Italy, a canal, and some cueca

Well friends, I'm getting close to the end of my first year in Germany, and this summer couldn't have been wrapped up any better. It feels as though several months of happenings were crammed into one, so I hope I can recall it in a coherent way. This will probably be a long post, so tuck in.

For starters, my sister, Chrystena, came to visit me in August and it was a blast. We spent a few days in Kassel, visiting the Herkules monument, having a barbeque with my friends, and walking through Kassel's expansive parks. The weather wasn't really terrible, just normal for Kassel (read: cold and dreary). Fortunately, we weren't staying long, and soon we took off for Italy! Chrystena visited Italy when she was in high school, but that was years ago, and things and people change. I had visited Italy only once, for two days in Venice, so I was eager to see more.

We landed in Rome, and made our way to our little guest house. It was less of a "guest house" and more of "an Italian woman's apartment". It was PERFECT. Anna Maria was pure Italian, and the sweetest woman I have ever met. She sat us on the balcony, made us tea and coffee, and told us what we should do in Rome. She stayed out of our way when we were in the apartment, but she was always pleasant and available if we had questions. We were certainly spoiled right from the start.

Rome itself was interesting, but not in the way I had expected. As you probably know, Rome is full of old things. It's the cradle of civilization and the first society and blah blah, and there is evidence of this everywhere. When I heard people talk about the "Roman Ruins", I imagined a spot with ruins, surrounded by tourists, informational signs, etc. Well, the official Roman Ruins are just like that, but I didn't imagine that there would be unofficial Roman Ruins all over the dang place. Everywhere we went, we tripped over ruins. In fact, our first day in Rome brought us to a little square filled with ruins, and cats. There was a cat sanctuary tucked into the corner of the ruins, and we spoke with the staff there. I learned that there are over 20,000 stray cats in Rome, and they live everywhere.

After hearing this, I noticed cats every place we went. One of the staff members, an Australian guy, gave voice to my thoughts about the rampant ruins. He commented that in Germany, if some historic buildings or sites are uncovered in the process of building or construction, experts are called in to analyze the findings, and they decide whether a) it's worthless - keep building, or b) this is important - stop building. German efficiency, as always. In Italy on the other hand, when historic buildings or sites are discovered, all work comes to a halt, and both the half finished construction and the half uncovered ruins are left untouched. Considering the centuries of incredible history in Rome, the result is a lot of seemingly abandoned work and ruins. This is interesting of course, when you pop out of the subway and are greeted with Ceasar's backyard.

But to be honest, it's also kind of ugly. There. I said it. Rome is ugly.

Don't get me wrong, on an intellectual level I truly appreciate the history and the magnificence and the importance. And in the case of the Colosseum and the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain, I appreciate it on a spiritual and aesthetic level as well.

(The Trevi Fountain is always crowded, day or night.)

But these ruins laying around look like ancient abandoned construction sites, complete with yellow caution tape. Big rocks, laying on their sides, crumbling pillars... sure, I get it. But when you see this on almost every corner, the fascination fades quickly. I realize that part of my apathy towards these relics of ancient civilization comes from my almost complete lack of knowledge about ancient Roman history. Perhaps if I knew more, it would spark some kind of stronger reaction in me. As it is, I don't know much and so I am content to nod and move on. I feel a much stronger connection with recent history, like World War II, and that is why Berlin grabbed me so much more. The history there is tangible, real, and the characters of that history are less foreign to me. Somehow, the sites and histories in Berlin (and Dresden and Munich and, and..) are alive and reachable. It hits me on a visceral level.

Well I've digressed quite a bit, haven't I? What city am I talking about? Ah right, Rome. Well, Rome is neato. We saw the "must-see" sites, took pictures of the Colosseum at night, and rubbed elbows with 456 million sweaty tourists.

I do have to give credit to Rome for owning Vatican city, though. (I know they don't OWN it, but they have it surrounded.) As I said, Chrystena had visited Italy before, and Rome and Vatican City were places she had visited already. When I saw the line to get into St. Peter's Cathedral, I wasn't so keen to go in, but she informed me that you simply have to see St. Peter's. I was skeptical, because an old church is an old church, right? (I may be getting cathedral fatigue from being in Europe for too long.) Well, I was wrong. St. Peter's is a damn impressive "old church". (Can you say that about the Vatican? Well, it is.) The sheer size and detail s breathtaking, and the light was just right to give the whole place a spiritual feel. I don't want to be one of those pretentious people who says things like, "you can see pictures of it, but you don't really knowuntil you've experienced the smell of St. Peter's." That's crap, and frankly it didn't smell like anything except tourists and candles. But I will say that I didn't understand the size and magnificence of it until I was standing in the middle, feeling very very small. My pictures probably won't do justice, but I can try.

Well, we left Pope-ville and after an underwhelming sightseeing tour ("That is an old building and an emperor hung out there, probably") we bid farewell to Rome. We took the EuroStar train to Florence, and all of a sudden I felt like we were on our way to REAL Italy.

Florence is the Italian/European/World capital of art, science, sculpture, food, wine and "give it up, you'll never be as great as Florence". The weather was warm and perfect, the city felt real and vibrant, and it was beautiful. Really, really beautiful. After checking into our lovely hotel, (thanks for the recommendation, Jenna!) we got ourselves on another sight-seeing tour. This one was infinitely better than the one in Rome, and I learned a ton. I couldn't possibly recall everything we saw, but I don't think I'll ever forget the views from the top of the hills, the river, and the tops of the cathedrals poking out from the sea of red roofs.

