Cursed With Ambition

Even More Roman Holiday

Piazza Novona

The Piazza Novona is an open area to the west of the Pantheon.  There is a large church there (name unknown) along with an Egyptian obelisk and a famous fountain created by Bernini.  All three are shown in the left picture.  The fountain was being restored as shown in the picture on the right.  The Brazilian embassy was also located on the piazza.  I didn't take a picture of the open area, but there were vendors and street performers and people generally just hanging out all around.  The buildings are pretty tightly packed in most Roman neighborhoods, so the open common areas are natural areas of activity.

Arch of Constantine

The emperor Constantine may well be one of the most important historical figures ever.  He was responsible for the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity.  Many books and scholarly papers have been written on the subject, so I won't go deeply into it.  But, my impression is that he did so as more of a political move than out of any sort of religious epiphany.  The Roman Empire was failing, the popes were gaining power and the masses were being converted.  It was a simple choice, really.  The effects of that move changed the world, literally.  Now, the Christian church and the Roman Empire were united.  That union would shape cultures and borders for centuries and has directly led to many of the political and cultural circumstances we find ourselves in today.  Anyway, this arch is right by the Colosseum, to the south.  To the right of this, outside of the frame, is the site of the center of ancient Rome including the Roman forum, Palatine Hill (where the palaces of the Roman Emperors were) and Capitoline Hill (where Rome is said to have started).

Campo di Fiori

The Campo di Fiori is another piazza across the Tiber from the Vatican and to the southwest.  This place had a nice vibe, with cool cafes lining the open space.  The picture on the right shows some of the delectables in a shop window.

Pancrizio's and Roman Restaurants Generally

The best dining experience we had was at a dinner party hosted by my friend's parents.  (I was in Rome because one of my oldest friends was being ordained a Catholic priest - that's him in black on the left in the left picture and on the right in the right picture.)  Pancrizio's was a restaurant at the end of the Campo di Fiori.  It is built on the site of the ancient Roman Senatorium, which would be like our Capitol Hill.  The basement of the restaurant is actually an excavated part of the ancient Roman structure.  You can see the original brickwork on the ceiling and there's even the remnants of an ancient column.  Not only was the atmosphere amazing, the food was even better - the best we had. 

Italian restaurants in Italy operate a little bit differently than those in the states.  You mostly order wine and water to drink, but you can get soda or beer.  That's not too different.  Most restaurants have a list of Italian wines.  The reds from the Tuscan region were the best in my experience.  We usually ordered the house wine, or as ordered 'un metzo litro di vino rossa della casa per favore, cameriere,' which means 'a half liter of the red house wine please, waiter.'  They only serve bottled water, like Pelligrino or whatever.  Italians generally get theirs carbonated, but they always had it without bubbles too, or, as they say it, "No gas."  From there, the ordering gets more complicated.  Basically, they do things in multiple courses.  Whereas we might order an appetizer in a restaurant, most of the time we don't.  There, appetizers are much more a part of the meal.  Our restaurants serve a main course that includes a salad and side vegetables along with the main dish, usually some kind of meat, and is all served at the same time (except the salad, which comes first).  In Italy, they serve what would be the salads and sides all in sequence and spaced out in time.  Most of us know that 'antipasti' is an appetizer.  Common appetizers that we saw included crostini (small toast with olive spread or roma tomatoes), Cabrese salad (mozzarella cheese with roma tomatoes and basil w/ olive oil), cantaloupe with prosciutto (sounds weird, but it was really good - you can see some on the table in the picture on the left) and steamed artichoke hearts with olive oil.  Next comes the primo pati, which just means 'first plate.'  This is the pasta dish.  You see all of the common types of pasta we are used to:  penne, linguini, tortellini, etc.  There were plenty of new shapes that I had never seen.  Just like in the U.S., you generally had a choice between a tomato based sauce or a cream based sauce.  Sometimes they would have choices of other things like prawns or artichokes or olives mixed in too.  Sometimes there would be a second part of the 'primo pati,' which was most commonly risotto, or rice.  These rice dishes, too, were varied.  We never saw the same one twice.  At Pancrizio's we had purple risotto.  I speculated that they cooked it with red wine to get the color.  Next up was the 'secondo pati,' or second plate.  This was the meat dish.  Again, there were usually a lot of choices and we rarely saw the exact same thing twice.  One night, I ordered veal.  It came out and it was pretty much like a chicken fried steak with melted cheese and bacon on top.  Of course the cheese was provolone and the bacon was prosciutto, but that's what it reminded me of.  It was pretty good.  A couple of times the salad came last, which was weird to me.  There was always a choice of dessert, but we rarely got it so I don't know what all they had.  We did see cannoli and tiramisu a lot.  Almost all of the waiters were familiar with American dining habits and adapted accordingly, so it's hard to know whether we were getting an "authentic" Italian dining experience.  Most spoke enough or really good English.  We tried to order in Italian almost every time, but sometimes that was a disaster.  Many of the menus were written in Italian and English, but again, sometimes I couldn't read 3/4 of the menu. 

