The famous Italian countryside rushes past at two hundred kilometers per hour. Here it’s less the idealized rolling hills and vineyards of Umbria or Tuscany and more cultivated farmland. As if Kentucky had thousand year old farmhouses and medieval watchtowers atop the hills. The mountains, ever to the east and distant from Gricignano, grow ever closer. I blast directly through one and my ears can feel the weight.
In Naples the mountains you see over the water are on the Amalfi coast. We’ll go there soon. But the peaks I can see have a literal blanket of cloud wrapping around the top of them. I can almost feel the soft fabric of the cloud, draped like a snuggie over the invisible, snow-covered mountaintops. I wonder how tall they are, from what height they look down at the world. When the blanket shifts, and as I draw closer, I can see that it’s not all that high, after all. But I still wonder…
There’s snow nearly all the way down these mountains. If I was a few hundred feet taller than I am, perhaps I’d have snow in my hair now, too. It’s January, and I know that not far above Rome snow is actually falling on the ground.
As I watch the small towns flit by, I write in my notebook, “Every town is brimming with secrets, every mountain begs me to climb.” But I stop, because I’m not sure if that’s true of if it’s just mysterious-sounding claptrap. I’m an ant, who today scurries about the ground and tomorrow lies shriveled on his back, and if I’d rather an ant not climb me. And are these towns more mysterious to me because they’re Italian? I didn’t think the same when I drove through Kentucky less than a month ago.
My mind drifts back about nine years, when I was on a train to Rome with Peter, Erin and Laura. Am I laden with more answers, more blinders than I was nearly a decade ago? Has my experience these years—getting married, serving in the Navy, having a child, acquiring the numerous possessions and habits that come with having a stable home—made me more or less receptive than I was as a boy?
Time passes, and this countryside doesn’t change much. I change, though. We change. I’m facing backward on the train, which gives me a feeling of being sucked along at these incredible speeds. I’m being sucked towards Rome.
There’s a story in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (which also serves as source material for this blog’s name) that talks about a man whom God has caught “with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”
Is it the twitch upon my thread I feel as night falls and the train sucks me, sucks me toward Rome?
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Walk, run, crawl
It didn’t take me long to get into the city. Some people take a wait and see attitude, where they want to get their affairs in order, get permission, or check into their hotel room at least before venturing out. I had the opportunity to go straight from the airport to an Italian pizzeria, start meeting people and walking the streets of Naples.
Since then the Navy has given me the opportunity to crawl, but the only crawling Paul has let me do is a pub crawl Friday night called Paulapalooza—his farewell party. He’s been walking me through the intricacies of Vomero (Piazza Vienvitelli. I’ll take you there sometime) and life and work out here.
I take off at a run when I borrow Grant’s car Sunday and try my hand at driving (see previous post). I am surprised at the ease with which I slip into the Naples-mode I’d observed from the passenger seat. It’s almost natural. There are few rules, so as long as you’re following those you’re fine, right? Probably not, but I’m fine this fine Sunday.
Garmin in hand, destination plugged in and the metallic British voice telling me to “please drive to highlighted route,” I set off into the morning sunshine. Just inside the Naples border, I get lost. Then I realize the British voice is mispronouncing all the street names so horribly I can understand none of it, not to mention the street signs are carved in stone high above normal eye level and largely grimed-over into illegibility.
At one point I find myself literally inside the gated port area, driving parallel to the road the Garmin wants me to be on. The policemen just wave me on, rolling their eyes at my hopeless Italian. Later I realize the street the British voice has taken me down is too narrow for the car, so I reverse out of it. The sunny sky is completely invisible here.
It becomes so comical I almost stop and try to program a way out of here. But when I pick up the device I notice the checkered flag on the screen—I’m just blocks away! Success! Way to go Garmin. Safe and sound and the car (not to mention Neapolitan pedestrians) unscathed.
Christ Church of Naples, the Anglican Church that is my destination this morning, hides between apartment buildings in the shade, so it was very cold inside. It seems too convenient to contrast the temperature with the warm and friendly souls attending, so I’ll just segue into saying how impressed and grateful I am by the welcome they gave me. I was immediately an old friend among the British expats and students, all of whom know and love Pat and Ashley, my friends and the reason I came.
