Yesterday I went to the museum of the Duomo and the Santa Croce Church. Very interesting. I tagged onto T's classmates' tour and their tour guide was phenomenal. Italian history/ art history is like the ultimate drama-- like the time the Medici family pretty much wiped out this other family (drawing a blank here 'cause im typing really fast)by secretly hanging them, or how...someone's body was stolen from under a church. Wow, I really need to brush up. I know I sound like a failure right now but really, I'm just failing to explain these things.This one guy's finger is still in the Santa Croce church, P.S.! The catholics like to keep body parts, it seems. But it makes sense...the body is the case of the great leaders/priests/saints. It's the only physical part of them we can keep around after they've passed. They're off, but we can certainly keep their pinky finger in a glass container in a beautiful church that has loads of dead bodies underneath it (which is a little bit sarcastic in order to make you smile, not because I don't think the finger of a saint is not a good thing to case up. I do, in fact, I think. Do you? First time anyone's asked you this question?).
The highlight of the day: I saw Dante's tomb!! Pictures to come...and I'll just narrate them, so i don't bumble around with words as I am now, trying to balance them on my tongue to volley over to you in a grouping that explains intelligently what I saw yesterday...
Let's try again, shall we? Last NIGHT we went to the Jazz Club. You have to become a member in order to get in (8 euro) but then I think you're a member for life, or until you lose your membership card. We get in there, right, having had a bottle of wine between the three of us (T, her roommate M, and myself) on the way, as we always seem to have when one the streets (no open container law, remember), T in her new very cool strappy black heels and gray fedora. We were all ready to be jazzed out. There are other clubs in Florence, but mostly, they aren't such a good time. Lots of grabbing and as I've been told, pretty shitty music. But the Jazz Club! It's different. We were stoked on it and we stayed there all night listening to A. Franklin covers and others. It was more soul than jazz, and the Italian band, Dr. Funky and Mr. Soul, had all three of us wishing there were more room to dance. But you gotta keep it cool in joints like that at first, though, you know, I think. Tuesdays and Thursdays Jazz Club hosts jam seshs. Wish I'd frequented that place sooner since I'm headed to Berlin tomorrow. Definitely chillest bar/club in Florence. Good people, good vibes; it's an awesome place to hang with friends or flirt with a photographer from across the room who may or may not be in love with the singer.
Italian Easter is crazy-- full of fireworks, a mechanical bird, crowds ( which = a couple creepy gropers). The fireworks were so loud, so explosive, and sounded so much like multiple machine guns firing into the crowd, there were a couple moments I thought we might be done for, that maybe the government was just sick of us all. This was a grim and terrible thought, but thoughts like this are natural reactions to loud explosions and bright lights of the sort that were firing for the Easter celebration today around the Duomo that had the whole town in an impossible-to-navigate crowd gathered around this gigantic dresser-like box from which a mechanical bird comes out and then back in. The Florentines used to release a bird on Easter and if it came back or found its way out (it used to be held in a stadium), the harvest would be good. Now, they just use this mechanical one. Why take a chance when technology is on your side, right?
When I wasn't paralyzed by the sound, unlike any firework sound I've heard in my whole life, I was crying from laughing, or very happy from watching the very cute Italian kids perched on their caretaker's shoulders. They seemed to me like a community of shoulder people, as there were many of them and they would turn and communicate with each other, with screams or looks of disgust, quite effectively. Little kids have a system, I think, and I was very happy to be amongst them. They'd call out the cutest things, too, like when one of the best ones, bespectacled, of course, shouted out "Fabuloso!!" At times like these I was so moved, I touched my heart, shouted "Happy Easter!" in Italian, thought of my family back home, and then immediately returned my hand to my side to continue deflecting the poorly concealed advances of Old Man Thigh Grabber. There's one or two of them in every crowd, and they're old (in my case, also Italian), so you can't just, you know, shake them or something.
Happy Easter!!!!
Much love sent from Florence! xoxo
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
So yesterday T and I woke up early and went for a run. We ran away from the buildings, down the Arno, where cobblestone turned to dirt path and I felt like I was back in Santa Barbara, running on the bluffs. It felt wonderful to have the air pumping in and out of my lungs so quickly, to be sweating, to be in touch with my body after days and days and days where walking, dodging people and getting swept up in the currents of them, were my only excerise. There were flowers, little white ones and little purple ones, all along the way. There were also these seeds-- those kind from blow flowers-- white and floating about like atoms. I mean, really, there were so many of them and they were everywhere. Piles of these seeds could be mistaken for snow, the way they collected upon the Arno, the trees, the old men in tiny shorts sunning themselves. They (the seeds, not the old men) danced around in the air infront of us, swirling like a visualizer, pulsing/siwrling/vibing to the music of my Ipod (THANKS JARED! love the CDs!)
