Taboos and Twisters

This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

In the end, the day I had dreaded worked out fine because I was willing to eat a ham sandwich.

I got off the boat from Capri, walked to the station and immediately caught the Circumvesuviana, then caught the train to Rome with only a few minutes’ wait. It all went so smoothly, but I hadn’t had any time to eat. I arrived in Rome, entered the first café I saw, and ordered a veggie Panini.

“He will heat it for you,” said the guy in charge, motioning to his coworker, “while you wait outside.” Clearly he wanted me to step outside, so I did, but I didn’t sit at a table because I wanted to make clear I was in a hurry. The guy in charge stepped outside too.

“You from America?” he queried. Almost before I could get the word yes out of my mouth, he was going on about politics. He was not wearing a name tag.

“I am from Latvia, a little country, maybe you have never heard of it.”

“I have, actually. I had a boss who was Latvian—she and her husband immigrated and they both held high posts at our local university.”

He raised his eye brows, impressed. “Usually Americans don’t know Latvia.” He launched into a lecture that he’d clearly spent hours formulating over paninis. It encompassed themes of the EU falling apart, staring with Brexit, rising fascism—symbolized by Donald Trump, and backlash against immigrants.

Where was that panini? I would have enjoyed talking with him if I hadn’t been tired and starving.

Finally my sandwich arrived and I walked toward my hotel. Except that I didn’t; I took a wrong turn and got lost. I stopped three sets of strangers to ask directions, none of whom had clue. I tried the time-honored tactic of picking a direction and striding toward it confidently. I don’t know if this got me closer or farther from my hotel, but I still didn’t recognize anything.

I started to whimper. I’m such a loser! Why can’t I ever find anything? I spied a couple with a baby in a carriage. That’s about as safe as it gets for asking directions from strangers. They were German, and they spent about 10 minutes rotating the map this way and that and conferring with one another. I tried to tell them it was ok if they didn’t know, I could just take a cab. But they were determined. They were very kind, and more importantly, they could read a map.

Now that I knew I was on the right trail, I thought I should eat my panini before it was stone cold. I took a big bite and—it was ham. No veggies, no cheese, just a huge pile of thin-sliced ham.

Damn! I’m not a very observant Jew, but there’s one thing I do to remind myself who I am—I have not eaten pork in over 30 years.

“Fuck it!” I may have said out loud, as I gobbled down the sandwich.

—

I was back at the Hotel Italia for one night, then off to Malta in the morning.

The Indian-Italian desk clerk seemed eager to see me. “You are from the middle west of America? You have tornados?”

“Yes,” I replied. “We have tornados; I’ve been in a couple, one where two people were killed.”

“We had one just outside Rome!” he declared, rattled. “Two days ago—and two people were killed!”

“Wow, is that common?”

“I don’t think so. What should I do when one comes?”

“Was there a warning siren?”

“No,” he replied, chagrined.

“Well they often happen so fast there’s no time to sound the siren. The sky will turn green and everything will get very, very quiet. Even the birds stop singing. Then you’ll hear what sounds like a freight train.

“Get to an inside room or a staircase, preferably in the basement. Avoid windows; you can be sucked out or injured by the flying glass.

“Of course you’ll have to figure out how to warn your guests.”

He nodded, looking more worried than usual.

She’s Going to Capri

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

I kept hearing an old commercial in my head. The refrain was, “She’s going to Capri, and she’s never coming back!” It was for dish detergent or something, and the idea was that it was so fantastic that it set women free. Obviously, the one place you would go if you were freed from dishwashing was Capri, Italy, right?

So even though the rain continued off and on, I was determined to go. I assumed the famous Blue Grotto would be closed for the season, but I would hike the Phoenician staircase from Capri town to Anacapri, the other town on the island. The Phoenician staircase was 880 steps, just 80 more than my hike in Amalfi. Once in Anacapri, I would visit sites that were probably similar to the beautiful ones I had enjoyed in the rain in Ravello, such as the Ville San Michelle. If I had time, I would hike to Villa Jovis from Capri town.

I wondered if, at the end of the day, I should take the catamaran directly back to Naples from Capri, instead of to Sorrento. It would take only 45 minutes, compared with an hour and 40 minutes on the Circumvesuviana train. I had given up on seeing Pompeii; there just wasn’t enough time.

