Touching Experiences

Athens Greece

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Landed in Eletherios Venizelo airport and everyone clapped as is often the custom around much of the world.

Took a one hour bus ride from the airport to Monastiraki Square Station at Syntagma Square in Athens. Walked down Ermou St. to Hotel Pella at the edge of the Plaka (old town). On our fourth floor balcony we had a direct view of the Acropolis that is beautifully lit at night. But in spite of the hardest beds of any in Europe and the street noise outside making it impossible to sleep without ear plugs. Nellie, the hotel manager from Bulgaria made our stay there a very pleasant one.

For dinner we gorged in the Plaka at the Egnokapta Restaurant. We had an eggplant casserole, spanokapita, val and onions, beet greens, peppers, yogurt and cucumbers, wine and afterward Greek coffee (that tastes like coffee grounds). Our watier-an older gentleman who assumed the authority of one who might own the the art of table- waiting made our meal even more pleasurable. As we were eating Bob looked around and wondered if any of the people there was a direct descendent of Aristotle…?

Olympics
The summer Olympics to be held in 2004 in athens is a matter of great debate among the people here. Because Greece is such a little country, and even though Athens will be greatly improved, the people are worried about the expense of maintaining all that is left once the Olympics are over. Soon an election will be held for a new mayor and local TV programs are filled with animated discussions about a new tax that is proposed to fund the improved infrastructure for the city. A new metro stop is being constructed below our hotel balcony and streets are torn up-workers working around the clock everywhere. Even though Greece is politically liberal, the people are generally very conservative and you get the feeling they enjoy nattering.

A bit of irony in these days: A T shirt saying that the fundamental Principles of Olympism is a philosophy of life exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. (From the Olympic Charter)

Went to Suyntagma Square to observe a demonstration and listen to Greek music supporting the Palestinians in the war with Israel. There was a huge picture of Arafat hanging at the square and our hotel proprietor told us that Greece will always support whoever it perceives is the “underdog.”

While surveying the scene, we stood and watched another drama-the street hawkers, mainly black African immigrants, selling sunglasses and purses on the blac market. Whenever the two police would walk up the street all the sellers would pick up their stuff and run and hide- then when the police passed they would all come back and within seconds be back in business again. Bystanders seemed entertained by the nightly game.

On the way back to the hotel we strolled through the Plaka looking for a place to eat and stopped to buy a small cylindrical shaped pillow for my train rides from a rug shop. On discovering we were American, the owner vented for 20 minutes about the stupidity of 9/11 and how it hurt the whole world economically because “when the US is in trouble all the countries are in trouble-like dominoes-so 9/11 hurt all of us! Look, the country is empty of tourists and my rug shop is empty!” He angrily called the people who commit these terrorist acts “barbarians.” He said in 3000 years of our history there has always been war between armies-not this barbaric stupidity- and on top of all this my 45 year old brother-in-law had a heart attack and died and I have to support my sister!” We found it difficult to find anything encouraging to say.

Illustrating the civilizations, myths and religions that flourished in Greece over a period of more than 1,000 years, the Acropolis, the site of four of the greatest masterpieces of classical Greek art – the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nike – can be seen as symbolizing the idea of world heritage. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

St. Peter’s House

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter’s Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 1965 I had missed seeing the Vatican because I refused to stand in line three hours. So we took the Metro across the Tiber River to the stop near the Vatican and noticed that the trains in Rome are completely covered-every square inch-in graffiti-so much so that Bob thought that the local government had commissioned it! Not!

After 23 years of Catholic education for Bob and 16 for me, we approached the Vatican in complete ignorance-we knew next to nothing about the Vatican or the Pope-probably says something about being Catholic…or Polish. The Polish never did like being told what to do-and neither did Bob’s ancestors-German immigrants to the Ukraine.

We learned that the Vatican occupies 108 and one half acres within the confines of Rome. It is a separate city with it’s own postal service and does a brisk business selling its postcards and stamps that must be mailed in their own mailboxes. Seeing this made it hard to picture the Catholic church that once wheeled and dealed as the mightiest power in Europe.

