All Roams lead to Rome

The Colosseo:  where the lions learned to love Christians 

All roads lead to Rome.   But not all airlines, apparently.

Yes, those are oranges on that tree!

We have made it to Rome and find ourselves tucked away nicely in a pleasant B&B down a back alley somewhere deep in the city.  It took a while to get here and Telen was unusually fuzzyheaded by the time we arrived.   I was fuzzyheaded too but, in my case, being fuzzyheaded is a normal thing on many levels.

Telen in her element: La Cucina

The flight from Victoria–Vancouver-Frankfurt went off without a hitch and the gentleman at the Air Canada desk was kind enough to check our bags all the way through to Rome.  That was just weird.   We reckoned that, since it was April 1, it was a trick.  It wasn’t.  On our way to the airport our daughter did play a trick on us by telling us that the steering wheel was stuck and we went around the roundabout about a dozen times.  In doing so, I suspect, we may have crossed into an alternate universe where Air Canada actually gives you customer service. 

I will have to speak to Steven Hawking about this.

Our room in La Bella Sosta

It is a good thing our bags were checked through to Rome because we had not taken into account Frankfurt Airport.  The guy who designed the airport was a real wiener.  Either that or he allowed his child, who had been playing with mazes, and who has anger management issues, do it for him. There are two types of Germans – the ruthlessly efficient Prussians and the fun loving, polka dancing Bavarians.  We expected to enjoy an airport with the Bavarian good humour and the Prussian efficiency.  They got it backwards.   The airport was run with the efficiency of the drunken polka-dancing Bavarians and with the fun and good humour of the Prussians.

We landed at Terminal 2 and our connecting flight was due to leave from Terminal 1.   We had 1 hour to make it there and the only transportation was by foot.  We followed the signs to Terminal 1 and concourse A.  Following the signs, I am sure that we doubled back a few times and once we literally went in a circle and down a corridor that the only sign indicated was to the toilets.  It was dark, smelly and narrow but actually ended up in a bigger labyrinth that was the correct maze. They did have a train between the two terminals that travelled approximately 30 meters at a pace that would have Granny with her walker sighing and looking over her shoulder in frustration.  Poor Telen had to sit me down and have a firm word with me because I kept slamming into the front of the train trying to make it go faster.  

We went around in a circle twice to arrive at security just as boarding was commencing on our flight.  As fate would have it we got into the middle of a group of high-school kids from the States who seemed to think that all you needed to do was put your jacket in the tray for X-Ray and you could carry the rest with you through the magic beeping door.  American airport security is the most stringent I have ever seen – you practically have to strip down to the buff to go through. (Luckily for them they have not gone that far yet. Me going naked through security? No one should have to see that!)  These kids must have gone through their security when they left their country.   And yet, they did not learn from watching the person in front of them, either.   Each one had to be told, individually, to put their carry-on luggage on the trays as well as their jackets, purses, hats, stuffed toys, computers, etc.  It is a good thing I have no hair or I would have ripped it out.  And then I would have no hair…

Sure enough, Telen’s bag got selected for extra examination.  But first they had to check the bag in front but the owner of that bag was not to be found.  Finally one of the young high-school students noticed that his bag was put to one side and wandered over to find out what was happenin’, dude.  Little did that young man know how close he came to grievous bodily harm that day at the hands of a terminally frustrated and severely jet-lagged little Chinese lady.

We got through that bit and went through a door where a man was waiting.  He separated us into Euro and non-Euro passports and took all us non-Euro passport holders through a secret door and told us to follow him.  

I knew this was going to be bad when he got on a bicycle.

We looked like a pack of dogs being led by a little fat Bulldog and a sleek greyhound chasing a cyclist down the concourse.  Telen kept yelling at me “Bad boy! Bad boy!” as I snarled and tried to bite the cyclist’s ankle in frustration.   We were accompanied by the thunderous sound of suitcase wheels and people making bets on the outcome of the race.

We thought we were almost to our gate when the bicycle took a sudden turn and came to a stop in front of … Customs!  There we stood at the yellow line waiting for the customs officer to beckon us forward.   We stood there and stood there and the man in the booth sat there and sat there.   Finally the bicycle man clicked his heels and said, “Go ahead unt zhow him your papers, please” We walked forward and presented our passports to what we thought might be a corpse.  It turned out the cadaver had one reflex left and he unhurriedly stamped our passports and without a single word, gesture or other movement he handed them back.  I think it might have been Germany’s first attempt at an automated Passport device.  

By this time we had so much pent up frustration we literally flew through the doors to get to our gate.  Down some stairs and back the same direction we came.  We literally ran down the concourse and onto the airplane.  Thank goodness they did not decide to get all efficient and close the doors on time!  We sat there in our cattle-class seats trying to catch our breath and thanking the Air Canada man who checked our luggage all the way through to Rome.  We would not have been sitting there if we had had to pick up our luggage in Frankfurt.

We made it to Rome and, surprisingly considering the brief stopover in Frankfurt, so did our luggage.  We arrived at our B&B and were met by a beautiful, smiling young Italian woman who showed us to our spacious room and made us our first Italian coffee.  That coffee made the Frankfurter Airport a distant, vaguely unpleasant memory. 