We met Ian again with some more euro store wine, although he had his own wine. Getting up to the piazza, which overlooks Florence (!) was beautiful but it was challenging, especially since my legs were tired from the run and stairs we had to climb were many. It was also, as would be expected, totally worth it.
Drinking wine with T and Ian, I took a bunch of pictures, especially of the tiny little Florentine buildings below. I thought of Florence, then, as a city made for dolls, and the gigantic David in the middle of the Piazza as their god or something. Ian told us some more about his poems, his life, and his travels. He's been, really, everywhere.
"Do Europe later in life," he told us, "Asia first, when you are young." If you get sick in Europe, you're alright. If you get sick in Asia...it's much better to be young and resilient. More of Ian's adventures have been catalouged forever in my brain, but I don't have enough internet to share.
When we asked him if he had plans for later, he responded: " No, no. I don't have plans anymore. I used to make plans all the time, always had a plan. I had this pocket watch on me all the time (sold it later), but I realized one day: you wake up, at some point you'll have a shit, and then one day, you'll die. Why make so many plans? I stopped doing that, completely. It took me a long time but now I'm doing just exactly what I want to do...live and write. I hang out with Toad. It's nice..."
Some of his cooler stories that day were about the time he spent making goat cheese on a commune in France. There, in the commune, also grew mushrooms. Everyday there would be a bowl of tabbacco out and a bowl of pot, up for grabs for anyone, whenever they'd like some. He said somedays he's work and work very hard and his mates would tell him "hey, Ian, come relax, don't work so hard," and he's say no, no m, he wanted to work. But other days he's just lay in the meadow, smoking a joint. Ian gave me the number to this commune and a little spiel to tell the people, to see if I could work/ live there for a little while if I decide to go to France. I'd have to extend my Eurorail pass and I'm not sure how expensive that is, but it's nice to have options, especially adventurous ones.
Ian brought us flowers he picked from somewhere nearby before we left, and T and I, buzzed from the wine, smelled them the whole stroll back to the best, doughiest pizza I've ever had.
**note: Most of the drug references found so far I've made because I picked up Leary (and others') book: The Psychedelic Experience at a bookstore here. I'm reading it because it's a known text, it has a pretty cover, and it's interesting in a weird way. It translated the Tibetan Book of the Dead into psychedelic terms. I've never done LSD and think, after reading some of it already, the enlightenment (which is the goal of the Tibetan Buddhists and the psychedelic movement, theoretically) doesn't have to be reached through chemical means. I'm pretty sure Leary didn't think so either, since meditation and yoga seem to have the same effect on one's ego and he knew this, but he did promote LSD as a "fast track," which it might very well be. The fast way, however, may not be as beneficial. Or it may, as I said, I don't know. I do keep thinking about this total burnout I met at my friend's birthday party in Isla Vista, though. He (the burnout) had taken so much acid and things he couldn't communicate or function very well in society. In the middle of a living room filled with people dancing, moving to the fast paced music coming from the speakers, was this guy, contorted into a backbend-ish yoga pose, perhaps experiencing something awesome, but definitely not experiencing the reality of the rest of the party...
Anyway, after reading more of the Psychedelic Experience and finishing Kafka's Metamorphosis last night, I had a series of nightmares that kept me up most of the night. So, if I can't find Kerouac's Dharma Bums (which I hope I find before getting on a train to Berlin), I think I won't read anything else but history for the rest of this trip. And whatta trip it's been...
We met Ian again with some more euro store wine, although he had his own wine. Getting up to the piazza, which overlooks Florence (!) was beautiful but it was challenging, especially since my legs were tired from the run and stairs we had to climb were many. It was also, as would be expected, totally worth it.
Drinking wine with T and Ian, I took a bunch of pictures, especially of the tiny little Florentine buildings below. I thought of Florence, then, as a city made for dolls, and the gigantic David in the middle of the Piazza as their god or something. Ian told us some more about his poems, his life, and his travels. He's been, really, everywhere.