Tipping was confusing.  The guidebooks told you to tip 10%, if at all.  We take the 15% tip for granted and it is so ingrained that I actually felt guilty only tipping 10%.  A couple of times when we felt like we got ripped off or if the meal was especially expensive we wouldn't tip at all.  It was widely known that Americans tip better than any other nationality.  So as an American there was an expectation created that you were going to tip and tip well.  No one ever really said anything whether we tipped or not, so it's hard to know if we handled it right.  I tried to watch what the Italians did at restaurants and they usually left 10%.  So for regular nighttime restaurants I think that's a pretty safe rule to follow.

All of the restaurants were expensive.  Even mediocre places would set you back around $50 for a dinner for two.  Most of that has to do with the currently poor exchange rate.  In addition to restaurants, which we mostly only ate in at night for dinner, we ate at a lot of sidewalk cafes for lunch and especially breakfast.  My typical breakfast would be a cornetti (pastry), espresso (miniature strong coffee) and some kind of suco (juice).  The GF would have something similar, usually substituting yogurt or fruit for the cornetti.  Usually, this would cost around 15 euro, or about $20.  That's a lot, considering what we got.  The same thing would set you back half that in the States, even at Starbucks.  Once, we paid 23 euro for that same breakfast.  That's over $30!!  And the grapefruit juice sucked!  We were pissed off about that one.  The GF almost went back in to bitch out the manager.  I'm sure we paid plenty of "American tax."  Everybody thinks all Americans are flush with cash.  Anyway, you do pay a premium if you actually sit at the tables there as opposed to getting your food to go.  Of course, the prices on the menu are the lower of the two and the "sit down" prices aren't published, so there's a big opportunity for ripoffs.  That was ubiquitous, so there really wasn't anything you could do about it.  Besides, most places charged a consistent amount and I felt like they were honest.  We did lunches at similar cafes and sat outside looking out on the street whenever we could.  I sampled as much pizza as I could.  There, the crust is very, very thin.  Very unlike American style pizza.  The sauce was usually pretty thin too; and the toppings were arranged in separate areas on the crust, not spread out evenly.  I didn't really care for most of the really thin crust pizzas I had.  I finally found a couple of places that had a little bit thicker crust and I eventually had the best pizza I have ever eaten on our last night in Rome.  We went to a grocery store near the Pantheon and picked up some food for picnic style lunches.  That worked pretty well and was a lot cheaper than eating at restaurants or cafes.

Next up:  Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps, at least.

More Roman Holiday

Castel Sant'Angelo

This is a cool-looking circular fortress that is built on the ancient Roman ruins of another structure of unknown use.  Castel Sant'Angelo is very near the Vatican and right on the Tiber river.  We never went inside it, although it is a pretty popular tourist destination.  Strange street performers and souvenir vendors lined up outside the walls in an open area visible on the left picture.  The castle is connected to the Vatican by a large wall that the popes would use when the Vatican came under attack.  There the popes would wait out the siege or wait to be rescued or simply wait for the enemies to leave.

Tiber River Bridges

I don't remember the names of these bridges, but they do have names.  There are like six bridges over the Tiber throughout the city, these two are nearest the Vatican.

