Not that the world particularly needs to know, but with this blog post maybe I’ll remind you of a simpler time – when the Internet was full of posts about cats and what people had for lunch. Sure, self-indulgent and vacuous, but still better than the rage-addiction delivery system it’s become.

While it sucked in a lot of ways, 2020 was a good time to exercise and read. In terms of exercise, I started making more time for it when we were in lockdown. I was working out of my storage room. Turns out it was pretty easy for me to keep up with my workload if I stumbled down to the storage room in my jammies at 7:30 or 8, worked for a couple of hours, then went for a run or put on a workout video before taking a quick shower, grabbing some lunch, and getting back to work. Not driving to and from work or messing with professional attire really saves time. Anyway, setting aside time turned into a streak, and at the moment, I’ve done at least a half hour of exercise – usually more – every day since March 27. Included in that was a round of P90x, a half marathon, and quite a bit of cycling.

I also managed to keep a list of the books I read in 2020:

1. Jan. 29th – SPQR – Mary Beard.
2. Feb. 6th – Queenslayer (Spellslinger 5) – Sebastien de Castell
3. Feb. 11th – Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up – Tom Phillips
4. Feb. 15th – Crownbreaker (Spellslinger 6) – Sebastien de Castell
5. Feb. 25th – Running with Sherman – Christopher McDougall
6. Mar. 14th – The South versus the South – William Freehling
7. Apr. 24th – The Stand – Stephen King
8. May 6th – Lawrence in Arabia – Scott Anderson
9. May 10th – Only Human – Sylvain Neuvel
10. June 7th – At Home – Bill Bryson
11. June 26th – Upheaval – Jared Diamond
12. July 5th – Seveneves – Neal Stephenson
13. Aug. 2nd – How to Hide an Empire – Daniel Immerwahr
14. Aug. 8th – The Guardians – John Grisham
15. Aug. 15th – Longitude – Dava Sobel
16. Aug. 30th – Runes of the Earth – Stephen R. Donaldson
17. Sept. 29th – Fatal Revenant – Stephen R. Donaldson
18. Oct. 24th – Against All Things Ending – Stephen R. Donaldson
19. Nov. 14th – The Final Dark – Stephen R. Donaldson
20. Nov. 29th – Indiana: An Interpretation – John Bartlow Martin
21. Dec. 5th – Traitor’s Blade (Greatcoats #1) – Sebastien de Castell
22. Dec. 25th – Knight’s Shadow (Greatcoats #2) – Sebastien de Castell
23. Dec. 29th – Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson

So, the year wasn’t totally wasted. Though, I have to say, the Stephen R. Donaldson series (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) from August through November was a bit of a slog. There was some good stuff here and there in the series, but mainly I was reading it because the First Chronicles meant so much to me when I read it as a kid.

So, I had a complicated family life growing up. My folks divorced when I was two, my father married the woman who had lived across the street — my old neighbors became my step family. They lived for a time in rural Wayne County (near Richmond where I lived) before moving out to Colorado. I guess I was probably about six years old when they moved to Colorado. I guess my sisters and I went out to what we called “the farm” every other weekend, but I don’t really know because it was so long ago. After the Colorado move, we saw them for several weeks during the summer and I recall going out there one Christmas. I believe the last summer, Colorado visit would have been in 1980 when I was eight. Then there were some child support issues, and we didn’t go out there anymore. Then my father and step-mother got divorced, so I never saw that set of step-siblings again.

I’m prompted to write this for a few reasons, chief among them is that I learned that my step-brother (or ex-step-brother, I suppose), Mike Masson, died. I have to specify a last name because due to my mother getting remarried once and my father getting remarried three times, I have three step-brothers named Rick and, up until yesterday, two step-brothers named Mike. All told, I have eight brothers and eight sisters. I couldn’t tell you all of their names on a bet. Despite having met them all at one time or another, some of the names from my father’s third and fourth marriages escape me. I was friends with Mike and one of my ex-step-sisters on Facebook which is how I learned of his death. I’m not close enough with her to feel comfortable asking about the details of his death, so I’m stalking the comment thread to find out the details.

[Fun side story about Facebook and this slice of my family: It was the period between signing the purchase agreement and closing on my house in West Lafayette. My step-sister also happened to be moving and posted something about moving. I chimed in on that thread saying, “I’m moving too.” Then, oddly, the woman I was buying from jumps into the thread and says, “I think you’re buying the house from me.” I responded, “I think that’s right. How do you know [step-sister]?” Turns out it was my step-sister’s cousin. I had actually met her in 1980 on the drive to Colorado when they lived in St. Louis and we stopped there to visit on the way. We went up in the St. Louis Arch together!]

The other, less pressing, reasons for writing this blog post are: a) Despite having made a few aborted efforts at keeping a diary or journal, I never keep up with them and never know where to find the book or whatever I was using when it occurs to me to record personal thoughts. This blog is the closest thing I have. So occasionally I write one of these things that the public doesn’t necessarily need to know about or have any particular reason to care about. I thank you for letting me indulge myself; and b) Mike’s death has me dredging up some long-forgotten memories of that time in my life. As I get older, those memories get more distant, and I’m afraid that if I don’t write them down, they’ll be lost entirely.  I know it’s bad form to turn someone else’s death into commentary about yourself, but I didn’t really know him that well, so here we are.

