We arrive in Rome

My husband Bill and I have just returned from a three week journey to Italy. During that time, we traveled through Rome, the Amalfi Coast, the Italian Riviera, the Italian Alps, Tuscany and Umbria. We met with 24 of my deceased husband Vittorio’s family members and network of friends, got hopelessly lost, made innumerable mistakes, encountered several unexpected acts of kindness, ate incredible meals, and everywhere were surrounded with scenes of great historic and artistic resonance and of unutterable beauty.

Our first four days were spent in Rome in an adorable apartment (Casa di Stella on Via Mario Fiori) only a block away from the famed Spanish Steps. From there it was an easy jaunt to most of the important sites in the city, and the Metro and bus lines were nearby for longer trips within and without the city.

We encountered our first challenge at the luggage pick up. We could not rent a luggage dolly which cost 50 centavos because our lowest denomination euro was € 100 bill. Lesson number one: always bring smaller euro bills and coinage with you. Because we could not rent a dolly, Bill tried to piggyback our other bags onto his new oversized bag which handle promptly cracked off. Lesson number two: do not plan to piggy back more than one bag at a time.

I sought help at the information desk, which was, of course, empty. A passing janitor threw up his hands when I asked him if he had change. He went off muttering something about crazy Americans . . . and then surprised us with the first of the many kindnesses Bill and I would encounter on this trip. He paid for a dolly himself and brought it to us!

We took a shuttle to the apartment, a ride that should have taken 40-50 minutes but which actually took close to two hours because of other passengers requiring drop-off’s hither and yon. We were told the cost would be €45. With a tip, €50. Problem: the driver didn’t have €50 in change. Lesson number three: take a taxi. It costs around the same, you get there a lot faster, and the driver is more likely to have change. While we scrambled to find someone who could break our €100, the shuttle driver nervously pointed out that he was blocking other traffic from entering or exiting the narrow street below the apartment. The apartment owner, Carlo, helped us break the 100, then helped us haul our luggage up the three stories to the apartment. Hauling heavy luggage that far, even with the help of the owner, was not easy.

Finally settled, Bill and I walked to see the Spanish steps (down which Vittorio had ridden his bicycle as a kid) at night. Though October is not considered a busy season for tourists in Italy the steps were packed with people, some exceptionally boisterous youth singing loudly. One of the ubiquitous rose vendors found throughout Rome, handed me two roses for “amore,” expecting to be paid even though he insisted they were free.

We climbed the steps to the famed Trinita dei Monti, where 30 years earlier I’d stayed in an attached convent while Vittorio wrestled with the Vatican in trying to obtain a dispensation from the priesthood so we could marry. We passed the Hassler Hotel, and connected with Via Gregoriana, the street where Vittorio’s family had lived for over 100 years.

On a nearby side street we found a cute little restaurant Carole Case e’n Osteria where we sat at a small table outside on a platform above the sidewalk and ate bambollot all’amaticiana—a type of fat ridged pasta with a spicy roman sauce made with bacon, sipped a delicious glass of vino rosso della casa, and carried on a lively conversation with a woman from Norway who lives several months a year in Italy – all together a wonderful introduction to the days to follow.

Ciao Italia!

We're off to the land of popes, pilgrimages, wine, and euphoria. Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi, Foligno, Assisi, Florence, Italian Riviera, Trento, Lago di Garda, Venice, Siena . . . and more.

Back sometime in late October or early November (we leave for Florida two days after we arrive home.) Depends on when I've got a free moment to check in.

Meanwhile, enjoy fall!!!

Before leaving

For several weeks now, I've been mostly living in earphones, attempting to learn enough Italian to communicate with my deceased husband's family in Italy. Besides CD's Buongiorno Italia also provides a reading supplement. I've completed all the exercises in the book but find myself strangely tongue-tied when asked to "say something in Italian."

Do I treat the listener to an "ordering a meal" dialog (lots of meal-ordering, and direction-asking in this little book) or do I describe the house that Geraldine wants to buy near Orvieto?

Sometimes I create imaginary conversations as I busy myself with other things. Inevitably, however, I lurch off into Spanish. I don't know a lot of Spanish, just enough to confuse others.

The dialogs on Buongiorno Italia, however, aside from the repetitiveness of their topics, are marvelous aids in determining where to use "da" or "di, " or "ci" and "si," and the like. Hear a phrase often enough and the association of when to use what slides into a conversation more easily. Those phrases remind me of the "embedded" reporters during the Iraq war save that this reporter resides inside my head.