The Colosseum

Impressive for its size, design and intricate stoneworks, the Roman Colosseum is one of the most recognizable pieces of architecture in the world.  Like many of the ancient Roman monuments, it was difficult to picture what it must have been like fully formed.  None of the wooden parts of the structure remain, of course, and there were many.  The bleachers are all gone and many of the decorative columns and stone facings are gone as well.  Also like many of the ancient Roman buildings, the site was plundered by the Vatican and essentially used as a quarry by later generations of Romans.  The plundering and simple passage of time have taken their toll, but the building is still very impressive.  Tickets were free to the spectacles held in the Colosseum.  There were assigned seats, however, and your rank in society reflected where your seats were located.  Stone inscriptions marked your section and some of these engravings are displayed in the museum on site.  Contrary to popular belief (and Christian propaganda) very few, if any, Christians were killed there.  Also, many fewer gladiators died there than most people believe.  For one, gladiators were highly trained, famous and expensive to kill.  The death toll of gladiators was probably similar, relatively, to the number of modern professional race car drivers who are killed every year.  The real slaughter in the Colosseum was of animals.  An entire industry of wild animal trappers was created and these trappers would span the empire and beyond to find beasts for shows.  The fourth and sixth photo show the intricate tunnel system that existed beneath the original floor.  The last photo shows where some dumb fucking Aggie defaced the monument.  (Not like I need to go pointing out how imbecilic Aggies are, but this one pissed me off.)

What am I getting myself into?

I am soooo doing this next year.

Roman Holiday

I'm going to post a succession of the highlights with a few pictures from my trip.

St. Peter's Basilica

Unbelievable in many ways.  First of all, the architecture alone is awe-inspiring.  Designed by Michaelangelo in the shape of a Greek cross and redesigned by Bernini in the shape of a Latin cross (long spine, shorter transept), the exterior and especially the dome is one of the major landmarks in the city of Rome.  Inside are some of the most important relics in Christianity.  The paintings, sculptures, marbles and other adornments are almost an assault on the senses.  In order, the photos are:  St. Peter's Basilica at night, St. Peter's Basilica and Piazza during the day, St. Peter's Piazza, Same with Egyptian obelisk, Michaelangelo's Pieta, The Altar of St. Peter (bronze was taken from ancient Roman monuments esp. the Pantheon), Bronze statue of St. Peter dating to 4AD (the toes are worn down from centuries of kisses of the faithful), wing of St. Peter's, Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pantheon

The best preserved of the ancient Roman buildings, the Pantheon was built in the 2nd century AD by Emperor Hadrian.  Some theories suggest that there were as many as two predecessor Pantheons dating back to the 2nd century BC that were destroyed before the current Pantheon was built on the same site.  It was used as a temple to the Roman gods and was subsequently given to the Roman Catholic Church in the 5th century and converted into a church.  Today it is called Santa Maria ad Martyres. In order:  The Pantheon from the front, the great bronze doors of the Pantheon, under the portico of the Pantheon, the grave of the great Italian artist Raphael, the outside rear of the Pantheon,  the oculus in the Pantheon dome.

Coming soon:  the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Circus Maximus, Arch of Constantine, Capitoline Hill, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, Piazza del Poppolo, Piazza Novona, Campo di Fiori, Castel Sant Angelo, the Tiber river and bridges, Trastevere neighborhood, Venice.

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part VII

Dave was a great guide - super laid back and really knowledgeable about the area.  Prototypical guide really.  Same type of dude you find as ski instructors, parasail boat drivers, fishing guides, etc.  Beside the three of us and Dave the river guide there was a young couple on our boat.  I don't remember their names but they were from Ohio.  The guy was Hispanic and originally from the Pharr, Texas in the valley.  She was a light-skinned accountant.  They were friendly enough, but otherwise unremarkable.

The first leg of the trip was a little boring.  There were no mountains close by yet.  The banks were green with vegetation and we saw numerous softshelled and redear turtles, but otherwise there wasn't much to see.  We got to know Dave a little bit and we all introduced ourselves - where we were from, what we did for a living - all that crap.  I told a couple of lawyer jokes and Dave had a pretty good one too.  We also just got used to the boat and the river itself.  The boat was an inflatable river raft.  The material was rubberized, thick and very tough.  There was a metal frame attached to the center to hold the oar pivots.  The river was tame.  The water was brown with silt; a light tan color.  There were a few riffles here and there, but no real rapids on this stretch.  Several times the river got shallow enough for the bottom of the raft to scrape the riverbed.  If there had been a little less water we certainly would have had to run it in canoes.  Dave proved himself as highly skilled with the raft.  He had a slight build, but he was taught and could pull hard on the oars when he needed to.  The first hour or so went by like that - Dave pulling on the oars occasionally pointing out some interesting plant or geologic feature and us chatting.  It was relaxing and not unlike tubing leisurely down the Guadalupe.

After about an hour we came upon the entrance to Santa Elena canyon - the primary reason people rafted this section of the river.  All of a sudden the river parted two immense cliff faces that stretched hundreds of feet to the sky.

