’s worst boy scout” or “Why I’m getting renter’s insurance”

So much for daily posting…

Anyway, I went to bed at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. Good old insomnia. I woke up at about 10 a.m. to the sound of glass breaking and small explosions popping away somewhere VERY close to my window.

I was sitting up in a flash, looking out the blinds and not believing what I saw. I swore I was dreaming. But there it was. In the apartment building next to mine, the upper, nearest apartment had flames shooting out the window and scorching the roof and thick, black smoke billowing out the cracked door.

I was dressed and outside and suddenly cursing myself. My phone was dead so I couldn’t call 911. Another neighbor of mine wearing a hooded sweatshirt put the hood up and calmly ascended the stairs to the second level and began banging on the door of the neighbor next to the fire. A young man, about my age, came out, saw the inferno next door and began getting his cats out. He would later explain to me that “everything else is replaceable.”

Good man.

I followed my neighbor’s lead and began knocking on lower level doors. Two of the people who lived there were not home and one unit turned out to be vacant. By this point, the fire department had showed up and blocked me in. Right about then, I realized I should probably play photojournalist and take pictures, since they’d be spectacular.

That was also the moment I remembered that my camera was in the office.

As the firemen began kicking in doors, I went back inside the house and got my point-and-shoot Nikon L10.

At some point, the roof came down in there as they were fighting the fire. That’s why this fireman is covered in insulation.

It turned out okay. Nobody was hurt. The kid who started the fire by playing with a lighter was gotten out by his mother, who went to someone else’s place up the street. They lost everything, but at least they’re alive.

But it got me thinking. I have no insurance. I plan to fix that tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s a kitty. I’m trying to adopt him.

Osirus!

“Excellent timing” or “Who made this mess while I was gone?”

OWENSBORO — I chased the sun halfway around the globe yesterday, flying 10 hours from Rome to Philadelphia (special thanks to the ATC network for putting us in a holding pattern over Long Island for half an hour, but also thanks for not making it longer), then was in Philly for two hours and then on another flight to Indianapolis for an hour and a half. By the time I reached Indy, I was dragging badly.

I wanted very much to make it all the way to Owensboro, but about half an hour into driving home, I conceded defeat and pulled into Scottsburg, Indiana. I went to the Hampton Inn ($100/night) and went right back out. I went to the Days Inn ($65/night) but was greeted by an absence of non-smoking rooms and didn’t feel like living in an ashtray for 12 or so hours. So I went to the Super 8 across the street ($60/night) and was actually pretty pleased. It was clean, there wasn’t much noise and nobody bothered me.

And so this morning was nothing but the speedy return to Owensboro, because I wanted to see how my place fared. Not just because I was gone, you see, but because I had the singular fortune to leave town just in time for part of town to get hit by a series of tornadoes, leaving behind a nice bit of damage.

Fortunately, my place survived untouched.

And so now it’s back to the usual, daily grind. I’m about to eat some mac & cheese and pay my electric bill. I have laundry to do and work to prepare for. But it’s good to be home. I had a great time a quarter of the way around the world, but there isn’t much that beats sleeping in your own bed.

I’ve gotten quite used to posting once a day too… Let’s see how long I can keep it up.

“Tourists vs. Italians” or “Cutting isn’t just for emo kids”

ROME — I am a nice, polite and open-minded tourist. I do not just run around screaming “Do you speak English” or “Where can I get a burger?” I actually come to see the local stuff (including more than just the touristy stuff) and I have endeavored to at least learn the basic phrases of your country’s language.

That said, if you attempt to take advantage of me, I will do my best to become the biggest, nastiest, hairiest thorn in your side.

