on the road

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I had read that fall in Western Massachusetts draws in a lot of people for the hills and the fall foliage, but this is ridiculous. My street has been non-stop traffic for 3 days now, presumably mostly out of towners here for the long weekend. The leaves are starting to change, and the landscape is turning surreal. In California, leaves stay green. The oaks drop their leaves in the fall, but they drop green leaves. Here it’s any color between green and ruby red. The other day on the bus I really had to shake my head to realize the oddity of what I was seeing - the landscape looked like a Constable painting on acid, something very over-the-top and exaggerated. I concluded that since I’m not into psychotropics, the landscape likely was real.

Last night was the first real cold night. The air had that bite. In a perverse way I’m sort of looking forward to the cold. I like cold weather things. Tea, blankets, snow, beanies, wool overcoats. My tea consumption has shot sky-high since moving here. California, for me anyway, has only 4-5 months where it’s cold enough to be proper tea months. Here I imagine it’s more like 8 months. So that’s a bonus. Other New England novelties: they call sandwiches here “grinders”. Maybe only at Subway would you still order a sub. More: it’s refreshing to live in a place that isn’t part of the 49ers nation. Here everyone is, of course, nuts for the New England Patriots. Thus I don’t have to see red and gold splashed everywhere, or posters of Jerry Rice for that matter. Instead its Tom Brady, who I’m not quite yet sick of. As a Cowboys fan, there is an added bonus in that the Patriots are an AFC team thus their fans don’t really have a strong opinion versus my team. In Sacramento, being a Cowboys fan was a great way to take shit from everyone else at the sports bar. Plus here, unlike back at home, I’m the only Cowboys fan at the bar. I’m known as the “Cowboys guy.” So that’s kinda cool.

The beer here is a lot better than back at home too. Tons, and tons of local brews. And generally cheaper. $2 pint specials at the bar across the street, Silent Cal’s. Can’t go wrong with prices like that.

Ahh Northampton. An odd collection of folks you find here. Being from Northern California the only place I could really compare it to is Berkeley. Take a small chunk of Berkeley and plant it in rural Mass and I suppose you have Northampton. Some abbreviate it to NoHo, which really makes no sense - shouldn’t it be NoHa? Or maybe just “no-no” as in leave your posh affectations in New York. There’s way too much flannel here for that. Here you find lots of college kids, along with bums and hicks and thirtysomethings working McJobs and of course the ubiquitous lesbian. Northampton apparently is the lesbian capital of America. I’ve seen it referred to, in print, as Lesbianistan, or Lesbianville as the National Enquirer put it. As a single male I wouldn’t say the atmosphere is hostile, in fact it’s the reverse. I’m hostile. Lesbianistan means my fish pond is a lot smaller. Weezer’s “Pink Triangle” might become my themesong.

I wonder what the Puritans would have to say. For more reading on the lesbian-progressive history of Northampton this is a good article.

Now I might have to backtrack and revise what I said about this town not being posh. While I wouldn’t call it posh, I definitely would call it bourgeoise. There are plenty of places here too expensive for me to shop in. Galleries and the like. According to this guy, this is the #1 arts town in the US. The entire downtown is very stylized, in the sense that it has a urban chic to it that definitely stands out in comparison to its nextdoor neighbors Hadley and Amherst. Main Street is especially so, almost to an extent that I wish it had more scruff, but I forgive it. It’s the main street and it’s named Main Street. Just like in the movies. So I cut it some slack. I live on Pleasant Street, the other main thoroughfare in town. My street is quite nice, but with lower bouge-value and price levels. I’m happy to report that I live within a block of six places of ill repute: Silent Cal’s, The Elevens, Hugos, Ye Olde Watering Hole, Pearl Street, and Tully O’Reilly’s. Two downhome dive bars, one pub with NFL Sunday Ticket, two places with frequent live music, and one place literally ten steps outside my door. I also live next door to the best pizza in town, which actually can suck since I am occasionally driven mad by the smell of deliciousness. Next door to that is a liquor/grocery store, although they only carry Haagen-Daaz and no Ben n Jerry’s. They don’t know it, but we’re in the midst of an ice cream feud.

