Hot Time in Rome

The past few days are almost too much to blog about, but we are going to give it a try. I say "we" since John is joining me in the editorial department since he is on holiday (that's vacation, if you are a yank).

When you fly from Heathrow Airport on an intra-European flight it’s a different experience than flying to the US. The shops are smaller and simpler. There really is no duty free. There also aren’t any lush spaces to relax and begin a journey. John likes to stop, have a nice meal and drink a glass of wine. He prefers a certain bistro in Terminal 3, but there is no branch in Terminal 2. As we wound our way through the airport we finally found luxury. It was ridiculous, but we decided to stop at a caviar-teria to have a nosh and something to drink. What better way to depart England for Italy?

Our Alitalia flight was uneventful. The airline and its planes are looking tired and worn. The flight was late and the supposedly "luxurious" in-flight service didn’t really materialize. When we retrieved our luggage, John’s bag had a strange tag on it. It said something along the line that the airline and airports take no responsibility for lost or damaged articles. More on this later…

We had arranged for a car to meet us and take us to our hotel. We booked a room at the Hotel Campo de’ Fiori online, sight unseen, and had no idea what to expect. It is hot in Rome and John does not tolerate the heat. He has more patience for Republicans! We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find a charming place with air conditioning and an elevator. The hotel continues to be pleasant, clean and well run. It is centrally located in Rome’s historical district, halfway between the Vatican City and the Roman Forum. And it’s just off a square that will play a central role in this blog.

Il brutto americano

Many Americans who travel come up against both the myth and the reality of the Ugly American. Americans abroad are often seen as unsophisticated, rude, arrogant and otherwise crude. This is somewhat unfair. Many Americans make their way through the capitals and small cities of the world with deference and appreciation while people of other nationalities often stand out as insensitive and rude. However, we cannot deny that the Ugly American exists and insists on being seen and heard. Over the years we have overheard phrases like: "How much is this in real money?" or "Who do you think invented democracy?"

On Monday evening we lived through one of the most shocking moments of Ugly Americanism possible. We were sitting at an outdoor table at a restaurant on the Campo de’ Fiori enjoying a wonderful meal. A very blond and very bland American family was seated near us. The father was immediately rude to the waiter, demanding water, olive oil and bread for his sons. As we heard bits and pieces of the conversation our ears became sharp as spears and the family didn’t seem bland any longer. At one point they were discussing Roman history and their single frame of reference was the movie Gladiator. While that film does a reasonable job of portraying the lives of gladiators and the bloody games the ancient Romans adored, it does take great liberties with history and has to be taken with a grain of salt. It was sad not to hear a single reference to a book, play, novel or historical document about Rome. The real shock came later as the family discussed their trip to the Vatican earlier in the day. One of the three sons asked his father (the mother rarely spoke up) if the Cardinals of the church still reported to the Jews. The father answered yes. He explained that the Catholic Church in Rome is and has always been a vehicle for the Jews to control the world and that is why the evangelicals left the original church. Who knew Hitler had spawn?

Sitting along side us was another American family: a father and daughter. They were clearly estranged by divorce or maybe separated by physical distance. Was he visiting her or was she visiting him? I don’t know. They tried, however. The father attempted Italian and the daughter tried to be interested in her father. They ate. They left. Nothing was settled. Location doesn’t always make a difference.

The Campo

The Campo de’ Fiori offers some great things. Six days a week there is a morning market with wonderful fresh fruit, cheese, meats, spices and oils. There are numerous cafes and restaurants lining the square. There is a wine bar called Vineria Reggio. Called "the coolest bar in the campo" by one of our guidebooks, this place has the most amazing collection of wines by the bottle or glass. You can also buy a bottle to take away. But you can’t buy drinks in bottles after 8 pm Friday through Sunday.

In the evening the campo is filled with street performers and musicians plying their trade. Some of the music is not bad, but the repertoire is a bit limited. One saxophone player only seems to know "My Way" and "Over the Rainbow." The star of the square was a teenage violin player with some skill and style. He was also able to belt a song (but day 3 of "O Sole Mio" was enough). We made sure we tipped him every evening and were soon greeted with a hello when we crossed the plaza.

