Stories from Italy - Trains!

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.
          ~Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poetry

Our tour of Italy included three cities:  Rome, Florence and Venice. We flew into Rome's gigantic airport from Chicago on a 9 1/2 hour flight overnight. We traveled around Rome either on our feet (miles and miles of walking each day!) or in a tour bus. We watched the people who lived in Rome get around on scooters, motorcycles and mini cars. The roads were narrow, the drivers were just terrible (our guide told us that there weren't traffic rules in Italy, rather, traffic "suggestions"...) and it all resulted in a rather chaotic system of transportation within the city.

Our tour included a "high speed train" ride from Rome to Florence, and then again from Florence to Venice. Such trains do not exist in the US, and even Amtrak service is so limited we had never even tried that. We had no experience with train travel to know what to expect...

We were very pleasantly surprised!  The train station in Rome was chaotic-- many, many people rushing in all directions. We were even approached by some gypsy women (another story...) and had been warned about pick pockets. Our tour guide was able to help us find the right train on the right track and to board in plenty of time. We traveled in the first class section, as this was an inexpensive option (unlike air travel, which would have added over $7000 apiece to our airfare!). We found the seats way more comfortable than the planes or even the tour buses. The ride was extremely smooth, and unless we passed a train going in the opposite direction, we had no idea we were traveling over 120 miles per hour. There was a train attendant who passed out newspapers, then drinks and snacks (including, at no extra charge, wine or beer!) Many of our group found themselves taking a nap, given how quiet and smooth the ride was.

We traveled the back roads, which meant we saw a lot more of the industrial sides of the cities we passed through, but also were able to see lots of the rural areas. Since we were traveling through Tuscany, we saw vineyards and farms and villas... beautiful! We also went through quite a few tunnels, which Lanny says is because the trains travel fast only on level ground, so they have to go through hills rather than over them.

The trip between Rome and Florence takes about 4 hours by car. Our train got us there in an hour and a half. The trip between Florence and Venice took about 2 hours but made a few more stops along the way. We had an affordable, comfortable, scenic trip with plenty of refreshments. We arrived rested and refreshed.

I have no idea why this method of travel has not caught on in the US. Here in central Indiana we have seen train tracks pulled up and turned into bike trails. What a shame!! I am sure the expense of building such a system in our country now would be extreme. I'm pretty sure we won't see high speed train travel here in the USA any time soon. But Lanny and I both agreed it is a wonderful way to travel and should we make it back to Europe, we'll hope to include it in our travel plans again.

Stories from Italy - The Ugly Duckling

People often say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves. 

          ~Salma Hayek

We had been traveling for what seemed like days-- we got up around 6 am to drive to Chicago to catch an afternoon direct flight to Rome. The flight was 9 1/2 hours long, and that was followed by the usual hassle of getting our luggage, getting through customs, and meeting up with our tour group leader who led us to the bus that would take us to our hotel. We had hoped to sleep on the plane, but found that impossible with the crowding and noise. We arrived at our hotel in time for lunch Rome time, which was  almost bedtime back in Indiana. Several of our more experienced world traveler friends had recommended that instead of taking a nap, we should stay up until bedtime in Rome. We were told this was the best way to acclimate our internal clocks to the new time.

So, after a lunch and a brief walking tour around our hotel by our guide (to show us where the pharmacy, the bank and the grocery stores were), we had free time until 4 pm when we would meet the rest of our group. I came prepared with maps and had read up on the area around the hotel, and after asking our guide his opinion, we headed to a small (by Roman standards anyway) basilica that was close to our hotel.

Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs) was built within the walls of the ancient Roman Baths of Diocletian. The baths were huge, taking up a large portion of this neighborhood, and were a popular gathering spot for the ancient Romans. After Rome fell, they stood empty and over time, they deteriorated into ruins-- but the walls and floors remained intact. Pope Pius IV commissioned Michelangelo to design and place a church in these ruins, to serve as his personal chapel and ultimately as his burial space. This was done in the late 1500's. Later, in the 1700's, Pope Clement XI had a "meridian line" placed on the floor by an Italian astronomer, which is essentially a very fancy sundial that keeps track of time and notes such things as when Easter occurs. All of this we learned before we visited, so we were eager to see what it looked like.

 

Like any major world city, Rome can be pretty intimidating, especially in the first hours of a visit. The church is located on the very busy Piazza della Repubblica, which has several lanes of traffic zooming around a central fountain. We had to cross this traffic twice to get to the church. We were tired and not a little grouchy at this point. The sun was bright and hot. 

