Golden Gate

We awoke the next morning at the hostel and headed down for breakfast.  The hostel system, as we noted before, models its business plan hoping to allow people to experience different cultures and people affordably while caring for the earth.  They displayed this pursuit at breakfast, where all the dishes got cleaned by the person who dirtied them, and food scraps got placed in compost bins.  We felt right at home next to people from all across the world, perhaps the sole representatives of the U.S. in the vicinity.  As we checked out, we talked briefly with a teacher whose accent hinted at UK citizenship.  His travels via the hostel system allowed him to hike the Dolomites of Italy just like us the year before.

The next part of our journey caused some angst for Alex: driving in San Francisco.  We picked up our rental car from Enterprise, located two blocks away, and headed off.  Arthur, the one actually driving, took the attitude that his qualifications likely equaled or exceeded the average driver, so he showed less concern than Alex did.  We should note that the totality of our San Francisco driving experience took place between 8 and 8:30 on a Sunday morning, but our experience supported Arthur’s confidence.

After a short drive, we found ourselves right outside the Golden Gate Bridge.  We parked in some free parking a little ways off, but on this early morning we were more interested in walking around and taking it in anyway.  Apparently, the area serves photographers well, when we first got there the only other people utilizing the area was a bride and photographer; we seem to have a knack for picking out good wedding picture locations.  We walked along bunkers embedded in the hills, a remnant of WWII, and down to the Presidio, a sort of park-like area overlooking the harbor.

We took a tour of the Golden Gate Bridge through a free tour service put on by the San Francisco public library system (what an extraordinary service!)  Our tour guide actually works as a civil engineer, and a second civil engineer took the tour with us, so you can imagine how much fun Arthur had talking over the design of the bridge during the tour.  We saw some magnificent views of the bridge and the surrounding area, culminating in a walk to about the center point and back.  Suspended about 250 feet above the bay below, the bridge definitely messes with your sense of balance a little.

Ironically, driving the bridge didn't phase Arthur at all.  Interstate overpasses always cause him to grip the wheel a bit tighter, but with three lanes of traffic and pedestrians walking along the outside, we were well enclosed and it wasn't scary at all.

So we headed on to our next destination, Point Reyes, a peninsula not far north of San Francisco.  The city of Point Reyes, surrounded by such a natural setting, took great pride in its ecologically friendly businesses.  We got sandwiches from a local cafe wrapped in biodegradable paper and ate outside in beautiful weather.  When fished, we disposed of our refuse in the first compost bins I remember ever seeing put out by a city.  Before long, we slipped completely from the bustle of the city into a wilderness formed from the estuaries where the fresh water of the Sierra Nevada mountains trickles down an interacts with the Pacific.  We got a nice hike in, reaching the Pacific to hear it's terrific roar before heading back.

Our evening went heavenly, with pizza at Cafe Reyes (and enough for breakfast the next morning) and slept soundly at what increasingly serves as a welcome site to us, the local hostel.  Thus ended a a day that began in a huge metropolitan area and found us at its end in a nature preserve.  Omnia Vincit Amour.

Yet More Vacationing

Our readership could expect forgiveness for thinking this little blog of ours looked a bit more like a travelogue than the everyday life adventures of a young couple.  After spending the better part of a year chronicling our adventures in Italy, we find ourselves back with vacation time to "use or loose," so we recently hit the road again.  I (Arthur) scanned my bucket list items again after crossing of St. Peter's Basilica  and decided that a trip to the redwood forests of California sounded just right.  Alex quickly put together a marvelous vacation plan, and with great excitement we waited for the upcoming journey.

Our agenda revealed some ambition from the get go.  We wanted to catch an early flight to San Francisco to utilize as much of the day as possible, and we found a flight leaving from Kansas City at 6 a.m. our first free day.  Alex, who besides making the lame awesome through her physical therapist duties also serves the local football team as an athletic trainer, did not go off duty until about eight hours before our flight, so leaving the night before proved untenable.  We consequently rolled out of bed the first day of vacation at 2:45 in the morning to catch our plane.

Everything went smoothly from there really.  Alex enjoyed flying over our home town in the plane (it took us two hours to cover what the plane covered in about 15 minutes) and four hours later we found ourselves in San Francisco at about 8 in the morning (time zones helps going west), ready for a full day of tourism.

