Ah! Ah-Ha! So de Jacarepagua!

It’s the weekend before Carnival. I am standing among thousands of Cariocas jam-packed into this no-name street in a no-name neighborhood. It is pouring rain. I am wearing nothing but a black negligee. I am having the time of my life.

Rio has also always been my chill city. My city to take a break from adventuring and just hang out on the beach, listen to great music, and otherwise be a regular tourist for a while. This is greatly helped by knowing my friend Felipe, a native Carioca whose family always makes sure to make me feel welcome in their city - although sometimes in unexpected ways.

“Oh man. I totally forgot to tell you. Tomorrow we have to dress up like women.” This is the news from Felipe the night before as we’re sitting enjoying the best black beans in Rio after heading back from a street party in Ipanema.

The party had been terrific. The music was great, the atmosphere fantastic. My only complaint was the complete lack of bathrooms. The default men’s room turned out to be a palm tree on the beach. I have no idea where the default women’s room might have been - or even if there was one.

But as fun as the Ipanema party was, it was just a warm up. The next day we woke up, and Felipe presented me with a piece of black lingerie that I somehow managed to make fit me. After donning a red bra and dress himself, and picking up a few friends, we were off.

Our destination was Felipe’s friend Pedro’s house in Jacarepagua (“alligator harbour” in Portuguese) - a middle-class neighborhood next to the “Cidade de Deus” or City of God, well off the tourist path in the Western Zone of Rio. In true Carioca fashion, we showed up about 2 hours late. Pedro was none too happy at our lateness, but quickly changed into his outfit (as an old woman, complete with cane) and we hit the street.

Now, there is “drag,” and there is “guys wearing dresses.” This was definitely “guys wearing dresses.” No one was bothering to look good or anything.

And, if anything, the guys were acting even more boyish and rambunctious than usual. A group of 6 dressed as Playboy Bunnies met us with various gestures and chants as soon as we got out of the car. The whole thing was a blast. The energy was unbelievable. And I was about to find out how Brazilians really party.

It starts to rain. Everybody cheers. The light, tropical sprinkling turns into a driving maelstrom. Nobody leaves. We hear thunder, and huge winds threaten to blow down electrical wires. Everybody climbs onto the roofs of the houses. Then, in unison, still wearing dresses, everybody starts to chant “Ah! Ah-Ha! So de Jacarepagua!” If your Portuguese isn’t up to snuff, that basically translates as “Ah! Ah-Ha! I’m from Jacarepagua!” I didn’t feel out of place chanting along - Felipe said that he was pretty sure I was the only Gringo in attendance, and that was enough of an honorary membership for me for the afternoon. After all, I was standing on the street in the torrent wearing women’s underwear right along with everyone else.

By this time, the rain had completely soaked through my negligee. Now, I did have something else on. True to Brazilian form, I had slipped on a pair of Speedos underneath. The problem was that they were Felipe’s Speedos. Felipe’s got a good 40-50 pounds on me. I took off the negligee, and ended up in my pair of three-sizes-too-big Speedos, drenched, in the middle of Brazil.

In addition to being a ton of fun, the whole experience was great for another reason: it reminded me of a fundamental truth about cities. While things like climbing bridges and exploring tunnels can provide a great, seldom experienced perspective, ultimately cities are products of their citizens - infrastructure is only there as a means of support. The experiences that most capture the essence and character of a city are almost always social - not structural - encounters.

We finally made it home, where hot showers (and dry men’s clothes) were extremely welcome. I’d managed to make it without flashing half of Rio, but just barely. Of course, Rio is pretty much the only city in the world where I didn’t really even feel uncomfortable wearing nothing but a pair of falling-down Speedos walking down the street. Just one more reason to love La Cidade Maravilhosa.

How to arrive in Rio

For anyone traveling to Brazil, my advice is this: you’ll probably fly into Sao Paulo’s international airport. Stay two or three days in Sao Paulo, and then fly to Rio. If you fly directly to Rio, or if you transfer from Sao Paulo’s international airport to Rio, you’ll end up flying into Galeao airport, north of the city. However, if you go from Congonhas, Sao Paulo’s domestic airport, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most spectacular flight descents in the world. The ascent from Sao Paulo isn’t bad either - you get to see just how vast the city really is. The only drawback is that Congonas doesn't have the greatest safety record.

Sao Paulo-Rio is the second-most traveled flight pattern in the world (Madrid-Barcelona is number one). Don’t worry about reservations - flights leave at least once an hour, and are usually more like once every half-hour. There’s even a dedicated ticket desk for “buy & fly” purchases -which shouldn’t cost you more than $100 US.

Now, don’t get on the next plane - at least not if you can’t get a window (that’s the whole point). Wait until the one after- you should pretty much have your pick of seats. Although both sides actually have great views, my advice is to sit on the left-hand side window. Rio’s domestic airport (Santos Dumont) is a little two-runway job right next to downtown. This isn’t the difference between flying into JFK and LaGuardia - flying into Santos Dumont is basically the equivalent of flying into the Wall Street Heliport.

Not only are the views astounding (and way better than my disposable-camera picture above), but you can grab your stuff and walk right into the middle of Rio. The subway - which will take you as far south as Copacabana - is only about a 15 minute walk through downtown.

La Cidade Maravilhosa

I was going to skip Rio de Janeiro. I’d been there before, seen the town. I couldn't get in touch with my friends there. It wasn’t on the way to where I was going. I had a whole host of reasons. What could I have been thinking? In my book, anyone who doesn’t want to see Rio every chance they get needs to have their head examined.

My initial impressions from my first trip to South America in 2005. Blue text links are mostly pop-up pictures.

Rio de Janeiro is undoubtedly the most strangely beautiful city I've ever visited. From an urban planning perspective, nobody in their right mind would plunk down a city where Rio is - it's literally built around (and sometimes on or through) mountains. Not a few nice little hills like San Francisco - mountains. Throw this together with about a dozen beaches and a rain forest, as well as the culture, people, architecture, neighborhoods, and everything else you can expect from a big, diverse city. Add one of the world's most famous landmarks, and then put the whole thing in Brazil. It's not hard to see why they call the place the "Marvelous City."

Like most interesting cities - at least from a geographical standpoint - Rio came about because it had a great harbor (which leads to early settlement and development), but surrounding terrain not exactly conducive to traditional city development. When viewed from above (by ascending one of the many aforementioned mountains), it becomes even more clear how absolutely ridiculous is it to have a city there - and how great it is that there actually is one.

I was lucky enough to have a few Carioca friends that showed me around a bit, but I made sure to do all the touristy things and such also. I headed up the Corcovado to see the big statue of Christo Redentor (aka Jesus). And since I was not the first person to do this pose, I didn't feel bad doing it in the biggest Catholic country in the world. I also went up the other good viewpoint - Sugarloaf Mountain - at night - you can also see Jesus in the top, left-hand corner there.

They give Helicopter tours from up there, hence the Helicopter hanging out in the foreground. But that wasn't the strangest vehicle. There's two different cable mechanisms that run from the ground to the first (shorter) mountain, and then from there to Sugarloaf. The first is a traditional skytram, similar to the Roosevelt Island Tram. The other is this thing. This turned out to be (I think) a huge magnet for transporting - among all things - cars. Yes, on the way down from Sugarloaf I saw a car being taken up - I thought it was a mirage at first. I mean, what possible use could there be for a car on top of this? (in the background). I also walked around downtown, which has some nice art-deco architecture, as well as the Petrobras building which is somewhat reminiscent of a Rubik's Cube.

Another thing that has started to be a tourist attraction in Rio are the Favelas - in Rio they're mostly located on the Mountainsides. While I would have found it interesting from an Urban Design point of view, I really had neither the time nor inclination to go on one of the tours. A local's take on the tours is here.