It’s odd here. I’m trying to understand the economics of the place, but there must be 20 restaurants, 10-15 bars/clubs/dives, and 5-10 coffeeshops within a square half mile. All in a city of a mere 30,000 people. I’m not complaining though. This is a great place to be a pedestrian. If you put downtown Northampton in the middle of downtown Sacramento, people would rave about how cosmopolitan Sacramento had suddenly become. I’ve already seen Architecture in Helsinki and Salman Rushdie. It’s just odd to me that I might have better nightlife here in a place 1/30 the size of the place I left. Then again, I’ve only been here a month. I’m sure claustrophobia will set in eventually. That or hypothermia. But really, there’s nothing this town lacks.

Adding to the urbanity, and scruff of my road, is Heroin Road. There’s a footpath about 100 feet up the street from my house that apparently is the heroin center of the Valley. Add that to the laundromat and flophouse and you get quite the collection of oddballs. My street, like my place, has character. The Berkeley in Massachusetts. Only the Mexican food is way, way better in Berkeley. I’ve seen some stuff passed off as Mexican that caused eyeball-induced stomach nausea. Know what I mean? And lettuce does not belong in burritos. Nor does sour cream in jalapenos.

Life here in the Pioneer Valley, which encompasses the towns of Amherst and Northampton (among others) has finally settled down into something resembling a routine. I finally have a bit of time (and a stable internet connection), to do some side writing. Thus I now intend to do something long overdue: write of my first few weeks here in Massachusetts (forever further referred to in this blog as Mass, an abbreviation that I find ugly but useful - Cali just sounds so much better). Enough parentheses.

I find it hard to believe that I’ve now spent three weeks here. It feels much longer. I suppose I’m used to this compression of time from travelling, yet it still feels eerie and unnatural. Anyways, I just have to say that the whole process of relocating here has been a complete and total pain in the ass. I suppose I brought it on myself, in part, by moving from my first residence (in the dorms on the UMass campus) to this townhouse here in Northampton. By doing so I managed to anger the Fedex, UPS, and UMass gods and for my deeds they rained frustration and misery upon me. But I swear it was worth it: life in the dorm was simply unbearable. Let me give you some imagery to illuminate my prior situation: cinderblock, whitewashed walls; long, dimly lit corridors devoid of life; cold linoleum floors and a single, dim overhead florescent light; water pipes running along the edges of the ceiling. Along with this super depressing scenario were the hundreds of freshly arrived 18 year old freshmen who lived in two 22 story dormitory towers situated right outside my window. In UMass’ infinite wisdom, they decided to put the graduate student dorm right next to 44 stories of noise and immaturity. Can you hear the pumping basslines at 1 am? I could. Furthermore, living in the dorm created a sense within me that I too was 18 again, not really sure if I was an adult or simply a big child.

I simply didn’t move 2000 miles away from home to go back 6 years in time. I wanted my own place to craft in my image. I wanted a freaking kitchen. Now before I further mislead you, the impetus behind my move was generated entirely my roommate. Not only was my dorm and dorm room depressing as all hell, but I had to share this insiduously creeping darkness with somebody else. I had a roommate, named Sam. Sam was of the same opinion as I about our situation, only he was determined to do something about it. I wasn’t exactly content to ride out the situation for the semester, however there is a nasty $350 fee for cancelling your stay, and this acted as a potent deterrent against action. Sam, however, wasn’t going to let $350 get in the way of his housing revolution, and went apartment hunting. He returned one evening, more specifically our third evening there in the friendly confines of Prince Hall, with excitement in his eyes - he found a townhouse. With two rooms for rent. I hadn’t even seen the place but I knew I was in.

