When last we left our intrepid hero, he had braved the perilous Mediterranean and the infamy of the malignant mafia to alight in Palermo, Sicilia. Palermo, glorious onetime-Norman-Arab home of boundless soccer passion and quintuple parking, where one has great sport trying to hunt down the ruthlessly aggressive metal chariots to find the mythical car-without-a-dent. Ah, tis rumored it exists, but it can only be a phoenix rising again and again under the loving hammer of some modern Haephestos. The cars jockey for position in the shade of palaces looming above the city and short skyscrapers looming above the palaces.
Tucked underneath are the bars that aren't bars like we think of bars but little stylish fast-food places where you can grab a calzone or Authentic cannoli or an aranchina. Oh, aranchina, my heart melts at the thought of your loss. Aranchina, you luscious risotto ball, breaded and fried, with your warming ragu filling of tomato and meat and peas: Aranchina Mondiale! (aranchina worldwide, proclaim the billboards). Yet, nowhere but in Sicilia can you be found... Lea Natoli graciously provided me with the laborious yet diverting recipe so I shall become an aranchina missionary.
Upon the soccorous victory of Italia against some unworthy opponent, the city's passions bubble forth in banners and horns and sirens and frenetic joy. The celebration commenced after the final seconds of the soccer game, peaked 45 minutes later with police and ambulances flexing noise power with the fray in the streets, and finally dwindled to a post-orgasmic sigh fully two hours after the victory. And then, time warp to the Riviera, the pain stabbed into every Italian heart as the beloved Baggio ricocheted the losing kick off the top bar of the goal; flags mourned at halfmast. Marco told me that 85% of all Italians watch their team: considering the fraction of the population being infants and small children or otherwise unable to watch, and highways down whose center I walked unendangered, I found ample testaments of the calcio passion. It is no wonder to me that Italia bore the first fascism. Does this passion feed from that other, seductively notorious passion?
I voyaged southeast from Palermo, past the ominous cauldron of Mt. Etna and the cigarette-brush fires to Siracuse. This was one of the Big Three cities of ancient Greece, just behind Athens and Carthage. There I sat by shore watching a fountain created by goddess Artemis in a little conjuring act, transforming the fleeing nymph Aretusia into this spring, in order to rescue her from the amorous passions of some river god. The water flowed into the harbor in whorls and eddies which collected miscellaneous debris and cigarette butts and scenically deposited them by the outlet. I watched the Greek tragedy Hecuba (performed in Italian) in the shockingly pristine ancient Greek theatre. I thought it funny that as I sat on the volcanic rock looking out to the Mediterranean shore I read Ishmael tracing Moby Dick's ancestors in their wanderings past the Aretusian fountain (I'm right there!) and docking by the port of Bombay (been there, done that). I strained to feel the sway of the ocean in my traversal on the big 100m ferry back to the mainland; though the ship was nearly titanic I still could sense a long, slow lull, the rarely perceived mega-waves that roll along the ocean, swamped to our human eyes by the surf-size waves and the peaked ripples living on their surface; fractals fractals everywhere but not a stop to think.
Back in Italia's boot I saw her children of millenia past huddled close in the Garden of Fugitives at Mount Vesuvius's base. The archaeologists who unearthed Pompeii noticed some peculiar cavities in the ashen rock and filled them with concrete. When the surrounding rock was peeled away, the last gasps of the pompeiites clawed to view in eerie mortal resurrection. The whole city was preserved, bakeries and gardens and working fountains, temples and columns and statues, frescoes, theatres, mansions, stairways, arenas; all unplundered. Blocks and blocks, a full city, too many roman ruins for the mere day trip from Napoli.
Napoli is supposedly one of the most dangerous cities in Napoli, with petty crime topping the frequency list. Of course, by this point I'm carrying very little of value, and so I was never troubled by anyone attempting to steal my dirty sock. The city was once again packed with chiese (churches). Amongst them, the Capella di San Severo stands out: it's a small chapel housing a treasure trove of gleaming white, sublime sculpture. The Veiled Christ caught my eye most, looking to be a white marble dead Jesus covered in a silken translucent shroud; the whole thing is, incredibly, pure marble. Also notable is the statue of a man trying to escape a ropy net: again, pure marble. And the symbol of modesty, again translucently veiled in marble, looking delectably not-so-modest. Just outside I found a little musical instrument repair shop where I unknowingly bargained the owner down to half-price on a fisarmonica (accordion) but I had to catch a train and the guy never saw a traveler's check before and I couldn't find a bank that would cash it, so the instrument slipped sadly away. Up to Milano, I wallowed beneath the Gothic omin of the spiraculous duomo cathedral, which housed the entire Bible vetrified in luminous stained glass with technique that would put modern airbrush artists to shame. High above the altar hung the prized relic: one of the nails that suspended Christ. The piazza outside of the duomo was swamped by more raging hordes of soccer fans. I jumped up to peek over their heads to see what the hubbub was about, to glimpse the interviewer and camera crew and the huge screen TV, which caught the pinnacle of my leap in stop-action. Again I witnessed the fever as horns blared with every goal scored.
In Milano I met my sister and trained with her to meet my father and stepmother in Venezia; this second visit to the canals was accompanied by at least a tripling of tourism: stay away in July! Lake Como was our respite, and we perused the quaint towns of the forked lake by ferry or hydroplane or little rented motorboat (guess who took captainship, Dad). A funicular ride up the steep greened mountains revealed the nestling Alps and continuing spectacular scenery. The winding coastal gardens of the Villa Monastero captured my heart and not just a little film.
