As the day ended on our first day (with the sun lighting up the Colosseum), so our second day began (with the sun peering over the top). The astute reader might notice that a day doesn’t actually begin with the sun peering over the top of anything like that. It was, in fact, noon […]
Monthly Archives: September 2015
Just Down the Street
Wed, 23 Sep 2015, 07:11 PM (-06:00)
Breakfast included a fried egg, that European butter for which bread is only a medium and ice coffee. The fans blew a cooling mist over us. People walked by in the street. Cars and motorbikes beeped and drove by. We rested our weary wheels. By the time we finished eating, it was late enough to […]
Arrival in Rome
Sun, 20 Sep 2015, 08:24 PM (-06:00)
We flew over Nice. Not by Nice. Not around Nice. We flew directly over Nice. I peered down at the winding roads descending out of the mountains heading towards the city on the French Riviera imagining that somewhere down there 38 years ago Paul and I were scooting around on mopeds. The plane was making […]
Not Mont Blanc
Sat, 19 Sep 2015, 09:25 PM (-06:00)
When we wanted to, we could push the button on the back of the seat in front of us and watch our flight’s progress. As we took off from Dulles, the sun was still up. But as time went on, the map showed the edge of night growing closer as the arc of our trajectory […]
Ryan
Sat, 19 Sep 2015, 06:49 PM (-06:00)
We ran into Ryan when we sat down at the gate at the airport. She had an owl, wings outspread, tatooed on her chest and an atom with swirling electrons on her cheek and a foxstronaut in a space suit on her right hand. From the moment we sat down, we knew she was something, […]
Jet Lag Pills
Wed, 16 Sep 2015, 05:04 PM (-06:00)
1. Last time we did this, something like 11 years ago, we followed the advice of some seasoned travelers who recommended staying up all night before the flight so that we’d be so exhausted that we’d sleep on the plane and wake up ready for a new day when we touched down in Paris. It […]
Recalibration
Wed, 16 Sep 2015, 06:05 AM (-06:00)
We are back, now. This isn’t Italy, anymore. Nor Switzerland. There are no mountains out this window. No steeply sloped green pastures with cows grazing. There are no bells pealing during the day. No cobblestone streets. No sidewalks lined with tables where people relax and sit and talk and drink their drinks. In an absolute […]