Faith + Reason = Truth

Roman Awe

The double espresso shot was strong and over quickly, as expected. The kids enjoyed their gelatti, with my wife opting for a cappuccino. Then, a text from Natalia - finally! She explained that she had six different properties checking out and then in this morning, and she apologized for her non-responsiveness. No matter the circumstance, an apology is always appreciated. And I never lost sight of the fact that she had been trying to accommodate us by allowing us to get into the apartment several hours earlier than her normal check-in time so that we could drop our bags and get to exploring Rome. It was about an hour later than we had initially discussed, and the apprehension of being in Europe for the first time while being unable to get a response from our only local contact, piled on top of so much sleeplessness with a long, full day of Roman sightseeing ahead of us had taken a toll, but it was time to regroup and get rolling!

Keeping an eye out for "Phyllis," Natalia's representative, I noted a hopeful-looking, smallish man of possibly Filipino descent making his way toward us on the narrow cobblestone street outside of Don Nino. Definitely not what I would be expecting to be a Phyllis. In fact, when I stepped toward him, prompting him to say "Mr. Worth?" to which I responded, "Phyllis?" I could feel my family thinking me a clueless idiot. Much to their surprise, however, came his enthusiastic '"Yes!" followed by an offer to grab some of our bags and follow him through a locked door on the street that was directly in front of us. Time for the first of many old, dimly lit staircases, coming as no surprise to any of us. Universally, a thing Americans notice about European travel is the lack of elevators and abundance of steps. Our expectations were duly met over the course of the following two weeks.

The place was ridiculously more spacious than a hotel would have been, which we already knew from the many pictures on the airbnb site. That's one of the great things about airbnb. You could theoretically run into some fraudulent image posting and find yourself in a place decorated completely differently than the pictures show (which never happened to us at any of our six apartments), but the place is the place, and you know what to expect when you walk in. Still, it felt more magical than I had anticipated, being in the home of someone who actually lived in Rome by the Pantheon (or at least had at one time, before deciding to go full airbnb with it and turn it into a rental property). We looked out the bedroom windows down onto the street a couple of stories below, a smattering of people walking and talking. It was still early, too early for the crowds we would see later on and especially into the night. Now, it was time to leave most of our belongings in a Roman apartment with a man we had just met a few minutes earlier, with no way to know who he actually was if we returned later to find some or all of it missing. After getting our keys from him and checking that we could get through the various doors between the street and our home for the next three nights, we were on our way.

First up was the Pantheon. I don't believe any of us were ready for how massive and awe-inspiring it would be inside. This was a sensation that would be repeated on numerous occasions over the coming thirteen days:  "wow, I knew this would be amazing, but not THIS amazing!" And there seemed to always be some little thing that could easily be missed or taken for granted, but if you noticed it, proved to be yet another incredible find. First up on this list was something none of us knew about the Pantheon, which was that Raphael is there. When he died at just 37 years old, he had already accomplished so much (including the magnificent fresco "The School of Athens," which has been the cover image of this very blog for many years) that his request to be buried at the Pantheon was honored. So there he lies, as he has for the past 500 years.

Next was the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II ("Il Vittoriano"), an enormous marble complex which looks ancient and spectacularly classical but is actually barely a hundred years old. It's a commemoration of Italy becoming a unified country under its first king, Victor Emmanuel. Again, this only happened in the late 1800's. The Kingdom of Italy.

I didn't take any pictures of the monumental building and steps, but here's one from the top of it. Really great vantage point from here, even better than from the top of the dome of St. Peter's. That's why we stopped there and spent more time than we had planned (yet another recurring theme of the trip).

It was getting hot and we needed food. A stroll down the length of the ruins of Trajan Forum's below street level (wide and spacious, while set much lower than the present day street level) and the Column of Trajan brought us to a shaded outdoor eatery for our first taste of pizza, pasta, and expensive bottled mineral water to accompany the meals. But with the Colosseum beckoning, we instead headed back to the apartment to regroup, freshen up (which we still had not been able to do since leaving America), and hit the trail refreshed and reinvigorated.

Upon our return, after our first Roman bus experience using our Roma Passes that we had purchased at a tobacco shop by the Pantheon for cash (which prompted our second ATM stop, the first one being the one in the airport), the place looked even better than before, with all of our belongings as we had left them. No worries! There was bottled water for us in the fridge, fresh fruit on the table, and after taking turns with the two bathrooms in the apartment (we already knew what a prized commodity that any free, i.e. non-pay, restroom in Rome was), it was back to the Colosseum.

