Sent: Monday, September 15, 2008 12:50 PM
Subject: Alex Flachsbart– 2008 Ramsey Great Ideas Tour– final recap
Hey Jay,
Since we spoke (albeit electronically) on Wednesday, I’ve been spending my afternoons pondering exactly how to construct this final encapsulation of what basically amounts to the most incredible experience of my life. And since I haven’t had a chance to catch up with the vast majority of the family since my stopover in Croatia (forgive me, folks, but know that despite my best efforts to the contrary, I was able to extract myself from Paradise to continue on with the rest of the trip), I’ve got one whole heck of a lot of information to cram into one note. But with the added advantages of free Internet here in my dorm room and a keyboard designed for people who don’t need letters of questionable validity (like double esses that look like giant B’s and strange As with colons over them), I should be able to outwrite those other notes that were tomes in and of themselves. All of that – plus a full stomach, something I still haven’t quite gotten used to – should allow me to take my best shot at catching you up on the close of my GIT and life since then.
After a careful re-reading of my previous emails, I noted two things: first, that you all have to be the most patient readers that I’ve ever come across and, second, that I left you hanging somewhere in the Adriatic – between Croatia and Italy. After lingering there for two months, let’s finally complete the voyage, which, if my memory serves me correctly, should leave us on a night ferry bound for the port city of Ancona on Italy’s eastern coast. I don’t believe I mentioned the rabid Catholicism of the entire nation of Croatia (how they survived Communist rule for 40 years is a complete mystery to me, although it certainly explains why they’re so dang happy all the time today in my previous email, but nowhere was this better evidenced than on Croatia’s national ferry system. No matter what boat you were hopping on, no matter how large or how small, you were always greeted by a cross, a rosary, and the smiling face of John Paul II stepping down from a Jadrolinija ferry. All they were missing were the votive candles, and I’m still convinced that they only reason they didn’t have those was because they posed a fire hazard.
In any case, the ride to Ancona was relatively uneventful; aside from the army of Croatian pilgrims that got on board with me, the boat was relatively empty. I made landfall at 7:00 on the morning of the 27th (of June, that is) and was off to Florence to visit Liz on the morning train. Flornece, once again, was packed; I don’t understand how or why any locals could manage to live there. Just as before, I was amazed at the walkability of the city, the Duomo, and the like, but as someone who isn’t quite as well versed in his Renaissance art as he should be, I was underwhelmed by the rest. Even Liz, who spent the entire month of June and part of May taking classes there, acknowledged that the tourist trade had squeezed the vast majority of the local flavor out of the place. The locals here had apparently retreated into the hills around the city and would only descend upon the town in cases of dire need (e.g., to get the latest Gucci leather shoes). But the company still made the visit vastly enjoyable; while I’d had a chance to be with a rotating crew of sunburnt Australians and Canadians for the entirety of my Croatian trip, seeing a familiar face after almost a month apart was comforting to say the least.
From Florence it was off to the fabled coastal towns of Cinque Terre. Now I didn’t entirely know what to expect out of my trip north; I’d heard alternatively that Cinque Terre was a) paradise on earth (which I seriously doubted after having actually seen paradise on earth just across the Adriatic), b) completely overrun with tourists, and c) fun but nothing to write home about. The truth was somewhere south of a) but exponentially above c). The place was as gorgeous as the postcards make it out to be. It consists of five towns strung together by foot trails and railroad tracks with each spaced about two miles apart. The entire thing is theoretically walkable in a day, but after having walked around 200 miles over the course of the previous six weeks I figured I’d take the train. Each of the five towns has its own unique charm; all are famous for pesto and white wine, both of which are better than what you could get anywhere else in Italy, but each has its claim to fame. Riomaggiore, for instance, has a beautiful sloping harbor that you’ve probably seen on every postcard produced from the region. Monterroso has a huge stretch of sandy beach along its waterfront – which provided a welcome respite for my feet after a week and a half of nothing but rock beaches and sea urchins. And Vernazza has the best back alley pizza parlor I found in the entire trip; it was probably the only place in Cinque Terre where the person behind the counter wasn’t completely fluent in English, German, and French. With the major exception of Monterroso, Cinque Terre wasn’t nearly as touristy as I thought it would be; I really only had to use my patented Japanese Tourist Evasion Tactics once, and that was only because a cruise ship had docked nearby that day. And all three days I spent there were completely worth it. I certainly had the most interesting meal of the trip there- I wound up drawing the one waiter in Riomaggiore who couldn’t speak English one night at a restaurant nestled in the middle of the harbor, and so I asked him (using my five words of Italian and a lot of wild gesticulation) to just bring me whatever he felt like bringing. I waited in suspense for about twenty minutes before he came back, smiling proudly, with what basically amounted to Billy the Big Mouthed Bass’s distant cousin — whole — on a platter. No veggies, no garnish, no rice. Just the fish, staring glassily back at me. I don’t think it had been dead for more than an hour. All in all, it was delicious, though, so I couldn’t complain– until I got the 19 euro bill…
Continued in Frankfurt…