Glass breaking

Breaking Glass:
So, I have some ‘ability’ that allows me to break glass randomly and make structures release. Some of my family members have been witness to the result of this. Recently my right side fireplace door glass burst while I was sitting at my laptop in the dining area. The glass just broke & fell to the floor in front of the door. Nobody was in danger or hurt. This is the usual scenario. Past breakages were never a threat to anyone either. The glass objects just sort of imploded. In the cases of structural release, a shelf in my cupboards just gave way & all the contents came flowing down upon me. Oddly, nothing broke. There are other people to whom this also happens but so far in all of my searching, there’s no explanation. This recent glass-breaking incident happened 10/8/10 just a day after I’d visited a residence previously inhabited by my Reid relatives. From now on, I’ll note my circumstances. Anyhow, I’m kinda glad I have some weird thing going on here. Clearly.

Negativity

Lately I am surrounded by negativity & need to regroup somehow. Don’t do this, don’t do that. This new Y stuff sucks, this new stuff isn’t good enough. Don’t redo the bathrooms & replace the plastic tub/shower enclosures with real ones. Don’t open up a room into another. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Gaaaahhhhhh! Somehow I retain optimism for life. In won’t be brought down.

8/15/10 An interjection several months hence:

In between the Italian job & now there was a wonderful trip to Ireland with Beck to visit Mar & Beto. And a trek up Half Dome in Yosemite. More on those next. Right now I want to discuss the morning I had today. I actually dressed like a girl & went to church. Both are aberrations to my usual behavior. First of all, my preferred outfit is jeans/cargo shorts & a t-shirt. I own a few dresses & skirts (mostly casual ones) but am not all that comfortable in them. Last week Mar & I went shopping & I bought the shirt & skirt I wore today. Both are really pretty although I think the shirt is a little big for me. I hope I can shrink it next time I wash it. That has been a laundry specialty of mine. Ask anyone in my family. Anyhow, I wore a girl outfit to church. And I’m ok with that. That’s the next odd thing. I went to church & I don’t believe in “god”. I went to First & Franklin Presbyterian Church in Balto where the menfolk of my Mom’s family worshipped eons ago. During the Summer, services are held in the Reid Chapel. That chapel was funded by my ancestor Andrew Reid back in the 1800’s. Yep, I think that’s pretty cool. I try to keep the dang place coated with fresh paint with my donations. Today it looked great! There was a guest pastor this AM, the Rev Jane Richardson Bearden who reminded us to live our lives as Jesus lived his…in love, service & acceptance. Those who choose to live their lives in pursuit of power, money, self-interest & self-aggrandizement are not living lives that benefit humanity. Hello people, it’s NOT all about you.

Weekend in Rome

Saturday 4/10/10
On this day we trained back to Rome in the morning just to have a bit of time to chill before we flew home. I thought our paid room 3/31-4/2 was nice…yes, it was & the view was spectacular over the Porta Princiana toward the Borghese Gardens . BUT, the room 4/10 & 11 was better…on points. I suppose Marriott might have given us a ‘lesser’ room since it wasn’t paid but I have to say the room was so charming & way more comfy than the previous room. It was big & bright with 2 large windows overlooking the street. The bathroom was enormous. I wish I’d taken pictures. Once we were settled in we went to Santa Maria di Maggiore on Tom’s strong suggestion. Oh my goodness…such a beautiful church. It was the former papal congregation before the move to The Vatican. I thought we’d seen many beautiful churches already but this one was even grander. Bernini, that amazing sculptor is buried there. In a niche under the altar there is housed the Sacra Culla containing boards ostensibly from Jesus’ cradle. A sculpture of Pope Pius X kneeling in front of the niche is quite moving. After touring the church we took a walk to the Piazza del Umberto Emmanuel, then went back to the hotel area, grabbed some sandwiches & had a picnic is the Borghese Gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day so lots of people were out & about. Lots & lots of families with little kids. They were fun to watch. We went back to the hotel & caught up on emails, work, downloading photos, that sort of thing. Sleep came easily.
Sunday 4/11/10
We got up good & early to get to Saint Peter’s Basilica before the hoards descended. Good thing, too. We took the stairs up to the dome first thing. Wow, what a view! Seeing the gardens from above was especially delightful. We toured the basilica with a sense of amazement. The sculptures, architecture, marble columns, mosaics, everything was absolutely gorgeous. It was inspiring to see the works of mere mortals surrounding us. There were several dead popes in glass cases which was kind of creepy but interesting. We witnessed the pomp of Mass with the processions, incense, music, the whole nine yards. It’s quite a production. Of course The Pieta is there also. Now, that is breathtaking. Both of us were drawn in by the beauty, grace & expressiveness of the faces. We took pictures but they can’t in any way capture the sense of the sculpture. You have to see it in real life. We just stood there staring at it for a long time. Our visit to St. Peter’s took most of the day & that’s all the touring we did. It was a wonderful ending to our Italian holiday. For dinner we went back to our favorite café, San Marco. We’ll always remember that lovely place.
We spent the rest of the evening packing, organizing photos, talking, Steve did a little work.