—

Here’s a photo of Sorrento from the ferry dock:

I was standing in line to board the catamaran to Capri and observing the two couples in front of me. I used to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles and my guess was that’s where they were from. Either LA or New York, but not Indianapolis. The first couple was in their 60s, extremely tan, and wearing heavy gold jewelry. The second couple: the man was in his 60s but his wife was one of those women who had had so much “work” done that it was impossible to guess her age. 35? 45? 60? I knew I was staring too much but I was fascinated. This couple, too, was extremely tan and wore lots of heavy gold jewelry. Both couples were dressed in nautical wear, and the men were wearing baseball caps with longish white hair a la Bernie Madoff or Graydon Carter. Captains of industry, if not of boats.

—

At the beginning of our ride, each time the catamaran sliced through a wave and slapped back down, we passengers all laughed riotously, including me. It was like an amusement park ride.

After about 10 minutes it got very quiet. I could hear the tan man behind me explaining to his taut-faced wife how to manage motion sickness. “Don’t look ahead,” he advised, “stare out the side window, and don’t fight it. I learned this when I learned to sail.”

Although I had taken an instant disliking to him because he was rich and I wasn’t, I was grateful to hear and follow his advice. I looked back and gave a sympathetic look to his wife but her face remained expressionless. The ride was over in 20 minutes, which sealed my decision not to take the boat back to Naples.

This is Capri town, and a shot of the water that hints at how blue it might be on a sunny day.

Because of the limited autumn ferry schedules, I only spent about two hours on Capri. I hiked the Phoenician stairs for 20 minutes in the rain, then turned back. My heart wasn’t in it.

There were signs all over for Vespa rentals. How fun would that be?! But not today. Riding a Vespa would be asking for a broken neck.

Back in town, I had 20 minutes before the ferry departed. The first restaurant I walked into had no placards advertising sauerkraut. There they were, the tan couples, enjoying plates heaping with freshly-prepared seafood. This would have been it—the best restaurant I’d found in Italy—but I had no time to enjoy it. I dreaded the return boat ride and thought bruschetta would be a better choice than squid.

The sea had calmed, making the ride back pleasant, if rainy. For the umpteenth time, I thought, “I’ll just have to come back here in summer.”

Seafood Fellini

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

It was my last night on the Amalfi Coast, and I was determined to find some good seafood.

I had tried the places listed in guides and struck out. Then I turned a corner and saw what looked like a stage or movie set. It was a restaurant set on a crazy 45 degree angle street corner, and they had put about 10 little tables out on the sidewalk, which jutted way out into the street and dipped down at an angle. The maître de led me over to a table and when I sat down I felt like I should have memorized my lines. I was the only customer.

The tables were draped in shiny dark blue satin, the chairs and table were wobbly, and the menu was grimy. There was one of those big placards at the entrance that should have warned me to keep walking. It promoted daily “specials” like fish and chips, hamburgers with fries, and pork chop with sauerkraut—something for every nationality of western tourist.

The maître de, whose namebadge said Enrico, appeared to be in his 60s. He was dressed in worn dark blue trousers and a zip-up sweater that looked like what I wear at home when I’m not leaving the house all day. Yet despite his rather shabby dress, he acted as though he was working in a fine establishment. He had a napkin draped over his arm and snapped his fingers and yelled, “Waiter!” Maybe the food would surprise me and be astoundingly fresh and flavorful.

The waiter, a tall skinny blond kid in his twenties, sprang out of the door, trotted to my table, and filled my water glass. His name was Radu. “Bring-a the Limoncello,” Enrico ordered gruffly. Radu leaped back and forth, supplying my table with Limoncello, olives, and bread. I wondered if he was in love for the first time and just couldn’t contain his excitement. He brought my wine, then bounded across the street, grasped a light pole, and swung around it several times like Gene Kelly in “Singing in the Rain.”

He bounded over to my table. “Guess where I am from!”

“Uh … Slovakia? Poland? Ukraine?” Was Ukraine part of the EU?

“No—Romania!” he exclaimed delightedly, as though he had fooled me, then bounced away.

Enrico continued to stand by my table while I perused the menu, which did not give me hope for a great meal. “What do you have with seafood?” I asked optimistically. Enrico pointed out the only item on the menu that I had already passed on, seafood linguini. Maybe the photo just didn’t do it justice. “I’ll take that,” I said, trying to muster some enthusiasm.