If all goes as planned, we leave this Sunday. On my return, I'll report on the efficacy of Buongiorno Italia and my success in attempting to communicate in Italian.

Ciao.

The Pyramids at Teotichuacan

Mario Perez has been driving taxis since he was fourteen. The chauffeur assigned responsibility for the safety of Bill’s consulting team, Mario works eighteen- and twenty-hour days. As he cannot afford a car of his own, he must take some other form of transport to and from work, which means his day starts at 4 AM and ends after 11 PM. He never complains. Such hours are just a fact of life.

I met Mario in May 2000 on a whirlwind trip to Mexico City. This trip included a day spent with my husband Bill at work—attending meetings, touring site facilities, meeting fellow consultants and team members, a day alone spent touring the awesome National Museum of Anthropology, and two days of compressed sightseeing in which we visited various ancient sections of the city, shrines, pyramids, and a day trip to the distant mountain city of Taxco. But over-riding the experience of such wondrous and memorable sights was getting to know the Perez family.

Mario’s broad face beamed next to Bill’s from the other side of the custom’s checkpoint when I arrived at 11:30 PM Wednesday night. Although I’d never seen Mario before, there was no missing the delight that emanated from that wide smile. Bill had described it often enough. I was to bask in the warmth of that smile during the next two days.

By Friday, I felt confident enough of the understanding couched in that smile to babble away in my dreadful Spanish, certain that Mario understood everything I was saying. As he explained the details of the trips he had planned for us that weekend, however, I struggled to grasp its outline—the grandchildren, eight-year old Giovanni and nine-year old Stefania, who would join us on Saturday as we toured the city; his wife, Margarita, who would accompany us to Taxco on Sunday.

On Saturday, Mario arrived early with his two grandchildren and set off with us for the pyramids of Teotihuacan. He dropped us off in front of the pyramids and assigning us care of his grandchildren, drove to the parking lot to wait for us. His legs were giving him trouble and there would be a lot of walking.

We were well into our adventure when, while climbing the pyramids at Teotihuacan, Stefania got her outfit dirty. Just a smudge, mind you, but she was preoccupied with this dirt. I helped her wet a paper towel and we tried to remove the smudge but without much success. I retain a vivid image of this little girl as she rubbed at her shorts with a dampened piece of paper towel. I tried to ease her worry by saying that it was only dirt and would come out in the wash, but this didn't comfort her. She was wearing her best outfit and her mother had told her to keep it clean. Her parents probably sacrificed so that she'd be well dressed for this event, and I felt badly for her.

As Stefania and I worked at the dirt on her shorts, Bill disappeared into the heart of the museum with Giovanni. Worried about losing them, I gave Stefania my handkerchief and suggested she use that. Still busily rubbing as we entered the room where a huge model of Teotichuacan stretched below us, Stefania somehow lost hold of the handkerchief. It fluttered through a space in the glass floor over which we walked. It landed neatly on top of a temple roof and covered its steps. No amount of stretching could retrieve it.

Other tourists who had purchased ornate spears from the vendors at the pyramids, attempted to lift the handkerchief for us without success. It doesn't matter, I said, taking Stefania by the hand. Let's go find Bill and Giovanni. But Stefania wasn't to be deterred. She insisted we stay until the hankie had been rescued. Finally a guard, who sat beside an open tomb where the skeletons of five ritually slain maidens lay exposed, took a hooked stick and sauntered toward the spot where the hankie languished-- its retrieval apparently just another fairly routine event in the life of that museum guard.

Ely flaunts its bears, wolves, and root-beer

Though I usually focus on away-from-home travel stories, travel stories from one’s home state are worth the telling. Ely Minnesota is one of those places. Since taking my grandson there last year, I returned again this summer, this time with two grandchildren in tow. Here’s a story from that first trip in August 2007.

Ely is more than the entry to the Boundary Waters. Ely is home to Ted, a local celebrity who could once shimmy up trees with the best of them. He could gambol in play and run faster than others. Ted can no longer do these things because he weighs 900 lbs. Before you gasp in disbelief, I’ll reveal his identity. Ted is a black bear – a VERY LARGE black bear. Most wild male black bears weigh between 125 and 500 lbs. But Ted cannot be called wild. He is now a main attraction at the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota which opened in the spring of 2007.

