STARING DOWN A ROMAN

Walking out of Meijer the other day and as I reach the crosswalk I looked right and left and spotted a car that was close enough and going fast enough that a few weeks ago I would have stopped in my tracks and let the 2000 pounds of Detroits finest power on through. 

But that was then and this is now. 

I took a big step out and turned my head to the left and stared the driver down and with a glare that would have given Nero himself the chills I continued across the crosswalk with a new found confidence garnered some 5000 miles to the east. 

Rick Steves the travel guru gives sage advice for street crossing in the packed 4 million plus Rome. He says its best to shadow a local as they make their precarious street crossing between the speeding mini-cars. 

But at some point you need to cross a street without the benefit of a local sacrificial lamb, and this is where the local tour guides instruction comes into play. 

She told us in so many words, timidity is hazardous. 

As you step out in the street you stare down the motorized Roman chariot driver in the eyes and dare him to run you down. Continue your gate and pray the Roman has good brakes. 

In Venice there was not much call for this technique as you merely had to walk across the canal on the thousands of bridges as you made your way on another gelato run. Don't think we were ever in any danger of getting run over by a gondola. 

Nor was this method of street crossing needed or used in Tuscony or Cinque Terre. 

The slow pace and serenity of these places lulled us into a sense of well being that would not serve us well in the hustle and bustle of the Eternal City. 

It didn't take long to master the stare down however and soon we were stopping the Smart cars and tiny Fiats like we were the barbaric invaders during the Sack of Rome.

As I strode across the Meijer crosswalk it hadn't even occurred to me that the cars I saw in Italy would have easily fit in the truck of the American made muscle car the I just challenged with room left over for a couple of Gypsy pick pockets.

If I would have been hit by one of those overgrown skateboards in Italy it probably would have bruised my shin at the worst. 

Hmmmm maybe the saying "when in Rome do as the Romans do", does not translate well here in the "land of the free and home of the brave". 

After all, here size does matter

LOST AND FOUND IN ROME

I'm sitting atop the Spanish Steps with my large cold Peroni Birra just a few feet from the door of our B&B.
I'm writing about this night because it is one of those nights that you want to burn into your memory, store it deep down in the synapse of the brain for emergency retrieval some rainy day down the road when you feel your life has turned to shit. 

Having gotten lost on purpose and quite alone in the streets of Rome I found my way back via the Fiume Tevere. 

My journey began as a quest for a cold beer and a Whopper with cheese. I know, bad boy! I must be reprimanded for my transgressions, ahh but that is for another day. 

The Burger King in question is conveniently located next to the Fontana Di Trevi.

 I made my way to the amazing fountain and walked by the Burger King but decided to keep on walking for a bit instead. With map in hand I just started walking, in all the wrong directions, just for the hell of it. 

This is something I have made a point in doing at every location of our amazing trip. 

Even with a map of Rome, much like Venice you will still have a difficult time navigating through the city and finding your way once you have lost your point of reference.

 I gave up on the map for the time being and charted my course through Rome using the setting sun. 

Seemed like the more I walked the more lost I became and the shadows cast by the old buildings and basilicas grew longer and longer and I got more and more turned around. 

That is until I found the river I had been meaning to find since I had arrived in Rome.

As I neared a bridge to cross I found myself in the middle of bicycle mayhem, some sort of biking rally and there were thousands of them rounding the corner of Pointe Umberto and the river.

It was total chaos and a wonderful surprise. It didn't seem to be a race of any kind, no one seemed to be in a hurry, they all looked like it was just some excuse to get together and have a big celebration.

I took this picture of some guy on his homemade double decker bike just sitting there holding onto the stop light, just because he could.

Looking down the river I spotted St Peters Basilica and the walls of the Vatican. Now with my visual GPS to navigate by, my coordinates on the map became child's play.

After taking in the festivities and taking several pictures I crossed the river and began my journey home walking along the Fiume Tevere.

Night was fast approaching and I knew the others would be wondering if I would ever return. 

After several minutes of walking I came to the Piazza Del Popolo that I had been curious about since I've been here and saw it on my map and it was worth the effort to find, even though I had already been there but didn't know it. 

There was an Egyptian obelisk and a fountain the middle. To the far side was a huge marble statue with a beautiful fountain incorporated. 

The Piazza Del Popolo was lit up and alive with people. After taking some more pictures I headed for high ground and more familiar streets. 

When I made my way up to Piazzale Napoleone and high ground,  I looked back over the direction I had just come from.

I discovered that I had been here on my first night in Rome, I just didn't know what I was looking at at the time and I had approached it from the other direction.

This time though it was night and the Piazza I had just crossed was glowing now and made for a nice picture with dusk firmly taking control of the sky and St Peter's Basilica as my back drop. 

I took this picture and I hope it makes for a nice print when I get home. 

When I finally tore myself away from this once in a lifetime visual I headed for my temporary home, (a fantastic Bed & Breakfast that sits atop the Spanish Steps) down a very dark and quite street.  

Then I heard the singing of a choir rising up from some church far below and some incalculable distance from me,  I paused there for a time just taking in the beautiful music as well as the Roman skyline. 