St. Peter’s Basilica and the Cupula
St. Peter’s is called planning for the “long term. Planning for the short term is Oregon’s Governor Barbara Roberts being given a hard time because she wants to put a nice rug and some cherry wood furniture in the Archives building! I said as much to a Canadian standing next to me at the top of the Cupula (the dome on the top of the basilica) after climbing 350 stairs and suffering claustrophobia from the slanted walls. I told my Canadian friend that I thought the world was trying to tell us that our values are in the wrong place. His answer brought me up short “Yes, we are so practical yet because we are such a young society. We are still developing and building. Other ancient societies have already had their chance to learn what is important in life.” So now, while we name buildings after politicians and businessmen, Rome names it’s airport after Leonardo da Vinci!

The confessional area was lined with priests hearing confessions in many languages. Bob tried to find out if it was customary to give an offering. I asked him if he was planning on going…he said he didn’t need it at which I shot him the big poof of air that the French taught me how to do.

Meanwhile, Bob was watching the sun coming in one of the windows high in the nave magically illuminating all of one particular statue-the one of St. Helen. He wondered aloud if St. Helen “had something to say” to him-probably, he said brightly, “to keep up the good work!”

Sistine Chapel
Would take weeks or months to absorb everything in the Vatican museum and all the rooms of art (Bob was pretty energized by the modern religious art). In the half hour we were in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican monitors shushed us every 2-3 minutes which really raised Bob’s hackles! He said it reminded him of Sister Mary Barbara! But I said I thought the noise may be damaging to the art. Besides, I told him it shouldn’t be a circus in there. I just got a harumph in reply.

Before taking the Metro back to the hotel we stopped at a small cafeteria run by three energetic young guys who served up pizza, rice stuffed tomatoes in a great pomodoro sauce with those tiny noodles and a veal dish with another kind of pomodoro sauce at our streetside table. Either we were very hungry or this was the best food in Italy!

Michelangelo’s David

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Bob is going on a walking tour where he will learn how the Renaissance Medici family ruled and held onto their city as an independent state for three centuries in face of pressure from the Papacy and how they commissioned some of the greatest art in the western world. He will learn about the political intrigues of the time and what precipitated Machiavelli’s “The Prince.”

Built on the site of an Etruscan settlement, Florence, the symbol of the Renaissance, rose to economic and cultural pre-eminence under the Medici in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its 600 years of extraordinary artistic activity can be seen above all in the 13th-century cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore), the Church of Santa Croce, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace, the work of great masters such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli and Michelangelo. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Florence in 1965, I have an indelible memory of walking along looking at Michelangelo’s unfinished works in the Galleria dell’ Accademia (Europe’s first school of drawing) lining both sides of a long hallway. Finally, at the end of the hallway I looked up and saw the most beautiful body I had ever seen standing on a four foot pedestal under a lighted dome…David…and reaching out and touching what I could have sworn was flesh…

Bob will have his own experience albeit probably quite a different one! Actually Michelangelo’s unfinished work was just as thrilling…like watching contorted bodies writhing-climbing-free of their prisons. Carved from a gigantic block of marble, David was finished in 1504 when Michelangelo was just 29…his work an inspired miracle!

Serendipity Florence

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Well, we are in Florence, by serendipity, on April 5, 2002. By that I mean that we were on the train from Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera headed to Siena when we realized we would be going through Florence to get there. I had actually been pulling for Assisi where my favorite saint is buried and where son Joshua had spent several months living-studying the language and the food. But I told Bob it was a sin not to see Florence so we decided to jump.

Bob left me in the train station in charge of the baggage and a USA Today and took off looking for a hotel. Actually was touching for an hour observing the old men sitting here and then after a few minutes changing places there-taking up seats, as in every European train station, with no place else they would rather go. Maybe old men need train stations to sit and remember…and dream while they watch…who? I imagined the old women probably home gossiping together about how the youngsters in town were all going to hell.

Last night we ate at a modern hip restaurant-very noisy-with lots of “cool” people in black leather jackets-mostly Italians. We had the pasta sampler-5 different kinds so we are getting our fill of pasta! Today we ate lunch at a small down home Trattoria-pasta for the Primeri course and grilled steak for me and veal with sauce for Bob for Segundi course.

I am left with one single strong impression about these European countries. The people know who they are and they love being who they are. The Italians, especially, may suffer their pain in private but in public they love being with each other, talking laughing eating! Americans imagine everyone in the world wants to be American. Not true.