The tourist things were cool, but by far the funnest stuff (as always) was going around town with the locals, and also the random stuff I ran into just walking around on my own. I went to a Samba concert with my friends, and a street away was completely covered in tomatoes. I also ran into this (hopefully) very badly translated sign.

I also ran into Rio's Gay Pride Parade, in Copacabana, which was loads of fun. Copacabana is also the Jewish neighborhood (there's not that many Jews there, it's just where the Jews that do live in Rio generally happen to live). I've often heard Rio be compared to Miami. While I don't really buy it, Copacabana is definitely Miami Beach. I mean, where else would you find someone walking to synagogue in a white suit?

Back in 2007 I finally managed to get ahold of my Carioca (as natives of Rio are called) friend. A medical student, it turned out about his only free weekend of the year happened to be the one coming up. 12 hours later I was on a plane to the Marvelous City. I wish I could say I had adventures and saw all sides of Rio. I had taken an entire class on Favelas (which are actually more a result of geography than anything else) the past semester and the professor, who had grown up in one, was in Rio but I couldn’t get in touch of him. But I wasn’t that disappointed. I had had enough nuttiness in the last month - and was looking forward to more in Sao Paulo - to afford me a short vacation. I was pretty exited just to see an old friend and lie on the beach for the weekend.

Oh, and also party. Did I mention it was the weekend before Carnival?

Nostalgic for 80s New York?

Time moves on. Cities change. As they change, people tend to get nostalgic for what used to be. Today, nostalgia for the “bad old days” of the NYC of the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s has almost reached the level of kitsch, it’s so prevalent. Luckily, your solution is only measured in distance, instead of time. Just hop on a flight to Sao Paulo.

I always describe Sao Paulo as New York in Portuguese in 1982 (and without the great public subway system I suppose). First of all, the town is huge - one of the five biggest cities in the world kind of huge. No city that isn’t at least a few million people can rightfully be compared to New York. Before anything else, the defining characteristic of the city is “big - really big.”

Second of all, like New York, Sao Paulo is an immigrant city. It has the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan, the biggest Lebanese population outside of Lebanon and (believe it or not, New Yorkers), the biggest Italian population outside of Italy. Like New York, anyone can walk the streets and not feel out of place. That is, of course, if you know how to walk like a Brazilian. The immigrant situation in Sao Paulo is different from New York in a very significant way. Sao Paulo is an old immigrant city. While 100 years ago it had a similar immigration story as New York, today it doesn’t attract substantial numbers at all. The Korean, Chinese, and Bolivian populations have all increased somewhat in recent years, but they’re the only newer groups of significance.

It’s similar to the early 80s in New York, when the old immigrant groups had already long since assimilated, but new immigrant groups had yet to arrive in large numbers. It’s as easy to tell a Japanese-Brazilian and a Japanese tourist apart as it is to tell a Italian-American and an Italian tourist apart for us. There is such a universal Brazilian identity and culture (the same as there’s a universal American culture I suppose) that despite the myriad kinds of different ethnicities, I noticed that people were Brazilian first, and only after if they were Afro-Brazilian, or Japanese-Brazilian, or whatever else.

I tried to wander around the town as much as I could, and see the different neighborhoods and populations. But there’s a problems - sizewise, Sao Paulo is ridiculously big, and doesn’t really have much of a subway system. There’s about 4 or 5 main business districts (they keep moving further and further south), which can be miles apart. I stuck mostly to the old downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. One, Bom Retiro, was the old Jewish neighborhood. Similarly to the Lower East Side of the 80s, it seems to be developing into the cosmopolitan neighborhood of the town, with old Jews, Bolivians, Koreans, Chinese, and Yuppies all living there today. The locals I talked to said generally said it was their favorite neighborhood.

Also like New York City in the 1980s, Sao Paulo has a somewhat overstated reputation for being extremely dirty and dangerous. Dirty? Sure - it’s a city. I wouldn’t say it’s any dirtier that any comparable city. Dangerous? Well, that’s always subjective. Generally speaking, if someone runs into trouble in any particular city they’ll say it’s dangerous, and if they don’t, they won’t. I felt perfectly comfortable there - maybe more comfortable than in any city outside of the United States. And I never ran into any trouble, or even felt that I was close to doing so. Still, it’s a far cry from the New York of today, and from talking to most of the locals I gathered it’s reputation for danger was somewhat undeserved - but not THAT undeserved.

Another thing the locals agreed upon was that the city was getting a little better every year. This is why I call it New York in 1982. There was a small period, post 1970s fiscal crisis, yet pre Crack and Aids, where New York - led by a still enormously popular Ed Koch - seemed to be on the upswing. Sao Paulo is better than yesterday - but still has yet to undergo the dramatic transformation that would let it take it’s rightful place as a world city.

Sao Paulo is the financial, and arguably cultural, capital of an entire continent. It’s by far the largest city in South America, and also happens to be one of the leading 4 or 5 fashion cities in the world. It’s cosmopolitan, has great nightlife, amazing restaurants, and every other service an international traveller could want. Yet it has an almost nonexistent tourist infrastructure. And needless to say, Sao Paulo is not exactly the first place off the lips of people when asked where they want to vacation.

Still, I’m betting on the town. Sao Paulo has, for lack of a better term, a certain coolness factor to it. Language is a barrier (who speaks Portuguese?), as is the perceived chaotic and dangerous nature of the city. But there is a certain energy in the town that’s an indescribable draw - an energy all too familiar to the inhabitants of New York City. In many ways, Berlin is the city I’ve been to that is most like New York. But in terms of sheer feeling, Sao Paulo is really the only place that comes close. Give the city 10 or 20 years - if it has a second great immigrant wave (a wave which saved New York City in the 80s and 90s), cleans up a bit, and manages to develop an easily recognized positive identity and character (I’m betting on supermodel paradise), I won’t be that surprised to hear the international jet set talk about it as a destination of choice - much like New York. I wonder though, if it will retain the same edge - if people will pine for the “bad old days” of Sao Paulo like they do for New York.

I ♥ Brazil

Whenever people tell me they’re taking a trip South America, I always give them the same advice - spend the entire time in Brazil.

I spent a blisteringly cold day in New York upon my return from Europe - completely justifying to myself my choice to spend the winter elsewhere. After taking care of various errands, I was on an Aero Mexico flight to Sao Paulo.

Never fly Aero Mexico. Upon arrival at the airport I was informed that they had lost my luggage, which they didn’t manage to find for a week. Plus it immediately started to rain nonstop about 2 hours after my arrival, putting the kibosh on my plans to visit abandoned mansions with a local architecture/exploration group there.

Plans ruined, wet clothes, and not even a pair of dry socks to change into. I couldn’t have been happier. I was in Brazil. I don’t know what it is about the country, but it never fails to put me in good mood. Despite its social problems (which are bad, but maybe not quite as bad as is commonly thought in the U.S.), people are generally just very friendly, relaxed, affectionate, and in a good mood. It’s infectious - the general positive vibe is just in the air. Even in a town like Sao Paulo, which is known among Brazilians for being somewhat harried and business-like, this atmosphere can still work magic on your average New Yorker.

The next day I went shopping for some clothes to tide me over. Now, I do have one small complaint about the country. Brazilians do not believe in Boxer Shorts. Or Boxer Briefs. Or, apparently, any type of underwear that wouldn’t be worn by your average 14-year old girl in the United States. But it’s a small complaint - not nearly as bad as my complaint against Aero Mexico: arriving in a foreign country for three months with what you’ve got on your back. A pair of shorts, a set of flips-flops, a decent shirt, three pairs of socks, and a three-pack of the tightest underwear I’ve ever worn later, I was good to go. Not even having to wear bikini briefs could bother me. I was in Brazil.

The Most Latin Country in the World

There is a public toilet not 50 feet away. Even if I couldn’t make it that far, there’s a fairly well concealed public park right in front of me. But no, here I am peeing right on the street. Why? Well….