My memories from “the Farm” are really just disjointed scenes:

• The other kids were carrying me as a “patient” on a stretcher that was really just a blanket. They dropped me and I smashed my knee into the stair rail bannister which gave me a scar on my knee which has faded but which I can still find if I really look.
• There was a boulder that we just called “the Big Rock” that we went and climbed and jumped off of. 
• There was a creek with a shady spot that widened out into a sand bar. 
• There seemed to be a lot of daddy longlegs spiders. 
• The house had a big porch and there was an afternoon where we jumped from the rail out into the yard, yelling “naked ladies!” for some reason. 
• This may not have been the Farm and could have been later, but I remember spending the night outside with Mike, and we’d get all excited when we saw a satellite. They were so rare back in those days. We’d shine a flashlight up into the sky and talk about how the light wouldn’t stop until it hit a star.

From a little later on when they moved to a town in western Colorado (Austin, CO, not that far from Delta):

• Mike was born on July 7, 1970. The bank in town gave him seven silver dollars on account of him turning seven on 7/7/77.
• You could sometimes hear sonic booms as jets broke the sound barrier.
• As the youngest family members, we were put in the far back of the station wagon on a drive from Indiana to Colorado. We figured out that cards would fit under the door as we drove — so we entertained ourselves by watching Uno cards fluttering off into the Kansas countryside. However, we got busted when one of the adults opened the door at a McDonald’s stop and the cards that hadn’t escaped were piled up under the back car door.
• Mike got a radio that only seemed to get two radio stations out in that part of the country. That summer, Billy Joel’s “My Life” and “Le Freak” by Chic seemed to be getting a lot of airplay. Must’ve been 1978.
• I got the flu one summer and felt horrible. I can think of only one other time when I may have been sicker. They gave me Sprite or Seven-Up to settle my stomach.
• To get to the house, you had to go up what seemed like the time to be a gigantic hill. It got really hot and it was really dry out there. So, as I was sitting down resting on my journey up the hill, I had my very first encounter with red ants. They hurt.
• There was a general store at the bottom of the hill. The daughter of the owner was a girl named Michelle who was about my age. She was my first crush. I want to say I kissed her, but maybe I only wanted to.
• I helped Mike raise pigs for 4H or some such. It may have been unrelated, but we ended up going to a rodeo for what seems like a couple of days. I don’t know where Mike was — maybe participating in an event? — but I hung out with some other kid who taught me that, even if you had no money, you could get mustard packets for free. So, me and a random kid in western Colorado hung out at a rodeo sucking down a bunch of mustard packets.
• In the car going to the airport for my sisters and I to go back to Indiana, Mike and I were stuck in the back as per usual and were having a great time repeatedly and loudly singing the theme song to the “Godzilla” cartoon. We took great delight belting out the high notes when the song got to the words “. . . and Godzuki.” I’m not positive if this would have been the summer of 1980 (Wikipedia says the cartoon had two seasons, released in the fall of 1978 and of 1979), but if it was, it’s entirely possible that this was the last time I saw Mike.
• My step-mother told me she was going to buy me some winter gloves. I was really looking forward to them, and we’d picked out a pair. She was giving me a lecture on how I had to take care of them, and I was agreeing to do so. Then, for some reason, she changed her mind and decided not to get them. I never got any gloves.
• In the summer of 1980, my father and step-mother were moving from a house in Austin to a house in Crawford. There was work to be done, bailing hay out at the new property, I believe. Mike and I weren’t much help with that and, instead, spent the afternoon intertubing down the creek that was on or near the property.
• There were a couple of Korean kids who lived down the road. They taught us the proper way to throw a karate punch which we thought was pretty cool. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with karate and was a horrible way to throw a punch.
• We had a Japanese exchange student named Chizaru visiting one year. On the way to pick her up, Mike told me not to mention Iwo Jima or Hiroshima. I had no idea what those were at the time, so no problem keeping mum.
• We had some pretty sweet Battlestar Galactica toys. He had the Cylon, and I had the Colonial Warrior.
• Maybe the first time I was in Colorado, there was a drought. I could have misunderstood, but my sense was that the adults were mad about water restrictions because some of the water was diverted to Denver. (It was, I now realize, the aggrieved tone rural folks often take about city dwellers.) At some point, I flushed the toilet and said, “there goes the water to Denver!” That got big laughs.
• Mike had a toy shotgun that you could stuff dirt into the barrel and, when you fired it, it looked like smoke coming out. Later on, he had a pellet gun we liked to shoot and a bow and arrow that we shot into a target on some hay stacks. The trouble was that we’d often miss and the arrows would get lost in the hay pile.

Just as a general matter, I remember being a sensitive kid and feeling somewhat intimidated by and lesser than Mike. He was bigger and louder than me. Beyond that, the family seemed to have an outdoorsy, active orientation and activities along those lines didn’t come naturally. I was more of a smart, studious rule follower — those qualities were not well-regarded in any demonstrable kind of way. I wasn’t athletically horrible or opposed to the outdoors, but that generally wasn’t my wheelhouse. It wasn’t until I learned to be funny that I got much in the way of positive reinforcement.