It is good to be in Italy!

Telen writes:

Oh yes, I felt we definitely have arrived in Italy when the driver for the pre-arranged pick up at the airport showed up in his Armani suit and a Mercedes with a strong smell of expensive aftershave.  He insisted on carrying my luggage in the typical charming Italian way.   I certainly did not protest.  Rand, of course, had to carrying his own luggage as is expected of any self-respecting man. He did not do it with the same suave style, however.

Our car travelled swiftly through the cobblestone streets of Rome, narrowly dodging cars parked on either side of mostly narrow streets.  I caught a glimpse of the world famous Coliseum and the dome of St. Peter’s square in the distance.  Wow!

I have forgotten how delicious Italian coffee is.  After a dinner of insalata caprese and spaghetti with clams, we have truly settled in on our first day in Italy.

Reality Sucks

The Victoria Parliament Buildings.  No Reality here!

Reality sucks.

I know I have said this before and I will say it again…  Reality sucks.

Reality has this annoying tendency to raise its bleak, ugly head dripping with putrid annoyances from the slime of details and pettiness to fix you with its cold light of day stare and make you face it.  Who wants to do that?

We decided to take some time off our year of escape and come home to do the reality thingy before the final 2 months of our journey.  In Reality we had to be home to re-sort our bags, do our taxes, check up on things etc.   Both of us took the cold plunge and actually did a little work while we were here.  Just a foretaste of what to expect when our journey is over. 

That was the wrong thing to do.

You know how when you go on vacation you come back all mellow and relaxed with a silly grin on your face as you saunter casually into work?   Do you remember how that vacation feeling gradually fades away over the course of a minute?  The shoulders climb up, the teeth clench and that grin turns into a grim.  Why do we subject ourselves to that?

Cycling in Victoria.  

 Welcome to Reality!

In Reality it felt nice to see all my co-workers and my clients whom I really like.  It was nice to see friends and share some hot caffeine and, of course, my family.  I cannot speak for them as to whether the feeling was reciprocal.  There was some screaming, running and sobbing when I went into work - but that is pretty normal, right?  As far as the family goes it is always nice to get together and traumatize one another all over again.  It is also nice to stay in one place for a prolonged period of time and not pack up every few days.  So, buried under that cold bleak exterior, Reality does have a nicer, sunnier spot.  It is not easy to find, but it is there.

Grey and greyer

Everyone we meet wants to hear about our trip.  So many people have said “Is a year up already?”  We tell them we still have two months to go.  It kind of feels like sitting in the dentist office and looking at the clock and thinking, “My appointment is at 9 o’clock and it is 8:59 – I still have a whole minute to go!”  Strangely, no one seems to sympathize with that sentiment. 

The weather sucked.  It actually snowed on me a little on my way to work one morning.  I think God was playing her usual nasty little jokes.  It is hard to believe that she invented humour.  I guess we have to realize that she invented juvenile humour too.

We have been chasing the sun around since June of 2012 and we pretty much avoided winter except for a small taste in November and, now, March.  Reality means long pants, shoes, shirts, and warm jackets.  We have been in shorts and sandals for so long these warm clothes thingys feel restraining and constrictive.  Going to work means wearing “decent” clothes.  Apparently when I wear shorts and a tank top it is considered, in most cultures, indecent if not downright nauseating.

Victoria at night

We have to reconfigure our heads.  We did the circle North America trip and the circle Pacific trip and now we are off to do the Europe trip.  North America was not difficult since we knew the culture (at least in Canada – and we could extrapolate to a certain extent to the US) and the language. Southeast Asia was a culture shock – we knew neither the culture nor the language but took great pleasure in learning some of it.  Australia and New Zealand was all about the natural wonders.  Hawaii was all about the beach.  Now we are off to Europe and we don’t know the languages, we don’t know the cultures and there are enough man-made wonders to last a lifetime.  We have to pack for different climate and different experiences. 

So much better than Reality on so many levels!!!

Not long now and we will be heading off on our journey - to travel to new worlds seek, out new civilizations - to go where no one has gone before!!! 

Geeze, how geeky was that!!!

We are heading off to Europe and we will be back when someone gets the weather straightened up here. 

Whale Soup

Maui Sunset.  The sun had already set so I had to use a Tiki Torch...

Oahu is too big, Kaua’i is too small.

Maui is just right. 

I feel a bit like Goldilocks saying that.  Minus the golden locks, of course - or locks of any kind, for that manner.  Is there such a character as Baldilocks?

We think Maui has the right balance between dead quiet and frenetic activity.   It also has the best beaches no matter how you look at it.  It is hard to complain about Hawaii - it is all very lush and tropical so it is either good or better.

coffee at the Kihei Cafe

When we arrived in Maui we were immediately greeted by warmer, dryer and less windy conditions.  That was a good start!  Kaua’i was very windy and showery and Oahu was more so.  Sunshine, warmth, calm breezes and long sandy beaches…?  What did we do right to deserve this?  I kept looking around to see if God was going to jump out from behind a palm tree with an evil grin on her face, turn on the cold and rain and say, “Just Kidding!” 

