Me and Rome aren´t on speaking terms

So far, any minute I have spent in Rome has been painful. I left Cortona early in the morning and Amie and Issa dropped me off at the station. By my guess, I would have nearly three hours in Rome to wander just a little, maybe catch one sight and then head out. It was not to be.

It took 45 minutes of waiting to get my bags checked. I still have no clue where the lockers are located. I guess it´s the best theft deterrent when the people with the bags can´t find it. Then I wanted to buy some stamps and mail four postcards. The tourist info desk said to buy them from a Tobacconist. The Tobaconnist I find says no and points me across the street to the Post Office.

Guess what? There´s no machine. The only way to buy stamps is to wait in line. For a week, I´ve been getting used to the "Italian Line" which isn´t so much a line as it is a mob with people constantly jocking to get up front. And all I want are four stamps -- quarto stampe. Instead, the Italian Post Office (at least this Roman one) has you take a number where you will be served by ONE window. This one window also seems to be where government forms, paychecks or anything involving a small stack of papers on the part of the patron and a whole bunch of typing on the part of the clerk.

So I have my number, 78 and I watch as we s-l-o-w-l-y count up. Occasionally, the numbers zip by and I realize that if I am not up and out of my seat within 10 seconds of my number coming up, I lose my spot. I watched the counter like a hawk.

Needless to say, all I have seen of Rome is the main train station, gypsies and police telling me I´m not allowed to sit on the ground and eat lunch. Well, I did get a chance to see the temple of Minerva from the train as I left the station. Maybe another time when I´m in the mood for the bustle of that big city, but until then, Roma, don´t bother calling.

A visit to La Specola

When I arrived in Camucia on Sunday, Amie mentioned that everyone was excited about going to La Specola to see the Wax Anatomical Models. Oh, won't poor Dr. Marta Poggesi be suprised when, instead of two people, there's a whole group. No problem, it should make our visit all the more memorable to her. *g*

The anatomy pieces are actually just a small part of the zoological display they have there. They have many, many preserved animals dating to the 17thC so there was a little of Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe to the museum. There was little or no effort to show the habitat of animals that is a popular form of display in american museums. That made the display all the more impressive with cases and cases of birds, fish, insects, large and small animals.

During our walk through, an older man who worked there asked us, "How did you learn about this? No one comes here!" Then came the real question, "Why?". Indeed, why would six loud Americans come to a part of Florence that most people just pass through. Why would they find their way through the parking garage and up three flights of stairs to visit a museum with 250 year old displays?

We came for the wax collection. Wow. While they allow photographing (sans flash) of the rest of the displays, they do not allow any photographing of the wax models. While I have a copy of the Taschen book of the models, there is nothing quite like being able to see the displays from a variety of angles and truely appreciate the meticulous detail and huge amount of effort that each piece required. The pieces showing the lymphatic system or the circulation were stunning, I found the one piece that showed a fetus in the womb with a translucent layer just as impressive. I have had a chance to see the Body World exhibit and I can honestly tell you that these models looked very, very close to the corpses Dr. Haagen displays.

After our walk through, we meet with Dr. Marta Poggesi who turned out to speak not much English so she called one of her students to come help. We got to hear a few additional stories such as how one of the displays of a torso was the winning entry of a competition seeking out new wax artists. Celmente Susini, who you can read about on the La Specola site, did that whole torso model himself. We also learned that the cases, including some of the glass, in which each set of models is displayed are the original cases. We thanked Dr. Pogessi and her student for their time and left to explore Florence our seprate ways.

Live from Cortona's Community Center

Unortunately, my plans for adding pictures to my blog as I go along isn't panning out. I keep forgetting to pack the memory card => USB dongle. So you will have to bear with my words.

Right now, I am in Cortona's Community Center. It's upstairs through some small doors (I just kept following signs that said "internet"). The first room is a dark bar which in Italy, supplies the hourly coffee, water, wine and occasionally liquor. The next room are for the pool tables. And the third large room is where a group of men are playing parcheesi. Four computers, a bookshelf of used books and a table with checkers is in a small room off that.

Oh, I'd just like to say that every guide book needs to be updated. Hey guys, it's not www.cortona.net. It's www.cortonaweb.net. Thanks.

Oh and a note to all world travelers.... if you can't understand the language of the window that pops up when you enter your username and password, do not, I repeat, do not hit anything that looks like "yes". Firefox fans will know that this is the window asking to save your password information. Firefox fans will also know that there is an option to reveal these saved passwords. Yes, someone decided to connect to their Bank of London account and saved the password. I took a picture which I will granulate later to prove my point.

Quick Catch up

Let's see how fast I can do this. 19 Minutes left on my hour here in Florence. I haven't had a chance to get to a computer or post anything because there's no cell phone access along the hilss where our house is and I have found only one computer in Cortona that is available for connecting to the internet. It's in a travel agent/sweets/soda shop near one fo the main tourist entrances.