Enrico told me his life story. He had worked in the “hospitality industry” in London for 13 years. That explained why he kept calling me “love.” It was so dead in Sorrento in the winter that even the cats went south. He would go to Orlando in a few weeks; he had a condo there. “I will sell if Trump is elected President,” he laughed.

My food came and it was as disappointing as I had expected, with obviously defrosted seafood mostly consisting of mussels the size of peas. But I was hungry, so I ate, and Enrico continued to stand next to me and talk. I began to wonder if he was hoping for some lady companionship later, but just then some tourists came walking along the street and he moved off to try to entice them in. They looked at my food and kept walking. Enrico circled back to my table.

“Say, do you know why there’s such a crowd in front of the Church of St. Antonino all the time?” I asked.

Enrico screwed his eyebrows together, thinking. “Ah, yes, it is the Virgin of Pompeii. She is a visiting for the month of November.” Just to be clear, we are talking about a plaster statue with magical properties, not a real virgin.

“Visiting, from where? From Pompeii?”

“I don’t know from a where. She came from far away.”

Villas and Curves and Curveballs

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

It was 2:30 in the afternoon when I arrived in Ravello, as the rain really started to come down. I kept thinking of the cautions in the guidebooks to “be careful not to miss the last bus back to Sorrento.” The driver said the last bus was at 7:00, but taking those coastal hair pin turns in the dark and rain and wind seemed like a bad idea so I aimed to leave at 4:30. I know, I know. Only two hours in Ravello! But they were two wonderful hours.

This was one town where I did not get lost. I hopped off the bus and right around the corner was my first destination, the Villa Rufalo. I bought my 5€ ticket and started to wander. In addition to being a “pleasure garden,” as the English would call it, the original home had been made into a hotel which was now apparently closed. For the winter? Forever? All I knew was that I could ignore all the signs that said, “Hotel Guests Only.”

I walked with my umbrella in one hand and my phone in the other, trying to capture the rainy beauty of the place.

You could get an idea of how blue the sea would be on a sunny day from this overlook.

This is one of my favorite photos.

I then followed the path to Villa Cimbrone. It was well signed, but I had no idea how far it was. I met this cat along the way. Which would you choose—cat food or leftover pasta?

It took me about half an hour to get there, and lo and behold Villa Cimbone (6€) was swarming with tourists. I could make out Hebrew, Chinese, and maybe Russian or Portuguese. Cimbrone was a more formal and extensive villa; I could easily have spent half a day there. There were picnic grounds which would have been enjoyable, a bar that was closed. Sigh.

Too quickly, I was back on the bus. This is a photo I took at the Amalfi stop.

The waves were high there, and groups of college kids were posing on the waterfront for selfies. Man, were they going to be sorry, I thought, as I watched them get thoroughly drenched.

I got the front seat on the bus to Sorrento. I could see the curves looming ahead in the dark, hear the driver cursing under his breath, and I watched him wipe his palms nervously on his trousers. Signs said, “NO HORN BLOWING” at every curve. The driver blew his horn at each one.

—

I thought about this day, this place. Wouldn’t it be great to honeymoon here, especially in good weather? I thought about my son, Vince. How I wished he would meet a nice woman. I had entered a drawing to win a Viking River Cruise a few weeks before. I daydreamed about giving it to Vince and his wife as a wedding present if I won.

—

Back in Sorrento, there was still a crowd in front of the church, only now they were holding umbrellas so they were harder to get past.

As soon as I got to my hotel, my phone pinged with a Facebook message from a friend of the family, Jessica. “I think I saw Vince on a date!”

“Who was on a date?” I asked, “You or him?”

“Both of us!”

Yikes, that was an interesting coincidence. I don’t usually indulge in daydreams about my son getting married, and as far as I knew he hadn’t dated much since being released from prison, so both happening in one day was a bit odd.

—

I bounced back out into the street, thinking I would try again to find the Correale Museum, but I failed again. Then I tried to find the “marina with wonderful seafood restaurants” and struck out. I was walking reluctantly back toward the hotel, when I turned a corner and beheld what in my overactive imagination appeared to be a Fellini movie set. This was going to be good, whatever “it” was.

Just a Child

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

It was time to move on from Amalfi to Ravello. From across the road I watched as a bus signed RAVELLO pulled away. I walked to the schedule board. There had been something online about the bus leaving every 10 minutes so I didn’t put a lot of effort into it but it was indecipherable anyway.

A tall pensioner dressed for a safari was also trying to make sense of the timetable. After a few minutes we gave up and started to chat.