I’m a big fan of residences that have character. This townhouse doesn’t just have character in spades, but in clubs, diamonds and hearts too. It features a baby blue paint-job with pink accents. The entire floor of my bedroom vibrates like a minor earthquake when big trucks pass by. I’m on the third floor so this is a bit worrisome. My hardwood floors appear to have been installed by a drunkard on a Schlitz bender, and also feature a silver dollar sized hole in one of the boards that when probed by a pencil doesn’t seem to have a bottom. There’s not a single section of floor that doesn’t slope. To illustrate the Gaudi of my living situation, upon waking every morning I discover that my bed has migrated one to two feet from its original position against the wall. I now have my bed lodged in place by my two-year old Walmart flip flops that have been up close and cozy with the dirt of three continents and now two wheels of my bedframe. In short, I love it here. I do worry about the fraility of the place though when winter comes - the heating bill will likely be pretty unfriendly.

I’d love to write more, and believe me there’s a lot more to write, but this nasty thing called “section” requires my planning and thus I have to get to work.

First off, here’s a map of where I went and stayed in Italy this summer.

Back at home now, but more tales to tell. My mother admonished me to end this summer’s series on a happy note, since my last entry didn’t do much but complain about the Eye-talians. I really like complaining, but I can see her point. So instead of further negativity, let’s move on to tales of nude beaches, drunken swimming, and sunrises!

My last entry on the 8th was written from the lovely island of Hvar. While I did like Hvar, I think spending 4 nights there was a bit too much as the island is rather small and I found myself repeating my steps quite a bit. I ended up moving onto Dubrovnik for my last four nights, which was the highlight of Croatia (no surprise here to anyone familiar with Croatia) and one of the best periods of my trip. Dubrovnik was absolutely slammed with tourists, yet I loved it anyway. I can’t imagine the charm the place must have in the shoulder season. Then again, the water is cool enough in August that I’m not sure I’d want to visit in May or October, swimming would be out of the question then. But enough chronicling, let’s get to the raunch!

Such as my first nude beach experience. One day I took a daytrip out to the little island of Lokrum, which sits just off Dubrovnik by about a 30 minute boat ride. I was walking around randomly through the island’s trails, when I found one that ran across to the cliff edge and had a view down to the sea. I walked over, looked down, and noticed an extremely beautiful inlet, a V-shaped gash into the island with 40-50 foot high cliff walls and aquamarine water. I immediately thought “must go there” and then “Ok, how?” and proceeded to look to the left and noticed naked people. The only way into this marine bliss was walking and rockhopping all the way down the nude beach until the very end. Unless I wanted to jump the 50 feet off the cliff, but I wasn’t feeling particularly Australian and decided to pass. Now I knew Croatia’s strict nude beach policy - you enter, you get naked. I weighed the situation mentally. I came to the conclusion that my inhibitions were silly, that I’m on vacation and don’t really care, and figured it was worth letting 50 people see my white ass. Plus it’d be an adventure, and my trip had thusfar been short on adventure (long on relaxation).

So I find the trail to the beach entrance, passing by the No Clothes and No Cameras sign, and clamber to the end of the beach. The term “beach” in Croatia does not have anything to do with strips of sand. It really refers to anyplace near the sea where people can lay out or go swimming. All of Croatia’s shoreline is rock or some variation thereof. This partiuclar “beach” was really nice by Croatia’s standards, with lots of broad flat rocks that stepped up from the water up the hillside. Anyway, I get to my target destination, the End of the Nude Beach. I take a deep breath, bend over, and woosh, off goes my swimsuit. I then peer off into the distance, junk to the wind, inhale and shout “I am Adam reincarnate!” Ok, not really. Instead I rockhopped buck naked to the jumping off point (rockhopping while nude might be one of the least attractive sights on earth, well, if you have my skinny pale body anyway) and threw myself into the choppy azure water. Swimming naked in the sea is a surprisingly nice sensation. You feel like a fish or something, like you belong there.

