Trip to Italy, 2016

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Italy Trip

            I have tried with my accounts of my trips to style them a bit differently each time, and that has been relatively easy and still entertaining[1]. The trip I took from January 2nd through the 15th 2016 with my niece, Kelsey O’Rourke (see below), was different than the others and has to have a different style. I planned most of the trip, though Kelsey had sent me links to many of the activities, such as museums to reserve spots for and tours I needed to arrange in advance, so it required more computer time than the others I’d done where travel agents, tour guides, or my friends had set things up. I am quite happy trying to stick to itineraries anyone is willing to foist on me, but I have also shown a knack for arranging things myself.

Kelsey O’Rourke: a 21 year old, recent early graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Kelsey is well liked by everyone who meets her. She had not been running, but she was in good enough shape to do a lot of walking every day. She has some of her father’s excellent sense of direction and shares the O’Rourke stubbornness and determination. She often wandered ahead and was hard to find; reminded me a lot of me. In my opinion, we got along great and were a great team. She was definitely well suited to the Terry method of travel: do as much as possible while it is light and go to bed early. My guess as to Kelsey’s number one memory of our trip: “Uncle Terry farts more than anyone else.” She will add comments throughout in italics. She loved taking quick photos with her new camera. (So quick, I didn’t even have to stop walking. –KO’) #bestuncle. (Agreed. –KO’)

[1] . Wishful thinking? Maybe

Highlights:

We were nonstop during the days and saw as much as humanly possible, allowing for getting off course a few times. My standout memories:

Beggars: there were super pathetic beggars near every entrance to nearly place in Rome – the standard posture was back bent at 90 degrees with a cane, though one woman was prostrate on the cobblestones. I only gave one some change.

Selfie Sticks/Umbrellas for sale! Almost everywhere we went, maybe except for Venice, there were Asian and African men trying to get us to buy either one of those things, HUNDREDS of times

Smokers! I joked after my last trip that Italy ran on coffee and cigarettes. Too many people smoke there and they don’t care if other people have to breathe it in (see footnote 3 later)

Drinks expensive at restaurants, and hidden fees abounded.

When we left our hotel room, we had a "Grammy Check" - all the lights off; "Pappy Check" - did someone have the key; and, later, "Kelsey Check" - make sure the door was shut, as Kelsey didn't close it all the way twice.

The Museums were not as crowded as I remembered when I was there in the summer of 1996.

The hotels had universally good and “free” wifi.

Almost every restaurant had guys posted to try to talk you into eating there.

I am great at selfies. (No he is not. –KO’)

The Chronology:

            01/02/2016: Saturday

            I woke up feeling ill, but I ran anyway. A kid had coughed right in my face three days prior and at the time, I knew it was coming. I hoped it would just be a mild cold. We left on time in my car after my inquiries into using Kelsey’s Honda were met with perceived indifference. My diesel Jetta had just been in for its 10000 mile service three days prior and passed with flying colors, but it has only front wheel drive and we didn’t know how cold or snowy it might be when we got back, so a few if’s there. Otherwise the drive down was smooth, parking easy to find, and ticketing and security as easy as possible. The flight departed quickly with minimal taxiing (rarely happens at Philly), and we were off, with an uneventful journey (I enjoyed the movie, “Mistress America” – will be a cult classic) and on time arrival. Customs and passport control were no major problem and we were out in the airport area to meet our ride.

            I read Mindy Kaling’s first book on the plane, which was delightful, if anyone was wondering. –KO’

            01/03:

            Kelsey had talked of posing for photos with the person holding the “O’Rourke” sign, but she quickly passed us off to a take-charge driver who took us to an ATM and then out to his waiting diesel Mercedes. Having not been to Rome, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The lay of the land was mildly hilly and there were no skyscrapers. The view from the road was typical of nearly any small urban area. We cruised within sight of St. Peter’s dome and over a bridge, then were quickly on a cobblestone alley and in front of our hotel, the Hotel Campo de’ Fiori, listed as a “boutique” 4 star hotel. The building resembled a brown row house and had some vines creeping on its front. We were greeted cheerfully by the helpful staff who sat us down after check in and depositing our bags, to give us the rundown.

            The Campo de’ Fiori is a well-known tourist destination: a thriving and busy market by day that is cleared out completely as the sun sets to allow all the restaurants on its perimeter to dominate the evenings, only to be set up again as a market the next day before sunrise. It is a great location for a Roman vacation, as it is within walking distance of nearly every notable Roman site. Except we weren’t going to be staying at the hotel. I had booked one of its apartments, but we were told, “There is a problem.” It took a bit for it to register, but the apartment apparently had a broken water main and had no water; there were no other rooms available, so we were being moved to the Hotel Casa de Fieri right nearby in the little plaza, not 60 feet away. It was only a 3 star hotel[2] but it included breakfast, so the price was not changed. For now we would leave our bags on deposit at the first hotel and would move in when we returned later in the day. He showed us all the good places to go on the map and we left for our first stop that Sunday: the Vatican to see the Pope.

   [2] It didn’t even have a sign. That must dock you one star right out.        

           As usual, I had several agendas as we walked: scope out the area, check out running options, and see how long it took to get there as we had a tour reserved at the Vatican Museum the next day. The streets were not as busy as I expected and the day was sunnier than predicted, which was soothing when one has not slept much. We were off a little on our route but quickly corrected it to go over the Ponte Vittorio Emmaneule II, which had beautiful statues on it and great views of Castel Sant’ Angelo. As we headed down from the bridge to the road to St. Peter’s, the crowds thickened, but still there were not as many people as I thought there would be.

            We walked up the road, which was blocked to most traffic, and I smiled as I saw the many nuns and priests moving around. It was not obvious when we arrived what to do, but we gathered we had to wait in line for security and it was otherwise free to enter the square. An initial trend was noted at this time[3]: one of the three guards screening people was smoking while he frisked and (rarely) talked to the visitors.

 [3] Way too many Italians smoke with no regard for those around them.

           Once past that security check, we were in the heart of St. Peter’s Square, but not that close to the Basilica. We wandered about, wondering where the Pope would appear. I recalled him standing on a balcony outside a window on one of the side buildings, but Kelsey was sure he would stand on a balcony on St. Peter’s (turns out that was where a new pope is introduced). We realized to get the best view we had to go through another security check, and after that there were more people and less space, but still not bad. After ten minutes or so of standing around, there was a brief cheer as a maroon drape was hung from one of the windows I thought he might speak from, and in another twenty minutes, we could see a small white figure at the podium they’d set up, and Pope Francis was soon speaking to us.

            The crowd wasn’t ecstatic, but there were cheers and nuns waving handkerchiefs. He talked about the Jubilee Year of Misericordia/Mercy he’d proclaimed in an address of about 12 minutes or so (even at that length, it dragged since he only spoke Italian). After he finished, we left the square slowly, as there were multiple bottlenecks, and the crowds held us up until we were re-crossing the bridge. We wandered into the many alleys with their charming lights hanging across them looking for a place to eat lunch and eventually chose a place in an alley off the Campo de’ Fiori. We started with some bruschetta, which was delicious – everything so fresh and tasty. I got pistachio and pear pasta in a cream sauce – so good.

            It was a short stroll back to the hotel to get our bags, which the super helpful young desk clerk hauled over to the other hotel. They ushered us into the room, which was small and     had     only     one     bed. I was sure I’d booked twin beds throughout. Fortunately there was a chaise like chair that was easily converted into a single bed for Kelsey. I needed to sleep alone: I was sick, I was tired, and I never sleep well in the same bed with anyone. It did make for one less chair, but unlike me, Kelsey is not a light sleeper and can go to sleep in the same bed she has spent the evening reading in (I must practice good sleep hygiene and only sleep in the bed).

            There was still plenty of day left, so we did just a bit of unpacking and headed back out. The first stop was the Piazza Navona, an area just north of us. I was a bit surprised to see what it was like: impressive old buildings surrounding a very touristy plaza, with a carousel and lots of street performers, including a flame-juggling guy who picked the pocket of the guy who helped him get on his unicycle. (It was a great first impression of Rome… –KO’) We headed east and came upon the Pantheon, a jaw-dropping huge building that somehow looks small at the same time. It looked like it was put in its piazza by CGI graphics, a bit grainy and gray in contrast to the more modern buildings surrounding it. It was one of our favorites. We went in, and I noticed first the warning signs about pickpockets. It is very impressive, with its huge dome, complete with hole at the top. Dimly lit, it did not make for great photos, but there were very nice frescoes, statues and a few famous tombs. (Including Raphael! –KO’)

            We headed further east to the St. Ignazio de Loyola Church, which had fantastic paintings, and from there we found the Temple Adriano, which as best we could tell was only the columns and façade, all of which were pock-marked. It was a short walk to the famous Trevi Fountain, which was packed with people on a still sunny day. The water was light blue, the statues shiny, and the din of all the people talking overwhelming. We worked our way down for some photos and then Kelsey threw some coins over her shoulder into the water while I almost missed it on video. In the area nearby the crowds were much denser; this was the place to be.

            It was only a short wander north to the area of the Spanish Steps, which were closed, partially obscured behind plexiglass and plywood barriers. The far left side was open and we walked up them to see what was up. The view was pretty great. (Bonus: The sun was setting. –KO’) The Medici Palace was on the same level there, so we wandered by it, trying not to stir up the heavily armed soldiers[4] standing in front of it before we headed back down a side street hill. That led us to what the hotel guy said was a great area for shopping. There certainly were many high-end stores and shoppers all over. I really had to pee, and there are almost no public toilets in Rome (I don’t remember any). We had trouble finding our way, and I thought I took us right there, but it turned out we were about 5 blocks off. It was a tense waddle back to the hotel from there.

[4] “Operation Safe Strade” had at least 2 soldiers with large black machine guns deployed in front of nearly every place of note. Their fingers always seemed to be on the triggers of their guns.

            We unpacked more and logged onto their wifi. I got an urgent message from my credit card bank and was afraid to log on because I wasn’t sure of my password after several years of only logging on with my laptop and the browser remembering the password, so I tried to change it. Just what I was trying to avoid happened. Unknown to me, it sent me two passwords instead of one, and so the one I had didn’t work and it locked me out of my account. I was furious but tried not to act too mad in the room with Kelsey. The office was closed because it was Sunday so I would need to get that straightened out the next afternoon because I already needed more cash and I didn’t know if my cards were also locked.

            The hotel had recommended a restaurant just off the Campo, where I ordered what I thought would be caprese with buffalo mozzarella, but it was just a huge (the size of a typical orange) ball of mozzarella (though good). After I finished it I told Kelsey not to let me order any more buffalo mozzarella the rest of the trip[5]. I also had gnocchi, which I had mistakenly ordered in my rush and was really hot and hard to eat, but it did fill me up. It also brought on another need for an emergent bathroom run. After I got back down to the piazza, we had our first gelato – Italy is great. Sigh.

            The highlight of this day for me was the Pantheon, for sure. I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it was for the rest of the week. Another moment of note: While we ate dinner, there was an elderly Italian woman sitting in the restaurant, making pasta. Passersby would stop to watch. Italy is great. Sigh. –KO’

[5] It was on almost every menu. I did get a pizza that used a much smaller amount on it. It was really good.

01/04:

            I took melatonin and fell right to sleep, feeling like I’d slept a long time when I woke up and looked at the clock – it was only 11:40pm. I’d been asleep less than two hours! I was super congested and had to find my afrin, and then I finally fell back to sleep only to wake up again feeling worse around 3am and was never able to get back to sleep. I had looked out the window many times as I wandered back and forth to the bathroom and it wasn’t raining like they had predicted, so I decided to try to run even though I didn’t feel well. I got ready and went out in the dark around 6:30 and IT WAS RAINING HARD, in the low 40s F. I thought I knew where I was going and tried to go to the Tiber River to run along the paths right down by it I’d noticed the day before. The next thing I noticed was coming into an open area: the Piazza Navona! There was no escaping it[6]. I was nowhere near the river. I changed course and arrived at the river’s edge right across from the Castel Sant’ Angelo (again, not where I thought I would be) and took the wet, leaf-covered stairs to the mostly cobblestone and dirt walkway on the same side. I passed under several bridges, once getting barked at by a dog next to a tent, and finally gave up just short of the island in the river (I couldn’t see it in the rain) and went back up to the street hoping to find the Circus Maximus. I looped around an impressive old stone building and got into an alley. I really didn’t know where I was going but thought I might eventually reach the river, but within two minutes I was in the Campo de’ Fiori! I was only at 2.8 miles at that point, so I ran around the area there to get just above 4 miles and went inside. Despite the rain, my sickness and the dark, I was exhilarated.

[6] It is true. You cannot escape going to the Piazza Navona.

       My first shower was truly an event. Kelsey was still in bed, so she didn’t know I had the water running in various positions trying to get some hot water to come out for nearly 20 minutes. I settled for a pretty cold quick rinse off. Kelsey didn’t have any warm water at all. We quickly forgot about that at our excellent breakfast upstairs, where our lack of desire for coffee products was met with astonishment. During breakfast, the rain pounded on a tin roof near our table.

            We headed out into the rain with a 10am appointment on some steps across from the Vatican Museum. I eschewed an umbrella and the many attempts to sell me one on the walk up. My pants got a little wet, but my wallet and passport were stowed in waterproof bags and my jacket did what expensive goretex is supposed to. We made good time, with a few glances at the dampening map, until we ran into the end of the line for regular admission into the Vatican Museum[7]. We were told it was at least a two hour wait by every tout and guide seller as we kept walking by, finally getting where we needed to and meeting our guide, Francesco, and getting our listening equipment, the ingenious one ear piece radio set through which we could always hear Francesco say, “Okay!” Francesco was the opposite of macho, but he kept us moving except when he had to stop to do presentations with laminated photos he carried in a bag with him. The longest of these presentations was done inside, upstairs, where we shared a space with two other tour groups, both of whom chided Francesco for taking their space[8]. Once we started inside the museum proper, it was a nearly overwhelming sensation of crowds, damp, and beauty of jaw-dropping quality all to the near constant patter of Francesco, always punctuated with an “Okay” or three. (I didn’t really notice this, but then again, for about 40% of the tour, I was too far behind the group/utterly lost, so my radio was just static.–KO’)

[7] Almost every tour in Rome included a promise to “skip the lines.” Only in this instance did it matter.

 [8] Official Vatican Tours used video monitors for their talks and needed to be able to sit where they could be seen. We were not official, but something close.

      The Map Room is spectacular, with a blazingly gilded ceiling surrounding a patchwork of paintings and sculpture and the walls with various maps of Italy and the vicinity of varying vintages. I could have spent an hour there, but the crowds and Francesco kept us moving into a quieter hall with contemporary art gifted to the papacy (some of it really good) and then into an area where some sat down. Here we were confused by Francesco’s promise of 15 minutes to go to the bathroom which resulted in us all moving immediately up the stairs and into the Sistine Chapel, where we were waved quickly into the center by guards and told every few minutes, loudly, not to use cameras, cell phones, or talk. Plenty of people were talking, including Francesco from his vantage point near the exit, and someone near me farted to odorous effect. (I just assumed it was my uncle. –KO’) Like many art fans, I love Michelangelo and have stared at photos of the Sistine Ceiling for several hours total in my life. It is truly overwhelming to see in person, and it takes a better neck than mine to drink it in well. It was an honor to see it in such great condition even with hundreds of people I didn’t know and whom I also found pretty annoying.    

We were herded out and then outside, down steps, past another line and up some steps to the front of St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in the world[9]. We could not go through the Jubilee door in the tour; it was for pilgrims only.  It is awe-inspiring once inside. I was, as always, drawn to the Michelangelo. This time it was his remarkable Pieta, which I could not get close enough to despite hogging a vantage point right in the front row for a while trying to turn off my flash, which kept ruining the pictures I was taking (I had to get Kelsey to fix it and go back, holding up the whole group). I wish I’d taken more photos and videos in there. It is a blur in my memory otherwise. Francesco zipped us around and then dismissed us with confusing advice about where to go. Kelsey, fascinated by death (I can’t explain it. –KO’), wanted to go in the basement tombs/catacombs. We found the way in and dodged the tour groups to see the tombs of many popes, but no bones or relics. (Much to my dismay. –KO’)

 [9] There was a special area in the center that showed the size of all of the biggest churches in the world in comparison. (I’m not surprised I missed this. –KO’)

           It was easier to get out this day, but the weather was not good for many exterior photos – good thing we’d been there the day before. Kelsey had read about a “Purgatory Museum” purporting to have evidence of people interacting with the afterlife, but we couldn’t find it (I’m still sad about this. –KO’) while walking past Castel Sant’Angelo, which we chose not to enter. (I watched “Angels & Demons” when I got home to see the inside, instead. –KO’) The rain had at least stopped, so we crossed the bridge I’d run near that morning and wandered around looking for some food (it was now about 1:30). Fate took us by a little hole-in-the-wall place with four small tables and a good special: pasta, a drink and tiramisu for one low price (8euros). I got pasta with pesto and it was like a trip to heaven, where the reward of the tiramisu confirmed my sainthood. (I took a bite of my tiramisu and looked up to say, “This is so good!” only to find that my uncle had already finished his somehow. –KO’) We went to the bathroom and then set out for the other side of the Tiber again.

            We found our road into the hills just near the tunnel out of the downtown and Kelsey reluctantly worked her way up it. (It was neverending. –KO’) The views of the city were nice despite the clouds and there were monuments and lighthouses every few hundred meters to keep us interested. As we headed down, there was a nice estate with rust-colored buildings and well-kept grounds that was the Spanish embassy. We went in a small, pretty church, Santa Maria in Trastevere. Trastevere is a very charming neighborhood, and we wanted to come back for sure. We took the pedestrian bridge back across the Tiber and I was surprised to find how easy it was to get from the Campo to that bridge.

            I got the desk to help me call my bank and got everything straightened out (I was prepared to fire them, but they did a good job settling me down). I went right out for more money[10]. After working on our plans for the next day, we wandered out for dinner. I cannot remember the restaurant and my journal-keeping penmanship left something to be desired, except I had another pear-based dish before we went to the fantastic Blue Ice gelato place to top off the night. We got a huge amount done despite me not feeling well. It was a great day of overcoming adversity and celebrating human creativity.

            I think today was the first time I looked Death in the eyes as I laid in my bed before dinner, while Uncle Terry went out to fix his bank issues. I should’ve brought a FitBit – I was certain we were walking 10 miles/day. My legs throbbed until we got to Venice. I rejoiced anytime we entered a church, did a quick loop to admire the art, and then sat in the pews pretending to pray while I waited for Uncle Terry. It was the only chance I would get to sit all day. Still, #grateful. –KO’

[10] I never expected to spend so much out of pocket money while I was there – about 1200euros, but it was all worth it.

01/05: Tuesday

            This was my worst night, which is saying something. I woke up around 1am coughing and congested with a high fever and sweats. I tried my nasal spray and it only helped a little while I tossed and turned for 4 hours. I finally did some more nasal spray and found some ibuprofen around 5am and my fever broke with at least a couple of hours of sleep to follow before I woke up drenched with sweat. After another cold shower and a good breakfast, I was feeling fine. I booked tickets to the Villa Borghese for Wednesday online before we set out again in the rain.

            Our first stop was to be the Capuchin Museum, a place of fascination to Kelsey. (You’ll soon understand why. –KO’) I’d found a used copy of Rick Steves book on Rome and she couldn’t put it down. (God Bless Rick Steves. I read nearly all 500 pages of it in 2-3 days. –KO’) This place and the catacombs became her obsessions. It was just off the Piazza Barberini, perhaps a 20 minute walk from the Campo. I thought it was a bit pricey at 8.5euros, but it was well worth it. At first it is very conventional, with displays in Italian and English about the Capuchins, a group I was familiar with through my studies of St. Francis of Assisi. They had their garments on display and discussed the (heated!) fights over subtle details (celibate men! Sigh.), and there were bios with portraits of various saints from the order. The art and relics were quite nice. Then the real interesting part started.

            There were guards watching to prevent photos as we walked down a half flight of stairs to see the main feature: art made from bones of the many skeletons buried there. (!!!! –KO’) I would say it was indescribable, but I am going to describe it anyway. To the right as you walked down a path there were separate areas set back with elaborate series of displays of bones. There were femurs in arrays, pelvises in arrays, skulls in arrays, each chamber a bit different, each just as creepily fascinating. (Each chamber had a different theme, like the Thigh Room or the Room of Skulls. The creepiest part was that they had hung skulls wearing Capuchin garments from the walls, so they looked like they were going to jump out at you. However, the absolute worst part was that my uncle kept pointing out the different bones, like it was no big deal. Like, “So this is your collar bone. Oh, and that is your radius.” As if I wasn’t already creeped out enough…–KO’) There were differing stories of how anyone got the idea to do this, but the most palatable one was the Capuchins hid out there in a time of persecution and someone decided to spend the time there arranging the bones because there wasn’t anything better to do. One can only imagine the stench and the many leaps of ideas it would take to arrive at that plan. Others argue that is a sanitized version and the true story is much weirder[11]. Still, it was something I will never find anywhere else, and it was a bit interesting to me, now nearly 30 years removed from anatomy, to see the many different bones.

[11] Saying something!

            It was hard to go back out into the rain, but it was not a long walk to the Piazza della Republica, a nice piazza with a covered area of columns similar to St. Peter’s on the western side.  We took cover there for part of the walk while we searched for the entrance to the Santa Maria Degli Angeli Church, a massive structure that was quite odd and indistinct on the outside. It was partially designed by an aging Michelangelo (he lived 90 years and worked on this in his mid-80s) to make use of the remnants of the huge Roman baths built there during Diocletian’s reign. Past the nearly concealed entryway, there were several huge segments/naves and a spectacular but plain ceiling (the only remaining part of Michelangelo’s design). The frescoes were really nice, though information on them was scant, and there were several oddities: a large pendulum hung on one side, and on the floor was an area where the sun’s movements were charted for the year where it struck as it came through a window up high. It took us a while to look at it all, including a cartoonishly large organ, and then we moved into the area of the baths that remained. That was not all that interesting except for the information on the building’s history displayed there.