So, here's the quick update. I Hope to have more time to fill out the details of these stories:

- My flight into Europe was uneventful, but hitting Italy it all went out the door. My flight came in after the last train from Rome to Cortona came in, but I didn't realize this until I was at the Rome station. I was able to drop my bag off at a baggage claim, but was too tired to try wandering the streets hoping to find a hostel to stay in. So I stayed in the station on platform 1 with the rest of the homeless (some waiting for trains, some permanent residents of the station). I got on hour of sleep and it wasn't deep at all since I had someone scoping out my boots and jacket when I did finally laydown.

- Poor Amie and Issa (friends I am staying with) had their luggage misplaced in a transfer in Madrid so they spent 3 days alternatatly dealing, fuming annd calling the airport in Pisa.

- Sunday Market in Arezzo. It's flipping huge. I really should have taken pictures, but I was still running on one hour of train station sleep so sitting on the steps of the church and soaking up the sun seemed the best way to get back in tune with Italy. It must have worked because so far I have had two sets of old women start speaking to me as if I was Italian.

- Monday in Cortona. This place defines the term Tuscan Hill town. It's a Etruscan walled city with some main touristy thorough fares and lots of side streets. I was shopoed out of the Church of St. Marghareta (I'll deal with spelling later), by the nuns being called to mass. I randomly came across a very meaty lunch (rabbit, duck and chicken for 6€) that appearantly every other American knew about too. It rained off and on all day so between walking up hill and up more hill, I hide in covered alleys and watch umbrella-wielding tourista walk by. Then I walked down the hill to the large Cemetary and took some photos back up at the hill town.

- Tuesday in Florence. We all just got back from La Specola and everyone agreed that it was worth the 7AM train trip. We met with Dr. Marta Poggesi (spelling?) and one of her students who explained more about the collection. I dicovered that there is a museum of pathological anatomy (think Muetter Mueseum in the US). I'm not sure I will make it. I have four hours before we all meet up at the train station and head for home. I'm really thinking that me, lunch and several espressos just before siesta are more of a plan.

Just a few minutes to post. More hopefully tomorrow (if I can get on that one machine in Cortona).

Done with work!

In less than fifteen minutes, I shut down the old work laptop and hand it over to someone to hang onto for safe keeping. It's safer than leaving it in my house for a month. The only things I will have left to do in the office is tidy up and make a few phone calls. I need to double check that my normal data service for my phone will work automagically while in Europe.

Then I have to play the packing game. I'm trying to make it with only check in luggage, but my airlines are limiting me to 6kg (13lbs). Zoinks! I'll be stuffing the pockets on my jacket like mad trying to squeeze 6 or more extra pounds in.

I'll post pictures of the process later.

The Vacation Blog?(!)

I originally wanted to stick on one purpose with this blog -- online community musings. However, there are several people who do a better job at posting regularly than I do. And those who don't post regularly, do so with quality. So it's time to loosen up the restrictions I've put on myself.

For the next month, I hope to blog a trip I have been planning for many months now. There are several reasons for my trip:

I haven't taken a "real" vacation in 5 years. Working at the Game Developers Conference or watching every film Toshiro Mifune made with Akira Kurosawa at the Pacific Film Archive while also reading
The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune
don't count).

As a hobby, I portray a 16thC German surgeon. My interest is in how surgeons (who were trained as a trade, not in universities) started to follow the empirical evidence before them rather than rely on ancient incorrect theories based on belief rather than evidence. At the same time, the printing press allowed them to publish what they read in the common language of their peers and not Latin required by the academics which, in my view, helped advance the medical arts. As part of all this, I'm interested in obtaining reproductions of accurate instruments to perform demonstrations of procedures. To that end, I am going to medical museums through Germany to document the size and construction of instruments.

It's been 20 years since I have been to Germany and I do like the place and the people, not to mention the beer.

First I need to decompress
But before I begin my Bildungsreise ("educational vacation"), I'll be unwinding in Cortona, Italy. The only reason for this is that friends of mine have rented a villa there and I just have to show up and cover my share. Of course, there will be a side trip to "La Specola" to see the 250 year old anatomical wax works.

Three weeks, too many cities?
Have I bitten off more than I can chew? In this map of Germany, my rough route is highlighted in yellow. I'll be making side trips to the typical tourist places such as Rothenburg, but also some side trips to the family home of Georg von Frundsberg in Mindelheim and a Peasant's War Museum in Mühlhausen (I should find a link to that before I go, huh?). It might be more than I can do, but I'm not going to push it. The medical museums I linked to above are my main goal. They will take me to many cities where I will have an opportunity to get away from the main tourist areas and find a small beer garden to relax. I've been learning German at the Goethe Institute since January and can easily navigate my way through daily life and might be able to hold up a basic conversation.

I fly on Friday. That leaves 2 days of work and 1 day of packing....