At the time, everything seemed normal. I was little and didn’t know any better. In retrospect, things seem a bit chaotic, and there is a distinct lack of parental involvement in most of my memories of those days. I think the lack of structure contributed to my overall anxiousness. Anyway, that’s my trip down memory lane. I might add more if anything else occurs to me. R.I.P. Mike.

Day 7: Back to Rome, Pantheon, and Capitoline Museum

After three nights in Florence, it was time to return to Rome where we would spend another night before catching a plane out of Italy. We started the day with breakfast at the same cafe on the Duomo plaza. I’m a big fan of a simple breakfast of croissants and coffee, so that’s what I ordered once again. Then we packed our stuff, hauled our luggage down four flights of stairs, and through the streets of Florence back to the train station. By this time, such trips were becoming fairly routine. The train ride was easy. From my very limited experience on this trip, Europe just seems to do train and plane travel a lot better than we do in the U.S.  Back in Rome, we stayed in the Hotel Torino whose main asset is being close to the train station. It was perfectly serviceable, but it was billed as a four star hotel — so I guess I don’t know what that rating entails. Certainly nothing to do with quality WiFi! But, we weren’t spending much time in the hotel anyway, so it didn’t much matter.

Once we got our stuff up to the fourth floor rooms (elevator this time!) the first order of business was lunch. We ate at Er Buchetto. This place was fantastic for what we wanted. Just a quick, inexpensive sandwich to tide us over. The sandwiches were incredible — pretty much just pork on bread which we ate standing up at tables, which sounds awful, but when the pork is a delicious porchetta and the bread is great and the table you’re standing at is on a sidewalk in Rome, it’s the opposite of awful. I also had a Peroni because, why not?

From there, we walked to the Pantheon. We had seen the outside on the first night in Rome but had arrived too late to go in. When we went in, I was a little surprised — but really shouldn’t have been: the many gods one expects with a word like “Pantheon” have been replaced by the one Christian god. I know the popes haven’t controlled Rome for the full 2,000 years of Christianity, but they have at least done so for a long time. It makes sense that the Pantheon wouldn’t remain dedicated to pagan Gods. Wikipedia tells me it was dedicated to St. Mary and the Martyrs in the 7th century.

From there, we had yet more gelato, enjoyed some fountains, and made our way to the Capitoline Museums. This museum had been recommended by our tour guide for the Colosseum, and (in my opinion) it delivers. It sits atop the Capitoline Hill, has great exhibits, and was very uncrowded. In particular, the huge statues of Marcus Aurelius and Constantine are impressive. And the length of time there have been people settled on Capitoline Hill is staggering. They had evidence of Bronze Age settlements there. It’s a good, defensible location on the Tiber connecting the Mediterranean to the interior of Italy, so settlement there makes a certain amount of sense. We cut this visit a little short — our Museum Tyrant was a little gassed (as was the family generally) and not insisting on seeing every room. 

So, we made the long walk back to the hotel and had a little rest before dinner. Our last dinner in Italy was at the Alessio — a nice restaurant down the street from the Hotel Torino with tables in the basement. Seemed to be a popular place for Americans. I had a mushroom and sausage pizza. But, Harper’s meal was probably the most interesting — it was a seafood pasta with things like oysters, clams, and shrimp on top of the pasta. She had to do a fair amount of work peeling and whatnot with her meal, but it looked delicious!

I think I mentioned that traffic in Rome is like a perpetual game of chicken. At the crosswalks without lights, you have to kind of walk out into the middle of traffic and trust that cars will stop for you. And, they do stop. But for an American not used to this kind of thing, the level of trust it takes to walk in front of a fairly fast moving car is unnerving. Indecision will get you hurt. We were taking a stroll after dinner when we came upon one of these crosswalks. Harper kind of lost her nerve and her body was trying to go forward and backward at the same time, causing her to fall in the middle of the street! The rest of us were there and, so, the traffic was coming to a stop; so, nothing was hurt but her pride.

Day 8: Rome to Berlin

Our last day in Italy began with breakfast on the roof of the Hotel Torino. I was moderately excited to see a self-serve coffee dispenser, since I had not had a large cup of coffee since our trip began. But, unfortunately, the coffee was not that great. After making ourselves some plates, we went out onto the roof. This was clearly the pigeons’ roof. We were mere visitors. The wait staff had to be quick to remove the plates and the tablecloth when a patron finished eating because those pigeons were going to be on the table quickly. I think at this point, Harper started rethinking her view of pigeons as cute and interesting and began gravitating more toward the “rats-with-wings” consensus.

We took the Leonardo Train from Termini Station to the airport. There was a bit of trouble with the conductor as we had inadvertently not paid the fare for Cole. When buying the tickets we must have marked both kids down as “children” when 13 year old kids were required to pay full fare. Fortunately, the conductor chalked it up to a misunderstanding and we were able to simply pay the fare without paying the associated fine. Other than that, the train ride, checking bags, security, and the flight from Rome to Berlin were easy. I don’t know if we were lucky or if the Europeans are just better at this sort of thing than we are, but travel on trains and airplanes seemed to be much less of a hassle than I’m used to here in the U.S.