900 lb. Ted Dines Daintily on Berries

When I left our North Shore home to drive 90 miles to Ely with my nine-year-old grandson Tommy, I’d planned on taking him to both the International Wolf Center one mile east of Ely and the Bear Center one mile west of Ely – stopping to visit the Dorothy Molter (better known as the “Root Beer” lady who achieved fame by living alone in a rustic cabin on a small island in the Boundary Waters until she died at the age of 87) Museum between both centers to refresh ourselves with a chilled bottle of her “Kwiturbeliakin” (Quit your belly-achin’) brew as had the more than 7,000 canoeists who stopped by to visit her every summer when she was alive. I planned to do all of this in one day.

Tommy Rides the Wolves in Ely

So much for plans. When my watch read 4:30 p.m. and my grandson was still clinging to the center windows trying to catch sight of the white wolves who were lazing about in the shade of their forested enclosure, I had to lure him away by promising him a cold root beer.

We arrived at the Dorothy Molter museum in time for the last guided tour. Nancy, our guide, had grown up in Ely and knew Dorothy Molter well, becoming part of a sizeable group of snowmobilers who would head out to Dorothy’s cabin every winter to help her cut the lake ice she’d store in her ice-house for chilling her homemade brew. When the Boundary Waters were closed to motorized vehicles of any kind and Dorothy’s fame allowed her to spend her final years on the island, the forest service and Outward Bound groups took up the slack – “though, truth be told there were a few snowmobilers who helped then too.”

My grandson, who fidgeted through the documentary on the wolves of Ely, sat spellbound during the presentation. He was especially impressed with the fact that Dorothy had to make several portages to get back to her cabin from a supply run to town -- carrying a 60 lb. pack of supplies strapped to her back, a 60 lb. pack strapped in front, and her 80 lb. canoe balanced over her head. He began calling Dorothy “that root beer girl,” in honor of her prowress.

Dorothy Molter's rustic and unheated bedroom

We stayed overnight at a small motel, had supper at the Chocolate Moose, played several rounds of mini-gulf, watched Ice Age (the movie) on the TV and after breakfast the next morning, (also at the Chocolate Moose) we headed to the North American Bear Center, arriving in time to see the bears being fed. Ted, who is the gentlest and the least agitated by the presence of humans, dined next to the window-wall which overlooks the two-acre bear enclosure. Ted -- who did not wolf his food as might be expected in a bear his size and took 10 minutes or more to dine one pile of berries -- is not the only bear in the enclosure.

A large light colored female black bear known as Honey Bear dined in the field behind the bears swimming pond, coming out of the woods and into the wild flowers only when she needed a sip of water from the pond.

Honey Bear is an impressive lady but prefers solitude to humans.

Meanwhile, a very small bear cub was being coaxed down from his high perch in a white pine. This little guy is not related to the other bears and much prefers humans to the grouchy Honey Bear, avoiding even Ted (who makes friendly overtures) so he spends a lot of time in trees, coming down only to be fed his bottle and berries, or to run after the caretaker as she leaves, standing mourning at the gate through which she has passed.

We spent the entire day at the Bear Center, which – like the Wolf Center -- is rich with interactive displays and story boards. Throughout the center monitors show bear activity in the area. And there is a “cub” room where even nine-year-old grandsons can hang out and play at being bears. Was it Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who chanted “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!”? My grandson’s and my two-day trip to the wildlife centers and Molter museum in Ely made it a “Wolves and Bears and Root-beer, oh my!” kind of happening in Minnesota's Ely Oz.

This little guy loves bear hugs -- as long as they are human.

Adapted from an article published on Gather August 12, 2007

Marching with Las Madres

In early December 1999, I flew to Buenos Aires to meet my husband Bill who was working in South America. I arrived to find the streets of the city blockaded by banks of police and their motorcycles. Helicopters stuttered overhead. The taxi driver told me it was inauguration day and Argentina's new president, Fernando de la Rua, was moving in ceremonial cavalcade toward to Plaza de Mayo. To get me to the hotel, the driver had to convince the police that we had authorization to enter. I sat very tall and tried to look important as he nervously talked us through.

I'd like to tell you that I immediately dashed into the crowds to watch the inauguration. I’d like to boast that my Spanish was fluent enough to allow me to understand the speech de la Rua made from the balcony at the Casa Rosada. But the reality was that I was fearful of going into the city alone.

Then reason kicked in. I was going to be there for 10 days and Bill would be working most of that time. It was either head into the crowd or spend my vacation at the hotel swimming pool. I chose the crowd.