Una donna perduta

All of our time in the campo has been shadowed by a homeless woman. She is perhaps around 60 years old, but might be younger. She is heavy set, gray, ruddy and dressed in a blue and white striped muumuu. She is in some strange way a personification of Italy. She doesn’t beg. She doesn’t perform. She is. People bring her food and water. We gave her water several times. We have seen her every day at different hours. I would never want to live her life, but I am happy that she actually smiles when you give her water or something to eat. She lives in this square and nobody disturbs her; amid all the commerce going on around her, she is allowed her space. We may not be able to learn from her as she is lost, but I can learn from the people around her.

L'intimo perso!

How do you explain that as you forage through your suitcase for some fresh underwear you suddenly realize you’ve been robbed? When you can, tell me how and I will do a better job than this! I know I packed at least eight pair--I remember counting. I had four in my suitcase when I got to Rome. Hmmmm. The only missing underwear was Italian. So I bought some new ones today. Let's see if they get stolen on the return trip.

This past week was a fairly quiet week. On Sunday John went down to Stratford-upon-Avon for a sales meeting so I was on my own until Wednesday.

One evening I went to the Old Vic to see a performance of Shaw's Pygmalion, or as it's known in some circles: My Fair Lady without the singing and dancing. Tim Pigott-Smith played Henry Higgins and newcomer Michelle Dockery was a riveting Eliza Doolittle. The theater itself is historic; the walls of the lobby and stairways are covered with photos of so many famous actors in productions going back to the last century: Peggy Aschcroft, Judi Dench, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Lawrence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith, etc.

Another highlight of the week was going out after work with John's colleagues. I'd heard a lot about them, but had never met most of them. As it happened, the chosen pub was Fifty-five Bar & Lounge near our flat that I mentioned in my blog on July 9. It was fun to put faces to the names I'd heard. Unfortunately, at 2:4:1 I had too many Manhattans and awoke with a groggy head.

Why is there a photo of the Roman Colosseum on the page, you ask? That's because we're going to Italy on Saturday evening for two weeks. A week in the Eternal City and a week in Tuscany. I will try to write some entries while in Italy.

Time Travel

I returned Sunday to Cambridge, England, for the first time in 26 years. In the summer of 1982 I was a naive 17-year-old who spent three weeks there with a group of high school classmates and an Anglophile history teacher chaperon. Our group was one of several that descended on this British Mecca of higher education every summer "to study" light subjects. Ours were Shakespeare, British geography and parliamentary debate, and I'm sure we were a constant pain to our teachers. On the whole, we were privileged American children with little world experience.

Our Shakespeare instructor was a young man trying to get us excited about Much Ado About Nothing and had the bad luck of teaching us first thing in the morning. "WILL YOU PLEEEEEEASE STOP YAWNING!" is the phrase I remember him uttering the most--much more than anything about the Bard. The geography teacher was a jolly Scotsman who preferred to talk more about golf than the origins of the River Thames. And the debate teacher a very colorful, degenerate Anglican priest who taught us the finer points of verbally tearing the opposition to shreds, with humor and sexual innuendo, if possible.

After my recent visit, I'm not sure what has changed more: the town or me. The ancient college buildings don't seem to have aged at all. But the signs that the university as a whole and the town had changed were everywhere. Cambridge has become modern with new shopping centers, chain stores and shiny new hotels. There's a Starbucks, for Pete's sake. And the tourists! The hoards and hoards of tourists! Had it been like that way back when? I don't think so.

The most striking change for me was the fact that all the colleges now charge an entry fee for visitors. In 1982 we strolled through the various college courts free as birds. We'd cut through one college to get to another. You could enter the magnificent Chapel at King's College whenever you wanted. No longer. Some colleges are completely closed to visitors and others charge anywhere from 2 GBP to 5 GBP to enter. I had to visit my old haunts at Clare College (2 GBP) and I coughed up the 5 GBP ($10) to get into King's College Chapel, but I rebelled at the others. So I missed seeing some of my favorite architectural highlights, like the Wren Library at Trinity College.