Today, I woke up at 7 a.m. and was out the door at 7:30 to stand in line for entry to the Sistine Chapel. The last few days we haven’t made it because unless you stand in line at the butt-crack of dawn and wait in the freezing cold, you don’t make it because the line quickly grows to lengths that defy sanity. So I was the one who showed up and stood in line, squarely between a hospital administrator from Montreal (who I at first thought was from the Far East) and a couple from Munich, Germany, who loved that I could speak Spanish (since their English was only so-so). The additional cast included a sweet (and somewhat cute) massage therapist from Canada, a gaggle of Spaniards and a really cute blonde girl with glasses (sexy librarian look, much?) who I also think was a Spaniard.

All is well, we’re hanging out, waiting in line for an hour with another hour and a half to go and then eight Italians, four men and women (including a women who appears to be a nun), take up shop on the sidewalk right next to us. The hospital administrator immediately looks at me, his eyebrows migrating up to meet his receding hairline, and says, “Are they doing what I think they’re doing?”

Wanting to err on the side of caution, I tell him they’re probably just stalling and tired from walking around, since most of them appear to be older. But they don’t move on. They stay there and with each passing nanosecond act more and more like they are among us poor saps who’ve been freezing our extremities off for an hour.

Now, when it comes to indignation, I’m the king, the numero uno absolute undisputed champ. Ask me to really do something about it, at least at first, and I’m not in a rush, mostly because I’m afraid of placing my foot squarely in my mouth. So I waited. And then it happened, and it came from a predictable source.

The Spaniard comes up the group of people and asks them if they speak Spanish. When they pretend not to know what he’s talking about, he launches into telling them that they have absolutely no right to cut in front of us and that they need to go to the end of the line, which by now extends over 300 meters and probably around the corner in the direction of St. Peter’s Square. But the Italians simply stand there and brush us off, ignoring our demands that they behave in a socially acceptable manner.

Then I joined in the fray, speaking in a loud voice in as rapid a Spanish I can muster. They pretend not to understand me and go back to ignoring us. The Spaniard who first laid into them (and who looks a lot like my stepdad) looks at me and nods his approval. The hospital administrator is clearly exasperated. Even the stoic Germans look seriously annoyed. So I seize upon something about Western culture that gives me a tactical advantage.

White people like space. The concept of personal space is completely foreign in parts of the Middle-Eastern world and it’s not unusual for someone from this area of the world to stand right next to you, completely invading your personal space because they want the space you’re standing in.

So I got very, very close to one of the Italian men and began staring intently at him. I’m talking my chest was brushing his shoulder and I had a very superior, I-know-something-you-don’t-know smirk on my face as I let my eyes burrow into his face. After about three minutes (he lasted longer than I expected), he stepped away from me about a half step. I closed the gap and continued with the staring. He looked very agitated at this point but didn’t dare physically assault me because a) I was twice his size and 2) the crowd probably would have lynched him and his friends. He only lasted another minute before walking away a good twenty feet. I repeated the process with two more of his friends and the whole group eventually migrated about thirty feet down the line.

Not content to simply let them be someone else’s problem, I hailed the nearest policeman (which got me a nice smile from the blonde) and informed him of what was going on. He went down and spoke to the eight Italians who surprisingly played dumb and ignored him and his repeated orders for them to mosey on down the line. As he spoke to them, I began applauding (slowly, at first, like at a high school sporting event) and was quickly joined by the crowd. The policeman gave up after about five minutes of trying to get them to move on but he informed the folks at the door and I never saw the eight Italians inside the Vatican Museum or the Sistine Chapel.

Now, I hate being Mr. Gripey, but the Sistine Chapel, to me, was a huge letdown. The ceiling is lovely, the artwork divine (10 yards for horrible pun), but the guards in there were total jerks. Every 30 seconds they would yell, echoing throughout the church, “NO PHOTOS” and were generally belligerent and nasty and demanded that everyone be quiet when they themselves were making the most noise. I took photos of the ceiling when they couldn’t see me just because I wanted some covert revenge, but it was so dim in there that the pictures were unusable. The rest of the artworks by famous sculptors and painters was well worth waiting in the cold.

