Taking a bike tour in a new city has been one of my most eye-opening experiences on my last few trips. It started off so easy, pedaling through Montreal in wonderful weather - all we had to do was to not be slower than the two chain-smoking French among the pack. Even though there were hills and traffic the experience felt effortless, a testament to the route plan and the drivers alike.
Things haven't quite been the same since. Last year I ate sand in rural Vietnam. This year I thought a leisurely ride through Rome would hit a few of the sites and give our bodies some much-needed movement. It was every bit as difficult, in completely opposite ways.
We arrived early to the bike shop at the Colosseum, and were surprised to be the only people on the afternoon tour. No young or old or emphysemic in sight to bring up the rear, it was us and the tour guide. She slid effortlessly between signs and buildings and flocks of man-birds, somehow managing to keep her feet on the pedals while lowering her speed to .000001 miles per hour. I, on the other hand, acted like I've never ridden a bicycle before - every 50 feet a mallard with legs would suddenly change direction, extended selfie stick whipping within inches of my skull.
Reviews of this company were stellar, secret paths and back alleys avoiding the major clusterfucks. Thankfully this was mostly true, our journey often dipped away from the hordes of people following various colors of panties-on-a-stick - but the narrower the street the higher the chance we'd nearly kill an old oblivious guy checking Facebook. The bike bell built for clearing a path became a liability, drunks would mimic the sound while paying it no mind - more than one lady Brit pulling their loved one aside scolding "the bell means move!". No less than 15% of the time I was pushing these wheels along with my feet, Flintstones style.
The freedom on this ride was ironically when merging back into chaotic streets - paved roads and an assortment of vehicles acknowledging us-as-kin, wrists relieved from the punishment of pebbled paths. We pedaled hard and fast past Altare della Patria, sad once again when we reached another mob scene photo opportunity and the accompanying "It's too crowded, I will wait with the bikes here".
I wish we would have instead done this in Bologna, the only city that made sense by bike. As we neared the end of our 3 hour journey we exhaustedly asked the guide "do you normally ride your bicycle in Rome?". She smiled, blurted a sharp "oh no!", and we all laughed aloud. Oh Rome, you so crazy.
Monday, October 9, 2017
Thursday, October 5, 2017
antica roma
Our final meal in Bologna was the fanciest - Ristorante L'Arcimboldo was traditional Bolognese food done with flair mere blocks from the train station, their Lasagne Verde spectacular and the final (successful) tick of my own Bologna gastrochecklist.
Cotoletta alla Bolognese ✔
Tortellini in Brodo ✔
Gelato
Tagliatelle al Ragù ✔
Lasagna Verde ✔
Astute readers will note the lack of a tick next to Gelato, and sadly I was too stuffed to cone strut after lunch. Food memories are always the strongest for me when on vacation - they evoke waterfalls of incredibly specific perspectives - of exact mood and headspace - the closest I've ever come to freezing time.
Gelato and Rome take me right back to 2010, when I played an active listening shoulder to someone else's aborted wedding and his heavy-hearted decision to still go on the prepaid stillborn honeymoon. During the scorching month of August we decided to bail on the endlessly long line at the Vatican and ended up pulling our take-a-ticket at Gelateria dei Gracchi. The staff were alternating annoyed and curt, in rapid-fire emotionally Italian intervals. I ended up with a double-helping of watermelon gelato with thick cream spread atop. The moment I put that sweet juicy grainy to my lips every part of my sweat-soaked, sunburned body felt at ease. It was the gelato dragon I would forever chase, my demands on this trip to revisit the Gracci left me watermelon-less, their still-delightful caramel-pear remaining a distant second-place memory.
Still, gelato and Italy will forever walk hand-in-hand - another important excess as part of living excessively.
Cotoletta alla Bolognese ✔
Tortellini in Brodo ✔
Gelato
Tagliatelle al Ragù ✔
Lasagna Verde ✔
Astute readers will note the lack of a tick next to Gelato, and sadly I was too stuffed to cone strut after lunch. Food memories are always the strongest for me when on vacation - they evoke waterfalls of incredibly specific perspectives - of exact mood and headspace - the closest I've ever come to freezing time.
Gelato and Rome take me right back to 2010, when I played an active listening shoulder to someone else's aborted wedding and his heavy-hearted decision to still go on the prepaid stillborn honeymoon. During the scorching month of August we decided to bail on the endlessly long line at the Vatican and ended up pulling our take-a-ticket at Gelateria dei Gracchi. The staff were alternating annoyed and curt, in rapid-fire emotionally Italian intervals. I ended up with a double-helping of watermelon gelato with thick cream spread atop. The moment I put that sweet juicy grainy to my lips every part of my sweat-soaked, sunburned body felt at ease. It was the gelato dragon I would forever chase, my demands on this trip to revisit the Gracci left me watermelon-less, their still-delightful caramel-pear remaining a distant second-place memory.
