We were going to go swimming today, but storms took that out of the equation. So we went to Toys R Us instead.
We played with trains and Matchbox cars and all sorts of things. Justin and RaDonna had their niece and nephew with them for part of the day, so we all loaded up and visited Whole Foods, too.
Whole Foods, the kinder, gentler grocery store where the grungy alternative kids work, has plenty of healthy foods. And the store is made from a remarkable 143 percent of recyclable materials. They are very proud of this. There’s a poster explaining it by the restrooms. Wood in the store is from old barns. The metal decorations above the butcher area are from a thermonuclear warhead. The light is from the sun. The shopping carts were stolen from a Kroger down the street.
Only some of those are false.
It is a nice concept, though, putting into practice the old saying about one corporation’s garbage is another suburban grocery store’s treasure. Most of the recycled items were in place for the aesthetic, rather than function. It keeps these slivers of wood and steel and aluminum out of the landfill, at least until this store is razed.
We played in the toy area a while. We shopped. We played in the toy area some more.
RaDonna on the slide at Chick-fil-A.
We had a bite to eat at Chick-fil-A. They’ve changed the menu, but they have a sense of humor about it. We played on the Chick-fil-A playground. Or Atticus did. For the first time, perhaps, ever, there was a playground, a kid I was with playing on it and I did not take part. I feel so old.
We went to Target. I drove Atticus around in the shopping cart — not stolen from a Kroger down the street — backwards. He giggled.
Had a great visit, wish we could do it more. Hopefully we’ll get one or two more before Atticus’ birthday this fall when he’ll turn, unbelievably, five.
I have friends who, as children, lived in the same town, grew up and got married. They knew each other in school, they’re from a small enough town that it isn’t hard to find yourself in someone’s orbit pretty regularly from an early age. As they were dating, they realized through the course of many conversations that they’d attended a lot of the same events — circuses, plays and so on — not together, but at the same time. It is a cute story, but a little less impressive than this:
Thirty years ago, when they lived in separate countries long before they met and married, a family shot of little Donna at Walt Disney World captured Alex in a stroller in the background.
[…]
That fateful realization came just one week before their wedding eight years ago. Alex and Donna had been going through old family snapshots. There, in the blurry background of a picture of 5-year-old Donna was 3-year-old Alex being pushed down Main Street at the same moment in 1980 by his father. The senior Voutsinas’s distinctive jet-black hair with its white tuft caught his eye.
If you read the comments you’ll find a handful of similar type stories. Some of them from people who grew up near each other, like my friends above, and others from different continents. It isn’t fate or destiny, but a curious quirk. Given how many millions of people are in relationships it would be more improbable to not hear stories like this.
Want mine? The Yankee and I actually worked at Clear Channel at the same time. Clear Channel is a big, big company, but we were actually in the same market at the same time, working for the same stations, but in different buildings. We just didn’t know each other. We met after we’d both moved on to different jobs, me to al.com and her to television.
Some such instances are obvious, others can be easily explained away, but sometimes the connections defy easy description. For an interesting academic discussion on the matter I point you to Jon Kleinberg. There was an informal Email experiment of Stanley Milgram’s small world theory a few years back.
I have about 230 friends on Facebook. I rarely visit the site, but I feel confident that everyone I know in real life on that site is my friend there. I do enjoy seeing how my friends know each other. Some of them make no geographical sense whatsoever, to the point I’ve had to write strangers and ask “How do you know these two separate, distant people?” The answers usually make a great deal of sense when you hear them. Usually.
They are neat stories, part of many families’ lore. It only helps that the Small World theme song is now stuck in all of our heads.
I recorded this one last December.
Pretty neat, right?
Nothing else to report. I’ve been editing photographs again this evening, having now published 298 from the honeymoon. That gets us through Ephesus, which was amazing. There are more here. Still a few more stops to edit, too!
We’ve been planning our World Cup watch party for weeks. Every day, it seemed, the people that were going to attend and the place we’d watch our historic thrashing of England changed. Up to the 11th hour, it seemed, the location shifted again. Our friend Andrew — who will join the faculty at East Tennessee State this fall — was going to come up from Tuscaloosa to take in the game. He was going to bring some friends, but at the last minute the configuration changed.
We’d decided to watch at an Irish pub and restaurant, the thinking being that the best place to watch the English play would be with a bunch of Irish. This might have been a possibility in Birmingham, there are a few folks from Ireland here. Instead we went to a place in Tuscaloosa. There were no Irishmen, but plenty of Americans.
The referee in the match might as well have been from England. After going down a goal in the fourth minute, fighting off 11 English players, the officials and our own dreadfully thin backfield — can’t we pull some people of Ray Lewis’ size and demeanor into the program? — we watched the Americans fight their way back to a satisfying draw. That’s a victory for the U.S. and probably a total flop for the English side.
When the game was over the music came on, featuring the perfect draw musician: Jimmy Buffett. You aren’t happy with the draw, but pretend you are. We met a grown man in a Cookie Monster shirt. It suited him, and he was just one of the interesting characters. At one point a horn blew. Not a trumpet or a vuvuzela, but a big Lord of the Rings-type horn. It was a colorful afternoon.