I couldn't have orchestrated a more fitting salute to cap off my little solitary stroll. 

If I were a man given to emotion I would have been very close to being overwhelmed with the perfection of the sights and sounds of my nights adventure. 

I finally retuned to sit atop the Spanish Steps with my cold beer sans Whopper with cheese and just relived the fresh memory and began this letter.

Suddenly I am brought back to reality with a sharp smack to the top of my head. At first I thought it was one of the illegal Bangladeshi street venders that have become a plague to this city by shoving various unwanted roses and toys in your face demanding Euros.
I had come close to dropping one of those jackasses the night before when he got in my sisters face and started calling her names for refusing the crap he was peddling 

I turned around to return the assault ten fold to the Bangladeshi and saw not an obnoxious rose peddler but my little sister who began chastising me for my disappearance, "where the hell have you been!?"

I gave her a brief synopses of my incredible evening knowing I could not put this lost and found moment into an adequate explanation. 

Yes I had been found and my little fantasy walk through this indescribable ancient city was over but I do have that memory locked securely in the vault. 

I guess discretion being the better part of valor, the prudent thing to do would have been to go to Fontana Di Trevi, grab that Whopper with cheese, hit the snack cart for that cold Peroni Birra and head straight back to the Spanish Steps using the familiar route.

But sometimes you just need to take the long way home. 

GOOD NIGHT VOLTERRA

My last night in Volterra, the moon is not quite full, but it's close enough. 

I need to go for a walk around this olive farm. I have been trying to find time to do this since I've been here. We have finished dinner, Gabreal was kind enough to take my laundry off the clothes line after the rain and hang my clothes up inside, then during dinner brought them out to me all nearly folded and ready to go. I slipped him 10 Euro which he promptly refused until I begged then insisted he accept. 

Bag and backpack all packed and thoughts of the next adventure in Monarola, Cinque Terre in the back of my mind. 

In the front of my mind is the here and now. Here is Pondere San Lorenzo Agriturismo, now is 5/23/13, 22:00 hours. 

Until recently I thought Tuscany was just a town in Italy. 

Instead I found it was a region made up of many towns in an incredibly bella landscape of rolling hills and mountainsides painted with olive groves, vineyards, herds of sheep and ancient towns.

Volterra has become our home for these last 4 days, well on the outskirts of Volterra, close enough to walk to. And close enough to hear the drumbeats and the bell towers in among the dogs barking and the breeze blowing through the olive trees this night.

 Sitting here on the kilometer long steep drive that connect a few houses to the main road. 

I just needed to soak some more of the Tuscany mountain view in before I retired for the night. 

I could make out the mountains dotted with lights from a few scattered houses and Agraturismo's and the night sky behind them. 

Off in the distance just above the mountains a light show was going on, cloud to cloud lightning, or as we used to call it back home "heat lightning". Not much heat here though. 

Been pretty cold "frado!" the last few days. But it's the warmth of the people that will be the memory that I take back home with me.

That is after 4 days in Cinque Terre and 6 days in Rome. 

But for now I have my rear end firmly planted on this narrow lane and I know that the camera on my IPhone nor the camera in my pocket cannot capture this moment. Only the camera in my mind has even a prayer of taking this all in and replaying it somewhere sometime when I will need a few minutes of the pleasure I'm feeling right now. 

Tomorrow morning I will wake early and see the dawn shining through the cracks of the door shutters.

I will have plenty of time to make this same walk in the daylight. But I don't know that now. For all I know tonight this is my last chance to take this in so I'm making the most of it now. 

Tomorrow we will leave this wonderful place and there will be hills to climb in Manarola to reach our apartment that hangs precariously over the edge of the sea. 

And I think I will be a little less sad as I was when I had to leave Venice for this place. 

Ciao

WHAT SHE SAID

The day has come and check out little http://ihavearighttospeaktoo.blogspot.com/sisters blog to see our destination!
Maybe in my place Renee will contribute a few posts. She has so many adventures in her past she may take my vent over, at least till she starts her own.
I had some old posts I wanted to regurgitate, like MADE IN VIETNAM and WHEN EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR WRONG and THE LAST CALL, but maybe some new stuff would be better.  Ok see you all next month!
Rumbles

ON WALDEN POND inspired by Renee

A recent acquaintance likened my little getaway down here at the lake to Thoreau's little cabin on Walden's Pond.
That maybe is a stretch, but she made be think of my little shack in a more romantic frame of mine. 
Thoreau had just a touch more room in his little cabin, 10x16 as opposed to my meager 10x12. But did he have a loft as mine does?
My Homes By Kaczynski, shares the same floor plan of the Unibomber's home. 
 
I know Thoreau didn't write with an IPhone as I do now sitting on the steps of my little fishing cabin and I doubt he would have even if he lived during our times. 

Our political views most certainly would not have been shared, though I would hope we could sit on an old hand hewn bench and debate our philosophies over a drink like civilized men. 
We could find common ground when we talked of our love for nature and the peace we find sitting out front of our cabins at night looking to the heavens in awe. 
We definitely would have shared his Abolitionist stand.