That wasn’t the only nudie experience for me. The following occasion was a lot less dramatic. A group of us were at the beach a couple days later, one girl noticed that the other half of the beach was nude, and wanted to go do it. It was my last day in Croatia, and she was somewhat attractive, so I said what the hell and went with.

Dubrovnik was also a good night out. In four nights there I saw the sun rise twice, partly a product of the buses not running between 1 and 5:30 am and the hostel being a 40 minute walk from the downtown/castle area. The hostel had a great group of people so it was quite fun hitting up the clubs. The best evening ended with us walking past the old town harbor on our way back. I peered into the harbor, saw a boat tied up off by itself, and immediately fashioned myself Jack Sparrow. “Let’s pirate the boat!” I yelled as I ran into the harbor and jumped on. No one else in my little group found the idea as cool as me, instead someone offered a suggestion: no, let’s go swimming instead! Now, despite Dubrovnik having pure waters all around it, inside the harbor the water might give a Venetian canal a run for its money. The water is still clear, but has random trash floating about it and god knows what invisible liquids tossed off the boats. So the decision was Pirates vs. Swimmers and swimming won. We got down to our undies and hurled ourselves in. The water was gross, I knew it’d be gross, but when you’re drunk you don’t care. We got out when some old Croatian codger yelled at us that the police were coming and we’d better clear the area. I didn’t really believe him, besides it isn’t illegal to go swimming, but the girls freaked out and we had to leave.

It was nice having a few solid nights out to end the trip, considering I spent a lot of my trip in places where partying is a glass of Vin Santo after a meal. Out of 82 nights I probably only had 4-5 proper all nighters. Nice to end the trip on an upswing!

So my Croatian adventure ended with me sleeping on the deck of the Jadrolinja ferry into Bari, followed by 7 hours of trains the next day into Rome. My last meal in Italy was cacio e pepe followed by a pizza with prosciutto and rucola at Da Francesco, which I think has the best atmosphere of any restaurant in Rome. I followed that up with gelato at Giolitti, where I asked for mora and pistacchio, and was promptly told that they didn’t have mora (blackberry) but mirtillo (blueberry) was the same thing. I took the insult to my intelligence lightly, and with a smile admonished the young gelato scooper that they are two entirely different fruits. He probably was surprised to get a rebuttal in Italian from a guy wearing a baseball hat and T-shirt. I got the blueberry anyway, but it wasn’t as good. Blackberry is my favorite. Next time, Rome, next time.

In short, Italians do not act very well when on vacation. They are easily the loudest, most boisterous, and most annoying group of foreigners here on Hvar. I’m not sure what demon spirit possesses these people when they float over to the other side of the Adriatic, but I’m not a big fan of it. I’ve witnessed several occasions of Italians being rude to people at a service counter (be it a grocery store or ferry ticket booth), Italians being piss drunk and shouting at each other at restaurants, Italians shouting out their cars about the World Cup victory, etc. Half of it seems to be a sense of superiority to their Croatian hosts (hence the rudeness, and general unwillingness to speak anything other than Italian), and the other half seems to be this sort of crazed revelry (mixed with alcohol) that makes them the loudest, most annoying bastards on this beautiful and tranquil island. For me I don’t mind the latter, it’s just the way Italians talk down to Croatians that pisses me off. Since I understand Italian, I catch all their side conversations and quips. At times they aren’t pretty.

You’d think that the letters Y and Z aren’t really used that much in our language, so if their positions on the keyboard were switched for each others then it wouldn’t be that big a deal, right? Actuallz .. er .. actually, it is.

