ODYSSEUS, AENEAS, AND ME

7/11/11

Ah, the joys of travel! As many of you know, in general, I HATE to travel. However, I am deeply in love with a woman (my wife—don’t get the wrong idea) who LOVES to travel, our kids like to travel (though, increasingly so, preferably without us), and so I travel. I try to keep a brave face during these excursions; sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. Usually, I come back from these expeditions happy that I took them because of the time they afford us to spend time together as a family. Why on earth we couldn’t spend similar family time at, say, Centennial Beach in Naperville, at a good restaurant in some ethnic neighborhood in Chicago, or in New Buffalo, Michigan is beyond me, but, nevertheless, I am happy for the time we were able to spend together.

So we have just returned from a cruise to the eastern Mediterranean, or, more properly, the Adriatic, the Aegean, and Ionian Seas. My concession for traveling outside this country is that we do so on a cruise ship; believe it or not, cruising is the budget way to see Europe. One could never, ever, eat like one eats on a cruise ship or sleep in a room like one gets in a cruise ship for anything like what one spends on a cruise ship. That point was driven home, painfully, on this particular odyssey, but more on that later.

One might dismiss much of the following as the rantings of a philistine who doesn’t appreciate or understand the finer things of life. I plead partially guilty. I have little appreciation for art and I do not drink and hence have no appreciation for or understanding of fine wine. I don’t understand fashion; indeed, I think fashion is more than a bit silly and slavish devotion to it is a mark of fatuousness rather than refinement. I don’t judge the quality of food by the slope of the downward sloping curve depicting the relationship between its price to the portions in which it is served. So, while I might depict my lack of what the world considers refinement as having an open set of eyes, an overabundance of common sense, the ability to detect a scam for what it is, and a well grounded set of priorities, others will insist on calling one with such characteristics a philistine.

Expanding on the point in the prior paragraph, I’ve never understood the argument that traveling is “broadening.” Whenever I’ve gone on a tour, I have invariably known more about the subject matter than any of my colleagues on the tour and, in many cases, more than the tour guide, and I have acquired this knowledge by, mirabile dictu, reading. Most travelers know far more about the location of overpriced, tourist trap shops than they know about the history of the area they are visiting. How have they been “broadened” by their traveling experience? Peeing away money is peeing away money no matter where it is done. Likewise, people argue that traveling affords one the opportunity to sample exotic foods, or even familiar foods served in their native environment. But if I want really good Italian food, I can go to Bacchanalia on 24th and Oakley or to Clara’s in nearby Woodridge, which is run by a very good friend of mine. Both serve among the best Italian food in the world at very reasonable prices and one leaves both establishments full and with leftovers. If I want Indian food, I live in Naperville where Indian food is never more than a half mile away. In fact, the best Indian restaurant in Naperville, Cuisine of India, is easy walking distance from my home. The same can be said for Chinese, Korean, or Japanese food. You get the point. If the cuisine exists, one can get it in Chicago and, in most cases, in Naperville.

Similarly, we are told that travel affords us the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. Living in Naperville, we have friends from India, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Ireland, Sweden, and Italy, off the top of my head. I went to St. Ignatius where two of my best friends in freshman year did not learn English until they went to grade school and where one could not pronounce the name of anyone on the soccer team unless one could deal with an utter lack of vowels. Since the age of fourteen, I have never had the need to travel anywhere beyond school to meet people from ethnic backgrounds radically different from mine.

One more caveat: Any observations I make here are based on my observations of the places I went. When one visits places via cruise ship, one only spends anywhere from 5 to 10 hours at any destination and hence is limited, though probably not much, if at all, more than the typical tourist. Again, I am willing to make that trade-off for the ease, convenience, and economy of cruising. My observations of Venice, however, are based on having spent a few nights there, so they may be more valid, but more on that later.

Some salient points, grouped into negative, positive, somewhere in the middle, and conclusions. You can guess where most fall:

NEGATIVE

--As I mentioned in one of my previous travelogs, walking briskly is energizing while walking slowly (i.e., at a normal or slower pace; a walk with me is, as a former boss and current friend said of it many years ago, an aerobic experience) is enervating. Since no one walks as swiftly as I do, it is difficult for me to travel with anyone, let alone a tour group.