            We were off then to the main train station (Roma Termini) to try to get tickets to Naples on our way to Pompeii for Thursday, what was supposed to be the first nice day of the week. At first we were trying to buy tickets from a machine, but it wasn’t giving us good times and a man who looked like he was from India kept coming up and pushing buttons on the screen trying to help. I was mumbling to keep away, but he was persistent until a policeman came up and made a whistling noise and he left us alone. Kelsey said there was a sign there saying not to let anyone try to help you. Instead we got a number from information and waited about 15 minutes to see a clerk who got us just the times we needed, leaving early and getting back late.

            We left the area of the station and headed back to the west looking for a place to eat lunch, but while looking came across the Santa Maria Maggiore Church which sits in the center of its own island in the traffic. We decided to go in there first. It was free, but there was a short line to go through metal detectors and there were a few more soldiers and police than normal. After all that, it wasn’t that nice, but pretty enough. We didn’t stay long and turned down a tour of a papal museum in the basement (15euros each, I think).

            Across the street was a place advertising a pizza special, so we went there. It was pretty good, though busy. We left there and Kelsey led us past some ruins with the intent of getting to St. Peter in Chains Church, but the path there was blocked by people filming a movie (there were all sorts of trailers along the sidewalks before we got there), so we planned on coming back the day we returned to Rome. From there we walked down the hill and could see the Colosseum for the first time. (I specifically remember asking, “Do you think that’s the Colosseum?” as if one couldn’t be too sure. –KO’) It was a bit of work to get down to the bridge over the highway, which was a good spot for photos, and then we headed over to see it better.

            It is a remarkable building I will mention more on the 8th, but we passed it and went near the Arch of Constantine nearby before following the walkway that led past the Forum to the Circus Maximus. The Circus is mostly open for roaming except in one end where they were doing some work. It is long and narrow and would have had very tight turns at each end. We were walking on the edge until Kelsey said, “Let’s go down and walk on the actual track.” (I wanted to pretend we were chariot racing. –KO’) We did, and it was fine pebbles, like walking on an unappealing beach. We made it to the far end and climbed some stairs on our way to see the Aventine Hill area. There didn’t seem much to see, so we took a right onto what looked like a church’s grounds and ended up going back down the other side to a road near the river.

            We turned right there and found a line waiting to get into the Santa Maria in Cosmedin Church. We waited a bit in the line until it looked like it was just the line to pose in front of a weird statue with an open mouth. (The Mouth of Truth! –KO’) Kelsey said you were either supposed to lie or tell a secret while posing there (I can’t remember which). (I think it was that you weren’t supposed to lie, or else it would bite off your hand. –KO’) There was another door with no line to the inside. The area we could walk in was very tiny despite the size of the building, and it really was nothing to look at. There was a little chamber below built by Hadrian that had a few interesting things I cannot now recall in it.

            We walked down the busy street and up a hill and I saw the old building I’d run by the morning before. It was a theater, the Teatro Marcello, being refurbished, and there were some ruins we could tour around it for free that presented some interesting views (Ottavian’s Temple). From there it was a quick and easy walk the way I had run back to the Campo.

            It wasn’t a bad night to walk around, so we crossed back over the river to Trastevere and wandered about a bit until we picked the “Pimm’s Good” restaurant. It looked more like a bar, and we sat way in the back to be away from some loud speakers. The eggplant tart was delicious, as was my risotto. Kelsey thought the place we stopped for gelato on the way back was the #1 rated place by Rick Steves, and, though it was good, the service was not as good as the ones near the Campo. (This was the beginnings of my distrust of Rick Steves. He was like a fallen idol that just kept tumbling down over the course of the next few days. Though, he did redeem himself multiple times. We carried his book around to dinner and to Pompeii, like it was the Bible. –KO’)

01/06: Wednesday

Another rough night, lots of sinus discomfort and again waking up soaked with sweat, but I bounced right back after a warm (finally! I had complained the day before) shower and breakfast (they had good muesli and yogurt). We headed north, consciously trying to avoid the Piazza Navona (success!) (Wait, I actually vaguely remember not managing to avoid the Piazza Navona, even though we had tried. –KO’) and towards the Ara Pacis, which was a modern art gallery with a Toulouse Lautrec show we did not enter. One place we wanted to see was the Mausoleo Augusto (The tomb of Augustus), but it was closed. (True to my character, I was very upset about this. –KO’) We persevered north to the Piazza del Popolo which was a large, pretty piazza. It started to get sunny as we wandered there, hearing what sounded like a party from the hills overlooking it. We killed a little time, then went into the just opened for the day Leonardo da Vinci Museum there. It was very interesting: modern artisans and craftsman had used Leonardo’s sketches to create wooden replicas of various machines he had designed. They seemed to do what he intended. There were also displays about his famous paintings. (I sat by myself in a dark corner watching a short movie on The Last Supper, just to give my legs a break. –KO’) We walked up the hill to where the music was, and it turned out to be a road race that started while we walked around (the 6th is a holiday there). (Their pump-up song choices were interesting…one was Michael Bublé singing the Spiderman Theme Song. –KO’) I was happy, as there were a few portapotties within reach of my full bladder. We were now on the edge of the large park that also contained the Villa Borghese, where we needed to be by 1pm. The views were really nice and the park pretty. We found the way up a hill to the stunning Templo di Esculapio, which was perfectly lit by the now bright sunlight as it sat on one side of a pond. We took a lot of photos there (All worthy of becoming desktop backgrounds. -KO’), then headed down the other side of the hill and found the road to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, which was a very large, pretty building we did not enter. We strolled a bit past it, but there didn’t seem much else to see, so we turned around (After giving directions to multiple people, somehow. –KO’) and headed to where we thought a cafeteria was to eat lunch. There was a food truck we stopped at instead, getting a tomato, basil and cheese panini each and a drink, and we ate as we walked past the zoo (not free, so didn’t go in) to the Villa Borghese/Borghese Gallery.

We arrived first at the adjacent gardens, which were nice in the sun despite the winter, and there were lots of cute dogs running around. The gallery itself is a bit frosty in its customer service; we got to see a young man argue with the ticket clerks while waiting in line. There were timed entries and the line was long for the 1pm. I went to the bathroom while Kelsey held our place, but it took her so long to do the same (I swear the line to the bathroom didn’t move for the first five minutes. I befriended a nice woman in line and we talked about Bernini. –KO’) I had to get out of line to wait for her at the entrance.

I was a bit skeptical of the whole thing, but it was really nice. The art, especially the statues, was beautiful and well displayed, and the ceilings were stunning. Caravaggio and Bernini dominated to excellent effect. It is highly recommended.

We exited full of good thoughts only to have it start raining again. The walk back took us through a different part of the commercial area we’d been in Sunday and we were able to get into St. Louis Church as it opened for its late afternoon session (it had been closed when we’d gone by in the morning). It also had beautiful Caravaggios as its claim to fame in addition to its French origin. From there we got to our main street at the Area Sacra, a really neat area of ruins right in the downtown that had only been discovered 100 years ago. Among other things it contained the spot where Caesar was killed. It showed how much things had changed – it was 15 feet below the rest of the neighborhood. (Instead of destroying things, Rome just built on top of them. –KO’) It was also full of cats; they were cared for strays and we were not to feed them. We saw a restaurant in a nearby alley that was Sicilian, so we went back there to eat in the rain. We were the only people there. I felt bad for them. The food was great; I got excellent appetizers, then a pasta dish with sardines in a red sauce that was hearty and delicious as well as swordfish rolls with blood oranges that topped everything off well. (My meal came with a crayfish, which my uncle had to remove from my plate, because it was staring at me. –KO’) Still there was room for gelato at Mamma Mias right next to our hotel, where they give you great chocolates with every order.

01/07: Thursday

            Today was Pompeii Day. I finally got some sleep, and I was excited to head out too early to fit in a run. A cab picked us up at the hotel before 7am and got us to the station in plenty of time. We got a light breakfast for the journey and had nice seats on the train. It was very foggy, so the views weren’t great, but the train was really fast and smooth during the roughly 90 minute trip. (We took turns reading Rick Steves’ section on Pompeii to pass the time. –KO’)

            At Naples we tried to find the bathrooms, and fortunately there was someone there to explain we needed to pay 1euro to go in. Nothing was obvious there, but we got what we needed done (it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to get my hands washed) and found the commuter train to Pompeii easily. The guide books made it sound like it would be like the New York subways in the 1970s, full of danger and pickpockets, but it was fine. I was probably the scariest person on the train.

            It took a while, as there were a lot of stops, but we got to the proper station and the Pompeii entrance was only a short walk and short line away. The sun was out and it was around 10am, a beautiful day to see some ancient ruins. It was 13euros to enter and 2euros for a map Kelsey didn’t want to get, but it was the bargain of the trip and Kelsey carried it like a security blanket the whole day.

            Despite having seen lots of ruins already, I LOVED Pompeii. It was so nice: the weather great, lots of neat angles and viewpoints, especially of Mt. Vesuvius (Kelsey had a crush on it), history oozing out of everything, and a good bit of exercise walking around. We did that for 5 hours, eating a light lunch at their nice little café for a short break around 1pm, before heading back to Naples. (Catching a beautiful view of the sea and Capri on the way! –KO’) I thought we might tour it some, but the map we had was useless and the streets crowded and unforgiving. We wanted to get some famous Naples pizza, reputed to be Italy’s best (Rick Steves!)(Strike #2. –KO’), but we couldn’t find the best-known places and others weren’t serving pizza. (Italians eat very late and it was only 5:30. –KO’) We lucked into a place just as Kelsey was getting a bit frustrated. (I was two seconds from completely breaking down on the streets of Naples. –KO’) It was perfect: outside with a heater and great pizza that was very cheap. We were killing time in the station when we heard a piano playing a delightful song. There was a gender-neutral person who knew his/her[12] way around the keyboard playing requests, including a song an old man sang. It was a nice way to remember a city worth more time. We got back to Rome around 8:30 and caught a cab back to the Area Sacra and walked back to the hotel from there, getting gelato on the way (of course). It was our longest day and epic in every way.

            I didn’t know it was possible to be in love with a volcano, but Mt. Vesuvius will forever be #1 in my heart. –KO’

[12] I’m pretty sure it was a woman. She most resembled Robin Roberts, with a beatific smile.

01/09: Friday

            I used afrin again and had some congestion issues but seemed to be getting over the worst of my illness and got some sleep. I arose at 6am full of the lust to run and explore. It was not raining, and I did just what I wanted: a run through the alleys to the theater area and then around the Circus Maximus, Colosseum, Forum, and back across the river at the island, topping it off with more running along the river on the other side. 5.25 miles.

            We left for our Colosseum tour at 9am. We took Michelangelo’s famous stairs, designed to slope gradually and allow for horses to climb them, to the Campodoglio, and from there viewed the various Forums from its scenic overlooks, including taking some photos of a seagull that landed right in front of me and posed quite well. We tried to go down a steep walkway and were trapped by a wall we had to climb and jump off to get back to a road down, stopping occasionally at various viewpoints to admire and photograph the ruins in the early sunlight. As we were walking that morning I’d taken note of a woman walking in front of us with a particularly energetic gait propelled by particularly magnificent legs and buttocks. I even mentioned it to Kelsey, I was so enthralled by her machinations.

            We were right on time for the Colosseum tour at the designated meeting point, and we found our guide, a petite and bespectacled cutie with Rachele as one of her names. She introduced us to the other three people in our group, one who was the woman with the nice legs and butt (she was wearing only leggings). She was not that pretty otherwise (she might have cleaned up well with some make up and a better haircut) but she was nice to talk to, from Ireland on her last day of touring Italy.

            I joked as we approached the entrance, devoid of anyone, that our “skip the lines” tour was not necessary, but it was nice it wasn’t super crowded and Rachele and her trainee guide were interesting and charming. The Colosseum is something I could explore for days, but our overview was fascinating, and it was a nice enough day that great photos were easy to come by. We learned of the recent refurbishment, the types of stone, the ingenious way it was built in identical segments done over and over, and how it all worked at the time.  The Romans were certainly an enterprising and inventive bunch, especially when it came to mindless and horrifyingly wasteful entertainment (it is alleged that one staged hunt killed 420 leopards!!). (There was even a specific exit for dead bodies to be carried out. –KO’)

            We exited and scoped out the Arch of Constantine nearby, interesting mostly as an example of Roman recycling, as it had re-used statues from other monuments on it. We ambled to the Forum entrance and walked on a scenic path into the largest area of cleared ruins, a fascinating mix of the practical, the egotistical, and the symbolic. Everything was built on layers upon layers, and some of the area had only been found while planning the foundations for huge churches that remained on top of various temples that had been obscured by debris and detritus. (Don’t forget that Caesar was allegedly cremated here where Mark Antony gave his famous speech! –KO’) We finished by going up a long set of stairs to the Campodoglio, where Rachele showed us a restroom we could use inside a museum and then left us to our own devices.

            Now for our most ambitious effort of the trip: a walk to the Appian Way, or the Appia Antica, the oldest and most famous Roman highway, which was preserved in a sense south of the city. Along it were some catacombs, and the death-obsessed (but not, like, in a weird way –KO’) Kelsey was fired up to see at least one set of catacombs.

            We passed the Circus Maximus and, with a few false starts, found the correct road, which to my great pleasure ran next to a park with outdoor gym equipment on it, including pull up bars. I told Kelsey it was as important to me to have her videotape me doing pull ups on the way back as it was for her to see the catacombs.

            We were lucky at a confusing point to have a couple walk up who were looking for the same place, and we worked with them to figure it all out correctly. It was not a bad walk; even the part along the narrow road with some traffic was nice. It widened out to a regular paved road about the time we exited to go to the St. Callistus Catacombs, which were a good ways further along their own road. (I cannot emphasize enough how far we walked to get there. We passed through the remains of Rome’s southern-most city walls and still had to walk at least another twenty minutes to get to the catacombs. It was totally worth it, though. –KO’) At times it was warm enough to get down to short sleeves.

            We finally got there and had to wait a bit for the guides to return from their current tours. We got a pretty serious female guide who provided just the right amount of gravity and information in a setting like this. It was, after all, a sacred place to many and the site of burial of thousands, most of whose skeletons had long since been relocated. (Unfortunately. –KO’) It was illegal at that time (from around 200 CE through 600 CE) to bury anyone inside the city of Rome, so the Christians who lived in the area made good use of the easily chiseled and carved rock below the topsoil to carve out over 12 miles (!!!) of tunnels at various levels and make small tombs for the dead in them. The bodies were sealed as best possible, usually with some lime thrown on them to keep the smell and the decay down. Throughout, there were scattered small chapels where services could be held. The first chamber we entered contained the tombs of several early bishops, some of them martyrs. There was a statue in the alleged former tomb of St. Cecilia, a young woman who was betrothed to a man with whom she never consummated her marriage and who was martyred with her about the same time. It is claimed three attempts to behead her left her with only some neck wounds, from which she slowly died three days later. When her tomb was discovered in the 1500s, it was reported she was uncorrupted and fresh as a daisy there, posed with her hand making a sacred gesture. Her remains were removed and placed in a church named after her in Trastevere (I don’t think we found that one)(We didn’t. –KO’), and a marble statue was in the tomb here in the pose in which she was found. Many experts think this story is bogus. All in all, it was a highlight of our time in Italy, handled with just the right attitude by everyone involved.

            The way back went quickly (for one of us –KO’) and soon we were at the park and the pull up bars. To my disbelief, there was a man doing chin ups there. We spoke briefly as I took off my coat and got the camera ready for Kelsey. I did 11 good pull ups, slow enough not to hurt myself since it had been a long time since I’d done any, and then I did another 6 after a brief rest. The Italian was impressed.

            We went over the bridge onto the island on the way back so Kelsey could see that. There were men rappelling down a wall on one side of the bridge to work on the lights, and one of them walked up behind us with his safety harness making so much noise I thought he was a horse. (I am still laughing about this. –KO’) It was another strong finish to a good adventure.

            It was our last night in Rome before leaving for Venice, so we walked up to the piazza at the Pantheon, Kelsey’s favorite building, to eat dinner. (This was my favorite meal: amazing Spaghetti Carbonara. –KO’) We got a table with a great view of the Pantheon, which also included, for Kelsey, a view of a roasted pig’s head in a nearby store (with which my uncle tried to take a selfie –KO’), and, for me, a super-model quality beauty to stare at while I ate[13]. After we finished, I was trying to take a picture of Kelsey in front of the Pantheon when I felt something touching my legs. By the time I looked down, there was nothing there. Kelsey said a clown came up and grabbed my leg and then walked away frowning. And rightly so. (It was the strangest thing. I didn’t even know how to react. –KO’)

            We took a better look at the pig next door, which turned out to be two pigs’ heads and a few sections of their torsos. Many people had taken selfies and photos of the pigs while we were eating. Our last gelato before leaving Rome followed.

[13] She was sitting by herself for a long time until a bald and bearded slim guy, who was not even close to as good-looking as I am, dined with her. I don’t think it was her brother, so it gave me hope….

01/09: Saturday

I slept better but still needed some decongestants to get through the night. My goal was to run in the park of the Villa Borghese via the Spanish Steps (now completely closed!), and after a few wrong turns, including one into the long hallway to a metro station, I arrived at the area where the road race start had been. I had a pleasant run around the park, again making wrong turns in the early light, before trying a different way back. That, of course, went poorly, and instead of our hotel I ended up at the Mausoleum for Augustus again, but once oriented there I made my way back. It measured out over 6 miles but I’d stopped my watch and forgot to restart it several times, so it was more than that.

We checked out and went to the first hotel to catch a cab again. They said it would be 3 minutes, but 15 minutes later I had the desk clerk check again, and he finally figured out there was an accident nearby tying up traffic. I was getting nervous, but he finally turned up with only a few minutes to spare and got us there just in time to rush to the train and get our seats and a few deep breaths before it pulled out of the station. It was the only tense moment of the entire trip.

I’d brought a portable Scrabble game given to me one of the times I’d departed from Swaziland, but instead Kelsey got out playing cards and we played Gin for about 90 minutes. It was a really nice train ride, but we could see the weather getting worse as we went north. It was raining when we arrived in Venice.

I thought it best to talk someone and get a map before we tried to get to our hotel, which was otherwise right next to one of the major landmarks in Venice, the Rialto Bridge. She gave me a map and drew a walking route on it and also told us we could get a water taxi, either boat 1 or 2 out front. I needed much more information than that about the water taxi, as it turned out, but after standing in a few wrong lines, we got tickets and got on a boat, but no one ever looked at the tickets or did anything with them, so we kept them handy. It was only a few stops to the Rialto Bridge and the boat was minimally crowded, so pleasant enough for 7.5 euros. The Hotel Rialto was about 40 feet from the dock, so we were inside quickly and out of the rain and chill[14].

[14] Venice seemed to be about 10-12 degrees F colder than Rome.

The desk clerks were fantastically helpful and our room nice, with two beds, though it looked like it was a museum. It was a more reasonable temperature as well. Instead of wandering around for lunch we ate at the place next door, which was likely a mistake – not very good pizza and a fairly long wait. From there we walked to the most known spot in Venice, the Piazza San Marco, or St. Mark’s Square, stopping briefly to tour a church along the way that was really cold inside (San Salvatore). We went inside the Cathedral quickly after a brief wait in the rain, and there was a service, so we could see very little and no photos were allowed. It has beautiful mosaics all over, but the overall mood was one of duty rather than inspiration, and we were back outside.

Kelsey was cold so we started walking fast along the waterfront, taking a few turns she thought would take us places and we eventually ended up back at St. Marks. From there we took a roundabout tour back to the hotel.

After drying out and warming up, we went out to eat. We scanned a number of menus but didn’t settle. On a side alley not far from the hotel we saw a place and took another look at the menu. I had enough time to see it was a bit cheaper than what we’d seen so far before a large, friendly man came out and convinced us to go in with the usual patter of “everything home made and fresh.” There was only one other person there, and he seemed to be a fixture, so we were the only customers at a place yet again.

We enjoyed the quiet for a while until it started to fill up, and, while the service was a bit slow, the food was again terrific: Genovese Pesto for me, best I’ve ever had. I found a store to get some snacking chocolates and then Kelsey took us on a true wander about. I don’t think she knew where she was going at all, but she thought she did, and we finally stopped to get our bearings when we were nearly to the next canal over and practically opposite where we thought we were. This was no big deal except we had not gotten our gelato for the night, and we commenced a desperate search for any sort of gelato. Well lost again, we turned up at St. Marks and found a really nice place with excellent gelato still open. Aaaaaahhhhh.

01/10: Sunday

Yet another frustrating night, with a tickle cough keeping me up, going to the bathroom and back, for about an hour. Somehow Kelsey didn’t wake up. (I am a rock. –KO’) It was an adjustment to go to such a small bed, but I managed ok otherwise.

I got up at 6:30 and ran back to San Marco and got on the same waterfront we’d walked the night before. I took it much farther and noted a nice, wide open area with a long straightaway after a little over a mile. Speedwork! I could do sprints there! I found an uncrowded area and did my usual drills and then went back there to do a number of long sprints on the smooth stone pavement, witnessed only occasionally by a dog walker and a few old people. I did some other exercises in a park there and hurt my right hip, which was the only downside.

Breakfast at the Hotel Rialto was more crowded but a bit better (lots of fruit), and then we headed out to find a church not far from the hotel that listed an English Mass at 10:30. We got there and Kelsey left to go out on her own while I went inside. (I’ll describe my adventures below. –KO’) There was a priest and a few people, but they all walked out and someone turned out some of the lights. That wasn’t very promising. I waited long enough to be sure nothing was going to happen, then started praying a Rosary. A pretty girl came in and sat right in the front. She looked American, and soon she started looking around. Finally someone came and spoke to her and seemed to give her directions, and she left just a bit before I finished. I assume they told her when there was a Mass nearby.

Now I was free, so I went on a stroll. It was immediately apparent that something was going on: some of the walkways had several inches of water on them. Venice was flooding! I’d read about it and seen video, but I had to see if for myself. I made my way to St. Marks yet again, which was under about a foot of water, and got on platforms they had put out that morning for people to walk on. I walked all over on the platforms and took a lot of pictures and some video.

On my way back, I stopped in a store I’d seen the day before called “Auckland, New Zealand.” Having lived in New Zealand, I hoped they might have some nice merino wool clothes, but it was not what I thought it was. The shop was owned by some Dutch retailers who’d gone to Auckland on a holiday and loved it, so they started a clothing line with the name, but nothing was even from New Zealand! I was glad they had nothing in my size so I could leave without any of that crap. I did email some of my friends in New Zealand about it. The flooding was pretty bad by the time I got back to the hotel, with the water right up to the door. I sat inside and waited a short time for Kelsey to return. She was flushed with excitement after a wander about on her own. There is no place better for wandering than Venice.