Once we got to Berlin, we were happy to see trees again. When I heard birds chirping again, I realized I hadn’t heard birds chirping while I was in Italy. The driving also seemed more civilized with cars giving each other more space and rules of the road being observed. We stayed at the Hotel 103 which was an interesting place. We initially had some trouble with the buzzer to get into the hotel. We rang the bell, the hotel staff buzzed to unlock the door, but we kept pulling instead of pushing. The guy came out and let us in, then observed that the door didn’t have a “push” sign on it and figured that was something he ought to take care of. The place almost has a feel of a cross between a hotel and a dorm or hostel. The lobby is more hotel like whereas the bedrooms are definitely more dorm-like. Our four bed bedroom was just a long, narrow room with four single beds lined up in a row along the wall with a small table separating each one. There was a table in the corner with a 12” TV. The table was situated such that the bathroom door didn’t open up all the way.

Making matters even more interesting, the lights wouldn’t turn on. After our inability to get in the front door, I was hesitant to ask the guy at the desk. But, we have to have light. Turns out there is a receptacle on the wall inside the room where you put your key card. This activates the lights. It’s an energy saving strategy. The front desk guy said it’s on his list of things he tries to remember to tell Americans because we’re apparently very often unfamiliar with the concept. We also asked for restaurant recommendations. He offered us a variety of cuisine types, but — much as we like, for example, Thai food — we felt we should get some German food. So, he recommended Zum Bayernmichel which was a block or two away and fit the bill perfectly. He said his wife — who grew up in Germany — described it as the sort of comfort food her grandma might make. The owner was so friendly. He was so enthusiastic whenever I’d order, I felt like I’d done something really good! I honestly can’t remember what I ordered. It was big, heavy, tasty, and made of some part of a pig. I mostly remember the cole slaw which was all kinds of delicious. And, I had some German beer. Again, I don’t remember what it was – but it was listed as the house beer. A pilsner of some sort.

While we were in the restaurant, the only rain of the vacation began. It came down heavy, but was finished by the time we finished eating. So, we took a walk to the Mauerpark where we saw some of the graffiti painted on remnants of the Berlin Wall. Max Schmeling Hall was also in the area, mainly of interest to me simply because I’ve heard the stories about the Max Schmeling – Joe Louis fights in 1936 and 1938 and his later friendship with Louis.  

At the end of the evening, we returned to the Hotel 103 where we had a delightful conversation with the hotel manager and his wife. Afterward, we thought we saw on the name tag that his name was Ben. But,  that could have been part of his surname. But, for purposes of our story, we’ll call him Ben. He kind of ran the check in desk and the bar immediately adjacent to the check in desk. So, he was mixing drinks for us while chatting us up. I just had a beer, but he made the kids some kind of fruity, pineapple, nonalcoholic drink. I think Amy had a Berliner Weiss mit Schuss — like a wheat beer with raspberry syrup.  Ben was originally from Israel but had moved to Germany and become a citizen. His wife told us about the time she’d been to the U.S. She told a story about going to New Jersey and getting hit on by Bruce Springsteen. Ben told us about the ongoing Berlin airport boondoggle. He asked us about health insurance in the U.S. We could have talked to him for hours. But, for me, that would have inevitably have led to drinking at the bar for hours, and we had a flight to catch in the morning. So, we made our way up to the room and called it a night. As we were waiting for the elevator, the kids and I were marveling at the vending machine that had beer as an option. A fellow patron confided in us that the beers were horribly overpriced. (Which was o.k. If I wanted another beer, I would have had it at the bar, talking to Ben.)

Day 9: Headed Home

The day started early because the sun rose at about 4:45 a.m. in Berlin. The trip home was smooth. We got a cab, took it about 7 miles to the airport, checked our bags, cleared customs, and ate breakfast in about an hour. Again, Europe seems to be a lot better at moving people than we are. Air Berlin, once again, seemed eager to feed us, giving us a couple of meals and a snack. I was seated behind an aggressive recliner. But, all in all, the flight wasn’t too bad. The entertainment systems on board are pretty remarkable when you compare the situation 10 or 20 years ago. A few dozen movies to choose from, plus TV shows, music, and games with a console at each seat. Our biggest challenge on the return was that the review mirror had become detached from the window. I think it was an add-on mirror (with fancy pants temperature gauge and compass) and the adhesive that held it up had given way. The parking facility where we had our car helped us out with some duct tape to keep it from dangling from its wires. Other than that, there were no problems getting home.

The jet lag was definitely easier to deal with, returning east to west, when compared to the return from our Hawaii trip, coming the other way. As it turned out, with the early sun rise in Berlin and the late sunset in Indiana, we had about 22 hours of sunlight. Sad to have our trip end, but happy to be home.