The vicar mentioned a ceremony he was attending that night at the Naples cathedral, where he would sign a document along with Catholic priests and bishops from around the region admonishing and teaching us to work for unity in the church. How fitting that he mention this in this building, which has been in continual use since Girabaldi, the man who unified Italy in the 19th century, had it built against the wishes of the Catholic church to meet the needs of Anglicans in Naples. Unity. Still a foreign concept to just about all of us. “Let them be one,” Jesus prayed, “as You and I are One.”
The waterfront rings with the laughter of friends new and old as we stroll the market after church.
Well today is a crawl day. I take the bus with forty other newbies to the NATO base, where we split into two groups and walk to the train station (we’ll be able to park our car here for future trips into the city—free and secure). Our tour guide spends several minutes explaining what an all-day pass for the Naples public transportation is. A giornaliero.
Our group walks through the streets, gawking like tourists and taking pictures. I’m a tourist today, so I take some too. Down via Toledo, named by the conquering Spanish and renamed (unsuccessfully) via Roma this past century. We pause for a caffe in Galeria Umberto, and we scatter to wander for an hour. Piazza Plebescito, by the Royal Palace. I imagine the enormous square full of peasants turning out to see the king, or to protest. The place is strangely quiet in the midst of this roiling city.
I glimpse the sea. Leaving the piazza I see a garden and a street running along the water. It looks so familiar… Oh! I know why! I drove on that street yesterday.
Bring it, Naples. I’m settling into a comfortable jog. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Since then the Navy has given me the opportunity to crawl, but the only crawling Paul has let me do is a pub crawl Friday night called Paulapalooza—his farewell party. He’s been walking me through the intricacies of Vomero (Piazza Vienvitelli. I’ll take you there sometime) and life and work out here.
I take off at a run when I borrow Grant’s car Sunday and try my hand at driving (see previous post). I am surprised at the ease with which I slip into the Naples-mode I’d observed from the passenger seat. It’s almost natural. There are few rules, so as long as you’re following those you’re fine, right? Probably not, but I’m fine this fine Sunday.
Garmin in hand, destination plugged in and the metallic British voice telling me to “please drive to highlighted route,” I set off into the morning sunshine. Just inside the Naples border, I get lost. Then I realize the British voice is mispronouncing all the street names so horribly I can understand none of it, not to mention the street signs are carved in stone high above normal eye level and largely grimed-over into illegibility.
At one point I find myself literally inside the gated port area, driving parallel to the road the Garmin wants me to be on. The policemen just wave me on, rolling their eyes at my hopeless Italian. Later I realize the street the British voice has taken me down is too narrow for the car, so I reverse out of it. The sunny sky is completely invisible here.
It becomes so comical I almost stop and try to program a way out of here. But when I pick up the device I notice the checkered flag on the screen—I’m just blocks away! Success! Way to go Garmin. Safe and sound and the car (not to mention Neapolitan pedestrians) unscathed.
Christ Church of Naples, the Anglican Church that is my destination this morning, hides between apartment buildings in the shade, so it was very cold inside. It seems too convenient to contrast the temperature with the warm and friendly souls attending, so I’ll just segue into saying how impressed and grateful I am by the welcome they gave me. I was immediately an old friend among the British expats and students, all of whom know and love Pat and Ashley, my friends and the reason I came.
The vicar mentioned a ceremony he was attending that night at the Naples cathedral, where he would sign a document along with Catholic priests and bishops from around the region admonishing and teaching us to work for unity in the church. How fitting that he mention this in this building, which has been in continual use since Girabaldi, the man who unified Italy in the 19th century, had it built against the wishes of the Catholic church to meet the needs of Anglicans in Naples. Unity. Still a foreign concept to just about all of us. “Let them be one,” Jesus prayed, “as You and I are One.”
The waterfront rings with the laughter of friends new and old as we stroll the market after church.
Well today is a crawl day. I take the bus with forty other newbies to the NATO base, where we split into two groups and walk to the train station (we’ll be able to park our car here for future trips into the city—free and secure). Our tour guide spends several minutes explaining what an all-day pass for the Naples public transportation is. A giornaliero.