“What?! We are in France!” my companion for the night replied when I tell him I’m going to head down the block to the public toilets. “Here, I have to take a piss too.”

“You know what the most Latin country in the world is?” he asks me as he lets a stream go right on the sidewalk next to me. “Not Italy, not Spain. France.” My companion knows well of what he speaks. He’s been relying on that relaxed Latin “can’t be bothered” attitude for quite a while now.

My flight back to New York is out of Charles De Gaulle airport, so I’ve got a couple nights in Paris. Last year, we had quite the adventure journeying above , around, and especially below the City of Light. This time, while Paris wasn’t a priority, there were a few things I wanted to mop up. One character, who I had met before in New York, I arranged to do a little exploring with before I left. He was the one currently taking a piss right next to me in the middle of Rue Daguerre.

Paris is absolutely unlike any other city in the world when it comes to urban exploration. The combination of large, dedicated, fairly well-coordinated core groups of adventurers with the aforementioned incredibly relaxed attitude to recreational municipal trespassing (as well as pretty much anything else that would lead to a hassle on the authorities’ part), lead to probably the only major western city where you could get away with stuff like this.

While I’m sworn to secrecy as to our exact adventures that night, let’s just say the methods of entry and discovery are a far, far cry from the “wait until 3:00 AM, jump the fence, and pray you don’t get seen” kind of style we generally employ in New York. “What, you don’t have people working on the key problem? Or the alarm problem?” my companion asks incredulously.

Well, no we don’t. Maybe we should. But it’s not just the attitude of the authorities that’s the problem. Paris is a very old, and very stagnant city. The problem in places like New York is that it doesn’t have nearly the history needed to create a subterranean network like exists in Paris. Places get closed up (and less often, re-opened) in Paris all the time - it’s just part of the game. There’s always more than enough other stuff to occupy the hard-core explorers, casual cataphiles, and “rivioli” (as my companion calls the young and naive embryotic adventurers). In New York, if one of our favorite underground niches gets closed up, it’s a blow. There’s a very limited amount that are regularly accessible by your average curious bear, especially in this day and age. And the more people that know about them, the greater the chance they’ll get closed, so we tend to keep them pretty well under our hats - we certainly wouldn’t let the word get out to the amount of people needed to fill up a small movie theater, for instance.

The other problem is that Paris basically has not changed in about 300 years. Nothing new really gets built in the city proper, and historic preservation laws are draconian. In New York, you can’t count on an interesting space being there tomorrow, much less for the 18 months it took to set up the underground cinema. The town is always changing. Old things go, new things come, spaces get filled in, or dug up, or sealed off.

Still, the folks in Paris inspire me. There’s so much more we could do. Some folks in New York have been mildly successful going the legitimate route - ironically, that same Latin attitude that makes the clandestine route so easy in France makes the legal route next to impossible. And every once in a while someone manages to pull off a good, extralegal event without getting the place shut down. But for the most part it’s still a few folks, a nutty idea, a impromptu adventure, and that’s a wrap.

Maybe it’s laziness. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s the dregs of the post 9-11 paranoia. Maybe it’s just the fact that we don’t have the positive feedback feedback loop France has - the more you pull off, the more people get into it, the more attempts are made, the more it becomes just a part of the city.

But mostly I think it’s just a different culture. New York is not really the type of city to have too many secret arty gatherings. That’s a Euro thing, and Paris is pretty much the definition of Euro. New York, at least at its best, is raw, dirty, and in your face. We’re much more likely to insult the mayor on the side of the Brooklyn Bridge (and not even make it look pretty), than throw a secret dinner party. The energy and effort that’s put into Guerilla Urbanism in Paris is put into one of our most famous cultural innovations - Graffiti - in New York City.

Of course, that’s not to say there isn’t graffiti in Europe, the same as there’s plenty of Guerilla Urbanism here in New York. And, of course, the two cultures intersect in both cities every once in a while. Euros still come here to paint trains, knowing full well they’ll never run. Now, part of this is because most young Euros desperately want to be from the Bronx in 1982 for some reason. But part of it is also a homage to the fact that despite the changes over the last years, NYC was, is, and always will be the origin, home, and personification of the graffiti bomber. The best way I can put it is that in Paris, they generally clean up after themselves, their goal being to leave no trace. Here in New York, the goal is always to make our mark.

Our adventure ended well past midnight. I wandered the streets of Paris for a few hours before hopping on the first train of the day to the airport, to catch my flight back to New York. Of course, I was only home for a little more than 24 hours. I still had another continent to conquer in the 7 weeks left of my trip.

On Top of the City

I got back to London from Stonehenge at about 9:30. I was already pretty happy, but there was still a reason I had stayed one more day. I caught the last Underground from Earl’s Court, and was in the Square Mile around 1:00. This time there was no hesitation. A quick look around, and I boosted myself up and over the wooden barriers. I was in.

I’m generally used to a certain type of climb. Anything under construction or renovation that has scaffolding usually is the same type of deal. Once you get on the scaffolding, you make your way around until you find the ladders or stairs. From there it’s a straight shot to the top. This building, however, was different. It was being renovated, and there was scaffolding. However, it seemed to be pretty much placed at random - some sections had it, some didn’t, and there was never a connection for more than a flight. I had to monkey around for about 20 minutes before I finally managed to find a way into the fire stairs of the building itself. 26 flights later, I was on top of London.

I had chosen a great focal point. The old stock exchange is right on the fulcrum of the old part of the City of London, and the new part of the City of London. To the east was the brightly lit, new post-modern skyscraper city. To the west was the centuries-old classical London, anchored by with St. Paul’s cathedral. Off in the distance I could make out the London Eye, uncharacteristically lit up in red.

The view was great, but I wanted more. There was a construction crane on top of the building, and I meant to head up as far as I could. For some reason it was surrounded by wooden barriers, and locked off in two places. I can see maybe locking the cockpit to prevent unauthorized use, but honestly, who is going to steal a construction crane from on top of a 26 story building? And of course, it didn’t prevent a thing. After another 5 minutes on the jungle gym, I managed to make my way to the small platform 20 feet or so above the cockpit. I was rewarded with a crystal clear, unobstructed view of the Tower Bridge lit up at night, which you couldn’t see from just the roof.

I had been up the Tower Bridge (or the “Tower Bridge Experience” as they call it) a little earlier. Biggest waste of $11 I can think of. The ideal observation deck (official or not), should be in the open air, with completely unobstructed, 360 degree panoramic views. In other words, it should basically just be on a flat roof. It doesn’t need to be the tallest building in town, but it should be high enough to provide an overview of the whole city. The Tour Montparsse in Paris, 30 Rockefeller Center in New York, and the top of the construction crane on the old Stock Exchange where I was all fit the bill. The Tower Bridge was the complete opposite. You could walk between the two towers of the bridge, but it’s indoors and you can only peek out a little window every once in a while, and when you’re in the tower, they don’t even let you climb up to the very top. If it were more unobstructed it might have a decent view of the Thames, but it’s not close to tall enough to get a good view of even just the surrounding part of the city. The Fire Monument is a little better, as it’s outdoors, but it’s still fairly short and the view is surrounded by fencing. Tower 42 (which you have a great view of from the Stock Exchange), has a bar and restaurant on the 42nd floor, but it’s indoors, expensive, you need reservations, and they’ll politely ask you to leave if you start wandering around disturbing people’s dinner in order to snap photos.

I came down after an hour or so of admiring the view.

I was absolutely ecstatic. The best explanation of the feeling of the extralegal urban climb was written up by an Aussie friend of mine after we had climbed the Manhattan Bridge. As I completed the three hour walk back to where I was staying, I couldn’t help but repeat to myself the question from the last line of his essay - “am I the only one to embrace my human frailty and venture high above the city this night?”