"Do Europe later in life," he told us, "Asia first, when you are young." If you get sick in Europe, you're alright. If you get sick in Asia...it's much better to be young and resilient. More of Ian's adventures have been catalouged forever in my brain, but I don't have enough internet to share.
When we asked him if he had plans for later, he responded: " No, no. I don't have plans anymore. I used to make plans all the time, always had a plan. I had this pocket watch on me all the time (sold it later), but I realized one day: you wake up, at some point you'll have a shit, and then one day, you'll die. Why make so many plans? I stopped doing that, completely. It took me a long time but now I'm doing just exactly what I want to do...live and write. I hang out with Toad. It's nice..."
Some of his cooler stories that day were about the time he spent making goat cheese on a commune in France. There, in the commune, also grew mushrooms. Everyday there would be a bowl of tabbacco out and a bowl of pot, up for grabs for anyone, whenever they'd like some. He said somedays he's work and work very hard and his mates would tell him "hey, Ian, come relax, don't work so hard," and he's say no, no m, he wanted to work. But other days he's just lay in the meadow, smoking a joint. Ian gave me the number to this commune and a little spiel to tell the people, to see if I could work/ live there for a little while if I decide to go to France. I'd have to extend my Eurorail pass and I'm not sure how expensive that is, but it's nice to have options, especially adventurous ones.
Ian brought us flowers he picked from somewhere nearby before we left, and T and I, buzzed from the wine, smelled them the whole stroll back to the best, doughiest pizza I've ever had.
**note: Most of the drug references found so far I've made because I picked up Leary (and others') book: The Psychedelic Experience at a bookstore here. I'm reading it because it's a known text, it has a pretty cover, and it's interesting in a weird way. It translated the Tibetan Book of the Dead into psychedelic terms. I've never done LSD and think, after reading some of it already, the enlightenment (which is the goal of the Tibetan Buddhists and the psychedelic movement, theoretically) doesn't have to be reached through chemical means. I'm pretty sure Leary didn't think so either, since meditation and yoga seem to have the same effect on one's ego and he knew this, but he did promote LSD as a "fast track," which it might very well be. The fast way, however, may not be as beneficial. Or it may, as I said, I don't know. I do keep thinking about this total burnout I met at my friend's birthday party in Isla Vista, though. He (the burnout) had taken so much acid and things he couldn't communicate or function very well in society. In the middle of a living room filled with people dancing, moving to the fast paced music coming from the speakers, was this guy, contorted into a backbend-ish yoga pose, perhaps experiencing something awesome, but definitely not experiencing the reality of the rest of the party...
Anyway, after reading more of the Psychedelic Experience and finishing Kafka's Metamorphosis last night, I had a series of nightmares that kept me up most of the night. So, if I can't find Kerouac's Dharma Bums (which I hope I find before getting on a train to Berlin), I think I won't read anything else but history for the rest of this trip. And whatta trip it's been...
profile of a street person..
So nothing super amazing happened two days ago because we'd gone out the night before to ArtBar. This bar has these amazing cocktails/drinks with fruit piled up....artfully...around the rim and towering over the drink. Anyway, back at Piazza Signoira, we recognized Ian talking to Ken after Ken finished playing, so T. and I went up to perhaps reintroduce ourselves.
"I remember you," he said, pointing at me, "you have a really good...something...it just comes off of you. It feels really good."
The best news I'd heard all day. Yes! (recall: the kid from "nintendo 64 remix" vid on youtube.'Yes!yes! check this out if you don't know what I'm talking about).
So there we were again, with Ian on the steps of the Uffizi. We found out a couple cool things:
1) Sting now lives in the mountains of Florence, making organic wine that he sells in the city. Ken used to live in the mountains, so I guess they hung out. Also, Sting's wine is sold in the same store where Ian usually steals a bottle or two (he steals from stores, not people. Well, not people on the street..). Actually, Ian doesn't steal from there anymore because the owner of that store started just giving him a bottle every week-- a pretty cheap bottle but he must have figured he might as well just give Ian a bottle every week vs. having bottles stolen, you know?
2)That's how Ian gets most of his food, by stealing it from grocery stores or by people giving it to him. I went with him to pick up a bag of food from a bakery in the Piazza at 11 pm-- leftovers, but good ones. He has a couple of places around town that give him leftovers at the end of the day, and overall seems to be doing alright.
3)The best way to get those pesky flower-sellers to leave you alone is to follow Ian's example: when they come up to you and shake their roses in your face a couple times, reach out, snag a petal, and eat it. "Not very fresh," Ian repremanded the guy, "but thank you." He wasn't bothered again.
