Scripto Ergo Cogito Ergo Disco Ergo Sum Rene Descartes started it all in 1637 in his Discourse on the Method, which most scholars consider his seminal philosophical work. I have amended it to read (in Latin), I write, therefore I think, therefore I learn, therefore I am. My default activity these days is to write. I know this especially now because I am finishing a ten day trip to New York and Italy and I…
Out of Rome As I head back home to San Diego in my Jet Blue seat, I have just watched for the umpteenth time, Out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. There are few movies that I find so beautiful. It is beautiful in cinematography, beautiful in its haunting soundtrack, beautiful in its turn-of-the-century costuming of the adventurous safari set and beautiful in its narration as though we are hearing directly from the…
Slammin’ Salmon Ever since I was a kid, I have had a strong aversion to fish. I, like most people my age, ate my share of fish sticks in my youth and I didn’t hate them, but they are coated with bread crumbs and fried or baked to the point of being a bread stick with some tasteless white stuff in the middle…and a lot of tarter sauce all over them. I think its fair…
Wandering Through Grace When I start a new story like this, I pluck a recent story from the recently saved ones and use its format to delete the story and replace the title. That saves me from having to choose a font and font size and get the alignment right. Today, the old story I plucked from the array was When Will You Make an End, which was about my Hobbit House, but starts off…
A Pleasant Spot Yesterday we arrived in Rome and suddenly went from another large airport (Leonardo Da Vinci Airport at Fiumicino), where, in typical fashion these days, we had to talk about 1.5 miles from the arrival gate to the baggage return. It took so long to walk that distance that our bags beat us to baggage claim area. I think of it as forced exercise, which requires you to broken-field dash through countless glittery…
Dining at Termini It’s Monday morning in central Rome and I have a mission. We are here for a little more than a week with our friends Gary and Oswaldo. We have stayed the last two nights at a nice boutique hotel called Capo d’Africa, which is in between the Coliseum and St. John Lateran. So far we have spent a day walking five+ miles around town to go see some sights like the Boca…
7,700 Steps Through Heaven Today we are in Rome with just a loose agenda of activities. We drove in yesterday from Amalfi and I dropped off the rental car at Stazione Termini while the gang found their way with the luggage to the AirBnB we had secured. The place is called The Spanish Penthouse in honor of the fact that it is at the base of Piazza de Spagna and is, indeed on the top…
Positano Yesterday we “did” the Amalfi Coast. Kim arranged a tour guide who drove over from Naples to drive us (technically, a guy named Renato did the driving) around the winding roads of the coast. After five minutes of the drive I realized that I was the real beneficiary of this choice, since driving and looking simultaneously is a high-risk maneuver, which i could thankfully forego. We start by heading to Ravello to the south,…
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Amalfi Today we awake to the brilliant Mediterranean Sea laid out before our eyes from the terrace of our AirBnB high up on a cliff overlooking the coastline. We have found and rented a very reasonable and very pleasant two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with a large terracotta terrace that looks like the perfect summertime place to while away the warm afternoons to the setting sun. Yesterday we spent the day…
Entering the Eternal City We are transiting through Munich at the moment, on our way to Rome, Fumicino Airport that sits between Rome and Ostia Antica. I have very specific memories of the Rome airport for a number of reasons. Back in high school we would fly in and out of Rome on TWA mostly, heading back to New York. It was around 1970 that Boeing introduced its new monster of the sky, the 747.…