BART (the San Francisco equivalent of a subway) took us from the airport to the city proper, and after dropping our bags off at the hostel we would stay in that first night, we headed towards Chinatown.  There we saw some of the iconic architectural style designating the area and the shops proudly decorated with dragon sculptures, elegantly painted fans, and cuisines of the far east.  It was neat to just walk around and see how the locals have integrated with the city as a whole while retaining elements of their homeland traditions.

We headed to the cable car museum, one of the most fascinating destinations we saw in San Francisco.  San Francisco is famous for its cable cars, which is one of their major forms of public transit.  Just below the surface of the streets, steel cables roughly two inches thick are constantly being pulled in a long, continuous loop.  The cable cars themselves are completely unpowered; when a conductor is ready to go, he simply clamps on to this cable and the car is moved along.

All of those miles of cable are being pulled by gigantic motors right in the heart of the city, an extraordinary achievement.  When you think about the amount of torque it would take to pull those cables, how much tension that cable must be kept in to keep from slacking, it is truly of marvel of engineering how the system integrates together.

After the cable car museum it was time for lunch, and of course you can't come to Chinatown and eat anything other than Chinese, as Alex grudgingly admitted.  We headed to a little restaurant and had a delightful meal of BBQ pork buns, pork pot stickers, and shrimp rice balls, albeit one where I struggled with the silverware (no spoons or forks, us Midwesterners just had to figure out the chopsticks).

We had a delightful day walking the streets of San Francisco.  Other smaller stops included a Chinese fortune cookie factory, Ghirardelli (the chocolate maker) square (where we shared one of the most scrumptious desserts you can imagine), a sourdough bread factory, and Pier 39, where all the sea lions like to hang out.  In St. Peter's and Paul's church, we saw a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta, which we had seen firsthand in Rome only a year ago, which brought back some pleasant memories.

We spent quite a bit of time around the harbor looking at old ships.  On this particular day, admission on these ships was free, so we enjoyed seeing the large wooden ship that hauled grain and wood up and down the coast, the ferryboat that was the fastest means of transport across the bay before a certain bridge was built, and a hardy tugboat whose massive engine belied its diminutive stature.

Another courtyard we saw was filled with restored arcade style mechanical games, and the engineer in me geeked out for a while.  Old pinball machines, basketball games, self-playing pianos, arm-wrestling devices galore, each crafted via mechanical means.  Some of these things were over a century old, and none of them housed a single transistor.  The craftsmanship involved was unbelievable, and I couldn't believe people were allowed to just walk in and play these games just like they would 100 years ago (when the value of a quarter was something like five dollars today).

One more destination before we wrap up this post: Coit tower.  Built atop one of the major hills comprising San Francisco's boundaries (the least pedestrian friendly part of the city), it provided beautiful views of the harbor and the city.  Inside the walls were frescoed by artists from the 1930's portraying contemporary life in the area.

After eating dinner at the sourdough factory (their sourdough is in everyway superior to mine) we headed back to the hostel for bed.  And with that, we will close this very long post detailing a day that stretched for about 22 hours worth of new sites and experiences.  Omnia Vincit Amour.

Myth of Scarcity

Importance is relative; as the song says "To one lost sheep, a shepherd boy is greater than the richest king."  A hummingbird nailed this point home to me the other day as I hung out on the back deck with my parents, when the little guy came to drink at our feeder and was disappointed to find the feeder broken and unable to hold the sweet nectar it craved,  I kid you not, this hummingbird hovered for two seconds looking mournfully at me before heading off.

To that hummingbird, I am a godlike figure, with the ability to, at a whim, supply all needs.  He shelters in my maple tree, bathes in my birdbath, and finds plentiful food through the provident natural setting my wife provides.  It should come as no surprise that the next day I purchased a new hummingbird feeder and set it out.  Alex and I get a lot of enjoyment watching him and the other birds in our yard, but recently I've noticed some disturbing behavior.

That hummingbird is a jerk.  He's a cute little fella, but he has a cruel heart.  Whenever the other hummingbirds come by to get a drink, he chases them off.  The feeder contains tenfold his body weight in nectar, but the greedy little brat insists of hoarding it all to himself.

I have spoken before about setting my domain up as a place of justice and peace, where all creatures may find respite.  I am now confronted with the evil deviance of the very creatures my heart takes such delight in, that hummingbird has greatly displeased his divine sovereign the same way the stupid neighborhood cats incur my wrath anytime they disturb my gentle birds.

