30.10.2010
Icarus and Deadalus
Rome, the eternal city...?
Eat the meat
Icarus and Deadalus
I guess everybody knows about Icarus and Deadalus, the genius artist father and his stupid son. It is something I always get reminded when I am going to fly. Just a couple of hours ago it just happened again. With a group of people we went to Rome with plane. The experience of flying is something strange for me, every time. When I was little I never flew and so my first and only experience with airports and flying-machines was in the age of nine, when one of my fathers cousins took me with him on a short flight in one of these engineless gliders. It was amazing and for many years I did not feel something similar. Back then, at least that is what I think, my sense for flights established. It is less a sense than a picture, of how it should be when you fly. Based on the experience of the glider and its big window-based cabin, a flight should be open and play with some sort of reality that you can see and feel. Nowadays, when I fly I am always trying to sit next to the window, hoping to get back that feeling from a decade ago. But it never happens. Instead of this overwhelming feeling of a free and real view at the world, it becomes more and more like an elevator. The flight becomes something natural, normal and absurd at the same time. It has just the same steps like when I am entering my house and try to reach my home. Step one, entering the house equals entering the airport. Checking my mail equals checking in. Getting through the second door to enter the hallway is just like passing the security check and passport control. Then waiting for the elevator seems to be the time that you waste till you can finally board. The elevator ride is then the flight, before you play the game reverse till I enter my room. And if you are sitting in the last row of the air-transportation vehicle it is exactly like this. You enter, you fly, you cannot see anything, you leave and you have reached. Entering this absurd box and leaving it in a different place than you hopped on seems so normal. I miss the feeling of freedom that you can find in the small planes.
Rome, the eternal city…?
We reached the airport of Rome around half past four. A confusing building from the 1970s with a terrible way of putting signs hanging. A plastic spaceship looking tube has leaded us to the train station; a place with the same kind of attitude as the airport; futuristic but in an old fashioned way. First impression there: the smell of pee. How can a place, as small as that, smell like pee so heavily?
With half an hour train ride in front of us we have talked about cities we have been to. Istanbul was - besides of Rome- one of the main subjects. Comparing the two is not that difficult, sure they have different culture etc., but in the outer regions of the city, both are concrete, steel, bad craftsmanship and ruins. Ruins, not only antique ones are some sort of corporate identity of these two cities.
Termini Roma, is reached quite fast and just after 3 and half hours of traveling together half of the groups people are lost and found in a different place. Not far apart, but still funny that it happened that fast. With an amazingly crowded bus (64) we have entered the inner city. Buildings as impressive as nothing I have seen before, but in the same moment, they all look like that. The facades are dark and shady as if every century has left its traces.
Finally we got our rooms in the pilgrim dormitory. A simple square room, with a balcony that opens to the courtyard of the six floored building. We, two boys and me, are staying in the first floor. Under the balcony there is the kitchen and trash section. At least it does not smell. Everything is simple, functional and clean.
Eat the meat
Around seven, or maybe more about half past, we went out for an aperitivo. It is like an all you can eat plus one drink menu in bars. With a group of 18 people it is not that easy to run around and find a place to sit. But we managed it some how, and I ate some amazing ham, salami, cheese and tomato sandwiches.
After all the food we went to an Erasmus student party and drank a beer, before we returned to the dormitory.
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