Ian read us some more of his poems, mainly about Toad, a character who deserves and is in the process of getting quite a series. I keep telling Ian to send his stuff into some journals, but he doesn't seem to be down at this time. We made plans to meet the next day at 4 pm, in Piazza Michaelangelo. I'm glad to have made such a favorable aquantaince with the.raddest.street.person. in Florence= time well spent.
"I remember you," he said, pointing at me, "you have a really good...something...it just comes off of you. It feels really good."
The best news I'd heard all day. Yes! (recall: the kid from "nintendo 64 remix" vid on youtube.'Yes!yes! check this out if you don't know what I'm talking about).
So there we were again, with Ian on the steps of the Uffizi. We found out a couple cool things:
1) Sting now lives in the mountains of Florence, making organic wine that he sells in the city. Ken used to live in the mountains, so I guess they hung out. Also, Sting's wine is sold in the same store where Ian usually steals a bottle or two (he steals from stores, not people. Well, not people on the street..). Actually, Ian doesn't steal from there anymore because the owner of that store started just giving him a bottle every week-- a pretty cheap bottle but he must have figured he might as well just give Ian a bottle every week vs. having bottles stolen, you know?
2)That's how Ian gets most of his food, by stealing it from grocery stores or by people giving it to him. I went with him to pick up a bag of food from a bakery in the Piazza at 11 pm-- leftovers, but good ones. He has a couple of places around town that give him leftovers at the end of the day, and overall seems to be doing alright.
3)The best way to get those pesky flower-sellers to leave you alone is to follow Ian's example: when they come up to you and shake their roses in your face a couple times, reach out, snag a petal, and eat it. "Not very fresh," Ian repremanded the guy, "but thank you." He wasn't bothered again.
Ian read us some more of his poems, mainly about Toad, a character who deserves and is in the process of getting quite a series. I keep telling Ian to send his stuff into some journals, but he doesn't seem to be down at this time. We made plans to meet the next day at 4 pm, in Piazza Michaelangelo. I'm glad to have made such a favorable aquantaince with the.raddest.street.person. in Florence= time well spent.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
"People are strangeee, when you're a stranger..."
I haven't done anything touristy yet- no museums or anything but maybe I'll do those tomorrow. I've just wanted to walk around, try and take good pictures (I'm learning, I think), and overall, just hang out. I've been wanting to read and write alot, so I went to the school's computer lab yesterday to post something. Mid post I look up and there's this lady standing cross-armed, facing me from across the room, giving me a serious stink eye. "Oh shit," I thought, "I'm found out." I'm not a student here, obviously, and had snuck in. I was just getting flustered when she directed all her anger at my feet which were propped up on a chair and shouted across all the heads of students bent over their work: "YOUR SHOOOOOOES!" really drawn out, just like that. I was barefoot, and this offended her, I guess, and I felt absolutelty naked in public. She shook her finger at me (really) and stomped off. At least she didn't ask for my student ID and drag me out by my shirt collar, but dang. It took me a second to understand that being barefoot might be socially inappropriate, which might be common sense to some, but I kept thinking about Isla Vista and Java Jones and how not only would all those students be barefoot if I could switch their back drop just like that (you know, from this city to my little beach town), but they'd also have longboards propped up against their tables.
"And they wouldn't be wearing black!" T added when I told her about it, later. Born and raised in San Diego, T misses her florals very much. It's also out-of-place in this town to show your legs, and I mean at all.
But aside from up-tight old ladies, I've met some really cool people. I met the coolest man the last time T and I went down to that Piazza to hear K, the musician I mentioned before. It was night (K plays from 9:30-11 nightly) and we were lounging on another set of stairs a bit further away from the music so we coud finish up this chat about energy, vibes, and that infamous, life changing trip to Santa Cruz I'll write about one day. I was just about to get to the part in the story of the adventure when I met this guru, when a bum approached us on his bike. T tensed but something about this old guy supressed her "basta, basta" (like:stop, or go away) reflex she developed living in Florence, always dealing with the street sellers of things. He asked for a smoke.
"No, sorry, man" I told him, "we're out. I'm sure you'll find one, though."
"Honey, I can find anything," he countered, confidently and good naturedly. A down guy, you could just tell. With his worn-looking fedora, Obama shirt, British accent and rickety bike, he exuded...just what I was looking for. I wanted to know his story and ask him about energy, since he came in right at that point in our conversation, perhaps sent from the marble gods looming above us, but Ian had his own questions.
