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The Great European Adventure Book Vol 2 Ch 2
Dear Y’all,
Here’s the second installment of the letter I sent several weeks ago but was split into twain because of it’s size.
Italy was much more impressive. While the rail station at Athens was slightly bigger than the one here at Leuchars – which is to say about the size of a wood shack with a crescent moon on the door – Italy actually has a modern railways system, comparable to Germany or Britain. I landed in Brindisi, traveling through Bari and Benevento to Naples. Italy’s third largest city, I was nearly killed here on numerous occasions. Crosswalks come with the standard red hand and the green walking man, a trap to rid Italy of foreigners. Ignore the green man. Take your life into your own hands and find an Italian crossing the street to use as a human shield. Trust me on this one.
The first real sight I saw was Pompeii, which for those of you still trying to hammer the little square block through the circular hole the rest of the populace figured out when they were three is a wonderfully preserved Roman city, buried for 2000 years beneath a mound of ash from Mt. Visuvius. Unsurprising to the post-impeachment cynic, the brothel is still the most popular building in town: I was even asked directions toward it, as if I appeared a patron(?!). On to better matters, I left the next day for Rome. I enjoyed Rome. I stayed at Faulty Towers, a great place but no John Cleese. Did I mention he was Rector of St Andrews University in 1970-73? His rectorial address, “On Cowardeice,” a reversal of Barrie’s famous “On Courage,” left the crowd in more stitches than fellow St. Andrian Field Marshall Earl Haig left the boys of Britain. I don’t know which course convinced him that if you stuff enough soldiers into the meat grinder you’ll eventually clog and thus halt it, but I think I’ll avoid that one. But Rome! The ruins are fantastic, even though they’re mostly ruined, and the city is not nearly as chaotic as Naples. I am a wee bit disappointed that the pope left for the Holy Land when I came to visit, but I had fifty million jubilee pilgrims to keep me company. Actually St Peters has as many, if not more, tourists than pilgrims. St Peters is beyond description. The largest church in the world, the inside does not look a day old after 400 years. Remind me to hire Michelangelo the next time I build a church. The Lateran, I must say, is probably a better pilgrimage destination as the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome and not filled with Japanese terrorists…er…tourist armed with cameras. It really made St Peters feel more like Popeneyland, especially with the nuns working the various gift shops. “Daddy, Daddy! Can I take my picture next to Brair Friar?” “Sorry Sally, no Pope on a Rope this time.” It’s St Peters for crying out loud! The first apostle is buried there! Not that I’m suggesting tourists be banned because it should, like the Gospel, remain open to all; it just gives the whole thing a bit of a cheesy atmosphere, that’s all. I can’t imagine what high tourist season must be like. Although the pope was gone, I did get to enter through the special holy doors, opened only during Jubilee years.
Oh, and while I’m on the subject of the Vatican, did anyone catch the pope’s acknowledgement and apology of sins committed by Christians in the past or the response it met? Seems everyone is clamoring for an extensive list of transgressions. By listing some, he would have in effect have excluded all those not mentioned and would have turned a general apology into a narrow one. Leave the man alone! When was the last time you apologized for the deeds of millions of people over thousands of years? Then there’s the holocaust issue. Oddly enough, many of the same people requesting an apology for the Church’s silence about Hitler are the same ones so anxious to cry “separation of church and state” every time an issue like abortion comes up. We demand the Church to stand up to others, but then tell them to make like a tree and get out of here when we are to be criticized? Just thought I’d point that out.
After Rome I spent several days in Florence. The center of Renaissance Italy, Florence has the most amazing collection of artwork I’ve ever seen. David is incredible. You really have to witness it to understand what all of the fuss is about. I then spent a couple of days with Silvia, an Italian who went to UCSB, in Bologna. The skyline of Bologna is dotted with these wonderful towers built by competing nobles, much like a medieval Manhattan. Venice was, well, neat. Sure, it’s unlike any other place in Europe, yet it seems to be missing…well, Italians. I was tempted to look into people’s windows just to see if there were real inhabitants or Disney imaginers inside. Although it was wonderful to have dinner with some other St. Andrews students I bumped into, I was soon kicked out of town by the overbooked youth hostel and forced north to Trent. Famous for the council of Trent, this are is fantastic! Castles are everywhere and the Dolmites, or southern Alps, are just begging to be climbed. I even hiked up to a shrine dedicated to Santa Barbara! Oddly enough, much of this region is only nominally Italian. The supermarkets are filled with German snacks and foods instead of the standard Italian pasta and tomato sauce sections. In Bolzano (Bozen) the street signs are in Italian and German, and you’re more likely to be greeted with a Gruess Gott than a Buongiorno, leading me to conclude that this area should actually be titled the Stieffvaterland or something to that extent. At any rate, the Alps really are incredible and I would love to spend more time playing around in them. The last leg of my trip was in Wiesbaden. I figured it would be a pain to go all the way back to Athens, so I luckily got a hold of Brita from the exchange and was able to visit her. It was wonderful to be back in Germany, yet depressing that I couldn’t make it up to Barmstedt or that I may not return for a number of years. Ah. Anyway, that was my spring break.
I’ve had a fantastic time at St Andrews since then. Holy week was wonderful, ending with a sunrise service on East Sands and an Easter Ceilidh following CMAD performances at the chapel and a torchlight procession. The following week there was another Ceilidh, this time at the castle, however this time the torchlight procession had many more participants and visibly absent was the rain. The opened the pier up three quarters of the way so we could walk out onto in. (BTW, pier comes from pierum, a Latin word meaning “walkway in water rarely open,” deriving from the Greek pieropolis or “bottomless pit into which the city council throws taxes.” This differs from the National Endowment for the Arts in that piers are ascetically pleasing and rarely meant to offend majority religious groups.) Torchlight processions, I must admit, are quite a sight to see. There’s something about holding a large flaming stick that makes one want to gather the villages, grab a pitchfork and run someone out of town! But I didn’t say that. In fact, I’d best get back to preparing for exams. I fly home two weeks tomorrow, so I look forward to seeing all of you soon!
Your humble servant, loving son and eternal friend,
Ryan
p.s. Thank you so very much for all of you who helped make this the best year of my life!