Oh, that the little bird could understand that my riches are infinite, his deity shall not run out of sugar and water.  All of his needs would be supplied according to my riches.  As it is, his mentality of scarcity almost guarantee that as he ages, some new bully shall arise and dethrone him from his haughty heights, and so shall he be separated from the blessings of my feeder, which I shall call Zion.

Sound allegorical?  I read a daily devotional from a man named Skye Jethani every day, and he recently mentioned a fascinating article called The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity.  I would highly recommend the article, but the basic thesis is that God created a world of great abundance, and if we shared, there would be enough for all.

That might be difficult to believe, and certainly you will find no shortage of people telling you how naive that notion is.  Sad thing is, many of those voices claim they speak for the one who multiplied the fish and the loaves, who fed the nation of Israel with manna from heaven, who decreed that the jar of oil would never empty during the famine.  But the more I learn, the more I believe that much of the scarcity in our world is a direct result of human greed, every bit as vile as that brat of a hummingbird.

Alex and I recently went to a talk at our church about the refugee crisis.  About one person in a hundred alive on planet earth today have been forcefully removed from their home due to famine, war, or persecution.  One person in a graduating class; one person in a church congregation.  What to do about it is not a straightforward question, but one year after a major tax break, most of which flowed to people least in need of it, the prognosticators will tell you these displaced people will eat up our benefits and ruin our country if allowed in.  We look at the hungry and see safety threats, we have split up families in an effort to staunch the flow of human suffering to our borders, and then we cite holy scripture to justify it.

Dear reader, I pray that this is not your attitude.  Don't give ear to the fearmonger.  If you are so moved, contact your Congressman and let him know you are not okay with the policies of our country.  Let us guard ourselves, lest we incur the sort of wrath that little hummingbird has brought on himself.  We are accountable to a much higher diety, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Omnia Vincit Amour.

Lessons from Italia Part 2

In part 1 of this post we shared that what we brought home from our trip were experiences, new ideas, memories, and pictures-- all very light to pack.  For the last post we focused on what we gained from general travel-- experiences, the kindness of strangers, and the opportunity to meet with people from around the world and share ideas and culture face to face.  Today we are going to look at what were learned specifically from traveling Italy.  And in Italy everything starts with the food, so that's where we will start to.

Food is at the center of Italian culture, very much the national pastime.  Italian food is great because it is the freshest and best ingredients usually picked up at the market that morning or grown just outside the backdoor.  Also it is against the rules to take short cuts-- no microwave dinners, fast food, or mixes in a box.  Probably our most memorable meal during the trip was dinner at the agriurismo just outside of Siena.  It was the epitome of gathering around the Italian table.  There were five couples all from the US and we shared stories and laughed throughout dinner and it got a little noisy and boisterous.  We were eating food that was grown in the garden just out the window and wine from the vineyard across the road.  Our hostess shared about each dish and wine.  My favorite pasta in all of Italy was the zucchini lemon pasta we had that evening.  They shared the recipe with me and I have attempted to recreate it-- of course I know it will never be the same as that evening but it has been fun to try to produce some of our favorite foods from Italy in our kitchen.  So far I have made the zucchini lemon pasta, nutella gelato which is wonderful, spaghetti carbonara, and some warm foccacia with basil or oregano from just outside our backdoor.  At least we can have a taste of Italy on this side of the ocean.  In Italy we also approached food with the idea that it too was part of the adventure.  I tend to shy away from exotic or different foods and especially vegetables but tried to put that aside in Italy.  We tried rabbit, boar, kalamari, fennel, spinach dumplings, polenta, pizza with eggplant, and basil gelato.  We always clean our plates too.  I was impressed by the fact that vegetables, if cooked correctly, can be edible and even enjoyable.  My take home lesson is to try new things, even vegetables.  Since arriving home we have tried Brussels sprouts and loved them.