Airbnb, the Pantheon, and Gelatti

Three months before the trip, we had not made a single hotel reservation. Despite knowing our exact travel dates since last July, this March rolled around with no accommodations booked. The one thing we had arranged by March, thanks to a suggestion from a friend who had traveled to Europe extensively including multiple trips to Rome, became one of the most moving experiences of the entire two weeks:  the Scavi tour.

Before that life-changing encounter with the bones of St. Peter, which came on Day 2 of the trip, we needed to get through Day 1. Upon landing at 7:30am Roma time (still only 12:30am back home in Texas, which we had left at around 7am Texas time the day before), we had no checked bags, strolling directly off the plane and into an awaiting line of international travelers, but the line to get through the passport check inside the airport still took a good half hour. We had read and watched much of what renowned travel expert Rick Steves had to say about European travel, and his advice had been to wait until landing at the airport to pull Euros out of an ATM. That would supposedly yield a better rate than exchanging money at a bank in the U.S. or at a money changer in Europe. I have no analysis to back up his claim, but I had (and still have) no reason to doubt his wisdom. We dutifully withdrew a couple hundred Euros to get us started, knowing that the drive to the airbnb would cost 55 of them. Credit cards were supposed to be widely accepted at restaurants and shops, and it's best to use them whenever possible, but cash is still necessary - more than we first realized, as we quickly blew through most of that initial 250 Euros.

A driver awaited us, holding a piece of paper with our last name written on it, outside of the customs area at the Roma airport. Older, very Italian, and smoking as soon as we walked outside (cigarette smoke is a big player in Europe, probably more so in Rome and the rest of Italy than in Provence or Barcelona, but definitely everywhere), Massimo spoke practically no English, but our Roman airbnb hostess had arranged it all ahead of time for us, so Massimo knew exactly where to drop us off. I Google Mapped the drive to the apartment, and he took the exact route it laid out. Not that it mattered, since the cost was already set.

After miraculously not hitting anyone or anything on his drive through the exceedingly tight, ancient streets of the historic part of the city, he dropped us at the Pantheon. Literally, directly next to the Pantheon, nothing between us and it. He told us he had just texted with our hostess (as I had attempted to do but received no replies) and she would be there to greet us in a minute. Then we paid him and he drove away.

So there we were, four people who had been awake for close to 24 hours straight, holding eight carry on pieces, standing next to the Pantheon in Rome. There was no hotel, no lobby, no place to hold our bags until our room was ready, no one to communicate with, since our hostess was not responding to messages through the airbnb app, texts, or phone calls. We did not even know where the apartment was, even though we had its address, since the streets are not usually marked very well and our intended address was nowhere to be found. Adding to the disorientation was the realization that the blue dot on our phone maps representing our location tended to randomly bounce around from block to block, so not only did you not know where you were going, but you also did not know where you were. This should not have been much of an issue standing at the Pantheon or other landmarks and open spaces that are easily located with satellite view on the map app, but it had not yet occurred to me to turn on satellite view (and would continue to prove problematic when walking the narrow alleys surrounded by tall stone structures on each side, which was pretty much the base case scenario in Rome and Venice). Suddenly, the amazing airbnb experience that had allowed us to secure spacious, washing machined, multi-bathroomed, perfectly located places to stay in every city at prices ridiculously lower than cramped hotel rooms and which were long sold out anyway, seemed like not such a great idea after all.

There was only one thing left to try, and it was a long shot due to the fact that it was still only 9am:  find some gelato (or gelatti as the Italians call it), which Rick Steves had assured us was the best in the world (in Italy in general, though more specifically in Florence to the north). Tired of schlepping heavy carry ons, I dropped mine with my family standing up against some ancient-looking stone facade a little ways from the Pantheon and walked up the plaza in front of the 2000-year old temple to the gods and took a side street. There, on the Via dei Pastini (which would prove to be the very street/alley that our apartment was on just a few doors down), was Don Nino, open for business. Having never heard of it, but seeing that the ice cream - sorry, gelatti - in its display case looked perfectly cold and yummy, I went back and retrieved the family. A minute or three of schlepping later, and we were all enjoying either our first shots of Italian espresso or the first of many, many gelattis! Still no word from Natalia, but that no longer mattered quite so much.

 

Getting to Europe

Europe had been a dream for years, since long before my wife and I were my wife and me. She had been to Germany and a smidgen of France with work before I knew her, and also to Berlin and Madrid while we were dating. Crushingly, I could not go with her on either occasion, but we were young, in our early-mid 20's, and there was always next time!

