Describing the Uffizi or the Medici Palace and all we have experienced is too much for an iPod post. We have navigated the buses and the supermarket in our working class neighborhood (sometimes with smiles from the helpful kindly locals.). It is snowing/sleeting, temp at 37, wind, cold rain. A slip and fall and dodging traffic take up transit time. A stunning place in several ways.
Edges blend into each other in Rome – streets into sidewalks, 3000 year old frescoes and arches into hotdog stands and coffee shops. At every corner there are artifacts from thousands of years ago, layered with century after century of different cultures and beliefs. We took an evening tour with an archologist who made the complexities and depth clear. Yesterday afternoon we went to the large public Roman baths, built around 50 A.D. and rebuilt and refurbished up to the year 527 A.D. and then abandoned when the aquaduct was cut when Rome fell. They are the size of several football fields, and several stories high, all originally done in marble and inlaid floors, with many pools of hot, warm and cold water. A really stunning area I had not seen before.
Today is laundry and some preparation for the train to Florence. We were told the latest scam at the train station is a sign (put up by pickpockets) warning tourists that pickpockets are in the area. Upon seeing it, everyone puts their hand upon their stash, thus signaling where it is. You are then approached by a group, one of which slashes your coat or pocket with a linolium knife and takes your stuff out the bottom. The mayor of Rome deported several hundred of these folks recently, but quickly several hundred more took their place.
Our quite large apartment on Labicana is only a block from the Colesseum and the Roman Forum and we spent half a day there wandering among the ruins.
Then cabbed over to Trastevere for lunch and more wandering, including a movie or TV show being filmed, complete with fake police, coffins, detectives, and …… lights, camera, action. Then we walked till dark and came home, only to go out again for groceries. I am home and R & R are out getting more food. All I got was chicken and veggies… not much exciting amidst all the foody goodies around here. The computer in the apartment was down, but I got it up and running, so can try and post. We are catching up on the time change. It is warm here. Almost 70!!
Since many flights were cancelled all over
the east coast, we had to fight crowds to
get on the Greyhound to Boston. They were
overbooked and didn’t seem to care or
stop selling tickets. With teamwork, we made
it on, with all our luggage, much of it sitting
on our laps. We shared travel travails and snacks with
fellow passengers and finally made it over
icey roads and car spin outs to Boston with
much sleet, snow, ice and rain pelting down.
Eric and Naomi treated us to dinner at the
Cheescake Factory and we hit the hay at 10 p.m.We
are hanging out at the hotel for a while till our
plane leaves tonight. Looking forward to a
lovely security screening at Logan, an 8 hour
flight to Zurich, a 1.5 layover, and then a 2 hour
flight to Rome and a cheery collection of luggage,
a search for Rebecca’s cousin coming in from New
York, and a final $75 cab ride to find our apartment.
We will take Italian lessons from the cab driver on
the way to the apartment.
This painting was done from a photograph taken while I was visiting the port of Akko in Northern Israel with my former student Abe Reznick, now Professor of Biology at the Technion in Haifa. He is an expert in gerontology and the biochemistry of aging. My 70th is on March 1. Maybe I should consult with him!
Akko, Northern Israel
Watch Richard Schmid paint a landscape. Note the computers on the left in this video. The painting at the end is pure magic.
These drawings were done from telephoto pictures taken at a Zapatista rally for Subcomondante Marcos of the EZPLN in Oaxaca (February, 2004).
A painting by one of my favorite Canadian Impressionists, Mike Svob, of Venice
Watercolor – 16×20 on Arches Cold Press. 2004
Near Richmond and Jericho, Vermont