“I haven’t got much time left,” he sighed, “to see all the places I want to see.” This made me uncomfortable. Did he have cancer? I had just met him and I didn’t want to but I felt compelled to ask, “I hope you’re not ill?”

“Oh no,” he laughed as though this were a silly question. “My GP says I’m healthy. I’m just old. One of these days there will be a fall, or a burst blood vessel, and then I’ll be bundled off to a home. Sometimes I think I should just jump off a cliff and get it over with.” And here we were, surrounded by cliffs. I didn’t ask if he was widowed or had children; they had probably been killed in a tragic accident.

He eyed me and said wistfully, “You’re just a child.” This made me feel more awkward. Was he just a nice old man, or a lecher trying to flatter me?

Based on his accent, I made the mistake of saying something about tough English people who were independent well into their centennial year.

“I’m not English,” he exclaimed. “I’m from Jersey. Have you heard of Jersey?”

He proceeded to inform me about the history of Jersey, the relationship between the UK and Jersey, and Jersey cows. “You have heard of Jersey cows?” Ye-es. I don’t think he was patronizing me. I think he was depressed and lonely—at home and everywhere. He was one of those people who badly wants friendships but isn’t good at them. He never asked me about myself, but launched into monologues about Italian history and his favorite country, Morocco.

He was one of those men who is a walking encyclopedia, with a library of books at home on history, geography, world religions, warfare, anthropology, and politics. They have seen every war film and documentary, have visited Normandy and Pearl Harbor and spent days in the Churchill War Rooms at the Imperial War Museum. They can name every regiment and what kind of tanks or planes were deployed and how many men died in the Battle of Nanjing and the siege of Leningrad and the Bataan Death March. And now that these men have Google, it’s like they’re on steroids.

I sometimes worry that I have this tendency. I am always conscious of not spewing people with verbal diarrhea, especially if I’ve been traveling solo for a while.

Of course there are men, and women, like this in every land, but the British and their cousins seem to produce more, maybe because of their national fixation on World War II. That’s not a criticism—they had the #@$% bombed out of them and then my country forced them to pay war reparations, which prevented them from rebuilding as quickly as they could have. We Americans would do well to emulate their habit of reflection.

Forty-five minutes passed and people were crowding onto the platform. A young guy who turned out to be honeymooner from St. Louis asked if we thought they should go to Venice. He was a stereotypical super friendly American. A nice guy, to another American.

My new Jersey friend and I endorsed Venice. “It’s dark and decaying, in a lovely way,” I offered. “Don’t miss the cemetery island.” Me and my cemeteries.

“Oh, I give up! I’m going back to Sorrento,” Jersey declared and walked off.

Five minutes later the bus arrived. As we pulled away I could hear St. Louis behind me saying, “That old English guy is one of those people who knows something about everything. Thank god he went back or he’d be talkin’ our ears off.”

Alt Amalfi

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

I had seen the one attraction in Amalfi, the Paper Museum, in under 15 minutes. I wandered back toward the center of town, then saw a little sign that said “Ancient Stairs.” Of course I had to follow it.

Whoever wrote the sign wasn’t kidding. The stairs were stone, worn concave by thousands of footsteps. They were also slippery as hell—at one junction my left leg slid left and my right slid behind me, leaving me face down, arms splayed in the “worshipful peon” position.

Having torn my knee ligament two years ago, I was relieved to get up and feel okay. I was also reminded of one of the pitfalls of traveling alone. The town was deserted. Who would have helped me up, then down all those stairs if I had torn my MCL? I began paying more attention to my steps.

The stairs led up and around and up and back and down and up and around. Here are a couple scenic views along the way:

These mailboxes may seem unremarkable if you are Italian, but in Minnesota everyone is named Johnson, Swanson, and Anderson, so they were charmingly exotic to me.

There was another sign that pointed to a Cimitero. I love cemeteries and, having no other plan, decided to visit.

There were no more Cimitero signs, just crude arrows hand-painted here on a wall and there on stair. Some of the walls were so close together that the sides of my umbrella brushed against them. I climbed, and climbed, and counted steps: 200, 300, 400 … every so often the view would open up before me:

Heartbreakingly beautiful, eh, even with the rain?

There were more lovely mysterious entryways. I would have loved to be invited in for lunch:

500, 600, 700 … Here’s a tip: Go while your knees are still good.