In Italy you can't help but bump into world famous art everywhere.  For example, there are three works attributed to Michelangelo in the United States.  We saw 24 works of Michelangelo from sculptures to paintings to buildings.  This doesn't even included the three statues that were in the cathedral in Siena that we probably walked by but didn't know they were Michelangelo's until I just looked it up on Wikipedia.  Can you image walking by a masterpiece and not realizing it because there are masterpieces everywhere you look.  At some point we were like, "Oh, so there's yet another Michelangelo, ho hum."  But on the flip side some of these works stopped us dead in our tracks, brought on tears or goosebumps, and left us speechless as we knew that we were admiring something great.  We got cricks in our neck looking at the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, felt miniscual in the massive St. Peter's Basilica, and marveled at the foot of David.  Yes we had seen pictures of each of these pieces before in books or on TV but experiencing art in person is worlds different.  Frankly, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about going to so many art museums on this trip.  But according to the guide books that is what you do in Italy.  Then we were in Florence and three hours wasn't nearly enough time to take in the Uffizi.  The Vatican Museum was such an experience that both of us were so "amped up" that we couldn't sleep that night-- "amped up" from an art museum!  I became a Carvaggio groupie, eagerly searching out as many works as I could find in Rome by this controversial Barque artist-- how did that happen?

If you aren't bumping into art in Italy then you are tripping over ancient ruins.  At first we were struck by seeing a Gothic cathedral from the 1200s and the town market that had been around for 700 years.  Then we stayed in the attic of a building built in the 13th century.  Oh if the ceiling beams we kept bumping on heads on could talk.  Later we hiked to churches started in the 700s to shelter people hiding out from pirates on the coast.  Next we bumped around a city started by Etruscans in 400 BC-- prior to the Roman Empire. And finally we ambled down the Via Sacra, Ancient Rome's Main Street where triumphant armies would parade after battle.  Yes, history can be learned from books but reading about an event and imagining it play out in your mind's eye is different that experiencing the place where the event took place and letting your imagination run wild from there.  As we wandered down the main drag in Florence we thought about what it would look like if the swarms of people passing us were not Japanese tourists but Floretines in Renaissance attire or Michelangelo chatting on the corner with Machiavelli.  History in person also seems bigger.

It is also important at Americans to remember that history doesn't start in 1776.  In fact we saw very little in Italy that wasn't built or created before that time.  So many events that played out in history took place in Europe that then impacted how the Founding Fathers thought or acted in 1776.  The seeds of democracy were planted in Ancient Rome.  The Founding Fathers just thought it would be worth trying again.  Over the course of the past year I have realized how little I know about European history and how learning European history has added to my understanding of American history.   Examples

I heard once that when you travel abroad the country you learn the most about is your own.  It is not until you see something done differently you really consider the habits, traditions, or culture that you partake in on a daily basis.  One of the best parts of Italy was that we spent two weeks in the country and didn't use any form of private transportation outside of a 5 minute taxi ride.  We loved zipping between the cities on the fast train while looking our the window or reading.  We also experienced standing room only on a bus full Germans and a small regional train full of people out traveling on a Sunday.  Public transport was available and efficient-- things we can only dream about in the Midwest.  It was also fun to walk past sidewalks full of bikes-- hundreds and hundreds of bikes.  Some of the cities we were in prohibited car traffic so bike was by far the most popular choice to get around.  I love living in a town small enough to bike almost everywhere-- but in America we have highways and businesses are up for the car.  There is nowhere to park my bike at the grocery store but this doesn't seem to be an issue to anyone else.  One of the things I enjoyed most about Italy was that the "living room" for Italians is the neighborhood piazza.  Ever evening people gather to eat, hang out, and play.  My to favorite experiences of this were in the tiny town of Montorosso and the city of Florence.  Montorosso was one of the towns in the Cinque Terre.  It is overrun by tourists most of the time but in the evening when some of the crowds thin out the locals come out to the piazza.  Arthur and I spent a good part of an hour just people watching while eating gelato.  We watched the kids whiz down the cobble stone streets on scooters to the play ground and a pick up game of soccer.  There was the bench were three or four elderly gentleman who have spent their entire life together were shooting the breeze.  Across the piazza the gaggle of grandmothers sharing the town gossip and oohhing over a passing baby in a stroller.  There was the young man and his aunt who were having a very heated debate with loud, emotional exchanges and lots of gestures that lasted for about 15 min-- in front of everyone.  And this happens every evening-- it isn't just for soup dinners or football games.  In Florence we "joined" our community at San Spirito each evening.  We ate dinner on the fountain just like all the teenagers, listened to the live music, had a delicious sit down meal on the sidewalk watching everyone mill about on the evening passagiata or "stroll".  I will say we were a little disappointed when we return home and all the neighbors weren't gathered in our cul-de-sac with lawn chairs to pass the evenings.  Maybe if we served gelato they would come?  Americans don't even have "front porch sitting" anymore.