Stonehenge After Hours

I had one more night in London before I planned to head to Paris. Despite not being able to hook up with locals, and losing my adventure partner, I was determined to at least do something cool before I left. I had heard the old Stock Exchange, right in the middle of the City (as the financial district of Greater London is known) was under renovation and could be climbed. I had scouted it out a few days earlier, and decided to give it a shot my last night.

First, I took in a show - Guys and Dolls starring (I kid you not) a Don Johnson looking way too old to be playing Nathan Detroit. It was a great show actually, and I decided to head to the Stock Exchange right after it got out.

I got there about 11:00 PM. Way too early. I had forgotten that’s when most pubs let out, especially the after-work places in the financial district. I decided to walk around for a while and try later when the pedestrian traffic had died down. After a couple hours the streets were pretty much deserted, but I had a new problem. A couple of municipal workers had decided to park themselves in the alleyway where I had planned to hop the fence for some repair work. An hour later they were still there. An hour later, they were STILL there. Frustrated I decided to head out. But I couldn’t leave town on that note. I decided to stay an extra day and try again the next night.

That meant I had an extra day to kill in London. Since I had walked around a good amount and seen pretty much all of the touristy things I wanted to, I decided to go see Stonehenge during the day. In addition to being one of the regular things to see, it’s one of the 21 finalists for the New 7 Wonders of the World competition, and it’s a loose life goal of mine to see them all (I’m on 6, with one more still to be seen on the trip). But since I didn’t want too much time to kill between seeing Stonehenge and trying the climb again, I headed out on a late afternoon train. Big mistake. It turns out Stonehenge is in the absolute middle of nowhere. And in the winter, it closes at 4:00 PM. I had rolled into the nearest train station, 9 miles away, at 3:45.

Well, I wasn’t about to let a little thing like this stop me. I figured something like Stonehenge, out in the countryside, probably didn’t have an electrified fence and armed guards surrounding it. If I could make it out there, I had a fairly good chance of being able to head in. At the very least, I could see it from the road. I had two problems - how to get there, and how to get there before dark.

It turned out there’s a smaller city about 2 miles from Stonehenge. 5 Pounds and a 20 minute bus ride later, and I was there. I picked up a map of the town, and headed down old Stonehenge road, hoping I could make it before dark.

Old Stonehenge road eventually turned into a highway. I was on the south end of it, between the road and a field. As the sun was setting, I saw Stonehenge off in the distance. I wouldn’t make it there before dark, but I was confident I could find my way back without much of a problem. On I went.

Stonehenge is basically in the crotch of a Y, with highways forming the Y. As I reached the Y it had grown dark, and I realized there was no way to get there without crossing the highway. It was only about 5:30 or 6:00 - prime rush hour time, and even out in the countryside traffic was fairly heavy.

I felt confident that I could time the cars and make it across the highway - except for one thing. While Stonehenge wasn’t surrounded by armed guards and an electrified fence, there was a waist-high barbed wire fence between the highway and the field where it stood, with no clearance between it and the highway. By themselves, I could time the cars and I could negotiate the fence, but I couldn’t time the cars AND negotiate the fence without ending up like a bad ending in Frogger. I couldn’t believe it. An hour and a half on the train, 20 minutes on the bus, and at least an hour walking, and I was going to be stopped within spitting distance of my goal.

I headed a bit further back and noticed a bit of luck. Right where the highway split, there was a small field where I could take my time negotiating the fence. I waited for a break in traffic and dashed across. Once I didn’t have to worry about getting hit by a car, the fence was easy. I even managed to make it through without tearing my jacket or jeans.

This was it. I climbed up the hill that led to Stonehenge, all the while thinking in the back of my head that there had to be some kind of catch. But there wasn’t. I simply got closer and closer until I was touching the massive bluestone megaliths that make up the complex. I had the place all to myself and it was amazing. No tourists, no fences, nothing but history and me. I took a few minutes to just wander around and marvel at the place. Then I figured a couple pictures were in order.

As I took the second photo I saw someone walking toward me. The guards must have seen my flashes go off. I wasn’t that surprised - I couldn’t imagine they left the place completely deserted after hours. “Hello” I said, deciding the best course of action was just to play the dumb American tourist who didn’t know you couldn’t just walk right in. “You know we’re closed mate,” the guard replied. He couldn’t have been more than 19 years old. “I’m going to have to escort you out - this way please.” A few other teenaged guards joined us on the way to leading me out, and I surmised that this must be the local after-school job for kids in the nearby town. I wanted to ask if they took their girlfriends here, or had a clandestine midnight party a few times a year, but in these kind of situations where you seem to be getting off the hook the best course of action is just to shut up, count your blessings, and get out of there as soon as possible.

As they took me through the gaudy tourist entrance, I was happier and happier that I had gone the way I had. There’s a big difference between walking up under your own power, seeing your goal appear off in the distance in the setting sun, and being rewarded with getting to wander unmolested through it; and rolling up in the SUV with the kids, forking over 15 quid, going through the turnstyle and past the souvenir shop, and snapping your photos from behind the ropes (if you go officially they don’t let you get within 10 feet of the stones, much less touch them). Until the guard showed up, I could almost believe it was 100 years ago, with Stonehenge untouched by postcards, tickets, and official paths. How many people get a place of such historical importance freely to themselves to interact with, even if only for a few minutes, in this day and age?

I was pretty satisfied as I walked, bused, and rode the train back to London. Still, I had stayed an extra day for a reason, and I wasn’t about to let the view from the top of the old Stock Exchange go without a fight.

Axis to Allies

We left Berlin and headed on our flight to London. We were pretty exited - we had plans to hook up with some locals, and spend 4 or 5 days really getting to know the town. I love the feeling of London in the winter - my father says it’s the kind of atmosphere where you “turn up your collar, light a cigarette, and walk away.”

I had been to London before, but it was my first time in Berlin. Although I only spent about a day and a half there, it was enough to get a certain feel for the city. It actually reminded me a lot of New York, as much as any other city I´ve been to except perhaps Sao Paulo. The kicker was the subway - not only is it one of the largest systems in the world, it pulled something straight out the NYC Transit book - changing lines due to construction in the middle of the trip. And while not quite 24/7 like the NYC Subway, I think it´s the closest any other system comes: all night on weekends and only closed for about three hours at night on weekdays. When Berlin was divided, the subway would run through several ghost stations, complete with armed guards, in the eastern section before returning to the west.

Today, you can hardly notice that Berlin ever was divided. For someone like me, who tends to anthropomorphize cities to a great degree, this isn´t very surprising. The idea of completely cutting a city in half (and not even along a natural boundary, such as a river) is almost unimaginable. Something as complicated as a world city, with subways, sewers, electric grids, water pipes, not to mention the natural economic and social flows of its citizens, can only be cut in half and stitched up on either side with crippling results. While I never got to see Berlin heal itself after the wall came down in 1989, I imagine it was quick, painless, and completely natural. Even after 28 years of separation, a city will fall into its natural state seamlessly, the way the body heals itself after a wound.

London didn´t start off too well. Instead of adventures in drains and rooftops, we had adventures in hospitals and airports. Steve ended up laid up in the “Lord Wigram Ward” of the Chelsea and Westminster hospital, and had to take an early fight back home. Due to e-mail miscommunication I missed a chance to head into some drains and underground rivers (one of which, I am told, goes right underneath Buckingham Palace), and a friend I was going to see ended up being horribly ill for some of my stay, and in Liverpool for the rest.

Four days in and I hadn’t really done a lot. I’d walked around a bit, and seen a few museums (almost all of which are free in London), including getting to ride the 5-story slide that’s a temporary exhibition at the Tate Modern. But I certainly hadn’t done anything interesting or fun. The highlight of my trip so far was meeting up with a friend in South London at, by far, the worst nightclub I had ever been to. Imagine a bunch of drunk Brits trying to dance to “Living on a Prayer.”

By the time I had planned to leave, I was pretty frustrated with my time in England. That frustration, however, would change in a big way.