Our first stop was the Academy Museum, near where we’d finally turned around in the dark the night before. It took a while to get there and we toured a few pretty churches on the way. It was pricey, so I got Kelsey an audioguide, which was a good idea as it was not always well labeled and I could use it when needed. It started with lots of old mosaics and altarpieces, but eventually we got to the Titians, Tintorettos, and especially the Veroneses. We went through every room and saw everything they had, though a lot was missing.

A quick wander about found a “bruscheterria” where they made pizza out of bread, so we went in there. It was packed, with many Americans, but it was good and we got out quick. We walked by the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, which has a good contemporary art collection, but it was expensive and we wanted to stay in old art mode. We strolled to the very tip of that portion of Venice and took in the cloudy views of St. Marks and the rest of the city. We walked a roundabout way to San Sebastiano Church, which was closed, as was a nearby church. We kept our wandering up until getting back at the hotel around 4:40pm.

After a rest, we went out for dinner over the Rialto Bridge. We were again talked into a quiet, small place with good prices, but it turned out they hit us with both a seating fee and a service charge. I don’t remember what I got, but it was good. Kelsey had looked up the best gelato in Venice and thought she knew where it was. We set off in the direction we’d gone to find the Mass that wasn’t, and again the route disappointed. After 5 or 6 dead ends, she finally threw in the towel, and we ended up back at St. Marks at the gelato place from the night before, which was fine with me.

It was love at second sight for me, when it came to Venice (as the night before was dark and rainy and I couldn’t fully appreciate its beauty.) Anyway, I spent my hour alone on the other side of the Grand Canal. I visited quite a few shops and even made my first foreign purchase (a cute papier mache Pinocchio mask for my little brother.) I took a lot of pictures and covered a lot of ground, even though I was walking pretty slowly to take it all in. Venice wasn’t very big. In fact, most people seemed to know each other. I also watched an old woman fight off a pigeon that was trying to eat her sandwich right out of her hands, which was awesome. –KO’)

01/11: Monday

I’d been studying the map and plotted an attempt to run on the waterfront on the other side, and the run initially went well despite a steady rain, but then boat after boat was disgorging workers and school children: I was in the Venice rush hour traffic! I pressed on, seeking the alleys less taken, and had an enjoyable and disconcerting run, ending up nowhere near where I thought I would, but never really lost. It was at least 5 miles, but I was again screwing up the timing.

We wanted to take a free boat ride to the Murano Glass Works. Our launch was complicated by the high waters, but one of the hotel’s staff took us out a back way and we eventually got into the boat from one of the water taxi docks, which we had to rush onto after all the passengers got off the taxi and before they shut the gates. It was still raining lightly as the boat took off up the Grand Canal. It turned to go out to the harbor and suddenly the driver slowed the engine, jumped up and flipped the windshield and everything down and ducked as the boat just barely made it under one of the bridges because the water was so high! I got video of the next time we went under a bridge but it wasn’t as close. We were out in open water soon and it wasn’t long until we docked at the Glass Works, a famous tourist stop. A distinguished elderly man met us at the docks and guided us in to a glass blowing exhibition that was ongoing. He took every opportunity to explain the glass production and materials as the glass blower did his thing, going back and forth to the furnace, and then one of the other elderly men there said it would be about a minute we would want to video, so I did a video while the man deftly made a lovely standing horse out of the red blob in roughly a minute. He then made a vase which was nice, and someone put a piece of paper in it which immediately caught fire to show how hot the glass still was.

It was about this time when I realized what was going on, as the nice old man took Kelsey and me on a tour of the store, with one absolutely beautiful and often mind-blowing piece of glass artwork after another, all ridiculously expensive, talking about shipping and payments, etc. I would love to be able to look at those things all the time (especially the fake aquariums full of glass fish), but there was no way I was spending that much money ($5-6000) for one. It was never too uncomfortable, and he eventually got the message and gave us directions and walked us to the regular store to look around at things priced under $100.

We found the boat dock to go back but the signs said only one dock was open on our side because of the high water. We waited for that certain boat to come and our taxi tickets from the other day worked so we got on, though everyone else seemed to walk around the ticket device and just get on. It was a long ride back (It was cool to see Venice from the water, though. I also appreciated the sitting. –KO’), with many stops as the other docks were now opening as the water levels dropped. We got off near St. Marks. We ate at a little lunch place nearby where there was a store full of pigeons (they kept startling passersby) that was fun to watch while I ate my focaccia. I spent $5 for a 6 ounce bottle of ginger ale there[15].

[15] The food was not cheap in general, but they really killed you on the drinks, as water was not free (usually 3euros for a litre bottle) and everything else was at least 4euros, even a can of soda.

We went into the Doges Palace/Palace Ducale then for a tour. It started slow with a special exhibit on maps, but then we went upstairs to the real museum, which was even more spectacular than I remembered. One Titian after another and so many beautiful Veroneses, as well as Tintorettos, all over the ceilings, which were stunning. There was a huge room, the size of a gym, with one massive wall painting after another and the ceilings full of even more beautiful works; I told Kelsey they should take you around on a stretcher so it was easier to look at the ceilings. It was really too much to take in – you should plan to do it twice if you visit.

That wasn’t all! The palace also included a prison, which was reached by the Bridge of Sighs, where Kelsey made a video of us sighing. The prison wasn’t that interesting otherwise, but there were some different exhibits that kept us there while Kelsey’s bladder was trying to burst. (Nevertheless, I was still fascinated by the prison. I swear I’m not a dark person. –KO’)

On exiting the underground prisons and the buildings, the first thing we noticed was the sun was trying to come out for the first time while we were there! (I skipped around the square in excitement! –KO’) We went to the other museum on the property which was nice but nothing compared to the Doges Palace.

It was about 4pm, our last afternoon in Venice, so we went souvenir shopping. I got a 1 euro refrigerator magnet that looked like the direction signs to the Rialto Bridge and San Marco while Kelsey wandered more, trying to decide what to get her family. She got done and we got back to the hotel around 6pm.

We (well, Kelsey) decided to have another go at #1 Gelato, so we tried to find it first before picking a restaurant. Her hopes were again dashed, but we found a gelato place and then a restaurant called “Marco Polo,” Venice’s most famous citizen to people with their eyes closed in a pool, and we ate there as it had no cover charge. It also had more unusual things on the menu. I got whipped cod on polenta cakes for an appetizer (I don’t like to buy cod, as it is overfished, but it was really good), and then black squid oil pasta, which came out black, with chunks of squid, and was really interesting.

We settled then for an ordinary, unranked gelato place near the hotel and made it special by taking our gelato to the scenic balcony of the hotel, which had a nice view of the Grand Canal (and a no food policy). It was chilly but very pretty and I took several awesome selfies. (I should note that, at this point in the trip, my uncle’s selfie-taking was out of control. I started taking selfies of how annoyed I was with his selfie-taking. Also, I am still mad that we never found that gelato place. Venice was impossible to navigate. –KO’)

01/12: Tuesday

            After a good night’s sleep (for me), I was up at 5:45am to run. I did a similar run to my speedwork day without any speedwork, running as far down that area as I could. I was really peaceful after all the people the day before, and I did about 4.6 miles. It was a gloriously beautiful morning, so after breakfast we took a quick spin around for last minute souvenirs: Kelsey wanted me to get a gondolier shirt. We couldn’t find one, and I vaguely recalled them being something you earned after training, so I bought a cheap polo shirt with the blue and white striped design on it instead.

We decided to save some money and see more of the city by walking to the train station. After we got away from the hotel and found some of the places I’d run the day before, we got to wider avenues where I’d stayed the other time I’d been in Venice. This part of the city was cheaper but farther from the good spots. It was certainly more wide open, and we got to the station so fast I let Kelsey have a wander around that part, hoping she would enjoy the view from the tall bridge there. (I actually spent this time looking at purses in a nearby shop. –KO’)

Before we got on the train, we found a crowded bistro and got some food. It got us all excited for the train ride to have something to eat. The train back to Florence was nice; Kelsey made a fuss about waving to a confused railroad worker as we left the main station area. (I was doing my best royal wave, like I was the Queen of Venice. I was trying to have a dramatic exit. –KO’) We only read this voyage; no more cards.

Florence was WAY more crowded than I’d remembered, and the weather was even more perfect than Venice. We got out of the station and found our hotel not too far away without much problem. We didn’t have much time, as we had an appointment at the Accademia Museum at 3pm. After finding our room (nice, 2 beds with more room between them), we were back out on the busy and chaotic streets, much like Naples. Kelsey had a map and guided us all the way around the building to the entrance. We were quickly in ahead of schedule and it wasn’t crowded at all.

It starts out with some early Renaissance works, mostly altar pieces (sound familiar?), and those mostly of the Madonna and Child variety. (Sometimes, I close my eyes and still see the Madonna and Child. There are far too many in existence. –KO’) I’d gotten about halfway through the first room when I lost patience and went over to Kelsey.

“I can’t even focus on anything else now that David is in here. Is it close?”

She said, “I think it is right around this corner. Let’s just go.”

Together, we entered the big hallway, and at the far end, glowing in the external and internal lighting as if lit by God, was the most impressive sculpture in history! And hardly anyone was around it (It had been a 90 minute wait to see it the last time I was in Florence, so I passed)! Until you have seen it up close, you cannot understand how it makes you feel. It is much bigger than you can imagine, and the feeling of the polished marble reflecting the light and the relaxed yet powerful pose is overwhelming. I cannot tell you how many photos and videos and selfies we took, but even then we stopped by there three or four more times during the visit.

The rest of the museum was nice and there was an extra exhibit on Carlo Portelli, someone I was not familiar with. He painted large religious murals with color and action that were very nice. We didn’t last much longer after that; if we didn’t see anything else in Florence, it had been worth the journey.

But we kept going. We went back past the Duomo, which we’d passed on the way over, then past the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery, and over the Arno River via the famous Ponte Vecchio (and its many watch stores. Sigh.) We kept on going up past the Pitti Palace, then up and back across the river to the fashion district, with its many designer label stores, during which time the sun set and a lovely darkness descended. A restaurant finally seemed suitable, again with hardly anyone in it, and I confused the waiter by ordering two main courses (Florentine crepes with cheese and spinach and then gnocchi again with sheep cheese and eggplant). (I got Ravioli with Truffle Oil and it was delicious. –KO’)

We wanted to get our gelato from a really impressive looking place on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, but Kelsey had us going all over. We huddled up and I tried to trust her, and she took us pretty much the way I thought we needed to go to get back to the bridge. It was gorgeous at night, and the jewelers were putting away their temptations as we crossed. The place still looked great, with its gelato piled in alpine shapes in the metal wells, begging for huge portions. I couldn’t find the prices, but asked which container I could get three flavors in. It was a decent-sized one, and Kelsey got the smaller one (Thank goodness, since it weighed as much as a brick. So much gelato! –KO’). She rang up the price and told us it was 18 euros. I was stunned; that was over twice what we’d paid anywhere else, and I finally saw the signs: my bowl alone was 10euros, over $11, the most I’d ever spent for ice cream in my life! I did enjoy it, as it was good, and Kelsey seemed to think she’d found a review later that ranked it the best in Italy, I think just to make me feel better.

The big bowl of gelato gave me something to do as we continued our stroll, back towards the vicinity of the Accademia. The crowds were huge, and there was a lot going on, with live music and light shows all over. As we were walking back, I was getting annoyed at the tendency of people to bang into me and finally nearly lost it when a guy hit me really hard in the back of my hand with his huge ring as he walked into me. I muttered a classic Terry putdown I am sure he did not hear, but I was ready to take him down, an attitude I rarely have. The country of hot tempers.

01/13: Wednesday

This was our only full day in Florence and Kelsey was fired up to make the most of it. I was still up way before her to go running. I had stared at the map endlessly the night before trying to sort out the best way to run to the Piazzale Michelangelo, the #1 tourist attraction in Florence according to Trip Advisor. The Wrights and I had walked there in 1996[16], and I didn’t think it was far. I chose what seemed to be the correct road and was surprised how much traffic was on it at that hour and how dangerous it was, so I took a right up a hill that had a sign pointing to the Piazzale Michelangelo on it, but that was the last sign I saw, and it was very dark. I started up a very long flight of stone stairs, tripping once and getting tangled in vines on the side before I got to the top. I couldn’t tell where I was so I went up another set of stairs and found myself at a church-like building. From there I tried each road for at least a minute, finally giving up and taking the stairs down to the next level. I didn’t feel like going back down the long flight of stairs again, so I turned right onto the road there and in about 50 feet I was in the Piazzale Michelangelo!

[16] I think. I remember a very scenic view from that side of river that took us a while to get to.

There were already people there; some seemed to be camping out. The statue there is a bronze of the David, and the views were memorable, even though most of the city was dark. I headed down the ramp in the front and found paths that took me quickly back to the main road along the river – that would have been a much easier and quicker way, so at least I knew the best way to get there later with Kelsey. I felt like I was not going to run far enough, so I went down the river a ways and then back up, realizing then it was much farther back to the hotel than I thought. I picked up the pace through the wakening city, still fortunately free of most pedestrians and about 80% less cars. It was 5.6 miles with a few mistakes again.

I don’t know what it was like for Kelsey to be waking up to my hyper-elated self every morning. (I was dead inside from all of the walking, so I barely noticed. –KO’) I tried to keep a lid on it but the steam was always whistling out a little. We ate quickly and fired out the door, determined to do as much in one day as was possible in Florence in January.

We were delayed a bit in our mission to see some of the Duomo before going to our scheduled entry in the Uffizi at 10am. The schedule said the climb to the top of the Dome, the Cupola, opened at 8:30, but we couldn’t find where to get in. We walked all the way around and back part way until we found out the ticket window was nowhere near the entrance[17]. We paid there, showed the tickets to an old man inside and started up the stairs, most of which were a never-ending spiral. We finally came out at the lower level of the dome and could see the inside, painted some by Vasari and then by others to his design. The view below was blocked by a suicide prevention wall of cloudy plexiglass. (I should note that at this point, I had already sweated through my shirt, less than an hour after showering. –KO’) We then entered another set of narrow stairs, followed by more, with a finally straight run up very steep steps to the cupola. It was a beautiful day, a spectacular view. (Bonus: The sun was rising. –KO’) Many photos were taken, including more of my famous selfies. I was getting the willies, as it was quite high and the iron fence didn’t look stable, but I got used to it.

[17] This was to be one of the themes of our day.

The climb down didn’t take long at all. It was only 9:15 despite all the delays, so we went to the Uffizi Gallery to see if we could get in early. Again, it was hard to find the entrance (say what you want about America, but we know where to put and how to mark entrances!), but we went right in, no problem. The layout seems to encourage you to look at lesser works, and it took us a long time to get to the real treasures like Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and the most beautiful painting, Michelangelo’s “Holy Family” tondo, with Mary dressed in bright colors and several small male nudes curiously posed in the background, perhaps just finishing up at the Egyptian Baths[18]. It also had DaVinci’s “Annunciation” held until near the end. It is a lot to take in and a lot of walking, but very, very satisfying.

[18] If this isn’t the best joke about a religious painting, tell me a better one.

We walked out at 11:30 and it was even more glorious outside. Next was to return (for me) to the Piazzale Michelangelo. I thought it was a lovely walk, but Kelsey was tired, and she grumbled (my stomach was also grumbling –KO’) and second-guessed my route until we were there. Now it was hopping up there, with the lot nearly full and the sun completely free of clouds. Florence radiated red-roofed love, and the David was nearly as nice as the marble one, though green with tarnish. There wasn’t much to do there but gawk (I think I actually sat on a bench the entire time we were there –KO’), so we headed back down and stayed on the side streets on our way to the Pitti Palace.

We were hungry and needed some lunch and fluids, and as we made a turn there was another hole in the wall place with only three tables and one occupant other than the flamboyant but moody server. He seemed a bit reluctant to ready our pizzas, but they were good and we were enjoying them (and four cannolis) when a cheerful older man came in and the young guy left. The old man made pleasant small talk and sent us off happy with our stop. He was clearly the owner and the other guy had just been minding the store for him.

Reenergized (I felt like a completely different person after those cannolis –KO’), we walked a short distance to the Pitti Palace, another home of the Medicis. Again, the ticket window was several hundred yards from the entrance, and they seemed to either want us to do the garden tour or the inside, but not both. It was too nice to be inside, but it was also winter, so the gardens would not be that great. I decided on the gardens, and we walked a long way around them. We were occasionally rewarded with a nice view, but we also had to put up with a woman with two loud children, one of whom consistently walked about 50 feet behind her. We finally shook them and had a more peaceful second half.

We headed to the Brancacci Chapel, which held nice frescoes by one of my favorites, Massacio. On the way we had to work our way around a group of paparazzi who had a small restaurant staked out. It was 6euros (at the ticket office as far away from the entrance as possible) to get in the Brancacci, and we walked down a short hallway to find a small chapel that was mostly roped off. There were two walls of frescoes there which were nice, but no explanation. Those were the Massacios, I found out when we left there, unable to return, but watched a movie about the place next door. I think we spent only 5 minutes there otherwise.

We had our sights set on Santa Croce next, which was all the way on the other end of town on the other side of the river. It was a long walk (you can imagine how I felt about it –KO’) on the narrow sidewalks with people going both ways, but the weather was holding well. It was a beautiful church, with tombs of Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo and Macchiavelli, some fading Giotto frescoes and a flood-damaged crucifix by Cimabue that was a proud symbol of the city, but I was distracted and thought it also held the cloisters where Fra Angelico had painted frescoes in the monks’ cells. I made us look at every inch, some of which wasn’t worth it when we were short of time.

The day was fading and we still had a lot to do. We headed back across town, but we again lost time when we walked right by the entrance to the Duomo Museum Kelsey was looking for and wandered around a while until we got directions. We went into the main basilica for a quick look around on our way back over there. The museum was worth it, as there were a few nice things, including two of the bronze doors from the Baptistry, which was under some construction and we saved for last, getting all the benefits from our early morning tickets. The Baptistry was spectacular, with the iconic crouching Jesus mosaic[19] on the ceiling.

[19] The name I made up. It is quite apt.

We walked back to the hotel, where Kelsey laid down for some rest and I went down to the small gym for a brief workout[20]. Dinner that night was closer to the hotel, in a restaurant near the train station that filled with Asian tourists and their luggage while we ate. The seafood risotto was only OK, but the calamari in it was perfect, though Kelsey wouldn’t try it. I had planned on getting gelato from a place on the corner near our hotel, but there was no gelato there! We desperately searched, as it was getting late and our streak was on the line. We were so happy to find a shop minded by a cheerful old man and I got the delicious combo of cinnamon and caramel for only 3 euros.

[20] This is as good a time as any to emphasize that despite being sick, sleeping poorly most nights, and running most of the early mornings, I was never tired while out and about and almost never sat down all day except to eat lunch.

01/14: Thursday

Our hotel in Florence was far more expensive than the ones in Rome and Venice. It had a nice lobby and more room for guests to relax, but the rooms were fairly ordinary otherwise. We found out one downside after going to bed Wednesday night: much of the noise made in the room above was easily transmitted to our room, as guests arrived there and kept a loud racket up for over an hour before settling down around 11:30pm. (I didn’t even know this. #rock –KO’) I did sleep well in the nice bed after that, and got up at 5:45am again to run.

This run was the trip’s best and most relaxing. I followed the river out of the main part of the city, which took me into a very nice park of empty, dimly lit streets and paths. I crossed the river and back on pedestrian bridges and had enjoyable time despite the darkness.

We got ready and packed quickly before breakfast, after which we stowed our luggage away in the lobby and checked out. We had only a few hours left in Florence before our early afternoon train to Rome and a lot to do. Remarkably, we saved some of the best for last without really knowing it.

The weather had turned for the worse, with a light drizzle and chill, and we headed through it to our first stop, San Marco Museum. This was the place with the Fra Angelico frescoes in the monks’ cells! There were so many beautiful paintings in the church it was staggering. And then we went to the cloisters to see the Fra Angelicos. They were certainly nice, but perhaps with a bit too much emphasis on the powers of Jesus’ spurting blood. I would like to have one in my monastic cell.

From there we went to the Medici Chapel. I did not remember going there before, and I was startled this doesn’t get more acclaim. The chapel itself is magnificent: huge pillars in brown and gray stone, high, lovely ceiling, and one of the more beautiful floors we saw, but it was all poorly lit and my camera took poor footage. In another chamber were wonderful Michelangelo statues and tombs he designed for two of the Medici brothers. I wished I could spend an hour staring. The family also had a huge collection of relics of the saints in an adjoining museum. Each bone fragment or lock of hair was incorporated into fantastic sculptures and ornaments. I wish I’d taken more videos and pictures there. Kelsey loved seeing the bones. (They were in really cool cases. They even had one of John the Baptist’s bones! –KO’)

Santa Maria Novella was near the train station and our hotel and was our last tourist stop. I had been there before but forgot all the treasures it contained, including the first painting that enraptured me in Art History at Moravian, a fresco by Massacio that showed the Trinity with Jesus on the cross and God behind him in what looked like an alcove, with the dimensions and sense of space perfectly carried out. We got out of there around noon and walked back to the hotel and got our bags. We were at the station in plenty of time, and there was a busy and confusing cafeteria where we went in separately for lunch, which we then ate at some of the few seats provided in the terminal while waiting for our train to arrive.

The trip back was fine, though the train was a bit more crowded than the others we’d been on. We got a taxi to the area of the hotel, where the taxi guy argued with me that I needed to pay 3.5euros more because we had big bags with us. I was steamed, but it was only 3.5euros.

This time we stayed in the proper Hotel Campo de’ Fiori, and, I must say, you should stay there if you can get a room. The room was by far the best, and most important of all for that area, soundproof. I spent a good bit of the night in the bathroom coughing and Kelsey couldn’t hear it at all. No noise made it in from the market as the workers came in the morning. The bed and the pillow were awesome.