--We have to do something in this town about the international terminal at O’Hare. Once one gets past the very imposing security process there, there is no food available, which would be fine if anyone told one that before one goes through security. Further, the bathrooms are abominable in that section of O’Hare. This is especially appalling when one is coming in from Europe where, almost without exceptions, the bathrooms are very clean. The first stop of most foreign visitors is the airport bathroom and first impressions are hard to overcome. Why don’t the people at O’Hare understand that?

--Venice. What can I say about Venice? I have to be very careful here because several close friends love Venice. On the other hand, they are close friends and know that I am a man, to quote Senator Pat Geary, “…who speaks frankly, perhaps more frankly than you are used to being talked to.” Also, being close friends, they understand, as I do, that friendship does not require agreement on all, most, or many things, which is a good thing because I would have few friends if such were not the case. But I digress.

As I said to my wife when my frustration with Venice had reached the boiling point, and thus had tossed my normally decent grammar over the side,“This place is a lot of money for walking around in filth and evading pickpockets.” I can best describe Venice as an open sewer through which flows a series of open sewers. One of its few positives is that it didn’t smell quite as bad as I thought it might. The prices are outrageous; we got a plate of pasta, a quantity sufficient to fill one’s tooth, for 10 euros ($14.00 as I write this) and, by Venice standards, were getting a bargain. We stayed in a hotel that, while clean and with very nice bathrooms, had views of, literally, a brick wall and cost over $200 per night. The same room would cost maybe $50 in this country anywhere outside Manhattan. (My wife did buy me a very nice tie for 8 euros, or about $11.20, far less than it would have cost here; fair is fair, so I’m compelled to mention that.)

As we wandered Venice, I started conjuring conspiracy theories, which I dearly love, with the oft-mentioned caveat on these pages that what I will think about and what I will believe are two different things. An idea that appeals to me was rather quickly formulated: Venice, and most of Europe, is a vast conspiracy of Europeans to sucker the naïve American, Canadians, and Australians out of our money. They have convinced the “better” types that what they are providing is high culture and history when all they are actually providing are substandard living conditions, crowds, high prices, and, in some cases, an unctuous and condescending, or often just rude, attitude. We line up like idiots to turn over large portions of money for small portions of food and living conditions that resemble those in this country about 100 years ago. And I was one of them, right there, falling for the scam. I felt like an idiot. My son, always the good and polite kid, said, while eating the 1.50 euro ($2.10) ice cream cone that was about the size of his thumb nail and trying to console his exasperated father, said “Maybe here, dad, it’s quality over quantity,” to which I replied “They saw you coming, buddy; that’s what they want you to think. Where is the ice cream better? Here or at Colonial (a delightful ice cream/family dining place in Naperville, similar to, but far better than, Friendly’s for my east coast readers)?” He thought about it and, perhaps trying to be nice to his mother (whence he gets his sweet temperament), replied “Here?” Then he and I both laughed.

I can hear some readers now: “What a lout! Doesn’t he understand art, culture, and history, which are abundant in Venice?” To which I reply no, yes, and yes, respectively. But even if I were an art aficionado, why would I want to go all that way and put up with all the exploitation to see the art first hand rather than look at it in a book? Really, I mean it. Think about it. One cannot sit and gaze at a piece of art in a crowded gallery. One cannot study the fine and subtle brush strokes to discern the ideas and emotions the artist was trying to convey. One is hemmed in on all sides by people whose appreciation for art is vastly exceeded by their lack of appreciation for proper personal hygiene. One is rushed along and bombarded by admonitions to not use flash photography, made necessary by the true philistines who insist on endangering priceless works of art so that they can have a picture to prove to those back home that they had actually been foolish enough to spend the money necessary to go to Venice to look at art they don’t understand while on their way to the gift shop.

Okay, a minor positive in Venice, besides the inexpensive tie. We did find San Zacaria (St. Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, whom I didn’t know was a saint (the father, not the son), but I digress.) which is quiet, empty, and serene, amazing traits given that San Zacaria is only a few blocks from St. Mark’s Square, which is the opposite of all three. There is no charge, mirabile dictu, to enter the church, which is filled with priceless and beautiful, at least to the eyes of this galloot, artwork. Even more amazing, they actually celebrate the Mass there! Imagine that! I was able to attend Mass on Saturday night. While it was in Italian, any Catholic’s knowledge of the Mass, my high school Latin, and a very good missalette allowed me to follow quite nicely. The “crowd” was small but friendly and the priest, who looked like he was straight out of central casting (“Get me an old Italian priest for the Vatican scene, pronto!”), was a terrific guy who obviously loved his flock, reflected his faith, served his God and his Church, and was delighted by the presence of a visitor whose language he did not understand.

