The first week, kind of OR We Were Beverly D'Angelo Oce, And Young

How the trip started:
We got on the ship two weeks ago but it feels like two months. Our producer and director were on the ship the first week, and the first few days were taken up with rehearsals, which really took away from the whole "seeing Europe" thing. But then the show came and we were finally able to concentrate on the matter at hand: seeing Europe like we was Beverly D'Angelo.

Our first stop was Rome. We all took the train in from Civatecchia (about an hour away) but split up once we got there so that we could be more powerful. Beth, Brian and I got off at St. Peter's Square and the adventure began. Rome (or, as I call it now that I've traveled in Europe, Roma) is a prizefighter city: it keeps socking you in the gut with increasingly breathtaking views. We saw the columns of St. Peter's Square first (which I think is where they filmed the climax of "Charade," where Walter Matthau is shooting at Cary and Audrey. I'll try to keep the movie references to a minimum. I realize the Beverly D'Angelo thing was cheap and unnecessary. I just liked how "we was Beverly D'Angelo" sounded and I thought it was a hipper "European Vacation" reference than "Chevy Chase" or "the Griswolds." It's probably not even grammatically correct but the squiggly line under "we" disappeared when I changed "were" to "was." I've said too much.) We stood in the center where all the columns line up, looked at the Pope's balcony, looked at the line for the Vatican, and then moved on.

Our next stop was, I believe, at a restaurant that Brian had tried to eat at repeatedly last year, but had been unsuccessful. He read about "Alfred and Ada's" in a magazine that touted it as one of the finer things in life, and was determined on eating there. We walked by at eleven (which we foolishly deemed as too early to eat. Wasted youth!), and Alfred, an elderly man sporting a short sleeve white dress shirt and smoking a cigarette, was standing outside. We would find out later that seeing Alfred in daylight is like seeing a unicorn making out with a phoenix. Brian conversed with him in Italian and left under the impression that they were closing for siesta but would be open later in the afternoon. Like the deceptive unicorn, Alfred later proved himself to be a liar.

We then walked over to the Piazza Nuvona (I might have the order all mixed up, but trust me, we went there). The PN has three fountains, one that was under construction, but even mounds of scaffolding can't hide that kind of beauty. Brian walked into what he thought was a tourism office but was actually St. Agnes' Cathedral in disguise, so we spent some time walking around there. I later found out that the Cathedral was built on the spot where St. Agnes was believed to have been martyred. Also, my friend Jon later told me that the Piazza Nuvona was where the word "fornication" comes from. Roman prostitutes used to hang out under the PN's arches, and the Latin word for arch is fornix, and thus a new word was born. So the day was educational as well.

Our next stop was the Pantheon. This might have been my favorite sight. My knowledge of it is limited to a few sentences in a guide book, so forgive my gross oversimplification, but it is the oldest still standing building in Rome. It was built as a Pagan temple to all of the gods and then the church co-opted it for its own uses, so now there is a lot of beautiful Renaissance art in there as well. It is also where Raphael is buried.

When we were ready for lunch, Alfred and Ada's was closed, all signs of activity obliterated. Dejected, we wandered into a nearby shoe store, as Brian is also interested in getting made to wear shoes in Italy. The name of the store escapes me, but its owner, Daniela, could not have been kinder to us. She laughed at our jokes, let us look at our shoes, and even brought us into the back room to show us the Berlitz CD and workbook she's using to learn English. She recommended her favorite restaurant, Campanas, and we quickly headed over. I left the store in such a haze of good feeling that I thought that spending three hundred fifty euros on shoes might not be the worst thing.

And as for Campanas, everything I want to write about it is a cliché. Did the food melt in your mouth? Yes. Did the house wine taste like the nectar of the gods? Absolutely. Will I now obnoxiously say, "This almost tastes as good as the real stuff I ate back in Italy?" every time I visit an Italian restaurant in the states? You bet.

On the train ride back to the ship I sat across from two passengers, one of whom might have been the acclaimed Iranian-born actress Shoreh Ahgdashloo. I had a lovely conversation with her about how it's hard to get good help in the states, and that's why she now lives overseas.