The final lesson I learn in Italy was about devotion.  The Catholic church was a presence everywhere you turned.  And while many Italians are what we would call Christmas and Easter church goers we also saw examples of faithful devotion that I hadn't experienced.  Part of it could be just seeing how others practice religion differently because traveling to the Unite Arab Emirates in college I saw Islam and the people who stopped their lives 5 times a day to pray and how they chose to dress and interact due to their beliefs.  Italy was similar.  We stayed in a convent with nuns and other guests were nuns from around the world on pilgrimage to the Vatican.  We saw two or three of the faithful at a small church in Cinque Terre reciting the rosary together.  In Rome people hurried into church going to or from work for a moment of prayer or to light  candle.  Their religion and beliefs were woven into the fabric of daily life. Devotion is define as a loyalty, commitment, or consistency to a person, belief, or a cause.  Maybe this is just my perception but it seems like devotion in the church in America today is a very private, personal thing since our relationship with God is personal, however I was moved by watching these acts displayed in public. 

So there you have it.  All the blogs on Italy are official posted.  Just in time for us to head on our next vacation.  If you as a faithful reader made it all the way through treat yourself to a wonderful pasta dinner or let us know and we will even make gelato for you-- one can never have too much gelato.  Omnia Vincit Amore.

Lessons from Italia Part 1

So what did we take back home after our trip to Italy?  This is one of the questions they asked as we were re-entering the US in customs.  As far as US customs were concerned we didn't bring anything home-- no leather jackets, fine ceramics, vintage wines, exotic foods, or anything to declare.  They also wondered why we didn't have any luggage either if we really had spent 2 weeks in a foreign country.  Did we really have anything to show that we had been in Italy?  Not really, just a few scarves that I purchased that were tucked in an empty pocket on my back pack and about 73 cents in Euros. (Although if we could have found a pope bobble head I would make sure it fit in the pack.  I also would have loved to have a cooler to bring home a few gallons of gelato too.)  But since we were packing light we had to be very selective on what we took with us and fortunately pictures, memories, stories, experiences, and ideas are very light and easy to carry.  

While we probably don't want to let the CDC know, I think we both brought home a case of the travel bug, especially for international travel.  We have already started throwing around ideas of other places we want to go in Europe in the future and have officially added New Zealand to our list after hanging out with some Kiwis in the Dolomites.  Prior to this trip I was scared of planning and doing an international trip by ourselves.  I have traveled overseas before but always with someone else calling the shots  and I was just along for the ride.  I am just slightly a control freak and the idea of ensuring all the travel plans and connections work out in places where we have never been or speak the language was intimidating to me.

However, with a good guide book and the internet we had as much insider info as one can have short of being somewhere in person.  I really start to feel uncomfortable pretty quickly if I don't know where I am or exactly what to expect.  And in case you aren't aware of it international travel is full of being lost and having lots of surprises.  Even though Arthur and I take some adventures that may sound a little risky, safety is a major issue for both of us, especially when hiking in the "wilderness".

My toughest part of the trip was the few days we were in the Dolomites since our plans were at the mercy of the weather (in the mountains in October).  Also, we had purchased train tickets already for our next leg of the trip so we were on a little bit of a schedule and sometimes hiking doesn't go on schedule.  I remember lying in bed one night thinking that planning a trip is fun and the idea of travel is fun but actual travel was just too stressful and I don't think I can sign up to do it again.  Then I spent two weeks in Italy and maybe it mellowed me out a little bit.  Or I realized that the stress or anxiety I was experiencing melted away standing in the Sistine Chapel or eating a plate of fresh pasta or walking were Julius Caeser walked.  There is no substitute for the experience of travel.

A close second in my book to the experiences as a reason to travel is meeting people.  Especially our first few days in Italy when we were trying to learn the ropes we received so much kindness from complete strangers.  There was the Italian grad student at the bus stop who helped make sure we got on the right bus, the German tourist who made sure we got off the right bus stop after we tried to get off in the wrong town twice, our hotelier who went out of her way to call and check on the weather at the mountain hut (since we don't speak a lick of German or had a phone), the man at the desk at the hotel in Florence who let us stash our bags for the day after we checked out so we didn't have to lug all of our belongings to an art museum, the women who stopped us before we walked too far down the wrong trail and pointed us in the right direction, and the countless Italians who patiently tried to understand my attempts at Italian or Arthur spouting off in Spanish all over the country.  Nothing restores hope in humanity like a stranger going out of their way to help out.