Still, gelato and Italy will forever walk hand-in-hand - another important excess as part of living excessively.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
this bologna has a first name, it's y-o-u-n-g
There's an inverse European relationship with the urgency that you need to pay your bill and the speed at which you get said bill. A glass of Prosecco seemed civilized at the time, a quick bubbly before boarding the train to Bologna. Once we were served we were deceased, the mob scene at the food counter ensured patience would be met by the invisible hand, fingers spread. Precious minutes ticked down as anxiety grew, 5 minutes until our train leaves, head-nod acknowledgement that we would get our bill next, 4 minutes until our train leaves, 3 minutes until our train leaves, IL CONTO PER FAVORE, 2 minutes until our train leaves, perhaps our only full-booked chance at getting out of Venice today, keeping the middle fingers holstered, finally we paid and bolted to the very last car on track 8.
Once again, silence. Couples under travel pressure have three ways to handle it - laugh it off (never happens), turn against one another (far too common), or put headphones in and dive deep into respectful distance - knowing that time away from that stressbomb fading into the horizon will bring us back to us.
Some people travel with an exhausting list of must-sees, pressured by friends (OH YOU JUST HAVE TO SEE THIS OR YOU NEVER REALLY WENT), pressured by fomo, pressured by the likelihood that you will never re-visit a city in your life. I actively shun this sort of tourism - eventually the rapid-fire museums will bleed and blur, mimicry of friends and family and Anthony Bourdain are great ways to find your vibes up until the point of fully following someone else's moment, sacred moments that I want to claim and stretch as long as possible, of too much wine and ample people watching and giving ourselves permission to move through time like you would back home.
I wanted something not-guidebook between Venice and Rome, and even though Florence is the typical third I needed ample oxygen while spending 3 weeks above 20,000 feet. Bologna seemed perfect for breathing, and we were delighted to be let out of our taxi in the city square surrounded by street art and punk hair and young Italian energy. Our flat was dead center and top floor, the private balcony a perfect place to sip wine in the evenings, the terror stairs leading up to the loft bed were wooden shelves at a 15˚ incline and a Hitchcockian nightmare for sleepwalkers, frequent WCers, and boozers alike. We opted instead to spend our nights on the sofa bed, paying far too much money for the all-too-familiar metal bar in your back slumber.
Bologna couldn't have been better - outstanding food of both the humane and inhumane varieties (pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta), watching the rush hour fashion show while we sit at our judges' table with an Aperol Spritz in hand, the random record store with the squatters' rights propaganda in the window, all of it embraced by a wall twenty feet tall and sprinkled with towers four stories high. When I picture my parallel life in Italy, it's all-too-easy to see the sun rising above Bologna, a young new wave robot bee puking on the side of the oldest college in Europe after a pizza-pasta-discoteca-birra bender.
Once again, silence. Couples under travel pressure have three ways to handle it - laugh it off (never happens), turn against one another (far too common), or put headphones in and dive deep into respectful distance - knowing that time away from that stressbomb fading into the horizon will bring us back to us.
Some people travel with an exhausting list of must-sees, pressured by friends (OH YOU JUST HAVE TO SEE THIS OR YOU NEVER REALLY WENT), pressured by fomo, pressured by the likelihood that you will never re-visit a city in your life. I actively shun this sort of tourism - eventually the rapid-fire museums will bleed and blur, mimicry of friends and family and Anthony Bourdain are great ways to find your vibes up until the point of fully following someone else's moment, sacred moments that I want to claim and stretch as long as possible, of too much wine and ample people watching and giving ourselves permission to move through time like you would back home.
I wanted something not-guidebook between Venice and Rome, and even though Florence is the typical third I needed ample oxygen while spending 3 weeks above 20,000 feet. Bologna seemed perfect for breathing, and we were delighted to be let out of our taxi in the city square surrounded by street art and punk hair and young Italian energy. Our flat was dead center and top floor, the private balcony a perfect place to sip wine in the evenings, the terror stairs leading up to the loft bed were wooden shelves at a 15˚ incline and a Hitchcockian nightmare for sleepwalkers, frequent WCers, and boozers alike. We opted instead to spend our nights on the sofa bed, paying far too much money for the all-too-familiar metal bar in your back slumber.
Bologna couldn't have been better - outstanding food of both the humane and inhumane varieties (pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta), watching the rush hour fashion show while we sit at our judges' table with an Aperol Spritz in hand, the random record store with the squatters' rights propaganda in the window, all of it embraced by a wall twenty feet tall and sprinkled with towers four stories high. When I picture my parallel life in Italy, it's all-too-easy to see the sun rising above Bologna, a young new wave robot bee puking on the side of the oldest college in Europe after a pizza-pasta-discoteca-birra bender.