"Three of them. One: favorite Beatles song"
"Let it be, " I answered quickly. Easy.
"Yellow Submarine," T, whose symbol (if people had them and mine do, so scratch that..her symbol) IS the sunflower, answered. Getting this characterization yet?
Ian answered "Hey, Jude," I think and went on with his other two questions, which were really maybe 4 other questions, athough he did introduce them as questions 2 and questions 3,you see,twice. He asked us about our favorite actor and had alot to say about film, he asked us about literature and had a lot to say on that subject as well. He recited two of his own poems to us, one short one I can't remember and one longer one about painkillers and alot wine, which was styled like Bukowski's poems, except Ian ryhmed the very end of it in a happy, whatever kind of way.
"It's like Bukowski, except you ended on a happy note.." I told him.
"Ohhh Bukowski was a drunk," he said as he pulled out another bottle of wine from his improvised bike basket, "the difference between us is, when I wake up at 4 am and reach for the bottle, I know it's bad."
Ian asked us about where we'd like to go we've never been, asked us about our favorite god, and fucking taught us things as we all sat there. Who would have guessed? He knew quite a bit about traveling and religion. We had a conversation about why Buddha is maybe the raddest god (you're responsible for yourself), and answered his own question with "Baccus."
Also in the course of this wonderful conversation, Ian mentioned in one of his stories, pretty off handedly, about how he knows K, the musician that was playing. "That's one of his own songs," Ian told us at one point. He told us also that K had opened for Simon and Garfunkel once, and used to be a street person with Ian. I guess K saw Garfunkel playing somewhere, went up to him, and told him he wanted a job. Garfunkel heard him and I've already said the rest.
"I kept asking him if Garfunkel was gay, you know? K said, 'I dunno man, he was never gay to me, but he's pretty weird,' right? Right, he's a weeerd [Ian's British accent] guy, Garfunkel, real weeerd." P.S. I asked him K's name once he told us he knew him, and everything seemed to check out. Meaning, I don't think Ian bullshitting.
It got colder and Euro-store one euro wine was out, so I promised Ian a cigarette for next time and T and I bounced, reluctantly.
I'll spare you a reflective paragraph on how life teaches more than books and things, but I will suggest talking to strangers. Sometimes they can make your night. Probably, also, they will say something unexpected, something new, and at any rate, something more than they would if you just walked by them, or "basta"ed them away too quickly. For sure, not everyone you meet is going to be cool, but also for sure, I hope to see lots of Ian around. And I have a hunch he wouldn't give a shit if I had shoes on or not (my kind of person).
Pace
"And they wouldn't be wearing black!" T added when I told her about it, later. Born and raised in San Diego, T misses her florals very much. It's also out-of-place in this town to show your legs, and I mean at all.
But aside from up-tight old ladies, I've met some really cool people. I met the coolest man the last time T and I went down to that Piazza to hear K, the musician I mentioned before. It was night (K plays from 9:30-11 nightly) and we were lounging on another set of stairs a bit further away from the music so we coud finish up this chat about energy, vibes, and that infamous, life changing trip to Santa Cruz I'll write about one day. I was just about to get to the part in the story of the adventure when I met this guru, when a bum approached us on his bike. T tensed but something about this old guy supressed her "basta, basta" (like:stop, or go away) reflex she developed living in Florence, always dealing with the street sellers of things. He asked for a smoke.
"No, sorry, man" I told him, "we're out. I'm sure you'll find one, though."
"Honey, I can find anything," he countered, confidently and good naturedly. A down guy, you could just tell. With his worn-looking fedora, Obama shirt, British accent and rickety bike, he exuded...just what I was looking for. I wanted to know his story and ask him about energy, since he came in right at that point in our conversation, perhaps sent from the marble gods looming above us, but Ian had his own questions.
"Three of them. One: favorite Beatles song"
"Let it be, " I answered quickly. Easy.
"Yellow Submarine," T, whose symbol (if people had them and mine do, so scratch that..her symbol) IS the sunflower, answered. Getting this characterization yet?
Ian answered "Hey, Jude," I think and went on with his other two questions, which were really maybe 4 other questions, athough he did introduce them as questions 2 and questions 3,you see,twice. He asked us about our favorite actor and had alot to say about film, he asked us about literature and had a lot to say on that subject as well. He recited two of his own poems to us, one short one I can't remember and one longer one about painkillers and alot wine, which was styled like Bukowski's poems, except Ian ryhmed the very end of it in a happy, whatever kind of way.