I commiserated with several university employees about these changes and they agreed that things were not as nice now as they were years ago. "It's just the way the world is now." I know it's a sign of the times, but it made me sad. You can't take one step in London, Cambridge and elsewhere without your movements being recorded on closed circuit TV. You see CCTV signs everywhere.

Still, I tried not to let it get me down. I visited the residence hall where we stayed and the Old Court of Clare College where we took our mediocre meals. I gazed at the beautifully manicured lawns, remembering that walking upon them was verboten. I spent a long time in King's College Chapel staring at the amazing fan-vault stone ceiling from the 16th century. The vaulting, stained glass windows, soaring spaces, make the Chapel one of the greatest wonders of architecture anywhere in the world. I watched people punting on the River Cam, enjoying the summer sun.

By then it was nearly 4 o'clock and I'd been walking around the town since 10 in the morning. I suddenly noticed I was 43 years old, tired and my feet hurt. So much for reclaiming my youth! Time to point my tired feet toward the train station and head back to Camden Town.

Click here if you want to see more photos of my stroll down memory lane.


Interesting Summer 1982 tidbits:

In the summer of '82 Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union...there still was a Soviet Union. Israel had just invaded Lebanon, sparking a war and the Lebanese Civil War. We arrived into a triumphant Great Britain: they had just won the Falklands War and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was riding high. Prince William, the heir to the British throne, had just been born and was baptized; an intruder broke into Buckingham Palace and sat on the bed of Queen Elizabeth II, chatting with her for 10 minutes before security arrived; and the Provisional IRA detonated 2 bombs in central London, killing 8 soldiers, wounding 47 people, and leading to the deaths of 7 horses. The first CDs went on the market.

The Man Who Was "Bond...James Bond"

The Imperial War Museum London has an interesting special exhibit right now on the life and works of writer Ian Fleming. The exhibit is irresistibly entitled For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond. Being a major James Bond fan I could not help but go.

I knew the basic facts about Fleming's life and, as some of you know, I've been working my way through the James Bond novels, but this exhibit gave me a much fuller vision of the man.

Fleming had a lot of love affairs--a real playboy. He preferred older, married women with no strings attached. There were numerous photos of him with these women on the beach, on the ski slopes and at cocktail parties. He didn't marry until he was over 40.

Despite coming from a well-connected family (his father was a close friend of Winston Churchill), Fleming lacked direction in his life until World War II. His work in British naval intelligence was the making of him, and the making of James Bond, as it turned out.

The exhibit has great JamesBondania within. Original manuscripts of the novels, hundreds of examples of the novels translated into other language, posters of the movies, original movie production sketches, guns, gadgets and on and on. I particularly enjoyed seeing the shoes with the poisoned knife in the toe that Lotte Lenya tried to stab Sean Connery with in From Russia With Love.

The rest of the Imperial War Museum is amazing and daunting. I hadn't been there since 1995 and the place has been improved so much. The main hall displays airplanes, armor (armour), missiles, weapons, bombs and all that good stuff. There are extensive exhibits on the World Wars and conflicts post-1945. There is also a very sobering Holocaust exhibit. The place is worth a visit if you make it to London.

In the museum shop I was sorely tempted to relive my childhood by buying a Corgi model of the Q Branch Aston Martin with the ejector seat or the Corgi model of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang (which Fleming wrote) with the wings that spring out when you move the gear lever forward...but I didn't.

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For All You Wizards & Muggles Out There

From www.Londonist.com:

Platform 9 and 3/4 To Be Disapparated

"Harry Potter may have completed his seven years at school, but younger wizardlings are in for several years of service disruption on the Hogwart's Express. Platform 9 and 3/4 will be shifted later this year to allow construction work on the West side of King's Cross, according to Jon Burden the former Duty Station Manager at King's Cross, who led a tour of the area yesterday. The enchanted platform will be relocated to the front of the station, close to the ticket office, in September."

Read on...

Hampton Comes Courting or Learning to Drive on the Left

Last Saturday was a perfect day to go for a ride. It was sunny and warm, and we had a ZipCar reserved for the day. The only trick was I had to remember how to drive on the left side of the road. How hard could it be?

