Rome Journal I - Apartment

It's Easter Sunday, and I'm writing this blog from our apartment in Rome, where we arrived last Monday. The weather has been chilly and rainy, which means that we haven't been walking around as often as I would have liked. Primary purpose of my visit, of course, is to work at the library of the American Academy, but with our problems settling in I've only been able to get there once so far. I hope to make much more progress on the Catullus bibliography next week. It is wonderfully convenient to have access to articles and reviews in numerous obscure Continental journals at first hand instead of ordering them through Document Delivery. In the meantime, getting used to the living conditions has not been easy. Our apartment is on the Gianicolo, with access right at the corner of Via Fabrizi and Via Garabaldi. It's a five-minute walk to the AAR if you take a shortcut up the Scala Iacobucci, and, in the other direction, it's a five-minute walk down to Piazza S. Cosimano. However, at the time I booked the place through one of those rental services, I did not know that Via Tiburzi, on which it's located, is a privately owned paved footpath leading from the upper to the lower Gianicolo via several flights of stairs. The path is gated at both ends and only residents have the gate code. Consequently the property is extremely safe, but it's also very difficult for Ron to get up the stairs to the bus stop at Via Dandalo. While the ad for the apartment did have pictures of the stairs, there wasn't any mention of how many or how steep there were. We didn't find out until we arrived, and of course the rent had already been paid. The flight leading down to Trastevere is not that bad, though, so we have been managing. And in addition to two supermarkets in the vicinity, there is also a large farmer's market in Piazza Cosimano every morning, including butchers and fish sellers. The fish, which according to the signs comes from the gulf of Gaeta, is as fresh as I've had in a long time, and the meat is excellent. We've been eating very well. While the apartment has been newly refurbished, it's actually an older one-story house wedged in between two other large apartment buildings. I suspect it was thrown together hastily and by someone who couldn't be bothered wiring it to code--if there is such a thing as electrical code in Italy. The landlord, Guido, obviously hasn't owned it for long and doesn't know that much about its infrastructure. On the first night, as we were cooking dinner (very tired after three long flights), we plugged in the microwave and blew a circuit. All the lights went out, leaving us with just two small flashlights. Guido was very helpful and came right over; he showed us the circuit box and got the lights working again. We didn't realize, however, that the short had knocked out both the heat and the hot water--not until the next morning when we woke up freezing. We thought the main problem was the heat, but we actually had to restart the hot water heater, then wait until the water warmed up before the radiators started working. In the meantime, Guido has supplied us with a brand-new microwave, and he's refunding one day's rent for our inconvenience. So everything has been worked out to our satisfaction. We did not go to St. Peter's for the new Pope's homily and Easter services. Having been to St. Peter's once or twice with Pat Johnston just for an ordinary Sunday mass, I was well aware of what a mob scene it would be yesterday and today, and we both decided we didn't need to experience that much history. Anyway, we heard parts of the homily on the Sunday news. Since Pope Francis said something in his sermon about not fearing new things, the commentators are now breathlessly sure that he's open to all sorts of fresh experimentation. I doubt it, but we'll see.

Cruise to Southeast Asia--Final Post

At Bangkok, we disembarked and were transferred to the Millennium Hotel overlooking the Chao Phraya River. Bangkok was immensely crowded, and not just because of Chinese New Year--it teemed with traffic, shops, and pedestrians (see picture). We had two days to look around before flying to Cambodia and Angkor Wat. On the first afternoon, we visited three Buddhist temples, including the Emerald Buddha in the Grand Palace. The palace itself is an elaborate complex filled with monumental and exotic architecture. The next day was free time. While there was little to see on our side of the river, a boat service run by the hotel took guests across to a shopping complex that connected, in turn, to a square with taxis and tuk-tuks. The latter are open cabs attached to motorbikes. By this time we had run out of reading material, and after determining the location of Bangkok's one English bookstore, we set out via tuk-tuk to find it. It was on the fourth floor of yet another huge shopping mall in downtown Bangkok and had a nice, if somewhat limited, selection of British paperbacks. While there, we looked for gifts to bring home but finally decided on buying silks at the shopping complex across from the hotel, because most of the items for sale at this other mall were foreign-made. We flagged down another tuk-tuk and this time experienced what we subsequently found was a standard tourist rip-off. Driver claimed he did not know where our hotel was, then took us to the wrong hotel, etc. Finally got back, an hour and a half later and quite a few bhat out of pocket. The next morning we had to be up at 3:00 a.m. to catch an early morning flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Once there, we were immediately taken to the Bayon Temple, one of the several monuments dating from the 12th century Khmer Empire. It was indeed a fascinating place, but on the highest level of the temple I started to feel dizzy. Luckily, I was able to make it back down slowly and carefully without asking for help. By the time we got to the hotel, I knew I had suffered a sunstroke. Spent the afternoon in a darkened hotel room and so never saw Angkor Wat, although Bayon gave me a pretty good idea of what it would have been like. The next morning I was fine, and before our flight back we were able to explore a bit of Siem Reap, which--even though it was a common tourist destination--was very impoverished compared to Bangkok. We saw ruined and abandoned buildings that might have once been schools, evidence of the devastation under the Khmer Rouge. Of all the places we saw, Siem Reap was historically and culturally the most illustrative. At the airport, incidentally, there was a bookstore with an even better selection of paperbacks than I had found in Bangkok, as well as inexpensive silks and other gift items. One of the books I picked up there, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, is my current entertainment reading. It's a dystopian science fiction novel set in a futuristic Bangkok. Because I visited the city, the surroundings it pictures, though distorted, have a real immediacy. That was a good conclusion to our Southeast Asia trip. We flew out the next day from Bangkok and made it back home without incident. Looking back, I would say the cruise was a fine learning experience, but not a dream vacation. Ron isn't sure he wants to go on any more cruises--perhaps he's right. There are better ways to see the world.