Our group walks through the streets, gawking like tourists and taking pictures. I’m a tourist today, so I take some too. Down via Toledo, named by the conquering Spanish and renamed (unsuccessfully) via Roma this past century. We pause for a caffe in Galeria Umberto, and we scatter to wander for an hour. Piazza Plebescito, by the Royal Palace. I imagine the enormous square full of peasants turning out to see the king, or to protest. The place is strangely quiet in the midst of this roiling city.
I glimpse the sea. Leaving the piazza I see a garden and a street running along the water. It looks so familiar… Oh! I know why! I drove on that street yesterday.
Bring it, Naples. I’m settling into a comfortable jog. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Driving in Naples, part 1
I’ve been warned repeatedly not to draw conclusions about Naples and about Italy. I should be wary of classifying or otherwise definitively describing any observed action—driving, for instance—because invariably there will be a much larger back story than I could ever hope to learn, let alone summarize or explain.
These warnings, much like the staggering hubris that every word I vomit into the blogosphere actually edifies the six people who read it, ought to make me pause at least for a moment or two before sitting down to write about my impressions of Italian driving so far. But I got my Italian driver’s license today, without once getting behind the wheel in this continent, so before I actually participate in the madness I’ll give a summary of what I’ve seen as a green outsider.
This will undoubtedly be the first of many posts about this invigorating example of Italian creativity.
I’ve ridden in buses and cars in Haiti. Often during those harrowing, white-knuckle prayer meetings we called transits, our police escorts would brandish their heavy rifles or machine guns at anyone refusing to give us the right of way. Which was everyone. Even when we were in oncoming traffic’s far right lane on an eight-lane “road” (as best I could make out), our speed didn’t correspond to any reality my mind could comprehend. Any atheists who survived their foxholes would be singing hallelujah on those roads and praying to the bright, shiny Jesus who grinned from every psychedelic city bus in Port-au-Prince.
So, that being said, I don’t expect to die on the roads here in Naples. I still haven’t seen a random cement wall built across two lanes of highway. No guns have been brandished to defend right of way. In fact, there’s a lot to be said for the highway rules as the Italians understand them. Very much used to living close together and breathing the exact same oxygen as ten members of their extended family, they don’t believe anyone is entitled to an entire lane all by themselves. Merging onto the freeway doesn’t require all these lane changes, just a little shift over the white lines, about a third of the car, as you decide which of you is going faster. No biggie.
The left lane is just for passing. If you don’t move over, you’re probably not from here.
When traffic is stopped (traffic jams, stoplights), motorcycles, mopeds, vespas, etc. are actually allowed to zip between cars (yes, they can fit even when three lanes become five, six, seven). My gut tells me to ignore them and they won’t run into the back of me. Confirmed in today’s driving safety course. All very academic, of course.
Your mirrors don’t belong to you. Don’t cling to your possessions, man.
City intersections are a delicate dance, a fine art I will have to study and study and stumble through many times before I have any idea what’s going on there. But they don’t stop if they don’t have to, and they don’t waste time or money on stoplights.
And all the people I’ve ridden with will have to relearn how to drive when they get back to the states. You can’t do most of what Italians do on the road in America, with the exception of somehow NOT hit other cars. That’s perfectly legal where I grew up, but they tell me that per capita there are many, many more accidents and more deaths on the DC beltway than on Naples.
We’ll see. I wonder what I’ll have to unlearn in a few years. Stay tuned as I learn the roads…
These warnings, much like the staggering hubris that every word I vomit into the blogosphere actually edifies the six people who read it, ought to make me pause at least for a moment or two before sitting down to write about my impressions of Italian driving so far. But I got my Italian driver’s license today, without once getting behind the wheel in this continent, so before I actually participate in the madness I’ll give a summary of what I’ve seen as a green outsider.
This will undoubtedly be the first of many posts about this invigorating example of Italian creativity.
I’ve ridden in buses and cars in Haiti. Often during those harrowing, white-knuckle prayer meetings we called transits, our police escorts would brandish their heavy rifles or machine guns at anyone refusing to give us the right of way. Which was everyone. Even when we were in oncoming traffic’s far right lane on an eight-lane “road” (as best I could make out), our speed didn’t correspond to any reality my mind could comprehend. Any atheists who survived their foxholes would be singing hallelujah on those roads and praying to the bright, shiny Jesus who grinned from every psychedelic city bus in Port-au-Prince.