800 … I wondered why the cemetery was at the top of the mountain. Wasn’t that kind of unhygienic? I had not seen a single human until now, when a couple came my way and said with in rough English, “The trail is closed.”

I figured they couldn’t possibly be headed for the cemetery. Only I was weird enough to hike 800 stairs to see headstones. So I smiled and kept going.

“But it is still beautiful,” said the woman over her shoulder as they hiked down. And it was:

This was as far as I got because when I turned around from shooting this photo I saw the sign for the cemetery, which had closed five minutes earlier. FIVE minutes! Again, this is one of the hazards of traveling in the off season, many sites have limited hours.

The hiking couple had been right, there was an orange plastic fence across the path just beyond the cemetery entrance. I stood there a moment, waiting for some special feeling and, feeling none, turned around and walked back down the 800 steps.

—

All that hiking had helped me work up an appetite, and not for a protein bar. I found a hole-in-the wall pizzeria (it seemed like every restaurant in Italy was a “pizzeria”).

For 4€ I got an enormous sandwich with grilled red peppers, eggplant, and onions smothered in melted mozzarella, and a Coke Pink, which was everywhere.

Since I come from a land where we must huddle inside for six months of the year due to the cold, I always sit outside when I’m traveling, even if it’s raining, which it still was. I pulled up a café table under the awning, leaning in to stay dry.

There was a bored English middle-aged couple sitting nearby, and a pair of middle aged Italian women. Suddenly one of them said to me in perfect English, “You made a joke.”

What?

“You made a joke in the museum. I’m an English teacher. I understood.”

We laughed and chatted about languages; it was nice to have a little human interaction. Then the English guy asked me what I thought about Donald Trump. What a buzz kill. I made a noncommittal comment, wolfed down my food, and walked off.

Papered

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

Bells, bells, bells. If you like being awakened by bells, you would love Italy. This was my 7:00 am Sunday wake up call in Sorrento.

Today I would go to the Amalfi Coast. Tomorrow would be Capri, and I would try to squeeze in Pompeii on my way back to Rome.

But first, some breakfast, where I chatted with my fellow hotel guests. There were a couple of empty nesters from Australia and an English couple with a son who appeared to be around 12. They were all wearing that khaki travel uniform—you know, the one with the many-pocketed vests and matching many-pocketed trousers?

I asked about Pompeii—had they gone? Was it a must see? Could I “do it” in an afternoon?

“We spent five hours at Pompeii and could have stayed longer, but it started to get dark,” said the Australian guy.

“We spent the better part of the day there,” said the English husband. “Andrew is studying the ancient world and it’s been wonderful for him to see it outside of text books.” Andrew looked embarrassed. “In fact Andrew has been like our personal tour guide,” said his mother. Andrew slumped in his chair.

“Well I’d better get going then,” I said.

I traced the taxi route back to the train station, and there was a bus to the coast waiting for me. Well, waiting. I bought my 8€ all-day ticket and settled down for the ride.

—

When most people think of the Amalfi Coast, they envision intense blue sea, dizzying cliffs, and charming, sun-washed towns. I had the dizzying part, but my day on the Amalfi Coast featured rain, rain, and more rain. The sea was slate grey. It was windy and my umbrella kept blowing inside out, then flipping back and splattering me with rain. It was still beautiful, just in a different way. The wind moved the clouds around quickly, changing the light by the minute.

The bus wound along narrow roads with mountain walls on one side and cliffs on the other. Occasionally there were shrines on the side of the road—for buses that had gone over the side? I eyed the windows. If I was the sole survivor of a fall over the cliff, which I was sure would be the case, the windows only opened about six inches wide. Could I squeeze through? I noted the location of the hammer of life.

—

In no time we arrived in Positano, which I had decided to skip. Why? I just didn’t think I could do justice to more than two towns in one day, so I had picked Amalfi and one other TBD. It felt too soon to get off the bus in Positano.

I hopped off in Amalfi, taking care to note the location from which the bus would depart. I didn’t have a plan aside from visiting the Paper Museum, for which there were signs every few yards. This was refreshing. I arrived at the museum and bought my 3€ ticket from a young woman who told me to wait by the door for the tour. I looked around. I was the only one in the room, which displayed handmade paper gifts I wanted to check out, but I figured I’d better stay put for when the tour group arrived. Two minutes later the young woman walked over and said “I will take you on the tour now.”