So this is the last night of my time in Rome, the last night of my first journey off the North American Continent. I will go home, go back to work and get back on with life as usual.

And not a moment too soon.

Also, the last of the new pictures is up here!

Disappointment

ROME — No new post today. But new pictures!

“The Beach Boys were morons” or “Be my Valentina”

ROME — We met on the train, and she had those lovely brown eyes and olive skin that pretty much makes all men go ga-ga over Italian women.

But not me. I knew better.

She first bumped into me on the train, and when her friends teased her about it, she laid her head on my arm and laughed when I asked her if she was “mi nuova amica,” my new friend.

But I knew better.

I ran into her again later. She fawned over me, called me big and strong. She asked me if I was rich.

But I knew better.

I knew better not because I knew in a few moments she would be gone, whisked away by the Rome Metro.

I knew better because, as the saying goes, “Dude, she’s 12.” Or thereabouts.

Anyway, Valentina and two friends, Denisa and the other whose name escaped me, pretty much bowled me over on the Metro during a very, very crowded rush hour. They laughed and giggled and apologized and teased each other when she did, and when I said nothing, she laid her head on my arm. I figured I’d made a new friend and that was that. She did tease me a little bit for being such a big guy (which I was okay with, since it wasn’t malicious), and she didn’t make fun of my terrible Italian/Spanish/English communication attempts. Denisa was about 14 and didn’t say a whole lot but did smile plenty and ask me about what it was like in the States.

And for 12, she’s already started asking the important questions… Women are the same the world over.

This whole episode, I feel, is very telling about Rome as a whole. First, these girls were tromping around on the Metro all by themselves. That would be pure insanity in any major city in America. Second, they talked, at length, to a complete stranger who didn’t even speak their language. The openness and warmth that these people have is very heartening. I didn’t even meet a rude person until today, and he was simply short with me about giving directions and having a nic-fit, judging from how happy he was to smoke.

I’m not saying that Rome is all roses. It’s polluted, there’s lots of trash around in the less-touristy areas and there’s more graffiti on the walls here than in any other place I’ve seen in my life combined.

But I still like it here. And not just because of the gelato, either, which I did have (two-flavor scoop, mint chocolate chip and strawberry) outside the Trevi Fountain.

We went to the see the Mediterranean Sea today, Dr. Dad, Dr. Mama and I. The Archer wasn’t feeling up to it and I suspect he slept most of the day. The jet lag has been hard on him.

I’ve also decided to swear off Absinthe, as it is way too strong and tastes too much like licorice, which I hate. I had two drinks with it last night and regretted it the next morning, which is ridiculous. Bah.

That’s all for this evening. Tomorrow, the Sistine Chapel, maybe the Pantheon, and a nighttime photo of the Colosseum, which I would have taken tonight if not for my foot being a pain (literally).

Also, four new photos are up on my Flickr!

Ciao.

P.S. – I’m not really a chauvinist. I just pretend to be because a) it’s funny to me and 2) I use it to make fun of actual chauvinists, who represent the pinnacle of human stupidity and should have a special Hell reserved for them, along with people who drive to slow in the fast lane and talk at the theatre.

“Rome-ing around” or “My feet hurt real bad”

ROME –Walking around, seeing so many sharply dressed people, riding around on a pretty nice Metro rail system, eating gelato and other ridiculously good foods and blogging regularly are very good at distracting you from one crucial fact about Rome.

This place is old. Older than Dr. Mom, who I like to jokingly say conspired with God on this whole dirt thing. We actually went on a tour of the Colosseum today (mostly just so we could skip the hour-long line), which also netted us a guided tour of the Palatine Hill and some extra trivia about the Roman Forum, which we could see below.

I also acted completely goofy at times (read: whenever possible).

Now, for days my feet have been hurting terribly in my very stylish and usually comfortable new shoes. However, they don’t quite have enough support for all the walking we’re doing and so we stopped into a Foot Locker (yes, they have those here, and a surprising number of Blockbuster Video stores too) and picked up some insoles for both myself and The Archer, whose feet have also been causing him great pain.