So, that being said, I don’t expect to die on the roads here in Naples. I still haven’t seen a random cement wall built across two lanes of highway. No guns have been brandished to defend right of way. In fact, there’s a lot to be said for the highway rules as the Italians understand them. Very much used to living close together and breathing the exact same oxygen as ten members of their extended family, they don’t believe anyone is entitled to an entire lane all by themselves. Merging onto the freeway doesn’t require all these lane changes, just a little shift over the white lines, about a third of the car, as you decide which of you is going faster. No biggie.
The left lane is just for passing. If you don’t move over, you’re probably not from here.
When traffic is stopped (traffic jams, stoplights), motorcycles, mopeds, vespas, etc. are actually allowed to zip between cars (yes, they can fit even when three lanes become five, six, seven). My gut tells me to ignore them and they won’t run into the back of me. Confirmed in today’s driving safety course. All very academic, of course.
Your mirrors don’t belong to you. Don’t cling to your possessions, man.
City intersections are a delicate dance, a fine art I will have to study and study and stumble through many times before I have any idea what’s going on there. But they don’t stop if they don’t have to, and they don’t waste time or money on stoplights.
And all the people I’ve ridden with will have to relearn how to drive when they get back to the states. You can’t do most of what Italians do on the road in America, with the exception of somehow NOT hit other cars. That’s perfectly legal where I grew up, but they tell me that per capita there are many, many more accidents and more deaths on the DC beltway than on Naples.
We’ll see. I wonder what I’ll have to unlearn in a few years. Stay tuned as I learn the roads…
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A state of receptivity
Shirley Hazzard is a writer who has lived in and around Naples on and off for many years. She has a great quotation near the end of her book Dispatches from Naples I’d like to share:
“Like luck itself, Italy cannot be explained. We arrive, from modern cities and societies that have all the answers, armored with explanations. If we have any sense, we will for a time fall—not silent, but in a state of receptivity; for Italy, which harbors mysteries and arouses imagination, does not supply solutions. A sense of relief felt by visitors springs, rather, from being restored to unclassifiable experience: we are encouraged to stop defining life, and to live it.”
For me, the idea of “being restored to unclassifiable experience”—whether hiking in the Alps at dawn or just having a tickle war with Julie and Aryn—is that magic we seek. To stop or to look back and just wonder, mouth agape. The Christianese term of “blessing” comes nowhere close, though “abundance” does a little better, and “the glory of God” either cheapens the experience or cheapens God. But I wonder if this magical feeling isn’t very near the experience we’ll have when we do finally gaze upon God’s glory, if not the very Thing itself. I imagine quite a bit more terror in that, our final act.
So therefore I am now striving for a state of receptivity. I’m fortunate to have a “varsity” tour guide. I’m seeing parts of Naples already that most people who live here never see. If I can ever find my way back, I’ll take you there sometime. Piazza Dante. Near the art institute.
“Through that doorway and to the left is a very good vegetarian restaurant,” Paul says offhand. “So if you ever have visitors who are vegetarians, you can take them there.”
“Wow,” comments his friend, who has also lived in Vomero for nearly two years, “that’s varsity knowledge, man.”
“Couldn’t they just have pizza Margharita?” I wonder. It’s the native pizza to Naples. I had an amazing one at Caprese the other night. It’s very simple, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and a bit of basil. But the Campania mozzarella is worth whatever you paid to get here, and “just” is never an appropriate word to accompany a local pizza Margharita.
The cab took us through the Spanish Quarter (where the Spanish troops lived during one of Naples’ innumerable occupations these past 3000 years), and the stars were blotted out in the narrowest streets I’ve ever seen cars on. Wash hung from every window. I thought we’d snag sweaters and bras off the lines on both sides at once.
Paul opines, “If Naples would gets its act together, clean up a little bit, it could be a bigger draw than Florence or Rome. It has at least as much to offer. Maybe more.”
I’d agree. But we both know that’s not likely. It will remain undiscovered, feared or scorned by people not forced to explore it by proximity. That’s fine by me. I’ll be here for the next few years. Receiving.