So now that I revealed the Big Secret that I am in Croatia, I suppose I should mention how I got here. By boat. Ok there’s more… About a week ago I got off my complacent ass and decided it was time to move about a bit faster. So I went to Milan, Trento, Madonna di Campiglio, Trento, Bologna, and then ferried across from Ancona to Split, Croatia. 6 days of travel in 6 days. Normally that isn’t my style, at all, but honestly I rather enjoyed it. Aiding my decision to move on were a couple English girls, Hannah and Beth, that I met in my hostel in Certaldo who happened to be going that way. Fast travel does have its benefits, it keeps you on your toes. And it was just what I needed, getting out of the rolling hills of central Italy and up to the mountains in the north. Italy can surprise you when you get your mental picture of the country pidgeon-holed into villas and cypress trees and rolling golden hills. Up in the Trentino it’s huge mountain ridges, deep green valleys, and lederhosen. And yes, I am serious about the latter, you can go see the lovely ladies in M. di Campiglio’s tourist office for proof.

We stayed one night in a rifugio (mountain refuge) up on a ridge above Campiglio. This was one of the oddest experiences in my life. First was the thunderstorm that passed directly on top of us (we were at around 7000 feet), with lightning right out our window. The power got turned out, we started talking about The Shining, and it was good proper scary fun. I also think it was the first time in about 7 weeks of my trip that I was actually proper cold. We had dinner and then the sun set and things got dark. I wanted to take a shower, and went to the bathroom and tried to turn on the tap. No luck. So I go downstairs and ask them how the shower works. They tell me I need a token to turn it on. A fucking token to turn on a shower?! Well I go back up, notice a red box that tells you to insert tokens for shower, then ask the girls I was with if we had received tokens, was told no, and went back down to ask reception for tokens. So I ask the lady if I can get some, and she replies, “oh, no sorry, it is too late to take a shower.” Huh? It was about 9:30pm, and apparently that is really quite late in mountain refuge time. And if 9:30pm is late, 10pm must be really, really late since they cut off the power and the entire place turns into a black hole. I believe this is the first place in my life where a residence voluntarily cut off its own power. Why they do this, I have no idea. So we shake our heads and go to sleep, only to be woken up the next morning at 7:55am by a beareded Italian man shouting at us that we had 5 minutes to vacate the room. 8am checkout time. What the fuck.

Now maybe these are customary regulations and practices for a refuge (one of the girls called it “Nazi Camp,” and while normally I don’t appreciate Nazi hyperbole, this situation warranted it), and some of you reading are thinking “duh, this is how these places work” and thinking that I’m just being whiney, which I probably am. But this wasn’t some remote rustic refuge in the middle of nowhere. You take a cable car to it. It has a bar and a restaurant. It has a terrace with deck chairs. It was basically a your average hotel, but run by prison guards. Aiding the surprise element was the fact that none of these regulations were told to us upon checking in. Maybe the lady was blind, but we hardly looked like your average salty German hiking guru who didn’t need to be informed of how the Gonzo World of mountain refuges worked. We were a few kids in t shirts and sneakers, looking entirely out of place amongst the other guests.

So anyway, we escaped our internment camp the next morning, hoping to take a good hike down the mountain and back to town. Well that plan didn’t pan out, as it refused to stop raining. So we hiked down to the cable car and ducked into the restaurant-bar there to get something to drink and warm up. I had the great idea of sipping on some sort of alcoholic warming agent like brandy or jagermeister. So we got a round and sat down at the table and toasted ourselves up. Well about 10 minutes later here comes the waitress with another round of shots. Apparently the boss liked our style, drinking at 9:30am, and wanted to show his appreciation. We look at these new shots in a mix of horror and appreciation, wondering how we would stomach it. Beth couldn’t, and discreetly ducked her shot into an empty water bottle. Me and Hannah soldiered on into the second shot, although at times grimacing in pain. 15 minutes passed, and the boss came over to sit with us, bringing another round of shots with him. I thought, oh god, I am going to be fucked. At this point the situation was so surreal, starting last night with refuge and continuing to the free shots, that we could do nothing but laugh and shake our heads in wonder. Basically we went from Nazi Camp to Free Alcohol Camp. It was an interesting transition. So he sat down with us and chatted us up. He was from Pozzuoli (hometown of Sophia Loren) and looked like a sushi chef. Another quarter hour passed, now about 45 minutes or so into our stay at Booze Camp. A lightbulb then went off in the bosses head, and he shouted for grappa. I reacted in horror: “No! We really can’t drink anymore, and especially not grappa!” It was barely past 10 am and we had already gone through 3 shots apiece. The guy laughed at me and got the bottle anyway and poured us shots. He told us we must drink, so we all gulped nervously, very nervously, and took tiny sips. I expected firewater, but instead got a delicious liqueur. Of all things, it was prune infused grappa. We all loved it. Apparently a specialty of the region.