Today on Facebook, I made a post that said, “it’s Father’s Day, and I enjoy being a Dad.” Upon further reflection, “enjoy” doesn’t quite capture it. I do enjoy being a Dad most of the time. Occasionally not. But the significance of being a Dad for me is bigger than whether I enjoy it. It’s difficult to describe, particularly because I don’t really know what I’d be like if I never became a father. But, I feel like it has made me more substantial as a person. This is a consequence of having a large responsibility and doing my level best, over a sustained period of time, to fulfill it. The returns on the effort are fantastic. The kids have gone from little bundles of perpetual neediness to full blown people whose company I really enjoy.

If it weren’t for family life, I feel like there’s a good chance my life would lack a lot of the depth I feel like it has now: working, drinking, golfing, and playing video games are fun for awhile, but they only take you so far. And, for what it’s worth, I’m speaking only for myself here. I’m sensitive to the fact that people have not had kids for a variety of reasons (e.g. can’t or have decided that’s not the choice for them.) Many of them, from what I can tell, are living lives that are plenty rich and deep. (For that matter, I’ve seen guys who are technically fathers but don’t seem to give a damn). But, for my part, I’m skeptical about what my life would look like now if I had not gone the family route. They make me better.

After three nights in the Rome apartment, we were ready to head to Florence. First we had to clean up the apartment and get breakfast. Dealing with trash is apparently a bit of an ordeal in Rome. We didn’t have much of it, but we had to walk it 3 or 4 blocks to a trash receptacle (only available during particular hours). Fortunately, there was a nice cafe nearby. (There’s *always* a nice cafe nearby). In this case, it was the Caffe Lungara 1940. I had a double espresso and a croissant. Amy had a cappuccino. Italian coffee culture is different from ours. We tend to drink more at one time and linger over it. I’m told Italians are more likely to drink it in smaller, more concentrated doses and stand over a bar to do it. The cappuccino is almost entirely a morning drink since it has milk in it. I’d never had espresso (double or otherwise) before. I enjoyed it — but, then I like my coffee strong anyway. The place had a retro decor. (I guess “retro” is relative in a place as old as Rome — think “Beatles albums on the wall.”) It also seemed to have more than its fair share of English speaking patrons. The staff was very friendly. 12/10 would recommend.

After a breakfast, we took a car to Termini Station which is the central train station for Rome, serving both the local trains and the regional trains. The news ticker on the TVs at the station were full of news about Trump’s abandoning the Paris Accords on climate change. The quote running was “Trump refuses the future” which, I suppose, tells you what you need to know about Europe’s view of the U.S.’s political situation. That said, the people we met did not seem to associate us with our country’s political situation. I can’t think of anybody who was anything but nice to us. A somewhat unexpected aspect of Termini: pay toilets. That’s a seller’s market, so we paid the price!

The train system was remarkably smooth. Mussolini may be gone, but the trains still ran on time. Everyone here should take the Rome to Florence train to see what’s possible. Compared to that ride, the Lafayette to Chicago train might as well burn coal and use a cow catcher. Indianapolis to Chicago would involve denser populations in both cities at a distance that is not terribly longer. We could do this if we wanted to. The Rome to Florence trip took 1.5 hours. The shorter trip from Lafayette to Chicago takes at least double that.

Some random thoughts about the trip:  I was a little surprised to find that my ears popped from pressure as we headed through tunnels. After reflection, I realized the train was acting like a piston when it went through the tunnel, so of course the air pressure would increase. The arid countryside between the cities reminded me a little of the Western Slope areas in Colorado. Finally, a warning sign on the train window told you that, in an emergency, you should break it with the Martello di Emergenza (“Hammer of Emergency”) which I think would make a good band name.

After hitting Florence, we dragged our luggage ¾ of a mile to our apartment on Piazza San Marco then up the stairs to another fourth floor residence. We didn’t have plans, so I was tasked with coming up with something. I found more green space. In this case, it was the Boboli Gardens which were across the Arno River and up a *steep* hill. The family called it “another one of Dad’s death marches.” Cole used the term affectionately. The rest of the family less so. On the way, we stopped at a little sandwich shop called Sogni E Sapori.  Cole and I had sausage sandwiches that were delicious. The girls had pasta which got the job done, but Amy strongly suspected it was warmed up in the microwave.

When we arrived at the Gardens, we hadn’t necessarily expected an entrance fee, but the fee was well worth it. Initially, where we entered wasn’t too impressive — a path through some corridors of bushes, but then it opened up to (yet another) incredible view. What was more, there was grass! The kids went barefoot. We had spent too many days with footwear on cobblestones. Because I’m 12 at heart, I cracked myself up looking at a statue that I affectionately referred to as Neptune’s Bidet because of the position of the fountain in relation to the statue of Neptune in the pond.

After wandering the park for awhile, we came to a broad clearing without many people and just relaxed, enjoying the day. Cole and I sat on the ground in the shade. Amy and Harper sat on a nearby bench. Eventually both of them were laying down on the bench. And then Harper was dead asleep on the bench. Travel takes it out of a girl! Probably this has something to do with the Bonine she took to avoid travel sickness on the train. (We have a nice collection of photos of Harper sleeping in various places during the vacation.) Leaving the garden, we stopped for gelato before our long hike home. One of my favorite stretches of Florence was the Via Romana running along the northwest edge of the gardens down a long hill to the Ponte Vecchio — a bridge over the Arno River with shops lining the edges. The Via Romana has an incredible array of shops and restaurants and all kinds of activity. 