 

The church itself is unassuming on the outside. There are still Roman ruins on the outside that were not incorporated into the church. The facade of the main entrance is small and kind of squat looking. Lots of brick walls, not many windows visible. It was really quite ugly. I found myself wondering what the big deal was about this place anyway...

 

We stepped inside and it took a minute for our eyes to adjust to the indoor light. The church was full of tourists milling about. The hallway was massive, and echoed with the footsteps of hundreds of people on the marble floor. As our eyes adjusted to the light and our ears adjusted to the lack of outdoor traffic noise, we were dumbstruck...

 

We were in a soaring cathedral, with massively high arching ceilings that despite their size seemed to soar weightlessly. There were painted frescoes everywhere, and huge marble statues situated inside marble arched niches along all the walls. We could not see the main altar, so we walked deeper inside the church. 

Then we heard the music. We had happened on a dress rehearsal for a choir and orchestra concert of some kind. What we heard was Baroque music with full voice and orchestra-- perhaps Bach? Neither of us recognized the music but it was glorious. As we walked into the main area of the church, the altar became visible and the sounds of the music clearer. I stopped dead in my tracks with the wonder of it all. 

Both of us were awed by this place. When the music stopped, the musicians dispersed. We were able to tour the rest of the building, take quite a few photos, and even got to go back behind the church into an unrestored area of the Roman baths. We also saw the meridian on the floor and a display dedicated to Galileo, including his pendulum used as a time keeper of sorts. 

We emerged from the church smiling, refreshed in a way that is impossible to describe. We had been in the presence of greatness, some would say of God... and we were ready to tackle the rest of Rome with new energy.

Now that I am home and have time to reflect on this experience, I am reminded once again that often things in life are not what they seem. Not only places, but people too, can be totally different than first impressions indicate. When I take the time to get to know them, often I am amazed by the unseen beauty within.

 

Coming home

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
          ~Lyn Yutang 

One of the true joys of travel is coming home. We have just returned from a two week vacation that took us to Italy. It was a vacation we had long dreamed of-- we saved our pennies to afford it, spent many hours reading and planning, learning about sights we were going to see.  For years I had hoped to someday see the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican and visit Venice. Lanny and I had talked about visiting these places since before we were married.  So, when we were finally off on a trip to see these places I didn't give a thought to coming home.

But as the days in Italy waned, and our feet and eventually entire bodies became weary of all the walking and touring, I have to admit I began to look forward to sleeping in my own bed again. I think our trip was just long enough-- we saw a lot, got to know our fellow travelers a little bit, and were gone just long enough to look forward to getting home again.

I am thankful we could take this wonderful vacation, and will be sharing some of the stories and hundreds of photos we brought home with us. But I am also very thankful for a safe return to our home. And that we have a wonderful home to return to!

Ready? Set? GO!

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

          ~Saint Augustine

                   

Lanny and I are in the final stages of packing and preparing for a long-anticipated trip to Italy. I have dreamed of traveling there since I was in college and audited an art history class. I learned about Greek and Roman art, and especially about the artists of the Renaissance. I want to see the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican before I die! Lanny traveled to Venice while in the Navy, and has shared his recollections of that city with me so that I want to go there too. Both places were put on my "bucket list."

We found a tour that combines all of those interests along with a liberal share of just seeing what there is to see in Italy. We will get a good taste of the food too.  Lanny has been looking up the best gelato places in each of the cities we will visit! I envision some wonderful shopping adventures too-- I have even looked up yarn shops in Rome and Venice. And there are so many items to consider bringing back-- leather from Rome, gold jewelry bought on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, art glass and lace in Venice... and who knows what else we'll find. I am certain we'll find way more than we can afford or carry!

We must endure the rigors of a long overnight trans-Atlantic flight to get there and that has me a little skittish. I am a white knuckled flier, and simply hate this part of travel. Nine and a half hours in the plane going over just sounds tortuous to me. But it gets us there. And I really want to go... so we will go armed with inflatable neck pillows and sleeping pills and some portable snacks if we get hungry. And I will be hoping the plane isn't full so we can stretch out a bit. I will also be hoping there are few small children or sneezing, coughing adults on the plane.

I will try to bring back some decent pictures and report on our adventures. It really is a dream for us to be going, and I anticipate lots of great stories. 

Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo.

          ~Al Gore

Hail to the Victors!

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth. 

          ~Robert Southey

Here we are:  Barb, Kathy, Cindy, Jean and Donna-- after 38 years!