Twenty-something years later, we were not going to be denied. We went someplace every summer for a week or so, always to great American destinations. Nothing wrong with seeing one's own country before exploring the world, right? But with enough frequent flyer miles amassed, it was time to pull the trigger - a trigger that required being pulled eleven months in advance on American Airlines if we were to get the dates and airports we wanted. So we booked it last July for this June, as soon as school was out for the kids, and before the dreaded July and August. July and August bring two things to Europe that are to be avoided if at all possible:  heat, and lots of tourists. There are plenty of tourists in June, and the weather is certainly already warming up, but the northeastern U.S. as well as much of Europe gets out of school around the end of June, so things get far more crowded then. The masses make places and activities more expensive and tougher to reserve, while many Europeans take time off and close down their shops and restaurants. Meanwhile, the nice, warm weather of late spring and early summer turns into oppressive heat in some areas once late June and early July roll into town.

Flying from Dallas to Europe required a big decision:  which airport to fly into? Rome and Paris were always 1a and 1b as far as dream destinations, so we thought we would fly into Paris and then home from Rome. Maybe four or five days in each place, a week and a half total. Flights among big cities in Europe are short and cheap, so it would be easy to get from Paris to Rome. Many of these intercity flights are about an hour long and cost as little as $50 or $60 one way, which was shocking to see. One problem though:  none of us, especially my high school daughter, had any desire to be in Paris with the ongoing terrorist attacks that have targeted major cities including Paris, Brussels, and London. Rome is always a target as well, but whether due to the prayers of the faithful or extra tight security throughout the city or a combination of the two, it has not been rocked like the others. So we decided to fly to Rome, then home from Barcelona. And on the excellent advice of many, to extend the trip from 10 days to 14.

With the flight to Rome came a five-hour layover in New York, sandwiched between a 3.5 hour flight from DFW to LGA and a 8.5 hour flight from JFK to Rome, during which time we had to gather our baggage when we landed at LaGuardia, get a ride to JFK, and wait to take off from JFK to Rome. The flight back from Barcelona via Philly would be much simpler. Making all of this infinitely more doable was the fact that my wife and daughter made the bold, winner move of making their packing of two weeks' worth of clothing work with NO CHECKED BAGS. I cannot overstate how amazing this was for all of us! They made the sacrifice, and we all reaped the rewards. This act of kindness was made possible by the decision to do the trip in airbnb apartments, no hotels. Airbnb can mean multiple bathrooms, at least one living area, a kitchen, and crucially, a washing machine for clothes. Amenities such as these (and of course, air conditioning) can all be selected when the search for lodging on airbnb's magnificent website is being conducted.

Alas, all was not bliss when it came to some of the finer details of the airbnb experience. More to follow tomorrow.

 

Back from Europe

Bongiorno, and prego!

In my 48th year here on earth (which actually makes me 47, no doubt coming as a bit of a surprise to some people), the dream of visiting Europe was finally realized. Two cities have always been at the top of my list, and the first destination on this trip with my family was one of them:  Rome. Paris will have to wait.

For two glorious weeks, there was an endless stream of places, objects, and human remains that were many hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years old. This is not the case in America. The palpable sense of awe within each of us will stay with me for what I can only hope will be the rest of my days. As one who believes that travel is always worth it, no matter the cost or inconvenience or locale, seeing places such as these has instilled a sense of completeness within me that I didn't see coming. Let me explain...

Life is change, and change is life. When one finds a soulmate, the feeling that an irrevocable change has taken place is very real. That alteration, however, continues. The change keeps changing. It's the same with the birth of your child, or in our case, children. Yes, everything changes in that moment, but the changes keep on coming for the rest of their, and our, lives. In the ancient places that we experienced, some more ancient than others, there was an inescapable separation of "then" vs. "now," with the process of change somehow absent in the things themselves. The artifacts are still there (allowing for some decay and erosion) just as they have been for centuries.

The ruins, or objets d'art, or often still-beautiful and fully functional structures such as they were, had very obviously been created by people who are no longer here, and in that sense, they are creations that are frozen in time. They do not change. The Arch of Constantine remains largely, if not completely, as it was when it was created 1,702 years ago in the year 315. When I stood a short distance away, aware of the perfect late afternoon/early evening rays of sunlight that fell upon it, the only thing to do was to contemplate the countless others throughout the ages who had done the very same thing. Their clothing may have been different, as would the backdrop of other structures and surfaces, but the thing was the same, as were the people. Those people could have been us, but for being born in a different time, and we them. Our souls were created for eternity, while our experience in that physical space and moment in time is so fleeting as to seem almost non-existent. Somehow though, the memory persists forever.