"It's like Bukowski, except you ended on a happy note.." I told him.
"Ohhh Bukowski was a drunk," he said as he pulled out another bottle of wine from his improvised bike basket, "the difference between us is, when I wake up at 4 am and reach for the bottle, I know it's bad."
Ian asked us about where we'd like to go we've never been, asked us about our favorite god, and fucking taught us things as we all sat there. Who would have guessed? He knew quite a bit about traveling and religion. We had a conversation about why Buddha is maybe the raddest god (you're responsible for yourself), and answered his own question with "Baccus."
Also in the course of this wonderful conversation, Ian mentioned in one of his stories, pretty off handedly, about how he knows K, the musician that was playing. "That's one of his own songs," Ian told us at one point. He told us also that K had opened for Simon and Garfunkel once, and used to be a street person with Ian. I guess K saw Garfunkel playing somewhere, went up to him, and told him he wanted a job. Garfunkel heard him and I've already said the rest.
"I kept asking him if Garfunkel was gay, you know? K said, 'I dunno man, he was never gay to me, but he's pretty weird,' right? Right, he's a weeerd [Ian's British accent] guy, Garfunkel, real weeerd." P.S. I asked him K's name once he told us he knew him, and everything seemed to check out. Meaning, I don't think Ian bullshitting.
It got colder and Euro-store one euro wine was out, so I promised Ian a cigarette for next time and T and I bounced, reluctantly.
I'll spare you a reflective paragraph on how life teaches more than books and things, but I will suggest talking to strangers. Sometimes they can make your night. Probably, also, they will say something unexpected, something new, and at any rate, something more than they would if you just walked by them, or "basta"ed them away too quickly. For sure, not everyone you meet is going to be cool, but also for sure, I hope to see lots of Ian around. And I have a hunch he wouldn't give a shit if I had shoes on or not (my kind of person).
Pace
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
so far
Florence:
Getting around alone is easy. Firstly, traveling alone is cool because I can read as much as I want, whenever I want. I can take as long as I want to do anything, and make decisions last minute because I’m the only one who deals with the consequence of last-minute action, which has so far been only time—waiting. Waiting I don’t mind at all, it’s just time to slide on my shades and people watch, soak up my surroundings. Staying calm, cool, and collected is key when traveling alone, and not hard once you realize there are signs everywhere—people, maps, what have you—that’ll really help you out. Think about keeping your energy good, open, and calm and I believe you’ll attract it (might sound hokey, I’m aware, but ever since this one visit to Santa Cruz I’ve been thinking in terms of “vibes”). I was looking at a map in a metro station, for example, trying to figure out trains, when this man in traditional African dress of some sort came up to me, holding a water bottle. “Here, you dropped this,” he communicated as he handed it back to me, smiling. I hadn’t even noticed it had slipped out of my backpack. Later, we enjoyed cappuccinos together and exchanged pleasantries, even though he spoke only French and I mostly only English. Language wasn’t a barrier at all.
I called T a couple times once my train got into Florence, but no answer. I rifled through my bag and found the printed out Facebook message of information she sent me. Next to her number, I realized then, was an “…I think.” I had her address though, so no worries. I snagged a map from outside the station, found her street on it, and set out. I could have found it on my own but I had help on every corner: “You’re lost. I see it. I know it.” With a poorly packed, lumpy backpack poking out over my head and one of those gigantic newspaper-sized maps under my nose, I stopped and received direction from most every person who called out to me—partly because they could be right, there might be some tricks or secret passage ways I wasn’t aware of, and also because I wanted to talk to them. What characters people are! And they’re all around, very entertaining. And helpful, really. They might as well have had orange glowing lights in their hands, the whole town, pointing me right to T’s apartment building.
I have a couple blisters on my hips from my backpack, but what are blisters when you’re alive and in Italy? I don’t know how long exactly I’ll be staying, but I’m pleased to let you know my friend and I already stumbled upon live music. We gravitate towards it. On a stroll two nights ago we heard Paul Simon coming from Piazza__ and found a man with a pony tail, guitar, and rich vocals playing music into the night. T saw a friend from class and we all sat on the stairs of __ facing him. He played mostly covers—covers of the best songs from the best bands, like the Beatles. Sitting there on the stairs, picking at T’s gelato and taking swigs from our little community wine bottle, I listened to this man sing so effortlessly, so beautifully. I traced a heart with the ember on my wand-like cigarette, thought about how simple it can be, and blew my smoke to the stars.