The guides pulled off onto a gravel beach on the Mexico side just inside the canyon for lunch.  While the two guides prepared the food, we explored.  We had seen several dead fish floating in the river and we saw another one on the beach.  We still don't know what killed the fish; the going theory was the silt clogging their gills, but I don't buy it.  The silt is always there.  We had a decent lunch - sandwiches, chips, cookies, fruit - and we set out again.  This time we were walled in by the canyon.  In many places the faces of the canyon walls were sheer and stretched from beneath the water to a thousand feet up.  Every now and then would be an area where soil had accumulated and there would be greenery.  Dave pointed out several places where the flash floods of a couple of nights before had created what must have been huge spontaneous waterfalls that dropped thousands of gallons of water a minute onto the land below where it washed out huge holes in the soil.

We finally came up to the most dangerous point on this stretch of river - The Rockslide.  The Rockslide is just that - a large area where huge boulders came loose from the cliff face and littered the riverbed, creating rapids in some areas and a tight labyrinth of channels through the rocks.  Dave proved himself again by navigating The Rockslide perfectly, barely bumping the boat a couple of times on the boulders.  I had actually hoped for a little more excitement.  Dave made it look easy.

After that, it was more relaxed floating and marvelling at the tall cliffs.  Dave talked about the happening nightspots in Terlingua (I got the impression that he drank his share of cold beer).  We spotted a couple of peregrines swooping through the canyon and even a stranded calf that had been washed downstream in the flood and deposited on a rock ledge where it was sure to become buzzard bait in a couple of days.  After another hour or so we made it to the take out point.  The guides loaded the rafts onto a trailer and everyone piled into the van for the 45 minute trip back to Terlingua.

We had planned to make camp inside the park for our final night, but hearing Dave talk about drinking cold beer at what sounded like interesting bars in Terlingua made us all rethink that.  I was the first to speak up, "You know, I wouldn't be opposed to getting a room in Terlingua and checking out some of those places Dave was talking about."  DB and Robo both laughed - they had been thinking the exact same thing.  We easily could have camped another night; it wasn't that we were being pussies.  We had done that already and just wanted a change of pace.  And a shower.

Back at the outfitter's HQ, we gave Dave a much appreciated hearty tip and took off to find a hotel room.  The selection of hotels in Terlingua is slim and unremarkable.  We found a place that fit our simple needs.  That hot shower felt really, really good.  Once we were cleaned up we looked for a place to have dinner.  We got a recommendation from the front desk for the best Mexican food in town and headed there.  I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but the whole place was smaller than my garage.  The waitress/cook/owner didn't speak much English, but she made some damned good enchiladas.  After several days of trail mix and MREs, that hot meal hit the spot.

The Night Spots

I like knowing about the bars in any particular locale.  From what I had seen of Terlingua, the place just had to have some cool hangouts and I was anxious to do some field research.  Our first stop was a place that Dave had told us about called The Kiva.  He described it as being partially underground (hence the name) and it sounded interesting.  The large area out in front of the bar doubled as the parking lot and an RV park.  The building itself was made out of a dark brown local stone, cut irregulary and mortared into place.  The front door was angled like a cellar door, but with less pitch.  We opened it and walked down the 3 or 4 steps to the floor.  Hardly underground, the door and steps were about the only things that evoked the sense of entering a kiva.  There was a short hallway to the doors to the actual bar.  When we opened them we discovered that it was karaoke night at The Kiva, to our dismay.  (Sidenote:  I hate karaoke.  So does Robo.  Even more than I do.)  At the mic were two withered crones who were not dressed their age shrieking harpie-like some Dolly Parton tune.  It was almost enough to make me turn and leave right then.  Had I not spotted an outdoor area, and sanctuary from the karaoke, I would have.  We ordered beers and headed outside.  I took note of the interior of the bar and it was interesting.  It was generally dark and the atmosphere made me think of a typical lounge done West Texas style.  There was an odd enclosed patio separated from the rest of the bar that was very tastefully furnished with a sign on the sliding door leading to it that said "Only Open On Sundays - No Smoking."  Never did figure that one out.  Outside there was a walled-in area with a dozen or so tables.  The place showed evidence of disrepair and neglect and there were broken down refrigerators, dead plants in flower pots and things like that strewn around.  The crowd at the place was disappointing.  It was pretty easy to see that the scene was made of the lesser element of the Terlingua party crowd.  There were a couple of late-20's dudes with long stringy hair who had obviously never moved and had settled in to their dust-eating jobs until 5 every day when they'd wash the dust down with a few beers.  There was the sloppy local chick who probably looked good at some point before she was passed around by all the local dudes.  Now she had vacant eyes and a beer paunch and drank every day and twice on weekends.  Sad.  I'll never be able to explain people over 65 who hang out at bars, but clearly The Kiva was the spot of choice for the WWII crowd.  "Old Bob" was announced to take the karaoke mic and he proceeded to butcher a Hank Williams song.  It sounded like a coyote was being ass fucked with a hot curling iron.  Although the place was interesting (there was an actual "kiva" on site, which was more like a basement, and we got the tour of it - unclear why this cool feature was not more incorporated into its namesake bar) the horrible karaoke and sad crowd forced us to move on sooner than we otherwise would have.