We had a few great conversations from people from all over.  Truthfully, we didn't have a lot of deep interaction with Italians, however Italy is the place where people from all over the work come so we chatted with people from across the globe.  Travel guide Rick Steves has written a book about travel as a political act which was very intriguing to Arthur.  The premise is that traveling in the world allows you to interact with people face to face and talk about why they do something or believe something in the context of their culture as opposed to hearing about the world issues only through the lens of American media corporations.  We discussed poverty and home health care in Germany while hiking with physical therapists from Germany.  We talked about gun laws and immigration with a couple from New Zealand.  We heard the concerns and the frustrations people have about the issues from their point of view.  We learned that everyone has a good idea about how US politics functions but we had no idea how elections work in New Zealand.  (Actually when was the last time we heard any news from New Zealand on TV except to announce the start of filming a new Lord of the Rings on site in the country?)

While I don't enjoy politics like Arthur I love learning about people's lives and cultures.  I also think it is important to represent our country well when traveling.  I don't want people in other countries to form ideas about Americans based just on the news and celebrities on TV.  We tried not to be rude, loud American tourists (except for the time the elevator door closed as people were trying to get on behind us and we didn't know that you have to push a button to keep the door open-- dumb, rude Americans.)  

Granted, travel can be expensive.  So while our opportunities to gallivant around the globe might be limited I have become more aware of my opportunities here to connect with people around the world.  Manhattan has about 2,000 students from around the world show up each year for school which is a great opportunity to meet people.  I have become friends with a gal from Ghana who is studying for her PhD in Agricultural Economics.  In hanging out together it has been fun to experience "American" experiences again through fresh eyes and with a different cultural perspective.  She was so excited to go to an American football game "just like in the movies" and feel the energy that the crowd has for the first time.  Or taking her to Wal-Mart and marveling over all the selection in one place just as I marveled at the small local markets on the piazzas of Italy.  She was shocked that I had never used trains, buses, or a taxi for transportation until I went to Italy as she is trying to navigate Manhattan and its lack of public transportation.

I was able to help her out the other night as she had been searching for "line pins" each time she was able to take the bus to Wal-Mart but hadn't found them yet and wasn't sure where else in town to look.  Luckily I had an extra bag of "clothes pins" I was able to give her to save her from searching all over town.  I attended a picnic with her a few weeks ago and also met a woman from Iran working on her doctorate in Economics.  I have never met anyone from Ghana or Iran before and here I was speaking to some of the brightest minds in these countries. As they were discussing statistics and supply chains in their fields of expertise my contribution to the conversation was about how chocolate chip cookies are probably the most American cookie-- my field of expertise.

So now it is my turn to pay forward the things I appreciated most when we traveled with those who travel to us-- sharing "American" experiences, helping a "stranger" find clothes pins so she can do laundry, and meeting people and learning about them and their countries when they show up on our doorsteps as guests.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

Vatican Museums - Renaissance

Our tour of the Vatican Museums moved on from the Classical world into more of the Renaissance.  The building stretches much longer than it is wide, and so the next room, the tapestries room, acts as a hallway about the length of a football field with beautifully woven tapestries on either side.  These tapestries, like a great painting from the time, depict various scenes, mostly biblical stories.  The detail put into each one inspires awe, they rival oil paintings for their lifelike realism and beauty.  One that particularly stands out in my mind is a scene of Harod proclaiming all the boys under the age of two be killed, and the anguish of the mothers and children envelopes the space around it.  In a way, these tapestries give a near three dimensional feel, some sort of texture to their scenes, completely unique to the art form.  On a somewhat creepier note, something about that depth can give you the feeling like the eyes can follow you.

Down an equally long hall lies the map room.  Alex especially love maps, and we enjoyed seeing these wall size panels and the details early cartographers put into these maps, mostly of Italy.  The pope needed to have a great deal of knowledge of the lay of the land while executing his roles, and the room definitely kept him informed.