“Like luck itself, Italy cannot be explained. We arrive, from modern cities and societies that have all the answers, armored with explanations. If we have any sense, we will for a time fall—not silent, but in a state of receptivity; for Italy, which harbors mysteries and arouses imagination, does not supply solutions. A sense of relief felt by visitors springs, rather, from being restored to unclassifiable experience: we are encouraged to stop defining life, and to live it.”
For me, the idea of “being restored to unclassifiable experience”—whether hiking in the Alps at dawn or just having a tickle war with Julie and Aryn—is that magic we seek. To stop or to look back and just wonder, mouth agape. The Christianese term of “blessing” comes nowhere close, though “abundance” does a little better, and “the glory of God” either cheapens the experience or cheapens God. But I wonder if this magical feeling isn’t very near the experience we’ll have when we do finally gaze upon God’s glory, if not the very Thing itself. I imagine quite a bit more terror in that, our final act.
So therefore I am now striving for a state of receptivity. I’m fortunate to have a “varsity” tour guide. I’m seeing parts of Naples already that most people who live here never see. If I can ever find my way back, I’ll take you there sometime. Piazza Dante. Near the art institute.
“Through that doorway and to the left is a very good vegetarian restaurant,” Paul says offhand. “So if you ever have visitors who are vegetarians, you can take them there.”
“Wow,” comments his friend, who has also lived in Vomero for nearly two years, “that’s varsity knowledge, man.”
“Couldn’t they just have pizza Margharita?” I wonder. It’s the native pizza to Naples. I had an amazing one at Caprese the other night. It’s very simple, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and a bit of basil. But the Campania mozzarella is worth whatever you paid to get here, and “just” is never an appropriate word to accompany a local pizza Margharita.
The cab took us through the Spanish Quarter (where the Spanish troops lived during one of Naples’ innumerable occupations these past 3000 years), and the stars were blotted out in the narrowest streets I’ve ever seen cars on. Wash hung from every window. I thought we’d snag sweaters and bras off the lines on both sides at once.
Paul opines, “If Naples would gets its act together, clean up a little bit, it could be a bigger draw than Florence or Rome. It has at least as much to offer. Maybe more.”
I’d agree. But we both know that’s not likely. It will remain undiscovered, feared or scorned by people not forced to explore it by proximity. That’s fine by me. I’ll be here for the next few years. Receiving.
My first night in Naples.
1/13
My first glimpse of Naples, from the night sky (night? what time is it?), shows me hills and tightly packed flats. I hear someone behind me say “looks crowded down there.” I’m on the lookout for the famous Neapolitan traffic. It is rush hour. I can discern nothing out of the ordinary from the sky. Headlights, brake lights, cars moving, cars slowing.
“Yeah, let’s get something to eat,” I say to Paul, the guy whose job I’ll be taking over in a few weeks. I‘m not hungry in the least. But I am really thirsty, and I guess I can eat. Who can discern the vagaries of his or her own stomach when flying internationally? I mentally shake my fist again at the airplane chicken dinners.
Still no discernable difference in the traffic as we slide out of the base and onto the freeway. Mild backup from lanes merging and disappearing, just like any rush hour in the states. Zoom! I jump as a motorcycle flies by our inching car. Four or five more zip by on both sides as dozens of tiny cars try to cram into the six inches between us and the car ahead. Okay, I admit grudgingly, this is a bit more extreme than a US rush hour.
I’m loving Vomero, Paul’s neighborhood in Naples. Lots of shopping and dining, crowds on food and drivers who actually don’t aim for them. Whole streets are even pedestrian-only.
The waiter at the restaurant (I’m sure it has a name—remind me later to fact check) asks us if we’d get him some American protein shakes. Creatine has been recalled, but whatever. Paul’s on it. They don’t see many Americans in Vomero, he explains. He’s doing this for me and for his friend Katie, an American Fulbright scholar who also lives in Vomero. That guy will remember us, and we’ll be welcome anytime.
“I think in Naples you get a taste of real Italy,” Paul tells me. “That would never happen in Venice, Florence or Rome. They’re too inured to Americans. They cater too heavily to the tourists.”
Katie, who also lived in Florence for a year, agrees. “You can’t say you’ve really been to Italy until you’ve been to Naples. You really get to see Italians.”
