Eternal City

It happens to everyone who visits Rome.  As unavoidable as diesel fumes, grafitti and long lines outside the Vatican Museum. As cliched as the costumed "gladiators" loitering around the Colosseum. And as predictable as the appearance of bunches of chrome-yellow mimosa blossoms in the Campo de Fiori flower market each spring.

I'm speaking, of course, of the moment the tourist succumbs to the temptation to imagine being magically transported back in time to Ancient Rome.

It's impossible to predict what might trigger the feeling.  It might be the first vista of the Forum in slanting yellow afternoon light.  It might be the musty air of the catacombs, where every breath contains a molecule or two that once belonged to a living citizen of the Empire.  Or it might be a stumble on the Appian Way, when the visitor looks down to see a Nike stuck in a deep rut carved by chariot wheels.

Whatever the source, the reaction is always the same.  The traveler loosens the sweaty wallet deathgrip just a tad. The voices of tour guides, family and companions fade.  Eyes squint to block out the Fiats and the Banana Republic stores. 

Just for a second, the marble columns and crooked cobblestones stand straight and new.  The fleece jacket becomes an itchy wool toga.  And the hubbub of unintelligible voices all around are speaking Latin, classical Greek and Aramaic instead of German, Japanese and English.  Ancient Rome comes fleetingly alive.

Then a Vigili Fuocco firetruck's siren howls by on the way to the scene of a car accident or a long lunch, and the spell is broken. But once it's happened, the visitor will never see the Eternal City in quite the same way again.  There's always a lingering sense that behind every mouldering ancient brick and chipped column flute, a living past is lurking, waiting for another oppotunity to emerge.



My parents lived in Rome for 11 years in the 1980s and '90s. I had the fantastic good luck to be able to visit them many times while they were there, and to return with them frequently for visits after they moved back to the United States.  I will be traveling to Rome with my mother in March and intend to write about that trip in this blog.

Japanese Currents

I live in a world inspired by a place I've never seen.

When I was little I used to stand on the beach holding my mother's hand. She told me how the Japanese Current carries glass floats to our Pacific Northwest shores decades after storms tear them loose from fishing nets thousands of miles away. We decorated our house in the little coastal town the same way everyone did, by hanging those glass floats from the eaves.

Here in Seattle our older neignborhoods are peppered with low-slung wooden 1950s and 60s homes. Their long overhanging eaves are adorned not with floats but with chains conducting our copious rain into artificial streams of moss-covered pebbles. Stone lanterns gather lichen under cedar trees. And no courtyard is complete without a twisting maple tree flaming red in the fall.

In spring the city erupts into clouds of pink-and-white cherry blossoms. And in summer people wander through the Japanese Garden in the Aboretum, posing for pictures among the groves of purple irises.

So it's natural that I would want to visit Japan, the source and inspiration for all this beauty. Seattle's large and influential Japanese community has a long and not always happy history, but there's no denying that their artistic sensibility has been an extraordinary gift to our city. I want to visit the cities, temples and gardens that were the inspiration for my surroundings here on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.  I have put off the visit for many years due to the high cost, but I hope not to have to wait too much longer.

On the beach I would squint at the horizon and imagine I could see Japan faintly in the distance. It was really nothing more than the shadow of a distant cloud, but my imagination filled it with pagodas, castles and torii gates. I dream of the day when those things are really before me.

This post is part The Travel Belles' regular "Across the Cafe Table" discussion, at http://www.travelbelles.com/

Hello, Kitty

There is as yet no scientific term for the eye-blink interval between the end of my last trip and the start of planning for the next one. It's slightly less than the moment it takes a Parisian shopkeeper to size me up as an American, and slightly longer than it takes a car to appear out of nowhere angrily flashing headlights in my rearview mirror when I pull into the left lane on an apparently empty Italian autostrada.

This year the choice of destination was easy.  A whirlwind visit to Hong Kong in 2010 convinced my husband and me that a week was nowhere near enough time in this fascinating city and environs.  There were markets unexplored, dim sum restaurants untried, and Lan Kwai Fong pubs unexperienced. So back across the Pacific we're headed.

My major planning challenge is what the military calls "mission creep." It's far too easy for me to look at a map and think, "Gee, we're only an inch away from Singapore, we should add that in.  And while we're there we could make a day trip to Kuala Lumpur." Thankfully my husband is skilled at project-managing my trip planning, and has so far succeeded in averting catastrophe.