So time came to leave, and I went up and paid the bill: 9 euro. We had 12 shots and paid 9 euro. This is the hospitality and warmth that Italy is famous for, absolutely absent from the place we had stayed the night before. The difference between the people at these two places couldn’t have been any different. Like yin to yang.

So anyway, I suppose I still haven’t answered the question of why I am in Croatia. The simple answer is that it’s one of those places I have always wanted to go, but for some reason or another I put it off or found reasons to go somewhere else instead. This summer I have met so many people who were going to or coming from Croatia, and so that idea implanted itself into my subconcious. After so many weeks in Italy and dealing with the heat, I decided it was simply time to hit the water. The last time I had sat on a beach was late June, so about 5 weeks ago. Ideas floated around my head of beach towns in Italy to hit up, but really I wanted something more exotic and different. So finally I pulled the trigger and popped onto a ferry and ended up here in Split. Italy is so comfortable for me knowing the language and food and rhythms, so Croatia provides its own challenges. I definitely haven’t eaten as well these last two days, but damn the water here makes up for it.

My first day had its quirks: a Croatian asshole nearly knocked me down the staircase on the ferry, then I get into Split and wait for my hostel to open admist a tropical storm-like downpour of rain the like I have never seen before, then I get a coffee with a couple guys from the hostel and a pigeon shits on my Cubs hat, and then later that night some shady guy warns me not to take a left because he “lost a lot of money down there,” whatever the hell that means. Split is quite beautiful however, surprisingly so since it doesn’t get much publicity on the tourist track.

My second day, today, has had its quirks as well: I think people in general like Californians. Or they like the idea of California, so that goodwill gets imparted onto you, the tourist from California. Being from Cali is like its own currency. It usually brings a smile to people’s faces. It’s good. But people definitely have varied ideas of Cali. Usually it’s beach and Hollywood, but other times, like today, you get surprised. Today I hitchhiked back from the beach, and when I told the driver that I’m from California he had a very interesting reply: “My friend he is a navigator. He goes to California and he says there that man gets with man, and woman gets with woman. San Francisco. It’s just not right to do. George Michael, he got women so easily that now he goes after men. George Michael is crazy. Man shouldn’t be with man.” So, like I said, the conversation can vary! I can’t remember the last time I had heard the name George Michael mentioned. I laughed my ass off with the sheer randomness of his name getting dropped in a car in Croatia. George Michael. Good times.

 

The heat is really messing with my head. Just a few minutes ago I put my flip flops on the wrong feet and then sprayed shaving cream into my armpit thinking it was deodorant. I didn’t realize the flip flops were on opposite feet until I started to walk to the bathroom to scoop out the gel from under my arm, and almost tripped and fell on my face. Good times. Then again, I read that back at home it’s been a lovely 105 degrees for about a week straight. But at least there it’s a dry heat, right?

Mornings are hard for me. I’m not a morning person, so when I wake up sweaty and flushed and slightly hung over, the last thing I want to do is be around people. So I wake up, stretch, feel miserable, and then I remember, shit, I’m staying in a hostel and if I want breakfast that means I gotta brave the masses at the breakfast table. That means people will probably try talking to me and ask me questions and I’ll have to try and be nice when in reality I want to snap at them to leave me the hell alone for at least two to three hours. Mornings are definitely my least favorite time to be in a hostel.