By the time I found my way to Plaza de Mayo, all that remained of the festive crowds were metal barricades and a ground littered with celebratory paper and political leaflets. I bent down to pick one up and noticed that it lay on what appeared to be the outline of a human body painted on the paving stones. Inside this outline were a name and a date. These painted figures were everywhere. When I straightened up, I bumped into a woman standing near me. I wanted to ask her what these figures symbolized but my Spanish was limited. I'd spent the last two weeks studying phrases like the one that discusses the peculiarities of keeping an elephant in one's house . . . not exactly the words I need now.

I excused myself for bumping her and began to walk away, but she smiled. Encouraged by the warmth of her smile, I decided to use my fractured Spanish to ask her what the symbols meant.

"Ah," she replied, "they are 'los desaparecidos.'" The disappeared! I shuddered. She then took me by the hand and lead me toward the Plaza obelisk where there were other symbols – she told me that the doves were actually kerchiefs. The "panuelos blancos" that symbolize the mothers of "the disappeared" who, since the mid ‘70s have gathered every Thursday in Plaza de Mayo to protest the disappearance of their children.

We sat on the grass to talk because Esther had phlebitis and though she had been warned by her doctor to stay at home with her leg raised, this retired history professor refused to miss such an "important event." She had traveled by bus since early morning from a mountain town several hours away.

We spent the rest of the afternoon together, wandering through historic sites and chatting, and as we talk the barriers imposed by language crumble. I bless the spirit that urged me away from the hotel and into the square. It has enabled me to do what I love best -- to see a place through the eyes of the people who live there.

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2008

See Finding Time for God for Beryl's blog on living a contemplative life in a busy world.

The Argentinian and Brazilian views of Iguazu Falls

In December 1999, I had the opportunity to practice the special blend of insecurity and trust that seems be to the hallmark of an American tourist in South America. A good example concerns our trip to the northeasterly tip of Argentina to view one of the world's greatest wonders: the immense and mighty Iguazu Falls located in the lush subtropical jungles of Brazil and Argentina.

To get to Iguazu, which is in Misiones province, we had to fly over Corrientes, a province that had just erupted into armed violence and which lies directly south of Misiones. Would we need to detour or abort the flight because of the violence in the neighboring state? My worries dissolved as we flew without hitch into Iguazu, only to resurface as we boarded the tour bus that was to take us into the jungles. From there we would be able to view the Garganta del Diablo (the Throat of the Devil): the most fearsome of the falls, forming as it does a huge concave gorge over which the Iguazu river hurls, spewing spray so high it can be seen from miles away.

The cause of this malaise was our bus driver who insisted that we give him our airline tickets. He claimed he needed them to confirm our return flights. I wondered why a bus driver would be responsible for confirming flights that wouldn't take place until the following day. I worried even more about getting them back. Refusing to yield, I clutched the precious tickets tightly. Not until another and more experienced tourist told me that this was normal procedure did I give in.

The following day, despite the fact that although all the other tourists had gotten their tickets back and ours were still missing, we decided to trust yet another stranger. When we'd decided, at the last minute, to fly to Iguazu we'd not had enough time to get visas to enter Brazil. It was only after we'd arrived in Iguazu that we discovered the Brazilian side of the falls should not be missed. The tour agency, however, refused to take us without visas. So, at the instigation of a desk clerk, we sought the help of Omar, an immense and very friendly taxi driver who said he'd try to get us in, mentioning that there would be no charge if he failed. His assurances were not reassuring. I worried more about spending Christmas in a Brazilian jail than spending money for an unsuccessful trip.

Democracy in South America is a far cry from that in the US--only two days earlier I'd marched with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose children (more than 30,000 of them in Argentina alone) had been abducted, tortured, and murdered by South American governments. The number of "disappeared" keeps growing and those responsible have never been brought to justice despite the 29 years of weekly marches these Mothers have organized.

Our Goliath had no trouble getting us across the border but the affair of our abducted tickets was not so easily settled. We arrived at the airport without them. It wasn't til just before boarding time that I spotted the bus driver nonchalantly hanging around outside the terminal. While I guarded the luggage, Bill ran outside to get him, reaching the bus just as that driver pulled away from the curb. Without asking for identification, he handed Bill the tickets and drove off. Unlike the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, our wait yielded the missing tickets but those mothers continue to wait for something incomparably more precious. I thought of them that Christmas, as I give thanks for the birth of the child whose mother also suffered that we might live free and in peace.