Another thing to note about these rooms; the hallways themselves deserve accolades for their craftsmanship.  From wallpaper to ceiling decor, each detail trumpets the skill of the artisan involved.  So much to take in deserves appreciation that the few hours we spent there just cannot give justice, and my failing words are only a faint shell of a description.

At some point, I'm unsure just where, we stepped out on a patio and in the darkness got a great view of St. Peter's dome.  I knew seeing the basilica would be amazing, I did not know how profound the museum's masterpieces would effect me, and some of the most notable parts stood before us.  We reflected on our blessings to get to do this so early in our lives, and wondered about what adventures await us in the coming years.

Our tour brought us next to a room of "epic paintings"  -- like every painting seen thus far wasn't epic enough.  In this case, the title speaks more to the dimensions of the painting and not the magnitude or quality of the work, though each displayed incredible mastery and most certainly requires something of a unique skill set.  A painter must be quite talented to paint standing on stairs to reach the top of his 20 foot work and still integrate all the sections seamlessly.

Next came the room of the Immaculate Conception.  Frescoed after the papal decree of the Immaculate Conception (which is the doctrine that Mary was born without original sin), the works are some of the latest in the collection, the walls depict scenes from the life of Mary.  In the center of the room is a wooden structure containing the original decree.  Of all Catholic teaching, the treatment of Mary is the most difficult for my Protestant mind to wrap my head around.  The room was awe-inspiring, but its hard for me to find the rationale.

The so-called Raphael rooms come next.  Pope Julius II, recognizing the talents of a then young and relatively unknown Raphael, commissioned him to fresco his private apartments.  Some of the most well known works of art in the Western canon resulted from this decision.

Many readers might recognize the School of Athens, which portrays many of the heavy hitters of the Renaissance portrayed as the Greek philosophers from whom the Renaissance drew so much of its inspiration.  In the center, Leonardo da Vinci plays Plato conversing with Aristotle (a lesser known contemporary to the modern reader, Guiliano da Sangallo).  An interesting story we heard says Raphael originally wasn't going to include Michelangelo in the painting (today's misunderstood, tortured artists who feel they must suffer for their art and don't hold candle to Michelangelo).  After sneaking a peak at Michelangelo at work down the hall (where the Sistine Chapel started taking form), Raphael begrudgingly found a spot for him in the school of Athens (bottom center, with his head on his hand.)

Of course many of the other walls must receive some note.  Readers might recall that the Cathedral of Orvieto housed a relic commemorating a miracle where the Eucharist took the form of flesh and blood.  The connection between this painting and an earlier stop on our trip really appealed me.  Speaking of transubstantiation, Raphael provides an excellent depiction of this doctrine which so clashes with my Protestant sensibilities in another of his works.  I also really  enjoyed scenes from the life of Constantine and the incredible meeting between Pope Leo and Atilla the Hun.

But we really must move on.  The last room claims the most notoriety, the Sistine Chapel.  This room still serves as the meeting place where the Cardinals choose a new pope, imagine the civilization altering questions and decisions made in this room.  The gravity of the importance of those decisions might just knock you backward before the marvel of Michelangelo's handiwork gets a hold of you.  Once it does, you are imported into a whole new world.

My knowledge of the chapel before this trip came from that iconic image of God reaching out his hand to Adam, and I originally thought the entire ceiling would be that painting.  In reality, the ceiling is partitioned into ten panels, each one depicting some scene from Michelangelo's conception of a history of everything, from creation to the coming of Christ.  The front wall, its entirety, displays the final judgement.  In the corners and arches, Michelangelo places the patriarchs and prophets.  The side walls (not done by Michelangelo) reenact scenes from Christ's earthly ministry, and we enjoyed going around the room and surmising what story was depicted where.

We had enough time left on our tour to go back and view some of the antiquities again, especially Laocoon, but the Vatican was definitely the climax of our trip.  There was a group playing music in the courtyard so we sat on a bench listening to an Italian opera singer attempt Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World.  Tomorrow we would be heading home, and there was definitely something akin to sadness in the fact that we would be returning to our routine lives.  But what an incredible 2 weeks it has been seeing and experiencing just a corner of this wonderful world.

After we left the Vatican Museums we were giddy.  We couldn't quite wrap our minds around what we had just experienced.  We celebrated by stopping and getting our second gelato cones of the day but after all we had Euro change we needed to spend and there is not a better way to blow a few coins than licking gelato, walking the streets of Rome with your incredible spouse, and discussing the events of the day.  We lay in bed that night and couldn't sleep.  We were heading back home in the morning to small town Kansas.   A part of us wondered what we could do in the rest of our lives that would ever match the experience.