Terlingua is actually laid out in a complicated way.  The most populated area of the modern town is at the intersection of two small highways and I believe it was formerly known as Study Butte.  The original townsite of Terlingua is actually south on one of the highways about five miles.  The original townsite is now referred to as the Terlingua ghost town, although there are plenty of folks who live there.  My suspicion is that the name Terlingua became popularized by the annual chili cookoff, which is probably one of the most famous in Texas.  In order to capitalize on the name recognition, everyone started calling the whole area Terlingua and the name Study Butte was all but buried.  Anyway, the next place we went to was in the Terlingua ghost town, which isn't a ghost town at all.  The first thing I noticed about the ghost town is that there are actually ruins of old stone buildings littering the hillside.  There are also a lot of people living among the ruins.  The place we were going was called The Starlight Theater and it was at the end of the road near the top of the hill overlooking the ghost town.  The facade of the building was tastefully lit and a row of nice clothing and souvenir shops extended off to one side.  On the other side was a lighted path leading to an art gallery.  Flowering ocotillo and other native plants were well placed in front.  Inside, leather chairs and dark wooden tables filled the front area.  An actual stage and lowered gallery was at the back of the building for dinner theaters or other shows.  It was a cool little place.  We grabbed some beers and headed back out to the front to sit on the stone porch and look out over the ghost town and to the Chisos mountains, which were visible in the distance.  The Starlight was my favorite place of the three we visited (more on the third place in a minute).  There was a smattering of tourists, but also the hipper and classier locals.  The bartender was friendly and the beer selection good.  We spent a couple of hours there bullshitting and enjoying the view and the breeze.  We had a decent buzz going when we decided to try one more place before turning in.

The Boathouse was also in the ghost town.  Dave had mentioned this one as well and we could see it from the Starlight.  There were only a few cars in the parking lot when we pulled up because it had gotten pretty late.  The woman behind the bar was easily over sixty, but friendly and spunky.  The place had a Rio Grande and general river theme with all sorts of memorabilia and river-themed decorations on the walls.  There was a bumper sticker on the wall behind the bar that said "Silt Happens" to give you an idea.  The Boathouse wasn't as fancy as The Starlight and not as sad as The Kiva.  There was at least one TV on showing a basketball game, which I guess would make it the closest thing to a sports bar in Terlingua.  We didn't stay long, but we got a pretty accurate impression of the place.

After that we headed back to the hotel and turned in.  The next morning we foolishly took our time getting out of town and almost fucked up our flight schedule.  We made the airport in time and I was back in Houston later that day.

All in all, a very good trip.  I definitely recommend Big Bend to anyone.  About Terlingua I'll say this - if I ever stopped being Cursed With Ambition and wanted to say fuck the rat race or whatever, Terlingua would be where I'd move to.

SPQR

Senatus Populus Que Romanus

Literally translated, this phrase means "The senate and people of Rome."  The initials "SPQR" are found on many ancient Roman statues and stonework, modern buildings, public vehicles, police uniforms and every manhole cover in the city of Rome.  Its use dates back nearly 2,000 years.  Its meaning has changed subtly over the years, but it basically means that all public works or public buildings or artwork are done for the glory and benefit and love of the people of Rome.

I spent most of 8 days in Rome, with a 24 hour side trip to Venice toward the end of the period.  This blog is insufficient to describe what I saw and experienced.  I took over 750 photographs, saw countless pricless works of art by the greatest artists who have ever lived, ate food that is written about in magazines.  I saw artwork that has been described as "the highest expression of the human mind ever."  I stood feet away from some of the most important religious relics on earth. 

I might post a few pictures or answer some questions or whatever, but there's no way I can tell the whole story.  It would take 1,000 posts.  Seriously.