But we will visit at least one other city this time.  We plan to fly to Hong Kong on Taiwan-based EVA, ensuring a change of plane in Taipei. This choice seemed uncontroversial until my husband learned that the airline has chosen to paint some of its planes in a distinctive "Hello Kitty" livery.

Now, my husband is as secure in his manhood as any male can possibly be.  But the prospect of traveling in a flying comic book nearly proved too much, and he refused to be seen on such a conveyance.  I reminded him that fourteen hours in the air is a long time to spend with a paper bag over one's head, plus it's really hard to watch the in-flight movies that way. He finally relented when I learned that the cartoon livery isn't used on EVA's long-haul routes. But I avoided mentioning the possibility that we'd be on one of these cute planes on the Taipei-Hong Kong leg.

This will be our first visit Taipei, and any itinerary suggestions are welcome.  Plus advice on how to navigate the airport with a paper bag over one's head.

Los Angeles

Speeding by through a car window, Los Angeles resembles an overexposed photograph. The city has a bleached, grimy quality that stands in stark contrast to the high gloss portrayed in the media it churns out. But LA can be seductive as well as sinister. Over three million people from every corner of the globe, simmering day after day in a climate described by “Chinatown” screenwriter Robert Towne as “the same temperature as your skin” can produce thought-provoking art and ideas. The bougainvillea growing past a collage of old posters on a wall near a gallery in Santa Monica caught my eye.

Octoberfest in Leavenworth, Washington

Octoberfest in Washington’s faux-Bavarian mountain village of Leavenworth was not at all what I expected. Sure, there was slap-dancing, a horse-drawn wagon full of imported German dignitaries, oompah music and yodeling aplenty. And beer. Lots and lots and lots of beer.
But I never anticipated the intensity of the revelry. Under the governing principle that an Octoberfest-goer does not live by dirndles and lederhosen alone, attendees dressed as Imperial Storm Troopers from “Star Wars,” half-naked Vikings, and the 1972 US Olympic track team. There were Rastafarians with both real and artificial dreadlocks. A group of imposingly buxom women on a balcony tossed pieces of saltwater taffy into the crowds waiting to enter the main festival tent. Every shop and restaurant was jammed with customers spilling into the streets. By far the longest line was outside the costume store, where a bouncer kept those desperate for a foot-tall beer stein hat at bay with a chain across the entrance.

Thankfully there were quieter moments as well. In the gazebo in the town center a traditional Alpine band drew a crowd of footsore partygoers. One tiny girl in particular was entranced by the accordionist.

Pan Am

My father-in-law is a retired Pan Am flight engineer.  In honor of him and tonight's premier of the "Pan Am" television show, here's a vintage promotional video from the airline.  Enjoy travel the way it used to be: Lobster, smoking and "powder rooms."

Last Saturday Tim Haywood posted a hilarious entry about “free stuff” on his blog “Shallow Pond.” In keeping with his theme I want to thank him for so helpfully sparing me the burden of originality. It’s not stealing, honest. It fell off a truck.

Tim’s description of people giving out free product samples on Seattle’s streets reminded me of my utter inability to resist anything handed out by anyone. Every year I come home from the Auto/Flower/Home/Remodeling/Boat show with one shoulder permanently lowered due to schlepping a bag full of free tires/potting soil/composite shingles/tide tables. I have no use for any of these items. Why do I take them? In the words of the late mountain climber George Mallory, may his mummified remains rest in peace on Everest’s frozen slopes, “Because it’s there.”

But the ne plus ultra of swag remains Costco. While my husband wanders the aisles gazing lovingly at generators, drill bits and 500-packs of AA batteries, I circle in the holding pattern around the the food-sample stations. Like a cheetah stalking a Thompson’s gazelle in the Serengeti, I crouch in the underbrush of tall customers, shopping carts piled high with flank steaks, underwear and 50-gallon vats of mustard, and strollers with sleeping babies. Narrowing my eyes at an opening, I spring through and snatch a toothpick-speared chicken nugget, retreating back into the crowd to devour my prey.

I repeat this process for the entire afternoon. Steve finds me at intervals. “Look! These Dockers are five pairs for $25!” “Mmmph,” I reply though a mouthful of cheesecake, my attention entirely focused on a plastic-gloved server whose pizza rolls are just about ready to come out of the toaster oven.

I’ve tried interesting Steve in this bounty, but he resolutely turns up his nose at my proffered samples of camembert and Kashi. “Let me know when there’s beer,” he replies.

That evening, while we’re unloading pallets of cat food and toilet paper, Steve asks what I want for dinner. Strangely I’m not hungry.