We weren’t there to rest yet, though. We headed right out to St. Peter in Chains, and for once I was in charge. It turns out we walked right past stairs that went right to it without any signs saying so. We took the long way around, but eventually, after going into the local college there, where I was barely able to keep Kelsey from going upstairs to Heaven knows where, and then Kelsey taking us through a parking lot and apparent construction site for another adjacent building, we found it. It is famously home of Michelangelo’s strange and magnificent Moses statue, which was part of a really nice tomb to the right of the main altar. In a lower alcove reached by stairs in front of the altar was a glass case, lit from within, that allegedly contained the chains that held St. Peter at some point. I didn’t get much of the info about the place, mostly wanting to see Moses. There was a splendid Madonna and Child painting (of course –KO’) with a golden background to the left of the altar I could not get close to and whose provenance I could not ascertain, much to my frustration (but not enough to motivate me to look it up since).

It was not far to the other, newer Forums from there: Trajan’s, Nerva’s, etc. The ruins were very much like the other ones, and we bobbed from one sign to the next reading about them. A new road built under Mussolini to allow for big parades bisected the Forums; the construction of the road had unearthed much of them. The rain got heavier and our tolerance for more touring lower, so we did not try to go in the Victor Emmanuele II Monument, a massive white marble building with huge bronze statues on the top visible from nearly everywhere in Rome and disdained by many for its over the top tribute to an unworthy person, the first king of the united country of Italy (I just read some good things about him, though).

I didn’t have much cash left and wanted to find someplace cheaper to eat. We were lucky to find a place nearby where we ate under a tent, seated next to a wasteful gas burning heater, with a 12euro meal special: bruschetta, salad, and pasta. It wasn’t enough so I also ate a whole white pizza without cheese (it was basically a huge, flat piece of garlic bread). We topped that off with the delicious and reasonable gelato at Blue Ice, which we also took to the scenic rooftop terrace (no food allowed) to eat while we enjoyed the nighttime views. It was a great last day.

For the folks at home, yes. We did have gelato every single night. I also am fairly certain that I had Nutella at least once a day while we were there. Overall, Italy had fabulous food and spectacular sights. –KO’

01/15: departure Friday

I mentioned my rough patch during the night, but it couldn’t have happened at a nicer hotel. I was up at 5:30am for my last Italian run. I took no chances and just ran up the river for 2.5 miles on the bike/running path and turned around as car headlights approached me on a very dark stretch. I guess cars are allowed there? I did 5 miles and then walked back to the hotel (it wasn’t raining and wasn’t too cold). The breakfast was good, and then we checked out and got in the Mercedes for a quiet ride out to the airport. We were through security and passport control in just a few minutes and up to the vast waiting area to relax before the 10 hour flight back.

I don’t remember much about the flight, which is good. I didn’t sleep at all, and my butt was sore the last 5 hours. (I listened to podcasts the entire time, in case anyone was wondering. –KO’) I was glad to get to Philly, and to finally have our bags come out after a long wait despite taking forever at passport control where we had to process through an automated system that took a classic awful photo of Kelsey that looked like she was an alien wearing a $5 rubber Kelsey mask. (I cried from laughing so hard and I swear the guy at passport control laughed, too. –KO’) Then we were through the checkpoint with an agent who asked me a bunch of questions about my military service (I think in a nice way??) before letting us through.

It didn’t take too long for the shuttle to the hotel parking lot to show up, and we got there just around 5pm. I had hoped we’d be earlier, as we were now going to have to deal with rush hour traffic on a Friday the first hour or so north, but it turns out that was not an issue, as my car didn’t start. It seemed to make a weak effort of turning over the first time, but then nothing much happened. The lights were working and radio came on, but I thought maybe the battery wasn’t strong enough to turn it over (recall it had just been serviced and checked three days before we left). As part of a recent good will gesture from Volkswagen for the issues with my turbo diesel engine, I’d received three years of free roadside assistance, so Kelsey, whose phone had a better charge, called them. It took a long time to get through, and then we were told someone would be there in about an hour. That gave her some time to charge her phone in one of the hotel lobbies while I repeatedly had to pee as my adrenaline surged with the annoyance of having to deal with this on a rainy night after a long day of travel. After a much longer time than an hour, an Asian man in a beat up car showed up and tried to get it started, but it wouldn’t and the battery was fine. So, now we were screwed. We waited another 2 hours for a tow truck, and after they took the car away, we caught a shuttle back to the airport and then took a rental car shuttle to Enterprise, where I rented a car (VW had made the reservation for me) to drive home and use while my car was getting serviced. We left there after 9pm, and I drove until we had about 45 minutes left on the trip, when I was too tired to risk driving anymore. I immediately fell asleep and was in and out of sleep until we got home at about 11:45pm. I got to bed quickly and was up at 6am to run the next morning, feeling fine. It took all week for the car to get fixed: the starter was the problem, but there was also water in the intercooler, which likely damaged the starter. I didn’t have to pay for anything but the rental car: everything was under warranty and Metzers sent guys to pick it up for free on the Friday before a big snow storm, so I had it that weekend and it is running well.

Overall, best trip ever. –KO’

Kelsey will be jealous when I add at this point: USCITA!

[1] . Wishful thinking? Maybe

[2] It didn’t even have a sign. That must dock you one star right out.

[3] Way too many Italians smoke with no regard for those around them.

[4] “Operation Safe Strade” had at least 2 soldiers with large black machine guns deployed in front of nearly every place of note. Their fingers always seemed to be on the triggers of their guns.

[5] It was on almost every menu. I did get a pizza that used a much smaller amount on it. It was really good.

[6] It is true. You cannot escape going to the Piazza Navona.

[7] Almost every tour in Rome included a promise to “skip the lines.” Only in this instance did it matter.

[8] Official Vatican Tours used video monitors for their talks and needed to be able to sit where they could be seen. We were not official, but something close.

[9] There was a special area in the center that showed the size of all of the biggest churches in the world in comparison. (I’m not surprised I missed this. –KO’)

[10] I never expected to spend so much out of pocket money while I was there – about 1200euros, but it was all worth it.

[11] Saying something!

[12] I’m pretty sure it was a woman. She most resembled Robin Roberts, with a beatific smile.

[13] She was sitting by herself for a long time until a bald and bearded slim guy, who was not even close to as good-looking as I am, dined with her. I don’t think it was her brother, so it gave me hope….

[14] Venice seemed to be about 10-12 degrees F colder than Rome.

[15] The food was not cheap in general, but they really killed you on the drinks, as water was not free (usually 3euros for a litre bottle) and everything else was at least 4euros, even a can of soda.

[16] I think. I remember a very scenic view from that side of river that took us a while to get to.

[17] This was to be one of the themes of our day.

[18] If this isn’t the best joke about a religious painting, tell me a better one.

[19] The name I made up. It is quite apt.

[20] This is as good a time as any to emphasize that despite being sick, sleeping poorly most nights, and running most of the early mornings, I was never tired while out and about and almost never sat down all day except to eat lunch.

If you made it this far, thank you, and please comment.

Ireland Trip, 2015

9 Days in Ireland, running and playing golf every day. Click on the photos to advance the slide show.

I went to Ireland from the 5th to the 14th of June with my frequent traveling companion, Greg Wright (sans wife Kathy). Number one on the agenda was playing golf, and we did that 8 straight days. For the first time in my 4 trips there, I wanted to run every day as well, and I also looked forward to driving around. I rented a small car with a manual transmission for that purpose and was rewarded every day by the challenge and adventure on the often narrow roads (though I did not complain when they reserved us a GPS). The weather could hardly have been better: sunny every day, only really windy once, and warm enough for short sleeved shirts (at least for me - Greg is reptilian in comparison). The rest of the style will be of a diary. You can ignore the things that don't interest you, but there should be some decent stories in there somewhere. The slide show above, if it works, is chronological.

Day 1, June 5th

Run: up before 5am to do sprints at the track and weightlifting at the gym before leaving at 7:43am.

Driving: Danville to Herndon Park & Fly, near Dulles Airport

Flying: Dulles to JFK on Jet Blue, probably my best domestic flying experience ever, then JFK to Shannon Airport in Ireland overnight, a flight of 5.5 hours, not much time to sleep and little advantage taken of my empty row other than keeping my feet up.

Drama: I erroneously thought I could get to Frederick, MD via I-81 after seeing warnings of construction on 15 around Harrisburg. It dawned on me when I looked at the directions for the first time since writing them down two weeks ago that I was going the wrong way. I chose a route to divert looking at a map while driving and again erroneously went all the way through Hagerstown, MD instead of getting on I-70, then got terribly lost in Herndon and had to have Greg talk me in to the parking garage, finally getting there 45 minutes late. The rest of the trip was like a fine watch....

Day 2, June 6th

Flying: arrive in Shannon just after 5am, quite early. It took a while for our golf clubs to come out and for the van to the rental car place to arrive.

Driving: Shannon to Tralee, about 90 minutes, the first of which were getting used to the GPS and ignoring its pleas to make wrong turns.

Golf: We got to Tralee Golf Course (Arnold Palmer's first course in Ireland) before 9am for our 11:42 tee time and the starter told us he would get us out early. He did, around 10am, and it worked out great, as we got out before the tourists and played in just over 3 hours in a fierce wind at the limits of playability (I wished for a sensory deprivation tank after the round). It was a fun but difficult round, tough course, better than I remembered.

Driving, 2: a little less than an hour to Killarney after lunch at the course.

Sightseeing: We quickly checked in, and the B&B hostess advised us to drive out the Black Valley and Gap of Dunloe right away. We did and were rewarded with excellent scenery, though it was a challenging and narrow drive, especially clockwise on the Ring of Kerry early on against the big bus traffic.

Dinner: Italian in Killarney.

Day 3, June 7th

Driving: up very early to depart a little after 6:30 (the B&B staff showed me how to get all I needed for breakfast the night before, as they usually don't start breakfast until 8am). Going counter-clockwise on the Ring of Kerry down the west coast, through lots of little towns and some nice scenery.

Golf: Waterville Golf Club, one of my favorites, did not disappoint. The weather was beautiful, with so little wind the bugs were bad early. We played with a couple from Quebec who were really fun. The wife taught us the phrase, "the full Irish experience," which described getting in a deep sand trap and not being able to get out.

Driving and sight-seeing: the next part of the Ring of Kerry is beautiful, though it got tedious the closer we got to Killarney, culminating in a traffic jam

Run: as soon as we got back I was out the door and retracing the stretch we'd just driven to run in the Killarney National Park. There were paved and rougher trails and lots of people biking and walking. I was very excited and ran quite fast when I could, getting as far as the Torc Waterfall parking lot for a total of 9 miles. I was exhilarated.

Dinner: excellent Indian food in downtown Killarney, followed by gelato.

Day 4, June 8th

Run: up early again to run a different set of trails in the Killarney National park, on the northern end, including by the Ross Castle, which looked fantastic in the early sunlight. 6.2 miles. Really nice run.

Driving: Killarney to Ballybunion, a nice mix of back and main roads for an hour or so.

Golf: Ballybunion Cashen (New) Course. Not that long but hard and not in as good condition as the rest, it was a fun round where we went out as a twosome but then later joined up with another twosome, a 78 year old retired urologist and his son-in-law who had just lost in the congressional elections in Connecticut (and had the hair of a politician).

Sight-seeing - walked around Ballybunion and posed with the statue of Bill Clinton playing golf

Dinner: worst meal of the trip, as most places closed on Mondays. Plain pizza in a dive.

Day 5, June 9th

Run: speedwork on the country roads. 4.5 miles. Worst run of the trip, though it still had its moments, and the golf course is easy on the eyes.

Golf: Ballybunion Old Course. One of the world's best, and it was great, with a sunny day and manageable winds. They had just mowed the rough, which had been impossible, so we lucked out. Played with a super-rich and nice guy named Eric from Chicago and Tom from Orlando. We had a caddie, Mark, who was very entertaining. He competes at darts and claims to be on the cusp of greatness. He told this story: Recently, the group he was caddying for said they would give him 10 Euros for his best joke. He told them he didn't really tell jokes but was more of a quipster, with quick rejoinders. They then all hit their shots and each one was worse than the one before it. He told them it was going to be a long day today for him but he was going to make a lot of money telling stories about them from now on....Greg and I got him going talking about the Irish people refusing to pay for water ("We live in a country where it &%$ing rains more than anywhere in the world, and they want us to pay for water!?!") and a movement he favored to remove fluoride from the water ("How could you trust a Mick to make it 5 parts per million? He's going to take the whole month's dose in a bucket and dump it in the first day and go put his feet up!" He also claimed it would be used for mind control). Eric bought us lunch afterward in the much-improved clubhouse.

Driving: Ballybunion to Lahinch, via the Shannon Ferry (18 Euros) and then ridiculously narrow back roads until we ignored the GPS and went along the coast the rest of the way. About 90 minutes plus 30 for the ferry.

Sight-seeing: walked downtown and ate at a place with a beach view, then walked the VERY wide beach, which was busy with pale Irish people having a lark.

Dinner: Bland fish and chips at a pub (with beach view as above). Smoothies around the corner.

Day 6, June 10th

Run: found a bike path along the main highway to Ennistymon and ran all the way there and through the town, for 5 miles. Very pretty countryside.

Golf: Lahinch. One of the best days, but my worst golf. Played with an older wealthy couple from Chicago. They were super nice and the guy could really play. We won Mike the caddie over by the end (he invited me to work out with him that evening and I would have except for the Cliffs). The course is quirky but much nicer than I remembered (the good weather helped).

Sight-seeing: the SPECTACULAR Cliffs of Moher. Best seacoast scenery in the world. Greg was very daring on the cliff edges (I was also when in my 20s, but not now), posing for and taking pictures of others. My video camera, bought in 2009 and taken all over the world, died while Greg was on one of the scariest cliffs, so we walked back to the parking lot and got my new waterproof camera I'd purchased to use on the courses. We then walked the southern portion.

Driving: shortest of the trip - to the Cliffs and back, about 30 minutes total.

Dinner: Joe's Cafe in Lahinch. We saw the menu after eating the night before and realized we should have eaten there. Several good vegetarian options. I had the Moroccan Vegetable Stew, hummus, and a mixed fruit crisp. Excellent.

Day 7, June 11th

Run: speedwork in town after failing to find a passable trail along the cliffs to the south. On the way back, noticed the tide was out so I ran all the way around the golf course on the beach - super nice, for 5.6 miles. Run and post run preparation for departure complicated by the dire need to expel the Moroccan Vegetable Stew which managed to smell nearly as good.

Driving: Lahinch to Royal Dublin Golf Club on the northeast side of Dublin. About 3.5 hours, and easier than I thought, as we picked up the M7 without problem and zipped across with a MUST STOP at the Barack Obama Plaza, an all-in-one petrol station with several restaurants in Moneygall. One of Obama's mother's relatives hailed from there, and President Obama visited there with Michelle a few years ago to ecstatic acclaim. Drive through Dublin at lunch time was crazy, concluding with a crossing of a wooden one lane bridge to the golf course.

Golf: Royal Dublin Golf Club: What a nice place. First of all, it was created when material moved by dredging the harbor to deepen it was piled there. Wetlands grew naturally and someone decided to put in a golf course around 1896. We checked in and went upstairs in the clubhouse to get some lunch. In the dining room, two men jumped up to greet us heartily: the club president and the manager. We talked with them and ordered lunch, and then Eric, our friend from Ballybunion who told us he might play with us here after he also played in the morning, popped in. He joined us for lunch (Greg bought it for him) and his playing companion, last year's club president, Enda, came in and ate with us as well. We had an enjoyable and wide-ranging conversation (the Civil War!) before we went out to play. The course had a tight, tough front 9 into the wind, then a wider, kinder back 9 with the wind. We stayed a while after and had a drink with Eric (he played 36 holes at age 68). Definitely the friendliest place we played.

Driving Part 2: after a long day, we now had to get across Dublin to our hotel. It was nearly a nightmare, with lots of one way streets, trips around the block and finally arrival at the hotel, leaving me frazzled.

Drama: I'd been through a lot and was looking forward to getting into the room and then heading out on the city for some dinner. After bits of confusion with the concierge and the car, then trying to check in while a bunch of Americans were shouting at each other while standing a few feet away, we got up to our room. One bed. No mention of it at check in. I was furious. We'd made the booking months in advance for twin beds. The girl who checked us in said she didn't mention it because there was supposed to be a portable bed already in the room. Even being tired, there was no way I was going to be able to sleep in the same bed as Greg. They brought around the portable bed, but it was too big for the space so they had to take out two chairs and a table. They promised us a new room in the morning and they would move our stuff while we were gone. Having lost my will for more adventure, we ate at the hotel (It was delicious) and then went to bed (I slept great in the regular bed).

Dinner: I had beet root and goat cheese risotto, with a delicious piece of cheesecake for dessert.

Day 8, June 12th

Run: 6.2 miles around Dublin. Fun, relaxing.

Driving: worst of the trip. Dublin rush hour getting out of the city on a circuitous route. Took us 15 minutes to go about a half mile. Then the M1 north into Northern Ireland, ending up on more crazy back roads to get to Newcastle.

Golf: Royal County Down, often ranked the best in the world, almost always in the top 10. In fantastic shape since it just hosted the Irish Open (in terrible weather). Hard and fast greens, and a beautiful, sunny day with a light breeze.I continued a trend of swinging and missing (if you hit behind the ball, the club can bounce right over the ball off the hard ground). Greg played very well on the back nine, and I turned it around some. Played with an American couple, but cannot remember where they were from. We had a drink with them after as well.

Sight-seeing: on the way back we went to see friends I met in Swaziland, Michael and Grace Chilombo, and their two children. We got a little lost trying to find them, but had a nice visit and Grace made us dinner. It was great to see them doing so well in such a strange country. The trip back into the city was much easier from their neck of the woods.

Day 9, June 13th

Run: speedwork in St. Stephen's Green, got in right as it was opened after 7am. 4.6 miles or so.

Driving: Easier to leave Dublin on Saturday morning, got to the course near Drogheda early despite more narrow back roads.

Golf: County Louth/ Baltray: a sneaky good links that has hosted the Irish Open. In good shape, played us tough, but was my best round (90). Ate lunch there and headed back.

Sight-seeing: enough time to work out quickly at the hotel gym before Michael, Grace and their daughter arrived. I'd promised them I would take them out on Temple Bar, the big nightspot, but it was a crazy night since Scotland had just played Ireland to a draw in a World Cup qualifier across the canal and people were everywhere. They came to the hotel instead, and after the hotel seemed reluctant to seat us, we had another delicious meal there. I walked back to their car with them and then walked all over the city looking around and watching the crazy drunken behaviors. The highlight was hearing some shredding guitar and heading towards it. I found a band playing in the street, with two drummers, a bass player, and an absolute guitar virtuoso. His solos were so well played and phrased, I bought and ate a three scoop gelato and watched while I ate it. It took me a while to get back (it is very easy to lose one's bearings walking in Dublin at night). Greg was already in bed, having decided to make his own way that evening after a late night the night before. It was the only night I wasn't in bed before it got dark (which usually occurred after 10:30pm).

Day 10, June 14th

Run: I wanted to do a long run to Phoenix Park, the largest city park in Europe, and I had studied the routes and even took a map on the run with me. I got up at 5am just so I could have enough time, but I still got lost and only ran about a mile and a half in the park, in the most boring part. I was able to stretch it to 10 miles, stopping for a brief look at the much-more-impressive-than-I-thought Dublin Castle.

Driving: easy drive to the airport only to not be able to find the rental car place - bad directions. Dublin airport is quite nice and we had a smooth flight back after much hassling with security (twice) and a lot of standing in line. Then I had a 3.5 hour drive back to Danville (I still made some wrong turns in Herndon, but they only cost me a minute or two).

SUMMARY:

It was a great week: 8 rounds of golf, each in great weather and very memorable, with enough good shots to make me love it, and 8 really good runs (Greg is a good runner but he didn't run once), plus I enjoyed driving our diesel Toyota Corolla, which had spectacular fuel economy (about 70mpg - even luxury Audis and Volvos get over 50 miles per gallon in Ireland) and handled great (It is a better car than my Jetta). I don't think I ever slept more than 7.5 hours, never took a nap, and had no trouble with the time change either way. Greg and I are a good team and we are both used to our peccadilloes by now. Ireland is a great, great place, much better than New Zealand (yeah, the weather is probably worse in Ireland, but).

My Patagonia Adventure 2014

My Patagonia Adventure, 2014

Summary – Patagonia is a beautiful place with extreme weather, especially wind. The touring agency, Cascada, was excellent. Patagonia is not easy to get to and involves difficult flight schedules on unreliable airlines.

Drama – Would my nephew, Andrew, be ready for a tough first trip out of the country just after finishing his first semester of grad school? Would my recent back and foot injuries cause problems? Would we make our connecting flights? Would I be able to get any sleep? Will all the photos I inserted into this document make it onto the blog, or will I have to set up a separate gallery for Patagonia? I do. Look for that on the site somewhere....

            I’ve wanted to go to Patagonia for a few years. The name alone conjures images of mountain landscapes and exotic wildlife at the extreme end of South America. With my 50th birthday approaching in 2014, I started to think about going by myself in January of 2014, but as things go, I heard from my friends in New Zealand that the new doctor they’d hired at their office was let go in June of 2013, and they were a tad desperate for help there, so I put the trip off, arrived in New Zealand the end of September, 2014 and celebrated my 50th in Waimate, New Zealand instead.

            I got back to the US the end of March, 2014 and, as I planned my year, wanted to keep some time open for the trip in December, 2014 or January 2015. My nephew, Andrew, had expressed interest in the past about going to Patagonia, though not necessarily with me, and once his school schedule settled, I opened up discussions with him about going along since I had been unable to find anyone else I would want to go with who could pay their way (I’d even looked at websites that try to pair up travelers – weirdos). While in New Zealand I’d met a young lady who was from Chile, and she told me to just go there and we would be able to find tour guides, etc., and the majority of people would speak English. That was not good enough for me, and I certainly had the money to do things a little more properly.

            I recall assigning Andrew the task of figuring out what we might want to do, but after a while of nothing getting done, I contacted a travel agent I’d worked with before and started looking at the internet to see what was up. I finally found a trip that fit both of our schedules: a 7 day trek around the W trails in Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia run by Cascada Tours. The travel agent was a little dubious and did a check on them as they didn’t have a particular certification she was used to dealing with, but she found them to be acceptable and we moved ahead. She booked the hotels and transfers and I eventually took on the flights, as the schedules she produced were awful – several days with huge layovers each way, and quite expensive.