100 degree heat with 85% humidity is simply wonderful when you haven’t got air conditioning! What a wonderful heat wave these last few days. At least yesterday we had a very nice lightning storm complete with big wind to kick out some of the humidity. And I’m not sure what it is about Italians, but they seem to be the least sweaty people on earth. They will go out on the hottest of days dressed in slacks and a polo shirt and not have a single bead of sweat on their foreheads. It’s like they have built in A/C, either that or the Italians have invented some sort of shampoo with anti-persperant and kept it their little secret. It does help, I imagine, that Italians are probably the slowest walking people you’ll ever see. One day in Orvieto, Dad and I noticed how fast we were walking in comparison to the rest of the passeggiata crowd and decided we would slow down to their pace. The lazy person I am, I quickly adapted. Dad on the other hand couldn’t, remarking with a laugh, “this is absolutely impossible.” I’d love to take a group of 20 Italians, plunk them down somewhere in lower Manhattan right at the close of the business day, tell ‘em to go for a stroll, and see how many New Yorkers they’d piss off.

So I went off to Lucca for a few days. There I managed to lose my passport for the second time on my trip. This time I left it at Borgo a Mozzano next to their famous bridge. It fell out of my pocket, and I didn’t realize it until I had walked all the way back to the train station. I sprint-walked (you know what I mean right? When you need to get somewhere in a hurry but you are way too cool to run, so you do this crazy walk where you’re trying to move your feet as quickly as possible but do it in a very inconspicuous don’t notice me manner) back to the bridge, luckily someone had found it and turned it into the restaurant there. Relief. I then sprint walked back to the station, through of course a wedding with people dressed to the nines. I was sweaty as hell and walking like an idiot, I’m sure they noticed me and thought to themselves, “Look at that American, just like all the rest, always in a hurry.” Anyway, I caught my train with literally 0 seconds to spare, so my sprint-walk paid dividends. Also in Lucca I left my gum on top of a ticket machine at the train station, and my deodorant mysteriously disappeared. In addition, I left my phone charger at the hostel in Certaldo. So to sum that up, that’s one passport, gum, deodorant, and phone charger all in a span of four days. Impressive feat.

Also impressive are the number of mosquito bites I have managed to accrue. I imagine the count currently stands around 30. Mosquitos in Italy are absolutely fucking vicious. Here they have the lovely tiger mosquito, which happens to be a super aggressive brand of mosquito from Asia. They leave larger bumps on you than your typical bite, and absolutely will not leave you alone. In a burst of inspriration, a few cities here in Tuscany are implementing “bat-boxes” or mini-habitats for bats in order to control the bloodsucker population. Apparently they can eat a few thousand insects a night, so in theory a good idea.

The more you travel, the more it becomes a part of your life rather than as a means to get away from your life (speaking mainly of those who travel to take a break from the stress of home and work). When travel becomes a way of life it naturally leads to more time spent thinking about how your life is going, what is waiting for you at home, and even if travel is contributing to growth in your life or if it’s an attempt to dodge reality. Or put another way, travelling makes one introspective, especially when travelling by oneself. I think it’s absolutely a healthy process. You learn more about yourself and you grow at a faster pace than you normally would just doing the regular daily routine at home. It’s accelerated maturation, and you achieve new levels of understanding. Of course, self-understanding doesn’t translate automatically into happiness. Being very comfortable with one’s thoughts and feelings isn’t the same as being happy with them. Maybe it gives you the key to unlocking inner tranquility, but the road there isn’t necessarily without bumps. This introspection can make you realize what you are missing. It can make you melancholic as it makes you more self aware. In the end, however, having to deal with these thought processes and feelings is a positive. It leads you in a direction. Without reflection you swim without getting anywhere.