“Is this your first time to Italy?” Paul asks me.
“I’ve been to Venice, Florence and Rome,” I reply.
My first glimpse of Naples, from the night sky (night? what time is it?), shows me hills and tightly packed flats. I hear someone behind me say “looks crowded down there.” I’m on the lookout for the famous Neapolitan traffic. It is rush hour. I can discern nothing out of the ordinary from the sky. Headlights, brake lights, cars moving, cars slowing.
“Yeah, let’s get something to eat,” I say to Paul, the guy whose job I’ll be taking over in a few weeks. I‘m not hungry in the least. But I am really thirsty, and I guess I can eat. Who can discern the vagaries of his or her own stomach when flying internationally? I mentally shake my fist again at the airplane chicken dinners.
Still no discernable difference in the traffic as we slide out of the base and onto the freeway. Mild backup from lanes merging and disappearing, just like any rush hour in the states. Zoom! I jump as a motorcycle flies by our inching car. Four or five more zip by on both sides as dozens of tiny cars try to cram into the six inches between us and the car ahead. Okay, I admit grudgingly, this is a bit more extreme than a US rush hour.
I’m loving Vomero, Paul’s neighborhood in Naples. Lots of shopping and dining, crowds on food and drivers who actually don’t aim for them. Whole streets are even pedestrian-only.
The waiter at the restaurant (I’m sure it has a name—remind me later to fact check) asks us if we’d get him some American protein shakes. Creatine has been recalled, but whatever. Paul’s on it. They don’t see many Americans in Vomero, he explains. He’s doing this for me and for his friend Katie, an American Fulbright scholar who also lives in Vomero. That guy will remember us, and we’ll be welcome anytime.
“I think in Naples you get a taste of real Italy,” Paul tells me. “That would never happen in Venice, Florence or Rome. They’re too inured to Americans. They cater too heavily to the tourists.”
Katie, who also lived in Florence for a year, agrees. “You can’t say you’ve really been to Italy until you’ve been to Naples. You really get to see Italians.”
“Is this your first time to Italy?” Paul asks me.
“I’ve been to Venice, Florence and Rome,” I reply.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Random thoughts on the plane
1/12
There’s not much to do but ponder the utter absurdity of being served a chicken dinner when it's after midnight in the country you just left and 6AM in the country you’re flying to.
It’s clearly a military flight—extra rules and precautions, like the ten minutes they spent before takoff ensuring that every 8-person row had exactly 7 people in it. Weight distribution. I wonder briefly if there were families trying to get home from Christmas vacation who didn’t make it on the bimonthly flight due to the weight distribution. More than half the riders are white males between 25 and 40 with close-cropped hair, debatably athletic physiques and questionable fashion sense (collared shirts tucked into jeans, no belt, running shoes). Far too many have mustaches.
But there’s also a distinct sense of common purpose—we’re all on this flight to move, deploy or return to our homes overseas. We’re all in this together. Random college-age kids carry strollers and bags for stressed-out moms. No one glares at loud toddlers. Every bag contains a document with social security numbers, blood type, bank statements, wills, official passports and other compromising information, but no one worries that his or her identity will be stolen.
The Azores belongs to Portugal. For all I see of it, it could be two and a half miles long, but it’s green with stone fences like you see in pictures of northern England or Ireland. Sunny, like you see only in pictures of northern England or Ireland. I think sadly of other imperial holdout lands (Guam, Martinique), the ones too small or too forgotten to join last century’s revolutions for independence. Is it true that we own uncharted islands where natives work in factories for very low wages so we can put “Made in USA” stickers on the merchandise? I think I’ve heard that somewhere.
I think sadly of the nations who threw off the bonds of imperialism and then didn’t fare much better (or did far, far worse). And then suffered famine, storms and earthquakes. Haiti. Most of the world.
Maybe I’m sad because I don’t know how soon my family will be able to join me (awaiting a medical approval). And because the flight attendants are coming around with another chicken dinner. It’s like 6 AM in the country I just left.
There’s not much to do but ponder the utter absurdity of being served a chicken dinner when it's after midnight in the country you just left and 6AM in the country you’re flying to.