I came down here today with the idea of getting a little 
work done before I leave for Italy. Over a year ago I bought a pallet of Brown County stone to build a pathway from the steps of my cabin to the gangplank that leads to the dock. 
I had to halt the project due to a shoulder injury and operation to repair the damage. 
I have been sitting writing and alternating looking at the page of yellow paper on my iPhone and looking up to the stone pathway trying to decide which stone looks like it would fit in next. I just laid this one in, a large one that I carried up from my walk in the woods earlier. 
I could judge that my pallet of stones would not be sufficient to built the walkway and the floor of my outside shower so I have made it a habit when returning from the woods to select a stone from the creek bed and carry it home with me. 
This is my woodland workout and I think my body agrees with this exercise. And I think Thoreau would agree with this slight adjustment of nature. 


I hope my little place of reverie will stay in the family long after I'm gone and my grand kids and some day their kids will put away their IPads or whatever device the wizards of Apple will come up with and come to papaws cabin. 

I like the idea that these children some of who I have not met and will never meet, will walk down this pathway Im building to the dock and jump in the lake for a good old fashion swim. 


 My path ended up taking some unexpected turns, both of them. But I guess it was just supposed to be that way. 

RAINBOWS FROM THE VENT

Walking in the park I shut the iTunes down. Matchbox Twenty got me to the park. Now I want to hear the stream and the birds. 
It's a cool morning but its a beautiful day and I feel happier than I have in a very long time. 
I have just enough time to get my walk in and get home before my conference call with my Edward Jones guy and the retirement people from work. 

Got some other errands to run in preparation for my trip this Thursday and then hit the gym. 
Wow, life is good and I'm trying to get used to this strange feeling, what is this, I don't know how to identify how I feel right now. Contentment ? Serenity ? Relief ?
No I'm not skipping through the park and singing Walking On Sunshine, but if I was oriented that way I probably would be right now. 

I want to write something today for the Vent and I was going to write on Benghazi-gate but Geeez already covered that and IRS-gate in one fantastic post. I can't write it any better so go  read her if you haven't already. 
So the problem is I got nothing to vent! 

My Lord, will I always feel like this? Will I ever be able to produce any rumbles again?
Will I have to change the name of my blog? 
I mean what kind of volcano spews rainbows and unicorns?
This is bad, this is real bad. But I don't feel bad. 
Did you ever see the Star Trek where Kirk got separated into his good self and his evil self and neither one could function without the other. 
The good side was weak and couldn't make the hard decisions required to command a Starship. 
Will that happen to me? Will I not be able to command my Starship? Ok Rumbles From The Vent is not exactly as cool as a Starship. Bad comparison. 
Anyway, Kirks good self realized he needed his evil self to balance out and he found him and gave him a big hug till they melded back into one. 

Now I'm starting to wonder is there an evil me running around loose somewhere. If so, what kind of mischief might he be enjoying? Pulling the wings off of flys? Burning ants with a magnifying glass? Scoring with women of ill repute?
I must go find my evil self. Why should evil me have all the fun? 

TRAVELING ABROAD FOR DUMMIES

Thursday me and some family members will be "traveling  abroad" to Italy.
Traveling abroad, I always wanted to say that. Sounds kinda snooty so I will not overuse that phrase. The thing about traveling abroad is they don't talk the way we do around here. They talk foreign talk over there. The thing is if talk regular American talk to them, you have to talk loud to the foreigners then they can usually understand you.
Now if you go down in the Mexico country which you don't have to traveling abroad to get down there, you go south until you get to a big fence or river and you wait till you see a bunch of Mexico people walking in a group and you just go the opposite way they're going till you are surrounded by foreign talkers.
Now the thing about Mexico talkers you not only have to speak your American talk loudly, you need to put an el before your American word and an O after the word. Let me example you, imagine if you will, your in a Mexico eating place and you want to try the local cwazine.

You can just say "hot tamale" and they will know tamale cause its a Mexico word and they're all hot so you don't need to convert the hot to Mexico speak.

But, and this is a big but! Say after you eat your hot tamale and it has a bad reaction in your nether regions you need to get to a bathroom fast!
Look your Mexico guy right in the eye and say loudly "whereO is the Elshitter!"
You don't need to convert the small America words to Mexico,  just the important big words. The little words is just fluff anyway.
Now when I go traveling abroad to the Italy place you can't use the O or the El.
When you talk Italy talk again you talk loudly to your Italy person and you just add an "a" to the end of your word and it converts it to an Italy word.  Now this is not an "a" like in caaake, it's an "a" like in faaaaart. You see the difference.
Like say you see a pretty Italy lady and you wish to make time with her, you say
"Ia havea mucha Viagra" And she will like you.
You see what I did there? In Italy talk you need to put the "a" after every American  word even the small not important words. Now the Viagra word doesn't need converted. It already has been converted for your convenience.
Ok that's enough for to day as you know I am traveling abroad soon and Ia havea mucha Viagra toa packa.





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