Friday, September 29, 2017
la affamata vita
This was originally my secret space where I sought to turn longing into belonging - both the light and dark sides of a sole traveler seeking connections in other languages.
Where Will I Work still resonates even today, rooted deep in love and home, an allegory to how our subjective realities fit into a ever-shifting subjective mirror world. Where can I feel home away from home? Do I travel to watch people not-me as one would visit a zoo? Or do I try on cities like I try on clothing, of parallel selves and the myriad lives I could have lived?
I'm writing from someone else's life in Rome - the airbnb that isn't built for tourists, full of personality and energy and thoughtfulness without 1000 thread count sheets and without a balcony view of the Colosseum. Our neighborhood is blissfully empty of people like me - the hordes of the slow-moving free-spending map-obsessed. I don't seek out to be anti-American when I cross the border, but being seated next to the worst kind of me makes me thankful to be on this voyage with my spiritual kin in exploration.
We landed hard in Venice, the 9 hour flight with the 4 hour layover and barely half an hour of sleep - our voices turning quiet, then silent as we gave in to muscle memory to get us to a bed (any bed). Research always helps in this sort of blurred travel, where your checklist of this-thens give much needed specificity in processing vast amounts of new data. Our Venice flat was old beams and faint wallpaper, a loft of yore with a wonderful rooftop terrace. I took pride in my maze solving skills through the tricky alleyways, relishing in the gastronomic rewards at the end of every run. My first bite was mozzarella en carrozza, a stupid and/or luxurious deep fried sandwich washed down with wine on tap amidst the lunch rush of the Venetian locals.
Eventually, though, Venice began to evoke Vegas - packed tight in narrow streets filled with shit souvenirs and day-drinking mirror images. Appreciation for the canals-as-labyrinth-as-architecture never faded, but it's hard to feel free and romantic amidst cruise ships dumping their shipping containers of cargo shorts (with the legs still in them) hour after hour after hour. Three days was plenty here, the end punctuated by a delightful lunch at the vegetarian-friendly La Zucca. The oddball reprieve from meat with meat on it was welcome, the vegetable plate reminded me of southern cooking (of greens and green beans). Chatting with a fellow anti-American at our shared table had me thankful I have working internet maps ("it took me an hour to find the place") and her snide pride around saving a shelter dog in response to missing our doodle was promptly followed by her third course of meat with meat on it ("i just have to have meat!"). The dissonance in the things we tell ourselves arbitrarily separating saving from slaughter has resonated with me since.
Objectification of the dinner plate is so very real when it doesn't lick your face after a long day at work.
Where Will I Work still resonates even today, rooted deep in love and home, an allegory to how our subjective realities fit into a ever-shifting subjective mirror world. Where can I feel home away from home? Do I travel to watch people not-me as one would visit a zoo? Or do I try on cities like I try on clothing, of parallel selves and the myriad lives I could have lived?
I'm writing from someone else's life in Rome - the airbnb that isn't built for tourists, full of personality and energy and thoughtfulness without 1000 thread count sheets and without a balcony view of the Colosseum. Our neighborhood is blissfully empty of people like me - the hordes of the slow-moving free-spending map-obsessed. I don't seek out to be anti-American when I cross the border, but being seated next to the worst kind of me makes me thankful to be on this voyage with my spiritual kin in exploration.
We landed hard in Venice, the 9 hour flight with the 4 hour layover and barely half an hour of sleep - our voices turning quiet, then silent as we gave in to muscle memory to get us to a bed (any bed). Research always helps in this sort of blurred travel, where your checklist of this-thens give much needed specificity in processing vast amounts of new data. Our Venice flat was old beams and faint wallpaper, a loft of yore with a wonderful rooftop terrace. I took pride in my maze solving skills through the tricky alleyways, relishing in the gastronomic rewards at the end of every run. My first bite was mozzarella en carrozza, a stupid and/or luxurious deep fried sandwich washed down with wine on tap amidst the lunch rush of the Venetian locals.
Eventually, though, Venice began to evoke Vegas - packed tight in narrow streets filled with shit souvenirs and day-drinking mirror images. Appreciation for the canals-as-labyrinth-as-architecture never faded, but it's hard to feel free and romantic amidst cruise ships dumping their shipping containers of cargo shorts (with the legs still in them) hour after hour after hour. Three days was plenty here, the end punctuated by a delightful lunch at the vegetarian-friendly La Zucca. The oddball reprieve from meat with meat on it was welcome, the vegetable plate reminded me of southern cooking (of greens and green beans). Chatting with a fellow anti-American at our shared table had me thankful I have working internet maps ("it took me an hour to find the place") and her snide pride around saving a shelter dog in response to missing our doodle was promptly followed by her third course of meat with meat on it ("i just have to have meat!"). The dissonance in the things we tell ourselves arbitrarily separating saving from slaughter has resonated with me since.
Objectification of the dinner plate is so very real when it doesn't lick your face after a long day at work.
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