Eventually we had to leave the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and headed for the beach where we checked into what we dubbed the Grand Motel. The Italian Riviera was little more than a pastelled sardine can, the beaches rocky sunitaria of umbrellas and rental chairs and pricey gelateria. At midnight we were startled from sleep to the sound of an invasion and cannons defending the port. Actually, I slept through the first attack and no one thought to wake me, it being of course inconceivable that I'd not start abruptly from my bed. We happened to arrive during the annual fireworks festival, and I did get to see the harbor glow with many subsequent, nearly musical arrangements of loud fiery blooms; each movement elegantly resolved with three solitary white booms.
From Rapallo we ferried to Cinqueterre, five stunningly photogenic fishing villages perched on terraced mountains that plunge foamingly into shimmering turquoise seas. One hikes between the villages on rocky paths skirting the cliffs. Words speak but softly of the drama of these hikes; when I finally set up my travel web site, the pictures may hint at the beauty I fail to convey.
And then, Paris. Third time for me. The Eiffel Tower, tourist magnet; Notre Dame, surrounded by flying buttresses and starving artists; the Latin Quarter at night, vivacious and cozy, populated by students and fondue restaurants; fine dining in the elaborate French style; the Centre de Pompidue, art quarter of old and new, dancers and organ grinders and bicycle-on-the-chin balancers; the Champs-Elysees, chic shopping avenue extraordinaire; the legendary Metro, too hot and crowded for dad; the Louvre (closed on Tuesdays). We dashed in and out in two days, avoiding the riots of the World Cup victory.
And then, completing my trip round the world in 180 days, I touched down in Philadelphia, the City that Loves You Back, the City that Loves Visa, the City of Brotherly Love. I regreet my dogs and kick back for a long slow reabsorption into society, letting the trip marinate in my brain and sifting through my 1500 photos to compile a highlights-of-the-highlights photo album. Soon, in early September, I move to Boston to start on my Ph.D. in Biophysics at Harvard, thanks to your tax dollars contributing to my National Science Foundation Fellowship. I look forward to Boston, young and cultural and exciting, but in the meantime I'm enjoying the tranquillity of Bucks County.
My days now are spent reading literature I've added to my overwhelming list, getting back into science, rock climbing, dealing with hayfever, thinking, playing the musical instruments I sent home. My world collection includes a digereedoo (low drone horn made from the termite-hollowed limb of a tree) from Aboriginal Australia, a Balinese tingklik (bamboo xylophone), a Jimbee (sweet African drum), a Thai ken (pronounced with a falling tone; a bamboo mouth-organ), Indian Tabla (dwoopy dingy classical melodic drum pair), and Indian sitar (as popularized by les Beatles, and even made by the same maker). Gaining even rudimentary control over these instruments seems a nearly full-time job.
It's so hard for me to draw conclusions from my trip. I took in a lot of raw evidence and I'm basically waiting for it to file itself, to trickle through the sleeping soon-to-be-not interstices between thoughts. But overall, I come away with a strong sense of the similarities between people rather than the differences. People are doing what people will do, and whether it's in tin shacks over the Bangkok canals or in an Sicilian high-rise, people stick to their traditional rituals, living their own diverse orchestrations of the same themes. Painfully but perhaps necessarily, part of that deep sameness is a deep hostility to lifestyles that compete for resources, whether material or spiritual. Hence the Crusades and the Persian Gulf and the African civil wars.
Other places generally speaking have more of a global sense. Check out virtually any foreign newspaper. Why do we want to read about the "redoubled" efforts to find an American in the Nairobi wreckage instead of learning about the crises in Africa that leads to genocide? Is the news so old, the solutions so apparent, the issue too far from home? Why do we gorge on tabloidish spreads of Mlle. Lewinski while remaining ignorant of the riots that gorge on murder and rape in Jakarta? A friend in Bali asked me, if U.S. Americans could pay a tax to ensure democracy in South America, would we? We are not the world's guardians: progress is, as always, fueled by self-interest. But self-interest is a rather complicated affair. If we had spent more money to deliver medical aid abroad, we may have caught AIDS, for example, before it destroyed the lives of so many of our own citizens: today with all this "globalization", self-interest extends beyond our simple political borders. Not that solutions are at all apparent or even certain to exist, but we could do a little more to alleviate some of our ignorance about the world affairs that affect us.
Enough political ranting. Re-entry proceeds. This is going to be the last update. Commendations for those who managed to skim the entire fifty-some pages of text as broken into national chapters. If you missed some, or want to recommend others to read the stuff, I'll be setting up a web site with all of the emails; I'll send one last quick note giving the URL when it's finally ready.
I hear through the incoming grapevine that the outgoing grapevine has grown quite a bit. I'm curious to hear who ended up getting these forwards, bouncing from emailbox to emailbox. If anybody has thoughts you'd like to share with me regarding my travels or the emails, relevant or irrelevant, I'd love to hear them (email-> xaq@alumni.princeton.edu).
Credits and acknowledgments go here, too numerous to enumerate. While I naively fancy myself having worked hard to earn the money and flexibility to take this trip, it would really have been impossible without my family's support and love, the kindness and generosity of many great people around the world, and the inspiration of my roommates last year at school, who told me I was capable of embarking upon such a previously inconceivable adventure. I wouldn't have believed I'd ever do something like this. But it is possible. Indeed, even recommended!
Go see good stuff.
Thanks, love, and peace.
-xaq