The insoles are like heaven, but they keep on sliding around in the shoe, so I’m about to take a glue stick to them.

Before I leave you, though, I would like to show you two photos, a before and after that are a testament to the value of being persistent and waiting for the right shot.

Just before we went into the Foot Locker, I saw a young couple walking arm-in-arm, looking very cute and romantic and stuff.

However, Dr. Mama and The Archer appear in this shot and I wanted it to be a very clean, no-extra-people-in-it shot.

So I took it again. What happened between the first shot and the second shot is so fortuitous that it can only be described as serendipitous. You see, throughout the time we’ve been here, we constantly see young people sitting in each other’s laps, holding each other close and even making out in public, and nobody really seems to mind (let alone care). However, every time I’ve wanted to photograph a good PDA (public display of affection, pikers), I’m far too obvious with the camera. Thus, placement is everything.

I rest my case. Rome is for lovers. Viva Roma.

Also, new pictures on the Flickr!

The Roman restaurateur and the tale of 320 steps

ROME — As we were walking from the Triton Fountain in Barberini Square towards the Spanish Steps in Rome, a restaurant manager (restaurateur, apparently is that in one word), stepped outside and basically accosted me and The Archer. At least, that’s what it felt like. Holy crap, he was bombastic. Then I realized, that’s just how he is, and I loved him for it.
He also looks a heck of a lot like Luciano Pavarotti. I loved him for that too.

Anyway, the manager, whose name is Claudio Pepi, told my brother and I, since I spoke some Italian to him and since we actually talked to him at all, that if we came back, we would get a free bottle of the house wine with our family’s dinner.

And so we did.

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. The meal? Un-freakin’-believable. Two types of pasta (fettucine and spinach-and-cheese stuffed ravioli) in pesto sauce, lamb (which I traded to The Archer because he didn’t like his pork, but I did), potatoes and collard greens (which I refused to eat after I almost yakked on them because they were so bitter, but everyone else liked them, so whatever). Then there was dessert. Everyone else had citrus-flavored sorbets, orange and lemon (the lemon was better), but Claudio fed me a bite of the cake (and chastised me when I tried to take the spoon from him; he also did this to The Archer later), and it is probably the best cake I will ever have. Ever. He called it “Roman Soup” but it was a lot like a tira misu with a lot of custard, lots of whipped cream, and chocolate chips and berries throughout the cream. I think about it now and immediately enter a sugar coma.

The meal, however, cost 275 Euros.

At yesterday’s exchange rate, according to Yahoo! Finance, the meal cost $389.99 in dollars.

Holy. Crap.

Dr. Dad unflinchingly broke out the Mastercard and paid. But as he signed the receipt, I swear I saw a tear roll down his face.

And then today, we went to see the Vatican. I’m not Catholic, but I did want to see it, mostly for the artwork.

The sheer opulence and magnificence and detail of the sculptures, walls, paintings, murals, etc. etc. etc. etc., was so powerful it was numbing; when I went back outside, I was immune to the effect of the regular city architecture, which is itself wondrous.

If you look at my Flickr photos, you’ll see some pictures of the city from way high up. Those were taken from the top of St. Peter’s Basilica. We took an elevator part way, and then walked up another 320 steps. Puffing like landed fish and sweating up a storm, all four of us made it to the top and were rewarded with what is probably the best view of Rome, hands down. But we missed out on the Sistine Chapel, since it was closed by the time we went to see it.

We’re going back tomorrow to see it, and the Coliseum too. Then I’m going to photograph the Coliseum at night. I hope to blog tomorrow again, but no promises. I’m usually pretty bushed by days end. Like now. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Eye candy (Rome edition)

The Rome photoset.

Where the Dariush may Rome

ROME — I’m having a tough time adjusting to the fact that I’m in a city whose lifespan is counted in centuries.

