So my goals for the next several days are to edit photographs and watch World Cup. The above is what happens when I try to do either one of those things for very long. The Yankee says that Allie likes me more than she likes her, but in truth it is just because I sit still more. Also, this cat loves walking on your keyboard.
Pictures. Lots of pictures. Started watching the World Cup, South Africa playing well to tie Mexico and France struggling to the same result against Uruguay. Funny how ties are perceived differently for each team. I’ll see all 64 World Cup games this year, just living the dream.
Speaking of living the dream, I had the great pleasure of sharing lunch with two wonderful ladies today. The Yankee and I joined our dear friend RaDonna at O’Carrs — try the chicken salad and fruit plate.
I met RaDonna while working with her husband, Justin, at al.com. He left to go to the Gadsden paper and is now the multimedia director at The Anniston Star. They are the sweetest people you could hope to know, and their son is the coolest boy I know, but they live too far away. Visits with such good people shouldn’t be so rare.
There are now233 photos on the site from our honeymoon. I suspect I might be about halfway through the project. On the one hand it is incredible to see the pictures again and think “Hey, we’ve just been there.” On the other hand I’m ready for a break from editing photographs.
Sick of hearing about it yet?
Simple, quiet, Pie Day for two tonight. Felt like we haven’t been to Jim N Nicks in ages. Mostly because we haven’t been in ages. For a weekly ritual the last two or three weeks have been our biggest absence in the almost six-year-old tradition.
Happily, Ward still recognized us.
Tomorrow, the US kicks off their World Cup run against England.
site / Wednesday — Comments Off on I’ve created a good system 9 Jun 10
Still editing photographs from the trip. Nothing new on this page, but if you look at the Photo Gallery or the Honeymoon section you’ll see some cool new stuff.
I’m not halfway through yet.
The good news is that I don’t have to pet the cat anymore. I’m sitting on the sofa and she’s sitting next to me, sitting up on her hips, not in the way you normally think of cats, and is now content just putting her paws on my hand. This makes editing photographs challenging.
I’m reminded of the old LBJ line about Walter Cronkite’s shift on Vietnam. This isn’t exactly that, but the premise is similar. When President Obama loses Rolling Stone, he’s got problems:
Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. Instead of cracking down on MMS, as he had vowed to do even before taking office, Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency’s culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP – a firm with the worst safety record of any oil company – with virtually no environmental safeguards, using industry-friendly regulations drafted during the Bush years. He calibrated his response to the Gulf spill based on flawed and misleading estimates from BP – and then deployed his top aides to lowball the flow rate at a laughable 5,000 barrels a day, long after the best science made clear this catastrophe would eclipse the Exxon Valdez.
What’s happening in the Gulf is heartbreaking. It is economically, environmentally and culturally devastating. And there’s enough blame for everyone. And a lot of people deserve it. But the fingers are starting to point to the administration and, let’s be honest, this group isn’t that good at image or body work. Oh they’ve benefited from an admiring media, but now that a few journalists on the beat are doing journalisty things this is going to get ugly, in a hurry.
And a lot of people deserve the blame. And none of it will fix these precious, delicate, important places. Now that Rolling Stone has come around to that others will soon follow. Working in this White House won’t be much fun, I’d guess.
I’d like to contribute an idea on how to stop the leak. By taking all of Hollywood’s tapes of the upcoming Twilight movie reels and stuffing the film in the hole we might be able to slow this thing down to a trickle. We’ll also have the added bonus of not having to see the movie later this month. And just think of the positive publicity for the franchise. And we wouldn’t have to watch the movie!
site / Tuesday — Comments Off on What day is it? Who am I? 8 Jun 10
When I get all of that under control I’ll have plenty of other things to share from the trip, too. There’s an hour of video to produce from the ship excursions. I brought back a ton of things to scan, too. I figure I can carry this through the summer.
Take a good hard look cause we're sailing on a boat.
We wake up this morning with an even greater purpose: We must make it to our cruise ship.
So we enjoy the little breakfast provided by our fabulously located and luxurious two-store hotel in Rome: hard roll, sugar dusted croissant and all the TANG you can drink, everyday.
We wrestle our luggage out of the hotel, which is so small that the two of us and our suitcases can’t stand at the desk all at once. We navigate our way into the hallway and to the elevator. The lift is so small that it can’t hold us and the luggage — and we didn’t even over-pack this time. The lift is so small, in fact, that one person, two rollers and a backpack are capacity.
So down from the fourth floor goes the lift. And then it comes back up again. And then I climb in, shutting the exterior wire door and then the inner doors and then sliding down to the ground floor. This takes a while, but it is “quaint.”
And then we walk to the Termini, the bus/train stop in the city center. I know that our big suitcases are close to 50 pounds each. Our smaller bags are, of course, less. We each have backpacks stuffed to overflowing. It is a bright, sunny, warm day. The walk isn’t long, but just long enough.
The Yankee left her special lipstick at home, but not to worry. In Termini there is a Sephora and she is able to pick up a replacement. I stand guard with our luggage, enough for an entire 17-day European adventure. Finally she emerges. “Italians.” Picking up one piece of lipstick takes a while.
So now we must find the train. Now Termini doesn’t look that big from the outside, but it meanders. And I think, at one point, I went down one flight of stairs so I could walk 25 feet to walk up another flight of stairs. I’m doing the gentlemanly thing and carrying the bigger luggage.
We finally find the right line, and then must find the proper train. This involves much more walking. I’m drenched in sweat. We see the right train and, somehow, she realized it was about to depart. So The Yankee sprints. With luggage. And she manages to jam her foot in the door as it is closing.