Family

We are a strange generation. We have no direct experience with the Holocaust, like my grandparents’ generation. We don’t even have the experience of living with people who have, like my parents’ generation. But it has not yet faded into history, known only in academic and philosophic ways, like it inevitably will for our children’s generation. We still know what it is like to see a person you love turn back into a terrified 9-year old girl in front of your eyes when she says, almost apologetically, “you know Mose, I don’t so much like to go to Germany.”

My Great-Great Grandparents had twelve children. Six died in childhood. 5 more emigrated to the United States between the wars. One stayed in Poland, in the small town she had grown up in called Krastynstav. She and her husband had three children. The only daughter, my grandmother’s cousin Maria, was sent to hide with a Christian family during the war. Her father, mother, and two brothers were shot on the streets of Krasynstav in 1942.

Directly after the war, in one of the most stunning displays of human selfishness I had ever heard of, a distant relative of ours who knew Maria was alive decided to keep that fact to himself in order to claim the house that she and her family had owned. Maria eventually married one of the children of the Christian family and moved across the country to Sczcecin, right next to the current German border. In the late 1950s my Great-Grandfather finally learned she had survived.

I went to see Maria in Szchecin for a couple of days. We talked well into the night, and the next day she showed me some of the sights of the city, including the docks where her late husband Janek had worked for most of his life, and which are one of the centers where the famous Solidarity movement had started. Then that night we went to visit some of Janek’s family, and I got to meet the some of Maria’s in-laws, the family that had hidden her during the war.

Family is a strange thing. This was my grandmother’s cousin’s husband’s sister’s husband’s house. I wasn’t related genetically to anyone I met in the room. I don’t share a nationality, religion, or even a language with these people. I had never met any of them before in my life - in fact, I wasn’t even aware that most them even existed. Still, from the moment I stepped in the door I immediately felt at home. Part of it might have been because of the legendary Polish hospitality, heck part of it might have been because of all the whiskey they were plying me with (apparently Americans are supposed to drink whiskey). But mostly it was because I knew we were family, and so did they.

Traveling, and especially traveling alone, is one of my favorite things to do. The freedom, the complete responsibility for yourself (and complete lack of it for anyone else), the ability to see and do and learn things you thought you would only ever read about. But there’s a down side to everything, and for as many interesting people you meet and converse with on the road, there’s still a sort of melancholy loneliness that lingers with you. It’s not an altogether unpleasant feeling, and there’s even times when I quite enjoy it. But the breaks from that feeling are always appreciated while on the road, and there is no better break from that feeling than being around family.

I left Poland on the bus ride back to Berlin (after Maria gave me enough food for two weeks, instead of the two hours the trip took) feeling refreshed, relaxed, and extremely grateful. I had gotten the opportunity to see an old family member and meet new ones. Maria had told me that the best day of her life was when her family in the United States found her. In some very, very small way, that night I think I know how she felt.

A Ghost of the Past

Talk to most ethic groups in New York, and you’ll find a least a little nostalgia for the lands of their forebearers, even if it’s more manufactured than genuine. Caribbean immigrants dream of their island paradise, the Irish sing about the Emerald Isle, the Italians talk about taking a vacation to visit the little town in Sicily or Calabria or Campania where their grandparents used to live. There is one stark exception to this nostalgia: you will never hear a Jew pining away for the memory of Central or Eastern Europe. With good reason.

I had been to Italy and France, countries that had been occupied by the Nazis, but not to the extent that the entire Jewish population was destroyed. In fact, Rome has the oldest continually active Jewish community in Europe, a community that is still fairly active today - despite not being allowed to live outside the confines of the 4-block square ghetto until 1870.

I had also been to the Iberian countries, former centers of a Jewish culture that had been eradicated, and which are virtually devoid of any Jewish community today (Portugal, a country that was once about 20% Jewish, today has about 600 Jews). But half a millennia of time has insulated that period of history to a large degree. Not so with Central Europe.

Being Jewish in Central Europe, even today, even as a young person, was eerie and extremely unnerving. What you know to be alive is said to you to be dead. A culture you are used to experiencing in sounds, smells, and feelings is relegated to tourist shops and museums. And, of course, a heavy dose of security cameras and police officers, as a reminder that despite a near-complete extermination, there are still plenty of people willing to come back to try and destroy what pathetic little there is left.

You feel like a living ghost - that who you are shouldn’t exist. That you have been told in the most brutal way possible that this was no longer your home, that you were no longer welcome here. Despite the changes in Central Europe over the last 60 years, that fact remains that these changes occurred only after the vision of the old ideology had been fulfilled to a unbelievably horrific extent. Politically, the Central Europe of today might not resemble Hitler’s dreams of the future, but in terms of the “Jewish question” the undisputable fact remains that it does - a fact that I could feel in my bones from Austria to Poland.

Somewhat ironically, of the Central European cities I visited I by far felt the most comfortable in Berlin. One has to remember, before the war Berlin was the most anti-Nazi city in the German speaking world, and one of the most liberal and cosmopolitan in all of Europe. And today, Berlin is well along the road of returning to these noble roots. Immigrants from all over the world walk its streets, multitudes of languages are heard in its cafes, gays and lesbians live openly and freely. There is even a small, but growing, Jewish community. I can think of no better historical repudiation of the Nazi ideals than for its imagined racially pure capital of a totalitarian empire to, in fact, become a multinational, liberal, cosmopolitan city - complete with a Jewish presence and culture - embracing the exact values that the Nazis abhorred.

7 Days, 6, Cities, 5 Countries, 4 Languages - Third Man, Second Cousin, First Time Everywhere

I blitzed Central Europe. Heading by overnight train out of Rome, we stopped for the afternoon in Venice, before continuing on to Vienna. Arriving at night, we spent the next 36 hours there before heading by bus to Prague. Two nights in Prague, and it’s on to Berlin. One night in Berlin, and it’s a van for two hours to Sczcecin, Poland. Count it up - it works.

General impressions are here, with more specifics to follow.

Rome: Rome reminded me a lot of Washington, D.C. Government and Tourism are pretty much the whole economy, and everything touristy is mainly concentrated in a small section in the middle of the city. I liked the city, and it was fun to visit, but I didn’t really feel it.

Venice: Venice is tourism - at least if you don’t have a boat and can visit the outlying islands. We couldn’t get away from it - overpriced cafes and tzotzcke shops everywhere. We did managed to find a couple of somewhat out-of-the way corners, but probably only because it was a nasty day in the off-season. I didn’t quite get the appeal of Venice, I have to say.

Vienna: We were in Vienna for one reason: to go visit the underground river that was used in Orsen Welles’ “The Third Man.” The trip was kind of fun, if simple (and full of spiders) - peep the Cave Clan tag we found in there!The third man is basically a movie about Vienna - kind of the same way that “On the Town” is a movie about New York. The only other thing of note that we did was head up the spire of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the middle of town, where the views were awful. Probably the worst observation deck I’ve been on. I didn’t much like Vienna as a whole.

Prague: Prague is small, beautiful, cheap for Europe, and extremely touristy. I get the feeling there’s another layer of the city, probably pretty interesting, but one which foreigners will never know. Prague is not really a migrant city, and the population seems to pretty much consist of people there for a couple days and people there for life. Language is also a factor. There’s plenty of people who speak English, French, Spanish, even Portuguese and Italian as second languages. Nobody speaks Czech as a second language - not unless they marry a Czech person and move there. These two factors, at least to me, seem to indicate a city for tourists, a city for locals, and never the twain shall meet.

Berlin: I actually really liked Berlin, which I was not expecting. In fact, even though I didn’t even spend 24 contiguous hours there, I think it deserves it’s own post. More to come.