Impressive as the selections were, we were a little beat for dealing with a restaurant that night. So, we went to a grocery store not far from us. It had an impressive amount of stuff in a not very big space. It must be a challenge to supply these cities with such narrow streets and fairly cramped spaces. Being this old, the cities simply weren’t designed with cars and trucks in mind. That said, the streets of Florence were, by and large, less cramped than the streets of Rome.

Our apartment in Florence wasn’t quite as swanky as our apartment in Rome, but  we didn’t need a lot. This one had a small balcony with a view of the Duomo which was a really great view as we drank our wine and ate our meat and cheese to wind down the night. There were a lot of street noises. We were above a bus stop and, just generally, there is a lot going on. The ambulances are pretty frequent. And, at least on Saturday night, there was a happening party on a rooftop terrace a few buildings down from us. Sounded like they were having a great time. Also, they liked Led Zeppelin.

Next time: Michelangelo’s David

Day 2: Vatican City and the Colosseum

Vatican City was a short walk from our Apartment in Trastavere, and we had plans to go to the Vatican Museums. Getting the kids moving early in the morning with the time change and the day of travel before was a bit of a chore, but we persevered. Because we were going to what is, after all, a religious place, to show respect, we dressed in our Sunday best (even though we don’t happen to be religious ourselves.) In any event, bare shoulders and bare knees are verboten. (There is at least a bit of irony to this inasmuch as there are any number of depictions of naked people there.) 

Amy had secured tickets for us online for entrance to the Vatican Museums. This was a great move because the lines to get into the place looked extensive. It was a self-guided tour where they gave you a little device where you would punch in the number of the exhibit, and it would give you information about the exhibit. Ultimately, we used the devices some but not very much.

It’s probably sacrilegious somehow, but we took a bit of a theme park approach: get the big ride first. So, despite all manner of interesting things on the way, we went fairly directly to the Sistine Chapel. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the place is amazing. No pictures are allowed. The guards are pretty constantly enforcing that rule and shooshing people to keep the noise levels down. The “get there early” approach worked. The Chapel was relatively uncrowded compared to how it would be later in the day. We grabbed some breakfast at the museum cafeteria and then went to explore the rest of the museum in a more leisurely way. There is a hall with maps of

sections of Italy all along its length. I can’t stress how much I love maps. The family thought they lost me.

Amy and Harper really enjoyed the art collection in the Borgia Rooms. The place is just so big though. You could spend a long, long time enjoying all it has to offer. Eventually, however, the kids’ feet started hurting, so we called it a morning. (I want to stress that this was not a matter of the kids being unduly delicate — according to my iPhone, we would end up walking something like 12 miles that day.) Before we left, however, we picked out some postcards and send them to the grandparents postmarked from Vatican City. (They have a little post office in the museum.)

On the way back, we walked around St. Peter’s Square and then stopped into the little grocery near our apartment and braved the language barrier to acquire more meat, cheese, and wine. We had a snack and rested awhile before venturing out again later in the day for a night tour of the Colosseum.

On our way to the tour, we very randomly ran across a fellow lawyer from Lafayette. He and his wife were meeting up with his son who lives in South Africa. Rome was kind of a mid-point for them. I had no idea he was there. We were walking down one street toward the Colosseum. He was walking up an intersecting street from a church they had just visited. I kind of squinted, thinking there was no way it was him. But, sure enough it was. I called out, “Hey Jeff!” causing him to do a double take of his own. Small world!

We had time to grab a quick pizza at a place near the start of our tour. It looked like it was going to be a bit of a tourist trap, but the pizza was unexpectedly good. Probably the best I had the entire time we were there — it was a sausage and mushroom. I regret that we only got one. Dining is usually a slower affair in Rome, and we were under a time crunch to get to our tour on time. They got it out to us quickly, and the family inhaled it. We could have handled a second one!

 Our tour began at Trajan’s Column.  This is probably as good a time as any to mention that Italy has a lot of columns. If there were ever a column-based conflict between the U.S. and Italy, we would clearly lose. The U.S., in short, is on the wrong end of the Column Gap. The family had a lot of fun quoting the “Mike’s Marblopolis” SNL skit pretty much any time we saw a column. (“Ya GOTTA get yourself some . . . mawble cawlums!”)

At the beginning of the tour, we were all given headphones and a transmitter that allowed us to hear the guide without having to crowd her. The tour guide was, I believe, an archaeologist of some type. She definitely had strong opinions about the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. I don’t know if she actually used the phrase “white monstrosity,” but that was the general thrust of her comments. It’s a massive pile of “corpse white marble” that tore up a big chunk of Capitoline Hill and covers up a fair amount of the Roman Forum which could otherwise be unearthed.