Overall, we agree that the trip was a resounding success. There were a few sights we missed but feel satisfied that we saw most of the ‘must-sees’ in the 3 cities we visited. We’d definitely recommend taking the First Class train & be ready to make a run for it when it arrives at the station as they don’t tarry there long. And if you miss your train, you’re SOL. Beware of gypsies who offer to help you with your luggage. Most Italians are helpful but not very patient. (maybe it was just us) Italian men will sooner help a woman than a man, so guys, take a girl with you! At least try the espresso. You’ll be made fun of for ordering Americano coffee…good natured ribbing, of course. But, Italians don’t really understand how we can drink that ‘black water’! Enjoy as much real Italian food as you can. And definitely eat gelato at every opportunity. Traveling to outlying small towns is a lot of fun. Next time we’ll do more. Also, you MUST see Herculaneum & Pompeii. It’s worth the time & hassle of using the Circumvesuviana. If I think of anything else, I’ll be back to add it. Now, it’s on to the next journey…

Napoli field trip

Sorrento Day 4 Fri 4/9/10
This day bright & early we shuttled to town to catch the Circumvesuviana to Naples to visit the National Archeological Museum where I’d read that many of the prized frescoes & artifacts from Herculaneum & Pompeii are stored. We bought tickets & tried to get through the turnstile at the station only to have our tickets spit back out at us. Steve went back to the window where the guy told him the tickets wouldn’t work until 9:30am. Ok, that was just a few minutes away but in the meantime we watched many nationalities of tourists confused about the same situation. We imparted our 9:30am wisdom to our fellow travelers & all of us just got out of the way of the natives while looking like dumb tourists, which we were. 9:30am came & the floodgates opened for all of us neophytes. Along the journey we connected with 2 college students heading to Pompeii. We urged them to go to Herculaneum in addition to Pompeii. It was a pleasant chat all the way to their stop asking all the usual fellow English-speaking traveler Q’s..Where are you from? What are you doing here? How long are you here? What have you seen…blah,blah,blah? It was fun. They were roomies in London…one from Minnesota & the other from Toronto doing the semester abroad thing.

I had read a TripAdvisor review of the museum, which said that it’s only a 10 minute walk from the station to the museum. No prob I said! Steve had been forewarned that it’s a dangerous place, that Napoli station, & one shouldn’t linger long near there. So he checked his trusty iPhone for our coordinates & found out we needed to take the metro to the Cavour station in order for it to be a 10 minute walk to the museum. Ok, when in Italy you cannot get metro tickets in the train/metro station. You have to find a Tabacchi recognized by a big blue sign with a white T on it to buy your dang ticket. Done. We were on our way! Reminder: we’d taken the 9am shuttle from our hotel to get to town/the Sorrento Circumvesuviana station to catch the 9:37am train to Naples…by the time we got off the metro at the museum stop it was 12:15pm. Man, that’s A LOT of overhead! We were thinking this place better be spectacular! And, it was, in a way. Read on.

There were splendid displays of frescoes, art, sculptures, household items (some melted glass vessels, pans for cooking 24 eggs at a time, lots of stuff you see now from Calphalon & their competitors), surgical & dental instruments that eerily resemble today’s instruments, a cool model of Pompeii made of cork (in the 1920’s maybe? I may need to check my facts on this), charred remains of foodstuffs, explanation of where pine nuts come from, add’l sculptures unrelated to Pompeii & Herculaneum but equally awesome. (Hercules…mmmmmm) Unfortunately, the Etruscan exhibit was closed due to some needed restoration or something. Tom told me that exhibit is a ‘must-see’. Sucks to be me.