            One thing gnawed at the back of my mind; I was planning on going back to New Zealand in January of 2015 and getting the work visa had become a total pain. Initially I would send it by Fedex and get it back in two days for free. Now New Zealand had subcontracted out some of the “work” and charged $40, and the length of time it would take was not easily predicted. As I understood it, I could not apply for the work visa until I had my medical registration certified, and I could not get that done until I was able to send them a certificate of good standing from the state of Pennsylvania, the only place I’d practiced medicine since my return six months ago. They required the certificate of good standing be within 3 months of my start date. That would require me to send off my passport in early November to get the visa, and the trip would start the 13th of December.

            We went ahead and booked the trip. I paid for the whole thing. The only questions remained whether I would get my visa in time and how and when Andrew would get home. Andrew could not move his last final, which he took on the 12th of December, and his mom went and got him after he took the bus from Pittsburgh, so that question was answered. The visa was much more complicated: apparently there had been some changes and some things I misunderstood in my application. Things change for New Zealand immigration when you cross two years of living there. I did not think this applied to me as I’d always stayed less than six months every time. Putting logic aside and understanding bureaucrats, they wanted a full FBI background check, and I knew I would not be able to get that done before the trip, so I angrily asked them to return my passport (I didn’t get it until December 4th) and told my friends in New Zealand I would not be able to work there, likely ever again (not because of the immigration, but because of spite). I started looking for another job, which took up any free time I ‘d hoped to enjoy before leaving, including a urine drug screen the afternoon before we left.

            The weather was fine for our departure and Andrew was ready on time. We found the parking I’d reserved at a hotel without trouble and took their shuttle to the airport. A helpful United employee got our boarding passes and luggage all sorted in just a few minutes. We were through security in only a few minutes as well and had plenty of time to kill. The first amusing scene of the trip was eating our lunches in the international terminal at a restaurant with small screens with internet access at each seat, both reading Wikipedia entries on Patagonia and discussing unusual things we found.

            After lunch we found seats at the gate but discovered our fellow passengers to be a different sort of people, the sort that would jam the areas between the rows of seats with enough bags to make them impassable. We were headed to Lima, and the majority of the people at the gate looked like they were South Americans. I got up to wander and go to the bathroom, and I found the gate adjacent to ours had people sitting in it and thought of moving there until an airport official came in and threw everyone out. That seating area was for a flight to Tel Aviv in another 2 hours, and they closed it off completely with tall portable barriers. Unfortunately, that also shut off the nearest bathroom, but only Andrew had to walk around to the other side of the terminal to go before the flight left.

            Outside of my butt hurting from sitting 8 hours, my entertainment screen not working and having to eat chicken for the meal, we had no trouble getting to Lima. We had to check in there for the rest of our boarding passes, and at that time we were moved to an earlier flight to Santiago as our scheduled flight was delayed too much to make our connection (it was then cancelled). Even then, the earlier flight left an hour late, and we arrived in Santiago without knowing what time it was. There were no clocks around while we rushed to the passport control area. The line was still long, but I got to a window at the same time Andrew did though we had to go alone to each.

            This was the first spot of trouble. The flight attendants had handed us our paperwork, waking me up while doing so, and I didn’t realize I’d been given two of the same forms because they wanted both filled out. The passport guy held up two fingers and said, “You need two, DOS! Dos of these,” shaking the paper. I explained I thought I’d been given two by mistake, and he scratched around and found another pink paper with the right spaces on it and I quickly filled it out and was processed through.

            I thought Andrew would be waiting for me, but he was nowhere to be found. I walked all the way to baggage claim and back four or five times, finally grabbing his bag and lugging it around with me and mine. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I was very worried he’d also only filled out one form and, instead of doing it quickly, had gone back to get one and entered the long line at the end. I was really sweating it out, because I didn’t know what time it was and our next flight boarded at 8:10am. It was 5:50am in Lima, but what time was it in Santiago?

            I spotted Andrew way back in the line, moving aimlessly. I rushed over to get the attention of a young woman with “Informacion” on her windbreaker, and she came over. I asked her what time it was. She got out her phone and checked: 7:55am! I told her about our boarding time and my nephew still in line. We found him after a while, and I waved to him over and over to get him to wave back (he finally moved his arm a little) so they could go get him and get him through the line faster. I was a bundle of energy as I fussed around and was told at one point to move away from the desk where Andrew was getting processed.

            We rushed back to the customs area, right to the front of the customs lines. I got the attention of the first official-looking man I saw, showed him our boarding passes, and he said, “I will help you. Come!”

            He took us under ropes and to the xray machine, where men yelled at us to put the bags through the xray machine quickly and then we were off. The man, who looked like he might be in his 50s, started to run with my bag, and we followed. He yelled to another young man and he grabbed Andrew’s bag and followed us. We ran to an elevator, but he lost patience and started running towards the exit. We went through all the throngs of people waiting for arrivals and outside onto the sidewalk. From there we ran to a stairway and ran up three flights of stairs, with the older man and I holding each end of my bag (as were running, he said, “You must be very generous to us!”). We headed back inside there and it was clearly the check-in area for our airline. He talked to a woman at the entry to the line and she let us run through to the front to check our bags. The woman at the baggage check said the bags had plenty of time to make it to the plane and we were ok. I breathed a sigh of relief as we left there, but now we still had to get through security. The man took us in a run to the stairs up and to the security gate. I gave him and the other man, who turned out to be his son, a twenty each (I thought a single twenty would be enough, but they both wanted one!).

            We butted right to the front of the security line, got through it ok, and hustled to the gate. We got there at 8:15 – all that had only taken us 20 minutes. The plane’s departure was delayed 45 minutes, so we even had time to go to the bathroom and relax before we left.

            The last leg of flying took us to Punta Arenas, a town right along the Strait of Magellan. We exited with our bags, and I spotted a man with an “O’Rourke” sign. I signaled to him and he met us at the exit. He handed us off to a driver who took us to our hotel. The road was under construction and otherwise ordinary, but to our left I could see the Strait. I’d read so much about Magellan as a kid; it was really something special to see it now.

            Punta Arenas is a small city of about 120,000 with a lot of one-way streets. Our hotel, the Rey Don Felipe, had a nice lobby, and there was an American girl helping with check in, which took far too long, but also critically involved the extra copy of the immigration papers, which we would need at every point of embarkation and lodging from then on. We took our bags up to our nice room and then came down for an excellent lunch at the hotel restaurant. There I started to chat with a woman who was sitting by herself at the next table. She was from England, and she’d just returned from a week in Antarctica (some day!). It was Sunday there, and she was supposed to be at work in England the next morning, but that wasn’t happening.

            We went back upstairs to shower. Andrew, as was his pattern throughout, was mostly focused on getting wifi access. We decided to go for a stroll and try to get some money from an ATM. A Santander bank was two blocks down, and Andrew figured out how to get money, and showed me, but then he said his card had never come back out! We struggled with the machine for a while, but we finally gave up and went back to the hotel.

            After a little time relaxing, while Andrew worried about his card, we went to a scenic overlook near the hotel. It was a fairly nice day, likely in the 60s, with a fairly good breeze. From the viewpoint we could see the glories of the Strait and the hint of Tierra del Fuego in the distance. There were several tourist buses there with people taking photos as well. Here is where the first photo in the gallery would be.                               

            We went down the hill a different way and seemed to end up in the less good section of town. There were many bars, strip clubs, and a few intoxicated men asleep/passed out in the streets. We spotted a row of restaurants and passed them to go to the water’s edge. There were some people playing in the water, but not many. We walked a good distance down the promenade along the beach and came to a statue of a ship with a fountain where some pretty girls were posing for pictures standing in the waist deep water. We headed back into the city and ambled about until we were back at the street with the restaurants. The meal was nice and didn’t take too long. On the way back I got a bowel crisis and was lucky to make it to the bathroom near the hotel’s desk in time. To his credit, Andrew, highly motivated, went out to see if he could find a store selling adapters so he could charge his phone. He returned very happy to have paid only about $13 for a set of adapters at a place run by some Asians. We were otherwise tired and looking forward to our next day and racked out pretty well even though it was still light outside when we went to bed.

            I got up the next morning and went for a run. I’d hurt both my foot and my back the weekend before: my back on Friday doing bent over lateral raises at the gym, an exercise I approached with caution that day having completed an 11 mile run just a few hours before and noticing tightness in my butt before starting them. I often thought of my back as something akin to a steel-belted radial: it was tough. I hardly ever even had a twinge in it since I started a set of exercises every morning in my late 20s specifically because my back bothered me too often. Now I had a sore, tight area at the level of my pelvis on the left side. My foot hurt during that 11 mile run in the arch, but like many running aches and pains, I was able to get it settled down only to have it get much worse on Sunday. After that I took several days off running, including the last three before we left.

            This run went well; my back was still tight and sore, but not bad, and the foot hurt only a little early on and then settled. For purposes of brevity, my foot never bothered me the rest of the time, but my back hurt every time we stood still for more than a minute and whenever I laid on my back the rest of the trip. I ran down to the water and then followed the running paths there along it for a nice 4 miles. As I got ready to cross the main boulevard along the water, I noticed a dog coming up behind me. I do not much like dogs when I am running; they tend to attack, or at least get excited, when they see a human, or anything, running. This dog looked like a German Shepherd mix, and he was not dissuaded by my yelling at him. He trotted across the road with me and followed me, or lead me (shepherding me?) the whole way out (about 1.5 miles), and part of the way back, despite my snapping at him frequently. Several other dogs took offense to his running and came across to bark at him (and once at me), but he continued on. Finally, a chubby man approached while I was on my way back. He was running/jogging much slower than I was, and the dog turned and followed him instead. The city had some exercise equipment right along the sea, so I stopped and did a set of dips and, later, a set of pull-ups, after the dog left me.

            We got all ready and ate a nice breakfast. The pick-up wasn’t scheduled until 10:30am, so we went back to the bank to see if we could get Andrew’s card out of the machine. They said they couldn’t do it until the next day, so he got back on the wifi at the hotel and cancelled his card.

            A bus pulled up a little after 10. There was one person on it, a tired looking American who worked in finance in New York. He was young and traveling by himself. He’d just gotten in from Easter Island that morning, after experiencing extreme delays everywhere he’d gone (a theme). We picked up a few others on the way, with about 10 or so on the bus when we left town. It was a two hour drive to Puerto Natales, where we would check in and get our guides and some lunch.

            The drive from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales can best be described as boring. Not scenic in any way, it lent itself to sleep, which most of the occupants did. Our driver spoke no English, so I did not try to tell him to turn down the heat, which was oppressive.

            Puerto Natales is a smaller city/large town on a different body of water. Its buildings were similar to Punta Arenas’: colorfully painted dwellings predominated. It had more charm, though. We were allowed to wander a bit after we ate, so we went to the water there and chatted some. We met two of our guides: Danny, a short, squatty man with an easy smile, and Consuela, a well-built female with a long rat tail braid hanging from her short hair. We signed various things and ordered our evening meals and were shortly on our way to a famous cave.

            People were a bit more alert as we entered the scenic environs near the national park. We stopped near an interesting rock formation and got out: the Milodon Cave. Milodons were giant sloths; despite the statues there, they are not THAT large, more likely about the size of a big black bear rather than the hugest polar bear. The geology was very interesting, in that there was sedimentary and volcanic rocks in layers along with the general layers of rock lifted up with the collision of the tectonic plates. The cave had been eroded as the land was lifted up and the waters receded. It was very large, like two thirds of a football stadium, with paths through it. Well-preserved milodon remains had been found there, along with human tools. Here would be two photos of the Milodon cave.

            We got back in the bus and cruised the last few hours to the park entrance. After they did their paperwork there, we had a relatively short ride to the Eco Camp. Eco Camp was a series of green dome tents arrayed along paths of elevated wood with a central bathroom area. Andrew and I called our tent the Hobbit Tent, since the entrance was quite low and made the whole thing look small. The bathroom area had a lot of clothes on lines drying there. The toilets were part of a composting network; we were supposed to put the toilet paper in trash bins, and there was a slightly complex way of getting a small amount of water into the bowl to flush. It smelled terrible, every time. But the showers had hot water, so that was a plus. We had some time to unpack and relax before meeting for a briefing and then a meal. We met our group then and ate with them after we found out the plan for the next few days. Most importantly I figured out my plan for running while there, and I would be able to do the first run in the morning before we left.

            There was a bad moment: not tragic, but bad. I had a perfect blue-gray Icebreaker merino wool hat along and lost it somewhere between the Milodon cave and the Eco Camp. I had several other hats, but they were in no way perfect. I even went back with Danny, who would be our guide, and went through our bus looking for it. It was not the first time I’ve lost an awesome hat on a trip.

            The Eco Tent did not have heat, but it was not that cold when we went to bed. During the night, the wind howled most of the time, with the noise enhanced by hard-hitting raindrops intermittently against the tent and particularly the clear plastic window above our heads. I didn’t sleep much but was at least lying down for a good bit of time.

            I rose early for my run; initially I had aborted it due to hard rain and wind, but then it eased and got sunny (it was light a little after 4am). It was chilly and windy, but not terrible, and I had a very enjoyable five mile go along what I anticipated would be the first section of the day’s hike. The exhilaration lasted most of the morning while I showered, ate and did our final preparations. It was not deterred by an old man who was fussing about the granola at breakfast that he needed for his ill wife whom they were going to take off to see a doctor that day (I almost told him I was a doctor, but what was I going to do?).

            We had to use our wits to pack before we left. We got a small (emphasis on small) dry bag into which we could put no more than 11 pounds of materiel that would be carried by a porter. The rest of our clothes and gear had to fit in a day pack or on our persons, and we were going to be gone for two nights. I stressed over whether to try to get the stuff I would need to run in as well; in the end I did, but I did not run until we got back to the eco camp because the trails were too rough and the weather was too bad (foreshadowing?).

            Danny led us out of the camp around 10am. Our group of six included a couple from India (Let’s call them P and N) who now lived in Austin, Texas, and two very well traveled friends, one a professor (R) and the other a consultant (H) (their life stories made me much less interesting in comparison for once). We got along right from the start, and the pace was nice and relaxed. We did follow my running route, but we split off on a trail I’d thought of running but opted instead for the hillier route. It was sunny and almost warm. When the trails split after 2 miles, many took off some layers, and I eventually did as well, down to a merino tee shirt. The initial walk had been along the roads connecting the hotel and camp to the main road, then over a few bridges (with a little swing to them), all mostly flat. We then entered a scrubby area with good trails that went up and down a little (“Patagonia flat” according to Danny). It was all very pretty. Here would be a photo of me and of the trail.

            But it soon started to cool down and the wind picked up again. Brief periods of driving rain also joined in, and we were soon back to all our layers. We walked single file with Danny in front, and our positions changed frequently. When you were close to Danny you could ask him questions, and sometimes he would stop and show us berries we could eat (good) and how the terrain changed periodically (he was quite keen on geology).

            The wind was howling when we came to the first stream where he said we could fill our water bottles. It was crossed via a very swingy bridge, and the wind blew so hard the bridge was at times impassable. Photo of Andrew getting water from the stream and the wobbly bridge.The water was delicious, as it was every time we collected it from streams.

            From then on the weather dominated us. The wind, probably gusting up to 70mph, was blowing into us from the right most of the time; we had a few breaks in more sheltered areas, but they were very few. We stopped for lunch (we packed our lunches from a table of ingredients at breakfast) part of the way up a hill partially protected by some rock outcroppings, but one gust blew Andrew’s pack about six feet along the ground before I could grab it.  The worst weather of the day was from then on as we arrived in early afternoon at that night’s campsite. I’d thought Danny had said we would be in a big bunkroom there, but Andrew and I had our own cabin right next to the bathroom/showers. I was excited to have that much privacy, as I needed some sleep after the noisy night.

            It had stopped raining and the sun came out. The wind was only a hint of what it had been as well, so Andrew and I decided to be the first ones in the outdoor hot tub we passed on the way to our cabin. We changed (I had brought a pair of running shorts, and Andrew had a suit) and ran quickly down through the chill. It was HOT, but only at the surface, and we quickly acclimated. We were joined by R and had a good time chatting and exclaiming about the view, proclaiming it the most scenic hot tub in the world. Photo of the mountains above the hot tub. In addition to the mountains above, the hillside was also lovely, there was a waterfall nearby, and the lake view was stunning. But the tub was on the slimy side, so we figured we would be best served by showering immediately upon exiting. It was really cold when we got out and hurried to the bathroom. Andrew was first in the shower, which H had told R did not have any hot water when he took a shower. Andrew screamed there was no hot water now, either. I got in and, not only was there no hot water, but the water was just off the glacier and as cold as liquid water could be! My feet were quickly growing numb in the standing water on the shower floor and I barely managed, with tremendous grunting, griping, and occasionally shouts, to get somewhat clean, motivated by avoiding all those rashes I’d seen people have after dirty hot tubbing.

            Traumatized, I was determined to do nothing that would make me need another shower before we left (turns out the propane tank for the water heater was empty when we went. They changed it later in the afternoon). That meant neither going on the late afternoon hike to a scenic overlook Danny had planned, nor running in the morning. It took a long time to get warmed back up in our unheated cabin.

            So, that left us with nothing to do. Nothing. Danny had told us we would not need to pack anything to read (insinuating we would be busy and tired), so I had not brought my Kindle (I had plenty of waterproof bags, but not much space). Andrew went to sleep, but I could not; instead I guess I meditated for a very long time. I did go on a walk to scout the trails for running. It rained off and on, and I coincidentally bumped into everyone in our group while I was out. None of us had gone on the supplemental hike

            Finally it was time to eat. We heard about how awesome (or hard) the late afternoon hike had been (depending on the source) and ate pork chops and rice. The cooks had briefly done a skit based on “Gangnam Style”, which I give them credit for trying. The food was gone too quickly and we were back in the cabin for several hours more of boredom. I packed and repacked, all the while running some commentary to annoy and entertain Andrew and pass the time, and then, I found it, the next entertainment for the evening: a pack of gum. We both chewed it with gusto, commenting again and again on how much less boring it was now that we could chew gum.

            My hopes for a quiet night and a lot of sleep were quickly dashed. Andrew had developed a mild cough the night before, but it persisted; a few coughs every few minutes for several hours, every one of them loud enough to wake me or keep me awake. The wind picked up again and at one point seemed ready to blow the cabin off its foundation. Of course, it also rained off and on.

            Despite it all I felt rested when I got out of bed and was pleased to see a beautiful, sunny morning. Photo of mountain in the early sunlight. The temptation to try to run was strong, but there was not enough time. By the time we’d finished breakfast it was raining steadily with a very strong, gusty wind. We set off on what was supposed to be our longest hike up into the middle part of the W.

            This was easily the worst weather of any day. It rained most of the time and was very windy. Along the lake it took all our efforts not to be knocked over. Fortunately there were covered and protected areas to give us breaks. We finally headed away from the lake and along a stream/valley into the mountains, an area that was quite beautiful and relaxing and resembled a young pine forest in the states. After we passed a camping area, the trail got rocky and steeper but still not that hard. I was dressed a little warmer, but my shell was not waterproof and by the time we reached one of the viewing areas looking out at a glacier, I was wet and cold. The wind was blowing rain in our faces and cameras as we tried to capture the moment there, but my tolerance was low. Photo of the glacier from the windy and rainy viewpoint. We descended back to a more sheltered area to eat our box lunches and get ready for the afternoon. I took off my wet coat and put on my merino wool jacket, which made a huge difference.

            We had to go back down the way we came and then cross the stream near the camping area on another wobbly bridge to head to the next camp. We’d cut short the hike by about 2 hours because the upper viewing point was fogged in. Initially we traveled through an area where a fire had destroyed much of the vegetation a few years before, and then the rest of the afternoon was a mixed bag, but the weather was improving as we neared the next camp. We were all motivated to get done, and I even mocked running the last part to get there, as it started raining again at that time.

            This lodge was big, with a large cafeteria, a bar, and many rooms. The six of us would share a room around the corner from a wood stove and the bathrooms. The room quickly filled up with clothes drying in every part. Never one to relax, I was wandering all around, but there were not many unoccupied spaces. We finally got dinner, and then someone came up with a deck of cards so we went to the bar and played rummy for a while. It was heaven compared to the last spot. We turned out the light with me worried about Andrew’s cough keeping me up from his bunk above mine. Quickly someone started snoring, Andrew was coughing, and there was a boisterous crowd somewhere nearby with a woman who laughed like a turkey gobbling, but with the aid of earplugs and well placed blankets, I had my best night’s sleep, which was not saying much.           

            I was first up and wandered around. The weather had been terrible during the night, and it was still raining and very windy. Alejandro, a guide associated with our group, had spent the night in a tent outside and woke up to find nearly a foot of water in one corner. By the time we’d packed and finished breakfast the weather had settled some. It was still very windy at times, but not raining as much. We were to do the left part of the W that day, and at the end, board a boat that would take us near the glaciers and back to a drop off point from which we would hike to meet a bus back to Eco Camp. We were optimistic about the boat until we reached the halfway point, at which time Danny radioed the boat and was told it was way too rough for them to come out for the voyage. At the same time we were trying to take in the views of the glaciers from a look out while dealing with the hardest winds of my life. The strongest gusts had to be near 100mph. Most people were posing for pictures bending way into the wind or videos of their pants flapping (Photo of Andrew and I posing in the high winds). It was an interesting spot, but I really love glaciers and couldn’t hide my disappointment we wouldn’t be seeing them up close.

            Instead, we did plan B, which was hike back to the lodge and then catch a different boat, on a different lake, to a different place where we would hike and do some sightseeing. After lunch the boat came, and it looked too small for the large crowd waiting there. We had to sit on the roof, and I was prepped for the worst wind and cold of the journey, but it wasn’t bad at all and we had a good time cruising over. Photos from the boat. This seemed to lighten everyone’s mood.

            Once there we walked to view a nearby waterfall, an area that had lots of trails to scurry over. Photo of waterfall.                                          

We saw and did what we could there and took the bus back to the eco camp. Everyone was still in a good mood. I got a chance to talk to Alejandro and he was very nice. He’d heard I wanted to run and pointed out a trail just outside the eco camp that went up into the mountains. I was so excited to get back to camp and change and run! It felt like home!

            The trail was fantastic: muddy and impassable in parts but with lots of other optional routes carved out. I passed hikers going both directions who seemed surprised to see me. It was supposed to rain so when the wind picked up and a drizzle started, I got wary, but it never panned out and I was fine the whole time, if not underdressed. I was elated again when I got back from those five miles.