The museum was a former family-run paper factory. In the basement, my guide showed me vats of pulp, had me smear pulp over a strainer, then showed me the presses which were no longer in use. “That’s the tour,” she told me. It had been 10 minutes long, but charming.

Back upstairs, a group of about 30 Italian tourists was crowded into the room waiting for their tour. I bought some paper and an old man emerged from nowhere to gift wrap it meticulously when I told him it was for my mother.

“I guess men really can wrap presents,” I joked out loud. Nobody else laughed. I strode out to explore more of Amalfi.

She’s Going to Capri

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

I kept hearing an old commercial in my head. The refrain was, “She’s going to Capri, and she’s never coming back!” It was for dish detergent or something, and the idea was that it was so fantastic that set women free. Obviously, the one place you would go if you were freed from dish washing was Capri, Italy.

I had given up on seeing Pompeii; there just wasn’t enough time. I wondered if, at the end of the day, I should take the catamaran directly back to Naples from Capri, instead of to Sorrento. It would take only 45 minutes, compared with an hour and 40 minutes on the Circumvesuviana train.

—

Here’s a photo of Sorrento from the ferry dock:

—

Each time the catamaran sliced through a wave and slapped back down, all the passengers laughed riotously, including me. It was like an amusement park ride.

This is Capri town, and a shot of the water that hints at how blue it might be on a sunny day.

Because of the limited autumn ferry schedules, I only spent about two hours on Capri. I hiked the Phoenician stairs for 20 minutes in a driving rain, then turned back. My heart wasn’t in it.

There were signs all over for Vespa rentals. How fun would that be?! But not today. Riding a Vespa would be asking for a broken neck.

Back in town, I had 20 minutes before the ferry departed. The first restaurant I walked into had no placards advertising sauerkraut. There were the tan couples, enjoying plates heaping with freshly-prepared seafood. This would have been it—the best restaurant I’d found in Italy—but I had no time to enjoy it. I dreaded the return boat ride and thought bruschetta would be a better choice than squid.

The sea had calmed, making the ride back pleasant, if rainy. For the umpteenth time, I thought, “I’ll just have to come back, in summer.”

In the Dark

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

After a day of sitting on trains I was eager to get out and explore Sorrento. It was dark and rainy, but that’s what hats with brims and umbrellas are for. I found the ocean overlook and although it was dark, I got a sense of the sea’s grandeur and felt excited about traveling along the coast the next day. I think I went inside a church that was on my list, the Chiesa di San Francisco, but I couldn’t find a sign so who knows? I think I sat in the Villa Communale, but again there were no signs, so I’m not sure. It was lovely, despite being dark, dotted with pairs of lovers on benches under the lemon trees. Reading the guidebook back home, I had pictured myself here on a sunny day, gazing out over the intense blue sea looking glamorous and catching the eye of an attractive—preferably wealthy—widower.

There was supposed to be a marina nearby with “wonderful seafood restaurants,” but everything was dark and shuttered for the season. I saw a sign for the Museo Correale, which I knew was open until 8:00 pm. I followed the direction of the sign, then walked and walked. I never saw another sign and it got darker the further I got from the center. I wandered back toward the hotel, through alleys of stores which were still bustling, and bought some of the obligatory lemon soap, pasta, and dried spices.

The pasta made me hungry but since it was only 7:00, no restaurants were open. Only 7:00. In Minnesota, dinnertime is 5:30. I decided to dine on a protein bar in my hotel room. Eating protein bars in Italy may sound pathetic, but they’re a huge money saver; I always bring a box in my suitcase, along with dried fruit and nuts.

There was still a crowd in front of the Church of San Antonino. Why? I pried my way through and slowly moved up the entry steps as others came out. I made it to the entryway but was too short to see what was going on inside. A priest was going on in a soporific monotone on a loudspeaker as bells chimed over our heads. I took this very brief video just to capture the audio scene.

—

My hotel room door was still closed but popped open at my touch. Inside, I flipped the deadbolt. It had been a long day, I was tired and damp. I had read 300 pages of The Other Boleyn Girl on the train and looked forward to finishing it in the bath with a glass of wine, even though I knew it didn’t have a happy ending.

But alas, there was no corkscrew. I picked up the phone and there was no dial tone. I had no choice but to take the elevator down to the ground floor and ask the desk guy whose nametag said Diego for one. “I’ll deliver one up eh-soon,” he promised.