--Athens. Thank God we didn’t have to stay in a hotel in this pit of a city. Before we left, we had heard that Athens was a dirty, smelly, sometimes dangerous, crowded city once one got away from the antiquities. When I related this to a good friend who had been there, he corrected me; he pointed out that Athens is a dirty, smelly, sometimes dangerous, crowded city even at the antiquities. He was right. Graffiti everywhere. Ramshackle buildings. People just milling about doing who knows what. The Acropolis was a challenge, to put it nicely, from a crowd standpoint. Awesome, in the old sense of that ubiquitous word, to be sure, but still not worth the crowds and the near fighting one must do to get near what one wants to see. Awful in general is how I would describe Athens.

Yes, we, too, were surprised that we even went to Athens given the goings-on there of late. We thought the cruise company would divert us to a Greek island or perhaps to Istanbul. But we went, and the recent demonstrations are one of the few things that made Athens interesting. We saw the places where the riots took place, and their aftermath. The signs (e.g., facing parliament, in Greek (obviously), “Judas got thirty pieces of silver; how many did you get?”) were still up, presumably remaining in place until the weather gets more hospitable for further rioting in protest of, inter alia, increasing the retirement age to 58.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE

--Norwegian Cruise Lines (“NCL”). We took NCL because it was less expensive than our usual Royal Caribbean (“RCL”) (We could get two balcony cabins for less than one outside (no balcony) cabin and one inside cabin.), we liked the itinerary more than RCL’s, and we wanted to try NCL’s free style cruising. My sister, who owned a travel agency for many years, counseled caution, telling us that NCL might appeal to those who had never cruised before but probably wouldn’t appeal to experienced cruisers. She was just about right.

There wasn’t anything especially negative about NCL, or at least anything I can put my finger on, that would make me want to strongly advise against it, but nothing at all that would make me recommend it, either. It has a distinctively down-market feel to it, but that normally doesn’t bother me. The food was not bad but, in all but a few cases (They had a terrific salmon entrée and a snapper and lobster dish (first night only) that was terrific.), not all that great either, and this from a guy who still eats at places like IHOP, Old Country Buffet, and Cici’s Pizza. The crowd was probably not all that different from the crowd on any line in that market segment (Norwegian Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean, Carnival), but, probably due to cultural differences (Americans were a distinct minority on this ship, which was populated mostly by Italians, Spaniards, and Germans, with a few Brits, Aussies, and Canadians thrown in to complete the rather interesting patchwork.), most people had trouble with such concepts as waiting their turn, especially at the buffet line, and not stopping to exchange one’s life story with one’s companions at choke points in the flow of traffic in the crowded areas of the boat. The pool was jam-packed and getting a chair, let alone a lounge chair, was nearly impossible on days at sea. The boat, one of NCL’s newest (Norwegian Jade) lacked some amenities our kids enjoyed on RCL ships we have sailed, such as climbing walls, ice skating rinks, and miniature golf courses. (Yes, I know; life is tough when your kids can’t play miniature golf on a cruise ship in the Aegean Sea. I don’t even want to think about what my dad would have said in such a situation!)

The big push at NCL, besides price, is “free style cruising,” which means that one does not have a set time and table for dinner and formal nights, called “Dress Up or Not” nights, are voluntary. This might appeal to many, but not to us. We, even our kids, like getting dressed up for dinner on at least a few nights on a cruise. Some might argue that nothing was stopping us from coming to dinner in suits and dresses, and we did indeed do that. But the atmosphere is not quite the same when most of one’s fellow diners equate the “Dress Up or Not” night with “Clean T-Shirt (maybe) Night.”