Sczcecin: Szczecin is not really on the typical European tour list. It’s not even one of those “off the beaten path” kind of cities, and visiting certainly never would have crossed my mind if I hadn’t had relatives there. Still, it was fairly interesting. A German city called Stettin until the end of WWII (today it’s right across the border, and most people visiting by air will fly into Berlin), it has Poland’s second-largest port, next to Gdansk, or Danzig. Architecture is one of three things: the old German City, Soviet era (basically concrete blocks), and post-Soviet era (basically the same concrete blocks, but sometimes with balconies, and painted purple or green). I was only there to visit my second cousin (well, first cousin twice removed, but second cousin fits in with the title better).

The Oldest Sewer in the World (Epilogue)

The night after our sewer adventure, I went out to dinner with a couple of people from our hostel. When we came back, I found Steve completely despondent, and minus about 3/4 of the bottle of whiskey I had left him with. “I don´t think we did it,” he told me. “I don’t think we made it to the Cloaca.”

We had a limited amount of time for our trip, and I wasn’t about to go breaking back in to the sewers in search of something we may or may not have found. There was another option though: pay 500 Euros (about 650 dollars) to go officially with the Rome Underground society the next day.

Now, while I generally find official tours restrictive and frustrating, I am not above doing it the official way if the risk/reward ratio is sufficiently in its favor. For instance, while I would have much preferred being able to freely wander the Colosseum by myself, instead of trying to hop the fence in the middle of the night I queued up, paid the entrance fee, and stuck to the beaten path.

However, paying 650 bucks to go into a sewer is ridiculous. But this was the culture of Rome. Most of the interesting underground stuff is part of well guarded archeological sites, and the exploration groups are more on the academic side, heavily cooperative with the authorities, and generally enjoy official access, as opposed to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that´s prevelent in Australia and Paris, and the “pray you don´t get caught” attitude that exists today in New York. Naples was much the same way as Rome, except the combination of less tourists, less archeological interest, and a generally cooler crew led to “sure, we’d love to show you the underground of our city - let’s all go see what we can find” rather than “pay us an exhorbitant amount of money and you can tag along on a tour.”

Still, Steve was considering it. Finding the Cloaca was a big reason he had come all the way to Rome, and he was apoplectic over the fact that he might leave without seeing it. Fortunately, I had just the solution for his malaise. During my visit to the four patriarchal basilicas, I had noticed something pretty interesting. Next to St. John Lateran, there was a giant obelisk surrounded by scaffolding. It looked pretty easy to head in and up. For the urban adventurer, a good drunken climb can work wonders for the psyche. Plus, as a rebellious lapsed Catholic, I knew Steve couldn’t turn down the chance to do some extralegal adventuring in Vatican territory - and right next to the seat of the Pope nonetheless.

Surprisingly, one of the hostel folks I had dinner with, a random cute Aussie girl, decided to come along. Not to climb, just to walk she said - but I already knew she was heading up top with us. I recognized her mental state immediately, because I had experienced it several times myself - it’s always the process when dealing with appealing things outside of your comfort zone. The logical part of herself said that it was a ridiculous idea to climb up scaffolding in the middle of the night with two random drunk Americans, and proceeded to come up with all the reasons not to do it. But some spark had been lit, and it was our job to fan that spark into a flame - a flame strong enough to overcome the mental reservations. Certain things help with this. Booze being not the least of them, but another big one is other confident people around. Ultimately, I knew that if we made the situation comfortable enough for her, provided a steady presence, and maybe gave her a gentle push when the time was right, she would listen to her gut and go with the flow. The three of us swigged the last of Steve’s whiskey from the bottle and headed southeast to St. John’s.

The climb was easy as cake. I went up the scaffolding ladders with the Aussie, while Steve worked out his issues by doing a Spider-Man up the side. The scaffolding covered the whole obelisk, and we used the cross at the top of it to boost ourselves up to the final crossbeams. We had chosen a great climb. Unbeknownst to us, in the late 16th century the city of Rome had actually been designed to give us a spectacular view.

Rome, like most European cities, is a jumbled mishmash of streets and alleyways that have evolved organically over time. There are a few exceptions to this rule however - for instance, in 1936 when Mussolini started to build a grand Boulevard called the Via della Conciliazione from the Tiber River to St. Peter´s Basilica. Another exception occurred 350 years earlier, when Pope Sixtus V decided that all roads shouldn´t just lead to Rome - they should also lead to the seat of the Pope. Sixtus cleared out radial boulevards from St. John Lateran to link it with the other major basilicas. As a result we had great, unobstructed views right down the main roads of Rome. The Colosseum was right down one street, with St. Peter´s off in the distance behind it. St. Mary Maggiore was down another. We could also make out the dome of the Pantheon, and of course, the magnificent roof of Mother Church of all Christendom right next to us.

The night was fairly misty, and Rome is not heavily lit up at night like Paris or New York. Even if Steve had brought his $6000 camera, any decent shots were out of the question. The Aussie did her best with her regular point-and-shoot digital, mostly of the carvings on the obelisk, but I was perfectly content with nothing. A good climb, a great view, an epic city, I didn´t need anything else. Photography is great, but often times it can be a distraction from the experience itself.

Sitting back in the hostel, winding down from our impromptu adventure, I noticed a change in both of my compatriots. Steve was no longer so despondent - while not completely mitigating his frustration, the climb had taken the edge off enough to let him leave the city in peace, Cloaca or no. And the flame that had been lit in the Aussie was there to stay. I felt kind of proud - I had helped create a fellow urban adventurer.

There was also another reason to celebrate. After a little research, it turned out that we hadn’t just climbed some random thing covered in scaffolding. The Lateran Obelisk is the oldest in Rome and tallest in the entire world - the Egyptians constructed the 105 foot (32 meter) obelisk in Luxor approximately 3500 years ago. It was brought to Rome by Constantius II in the 4th century, and erected at the Circus Maximus. After having fallen sometime during the middle ages, our old buddy Sixtus V (Best Pope Ever!) had it re-erected next to St. John Lateran, adding the cross on top that we had used to boost ourselves up in order to de-paganize it.

Setting a goal and pushing yourself to achieve it is always rewarding, even if you ultimately fail or (as in the case of the Cloaca) don’t know if you succeeded or not. Rewarding in a very different way is learning you’ve accomplished something cool you hadn’t even meant to, just by seizing a random opportunity. I had helped one friend feel better, I had helped another unlock a part of herself, and I had seen a magnificent view of the Eternal City afforded only to the scant few - such as us - that choose to find it. I could leave Rome the next day with no regrets.

The Oldest Sewer in the World - Part 2

The sewers we were in now made the one we were just in look like the Sistine Chapel. We were on a narrow, somewhat slippery catwalk maybe a foot wide right next to the bodily waste of millions. One wrong step and we would literally be up shit’s creek without a paddle.

Still we pressed on to see what we could find. After 50 feet or so a smaller tunnel branched off to the side. This had no sewage in it, and was made out of brick - brick that looked incredibly similar to what ancient Roman ruins were made out of. Could this be the remnants of the Cloaca? We went as far as we could, stopping to take some pictures. The tunnel was only about 5 feet high or so, and ended in a strange chamber, complete with brick arches. We were under the oldest part of the city - even if it wasn’t the Cloaca, it was a fair bet this tunnel was at least a couple millennia old, and was host to the kind of history we had only read about.

We left this strange offshoot behind and carried on. Here was where Steve started to get worried. We had brought an air meter, which would tell us if the oxygen content got too low or if there was anything poisonous in the air. But Steve wasn’t worried about air - he was worried about water. We hadn’t checked the forecast that day. If it started to rain, or even just drizzle, there was a good chance the water level of the sewer would rise considerably. The catwalk was only a few inches higher than the effluence next to us. If it rose just even a little, we would be swimming back out. And if it rose a lot…well, let’s just say I could think of a lot better ways to go. We offered up a quick prayer to Cloacina and pressed on.