Your current time and temperature.
That was what we saw when we got back in the car after dinner with Wendy. In a related story, it is June.
Friday / honeymoon / photo — Comments Off on Leaving Equinox, back to Rome 4 Jun 10
We’ve had such a nice time on the cruise we don’t want to go back to a great city like Rome. Odd how that works. But I figured out why. At breakfast this morning the theme of the cruise ship finally sank in. Told you everyone here shut their brain off when they came aboard. The secret is in the name. We’re celebrities.
And I realized that, this morning, when the crew didn’t smile and say hello and bend over backward to do every little thing for you. They weren’t bad, by any means, they were just getting ready for the next cruise and we barely registered for them.
So we’ve played the role of the low maintenance, B or D list celebrities who don’t need anyone to fuss over them overly much. Now, in port and ready to leave, you notice that the crew have let the illusion go. Not that I blame them, some people come on the ship and really try to abuse the concept to a shameful degree. We met a few of those unfortunate folks. I’m sure, in crew quarters in the bowel of the ship and at the crew bar late at night, they all secretly loathe the passengers.
“He wanted another towel. That was the ninth one of the day, I think.”
We got to know the assistant maitre’ d who told us a few stories about some of the experiences he’s endured over the course of his long career. It’s just a job, but creating the illusion for some people can be a chore, I’m sure. He was going on vacation himself — “Anywhere but a ship,” he said — when he was done with our trip. He was ready to share a few stories.
So we had breakfast, lingered a bit and then finally worked our way down to the gangway. We picked up our luggage in a confused free for all — it is true what they say, embarkation and disembarkation at this port aren’t very well organized — and then tried to catch a bus in a Paris, June, 1940 atmosphere. It was almost comical, people have spent 11 days relaxing on a cruise and the moment everyone gets back off the ship they are jostling into semi-aggressive, anxious people again.
After about three rounds of buses we manage to sneak onto that will hold our luggage. The bus takes us to the port entrance and then we are on our own. We tote luggage to the train station, get tickets and then work our way to the proper line.
We had to go down a flight of stairs, walk 25 yards and then go up a separate flight of stairs. Architects here are funny, funny people.
So we rode back down to Rome. We carried our luggage through the terminal and to our hotel. I’m really tired of carrying luggage, by now. On the way I’m performing the mental calculations to see if it is possible to bring less stuff. The formal nights really kill you here, but I think we could have removed one bag from the equation.
This afternoon we wondered around to take the last few items off of our Rome list. We stopped by the Trevi Fountain, which was designed by Bernini among others. Took forever to create, but it was worth it.
Trevi Fountain
If you throw coins in the fountain, you come back to Rome, so the legend goes. We visited a pharmacy next to the fountain and also bought some art nearby, but I don’t recall if we threw anything in the fountain or not. I did see this guy, though:
What kind of apps do gladiators have on their iPhones?
We hung out on the Spanish Steps, the widest, longest, tallest and just gosh darn adventurous stairs in Europe. The guide books say this is one of the fine places to see and be seen in Rome, so I made a slideshow.
We walked around the squares, passing where the president of Italy lives purely by accident — there was a car fire that detoured us — shopped for gifts, watched a few street performers and enjoyed the lovely cobblestone streets and beautiful weather of a spring day in Rome. The weather has been great. My feet really hurt.
We had dinner at a place called Osteria de Mario. The fare was traditional Roman, so if you wanted ox tail you were in luck. We split a chicken meal, which was good, but we thought we’d ordered two. They messed up the change, though, so it all works out.
We caught a bus back to the room. (On our last day in Rome we’ve figured out the bus system, how’s that for more than 40 years of formal education between us?) We’re staying in the Hotel Margaret again, where we spent our first three nights in Rome. The owner, thinking The Yankee was by herself, booked us into her smallest room. She was very upset and apologetic about this, but the room was cute, big enough, didn’t face the road and had a softer bed. The discount she gave us just made it that much nicer.
They told us to come back on our next visit to Rome. We just might, it is a casual, low key place that’s relatively inexpensive and convenient to most everything. It is low frills, but it is clean and everything you need for a hotel room in Rome. Our recommendation, check out Hotel Margaret.
We’re just beat. After an 11-day luxury cruise there’s no reason to be exhausted, but today, somehow, took it all out of me.
We’re catching a taxi to the airport in the morning. We figured, after our walk from the terminal to the hotel today that we just didn’t want to carry the luggage back down there again. We’re staring at an absolutely full day of travel, this is a good investment, I think.
She put together a perfect trip.
You couldn’t ask for a better adventure, a more wonderful experience or a more charming companion. We booked for a great price a long time ago when no one was cruising — indeed, the ship wasn’t at capacity.
We saw an incredible amount of history and culture. We ducked a British Airways strike to get to Europe. We had good timing in missing the unrest in Athens. We had great weather and perfect seas. We met wild donkeys, smiling, helpful locals and people from all over the world. We scaled volcanoes, swam in the Aegean Sea and prayed at St. Peter’s. We laughed and smiled and created countless memories.