My, it was a blast, and the memories from the trip continue to inspire and motivate.  It reminds that the best things in life are so much more valuable than the easily obtainable, it makes me want to reach for the best.  I certainly don't also do the best at it, but the thought of David sure makes it more likely that I'll reach for a good book instead of passing the time idly on Netflix.  Memories of the Uffizi goad me onward while exercising, the taste of authentic carbonara reminds me there is something so much better than my fast food cravings.  I don't think someone could look at my life and say it has markedly changed since this vacation, but I like to think that things are still fulminating.  Anyway, we look forward to more travels, and more adventures with each other.  Omnia Vincit Amour.

Vatican Museums - The Classical World

After a well-timed stop for gelatto, we waited patiently outside the Vatican Museum entrance.  Going in the evening meant only a limited number of people would be allowed in, a wonderful reprise from the crowds who otherwise would all rightly be clamoring to see some of the world's most impressive art.  The Catholic church preserved much of the classical world at a time where no governing authority or other power could.  Drawing on the writings of Augustine, it was policy that the works of the pre-Christian world not be treated as pagan idolatry that would pervert the faithful, but as masterpieces created by beings made in God's image, through admiring the handiwork of his image bearers we might come to worship the One in whose image we are made.

Neither of us really knew what we were in for, but nonetheless we were darn near giddy with anticipation.  At last the doors opened, inviting us into something akin to a new world.  We first viewed what previously served as the Pope's private gardens, an open roofed room of peaceful contemplation.  In protected areas encircling the center, where a fountain stood, rests some of the most spectacular sculptures of the ancient world extant today.

A personal favorite is Laocoön and His Sons, which captures a scene from the Illiad where the Greek gods send snakes to stop Laocoön from warning the Trojans that the Greeks waited to ambush their city from inside the wooden horse they presented as a peace offering.  His face speaks of his anguish, not only at the ending of his own live and the lives of his children, but at the fall of his country.  I find myself thinking of it often when I turn on the news and see some of the events unfolding in my own country. 

This and the other statues surrounding it all date back to around the time of Christ, 1500 years before Michelangelo would ever pick up his chisel.  The quality of the work speaks to how Roman advancements in government translated into the arts, the likes of which would not be seen again in Europe in millennia.  When that quality of art did reemerge, it was through artists looking back at the ancients.  You can see this when you compare the sculpture of the river god, found in this garden, to Adam's reclined position in the Sistine Chapel, which we'll get to in a little bit.  

Moving on a little ways, the collection houses an incredible amount of artifacts from ancient Egypt,

which mummies and sarcophagi galore.  We also saw a huge collection of busts from the ancient world, and it was fun to see the bust of Socrates I've seen so often in books right in front of me.  

The other thing that really captured my imagination in the classical world section of the museum was the objects made of porphyry.  Porphyry is a very hard igneous rock, so hard in fact that it took special tempering techniques to make tools that could carve it.  Purple, or royal porphyry, comes from only a few places on earth, only one of which the Romans knew, so it was very rare in the empire.  Nonetheless, the Vatican museum houses some extraordinarily large pieces of porphyry artifacts, a huge basin 13 meters across in what is known as the round hall (statues, including a bronze of Hercules, surround it), and two enormous sarcophagi, believed to be of Helena and Constance, mother and sister of Constantine.

Helena and Constance were believed to be early converts to Christianity, and their influence might  have helped lead to the conversion of Constantine.  Much has been written of the legend of Constantine having a conversion experience because of a vision he had before the battle of Milvian Bridge, and whether his conversion was sincere (he apparently used the symbol of the Roman sun god when expedient afterwards).  The influence of Helena (since sainted) and Constance seems to me the far more likely story, and if so, these two people, little thought of for their own deeds, changed the world through their steady consistent witness.  Rome is such a wild ride for a history buff, where every few feet is the site of an event that forever shaped the world of today; the crowning of Charlemagne, the assassination of Caesar, the imperial palace, the arch of Titus.  You could rightly through the lives of these two women into that list.

Anyway, next on our travels, we will explore some of the art more contemporary with the Renaissance.  Omnia Vincit Amour.