A little further and the sewer split in two. The big problem was that this was also where the catwalk ended. The tunnel to the right had no catwalk, and there was a 6 foot gap until the catwalk picked back up on the tunnel to the left. Jumping it was out of the question. We tested the water with the camera tripod to see how deep it was. The river of shit swallowed the 5 foot tripod with room to spare. We were out of options.

We had no idea if our quest was successful - we had been almost exactly in the path of the original Cloaca. Some remnants of it could have been the brick tunnel or the catwalk-less offshoot. The most likely possibility was that it was a sealed archway that we had passed.

But we had gone as far as we could without Hazmat suits. It was hard to head back out without knowing for sure if we’d accomplished our objective, but we couldn’t very well expect a big sign saying “welcome to the world’s oldest sewer!” We negotiated the other ladder and the gate, and made it back to the city before nightfall, passing our old Gypsy friends along the way. We gave a friendly wave and smile, and were honored when we got a slight nod of the head back.

The Oldest Sewer in the World, Part 1

“You have made a very big mistake!” Here I was being chewed out, in English no less, by a homeless Gypsy fisherman with a neatly trimmed mustache on the east bank of the Tiber River. My crime? Trying to visit the Cloaca Maxima - the world’s oldest sewer.

Ancient Rome had a problem - a lot of people, even more animals, and no way to get rid of all their poop. To cope with this problem, a rudimentary sewage system was dug around 600 BC, flowing through town out to the Tiber River. True to Roman form, it even came complete with its own goddess, Cloacina, a statue of whom was placed above the part of the Cloaca that now runs underneath the ancient Roman forum. The Cloaca is so old, nobody really knows if it started as a tunnel, or a ditch, or even a natural river. It’s been in use in some form or another ever since, although in modern times its remaining passages were consolidated with the rest of the sewer system of Rome.

I wasn’t quite sure of the big mistake I had made. A little research had led us to the approximate location of the outflow of the Cloaca Maxima. I decided to head over there and see if we could get in. One possible entrance had a couple of guys camped out in front of it, obviously making it their home. One was digging in the mud in front of the entrance with a shovel, so I asked him (as best I could), if it was the Cloaca Maxima. He seemed friendly enough when he gestured to keep walking down the path by the river. But as I turned to walk away, I heard some very rapid, very angry Italian being hurled at me. After repeated “no parlo Italianos,” he said “OK you speak English? - you have made a very big mistake!”

Apparently I had in some way gravely offended some sensibility of his in our brief exchange. I had no idea what to do, or what he would do. Luckily, after a good deal of further berating, he took my apologies enough that I could walk away without fear of further offense. Still, I glanced over my shoulder more than once. He was so mad, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him running after me, shovel in hand.

Well, here was another obstacle I’d put in our way. Instead of manholes and fences, now we had angry Gypsies to contend with. The next morning Steve and I, armed with our peace offerings of cigarettes and beer, went down to try and talk our way in.

We had determined earlier that day that the tunnel by the Gypsy campsite was almost certainly the actual outflow of the Cloaca. The guy who had yelled at me wasn’t there, but his friend was. He only spoke Italian, Romany, and Russian fluently (got to love Europe, with a trilingual homeless population), but we somehow ended up managing a mangled conversation with him in French. 10 minutes and a couple beers late we were in. Imagine our disappointment when the tunnel ended in a brick wall after 10 feet.

Undaunted, we decided to explore a little further down the river to see if there were any other possible entrances. We were in luck: only a few dozen feet down the river was a sewer entrance, close enough that it might lead to the Cloaca. This time the obstacles were different. There was a heavy gate in front of the entrance, although luckily it wasn’t locked. And there was another obstacle one might associate with sewers: namely sewage. While the other entrance had been kept fairly clean by the Gypsies camped out there, this one had no such caretakers. Flies were swarming all over us as we were up to our ankles in the muck of whatever Romans flush down their toilets trying to pry open the gate. This time it took a little elbow grease and a heck of a strong stomach instead of two beers and decent French to make it in.

Once we were in it got a little better - most of the sewage had caught on the gate at the entrance, and there was only a trickle down the middle of the tunnel. The tunnel itself was big, and looked relatively new. It began to curve toward the direction of the entrance to the Cloaca, giving us hope that it would eventually connect with it, but stopped at a flood gate before very long.

With the Cloaca this close, we had to go on. Luckily for us, there was a ladder. Up the ladder, into the gatehouse, across a catwalk, and down another, much rustier, ladder and we found ourselves in the sewers beneath the Capolitine hill. On we went.

Photos by Steve Duncan - www.undercity.org

Story continues in Part 2...

Vaccines, and how to get them for free

So I sliced myself open trampsing around Brooklyn Census Tract 77, which reminded me I needed to get a tetanus shot, which reminded me to post my best advice about getting vaccinated if you're going traveling. And my best advice involves how to not pay for anything.

There is really no reason you should shell out any dough for travel vaccines unless you're getting something exotic, which pretty much means Rabies or Typhoid. There's some other exotic vaccines (did you know there's a vaccine for the Plague?), but they're generally needed only in very specific circumstances, or are considered ineffective for adults. I paid for Typhoid, but I wasn't working with wild animals , so I passed on Rabies.

Now, it might be that this is what my 3.2% NYC income tax buys, and the idea of getting free vaccines elsewhere is a dream. But if you live in New York, there's no reason to pay the 3.2% income tax and your doctor a few hundred bucks more because your insurance (if you've even got it) doesn't cover vaccinations. For all routine jabs, skip your doctor and hit your local health clinic. In New York, there's actually one in every borough except Staten Island, open from 8:30 - 2:30 Monday through Thursday. I can't speak for other places, but the one on 28th and 9th in Manhattan is great. I've gone a half dozen times, never waited more than about an hour and a half, never had any hassle and never had to pay a dime. Get a DtaP (Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis) and/or an MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) if you need it, and begin a three-shot series of Hep B at least 6 months before you leave. If you're leaving next week, get the first one or two anyway and the remainder when you get back - that should be sufficient to immunize you for the length of your trip.

You can also get a Hep A, Meningococcal, Chickenpox, HPV, and/or Pneumococcal vaccine, which are supposed to only be given out to certain demographics they consider "at-risk." Meningococcal and Pneumococal I didn't think I needed, I've had the Chicken Pox, and the HPV vaccine is only for women, but I wanted Hep A. I was prepared to be an "at-risk" group if they asked me, but they never did. The first few times they said they were out, and the third time they sent me upstairs for the vaccine without asking me anything. Get there early and you've got a better chance. Hep A won't kill you, but it'll ruin your vacation. Hep A is a two-shot series - same advice as Hep B applies. I'm guessing this same general "don't ask, don't tell, smoke em' if you've got em' " deal applies to other vaccines also. It's not like the "at-risk" catagories are super-narrow groupings where the clinic will require some kind of proof or documentation. For instance, just being a smoker puts you in the "at-risk" group for Pneumococcal, and being a gay male puts you in the at-risk group for Hep A.

Another one you might need is Yellow Fever, depending on what country you're going to (Yellow Fever is endemic to Tropical South America and Africa). This actually has it's own certificate, and is a required vaccination in some circumstances. The thing is, countries that require Yellow Fever vaccination only require it if you're coming from an at-risk country. And the United States is not an at-risk country. So head over to your first destination, and get a Yellow Fever vaccine there. In all probability it'll be free. I can only vouch for this method in Argentina, where it was as simple as going to the tourist booth and asking where I could get a Yellow Fever vaccine.

For more vaccine info, see the NYC Dept. of Health's Bureau of Immunization, the Center for Diesese Control's Vaccinations page, and the UK-based The Site.

Hanging With the Pope

We headed out of Naples for Rome. Our stated mission was to break into the oldest sewer in the world. But there was other stuff to see along the way. You don’t go to Rome without planning some appreciation for the two great historical institutions that have had their headquarters there: the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church.