On the positive side, the crew couldn’t have been more attentive and helpful. We made friends with several crew members (the woman who (surprise!) ran the trivia contests, the family games, and the karaoke festivities, a young man who was a lighting guy and sound technician for the shows, several of the dancers, one of the lifeguards, etc.). We participated in the ship’s version of “Family Feud” and lost by one question. Our daughter Megan placed fourth (with her Hungarian dancing partner, part of the crew’s dancing cast, for lack of a better term) in the ship’s version of “Dancing with the Stars” and we always managed to find something to occupy us on the boat.

So would we go back on NCL? Probably not, but we so liked some of the people who worked on the ship that it’s hard to definitely rule out another cruise. If we ever find the money and my wife insists to the point at which we travel again, we’ll probably go to RCL or perhaps try Princess, which my aforementioned sister always has liked and about which I hear good things. But, for the right price, on a ship with more amenities and a good itinerary, we MIGHT go back on NCL. Would I recommend it? Probably not, but maybe to first time cruisers or people who want to be very casual all the time and want to save a few bucks.

--The Dalmatian Coast and the beach outside of Trogir, Croatia. Trogir is an old town that we thought might be more like Cefalu in Sicily, which still might be our favorite town in Europe. While Trogir was not nearly as nice as Cefalu, it had its attractions. And the beach was fantastic, once one got into the water. Like all beaches in Croatia, it is a rocky beach and getting past the rocks on bare feet and into the water was downright painful. But once in the water, it was beautiful, with the mountains in back behind the hills. Simply beautiful. And, of course, the prices. The kids got huge gelato cones for $1.00, and they took American money! Wow!

--Our otherwise delightful tours (See below.), like every tour in Turkey, ended with a visit to a carpet making coop. We were told this was a demonstration of local crafts and not a sales pitch. Uh-huh. It was a brief demonstration, interesting for those who are into crafts, followed by a strictly hard sell session. While one was practically locked in a room, given tea, coffee, or Coke (the Turkish national beverage, according to the tour guide), carpets were rolled out, prices were proposed and reduced, sales pitches, subtle or otherwise, were pushed. It resembled a Turkish bazaar and bargaining would have been fun had I or my wife had any interest in purchasing one of the carpet. As a young Don Corleone told his new friend Clemenza, “Sure, I’d like it, but who has money for a rug?” Anyone who thought we would spend the money they were asking, or anything close to it, on any of these admittedly beautiful rugs has no familiarity with the Quinns. It’s a rug, for pity’s sake.

POSITIVES

--Turkey, or, as they call it, Turkiye. I was predisposed toward liking Turkey for two reasons. First, just about every experienced traveler about whom I asked Turkey has raved about it. Some have raved about it simply when asked to name their favorite country or countries. Second, I have been impressed with Turkey’s longstanding friendship with the United States and its largely unrequited attempts at partnership with Europe. I’m even impressed with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yes, I know the AK Party is Islamist, at least in name, and the term scares people, in most cases unjustifiably. But AK, and certainly Mr. Erdogan, is Islamist in the Turkish sense, which is quite a bit different from, say, the Iranian or Saudi sense. Mr. Erdogan and Turkey maintain good, though not as good a few years ago, with Israel. He maintains the aforementioned strong and faithful alliance with the U.S. He is a consensus builder, albeit perhaps by necessity; even after June’s landslide victory, Mr. Erdogan’s AK Party does not quite have a majority in Parliament. He is also a believer in free markets who has delivered economic growth and prosperity in Turkey that most of the world would envy.

So I thought I would like Turkey, while my wife looked at it with foreboding, having an image of it that is probably not unlike that of most Americans, that of a crowded, dirty, backward Third World backwater, best visited, if at all, quickly and left even more quickly. She was shocked. I was surprised. Turkey, from what we saw, was far better than even I thought it would be. Three words come to mind: Historical, friendly, and clean.