This rumination has a point. Other people may be about to embark on similar journeys, if not tomorrow or next week, then maybe some years down the road, so in the hopes of providing some useful information to you and them, the plan for the coming days is to post something about each town we visited. I'll share details about the trip itself, what worked and what didn't, touching on our mostly positive but not perfect first experience with airbnb, traveling through Italy, France, and Spain on planes, trains, and automobiles (including rental cars and buses), phone usage for navigation and social media while relying on the cheap and awesome Google Project Fi wherever we were, the things we did and did not do...ok, I can start to see why so many people do travel blogs.

Arrivederci!

 

Creating

Seven days in a row, no work, just the family and some friends at a beach house in Florida.

Got to Day 5 or 6 before reading a single word of any of the reading material that I brought.

Other than plugging in the laptop with a wireless internet connection on the afternoon of our arrival, for the purpose of finding a map of the town we were in, and then checking a personal email account in the middle of the week for about 2 minutes, the computer was never turned on.

What did we do for seven days?

Created.  Sand castles, a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle, pottery glazing.  And biked.  And swam.  And ate and drank.

That's it.  No information absorption of any kind, for an entire week.  And that was the best week I can recall in a long, long time.  Then I thought back to other "best times I've had in a long time," and not a single one involved access to news, internet, or contact with the world that existed outside of my immediate surroundings and the people I was with.  Why is that?

I believe it's because there is a happiness continuum for most humans:

1. we are happiest when we are creatively doing [whether that creativity involves the moves on the court, the drawing on the page, the notes being played, the construction of a deck, or the problem-solving repair of a toilet], when we are physically engaged "in the moment";
2. failing that, the next level of happiness is realized when we are communicating about something we care about,
3. followed by learning in a group setting about things we care about,
4. followed by learning in an individual setting [and I suppose I very loosely consider media consumption and gaming as "learning"],
5. followed by daydreaming,
6. followed by doing things in a group setting that we don't enjoy,
7. followed by doing things alone that we don't enjoy,
8. followed by doing nothing while thinking negative thoughts.

Many people are unhappy in their jobs, or even their lives, and I wonder if the solution is as simple as spending more time on activities that are higher up on that happiness continuum.  Of course, that would mean spending less time on the activities that fall lower in the continuum (the term "hierarchy" is being consciously avoided, as hierarchies tend to represent things that build on one other, such that the lower items in the hierarchy are required in order to achieve the higher items; that is clearly not the case here, since people are able to engage at any point in the continuum without having participated in activities at other points).

But that opportunity cost isn't really much of a cost at all - in fact, it's yet another benefit to spending more time in the fun part of life.  Who has time for sadness, boredom, loneliness and depression, when more and more of their time is spent busily creating, doing, learning, and interacting with others?  Once a certain point is passed, once the pie has its biggest slice taken up by happiness and its smallest slice taken up by suckiness, the crappy parts are more easily endured due to the fact that our minds can deal with temporary and short-lived adversity far more effectively when it knows that it is just a drop in the ocean when compared to the happiness of engagement that is the norm.

Now, it's almost time for yet another engaging, happiness-inducing activity - as soon as I suffer through a short-term, life-force-draining activity that ranks REALLY low on my personal happiness continuum.

Austin, TX - I Mean, "Little Bucharest"

I took the family to Austin for the weekend for a visit to my other hometown (I attended the University of Texas) so that I could take in a Media Day for a cross-country solar car race between high school teams (the Dell-Winston Solar Car Challenge). While there, it was determined that Saturday would be spent at a water park on Lake Travis called Volente Beach, and the first things we noticed on the girls who worked there were the...accents. Unlike the rest of Austin, which is becoming more and more like San Antonio with its large and growing Hispanic population (the Mexican restaurant that we stopped at for dinner on the way into town on Friday not only served great Mexican food and spectacular margaritas, which is why we eat there every time we're in town; it also featured live entertainment with a couple of Ricky Martin and Shakira knock-offs fronting a band that performed only songs with Spanish lyrics, which the kids loved), the water park featured another accent in the mix. My wife said it reminded her of Disney World with the employees having exotic looks and accents. Eastern European was my guess, and more specifically, Romanian. Not that I've ever been to Romania or am in any way familiar with the language; just something about it and the people who spoke it seemed, well, Romanian. They were probably high school age, maybe early college, and as we were leaving, I asked one of them where her accent was from. The girl (one of the non-Romanians) replied, "Columbian." Then I asked why they ALL had either her accent or an Eastern European one, and she said they were all employed there, everyone at the park, as part of a foreign exchange program. She said they were all either Columbian or Romanian, or as she pronounced it, "Ro-MAH-nian." So there you have it - I KNEW I should have worked for the CIA with all of my language recognition prowess!