The tour took us past the Capitoline Museum which she recommended as having material of comparable importance to what you find in the Vatican without anywhere near the crowds. From there, we made our way to the Colosseum. It’s a massive and fascinating structure. I think it held about 80,000 people. They unearthed a great number of elevator shafts and our guide described how slaves used pulleys to haul animals, gladiators, props, and a number of other things up the elevators. This was about the only reference to slaves I happened to come across while we were in Rome — which is a little disappointing since so much of imperial Rome was made possible by the extensive use of slaves. Under the Colosseum, it was dark and there was a balancing act between light – which required use of some pretty foul torch fuel — and being able to breath. Also, there was a lot of wood used for the floor of the Colosseum, meaning there was a non-trivial chance of getting caught in a fire. 

 At one point, walking in the Colosseum on a warm night at the end of May, watching my children soak it all in had a pretty significant emotional impact on me. I was (and am) profoundly grateful that I had the opportunity to take them on this trip. I don’t know what they’ll ultimately retain, but watching them in that moment will always be something special for me. Shortly after that, there was a quote from Lord Byron on one of the displays that hit home:

I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, — upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum’s wall
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome.
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin

Rome had been a city of a million people and, after the Empire collapsed, had a population reduced down to about 30,000. Cole and I had a good conversation about what that must have been like — living in a place where you are daily confronted with evidence of a previous civilization where there were a lot more people who could accomplish things far beyond your capabilities. There was also a period where, apparently, rival families warred for control of the Colosseum.

Our guide told us that, as with a number of monuments in Rome, the deterioration of the Colosseum abated when someone turned it into a Christian holy site. Without such protection, monuments and other sites had a way of disappearing. In the case of the Colosseum, such protection was secured when Pope Benedict XIV endorsed the view that the Colosseum was sacred because Christian martyrs had been persecuted there.  Per Wikipedia, “there is no historical evidence to support Benedict’s claim, nor is there even any evidence that anyone before the 16th century suggested this might be the case.”

After the tour, we walked back and grabbed some gelato on the way. The daily gelato stops became a happy routine for us. By the time we got home, we had walked something like 28,000 steps for the day. Amy and I finished the night with wine on the terrace. Then I crashed hard, sleeping until 10:30 in the morning the next day. I’m probably overthinking that night’s sleep, but it seems to me that after an extremely busy April and May, the effort required to square away work enough to go on vacation, the effort of getting packed for vacation, the flight, the early morning at the Vatican, and the thousands of steps the day before, my body was serious about getting some sleep.

Next time: Part III – Castel Sant’Angelo, Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese Gardens, Piazza del Popolo.

IN THE BEGINNING

It began, as all great tales do, as a love story. In this case, the love of incredibly cheap airfare! The kids are 11 and 13 which is a great age for traveling: old enough to be largely self-sufficient, but young enough to still enjoy our company. We knew generally that we wanted to take them to Europe so they would have at least a little context for the world outside of the the United States. Italy, along with Ireland, Spain, Germany, and England were potential destinations. Amy, being an inveterate planner, downloaded an app called “Hopper” which monitors airfare. We knew generally the dates we were interested in and the destinations, so she could keep track of bargains that might arise. During this period, we were hemming and hawing about where to go. 

Then, one day, she sends me an e-mail. Hopper alerted her to an AirBerlin flight to Rome, round trip, for $411. The “downside”: we have to spend a night in Berlin on the way home. Oh no! Our decision was made. At those rates, we could spend less on our entire vacation than we spent on airfare alone during a vacation to Hawaii a couple of years ago. We decided to spend a few days in Rome and then spend a few days in Florence. I picked Florence based on a general notion that this was a central location in the beginning of the Enlightenment.

Day 1: Travel and the Trevi Fountain

The trip out was fairly smooth, but there were a few minor bumps. We parked at the WallyPark airport service at O’Hare. I believe there had been a change in the international departure gate recently, so the driver deposited us at the wrong gate. So, we had to take the airport train to get to the proper gate. Once there, AirBerlin shares space with another airline — Etihad out of the United Arab Emirates. Ultimately, a good number of AirBerlin travelers had to wait in what amounted to a relatively cramped aisle way until the Etihad flight was taken care of. These hiccups can be chalked up to us not being very experienced international travelers. The 8 ½ hour flight east was tough on our systems — sleep is tough to come by in those airplane seats and having the night abbreviated is disorienting. Cole, in particular, seemed frustrated by his inability to sleep. We were all probably a little cranky by the time we landed. AirBerlin really likes to feed you: dinner and breakfast plus a couple of snacks. New to me: complimentary wine on the flight!

We landed at Tegel in Berlin and had a two hour layover. The airplanes exit from the front and back which makes the deboarding process much faster. You take stairs down from the plane to the tarmac with shuttles to the terminal. There was some issue with unloading the shuttles, so we were stuck there for longer than was comfortable. One fellow passenger joked that if the shuttle had had to go a few more meters, AirBerlin probably would have served us another meal.