When we rented a car on Kaua’i we got upsold by a very skillful salesperson and ended up paying for a much larger and more expensive car than we wanted.  We don’t rent cars very much so we got taken.  We know better now.  If you go to Kaua’i watch out for Dollar Rent-a-car!  When we got to Maui we went to the Avis Car Rental and got a gentleman there who quickly put our request through with no up-sales and no pressure and we drove away paying about one-third of what we got nailed for on Kaua’i. 

Sunshine, warmth, calm breezes, long sandy beaches and honest car rental people!

Kamaole Beach

Telen making the beach look good!

When we got to the condo we had rented we got pleasantly surprised again.  It was a beautiful little condo with a full kitchen and enough kitchen supplies to run a catering business.  We had not planned on doing any catering while we were there so it was a bit more than we required but Telen was running around letting out little squeals of delight.

 

The décor was the outcome of the Liberace /Martha Stewart throw-down.  There was more frills and chintz in the place than I would have thought possible.  The owner was on an estrogen-fueled decorating frenzy when she renovated the place.   I had to go outside to keep from getting moody and bloated periodically.  Having said that, though, it was a kind of fun place to stay for a while if you were careful to avoid knocking the seashells down that were pasted on everything. 

Sunshine, warmth, calm breezes, long sandy beaches, honest car rental people and an over-the-top condo!

And whales.  There are so many whales in the water here it is like whale soup.

A humpback whale "chin-wagging" near our whale-watching boat 

It always amazes me on Maui where you can sit quietly on the beach and suddenly what appears to be a semi-trailer truck comes flying up out of the water, does a half-twist and lands on its side raising a minor tsunami.  Then the water calms down and it is like nothing happened except your chin is down on your chest.

How much energy does it take to throw a whale that weights 35 to 45 tons completely out of the water?  I weigh slightly less than that and I can barely get my head and shoulders out of the water when I try “breaching”.  The other question that arises is – why?  If you weigh 35 – 45 tons what would possess you to just throw yourself into the air from a dead stop? 

I see men strutting up and down the beaches here.  Often their movements are unnaturally stiff as they try to keep those pecs and lats flexed but try to appear relaxed as if that’s how their muscles always look.  They work all year long to earn enough money to come to Hawaii so they can do this.  They spend their hard earned money furiously on expensive toys like surfboards and kite boards and renting fancy cars.

Humpback whales come to Hawaii for the very same reasons.  Except whales use blubber instead of money.  Throwing your 45-ton weight into the air and burning up your hard earned blubber carelessly shows just how much blubber you have.

And why do both these species do this?  It’s the chicks, man!

I have noticed that some of the human species have gotten confused about which sort of currency they should use – blubber or money?  Quite a few people on the beach have accumulated large amounts of blubber and seem to have no intention of burning it up.  I just hope none of them go in the water when an amorous male Humpback is in the area.  It would turn out badly for both parties.

We went out on a whale-watching trip.  We had scheduled it a few days previous and when we showed up in Lahaina at the dock we were warned that it was quite windy out there and how comfortable were we with getting wet.  I looked out at the water and thought, “Sure, there are a few whitecaps but it looks ok.  Besides if we get wet it is just warm Hawaiian water”. We said it was no problem.

We sat at the front of the Zodiac so we could get the best view.  When the first wave out of the harbour came over the bow and landed directly on us soaking us completely we began to question our judgment.  It was after the trip was over that we were informed that those particular seats were nicknamed the “cowboy seats”.

There is a persistent belief that during rough weather the Humpback whales are more active.  I don’t know if it is true.  It seemed true.  We came across a mother and a calf with a hyperactivity disorder.  The mother would show the calf how to do a breach and then the calf would try to copy.  This calf kept breaching again and again.  Everyone on the boat would go “Awwww, isn’t he cute…!”  That cute little baby is about the size of a Land Rover.

Shortly thereafter we saw a couple of males breaching in tandem.  It was like two freight cars doing synchronized swimming.  You had to be impressed but you worried about the size of the nose clips.

According to the naturalist the males were competing for the attention of the female who was instructing the baby on how to breach. I’m sure the attempt to entice a female who just gave birth to a Land Rover is doomed to failure.

We did the tourist thingy and went to a Luau.  The food was good and they had the obligatory Hula dancers and the grand finale of the fire dancer.  I know it seems trite and touristy and all that but we really enjoyed it.  So there!

The Luau - very touristy!  These are some tourists

If we ever come to Hawaii again I think we will come directly to Maui.  It seems to fit what we want in a tropical holiday.  We are not nightlife people (and some would say we are not day-life people either…) so strutting our stuff in the clubs does not attract us.   In my case strutting my stuff in night clubs tends to have a strong negative effect on the word “attract”.  Eating in fancy restaurants is not a big thing for us either – we tend to like to cook our own meals because it is cheaper and we (when I say we I mean Telen) can make meals as good as any restaurant.

So that leaves the beach.  Maui has that.  Big time!

Makenna Beach (Big Beach)

Now we are off home to Reality for a few weeks.  We don’t intend to stay long.  Reality is a nice placed to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.