9/11 & Two Muslims

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The next day, we spent the day in Marrakech waiting for our favorite night train back to Tangiers. I spent all afternoon at the Ali Hotel Internet Cafe while Bob went out walking through the city again. Ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Square. Bob had great beef stew with onions and raisons. I had a welcome spaghetti with pomodora (tomato) sauce and water. On the way back to the hotel we bought a liter of fresh squeezed orange juice for about 75 cents for the trip back on the train.

By this time I had made friends with a young man who was in charge of the Internet Cafe-Fattah Boutnach. We had been trading cultural information intermittently before we left on the excursion and since I felt there was generally a pretty good feeling between us I decided to ask the big question. The first thing he had said to me when we met was that “Americans and Europeans are very HARD.” This took me by surprise, but we do have a competitiveness that makes us hurried and sharp with each other. In the interest of being task-oriented have we gained everything at the risk of losing our souls? The rest of the world fears this is true and doesn’t want it to happen to them.

He said that my name, Eunice, is the name of a prophet in the Koran-the
‘man that was eaten by the fish” (Jonah) and that Eunice is a name for a man in the Arabic world.

But back to my big question. From Fattah’s perspective I wanted to know “what was the pain that caused 9/11?” Curiously, Fattah didn’t understand my question. The answer was political not emotional.

Fattah’s English was not that sophisticated so he invited a friend to join our conversation-a handome man in his 30’s with clear eyes and resolute but warm and friendly manner. He was clean shaven and had on a beautifully immaculate white cotton jamalla. As it turned out he was very well read in English. When asked, he said that his job was educating very young children but he quickly added that more importantly he was a student of history and philosophy. (Educating the next generation of jihadists, I wondered.) In response to the realities in the Arab speaking world he had written an article for a French publication. He promised to use a translation program on the internet to translate the article into English for me and send it to me via email which I never received.

But following are some of the comments they made during our conversation:

1. “Maybe now Americans, in particular your American government, will try to understand “the other” a people different than yourselves. Your government-and we understand that it is not done by the American people-has chipped away at our identities for years now-has denied us who we are and it is time for this to stop and the American people must understand what’s happening and put pressure on their government to get it to stop doing this.

2. They wanted to talk about the “aggression” in Afghanistan and said that they did not believe Osama bin laden was connected to 9/11 but I tried to steer the conversation away from those topics because I wanted to stay on a more personal level. They wanted to know how we knew for sure that Osama was actually saying what we thought he was saying on the videotape. I explained that the government had four different translators translate the video and that in addition, because they doubted any translation commissioned by the US government, an Arab advocacy organization also translated it. I told him we heard Osama exclaiming how it was a good thing that it happened. Then they dropped the subject but I don’t think they were convinced.

I countered to the first comment that before 9/11 Bush barely was elected president-that our intellectuals were trying to understand but the average American did not have a clue why 9/11 happened and was supporting Bush’s policy on terrorism.

The men wanted to know why and I said that because most Americans do not read and study about what our government does in other countries so they don’t know how our government is perceived by people in other countries. I continued that most American people get their information from the press but that that information was generally considered by our intellectuals to be very shallow. Also most Americans basically were not interested in international news because they are busy working to earn a living and do not see that it is relevant to their lives. So the press does not give us much international news in the first place.

The two men countered that Americans must begin reading because people in other countries are reading and are developing opinions of our government based on what they read. They gave an example-comments that our vice president, Dick Cheney made a few years ago, that is widely read in the Arab world and has them (Arabs) “scared to death.” Then Fattah’s friend gave me a list of books he thinks Americans must also read: Thomas Freeman “The Mind Managers” published by Beacon Press in Boston in 1974 and “Globalisation, The Human Consequences” by Zygment Bowman published by Cambridge Press in 1998.

By this time I had to leave for the train so we traded email addresses and we all affirmed that there is always hope for people to learn to get along with each other. I told them about John Hofer’s imperative that I report back to my friends at home what my travels revealed about what we have become in this world. Fattah told me that this was a very great responsibility. Then they said “lahamdalela” to me as I left-meaning, they said, “Thanks to God.” The conversation left me reeling.