            I didn’t have much time, though, as I was going to go to yoga there soon (they had a yoga tent and fairly regular classes). I did my own post-run stretching and showered, then headed over there. I had a hard time finding it and was a few minutes late. There were three women taking the class (a fourth showed up much later), two from our groups, and the yoga instructor, who was a very pretty girl (Alejandro had pointed her out to me, saying she was the ugly girl there when our bus pulled in. I said she was so ugly I could not stop looking at her.). I am very inflexible, and I was continually laughing at that deficiency as I struggled through the maneuvers and poses. It was very relaxing, though, and at some point I achieved a conscious state of mind-blankness that was quite pleasant. I talked to the instructor briefly about how I’d never done yoga before while I was putting on my shoes – very nice, and made me sad I wouldn’t be able to do the yoga again before I left.

            The high spirits continued that night amongst us as we had a lively dinner and conversation before heading back to our tents. I was so happy to put my iPod on and READ! One thing had come up while we were away that I needed to settle. I was under the impression we did not return to the US until the 24th, but everyone else said they were leaving a day earlier. When I finally got access to our travel documents again we were to arrive in Newark the 23rd  after all. I had made all the plans correctly and remembered the dates wrong! What a relief. So, a great day! It was satisfying in so many ways despite not getting the boat to the glaciers.

            When I am in a mood like that, it is often hard for me to sleep. That was the case that night. Andrew was coughing some, which didn’t help, and it was quite chilly in the tent after it got dark. I was under every possible layer of blankets, which is saying something, and finally was warm enough (I had them pulled over my bald head with a space to allow air in and out). At some point in the middle of the night, I thought it might help me sleep if I peed. The problem was it was really cold, and I didn’t want to have to go outside, even if that meant peeing right next to the tent. I debated my options a while and finally determined I would pee in one of my spare water bottles without going outside. I hoped Andrew was asleep (he was) and I moved around outside my blankets to try to accomplish this as quickly as possible. It was not easy in the dark, and my fear of peeing all over made things go even slower (it is also not easy to pee with a 50 year old prostate when it is really cold). Finally I was rid of as much as I could and sealed up the bottle and put it aside (I emptied it and cleaned the bottle first thing in the morning). I crawled back into the warm bed and did fall asleep, deep enough I had to be awakened by my alarm, a rarity.

            It was REALLY cold in the tent then. I kept looking at the plastic window, as something seemed odd about it, and it finally registered that it was partially covered with ice! I put a fairly warm running outfit on and went outside to head to the bathroom. There was snow everywhere, about a half inch of icy snow! The day before the summer solstice! We were around the 51st parallel south, the equivalent of Calgary and London, and not at high altitudes (less than 1000ft), so it was quite remarkable. I went back in the tent and got my camera for some pictures and videos. Photo of tent with ice and snow on it.

On my way to the bathroom, I saw P outside and he told me there was a fox right behind his tent. I couldn’t see the fox easily, so I went into the bathroom to get ready to run (there was a small area between the two entrances that was enclosed and covered, though not warm). When I was ready to go I followed the fox tracks around the camp for a bit but could not find it (we saw it later. It also got sprayed by a skunk that morning). Photo of fox getting sprayed, courtesy of P.

            It was a beautiful, sunny morning otherwise and I had a most enjoyable run back the way of the first day’s hike. I did 5 miles, really feeling it in my legs, probably from the harder run and yoga the afternoon before (and sleep deprivation).

            Today was to be an easy day, as the last big hike was postponed a day due to poor weather up in the mountains. Instead we were to go for a hike in an area where the guanacos were numerous, see some interesting coral formations, and get a feel for the non-mountainous areas near the park. We didn’t leave until 10, so I had a little time to do even more reading.

            The bus dropped us at a fairly barren area (Photos of the scenery and guanacos) and we tramped up the grassy terrain until there were lots of guanacos, none of which would let us nearer than 20 feet or so. There was often a fence to our left as we walked, and that area was home to many guanaco skeletons of various sizes, all apparently victims of the pumas, the apex predators there (they would chase the guanacos to the fence, and the ones that couldn’t jump it were easy prey). There were very pretty vistas all along, especially with the snow still in the higher elevations. We walked without much purpose, enjoying not having a destination or big agenda for the day.

We approached a scenic lake (Photo), and the bus took us to a place where we were supposed to walk over the grass to the beach. I was walking with Alejandro and we soon got into near quicksand-like mud and swampy grass. “Alejandro, where are you taking us!?” I chided him cheerfully. He rerouted us more to our left where it was a bit drier and we made it through a guanaco herd (photo) to the lakeshore, which was covered by huge boulder-like pieces of coral called thrombolites (photo). We spent an inordinate amount of time there, in a brisk wind, time I spent trying to skip a stone on the heavy surf (I managed only one skip out of many tries).

            After walking back we took the bus to the blue lagoon. This was a lake with a small lodge where we ate lunch and used the toilets.  We hiked afterwards to a hillside with a nice view, where we also did a group photo (photo of view and group)

            We started to head back, stopping briefly (but not as brief as it should have been) at an area where the guanacos were breeding, actively as it turned out. The females are fertile within weeks of giving birth, and most of the young ones had been born in the last 4 weeks. From there it was a brief ride to a waterfall (photo) that was a bit bigger than the other one we’d seen the day before. It was windy and cold, but bearable, and we all milled about. At one point the trainee guide, Consuela, attempted a maneuver on the cables serving as a safety barrier and went right over, landing flat on her back on the small bit of land between the barriers and the cliff to the falls. Everyone was startled, but she shook it right off and moved on.                                   

            We had another nice dinner before adjourning to our tents to prep for our big hike the next day: up to the towers after which the park is named, somewhere between 12 and 14 miles total, the right side of the W. I had been waiting to use a new Camelbak pack I’d bought with more room for gear than my first one, which just had small pouches for keys and cereal bars, etc. I could easily fit all I wanted in it and about 100 ounces of water, more than enough for a hike that long.

            After a frustrating night of trying to sleep with Andrew coughing most of the time, I crawled out of bed around 5:30am and went for a run. That turned the tide for the better right off the bat. I went up into the hills near the camp on the trail I’d enjoyed and went farther (I would have loved to go even farther than that, but not enough time). It opened up into a pleasant valley on the other side at about the turnaround for 5 miles.

            There was a bit of wishy-washiness about our departure. We all were gung ho, but the weather report suggested only a small, maybe one hour window at the towers where they would be visible, so we did a tour of the camp, including the composting facilities and the employees’ quarters, and then finally left around 10am. We followed the trail from the first day and turned up into the hills. There were three pretty good climbs to a high point and then a descent to the campsite along the stream where we would take our first break.

       It was a very pretty trail at times (photo looking back and looking toward the camp) and I was full of energy, so Danny told me I could go as fast as I wanted to the camp. I thought Andrew and the others were with me, but when I turned around at the top of the last climb they were nowhere to be seen. I waited a while, but then set off at the pace I like to go and motored through to the camp, stopping only for an occasional photo and to let a thundering group of pack horses and their riders pass (the camp, or “refugio” is entirely supplied by horses).

            We were told we would have to pay to use the toilets at the campsite, so I waited for Danny to turn up. He said to go anywhere, so I went behind the buildings by a waterfall and noticed a guy wagging his finger at me as I walked back to the group.

            The next part of the hike wound through trees, with occasional crossings over the now narrow stream, moving steadily upward. As we neared the area called the moraine, or boulder field, near the top, it started to snow lightly. Once we moved out of the trees, it was snowing harder, and as we got about halfway up the rocky part, it was nearly a white out: we could see only a short distance and the wind blown snow was all over us. Still we trusted Alejandro and Danny – there would be a window around 2pm.

            We kept going up; the trail was said to be steep, but I’d been on much worse. I took a pause to look around and noticed the sun trying to break through the clouds and made the pronouncement aloud to everyone. I was sure things were going to be fine. And they were. The terrain at the top was very interesting, mostly rock, with large and small boulders strewn around. The trail was easy to follow, with frequent orange topped poles along it. With little warning, we arrived at the scenic lookout. (multiple photos of the view of the towers and lake)It was well worth it! The sun was indeed peeking out, the wind had calmed to rarely experienced zephyrs, and the towers in all their glory loomed before us!  The area had quite a few people milling about, posing for and taking pictures, and eating, all while chattering excitedly about the place. After the chill and the snow, I couldn’t get over how calm it was. Andrew bolted up the rocks to a higher area and I moved gingerly among them to a spot where I could eat in peace near H and R. Just then a German-speaking couple moved right next to me and chattered loudly for several minutes about what to do. They both were nearly touching me. So much for relaxing in nature.

     Still exhilarated, I moved back to the beginning of the way down and waited for others to make their moves. H, R and Andrew all quickly decided to go, so I told them I would stay in the rear so they would keep me from going too fast on the way down. I paused to take this picture (photo of Andrew barely visible in the rocks) and shoot some video, and they were gone.

     R had on a colorful hat, and I occasionally saw it, but I kept getting behind other groups and had to pick my way past them without being overly rude. I was going quite fast, slightly outside my comfort zone, and I was sure I would come upon them, but I didn’t. I thought they might wait at the entrance back into the trees, but they did not. Had I passed them? Should I go back and see?

            I pressed on, nearly running when I could, rarely taking a sip from the Camelbak, getting around the slow moving hikers as quickly as I could. It seemed to take forever, but when I looked at my watch, I was making fantastic time. I thought I might make it back to the eco camp by 5pm, only 2.5 hours after taking 4 hours on the way up.

            I arrived back at the camp area and was striding briskly through it when I heard, “Uncle Terry!” Startled, I stopped and turned to see where that had come from. It was Andrew, sitting on a bench working on his shoes. I’d walked right past him. I was a bit surprised he had been in front of me; I am a very fast hiker, but not as fast going downhill, so maybe that explained it. He told me he’d been having anxiety attacks as H had taken off so fast he couldn’t keep up and he’d never seen R, who was behind him, since getting into the woods. He decided to keep going and made it that far before taking a break.

            I was very relieved to have found him and happy to have his company the rest of the way. We set off quickly and went fast the whole way, fast enough to even have me feeling a little tired at times. We were always looking for H and R, but we never saw them, even when we could see for a mile or so in front of us. I was sure they’d stopped and somehow we’d missed them. They were good hikers, but nothing I’d seen suggested they could go that fast.

            It had been warm on the way down, enough so I’d taken off layers, but the nearer we got to the valley floor, the colder and windier it got. Finally, after passing a slow moving woman with poles, we were trying to get our jackets on and she pushed right through us so we had to pass her again! We covered the last 2 miles on the flats fast, but then Andrew hit the wall on the steep climbs to the eco camp. Tired and pleased, we thought we were the first ones back. It had taken us 2:45 to get down from the viewing area. I had held pee the whole way down and was very glad to go, and Andrew took a shower. When I was getting dressed after showering, R walked in with his shower stuff. He said he’d been back for a while, but H had stopped at the hotel they were going to the next day and also showered and had been reading for 30 minutes before R arrived. I humorously accused him of being FOS; there was no way H had been able to beat us down by that much!

            At our meeting before and all during dinner (group photo), I kept going back to H and his amazing journey down, waiting for him to crack and admit he didn’t do it that quickly, but he insisted he had used his poles to rocket down, going very quickly the whole time. I began to believe him. P had seen a puma right at the junction of the trails, a point Andrew and I had crossed no more than an hour before them. We tried to have a little cocktail hour outside, but it was too chilly. A big condor flew right over us as we sat there. We all thought there was supposed to be a disco night, but every time it was mentioned we got no response. I went back to the tent after we finished eating, but Andrew hung out in the bar with the rest. Apparently some of the other group that did things with us really partied hard nearly every night. I would have gone if I’d known, but there weren’t any cute girls there to motivate me much.                                  

            I slept in the next morning, planning to run back in Punta Arenas and getting some sleep as Andrew coughed a bit less and I was tired enough to sleep through some of it. We left after breakfast around 9am. One of the girls had to catch a flight that day, so she was very tense and had a short fuse about delays, though the guides reassured her over and over that there was only one flight and she would be able to get to the plane very quickly once there. We stopped in Puerto Natales again and ate lunch. I bought some snacks before we left and gave Danny a big tip (I had tipped rather generously everywhere else as well - they all deserved it, though it was a bit of stress trying to ration my money out – I got back to the USA with an empty wallet). The trip otherwise was even more boring than the trip out.

            We were dropped off at our hotel at 2:30 and I was out on a run by 3pm. It was VERY windy, but not that cold. I was in a long sleeved shirt and shorts, but everyone else looked bundled up for winter. I again ran five miles along the water and stopped to do some exercises at the beachside exercise areas. It felt weird to be back in civilization.

            H&R, who’d stayed behind at the hotel near the Eco Camp, told us the cemetery in Punta Arenas was interesting, so we walked over there once we were cleaned up. An American guide who’d ridden back with us recommended a restaurant near there, so we hoped to include that in our walk. The cemetery was indeed interesting; large tombs with elaborate decorations. I told Andrew, “They like their dead much more than we do.”  (last photo)                                 

     The restaurant was closed (it was 6pm) when we got to it, so we wandered around for a while and then went back to the hotel, where the restaurant didn’t open until 7pm. We had another excellent meal there, which revived me from a sudden attack of fatigue while we were waiting for our food.

            Andrew spent most of the evening on the internet, chatting with his girlfriend for a long time and coming in after I’d already gone to bed after finishing repacking. I was beat and barely had the patience to put up with his coughing for another night, which went on for a long, long time, including while he was sitting in bed looking at his phone. I didn’t know he was doing that until the phone rang. He didn’t answer it so I had to, knocking a pillow off the bed while I did so. No answer, but I took in the tableau of him coughing and looking at his phone while I had my eyes open. I then reached with my eyes closed for the pillow on the floor and hit my head hard against the wall next to the bed. It was a long night.

            Initially we were told the shuttle to the airport would pick us up at 7am, but there was a note under the door they were not coming until 8am, which was much better. I went back to bed but couldn’t sleep. We ate and did our last rituals before the car picked us up. Now, we were back at the mercy of the airlines and passport people.

            The first sign of trouble was at check in in Punta Arenas. The woman at the desk was young and had an older woman helping her. They struggled for a while and then told us they could not check our bags all the way through to Newark because that section of the trip was on another airline. I told them we only had a short layover there and it would be very hard for us to get our bags and recheck them, but they told us it was not hard and someone would be there to help us. I was skeptical, but what options did I have?

            Our first flight left late, but we had a long layover in Santiago that got used up quickly when there were no signs telling us where to go (two floors up or down, I can’t remember, but we did both several times). Finally Andrew talked to a guy out on the street amongst the crowds and he told him where to go, but the guy kept telling me to calm down and pointed repeatedly to his ID for some reason (perhaps it was my wild-eyed staring at him). We did find the floor for departures. I talked to an agent about our bags and trying to move our flight to Lima up, but there were no earlier ones we could make. We also had to go through passport control again. It took well over an hour, and this time we went to the window together.

            The plane was already there when we got to the gate. We knew it could not be delayed or we were screwed with our Lima connection, so at least that wasn’t a problem. We waited a long time and Andrew kept going up to the counter to see what was going on, as they seemed to be doing everything but getting us on the plane to leave. We left a little late but arrived in Lima a few minutes early. Now it gets bad. Again, there were no signs. There was a woman standing at an entry point into a queue who didn’t speak English well but said, I think, that to get our bags we had to go through passport control, then baggage claim, then customs, then go back outside to the entrance to check them in and go through passport control again. I was smoking mad as we lined up for passport control, and fortunately the line was short.

            The woman at passport control seemed confused. Were we the first passengers ever to have to recheck their bags? After discussing our situation at length, she said she was not going to allow us through; instead we should go to the LAN airline desk (there, I said it. They SUCK!!!!) and get them to get our bags for us. All of this was taking a considerable amount of time.

            At the LAN desk, we got the same guy who’d switched our Santiago flight when we’d arrived there on the way down. He said he took care of everything; they’d found our bags and were taking them to the United plane. We should check with United in 15 minutes.

            We still did not have boarding passes, so we went through security and ran to the gate, which was fairly far. Finally, while we were running, it dawned on us there was no reason to run at that point. Andrew seemed to be having a panic attack, though it couldn’t be a panic attack because we had plenty of reasons to be anxious. We got to the counter at the gate with some trouble and got through to a woman who was very calm and figured out what we needed quickly. We got our boarding passes and were told to check back in a bit about our bags. I got ready for the flight with tooth brushing and ablutions while Andrew tried to chill. We checked back in about 20 minutes, as they were starting to board some passengers, and the bags had not made it. Still, we had. They actually searched our carry- ons before we boarded and then we were off.

            A United rep in Newark told me that we had to wait at baggage claim until it was obvious our bags didn’t make it, so we did (about 45 minutes total), and then we were able to go through customs and to the baggage problem desk. While we were in baggage claim it was announced another United flight from Brazil had not been loaded with all the bags, so a large number of people from that flight were in line with us. We got things sorted as best we could, getting a claim number to follow, and we took the train to the shuttle bus stop. From there it was to the hotel, where Andrew got a cup of coffee and we headed home on an uneventful journey except for me fighting sleep a lot. Our bags were delivered three days later (the 26th of December), with mine arriving first; the delivery guy had grabbed the wrong bag for Andrew and another guy had to drive down from Wilkes Barre in the afternoon with it, ending the saga of my Patagonia adventure. We both kept journals on little moleskine notebooks I’d bought for that purpose, and I’ve since made a video which is on youtube at:

http://youtu.be/T7vQ-ggEq7g

Having been to many scenic places, I would suggest anyone who was interested in such a trip first go to Iceland. It is beautiful (the women especially), not that cold (but windy), with good flights, easy travel and lots to see. New Zealand is as pretty as Patagonia but a much longer flight with a big time zone difference. You would need much more time there. Patagonia is for the stout of heart, but it was a great, great adventure, and I would see if you could get flights on a different airline than LAN. I try to find the humor in everything, and I hope you found this funny, but it wasn’t as funny as I’d like it to be, but because it is so long I kept out some humor. If you think I should put it in, let me know in the comments.

Running in Delhi, 2013

Running in Delhi

         When I came up with this title (pretty hard work), I hoped it wouldn’t be ironic.  I was heading to India for the second time in early March of 2013 and was hoping our travel schedule would allow me time for a run most mornings.  I received a schedule from my friends, Aby and Shoba Philip, whom I’d met and worked with for over two years at Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki, Swaziland in the early-mid 2000s, but I couldn’t really understand it well, and apparently it had already been changed several times.

         The chance of irony increased when I contracted influenza from a patient in mid-February.  I missed three days of work, unheard of for me, and had a fever for 8 straight days.  I had roughly ten days once the fever stopped to recuperate, but while doing that appeared to develop a sinus infection.  My running was reduced, before leaving, to a tight-hamstringed jog in the early March chill of Pennsylvania and an abbreviated track workout at the track on the east side of Manhattan at about 6th St the day I left.  The doctors with whom I’d been working had each written me a prescription for antibiotics on my last day at work (at which point I had been ill for 2 weeks), but when I went to get them filled the next day, the cheap generic drug Doxycycline had jumped in price to over $100 for 20, and another antibiotic, the generic of Augmentin, was even more expensive than that (I don’t have health insurance or a prescription plan – that is another story).  I wasn’t feeling THAT bad, so I didn’t get either medication and thought, if things got worse, I could always get something in India, the home of many huge generic pharmaceutical companies.

         Running, though important for my overall and mental wellbeing, was always going to be a sideshow anyway in a country like India.  India is not known for its sports or its devotion to fitness.  It is dead last in Olympic medals per capita (Of countries that have won medals.  Australia is usually #1), and, though it fields competitive cricket, field hockey and badminton teams, they are about it.  It is safe to say no one who is fit has gone to India and returned in better fitness.  I was in really good shape, even for me, before I got ill, and the illness took some of the pressure off because I wouldn’t need to do anything extreme, but I would at the least need to try to regain some level of conditioning while eating all that Indian food.

         I landed in Delhi after a 14 hour flight from JFK; the flight itself was not bad, but the seats on the undisclosed airline were very uncomfortable.  The highlight for me was a quite long and in depth explanation of how the airplane toilet worked and what was allowed to go into it during the safety video.  As best I could tell when I used the bathroom, the passengers took that video message to mean everything went on the floor. 

A driver met me outside the terminal, and he quickly immersed us in Delhi traffic, something no one from the USA would adjust to driving in easily.  There are apparently only two traffic laws in India: don’t hit anyone and don’t let anyone hit you.  Anything else goes, and it appears really close calls are the norm (and perhaps even the goal).  The only saving grace is that it mostly unfolds at low speeds, but enough bad things happen that India easily contends for the world lead in traffic fatalities.

         We eased into a very narrow alley and about halfway down pulled close to a brownish façade.  Time to get out – it was my hotel.  It was also about 4:45pm in Delhi (India made the odd choice of making its overall time 30 minutes faster or slower than it otherwise would be; Delhi was 9.5 hours ahead of NYC as best I could tell, and the time remained the same throughout the large country).  After the usual check-in confusion, including needing to hand over my passport so someone could take it to be photocopied for their records, I was taken in the coffin-sized elevator up two floors to my room, where the magnetic card system never responded to anything but a master keycard (every time I needed to get in I had to get someone with the master keycard to come there).

         I had no idea before I got there what kind of surroundings I would be in while staying in Delhi, and my hopes for a quiet, somewhat suburban locale were very much dashed.  Even the narrow alley was abuzz with chatting men, honking horns, rickshaws, and barking dogs, and there did not appear to be anything but dense city around there.  I had no difficulty in dissuading myself from an afternoon run in the kind of chaos we’d just traversed (it had taken about 10 minutes to cover the last half mile), so I unpacked and then ordered room service, trying to stay awake at least until 9pm so I might have a chance of sleeping through the night.

         The room service food was quite good and very cheap; I even got some ice cream.  The room was a comfortable temperature and had some ambient noise from the nearby elevator shaft and the plumbing, so I easily fell asleep, but after midnight the incessant barking from the legion of stray dogs in the alley made me get up to search for and insert my ear plugs, which helped a little.