I walk down the streets and have difficulty understanding the language (that is, when they’re speaking Italian, since so many people visit here from other countries). I try to make eye contact with people and they look surprised when they see me smile and nod at them, country manners from a place over 5,000 miles away.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday also: Make sure you really, really plan out your morning.

I woke up at 5 a.m. CDT and finished cleaning my apartment, packing my bags, putting my junk in my car and taking out the trash. I then started driving (with a quick stop at the paper to pick up some things I’d accidentally left there). I made the drive to Indianapolis without major incident. The directions I had said 3.5 hours. It took 3, and including the time change back to the Eastern Time Zone, I still got to Indianapolis over three hours early. Checking in and security? 10 mnutes. Time sitting at the gate looking silly? Two and a half hours. It was okay though.

The flight to Philadelphia was sedate. There were open spots so everyone was comfortable. We landed on time and I had plenty of time to fool around and consider buying some cheap alcohol at a duty free shop. I decided not to, though (okay, Dr. Mom?). I let my dad do the buying.

But as is wont to happen in the world of travel, of course something get screwed up and almost wrecked everything. Dr. Dad was catching a train from Baltimore, where he does a lot of work when he’s not in Phoenix. He got in fine. Dr. Mama (whom you all have not really been introduced to before) and my 18-year-old brother, The Archer (named such because of his middle name, Aarash), were on a flight from Phoenix, which started in Las Vegas and was subsequently delayed by a little more than an hour. I was the fourth to last person to board our flight to Italy. Dr. Dad was third to last. Dr. Mama and The Archer boarded right after. But they made it, and thus began an epic eight hours, which were either spent annoying/being annoyed by Dr. Dad, fitfully and not-really-successfully sleeping and general boredom.

At about midnight, eastern time, my brother woke me up and demanded I let him out to use the john. While standing, poking around and looking out the windows, I realized I could see lights, which turned out to be France, I think. The sky eventually brightened and I saw another sunrise, having seen the prior sunset and the previous day’s sunrise. But this was different, and try as I might, I could not conjure up the emotions to fully capture how strange it feels to be so far away from home.

And so, today we walked around town. I saw two prostrate beggars, thousands of people and more strange fashion trends than I think I will ever see in a lifetime again. I rode the Rome subway for the first time and tried my hand at speaking Italian, which ended up being me talking a strange mixture of Italian and Spanish. It works though. What also seems to work is the Italian mentality toward driving. Though they drive absolutely insanely (the whole way from the airport our taxi driver really didn’t hold a lane and I probably would have called the law on him had he been driving in the states.

Right now, I’m the only one in the place awake. Oh yeah, the place. We’re staying at a bed and breakfast that faces the Vatican’s outer wall. Behind the house is a lovely view of a valley filled with houses and apartment buildings, each one festooned with enough satellite dishes and antennae to phone home for E.T. The place is small but lovely. I’ll include a vlog later, which I think will give you more details about the shower this place has. It is literally the smallest place I have ever showered, and while I’m by no means a small person, this was almost like showering in a coffin-sized shower. Thank heaven I don’t suffer from claustrophobia often.

And just as a related side note, the count on people wanting post cards? Nearly 30 now, including those who don’t read my blog (may God have mercy on their souls), want a post card. I’ll make it happen. Heck, if I get some really good pictures, I might even have some made into posters if people are interested in buying them (or if I like you enough to gift it to you).

I know this is one of the longest posts I have written in quite some time, but for some reason I still don’t feel I am doing the city justice. However, I will try, and there are plenty more strange happenings that can, should and must be told. For now, I leave you with this: Not only do people in Rome show strange polar opposites of interpersonal behavior (e.g., kissing in public but not making eye contact with stragea), but they also don’t own dryers it seems, nor do they feel at all opposed to letting thousands upon thousands of people see their underpants blowing in the breeze. So much to see, so much to do, so much to tell you about… I have no idea where to begin, but I’ve told you the beginning. That’s a start…