The first Catholic site I went to was St. Peter’s Basilica . In addition to being a historic, artistic, and architectural marvel, St. Peter’s actually has a remarkable amount of public access. In fact, you can see five different levels at one point. After checking out the interior, I headed up to the top.

I took the stairs the whole way. After a few hundred steps, you’re out on a balcony on the inside overlooking the alter.From there, you head out to the lower roof.

Then a few hundred more steps and you’re rewarded with great views of Rome from the viewing terrace on top of the dome, which was designed by Michelangelo as one of his last works.

he walk up itself was actually pretty fun. There’s about a dozen different types of staircases along the way, and at one point you actually have to learn about 20 degrees to the right while walking, to adjust for the slope of the dome.

The other two levels are below. Underneath the alter is the tomb of the past popes, which is publicly accessible whenever the Basilica is open. And underneath that level is a fascinating archeological site. Tours are given semi-regularly, and we were lucky enough to catch one in English.

Before there was a St. Peter’s Basilica - in fact before there was a St. Peter - the area west of the Tiber river was mainly a burial place. Underneath the Vatican is an entire “City of the Dead” - catacombs filled with Christian, Jewish, and Pagan burial sites. Over the years it’s been excavated, and now has periodic tours where you can also see the burial place of St. Peter. Our guide told us the long twisted take of discovering St. Peter’s remains - basically, since the Vatican’s nightmare was to not find St. Peter’s remains below the alter where they were supposed to be, excavation was held up for centuries. Eventually, remains were found matching the age, sex, and expiration date of the Basilica’s namesake. The final kicker that led the Vatican to declare they were St. Peter’s remains? Despite an abundance of hand and finger bones, there were no foot bones found. Legend has it that St. Peter was crucified upside-down. The easiest way to take a dead body off an upside-down cross? Chop off his feet at the ankles.

A lot of people mistakenly think that St. Peter’s Basilica is the seat of the Bishop of Rome - A.K.A. the Pope. Actually, that honor is held by St. John Lateran - or “The Cathedral Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Lateran.” Cathedral because it contains a Cathedra, or seat of a Bishop. Archbasilica because as the seat of the Pope, it’s considered above all other basilicas. Most Holy Savior because all Patriarchal Basilicas consider Jesus to be the primary patron, with whoever they are named after (Paul, Peter, the Johns, and the Virgin Mary), as secondary patrons. Saint John the Baptist and the Evanglalist because it was actually dedicated twice, and they decided to keep them both. And in the Lateran, because the location is the site of the former palace of the Laterani family.

I decided to head to St. John’s right after my visit to St. Peter’s. And after that, I decided to try and make a Grand Slam of the four Major Basilicas. I headed to St. Paul’s Outside the Walls next (which is supposedly above the burial place of St. Paul). St. Paul’s is most noteworthy for having a portrait of every Pope in history. When there’s no more room for another Pope, it signals (obviously) the end of the world. There’s eight spots left. For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church would not let any Non-Catholic Churches in the city of Rome. The name of the first one, an English language Anglican church? Why “St. Paul’s Inside the Walls” of course. I finished off the Grand Slam with a visit to St. Mary Maggiore, about a half-hour before it closed.

The next day we went to see the Vatican Museum (best known for the Sistine Chapel with the famous ceiling by Michelangelo). The scene in the Chapel is half funny, half pitiful. It’s unbelievably crowded, and despite the prominently displayed “flashbulb with a slash through it” signs, you keep hearing is the guards saying “no flash, no flash” in a resigned voice about every 10 seconds.

In addition to the Vatican Museum, we also saw the Pope. It wasn’t too tough - you head to St. Peter’s on Tuesday, the Swiss Guards give you tickets (free of charge), and you show up the next day.

The whole thing was hilarious. The Pope reads a short statement in about a dozen different languages. Then after each time he reads it, he basically gives a shout-out to whoever happens to be there that speaks that language. If a group from a church in Uruguay is visiting (which they were), he’ll say something like “and I wish to welcome the congregation of St. Mary’s from Montevideo, Uruguay” after he’s done reading the statement in Spanish, and the aforementioned congregation will stands up and cheer and wave Uruguayan flags. Repeat for everyone else that’s there. At one point, I kid you not, a Marching Band stood up and played a few songs after their organization had been given a shout-out. Then after all of that the Pope blesses everything in the room, and that’s a wrap. It’s basically the same as going to a rap concert, but instead of “Is Brooklyn in the House?” it’s “is St. Stephen’s Church of Bratislava, Slovakia in the house?” And as said by Pope Benedict XVI instead of the Method Man.

Arrivaderci a Napoli

I loved Naples. I felt comfortable there. I think it’s the kind of city I could eventually even feel at home in. But I know I’ll never truly know the city. Not if I lived there the rest of my life and learned fluent Italian tomorrow. It’s too deep.

Some cities are shallow, some are deep. It’s not a value judgment, and it doesn’t have much of a bearing on how much I like a town. But it’s there. Paris is a shallow city. Despite not knowing French and only spending two weeks there, I can tell you I know Paris. Maybe not all the nooks and crannies, not all the shortcuts, but I know the city. London is pretty deep, but mostly I’d define it as broad. Still, while I don’t feel like I know London, I definitely feel like I could one day, and probably not in the very distant future.

New York is different. It’s deep, but in a very different way than a city like Naples. New York is almost defined by its transiency. This is especially true of Manhattan. Even before colonization it was transient: the local natives would set up shop in the summer, do some hunting, and then leave in the winter. It’s a very rare thing to find a person who has been born, grew up, lived their adult life, and died all on the island of Manhattan.

More than any other city I know of, knowing New York is a choice: it’s all there if you want to put in the work, but it’s going to be a heck of a lot of work. And the work never ends. New York changes so fast that you’re constantly playing catch up. And it changes so fast that I’ve always held that it’s really the relative newcomer that knows the city the best at any given moment - old timers are always looking at it through the distorted lens of a city that’s no longer there.

Naples has none of this history of transience. Well, it does but only in one direction - out. As one the main emigrant cities of the world over the last 150 years or so, Naples is now undergoing an interesting transition. I have yet to look up the statistics on this, but I would not be surprised if lately more people have been entering Naples from other countries rather than leaving it for abroad.

I would by no means call Naples cosmopolitan. But it’s not entirely homogeneous either. In addition to the staples of pretty much any European city nowadays - West Africans street merchants, Australian hostel managers - there’s a few other communities in Naples: Albanians, Sri Lankans (mostly refugees from the renewed fighting), and Eastern Europeans - more so now that Bulgaria and Romania have ascended to the European Union. I would have liked to be able to have stayed a little longer and talked with a few more locals about the impact this has had on such an insular city.

In addition, I couldn’t pass. This is weird for me. I almost always pass as a local (at least before I open my mouth) in pretty much any city where it’s plausible someone of my particular appearance might live. I’m not quite sure why this is other than the fact that I tend to feel comfortable in cities and maybe project that comfortableness. Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Madrid, I blended right in. I got asked directions twice my first day in Rome. Not in Naples.

I had the same feeling of comfortableness. It wasn’t tourist season (not like there’s that many tourists anyway). My basic outfit of jeans, sneakers, and my leather jacket wasn’t particularly out of place. But nobody ever mistook me for anything but an outsider. Nobody even started speaking Italian to me. It was obvious to me that I was standing out in some way. This didn’t happen anywhere else in Italy - or even anywhere else in Europe for that matter. It didn’t even really happen to me in Rio where they can spot a tourist a mile away (I’ve been told it’s in the walk). It wasn’t me - it was the city.

I left feeling like we couldn’t really crack Naples. I was frustrated, but somewhat resigned. In some cities that feeling of frustration is much worse, because you know if you had stayed a little longer, prepared a little better, took a few more chances, you could have had it. Not Naples. I think I could have stayed forever and not really gotten that much farther. It’s just too deep.