I went back upstairs and waited. Eventually Diego appeared with the essential tool, quickly left, and I stripped and started the bath water. That’s when the lights went out. After moaning and wishing they would magically re-appear, I re-dressed and took the elevator back down. “I will eh-start her up in a minute,” Diego promised again. I went back up and sat on my bed and listened to the bells.

Then I thought, the power in the rest of the hotel is on. Think, Anne. What would you do at home? I found the fuse box in the closet, flipped the breaker, and the lights came on. Just then the door popped open and Diego stood there, looking a little wary, like maybe I was luring him into a trap. I could hear him asking me in his Spanish accent, “Are you trying to eh-seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?”

“I figured it out!” I exclaimed proudly.

“Good,” he replied, “because the electric she likes to go off in this room.”

A Very Bad Good Woman

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I’m interrupting my series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain to write about a memorable New Year’s Eve.

I was in Nairobi carrying out a number of volunteer projects for a human rights organization. The most interesting was interviewing activists, including a dozen slum-dwelling women who were organizing to fight police shake downs and a guy who had been tortured after protesting the 2007 election results.

I was there for December and January, and just as I was ramping up, the director announced that the office would close for two weeks over Christmas and New Year’s. I was renting a flat with a 22-year-old German guy who was also volunteering. He was thrilled about this development and immediately made plans to go to Ethiopia with friends to take photos of the ancient churches there. This would undoubtedly require massive amounts of alcohol.

The prospect of hanging out in the flat for two weeks was depressing. Kenyan TV featured the dregs of American shows, like Baywatch, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon. The Internet was maddeningly slow. Going for walks was considered dangerous. My supply of books was already running low; English ones were hard to come by and very expensive in the local malls.

So I booked myself on a safari.

—

I will always feel very lucky to have had this experience. I went to Basecamp Masai Mara, a “luxury eco-resort” run by a Norwegian company where Senator Barak Obama had stayed with his family. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me. These links are to my safari Facebook albums.

The organization sponsoring my volunteer gig, American Jewish World Service, had paid my airfare to Nairobi. For Americans, airfare is half the price of a safari. It still wasn’t cheap, but it was possible.

So I spent 10 days going on game drives, touring a Masai clinic, reading, and sleeping. Each morning I awoke to the dawn chorus of hooting, howling, growling, croaking, and cackling coming from the bush.

For each meal I sat at a white-linen-covered table, by myself except once, when a couple of fellow international development people invited me to join them. He was Norwegian and she was Swedish.

“We know how it feels to eat alone,” he said.

—

For the last two nights I moved to a remote camp. I spent New Year’s Eve gazing out over the Masai Mara and Just Being. Words cannot describe the beauty of the land and the light.

At my last dinner, a Masai guide named Manfred pulled a chair up across the table from me. This familiarity was unfamiliar behavior. Manfred was 30ish and had a sweet, innocent face. He was short and muscular and his skin had a reddish sheen from working outdoors.

He sat back in the cow-hide chair, spread his shoulders and legs wide, and clasped his hands together in front of his chest. His body language wasn’t confrontational but he was staking his ground. He smiled at the floor for a few seconds, then up at me.

“When you first arrived, we all thought you were a very bad woman, but now we know you are not.”

I wasn’t completely surprised by his comments. I’d had the sense that they didn’t know what to make of me, a woman traveling alone. But I wondered what theories they had about me.

“Did you think I deserted my husband and children?” I asked.

No, he shook his head but didn’t counter.

“Did you think I was a lesbian?” I asked next.

Manfred laughed uneasily, tipping his chair on its back legs. Now that’s a universal male thing, I thought.

“No, we have had many homosexual guests and they are very nice people.”

That sounded like a line he’d been instructed to say. I knew from interviewing a transgender activist that alternative sexual orientations had yet to gain acceptance in Kenya, to put it mildly.

He couldn’t contain himself any longer; he leaned forward and said, “We thought you were a sex tourist.”

I burst out laughing. I would turn 50 in a month. I don’t condone sex tourism, but being suspected of it felt like a compliment.

Happy New Year’s! Enjoy every moment of your precious life!

Breaking Free

Living Well, Despite what Life Throws at You

Taboos and Twisters

She’s Going to Capri

Seafood Fellini

Villas and Curves and Curveballs

Just a Child

Alt Amalfi

Papered

She’s Going to Capri

In the Dark

A Very Bad Good Woman