Odysseus Returned

Treading water, fighting the waves in the wine-dark Mediterranean Sea, how can one not imagine oneself to be the latest reincarnation of Odysseus.

Haze.

If one ventures out of the jungle of the city in the evening, one can see a strange haze rise up and glaze over the descending sun. As I walked along the borders of the city I watched the grass brown to a golden hue.

The Excercisers of the Vatican

Taking a long walk out to the edge of the city where the remnants of the baths stand, I found one of the few places where one can observe Italians performing some sort of formal exercise. It was a region of grassy park bordered by a running trail. Around this one could see figures running and walking. Not jogging, these people would sprint some distance and then walk, different from the continuous patter of Americans. In the center there were monkey bars like one might find on a children's jungle gym. Across it large grown men were brachiating. At another point in the field there was a group of men and women playing a game like pickle ball but without the single bounce.

An Unwelcome Reception (or: Encounter #3)

If you are moving with a large group it will be hard to find a place to eat in Rome. Restaurants are generally about twelve feet wide and they rarely jump at the chance of seating fifteen large American college students. On this night a group of fifteen was wandering in Trastevere looking for a decent meal. Someone among the group spotted a small restaurant, and as groups like these tend to become like one large unintelligent worm, everyone followed what the "eyes" had seen. The restaurant was small and narrow, there was only enough room for us to walk single file through the central aisle. As we entered Italians looked up from their meals. There was a man with a microphone in the center of the room and another at a keyboard in the corner. While he must have been singing previously, he had by now stopped and was looking at us also. As we filed past him he would ask us questions. After each question (usually "what 'bout you, where you from?") he would make some comment to the rest of the Italians in the restaurant and they would all laugh uproariously, pointing fingers at us and tipping back their heads. "You from Seattle? Seattle, Jessica Alba". As we finally learned the dinner cost 48 euro (or perhaps this was simply a trick) a person. Needless to say, we left red-faced. Tail turned, we could still hear the man singing a sarcastic goodbye song to us with the accompaniment of the keyboard and punctuated by terrible laughter.

For Memory.

It is a clever idea that Romans had, creating memorials that help to recall the memory of a person by enticing the viewer to physically interact with the monument. Most people in the US are buried in anonymousness by choosing to be placed beneath nearly identical gravestones that sit in neat rows. The Roman emperors created experiences as memorials, the climbing of a stairway to a view, a spiral one must circle around.

Flow.

Flow of Water: Rome is a city of flowing water. Fountains send water soaring upward into the sky, creating artificial illumination through the reflections in the flying droplets. But these are just the most obvious segment of water's many travels through the city. Water also seeps from hidden cracks in walls, inching its ways across cobblestones to either disappear again to its home below the city or form "mystery puddles", puddles that form in the streets on hot days that are often of dubious origin. Water also flows beneath the city in the dark layers of history. Some of the most ancient buildings have in their deepest depths glimpses of the underground rivers that flow below.

Flow of Pedestrians: The streets of Rome form an intricate network of pedestrian flow. This current behaves similarly to any water or electrical network. In the open piazzas, people move slowly, often they are even stationary, these are the lakes and ponds of Rome. Here gentle waves of tourists lap the shops that line the edges. As one travels into the streets though, the experience changes, pedestrians pick up their speed, only stopping in the eddies created by benches. In the small dark streets the rush of walkers curling back and forth, bouncing from wall to wall is definite, rarely are any walkers static.

Note: It should be noted that resisting the urge to quickly move through the narrower streets can be beneficial to the curious mind.

The Colosseum.

The Colosseum is a monument that woos by extravagance. There is little beauty to me left in its worm eaten form. Its secrets have all been revealed, its stage gone to show the bizarre inner workings of its interior. Magnificence it has through its size, but also a lurking ugliness and even a terror when one remembers its history. And I think less of the terror of the tortures that it inflicted on criminals and slaves, and more of the terror that can be called forth in any feeling human by imagining so many locked in pleasurable enchantment at the torture of others.

A description was given of the Colosseum as it stood in the middle ages when it was a dark place full of shadows, bandits, wolves, and other monsters of the medieval mind. This seems a more fitting end to the structure than the gladiators with cell phones that now inhabit the periphery, the gaudy tourists, the angry postcard salesman. The terror has become mixed with the chaos, snake-lines of tourists winding their way through the brick lined passageways.