Off the boat and into Naples. We’re on a bus. The last time that happened, in Turkey, we had a bus wreck. We are two with locals who are giving us a ride to Mt. Vesuvius and then a tour of Pompeii. One of the guys is aiming for a Beckham look. He’s wearing jeans and a suit coat, with a few loud pieces of gold. He’s driving the bus. The guide is wearing his hair a little long in the back, a near beard, some unfortunate sunglasses, a baseball cap and a jacket.
While it isn’t especially hot — it did make the mid 70s today — it is June. It is an unfortunate choice, this jacket. It is white vinyl.
But he is a nice, soft spoken guy. Very funny. They took us first to a little place in Naples where they make cameos from conch shells. They are handmade, an elegant and traditional Italian piece of jewelry. No one is sure why we’ve stopped there, though, and we’re all ready to get on the road for Vesuvius. We walk around with mild curiosity and then take advantage of the restrooms. We’ve been forewarned that the facilities at Vesuvius are dirty and of poor quality. Europe really has to get it together on this one.
So we move on to Vesuvius. We go up what he calls the Mama Mia Road. It is steep, narrow and full of switchbacks and blind turns. When another bus comes down the mountain toward us he says “Everybody breath in, maybe we’ll make it. Mama mia.”
You drive most of the way up the mountain. At a certain point the bus runs out of road and you’re on your own for the last 200 vertical meters or so. The path winds around the mountain, so the walk is a good one.
Your Vesuvius walking stick.
After you hand over the tickets and make it inside the hiking part of the trip an old couple give you walking sticks. Our handsome, vinyl jacketed friend has stayed behind. He’s made this walk before and knows better, it seems. We picked up a new guide at the top of the mountain. He told us about the last eruption, during World War II. That was just a flow (from the hike up the mountain you can see the remnants of that eruption, it looks like an unfinished road) and no one was injured, but a more serious eruption in 1906 killed 100 people.
Seismologists, he said, expect the next eruption to be a violent one. Three million people live in the shadows of the volcano.
We had to be back down the mountain by a specific time so the bus didn’t leave us behind. I had to run down the mountain to keep up. At the bottom the old couple were collecting their walking sticks. Sitting at an angle you couldn’t see while walking up there was a sign requesting a tip for the walking stick. Because we are honeymooning, and I’ve learned the role society has assigned to me, I had no money on this particular hike. The old Italian man didn’t speak English, and I couldn’t say “My wife has my money,” in his language.
I did understand what he said in reply, though. (My god-parents-in law are Italian.)
So I’m laughing as I make the bottom of the descent. I tell this to The Yankee, who says the old woman tried to get money from her. As The Yankee reached for her cash the old woman hit her camera with the stick. She said “No” and walked away. That’s some restraint; I would have thrown the stick down the side of the mountain.
Our tour guide in Pompeii, nice jacket.
Our guide says they’ve uncovered about 70 percent of Pompeii. They started excavating before the United States was a country. To see it all, he says, would take about 16 hours. In our two-and-a-half hours he gave us the highlights, including this temple. These columns were brick which were intended to be covered. There were no toppled columns or debris found in the excavation, so archeologists says this temple was still being built when Vesuvius erupted.
Life was very much in progress here. Our guide rattled off the food inventory of one of the bakeries we visited. So well preserved was the city that we apparently know how many chickens were inside. Or our guide has an easy, believable yarn.
Vesuvius from Pompeii.
We had another War Eagle Moment. This being, by the numbers, the biggest one I’ve ever had. I was taking pictures in the House of the Faun, the largest private residence in Pompeii, when a few girls said hello. They were traveling Europe. One of them, it turns out, may be one of The Yankee’s students one day. It was pretty cool.
War Eagle, ladies.
I count 18 of them, all in the perfect group pose. And notice the Faun in the bottom of the frame. That is a replica. The original decorated the impluvium, a basin for catching rainwater, is in a local museum alongside many of the other famous pieces of art from the house. The famous mosaic of Alexander the Great on display in the home is also a replica. But they replicated the damage, too, so at least there’s that.
There was an exhibit from Pompeii a few years ago at the Birmingham Museum of Art. People don’t often think of it, but that museum is top notch and was one of only two places the exhibit toured in the United States. So impressive was the exhibit, we saw it two or three times. Even still, Pompeii is an incredible place. It was a bustling hub of travel and trade before the volcano, sat hidden and forgotten for centuries and is now host to more than 2.5 million visitors a year. Today it felt almost peaceful.
Want to see more of Vesuvius and Pompeii? Here’s the gallery.
This is our last night on the ship. After we packed our bags and We sat on the veranda of our stateroom and watched the ocean slide by. In the morning we’ll have breakfast and sadly get off the ship for the last time. It has been an incredible cruise and a near perfect honeymoon (did I mention we had another minor bus wreck on the way down Mama Mia Road today?).
But it isn’t over yet. We still have more fun in Rome!