Cruise to Southeast Asia, Part Three

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City was quite memorable. We cruised up the Saigon River for several hours seeing mostly rice fields on either side of the banks. The Mekong Delta is impressively fertile. Little trace remained of devastation from the war, although we learned in the War Remnants Museum that the long-term effects of Agent Orange are still felt, with physical deformities now occurring in the second and third generations. The city itself, however, seems fully recovered and quite prosperous. On our excursion, we visited Notre Dame Cathedral and the Post Office, both reminders of the colonial past, before going to the museum. As one would expect, the exhibits, largely photographic, were disturbing, with great blame laid on the United States for its violence against civilians and its use of Agent Orange. The cruelties of the Diem regime were also a key theme. Ron was depressed by the museum, but I felt strongly that we, as Americans living during the period, needed to see the evidence collected by the Vietnamese themselves, even if its propaganda function was so apparent. I certainly did not agree with a woman on the cruise who told us the next morning that she was sorry for the children who were exposed to such a one-sided view of history (with the implication that cruise participants should not have been exposed to it either). If she found the messages that upsetting, why was she visiting Vietnam in the first place? Surely she knew that we could not escape some reminders of the war. Be that as it may, the excursion culminated with a stop at the huge city market, which reminded me very much of markets in Mexico. Stalls of local products, including food but also gimcrack trinkets for tourists. I was suspicious of the gold and silver items on view but bought a nice string of beads for $10 from a woman whose daughter, it turned out, was studying at Arizona State University. (So much for being brainwashed by the museum.) In the afternoon there was a second excursion to the Cu Chi tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the way. We didn't go, but I regret now that I didn't. Those who did go said that it offered a unique glimpse of what life was like for the other side.

After Vietnam, our next landfall, the resort island of Ko Samui in Thailand, was rather like Disneyland. Back in the sixties, we were told, the island was first popularized as a travel spot by hippies celebrating it as an unspoiled native settlement. "Unspoiled" is scarcely the right word these days. Once again we saw tourist facilities such as spas and resorts next door to small shops where gasoline for motorcycles was sold in liter bottles. Attractions included a twelve-meter high statue of Buddha (Disneyland indeed!), a coconut plantation featuring a trained monkey (getting your picture taken with him was $1 extra), and a monastery with the mummified body of one of its former members on display. Cultural and religious differences aside, treating that as a tourist stop was tasteless. (On the other hand, as I write, news continues to pour out of Leicester University about the discovery of Richard III's skeleton, while the Richard III Society is proudly showing on its web page the monumental tomb it plans to set up in Leicester Cathedral--why does the excavation seem so romantic and the display of the monk's body so awful? Furthermore, there has been considerable discussion of the forensic evidence indicating that the king's death was gruesome, with numerous postmortem injuries also inflicted. I can happily talk about the forensics in a classroom or over dinner, as I did last night. Archaeological desensitization, I suppose.)

To be sure, the cruise was not intended to stop at Ko Samui at all. Our original port of call following Ho Chi Minh City was Sihanoukville in Cambodia. Phnom Phnh and Sihanoukville were closed to tourists, however, because of the official funeral ceremonies for king Norodom Sihanouk, who had died at the age of 89 in October. I was astonished that he had lived so long--pretty much the last survivor among the major players of that time. One final, unexpected event of our stop at Ko Samui: probably the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life. That was worth the visit, even if the rest was not.