         I was up early, well before the sun, and I debated the best way to try to run.  It was better to wait until it was light so I could see where I was so as to remember, and maybe there would be enough people about to distract the stray dogs from their instinctual excitement upon seeing a human running.  I like dogs, but I have been chased and harassed by enough dogs around the world to at least respect and possibly be mildly afraid of what a stimulated canine can do to a bare-legged human.  It was with some trepidation I departed the hotel, holding the hotel’s business card in case I got lost or run over, and after a false start as the desk clerk tried to get me to run in the small (I am talking average suburban back yard-sized) park right across from the hotel which was fortunately locked, I started to walk up the alley.  My GPS watch fired up surprisingly quickly, but I walked to near the intersection with what had been a crowded market when I arrived.  There were a few barks from the strays in the market as I jogged around the corner and started to increase the pace in the market, heading to my right.  There was a stray dog about every 50 feet, but they all looked like they would only chase me if I held an already prepared meal for them; they were up for no challenges.

         The market ended in a T-junction with a busy divided road; the sidewalk on my side was not promising either way, so I crossed during a lull and ran into the traffic on and off the sidewalk.  There was little traffic at this hour and I started to relax.  I noted a sign on the right for a hospital and found there to be a wide, well-sidewalked, divided road heading to it.  I took that.

         Just as my elation at finding so nice a place was ascending, there was a road construction project in my way.  Several wiry Indian men were standing and squatting on their heels (a very common posture there, one few Americans could sustain) around a metal asphalt cooker and piles of gravel.  I was able to get around it without trouble by scooting to the opposite sidewalk, but I was quickly coming to the end of this relatively peaceful road and had barely gone a mile, so I was going to have to turn.

         Turn I did, onto the least crowded alley there, heading to my right.  That got more crowded, most notably with a pack of 6 or 7 dogs, so I turned again, then again, then headed back and through another junction, until it seemed like I would hit 4 miles back in the quiet, dog-filled market near the hotel, which was my goal.  Along the way, I saw goats and cows grazing on the garbage in the streets.  There was hardly a blade of grass for them otherwise.

         I saw the bus for my travel company in the market; that was my landmark for my turn back into the hotel alley.  I started to walk down it but it became obvious it was the wrong alley when my hotel failed to appear.  Rather than go back past the people I’d passed already, I kept going, thinking there would be a right turn soon and then I could double back that way.  Of course, when I took the right, I forgot how small that alley was, so I was wandering about, just a block away geographically, but very far by every other measure.  Not one to ask directions, it took some hard swallowing to ask a scruffy looking guy, and he called to a young man who came running over.  They peered at the hotel business card intently.  The young man then vaguely pointed in the direction I knew I would have to go: back to the market.

         It wasn’t far, and I saw the travel company’s bus again.  This time there was a man washing the windshield, so I asked him and he pointed out the narrow alley I’d overlooked.  There were now 2 buses parked there, with the alley between them; that was how I was fooled.

         After cleaning up and a light breakfast of a spicy omelet (I am a cereal guy, but there wasn’t a chance of getting any decent muesli anywhere), I headed out with my driver from the day before.  His goal was to entertain me until we met my friends at the airport at around 11am.  He took me to a temple, which, other than being my first one, was most memorable for a guard asking me for a tip right under a big sign that said, in essence, “NO TIPPING!”  I gave him a few of the rupees I brought along from my last visit with some hemming and hawing.  All he’d done was show me where to stow my shoes for the two minutes I’d walked around in my socks (many countries and some of my friends’ parents are anti-shoes-inside.  Considering what goes on in and just above most Indian dirt, I couldn’t blame the Indian people for thinking shoes were dirty and perhaps unholy.). I did not exchange any money otherwise since the Philips were planning to pay for everything and then have me reimburse them when I got home.

         Otherwise the less time I spent in that traffic, the better.  We ended up waiting at the airport a while longer than the driver had planned because I didn’t want to go to any more sites without the Philips.  That way I was less likely to offend anyone or be taken advantage of, and more likely to actually understand what I was seeing.

         I was very happy when they finally walked out the door of the domestic terminal.  Standing around with a bunch of drivers is less than bracing company, but the whole scene was peculiar enough that time passed relatively quickly. We got back to the car quickly, passing a sign in the garage that said, among other things, “NO SPITTING!  NO COOKING!” and were on our way.

 Our first stop was a lovely set of ruins which also contained the tallest minaret in India, an impressive brick structure, and the iron pole, a 24 foot tall iron pole forged around 1300 years ago that has never rusted and leaves modern metallurgists puzzled as to why.

         We were hungry and asked our guide/driver to take us somewhere nice.  It was called the Red Onion, and they served red onions and dipping sauce for an appetizer (good!). The food was good and I was quite pleased.

         Another temple filled some time, and then we were taken to a government textile mill, which I am sure is a standard stop on the guide tours and gets them a nice kickback.  I bought a bunch of nice scarves for all the women in the family.  After a brief drive around the government buildings, we endured the slog back to the hotel.  Aby wanted to see the area, so we went for a walk around to decompress from the traffic. He and Shoba were interested in shopping; I was not, but I rationalized it would be nice to return with some presents.

         We parted for the night with them wanting to go back out to have a look around and me ordering room service again (pretty good yet again).  We had to depart early the next morning (the plan was for 6am), so I wasn’t going to run, and after a rough, noisy night I could only muster a quick set of exercises in the room and on the stairs.

         We wanted to leave early to get a jump on the traffic, as we were heading on the main road south.  My sinuses were worse, so I said something to Aby that morning, and at 6:30am he queued up at a chemists near the hospital I’d run by and bought me ten days of doxycycline with a probiotic included in each pill for slightly over $1US total.  Quite a savings (Americans are generally not in on the secret they fund the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of the world).

         The ride was infuriating, frustrating, fascinating, dangerous, and fatiguing.  The road was sometimes three lanes, sometimes one, and had so many construction projects (12? 20? In only 140 miles!) where not a single soul was doing anything I was slackjawed (I only saw one person working at any of the sites: someone driving a backhoe).  The trucks, or lorries, were to keep to less than 30km/hr, about 20mph, and they frequently got into the “fast lane” to avoid the weaving and bobbing of the other vehicles, so we were left to what other lanes were there and the shoulders.  Oh, the shoulders!  Full of bumps and dust, bicycles, rickshaws, both human propelled and with 2 stroke engines belching smoke, camel-driven carts, horse-driven carts, ox-driven carts, and resting cows (also in the road at times), but somehow so appealing to our driver he had trouble staying away from those shoulders.  Throw in buses by the score and you have an ever changing, near Brownian motion of vehicles, only occasionally thrust even deeper into chaos by cars, trucks and buses coming THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION IN ONE OF THE LANES!

         For those of you who have not had the opportunity to experience Indian traffic firsthand, let me try to explain it.  You know the annoying guy (usually it is a guy, but occasionally a woman), usually in an Acura, BMW, or beat up Honda Civic with a rear spoiler and two hubcaps missing, who weaves in and out of each lane, cutting everyone off in selfish pursuit of shortening his journey by precious seconds?  Imagine then EVERYONE driving like that ALL THE TIME.  What would result in a fistfight, a windshield being broken by a nine iron, a fender-bender every 5 seconds in Los Angeles, Atlanta, or Boston occurs about five times every second on Indian highways, and no one ever shouts, gives the finger, or throws anything.  They honk their horns, yes, and nearly constantly, but in a way that says, “I’m here, I see you, and let’s keep moving while I try to get by, thank you very much.”  They are somehow completely selfish in their pursuit of the next meter in front of them and fully cooperating with everyone else in order to keep a catastrophe from occurring.  It is like there is a voice in each driver’s head saying, “Me, me, me, me, me, ok, you, me, me, you, you, me, me, me, me, you, you, you, me, me, me, me….”

         In order to drive like that you have to have an excellent grasp of momentum and the dimensions of your vehicle, and most of them do when the flow is good.  It doesn’t take much to throw it off, though, and those things are happening all the time (there were, for instance, three overturned trucks/lorries en route).  Yet, somehow the pedestrians seem to be unafraid to walk along the edge of the road and expect the vehicles all to go around them without mowing them down. I didn’t see a single pedestrian injured while there, but that doesn’t excuse them from all the chances they took. 

         After two hours we stopped for a breakfast of pirattas.  I went behind the restaurant to pee, but that was in clear view of a man driving a tractor and a window into the kitchen, so I warily went into the toilet stall.  My mission was accomplished, but it would have been better to have a stadium full of people watching me than to go back into that stall.  After another 3-4 hours (and four toll booths), we reached the outskirts of Jaipur, where we met a guide who displaced me into the back seat.  He wore a red trucker cap and plaid shirt and spoke his prepared remarks in intelligible English.  We headed to the Amber Fort, a place of which I had not heard, and on the way were entertained by a seemingly endless line of elephants with men riding on their backs in the other direction on the narrow streets.

         Our arrival was disorienting, as we drove up a steep hill to a gate where there were cars and people everywhere.  The guide took charge and herded us inside with only moderate confusion.

         I saw many interesting and inspiring things while in India, but the Amber Fort was the single most impressive thing. The yellow-orange walls were part of a remarkably designed and built complex of buildings all surrounded by an astounding set of walls reminiscent of China’s Great Wall: the hills around the site were criss-crossed with the walls and occasional guard turrets.  I could have spent several days wandering around all the buildings.  The detailed decorations were beautiful, often flecked with reflective pieces of metal, glass or enamel.  They managed their water and the flow of the prevailing winds to have a cooler side and a warmer side to move to in the various seasons.

         From there we drove briefly to a lower palace, the Jal Mahal, that was out in a lake. Two floors of it were under water, apparently intentionally as best I could tell (it was built before a dam nearby was finished).  It was being restored, so we could only appreciate it from afar.  We had lunch at a relatively posh place and then headed to another World Heritage site, Jantar Mantar.

         Jantar Mantar is a fascinating place designed and built by an eminent astronomer and mathematician in the 1600s. It had multiple huge sundials that were accurate to within a minute or two of current time and several other puzzle like constructions that showed the astrological signs among other things.  The precision was stunning.

         Finally we walked a short distance to the old city hall, where I saw snake charmers for the first time, and a beautiful museum with, among other things, huge silver water ewers taken by the king when he went to England for a coronation so he could drink only water from India the entire journey.

         We stayed in a touristy part of Jaipur at a very nice hotel.  It had an exercise room, so I quickly put my stuff away and went down to it.  I only had 30 minutes, so I ran for 10 minutes on a treadmill, only my second time doing that, and did some push-ups and balance ball work before showering and meeting Aby and Shoba for a walk down the street for dinner, which we ate at a promenade-ish place with several stands, including an ice creamery.  Aby quickly got ill when we got back and threw up, but I was only a bit squeamish through the night (our only dodgy meal).

         After a noisy night during which I called to complain about the racket people were making in the hall between 2 and 3am, I was up early again (4:41am) for a quick treadmill run before we started another brutal drive.  Our driver spent the night in the car.  He showed the ability that we would see in every driver: the ability to sleep anywhere (one we found asleep on the floor of a concrete gazebo, and he was hard to wake up). This drive was four hours, to the area around Agra. This highway was not as busy and perhaps a little more scenic, passing a huge area dedicated to brick-making and lots of piles of cow dung arranged for sale in attractive ways (take my word for it). Cow dung is often used as fuel for heat and cooking (I can only imagine the flavors it imparts).

         Our first stop was before the city of Agra in Fatehpur where there is another ancient fort.  Made mostly of red brick, it was impressive but paled in comparison to the Amber Fort.  The guide here was a thin, elderly man who was curt, if not unpleasant.  After we viewed the fort, which did not take long, he walked us over to another fort-like structure which also contained a famous (?) white mosque, where, if we went in and did everything correctly, we would DEFINITELY get three wishes granted.  The guide was a bit evasive about the details, but he kept alluding to them and the allure of that granted wish.  He seemed to think I would wish for a wife when he was told I was single.  He also emphasized that the walk over was very treacherous, as the beggars were also pickpockets, so we needed to protect everything we had.

         I walked quickly over and ignored any solicitations, making it unscathed.  Aby and Shoba, however, didn’t follow my plan and were surrounded by a small swarm of young people trying to get them to buy various items.  I had to laugh when he got to me and had some DVDs.  He is a soft touch at times.  While I certainly felt sorrow for children forced (?) to beg, rather than be in school or doing whatever children their age should be doing, I had almost no money and even less patience for that activity (perhaps it is unChristlike, but I have the feeling everyone begging is running a scam).

After the usual hassle about shoes and where to put them, we entered the buildings.  The plaza inside was huge, with the white mosque on the right side about 100 yards away.  There was another big mosque on the left side.  The guide took us around to the right under a balcony, where it was relatively dark, and told us he was taking us to a man who would help us with what we needed for the white mosque. As we reached him, Aby and Shoba suddenly became very reluctant to participate but encouraged me to, saying they were Christians and didn’t want to pray in a mosque.  The guide then focused all his attention on me, to my dismay, and started explaining a little more to me about things.  He then told me to sit down in front of a skinny man who had a pile of cloths in front of him and some other items. I sat uncomfortably on the floor and listened as the guide told me I needed to take a certain cloth inside the white mosque as the first part of the ritual that would DEFINITELY grant me my wishes, and then the man started to flip through the cloths.  At some point, it was mentioned the cloth I needed would cost me $90, at which point I leapt to my feet in a fury and said, “What is going on here!”

Taken aback, and perhaps a bit worried I might attack him, the guide gathered himself and thought his best strategy was further negotiation.  He tried to lower the price and offer another cloth, and my questions about what happened to the cloth, i.e. did I get to keep it, were ignored.  Finally, shaking my head and exasperated, I told him I wanted no part of it, and he then took us, every person steaming including himself, outside to meet the driver and leave.  It left a bad taste in our mouths about that place, which otherwise would have been a nice memory.

The drive to Agra from there took longer than we’d hoped.  We met a new guide there, a most pleasant young man who explained in perhaps more detail than we needed how he was an official guide who’d gone through special training to work there.  He was a bit too much of everything, but he was so much better than the last guy I cut him a swath of slack.

He took us to the queue to get in the Taj Mahal: huge.  BUT, since I was a foreign tourist, we got to go right to the front, and I was given the privilege of paying 37.5 times what Aby and Shoba paid to get in (750 rupees to their 20).  But as usual, in addition to the exorbitant fee, there was a catch: I was not allowed to take any pictures or video after a certain point, and we had to pay a professional photographer who had rights to shoot on the grounds for the rest of the photos.

         We made our way in through the crowds.  The photographer popped up after briefly disappearing and took photos of us apart and together at one spot near the gateway to the Taj.  Then we went through the gateway and it came into view.  It is breathtaking; so brilliantly white and well made, with immaculate grounds and pools and with so many people milling about.  I took a few still shots, then one panning video and had to take my camera to a guy who locked it in a locker and gave me the number.

         We moved out to go to the Taj, but the photographer took us (mostly me) and made me do various standard poses at various standard spots.  I was not that pleased: first it was embarrassing; second, he was very aggressive in pushing me right to the front and into the way of others (one photo had me standing on a bench and holding my hand like I had the tip of the Taj in my fingers, for example).

         Finally we made it to the site and got in the line to go in.  It moved quickly.  There were no photos allowed inside; this was where the woman the king loved the most was buried, or at least, remembered.  Still, there was a Russian-looking guy who kept taking cell phone shots.  People were arguing with him, but he would not stop.  A guard confronted him but still he wouldn’t stop, and the guard started to punch and hit him, but he still kept taking photos.  He made Americans look good.

         When we got outside, Shoba felt her blood sugar drop, so we hurried to the exit to buy her something.  The guide, who’d stayed close to me the whole time, pestered and pestered me so I finally gave him a $20 tip (He said an American couple from Texas had given him $140 the day before.  He said he wanted to go to America as his uncle lived in Texas and wanted him to come over there.).

         While Shoba got a soda, I had to deal with the photographer.  While we were in the Taj, he’d run out and printed all of the photos of me and put them in a photo album I could have for $52!  It really makes you feel bad; I liked about three of them, which I could have had for about $7, but I ended up buying the whole thing.  They were nice pictures, but truly overkill.

         We got in the car and left – we had to drive back to Delhi, but for some reason the driver took us across town, in terrible traffic, to see another fort we told him we didn’t want to see.  He turned around when we got there and realized what he’d done, and then we had to drive all the way back.  Aby and Shoba seemed to like him; he was from Kerala, like them, and he spoke their language most of the time (so I couldn’t understand).  He also used his left arm to gesticulate madly, as people in Kerala are prone to, and nearly poked me in the eye and mouth tens of times.

         The next straw was when he more or less forced us to go into a shrine for Krishna (his birthplace?), which took us 30 minutes of walking to look at something for about a minute, then 30 minutes to walk back (I cannot remember one thing about that place except I was angry).

         As we finally left Agra, he was driving even more recklessly than usual, and I was about to say something when we came upon a bridge that was perhaps 100 feet long.  We were on the left side and coming at us on the right side were four large buffalo, moving with the traffic with no one around them.  I said, “Those buffalo are more obedient of the traffic laws than the people.”  No one laughed.

         It was another 3.5 hours back to the hotel.  We finally got on a true expressway, a toll road that was almost deserted.  I relaxed as it seemed like it would take no time to go the rest of the way and we were infinitely safer, but now, after all we’d been through, the driver would not go faster than 100km/hour (about 62mph) and most of the time he was going about 90km/h.  Every other car on the road blew by us like we were sitting still.  I felt my sanity leeching away; I didn’t say anything because I thought there was some reason for it, but when we finally got out, Aby started to complain as well about how slowly he drove (Aby was famous for how fast he drove in Swaziland, once getting arrested for exceeding 160km/hr).  At least we were back and the next day we were taking the train, so we would be spared any long drives.

         I left the scene of the drop-off as soon as possible; I couldn’t bear to look at or listen to the driver anymore.  We found our bags, which the hotel said they would lock up for us, on the stairway to the basement, unwatched.  Nothing was missing, and I had to repack and get to bed early for another 6am departure.  There was some concern about getting to the train station on time, but we got there 38 minutes early.  If you have time to kill while you are in India, don’t try to kill it at the Delhi train station, though there are plenty of things to look at you will wish you had never seen.  Perhaps it is part of the Indian nature, or maybe it is just their hard lives, but they seem to be able to sleep almost anywhere.

         The train pulled in at 6:55 and we were settled in our seats in two minutes.  The train was pleasant enough, and we sat three across with me at the window.  I have traveled by train in the USA rarely but enough to know the trains tend to go through what I would call the bowels of the country: places where things are getting done the rest of us don’t want to know about.  The train from Delhi to Armritsar was not that different, but it took the concept a little farther (Oh, India, must you always push the limits?) by taking us through the toilets of the Delhi suburbs.  I saw hundreds of people squatting in the bushes and fields along the tracks, taking care of their morning ablutions in plain sight of everyone.  After 30 minutes or so we were well adrift of the city and I saw few more examples of Indian sanitation, to my relief.  There wasn’t much to look at otherwise, but it was infinitely more relaxing to be in the train than on the roads.

         The five hours went by smoothly and we emerged into our own slice of chaos, as the driver was not there.  Aby sorted it out and the driver soon turned up in a nice car.  He looked quite different than most of the Indians, bearing a strong resemblance to the dashing Spanish golfer, the late Severiano Ballesteros, with a close-cropped side part rather than the high-floating pompadours that were so common.  I was a little uncertain as to the plans, but we took time to check in at the hotel and then got lunch, which took a while.  Suddenly we were rushing to get to our next destination, the border with Pakistan for the daily closing of the gates, which apparently involved more than a bit of pomp and ceremony, especially, I was told, lots of high leg kicking.

         Traffic was light for India but still involved a lot of people and overtaking, and then we pulled into a dirt parking lot behind the equivalent of a strip mall.  The driver let us out and we waded into the crowds.  It is fascinating to me how an event that takes place every day for years can be so poorly organized, but this year I saw that not just in India but also in Iceland.  Anyway, we were quickly separated from Shoba since the men and women were not allowed to sit together.  For once, the ladies’ lines were shorter and they moved off rapidly.  We came to several bottlenecks where the temptation was strong to walk outside the barricades (Aby explained to me that as a tourist I had to go through a different line and kept telling me to go ahead), but everyone who succumbed to the temptation was quickly herded back.  We went through a series of metal detectors that did not seem to be plugged in while the guards didn’t seem to be paying attention at all, but it really slowed things down.  Finally we came to the point where I had to go a different way, and then I went through two checkpoints where I was patted down and searched.  After passing the last one I knew I was near, as I could hear the crowd cheering loudly.  The walkway ended on a two-lane road, and to each side were large bleachers that could hold thousands of people.  I was told by a man in uniform to sit on the curb just twenty feet to the right of the walkway.  So, I had a street-level view of whatever was about to happen, jammed between two middle-aged women.

         Music was blasting from the sound system and everyone was watching a group of young people dancing their hearts out about 50 feet to the right of where I was sitting, right on the road.  They were mostly women and children, and I quickly spotted and became fascinated by a beautiful young woman who appeared to be of Scandinavian descent, with long, shiny brown hair, a few inches taller than the rest.  She was an exquisite dancer, more graceful than the Indians, with a radiant smile, and she seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.  I was reminded of the white tourist who came to the Catholic Church I attended in Zambia and sat right in the front and sang and danced with the choir and also seemed to be having the time of her life. More than a small part of me had the urge to go right out there and dance near this young woman; I expected it would be quite a scene, and in the end my reluctance to make such a scene won out and I sat quietly instead, taking it all in.

         Soon the dancers were ushered away and the beautiful girl came and sat in the stands nearby.  Now there were some Indian children on the road, and they were dancing a bit as well.  One of them, a cute little boy of about 8 or 9, seemed to do some practiced dance moves now and then, and before long, he was doing a bit of a routine while the crowd went crazy.  He did the worm and several other popular moves I cannot name with ever increasing roars.  I was a bit tired of his showing off, and about that time a guard came out and made them leave, though the boy clearly didn’t want to (I heard later he was one of the guards’ sons and did the same thing nearly every evening).

         Now there was relative calm, and the minutes ticked by.  Finally some guards came out.  They were all in brown uniforms of standard military design, with frilly red epaulets and fez-like hats, most carrying guns.  What proceeded will take too much time, but suffice it to say, there were many men (and a few women) walking fast, kicking their legs up towards their chins, smacking their shoes loudly on the pavement, opening and closing gates about 150 feet to my left, and lowering flags.  Most of the activity took place either at the gate or right in front of me (there were minutes where I could have touched the buttocks of one of the guards involved without much effort).  The highlights for me were the moments the guards from the two countries met in between and did dramatic pumping handshakes.  The Indian crowd seemed to be exhorted to cheer louder than the Pakistani one, and the announcer, who, I think, was Indian, pronounced them the winners.