Onward,
C
Getting around alone is easy. Firstly, traveling alone is cool because I can read as much as I want, whenever I want. I can take as long as I want to do anything, and make decisions last minute because I’m the only one who deals with the consequence of last-minute action, which has so far been only time—waiting. Waiting I don’t mind at all, it’s just time to slide on my shades and people watch, soak up my surroundings. Staying calm, cool, and collected is key when traveling alone, and not hard once you realize there are signs everywhere—people, maps, what have you—that’ll really help you out. Think about keeping your energy good, open, and calm and I believe you’ll attract it (might sound hokey, I’m aware, but ever since this one visit to Santa Cruz I’ve been thinking in terms of “vibes”). I was looking at a map in a metro station, for example, trying to figure out trains, when this man in traditional African dress of some sort came up to me, holding a water bottle. “Here, you dropped this,” he communicated as he handed it back to me, smiling. I hadn’t even noticed it had slipped out of my backpack. Later, we enjoyed cappuccinos together and exchanged pleasantries, even though he spoke only French and I mostly only English. Language wasn’t a barrier at all.
I called T a couple times once my train got into Florence, but no answer. I rifled through my bag and found the printed out Facebook message of information she sent me. Next to her number, I realized then, was an “…I think.” I had her address though, so no worries. I snagged a map from outside the station, found her street on it, and set out. I could have found it on my own but I had help on every corner: “You’re lost. I see it. I know it.” With a poorly packed, lumpy backpack poking out over my head and one of those gigantic newspaper-sized maps under my nose, I stopped and received direction from most every person who called out to me—partly because they could be right, there might be some tricks or secret passage ways I wasn’t aware of, and also because I wanted to talk to them. What characters people are! And they’re all around, very entertaining. And helpful, really. They might as well have had orange glowing lights in their hands, the whole town, pointing me right to T’s apartment building.
I have a couple blisters on my hips from my backpack, but what are blisters when you’re alive and in Italy? I don’t know how long exactly I’ll be staying, but I’m pleased to let you know my friend and I already stumbled upon live music. We gravitate towards it. On a stroll two nights ago we heard Paul Simon coming from Piazza__ and found a man with a pony tail, guitar, and rich vocals playing music into the night. T saw a friend from class and we all sat on the stairs of __ facing him. He played mostly covers—covers of the best songs from the best bands, like the Beatles. Sitting there on the stairs, picking at T’s gelato and taking swigs from our little community wine bottle, I listened to this man sing so effortlessly, so beautifully. I traced a heart with the ember on my wand-like cigarette, thought about how simple it can be, and blew my smoke to the stars.
Onward,
C
begin
I finished Kerouac’s On the Road again on the plane to Rome. I say “again,” but the first time I read it I was in sixth grade (at the latest) and didn’t really get it. I definitely didn’t get the “IT” Dean (Neal Cassidy) gets:
‘“Here’s a guy [with a saxophone] and everybody’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah…all the sudden in the middle of the chorus he gets it…time stops…He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing…everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts but IT—“’
Soon after, Sal gets IT, and the two guys talk in the feverish, sweat-producing manner of Cassidy himself, when the words themselves don’t matter so much. Maybe IT, or the search for IT, makes people do things. Not take-off-on-a-bloody-rampage type things, but writing type things or I’m-taking-off-next-quarter-and-roaming-Europe type things. IT (and a trapped restlessness like this, the kind I can’t run off anymore) called for Kerouac and Cassidy from all around the United States, up and down the road. It’s what made ‘em want to dig new places, find new kicks. Those crazy cats (and you see their influence) stopped just short of going on to Italy. They had to leave some adventures for us—you know—for me and everyone, anyone. Maybe that’s why I’m on this train right now. Maybe I’ll find IT.
I’ll be in Florence later tonight, staying with a friend. I’ve already eaten too much pizza and substituted water for wine, officially. Also, I picked up smoking cigarettes (When in Rome…literally). Not to condone smoking or send another assault to smokers out into society (bummer, guys, how openly and actively you’re scorned), but I felt European-cool and suicidal when I bought my first pack. Mixed feelings. Hold down California coast life for me.
Live every day,
C
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