We took a walk around Florence after dark, and the city was transformed. I love seeing cities after the sun goes down; everything looks different, and there are usually less people around. The duomo is stunning, the river is beautiful, and the city seems to come alive with a different kind of energy. There were musicians and street performers and artists, and I was really impressed with the whole place. It just felt friendlier than Rome.

Chrystena had also previously been to Florence, but we both had the desire to see a bit of Tuscany outside of the main city. In true Ewen fashion, we went for the most ridiculous adventure we could find: horseback riding and wine tasting. We were picked up in Florence and driven about an hour outside of the city to a horse farm, loaded onto horses and trotted into the absurdly serene Tuscan countryside. It was a nice ride, although our guide was the opposite of friendly, and we didn't get to do anything other than trot slightly. Oh, and some of us had extremely unruly horses who refused to stay in line and horse-laughed in our faces when we tried to control them with the reins. Hilarious.

After the ride, we were taken to a local castle/winery for wine tasting. Boy was that incredible and delicious. In the past year or so, I've suddenly become a big fan of red wine, so I was really enjoying myself. We bought a few bottles as gifts, and I promised myself I wouldn't drink them before we got them home. We were then taken to lunch at a beautiful lakeside restaurant, and the food was totally delicious. It wasalso a huge benefit that our fellow riders/wine tasters/lunchers were friendly and interesting people. There were two young guys and a girl from Australia who were absolutely hilarious, and a family from Venzuela (although they currently live in Miami.) There were other groups with us at lunch too, and everyone was friendly and outgoing. It was a really nice day, and despite what we expected, the horseback riding wasn't even the beset part of the day.

We left Florence, and I was a bit sad. It felt like a real Italian city, as opposed to just a "real city", and I truly enjoyed it. We were headed for Venice, which of course is as Italian as you can find, but as I've mentioned before, I'm not convinced that it is a real place.

We arrived in the Venice train station and made our way on foot to our hotel. I knew the general area, as it was in the same neighborhood as the hotel I stayed in last time. We had directions from the website, but they were a bit useless. We went in circles for a short time, and then Chrystena sat with our bags while I went to scout it out on my own. As it turns out, it was across the tiny street from my last hotel, just very poorly labeled.

We checked into “The Best B&B in Venice” (although someone had crossed out “best” on the sign and written “worst, so we should have been warned) and found a very bare bones room with no towels or blankets. We were hungry and cranky, and the disappointing lodging didn’t help, but after a meal and a shower, we remembered that we were in Venice, and we went out to explore.

Chrys had never been to Venice, and so we wandered the tiny streets, bought souvenirs, and took 27,000 pictures. We ended our day watching a monstrously large cruise ship slowly make its way through one of the larger canals, and ate dinner on the water. We sat for hours, just talking, and it was one of the nicest evenings I’ve ever had.

We had to leave fairly early the next morning, so we said goodbye to Venice and caught the bus to the airport. It was sad to leave Venice as well, not just because it’s such an incredible place, but because our trip was coming to an end. We landed in Frankfurt and caught another bus to the main airport where we took the shuttle to our hotel. We unpacked all of our belongings and re-packed them for the impending trips home. I had less concern since I was only taking a train home, but Chrystena’s flight back to the US was the next morning, and so she had to be far more tactical.

We said goodbye at the airport the next morning, and I was truly sad to see her go. It was such an incredible 10 days, and it was important to spend so much time with my sister. We got on each others nerves, of course, but the bonus of being sisters is that you can annoy the crap out of each other, and a bit later you’re over it with no (or few) hard feelings.

Chrys had a successful flight home, while I managed to miss my train and lose my new hat. I suppose that’s about par for the course.

Back in Kassel the weather was positively drab, although from what I hear, drab was a huge step up from what the weather had been the previous week. (A good time to go to Italy, everyone said.) I had lunch, a nap, and then Eduardo and I went down to the Orangerie for an open air symphony concert. We met up with Christian and Christine and Lena, and thankfully the weather cooperated. The concert was absolutely wonderful, and the park was packed. We wondered where all these Kasselarians are on a normal Saturday; the city seems so empty most of the time. I suppose they are inside their homes watching TV or being efficient.

Anyway, since then I’ve fallen back into a routine of working and reading and writing papers. The weather has been up and down, as usual, and I’ve tried to take advantage of it when I could. Last week I went on a boat trip to the small town of Hann. Münden, just up the Fulda river, and while the weather was once again drab, it was a nice trip. The coolest part in my opinion was that we went through a series of four locks (or Schleusen, auf deutsch). I had never been in a lock before, and it was really cool. One of them actually had a change of over 15 meters! It was a hoot.

Another recent fun event was (another) barbeque that we had at my apartment. You may not be aware that Chile celebrated its 200^th anniversary of independence this year, on September 18^th. The best way to celebrate the hard fought struggle for independence and freedom is of course to throw a lot of meat over some hot coals, so that we did. Additionally, I assisted two actual Chileans in the making of empanadas, (which are delicious pockets of dough stuffed with ground beef and onions), and they were mouthwatering. It took hours of dough making and rolling and onion cutting and crying and beef cooking and dough-pocket making, but the results were totally worth it. As a bonus, we had enough leftover dough and beef to make a meat pie, topped with mashed potatoes, and I’m still working on finishing that. Yum.

Anyhow, it was different than our regular barbeques, because we had to celebrate Chile, which meant making the two Chileans dance their traditional dance, the Cueca. I have a video of this event, but it would be far too cruel of me to post it. Instead I will post this video of cueca dancing by two children, and you can imagine it being done far, far worse.

Well, that’s about it folks. I hope you have had as much fun this summer as I have, and I am truly looking forward to getting back to New England in time for fall.

Bis dann!