It wasn't the big city driving that worried me. I like driving around New York when I have the chance. No, it was remembering to stay on the left side of the road, to follow all the rather foreign traffic signs and to operate a left-handed manual transmission. We were in a new Cooper Mini. It's a cool and trendy automobile, but rather challenging to get into and out of especially if one has large feet like me. I did get the hang of driving it, after a fashion, but had trouble judging the location of the left front tire a few times. Just ask passenger John.

Anyway, Saturday was a great day for hopping in a car and heading up (or is it down or maybe sideways) to Hampton Court Palace. We didn't have a detailed road map of England so we got a bit lost and went a wee bit out of our way. We also decided to visit the palace on the weekend when the largest flower show in Europe is held there. Traffic jams are more aggravating on the left for some reason. Just when we were seriously questioning our judgment, we arrived and found a reserved parking lot just for palace visitors.

Hampton Court Palace is an amazing place architecturally and historically. Thomas Cardinal Wolsey built it into a magnificent palace and Henry VIII took it from him as punishment when the cardinal and chancellor could not get the pope to approve Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Henry lived here with 5 of his 6 wives. Two of those lucky women would be beheaded, one died in childbirth, one was annulled and one survived him.

Hampton Court remained the British monarch's principle residence through the reigns of the Tudors, Stuarts and Hanoverians (up to George II, after which it fell out of favor). It is incredible in part because you can see very different architectural styles: Tudor/Elizabethan and Baroque. William and Mary hired the great Christopher Wren to renovate Hampton Court. He wound up destroying much of the Tudor palace, but built an equally impressive addition. What remains is part 16th century, part 17th century. We spent hours walking through the rooms and courtyards captivated by the wealth on display at every turn. Highlights included the Great Hall with its amazing hammer beam roof and the Chapel Royal. The gardens are lush and there is a maze which we have to return to see. It's well worth a trip.

Click here if you want to see more my Hampton Court photos.

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East End

After the excitement of seeing those bats in their feeding frenzy I decided to have a different kind of experience on Friday. John worked from home in the morning. His colleagues were all attending a company cricket match. Since he doesn’t know a googly from a wicket he decided to pass on a visit to the pitch (too much local colour?).

In the afternoon we hopped on a bus for a nice ride to the East End of London. This is the home of Cockney speech, Jack the Ripper, beigels along Brick Lane and, of course, that great British soap opera: EastEnders.

We arrived at a place called Old Spitalfields Market. We had been here 10 years before, but now didn’t recognize a thing. Built in the 1880s as a wholesale fruit and vegetable market, it became a general market where vendors sold antiques, bric-a-brac, clothing, artwork and the like. It was a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon when it got very crowded. The run-down market was a special slice of London life.

Well, we found 2/3 of the historic market had been demolished. Where once there was a Victorian iron-and-glass canopy there is now a steel-and-glass commercial office complex, complete with designer brands, attitude and gourmet food. The general market still takes place in what's left of the old place, but in our opinion it's been scrubbed a little too clean and its quirkiness is gone.

We left the market hoping to find the remains of the East End we once saw. Still standing across from the Market is an interesting old pub called The Ten Bells. It was the place where two of Jack the Ripper’s victims were last seen. It still retains a worn shabby look, but it's a planned shabby-chic look for tourists like us. The beer was OK but no ghostly apparitions to report.

We also stopped in Christ Church across from the pub. It has been restored magnificently, reversing the effects of a misguided Victorian "renovation" (what was wrong with those Victorians?) and decades of neglect. The church is a beautiful example of "English baroque" architecture.

After the church tour (sounds so wholesome) we headed to Brick Lane. This street is something like a one-block version of the Lower East Side of New York. Over the past 2 centuries every recent immigrant group established a beach head and now there is a commingling of cultures with some chic fringe. This is one place you can get a nosh at two in the morning if you have a craving. We headed to one of the famous beigel emporiums (that is bagel shops for you Yanks). What a bargain: 6 fresh plain bagels in a bag plus 2 filled bagels (that means one with tuna and another with butter) all for 2.50 GBP ($5). This is the cheapest thing you can buy in London. We finished the afternoon off by stopping into a South Asian grocery store and buying enough spices, sauces and assorted things to satisfy any curry cravings for a while.

Click here if you want to see my photos from this outing.