I bring this up mainly because I have spent a lot of time on myself during this trip [note, I do not mean I have spent a lot of time by myself, actually I have been constantly with other people, perhaps moreso than any other of my trips, and to the point that I have to make a conscious decision to set off on my own on some days]. The slower pace of this trip has really lent itself to time to spent in contemplation. This contemplation happens on every trip, but especially so on this one. It was unsettling at first, even at times leaving me somewhat unhappy, but I am becoming more comfortable with it. Once in awhile you have to tell yourself to snap out of it, and enjoy the present. Writing is cathartic and helps this process. It isn’t unfortunately a switch that can be simply turned off and on, but I’m getting a bit better at shifting gears. So I’ll shift gears now, and do a bit of trip recounting…

Just by happenstance (what a sweet word) I ended back up in Certaldo again, due to being turned down by places in Sermoneta and Pitigliano for lack of room. In a case of bad luck turning good, I ended up here for the second time on my trip, only this time the town is having its annual street festival, Mercantia. Basically in a span of 9 days I caught the Palio in Siena, Umbria Jazz in Perugia, and now Mercantia in Certaldo [not to mention the street party in Rome on the night of Italy's win]. So it’s been a great week and a half and a welcome diversion from typical tourist stuff ie. churches, museums, etc. And, in my opinion, Mercantia blows Umbria Jazz away. The festival is held in Certaldo Alto, the tiny old medieval part of Certaldo up on the hill. It’s a natural made stage for street performances, with many nooks and crannies and little gardens and piazzettas. And the performances - excellent. Black angels walking down the street with bagpipes, white angels posing in windowsills, belly dancers from Argentina, knife juggling on a unicycle, an insane street band from New York City, bluegrass and the blues, and all sorts of other various performances. A very unique and enjoyable festival. Umbria Jazz was nice, but I expected such a large town as Perugia to be full of little stages and groups performing all over. Instead there were just two public stages and the rest of the groups were all hidden away in theatres where you had to pay to hear. I suppose that’s fair enough, but I was looking more for a street festival.

I’ve spent most of my time in the last week just relaxing and recapturing the travelling mood/spirit that tends to fade away after you hit the trail hard for a protracted length of time. The two weeks with Dad were great, and I saw a ton, but after he left I was interested only in going somewhere and relaxing. So that’s more or less what I have done here in Certaldo, and now after what’s been essentially a week, I’m ready to move on and get back on the trail. I have done a bit here, seeing Volterra, San Gimignano again (this time just for the gelato), San Miniato and Pisa. San Miniato was probably my favorite of the daytrips, a lovely little town stretched out on a ridge with beautiful views all around it. The first time I came into Certaldo, aboard the train and gazing out the window, I noticed what appeared to be a town off in the distance with a big ruined tower on top. The view of this tower piqued my interest and I eventually figured out the name of the place, San Miniato, and even more eventually I got off my lazy ass and decided to go visit it. Twas a good decision. This is the beauty of travelling slow: you have the opportunity to go to places just off a whim, just because you saw it out the train window and it looked interesting.

I think tomorrow I’m heading off north to a little town near Stazzema, up in the Apuan Alps, to do some hiking. I decided yesterday that I either need mountains or beach, and the mountains just happen to be a lot nicer around here than the beaches. Plus, from up there I can go to the Gulf of Poets and get my Talented Mr. Ripley on, and Carrara, where you find the marble quarries. These mountains of marble look to be snow covered from the distance, but in reality are the source for centuries of Italian sculpture, ie. Michelangelo’s David.

Lastly, in a pinnacle of travelling slowly, I have spent 30 of my 52 days thus far in three places: Rome, Certaldo, and Ischia. The Rome and Ischia stays were broken up into two parts, but nevertheless this is the slowest I have travelled yet. I think my last month (30 days to go now) will pick up the pace a bit, as I want to get to Pitigliano, Bologna, the Marches, and Abruzzo, with Sermoneta, Sperlonga, and Gaeta also on the list.