Two nice guys pry the door back open. She climbs in, I’ve caught up — with the heavy luggage — and I stagger on board. Our bags are too big for the overhead rack, so we just do our best to stow the stuff in adjacent seats. If there had been someone there to monitor tickets and seating I’m sure he would have demanded we purchase two more seats.
So we ride northwest for an hour or so to the town of Civitavecchia, which is how the Romans cruise. We are actually a few minutes early, so we catch a bite to eat in a cafe at the train station. A girl who was just getting off work was doing her best Frankie Valli. She was embarrassed when she noticed I was watching, but she did a good job. And since it is such a good song …
So we had a sandwich and then started the long walk to the port. We found a bus, somehow lugged our luggage on and then drove to the ship to begin the embarkation process. You must fill out paperwork that says you haven’t been sick, don’t know any pigs with the flu.
They take our picture. They take our passports. They give us a little card with a magnetic strip. They run us through metal detectors. We board the ship. They spray us down with antibacterial hand soap. They begin offering drinks within six steps of being on board. We have embarked.
We find our room, throw our backpacks inside and head to the pool. We got onboard very early, so there is time to kill. We decide to read.
This ship has a library. It spans two decks.
There is also a conference desk. Not sure what they expect people to do there.
We found the dining room tonight and I had my first dose of cruise ship food. I’m sure it will only become more ridiculous as the voyage continues.
This is my first time cruising. The Yankee is the expert. We both agree this place is huge. More on that later.
We visited the Villa Borghese Museum today. Originally a suburban party villa, the collection that now resides there was started by by Cardinal Scipion Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V. From those 17th Century beginnings, coming to Napoleon’s brother-in-law and finally transforming into a public museum in the 1700s.
The museum boasts the world’s greatest Caravaggio collection and one of the best Bernini collections you can find. There is no photography in the 20-room museum, but here are our favorite sculptures for the day, first a Bernini, his famous Apollo and Daphne. It must be seen in the round, and up close. Then, even someone with little understanding of sculpture, like me, is awed. Another incredible piece is Antonio Canova’s Pauline Bonaparte, which was quite scandalous. She’s reclining on a mattress, which looks for all the world like a different stone, or perhaps like an actual mattress.
The detail in both are incredible.
All of the Caravaggios are in one room. Bernini, meanwhile, absolutely steals the show. He always does. His talent was so great that he could convert even the unartistic viewers. The man had a gift. And makes you redefine your concept of having a gift.
There is a park on the property. We rented a two-person, pedal yourself rickshaw and drove it around, enjoying the beautiful afternoon weather. I took a lot of pictures.
We had a War Eagle moment at the museum, Ren’s first international one. We were waiting to go inside — you visit by appointment — and a lady walked by and noticed my shirt. Guess I’ll have to make a WEM section for the site after all.
We went across the Tiber River into Trastevere, which has gone from medieval village, to working class neighborhood to Left Bank to high priced neighborhood to rustic and touristy. The graffiti is plentiful, though. To get there we caught a bus, which took us to a tram. We missed our stop on the tram, so we got off about six stops later to catch a tram headed the original direction. We took the correct stop (which was the intial stop for the first tram, incidentall) and wandered deep into the neighborhood.
The sky was growing dark and we are stumbling through alleys. Occassionally we wander across a little piazza that Americans have overtaken. Mostly we feel like we are in alleys. A policeman finally helps us find our way to Trattoria da Lucia. Rick Steves says “lets you enjoy simple, traditional food at a good price in a great scene. It’s the quintessential rustic, 100 percent Roman Trastevere dining experience, and has been family-run since World War II. You’ll meet four generations of the family, including Giuliano and Renato, their uncle Ennio and Ennio’s mom — pictured on the menu in the 1950s. The family specialty is spaghetti alla Gricia with pancetta bacon.”
We sit in the alley under the stars, in Italy. We are serenaded by an old man on an accordion who says “U.S.A.!” and then launches into a passionate “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It was perfect.
Steves has given us three great restaurants in a row, so I say pick up his books before your next European visit. I had the spaghetti alla Gricia, which was profoundly delicious. We’re ripping off that dish. And we also found the most simple, delicious summer dessert. When we get settled at home after the trip you’ll have to stop by and have some.
A table of four American ladies, a mother and her three adult daughters, were seated next to us. We exchanged names and hometowns and notes and tips on traveling in Rome. Turns out they are from not far from where my family lives. Turns out one of the ladies’ daughters is going to a basketball camp at Auburn. She gives us her card. She is a financial adviser.
We need one of those.
We got turned around in the alleys of Trastevere trying to leave, somehow emerging blocks away from where we needed to be. At first it was The Yankee’s fault (and she’s usually great at this) and then I took over, pointing us in at least the right direction. Time was of the essence. Meals aren’t to be rushed through here. Late starts and two hour dinners are the norm, and the waiters aren’t necessarily in a hurry to produce the check.
Our hotel is on the exact opposite side of Rome from Trattoria da Lucia and the buses stop running at midnight. We finally make it back to the tram stop, catching what might have been the last ride of the night back across the Tiber. We caught the absolute last bus, waiting out what seems to be the driver’s mandatory break at St. Peter’s, still miles from our place.
Finally we made it back to our neighborhood. But we missed the stop. We needed the fourth stop. The Yankee (who really is good at this sort of thing, normally) insisted we’d just made the third stop. Turns out the fifth stop is at the bus station, so we walked back from there. I’ll give her grief over that for days.
In addition to the slideshow above, there is a brief photo gallery on the day.