It’s clearly a military flight—extra rules and precautions, like the ten minutes they spent before takoff ensuring that every 8-person row had exactly 7 people in it. Weight distribution. I wonder briefly if there were families trying to get home from Christmas vacation who didn’t make it on the bimonthly flight due to the weight distribution. More than half the riders are white males between 25 and 40 with close-cropped hair, debatably athletic physiques and questionable fashion sense (collared shirts tucked into jeans, no belt, running shoes). Far too many have mustaches.
But there’s also a distinct sense of common purpose—we’re all on this flight to move, deploy or return to our homes overseas. We’re all in this together. Random college-age kids carry strollers and bags for stressed-out moms. No one glares at loud toddlers. Every bag contains a document with social security numbers, blood type, bank statements, wills, official passports and other compromising information, but no one worries that his or her identity will be stolen.
The Azores belongs to Portugal. For all I see of it, it could be two and a half miles long, but it’s green with stone fences like you see in pictures of northern England or Ireland. Sunny, like you see only in pictures of northern England or Ireland. I think sadly of other imperial holdout lands (Guam, Martinique), the ones too small or too forgotten to join last century’s revolutions for independence. Is it true that we own uncharted islands where natives work in factories for very low wages so we can put “Made in USA” stickers on the merchandise? I think I’ve heard that somewhere.
I think sadly of the nations who threw off the bonds of imperialism and then didn’t fare much better (or did far, far worse). And then suffered famine, storms and earthquakes. Haiti. Most of the world.
Maybe I’m sad because I don’t know how soon my family will be able to join me (awaiting a medical approval). And because the flight attendants are coming around with another chicken dinner. It’s like 6 AM in the country I just left.
Introduction and disclaimer
I’m moving to Naples with my family for the next few years. I decided to keep a record of our travels for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I like to read travel writing, so writing it will probably be even more fun. I’ll be in the unique position of writing about travel with a toddler, so that should make for some interesting anecdotes. My wife and I plan to visit a lot of places while we’re over here, and I’ll do my best to observe, process, digest and record at least some of our experiences. No idea how often I’ll post, but I welcome any comments or suggestions on what you’d like to hear about next, or places you’ve been and you think we should visit.
Some reservations I have about starting this blog include the obvious admission of extreme hubris that anything I could say will, in fact, edify those who read it. But since that’s not usually enough to stop anyone from writing (though it probably should), I’ll also admit that I’m an official spokesman for the U.S. Navy (that’s my job here), and may therefore have to color my posts accordingly. The views expressed are solely my own, however, and not those of the U.S. government. I don’t expect this situation to impair my writings or observations much, but if you want to call me out in my more fraudulent moments, feel free. It may be even more arrogant to assume anything I could say here would actually do more harm than good for my employer. But that’s my disclaimer, and I won’t say much more about it.
My plan is to keep the focus of this blog on travel-related themes: food and wine, cultural observations, language, accommodations, entertainment, sights, anecdotes and cute things our daughter does. I’m writing this so you can keep up with us and live vicariously through us, yes, but mostly because writing forces me to observe and to think and to drink deeply from the draught of life. So I invite you to join us in our quest to find that low door that opens on a garden not overlooked by any window, wherein dwells magic.
Some reservations I have about starting this blog include the obvious admission of extreme hubris that anything I could say will, in fact, edify those who read it. But since that’s not usually enough to stop anyone from writing (though it probably should), I’ll also admit that I’m an official spokesman for the U.S. Navy (that’s my job here), and may therefore have to color my posts accordingly. The views expressed are solely my own, however, and not those of the U.S. government. I don’t expect this situation to impair my writings or observations much, but if you want to call me out in my more fraudulent moments, feel free. It may be even more arrogant to assume anything I could say here would actually do more harm than good for my employer. But that’s my disclaimer, and I won’t say much more about it.
My plan is to keep the focus of this blog on travel-related themes: food and wine, cultural observations, language, accommodations, entertainment, sights, anecdotes and cute things our daughter does. I’m writing this so you can keep up with us and live vicariously through us, yes, but mostly because writing forces me to observe and to think and to drink deeply from the draught of life. So I invite you to join us in our quest to find that low door that opens on a garden not overlooked by any window, wherein dwells magic.
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