It has been 38 1/2 years since I graduated from the University of Michigan School of Nursing. During my 4 years at Michigan, I was lucky to have made some wonderful friends, and of those I was really lucky to have had 5 wonderful women as my room mates.  For the first time since graduation so long ago, five of us were able to get together for a reunion this past weekend. As you can imagine, after all those years we had some catching up to do! And I suspect each of us wondered a little whether after all this time we'd still feel the incredible connection we once had to each other.

I am please to report that we did feel connected. Cindy, my closest friend of the group and room mate for all 4 years, said it best, "Isn't it amazing that after 38 years we can get together and it feels like it was just yesterday..."

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
          ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill... they still make this stuff??

We did have a very close relationship during those years. I have tried to explain it to Lanny without a lot of success. We were all fresh out of high school back then and "on our own" (a relative term-- most of us were going to school thanks to our parents, who financed our educations!) for the first time. It was the early 1970's... an age of freedom and to some extent experimentation. We burst on to campus with enthusiasm and complete confidence we'd make our mark on the world. Or did we? I remember being pretty scared. Not only was I on my own, but suddenly I found myself surrounded by people who were at least as smart as me and probably smarter. I had skated through high school academically without much challenge. And I had chosen a field where if I didn't learn it, I could literally kill somebody. Under that kind of stress, thrown together in the communal living arrangement known as a co-ed dorm, and being generally optimistic, happy people, we all bonded with one another with an intensity we'd never experienced before.

I am happy to report that without exception every one of us has lived a full, productive and relatively happy life. Four of us married guys we met at school. Of those, two of the marriages failed, including my own, which is at the national average, I guess. Four of us became registered nurses, but in completely different specialty areas. Of those four, two went on to obtain master's degrees. The fifth went on to law school at U of M and became a securities attorney in New York. And one, tragically, passed away about 10 years ago...

But that wasn't the end of the story! None of us ended up as we thought we would.

The securities attorney stopped practicing law when her children were small to attend to their needs and now that they are grown she has focused on a very active life as a volunteer.  She married a guy she met in law school, also an attorney, and has been happily married to him for over 30 years. They left New York City when they started a family, but she finds herself returning often now because her daughter is just starting as an actress and has been in several Broadway productions!

The rehab nurse went into nursing administration after getting a master's degree, and then went on to be active in her national professional organization and as a nursing hospital administrator. She is nationally recognized in the field of rehab nursing. And she left that all behind to return to her family's farm several years ago. Today she raises cattle and helps her brother operate a huge corn/soybean farm. And she is active in the small farming community she grew up in. As she puts it, the girl who left home thinking she would always be a nursing professional has returned home and loves it.

The home health nurse married her college sweetheart, moved with him to several far away locations and practiced nursing in a variety of roles, none of them traditional. She found herself divorced and facing the challenge of re-inventing herself (she and I had A LOT to talk about!) To fill the huge void in her life she started going on mission trips, and lo and behold she met a wonderful man on one of the trips. This big city girl married a very rural guy and moved to the farm. They are now retired and she loves it!

The ICU nurse married her college sweetheart and moved to where his job took them. She worked mostly per diem while raising her two kids, and after they were grown and gone she decided to try something different and has been working in the pharmaceutical business conducting clinical trials on potential new drugs. The switch took her away from the bedside but has proven to be rewarding, intellectually stimulating and usually enjoyable. She will be retired by the end of this year and finally able to enjoy stress-free time with her husband of over 35 years and the rest of her family.

And then there is me. The OB nurse forever, who swore she'd never leave the bedside but ended up as a nursing administrator, helped open a new unit and a whole new hospital. Who married her college sweetheart and had a couple kids and then found herself divorced and having to start over...

Obviously, we must acknowledge our school for providing us with an education that prepared us to be successful in our careers. But I think we must also acknowledge that perhaps those years also helped prepare us for some of the other stuff life has thrown at us. Our friendships gave us the courage to try new things back then, and when we supported each other through bad romances, difficult classwork or fights with other friends, we were helping each other prepare for the bad stuff in life. And we certainly learned how to celebrate life in college! And we brought those "skills" with us to our reunion!!!

So here's to you guys... Cindy, Donna, Jean and Kathy! RIP Marty... And here's to Jeigh and Al and all the guys on the second floor of Couzens Hall.  Here's to Judy Judd and Mary Reynolds and all the other nursing instructors we must have frustrated so badly!

Oh yes and one more thing...

GO BLUE!