We trained back & on our way through the streets of Sorrento who did we see? Those college girl travelers we encountered on the way north to Napoli. They had seen Pompeii & were as wowed as we were. Small world, eh? Anyhow, I had in my mind that I needed some cookies in order to make it through the night, as the hotel was barren. I’d seen a market somewhere along our various walks through Sorrento & magically found it again. We bought bread, cheese, cookies, bananas & a boatload of chocolate bars to bring back to our fam & friends. We dipped in to a café & bought some calzones for dinner on the balcony. Mine was rappini & cheese. Steve’s was prosciutto & cheese. His def won that contest. It was ok…I had cookies! We had some time to kill before the shuttle pickup so we took a walk to Marina Piccola which is actually the big marina where all the ferries to & from Capri & Naples, etc. come & go. Marina Grande is teeny tiny & is used by fishing boats. I need to figure out how to post more pix on here. We shuttled back up to the hotel & ate our calzones on the balcony as the sun went down. I took a gazillion pix, one of which might be to the left. We caught up on emails & crashed. A lovely day.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Sorrento: Day 3 4/8/10 Thu…
What an awesome day this was! We took the Circumvesuviana commuter train to Herculaneum & Pompeii. I strongly recommend they be seen in that order. Herculaneum was spared the destruction Pompeii suffered due to the nature of the pyroclastic rock that rained down upon the town, encasing it in a solid mass ~16 meters high, preserving organic artifacts such as fabrics, plants, furniture & structural parts of wooden building materials & even a boat recovered from the ancient marina. Many of the frescoes & household articles were intact when the site was ‘discovered’ in the 1730’s. The maps & info booklets for both sites were superb. I kept them. It took several hours to see all of Herculaneum even though it’s considerably smaller in area than Pompeii. It was easy to imagine the beauty & opulence of life there. After reading nearly all the signs, as is my compulsion, & seeing everything at Herculaneum we traveled south to Pompeii. It’s a vast and breathtaking site. You walk through the gate & a completely different feeling comes over you. As far as your eye can see there are ruins of people’s lives, livelihoods, hopes, dreams, ambitions. Reading about the owners of the houses & business you visit makes it all come to life. There was even a sort of YMCA (near & dear to my heart) next to the stadium. We spent several hours there in nonstop awe. Location #39 is the brothel with frescoes on the walls depicting the various ‘menu options’. It was arguably THE most popular attraction at Pompeii. The other buildings could be accessed from at least two doorways but the brothel was in one out door, out the other…with a line at the entrance. It was fun. A pic of the ‘bathroom’ is posted. It was the only toilet in the whole place…oddly. The details of both of these amazing (in the truest meaning of the word) are still swimming in my mind. You won’t ‘get it’ until you go there. And you must!

We trained back to Sorrento & started looking for a place for dinner. We’d gotten in the habit of having a hearty breakfast & then going all day without food until dinner. Ok, so the next part of the story is that Steve & I missed the 6pm hotel shuttle but agreed to hoof it back up the trail that kept pedestrians off the streets (which are very dangerous unless you’re in a shuttle bus or taxi being driven by an Italian) after dinner in town rather than have dinner at the hotel, which would have been waaaay too expensive & not any better than dinner we could find in town. We found dinner at Piazza Tasso at a tourist restaurant. It was actually quite good. I had a mixed greens salad with shrimp. Steve had bruschetta & penne with mushrooms & proscuitto. So after dinner we headed for the trail. Everything was great until we missed the turnoff for the dang trail. We ended walking all the way back up the cliff on that dangerous road to our hotel. All the while, Steve’s asking me if this all looks familiar (he thought we might have missed something) & here I am saying, “Yes this is the right way! I’ve seen all these hotels & landmarks before! We’re going the right way!” Well, of course I’d seen all those things before…from the taxi & shuttle bus! Poor Steve…he started making a list of reasons why it’s so great (haha, NOT) to vacation with me. 1) A walk up a sheer cliff on a dangerous road after a filling dinner 2) Choking smoke rising up the cliff from burning trash 2) Walking along a dangerous cliff road with no shoulder to speak of 3) All kinds of interesting trash to dodge on the side of the dangerous cliff road…in the non-existent shoulder 4) Italian drivers driving at breakneck speeds on a dangerous road with no shoulder to speak of filled with trash, mere inches away from his shoulder 5) An excited wife pointing out various agricultural crops growing wildly beside the dangerous, trash-strewn cliff road with no shoulder to speak of while crazy Italian drivers pass within mere inches from his shoulder. C’mon…there were random lemon trees, fennel plants, artichokes & onions right there growing along the side of that dangerous road. He just didn’t get it.