At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning that our family knows very little Italian and even less German. So, it was helpful to us that knowledge of English in these countries is very widespread. I shared with the kids my deep amusement (because I’m a nerd with a peculiar sense of humor) at the phrase “English is the lingua franca.” Lingua franca is a Latin phrase for “french language” (technically language of the Franks, I suppose) used to denote a universal bridge language which, at this point in history, is English.  This led to a discussion about how Americans are generally very unlikely to know foreign languages when compared to the rest of the world. I cautioned not to draw the conclusion that this was because Americans were self-centered xenophobes. Rather, our country is very big, making international travel much more difficult and, furthermore, because English is the lingua franca, there’s not quite as much practical upside to us learning English as there is for people from other countries to learn English. That said, I would encourage anyone to get out of the country if they can because it expands your worldview and helps provide some context for evaluating our own country.

 The Tegel Airport in Berlin was a lot smaller than I anticipated for an airport in a major capital city. This post explains that the airport was constructed in a hurry during the Berlin airlift. There is a larger airport under construction in Berlin, but our conversation with the hotel manager where we stayed (more on that later) suggests that the project is a major boondoggle with a completion date that keeps getting pushed back. While we were in Tegel, I noted (for no particular reason) a few young Americans who struck me as being “of a type.” There was a couple who I (perhaps unfairly) characterized as crunchy hippie types speaking with a guy who was more of a guitar bro. He was playing them a few songs and they were nodding along at the profundity. I’m having a little fun with these descriptions, but I don’t want to get too carried away rolling my eyes at “kids these days.” If what they’re doing brings them joy, that’s sufficient reason for doing them.

After a short layover, we boarded the Alitalia plane from Berlin to Rome. When we arrived in Rome, the driver for the car that had been arranged by the apartment rental place was at a different gate. So, there was a bit of waiting and exchange of phone calls involved in securing our ride. The traffic in Rome is chaotic. Lights and lanes seem to be more guidelines than rules. Smart cars, pedestrians, and scooters weave in and out of each other, mostly avoiding contact. But, we made it to the apartment we rented in Trastavere on Via Degli Orti d’Alibert, maybe half a block from the Tiber River. (It was a little longer to walk to the Tiber because there wasn’t a straight path from the place we were staying.) The apartment we rented was on the fourth and fifth floors of the building and had a pretty outstanding terrace on the roof. The kids did a good job of hauling their own luggage up the four flights of stairs.

There was a little shop a couple doors down from our building, so we went in. There was an old Italian grocer, straight out of central casting who didn’t speak a lick of English. So, it was a good first challenge for the road weary travelers. At first we couldn’t tell if he was telling us whether he was opened or closed. But, when I recognized that he was telling us that he closed at 4:30, that seemed to bridge enough of the communication gap for us to get things going.  Part of the problem was that he wouldn’t let us just go grab likely products and bring them to the register. He wanted to get them for us. But, ultimately, we secured some wine, beer, meat, cheese, and bread and brought them back to the apartment. Then, it was nap time! We hadn’t slept much in the last 24 hours and everyone was feeling it. I’m not sure how much everyone else slept, but I got a few hours of much needed sleep, and we were ready to go see a little bit of Rome.

We decided to make the approximately 1.5 mile walk to the Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately, the Apple Maps app pretty quickly directed us to go straight through a wall. We were in a strange city and still getting used to navigating the narrow cobblestone streets where the had to crowd near a building wall when a car was coming past. We would quickly get used to this, and navigating the city wasn’t terribly difficult, but it did take some getting used to. We had read a lot about the prevalence of pick pocketing in Italy. We didn’t experience any ourselves, but we were on guard against it, so that added to the initial tension.

Near the fountain (and really near any tourist attraction) there were lots of street vendors selling a random variety of things such as wooden bowls, fidget spinners, and selfie sticks. (But, despite the apparent randomness, the sales seemed to be the same 6 or 7 items throughout Rome and Florence.) The Fountain, like so much in Rome, really was spectacular. Wikipedia tells me that “Trevi” refers to three roads, and the fountain is the terminal point where an aqueduct brought water into Rome and served the city for 400 years. In 1629, Pope Urban VII came up with the idea of a sculpture that would make the site more dramatic which, after a long time, led to the project which was completed in 1762. We didn’t know all that at the time — we just appreciated the beauty of the place, being in the midst of the other site seers, and threw in our coins.

Our first dinner in Rome was at the Piccolo Buco, not far from the Trevi Fountain. There was a fairly significant wait to get in, but they handed out some free glasses of wine while we waited, so that was fun. We had no idea, but this appears to be somewhat common — something similar happened while we waited for a restaurant in Florence a few days later. Common or not, it made us feel special! The kids, who got nothing out of that deal, perhaps weren’t quite as content with the wait. But, ultimately the food was good. Harper was angling for some cheesecake that she didn’t get that night. However, her raising the subject prompted me to tell her the story of my oldest sister having a nightmare about cheesecake once when we were kids — as I recall, it featured little men (I always pictured them as being like Oompa Loompas) holding out plates and chanting “cheesecake, cheesecake.”. My other sister & I never let her forget it. Harper and Cole cracked up when I told them about it. After a nice dinner, we made our way back to the apartment. We were quickly becoming more comfortable walking around in the city.

Next time: The kids wear their Sunday best for the Pope.