         It took about 45 minutes and was pretty entertaining in a very odd way, diminished only by the tourists around me standing up and blocking everyone’s view to take pictures (and later complaining about a pregnant lady who was blocking their views as well).  Everyone started to leave, so I did so, and as I passed the point where the last checkpoint had been, there was the beautiful girl standing on the left side of the walkway, looking ahead.

         I am not much for chit-chat, though I am quick on my feet.  There have been many times in my life when I said just the exact right thing at the time, but there have perhaps been more when I was tongue-tied or came up with only a cliché.  As I drew near her I hesitated.  She flicked her long hair back with her right hand and my mouth opened, but then I kept walking and said nothing, though I think what I had come up with (“I really enjoyed your dancing – you seemed to have a lot of fun”) wasn’t bad.

         I walked quickly back, not sure what the plan was at that point.  I usually walk very fast, but the tallest man I saw in India, a young man who was about 6’10” and athletic-looking, passed me easily with a few friends.  I soon saw the strip mall buildings and as I headed towards the parking lot, there was Seve, the driver.  I was so relieved.  We waited for Aby and Shoba for at least 15 minutes, and once they arrived the driver went to get the car.  He must have parked it a long way off as it took a while until he pulled up, and by then the usual craziness of Indian crowds was in full swing.  The driver muscled us right out and we were on our way back.

         When we got back, Aby wanted to go exploring, so we went out and walked around for a while. Most everything was closed since it was Sunday.  I did find a place that was selling fudge, so I bought some of that, and then we went back to our separate rooms.  I ordered room service for dinner.

         After a rough night in which I coughed a lot (but at least the room was quiet!), I got up for a run.  I was excited, as the traveling had really restricted my activity, and I had been scoping the areas out as we drove around.  There was a park for walkers right nearby, but I had the sense they paid to walk there, so I headed out a relatively vacant road towards another neighborhood.  My legs were feeling better, and the tight hamstring was a bit looser, so I was getting up a little steam as I turned onto a two lane road to the left.  That ended in a T with a busier road that had a nice shoulder for a short while to the left, so I went down there and turned around and headed back.  I needed to go a lot farther, so I went past my original road but ended up having to frequently alter my route to avoid packs of barking dogs that looked meaner than Delhi’s.  There were several people out running and many out walking, so in all it was pleasant, and the weather was nice.  I came back the way I went out as it was fairly free of dogs still and did a few exercises near the hotel before heading inside, very pleased with myself.

         There was a nice complimentary breakfast and I got my first fruit in days.  Then we met the driver to be taken to the Golden Temple in Armritsar.  It is not something you can drive right up to and park.  We were dropped off about a mile away and on the way stopped at a memorial for the massacre of nonviolent protesters by British troops in 1919.

 It was a garden and park surrounded by walls, and the protesters had been cornered there and randomly shot; they were also killed by their panicked stampede.  Many bodies were found in wells on the site as well. The bullet holes remained in the walls.  It was a sobering experience, as was the “crawling street”: this was an area were any Indian who wanted to travel on the street had to crawl its length.

         We walked down a very crowded and busy street; there were no cars but many people and other objects in the road.  Aby bought me a handkerchief to cover my head, a mandatory thing at the Golden Temple, which is a Sikh temple.  We got to the place where we had to leave our shoes.  It was crazy; I thought the odds of getting them back were less than 50% in the chaos.  They had a carpet on the sidewalks and roads the rest of the way to protect my feet, and though it seemed far, it wasn’t.  After walking through a puddle to cleanse our feet, we entered the grounds.  The Golden Temple is beautiful, with sparkling gold trim and plating all over.  It sits out in a large pool and can only be reached by a relatively narrow walkway at one end.  We walked all the way around, taking it all in.  There were many men getting into the water and bathing.  They did it all in the open.  There was another area where women could do it more privately and the queue there was long.

         At the far end, there was a monument to a figure named Babu Ji. He was a 76 year old leader of the Sikhs in the area, and something some local ruler did ticked him off, so he vowed to kill that leader.  He mustered his army and went into combat carrying a 26 pound sword.  He met the leader and fought him but did not fare well and ended up getting his head cut off.  Before his body fell, his assistant reminded him of his anger and his vow to kill the leader, so his body picked up the head and held it is his hand and fought that way until the hated leader was killed.  There was a large painting of an old man with a giant sword in one hand and a head in the other hand, with the bloody neck resting in his palm. Pretty good story.

         We continued on and went into a building that had some places to pray and spent only a few moments there. We came out to get in the line to go to the temple.  The line was HUGE. There was no protest when we decided not to go in.  We looked into a few other buildings; it was a bit worrisome to me, as most of the people entering made a bunch of gestures and knelt and often kissed the floor while entering, but I did not.

         The walk back went quick and we got our shoes without problems. Because we didn’t go in the temple we had a lot of time to kill before the train ride back.  Seve took us to another pretty temple we did not enter. I took a photo through the fence.  We shopped in one area, then he took us to a mall (it was very nice), then we had a late lunch.  Finally we sat in the hotel lobby for about an hour before we left for the train.

         The train was uneventful.  We had a nice meal en route.  There was one guy who had the audio on his iPhone turned way up as he edited his emails – it made for a lot of noise, and he seemed totally oblivious.  There were more troubles finding our driver in the dark in the Delhi station, and then he hassled Aby for extra money.  A distasteful end to a long day.

         I was up at 5:45am the next morning despite not getting to bed until nearly midnight.  I ran a similar route, down the road to the hospital and then left at a roundabout and right up a busier road with a decent shoulder we had driven by whose walls were in various states of disrepair.  I felt a little off, but I made it four miles.  I stopped where the market ran into the busy road; there is a metro stop above there I hadn’t noticed before.  I was just starting to walk when I heard my name called.  Astonished, I looked in the direction of the sound and saw Aby, who was out for a walk and looking at the metro.  We walked back to the hotel together.

         We went to the Red Fort, another World Heritage Site in Delhi.  It is very big, with high walls.  There is a place in the front from which the Prime Minister gives a speech every year.The grounds were expansive and the architecture pleasant except for a series of buildings the British had built to lodge their soldiers.  There was a throne room that opened on most sides where the throne, called the Peacock Throne, used to sit until it was stolen by the Persians, who still refuse to give it back (It is supposedly very nice).  In addition, there used to be a huge, beautiful diamond there called the Kohinoor Diamond, but the British stole that and also refused to give it back as it was now a key part of the crown jewels.  The palace had a lower level that ran through it that usually carried fresh water.  It circulated through the complex and then was pumped back into a water tower, where it would then flow back through.  This cooled the area down. 

There was also an extensive bath house near the water tower.  We went through several small but nice museums on site and then we arranged to take bicycle rickshaws to a nearby famous mosque.  The guy driving mine took me on a crazy route and at times I imagined I was being kidnapped, but when we finally stopped at the stairway to the mosque, Aby and Shoba pulled up almost immediately.  The Mosque was a ripoff, as I again had to pay a lot of money to take my camera in, and we had to take our shoes off.  We left nearly as soon as we got in, all a little steamed.  The rickshaw ride back took us a different way through traffic; I was gripping tight as we weaved through the honking cars and cut off a bus.  The driver demanded a big tip.  I am not sure how much Aby gave him, but they had words briefly.

         From there we headed by car to a large park with memorials for most of the famous Indian leaders, including Ghandhi.  As we walked the half-mile to the first memorial, Ghandhi’s, I asked Aby why they didn’t build them closer to the parking lot.  It was a fairly large park, and we walked around for a good while.

We were hungry, but we also had to catch a plane that afternoon to Chennai, so we weren’t sure where to eat, but after a discussion in the tongue of Kerala, we arrived at a parking lot and then joined a long queue for a famous restaurant in Delhi that served South Indian cuisine.  We got inside after about 10 minutes and Aby paid for us in advance.  Then we waited to be seated.  The man running the show was humorous with his shouting and impatience.  In another 10 minutes we were wading through the crowd to a table in the back.  I was given a metal food tray and a few condiments, then the table quickly filled with various dishes and men came around ladling rice and various other hot dishes onto the tray.  I ate two plates, all the while soaking it in and watching the other Indians at our table stuff the food into their mouths.  It was a riot, one of the more entertaining things we were part of and we thanked the guide for getting us there.

         We flew on a relatively new Indian airline (IndiGo) that did a good job – we hardly waited and the flight was pleasant, though with tight seating. We arrived in Chennai after dark.  One of Aby’s brothers lived there with his wife.  Aby and Shoba were staying with them and I was booked in a hotel a few doors down.  I was hoping against hope the traffic and driving wouldn’t be like Delhi, but in ways it was even worse.  They dropped me at the hotel first and I checked in.  It was a strange place, with few towels and little water in the room, and it was an exercise in tedium to get both.

         Aby came by a little later and took me to his brother’s apartment, a 2 bedroom where they had lived for decades.  I was a bit surprised at how small it was, but it was more than adequate.  His brother, Thomas, was taller than Aby and had more hair.  He had some gravitas, but he was very genial and made me feel comfortable even though we often talked about very serious things (for example, I thought the Muslim faith didn’t start until Mohammed began getting the messages from the Angel Gabriel, but Thomas said it had been in existence long before that but Mohammed only clarified how things should be).  His wife, Betsy, was delightful: very funny and a good sport.  We had a delicious meal and then I went back to the hotel, where I was kept up late waiting for water and towels.  I was tormented by bugs during the night and eventually got up and turned on the air conditioning, cranking it a bit, sprayed bug spray all over me, and covered myself completely with the sheet, allowing only a small hole to breathe through, which was still attacked by bugs.

         My alarm woke me and I got ready to run.  Thomas offered to drive me to “the stadium” where he walked some mornings with a friend.  It was a sports complex that had a large stadium (likely for field hockey and basketball) and other courts and fields.  I ran on the various walkways and roads, tried to run on the local streets, which were crazy and too narrow, then back through the stadium and up and down some stairs until Thomas was done.  It was better than nothing.  Chennai was much warmer than Delhi and humid, as it was on the coast, so I was very sweaty in Thomas’s car for the ride back, which was not far at all.

         After a breakfast buffet at my hotel, I met up with Aby and Shoba.  Betsy came along as well as their driver took us around Chennai and then to St. Thomas Basilica. My Catholicism is very American despite all my time living overseas, and I found the details passed on about the life of St. Thomas to be much more thorough than those of St. Peter, for instance.  He had traveled to India and started churches on the west coast and finally ended up in Chennai.  While praying on a hill above the city, he was stabbed with a spear (I do not recall the motive).  He was able to stagger down the hill to the site of the Basilica (no mean feat – well over a mile) before he died.  The faithful built the basilica over the site of his death (what usually happens when notable saints die).  The parking lot was nearly empty and there were very few people around.  The church is about the size of the typical suburban parish church, but with a tall ceiling and all white.  Inside it had very nice wall paintings (in English) about the lives of all the Apostles.  In the front of the church, at the place we would receive communion in the US, there was a piece of glass in the floor, and one could see through the glass to the tomb of Thomas, which was in the basement.

         We had to go outside to get to the entrance of the tomb, which was accessible through another building; shoes off, of course, and no photos.  There was a woman down there to keep us in line.  Outside the tomb, in a sort of lobby, there was a tribute to Pope John Paul II, who had come there and prayed in the tomb at some point.  There were only some vestigial remains there; I cannot recall where the majority was, but I think they are in Rome.  I saw some finger bones.  It was nice, and I was happy we got to go there.

         We drove parallel to the beach, which was very wide and very long.  From the road to the water was at least a half-mile over the sand, and most of the area in between was filled with wooden shacks that were places of business, arranged in rows.  We passed a sizeable monument, with a variety of cement and steel adornments on the sidewalk.  It was the kind of thing that we might have for someone very famous in America, like Martin Luther King, Jr., but this was all for some local politician!

         That road took us to another part of town and we parked in a lot that was more typical of Indian chaos.  Here there was another chapel, but it was not at all like the Basilica.  It reminded me of scenes from movies in Mexico, with lots of neon and flashing lights.  There was a tiny chapel filled with people praying and a statue of Mary.  The story behind this site was that a young boy was carrying milk home to his family when a woman with a small baby stopped him and asked for some of the milk, as the baby was starving.  The boy was afraid to give any of the milk away, but he did, and it was miraculously replaced by a vision of Mary (or something like that).

         That stop did not take long, and we were off to a snake and crocodile park in Chennai.  That also was nice but didn’t take very long, and then we went to the place where St. Thomas was stabbed.  It was on a hill that involved a wild ride on some narrow roads and then some walking up to the top.  There was a small chapel where a service was underway, but we could look in, and there was a small place to pray around the side with some relics.  The main attraction was a large and colorful crucifix around the back on a pavilion with a nice view of Chennai.  The crucifix was famous for occasionally bleeding; it wasn’t doing it when we were there.  There were lots of school kids roaming around on class trips.

         It still wasn’t time for lunch! We were in the neighborhood of one of Aby’s uncles, so we drove to his place in a military retirement village.  His uncle was 89 years old, a retired Major General in the Indian army.  He was nearly as tall as I am and had a nice sense of humor.

         We ate lunch at the apartment and then hung out there and chatted.  Thomas was around.  I am not sure what he did during the day, but he seemed to have a lot of responsibility to some local charities and to a few businesses.  I headed back to the hotel to clean up and then went back to ride to a restaurant across town that served the food they liked from Kerala.  Betsy’s sister, who was very spunky, came along, and everyone seemed to act like she was auditioning for a date with me, though she didn’t bother me a bit.  The food was really good, then, to indulge me, we stopped at an ice cream place and I got three scoops.  I was starting to feel better, which was great.

         I’d been paying attention as we drove around and took note of the roads nearby.  The next morning I went out for a run on my own.  The road in front of the hotel was narrow, but there was a battered sidewalk on the other side, and it was only about 100 yards to an intersection, and all the rest of the roads were wider with obvious shoulders.  It was a very enjoyable run; the traffic wasn’t too bad, people got out of the way, and I headed to where the restaurant had been.  It was humid but not that hot, but I was still quite sweaty at the end: 4.32 miles.  There was a place, along a stream, where I was exposed to one thing many people complain about in India: the stench of human waste of various kinds.  That was the only place that happened.

         I ate and went to the apartment where there were delays of various sorts before we left with a different driver and headed south on the road to Ponducherry to Mamallapuram.  Betsy was entertaining and seemed to make everything seem spontaneous.  We stopped at one point, backed up, pulled ahead, and then parked to go into another crocodile and snake park.  This one was better than the one in Chennai, but I decided not to take my camera in before I knew that – big mistake (Every place a white man takes a camera means a payment for permission to use it).  Aby and I went to see some snake handlers, and they had a bunch of different snakes out and crawling around while they were talking with us.  They milked venom from a few cobras, one of which nearly got away, but, when offered its vase, crawled right inside.

         Outside the snake place we had the good fortune to come to a huge crocodile enclosure as they were sending a crew in to clean it.  They were scrubbing the cement waterways that wound through the enclosure.  A man with a big belly and a big stick went in first and he started making a racket and poking the crocodiles closest to him, starting a huge thrashing exodus of the area he was in.  A group of four or five women came in with brushes and buckets and started scrubbing away.  The man kept at the crocodiles; some of them would confront him and hiss, but he went right at them and they always backed down.  I watched them closely and it was obvious those crocodiles were not stupid.  They knew what was going on and prepared for when the man came around.  Still, they often crawled violently over each other, twisting and spinning.  It was an enthralling spectacle.

         The rest of the park had various types of reptiles in large enclosures; Aby was quite good at finding them.  So many photo ops missed!

         We drove into the town for lunch and ate at a small place that was good.  Betsy wanted us to see the Radisson Hotel there and they all seemed to want me to go out on a catamaran at their beach.  We went into the lobby and acted like we belonged, sitting on the plush furniture while the women went to the bathroom.  Then we walked down to the beach.  On the way, we walked through part of the hotel that surrounded its pool. It was the best pool I’ve seen: close to a quarter mile long, with little islands here and there, curving through and around the buildings.  The beach was disappointing and I lobbied hard to leave quickly and told them I didn’t want to go out on a boat or do any swimming.

         Our big destination was the famous Shore Temple, a World Heritage Site.  The parking lot was busy with lots of people trying to sell us things.  We had to pay to go onto the Shore Temple grounds.  It looked to me like it was going to be a waste of time.  Then Aby got into a heated argument with the ticket clerk.  The clerk told Aby he didn’t have change and Aby would need to go get the correct change and come back.  It went on for a while but eventually we were able to go in.

         I couldn’t have been more wrong about a place.  It was fantastic, helped by an absolutely beautiful day.  They figure the buildings were made around 732ME.  This temple was the only one not under water; there were 6 other temples off the coast.  There were several places dedicated to fertility with phallic symbols, and otherwise there were many carvings that held up well despite the wear and tear of the centuries.

         When done there, we were taken to another site where there were other carvings that looked like sand sculptures: elephants, temples and lions, all in one small area.  There was a small man, a bit of a huckster there, who tried to get us to hire him as a guide.  No one seemed interested in the group of about 12 who were there, so instead, he guided us around and asked for money after and did fairly well.

         The drive back to Chennai took around two hours, and out of curiosity, I counted all the posters and billboards with a picture of the Chief Minister of Chennai’s state of Tamil Nadu.  It was a challenge due to the traffic and the presence of posters on both sides of the street, but my final count as we entered Chennai was 173!!!!  Talk about a cult of personality! Can you imagine if they had a poster of Barack Obama or Chris Christie every few feet along the Garden State Parkway?  Interestingly, the Chief Minister, a jowly woman who looked like the offspring of a dalliance between Edward G. Robinson and Roseanne Barr, was a former Indian movie star.  I happened to catch a glimpse of her while flipping through the channels.  She was very petite, with her dark hair pulled tightly back, singing and dancing about, reminiscent of an Anna Kendrick.  The old version might have been able to fit two inside the current Chief Minister.  Her name is J. JayaLalithaa, which at least is a much better name than the Chief Minister of Delhi’s state, (I am not kidding), Sheila Dikshit.

Still another calculation derived the following equation:

Tamil Nadu Chief minister signs = very hot women along the road < goats+stray dogs+near accidents

The women of India are generally very beautiful, especially in their saris with their hair styled nicely, but in Tamil Nadu the number of very pretty girls was exceptional. For one stretch I figured about half the women on the side of the road were very pretty, but then we hit a dry patch with many more wrinkled, haggard ladies than young, pretty ones, and for a while there were no pretty ones.  The Philips often hint they could find me a nice wife, and I am sure I could do worse, but my life is just fine the way it is.

         Our last supper in Chennai was a lovely dinner at the apartment, heavy on curry, and we had a pleasant conversation after that ran late.  The next morning I suffered the consequences of that much curry, but once I’d satisfactorily put that behind me, I was off on my last run in India.  This time I headed to the right at the first intersection and followed my whims and the promise of sidewalks and shoulders where they took me.  After a few relatively dead ends, I was on a quiet street that got narrower and narrower until in entered what was at best an alley, with 2-3 storey buildings on each side.  There were not many pedestrians, but it finally got too busy, so I turned around and looked for any way out.  I made it out and found another street that ran parallel to it for a little longer, and that out and back gave me enough distance.  Aby said I was probably running around in the ghetto, but, though the faces didn’t seem pleased to see me, they were not inhospitable, either.

         I left the hotel and then we had to kill some time before we went to the airport.  The driver took us to the local mall, a high security place in a sunny plaza.  That couldn’t kill it all, so we went back to lunch with Betsy and Thomas and then I finally checked out of the hotel.  I slipped some money  (for petrol, food, etc.)for Thomas and Betsy (they were heading to the US for a tour in the near future) on their computer (which they let me check my email on) and then we departed.

         The airport was hectic (when we tried to cross one road, I told Aby it was easier to walk across a pit of crocodiles than to dodge the cars), and Aby embarrassed me by hiring a porter for me to take my bag a very short distance (I like to carry my own bags – they are not burdens to me).  They were on a different flight back to Trivandrum.  I was headed to Delhi, unsure of where I was to go and how much time I would have to get all the things done.  It turned out I was flying from the international terminal in Chennai to Delhi, so I didn’t need to do anything special in Delhi before I left, which let me relax, but I had to wait in the airport for 2.5 hours to check in.  During that time I read, sitting in a set of seats just across a barrier from all the relatives of the people who were flying and sitting near me.  Given the choice, it seemed every Indian there preferred to sit right next to me than in the other open seats.  I thought the flies that were pestering me might favor them, but they stayed right on me, mostly landing over and over on my legs (10-12 at a time – at least I was wearing pants).  I got up to move around often to see if the flies would leave me, but they didn’t.  I could only imagine how attractive I would be to flies after I finally landed in JFK 25 hours later.  One last thing that made me laugh there was a saloon that had a tough guy face on its sign right next to a cherubic young boy.

         Indian airports are always a bit puzzling, but I made sure I got where I needed to get and the trip back was a bit more pleasant than the trip over.  The plane wasn’t packed and there was a nice man who lived in Westchester County sitting in my row who was a most agreeable seatmate.

         I was pretty tired, not having slept much, when I got to New York. I’d decided to take the train from JFK into the city and then the subway to my friend Greg’s loft.  I was very confused about where to go and was trying to sort out the map when someone behind me asked if I needed help.  It was a transit policeman, and when I told him where I needed to go, he said he was headed part of the way and he would show me, so we walked together to the first train and then he told me when to get out.  Excellent. The rest of the trip took a long time but I got there and managed to get changed and cleaned up a bit before catching my bus back to Pennsylvania.  Initially there’d been only one open seat on the bus, the window next to a huge African-American guy who seemed to be traveling with a bunch of other guys sitting in the area, but he never said a word and I was able to read and play some Scrabble until he got off and I moved to the front so I could tell what was going on.  I was the last one off the bus, and the driver, who’d jerked my chain when I was trying to board and asked him to clarify the destination, by that time was a bit friendlier. 

         It was a most memorable trip.  India is fascinating. It is tough not to use clichés, but I learned a lot about an ancient culture, saw a lot of stunning architecture and art, ate tremendously good food, and had great company in Aby and Shoba to fill me in on what was going on.  It was worth every penny and then some, and I would recommend you go to India if you know some people there you can trust to show you around.  If you can, you should also try to run a bit there – it’s wild.

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