History is everywhere in Turkey. To hear the Turks tell it, all history took place in what was to be called the Roman province of Asia, then Asia Minor, and ultimately later Turkey, or at least the Asian portion of Turkey, which is most of the country. The Turks are not all that wrong in this contention. The Seven Churches of Revelations, Troy, Ephesus (of Paul’s letter and the Acts of the Apostles), the birthplace of Abraham, the land of the ancient Hittites, Mt. Ararat of Noah’s Ark fame, the scene of the Blessed Virgin’s final days and Assumption (if one is Catholic or Orthodox) or death (if one is Muslim or Protestant, for the most part), the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the seat of the Orthodox Church…all in Turkey. But I knew all of that, as did doubtless most of you. What I didn’t know is that, unlike in Rome or Athens, the antiquities are very manageable and not at all crowded. I stood right over the original burial place of St. John, alone, for as long as I wished, to contemplate and to reverence my favorite evangelist, who stood at the foot of the cross. There was, literally, no one but our tour group of seven and a few locals at what remains of the Temple of Artemis (admittedly, not much, but, in my mind’s eye, I could see the silversmith Demetrius yelling “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and, in its time, far larger than the Parthenon, on the outskirts of old Ephesus. The ruins of the theater and marketplace of old Ephesus are somewhat more crowded, but always manageable and NOTHING like the Coliseum or the Acropolis. Mary’s House, more crowded than any of the other sites we visited, was still sparsely visited relative to any of the antiquities in Rome or Athens. I found Mary’s House to be a deeply spiritual place, as one might guess. My being able to attend Mass and read the first two readings at this site doubtless helped foster this feeling of deep spiritual contentment and awe. But I’d go even further: I’ve been to the Vatican and got nothing from the Vatican that approached the sense of God’s, and Mary’s, presence that I felt at that simple little structure outside of Ephesus. This might also be a reflection of my approach to the Faith, but that is another issue.

What I had heard, but didn’t know, is that the Turks, again from what we saw, are the friendliest people we have encountered on any of these foreign odysseys my wife drags me along on. And the place is CLEAN. Every restaurant, bathroom, tourist site, etc., was nearly, or actually, immaculate. The food was great. The prices were reasonable, if not outright cheap. The scenery was breathtaking, very much akin to the coastal regions of California, without the crowds. Simply a wonderful place that, if one must travel, I would recommend highly.

--The many nice people we met, including…
• The aforementioned workers on the boat.
• A wonderful older couple from Scotland whose brogues were so thick we initially couldn’t understand them any more effectively than we could understand, say, a German speaker. But the temporary language barrier was quickly superseded by the warmth that these people naturally exuded.
• A couple from California with a seven or eight year old girl who really liked our kids who, like their mother, are naturally attractive, and attracted, to children
• A retired NHL journeyman goalie (Jack Norris, who played for, inter alia, the Blackhawks and the Bruins in the ‘60s and early ‘70s) and his wife from Saskatchewan. Funny, kind people with great stories to tell, some of which were about hockey.
• Our tour guides in Turkey.
• A very engaging man who ran one of the restaurants at which we dined in Venice.
• Anybody we met from Australia. People from Australia will walk up to you on the street, anywhere, and engage in conversation as if you were a long lost friend. And, no, we won’t be going to Australia despite our affinity for Australians; it’s too damn far!


CONCLUSIONS

--Even if we had enjoyed everything, if Athens and Venice had been clean, wonderful, places, O’Hare was welcoming and easy, and everyone walked at my pace, would it be worth it? No. Yes, I was able to attend Mass at San Zacaria and the Mary’s House, to swim in the Adriatic, and to climb the bell tower at the medieval St. Laurence Cathedral in Trogir, Croatia. We were able to gaze at the ruins of Ephesus, climb the Acropolis, stroll through Dubrovnik, overlook the Adriatic and Aegean from a number of vantage points, and share all this with out kids. But it wasn’t worth all the expense and the hassle of travel. Too much time was spent at airports, on airplanes, on tenders getting from ship to shore, and in lines in general. Too much hassle and planning was involved. Our lives might be a bit richer, but not sufficiently richer to justify all of traveling’s downsides.

--If you ever get the sense that we in the United States don’t live in paradise, travel overseas. While I am ever mindful of our nation’s problems and troubled by its direction (If you’ve read one jot or tittle of the Pontificator you are familiar with my feelings in this regard.), we live in paradise. Trust me on this. Even in those places that we, and doubtless you, like, we measure our affection for the place by its similarity to America and the ability it affords its residents to live what we might call an American way of life. I’d never leave the place if being married to the world’s most wonderful woman didn’t make doing so necessary.

--I’d like to say that I can now put my passport away permanently, that I will never, ever travel overseas again. But I know that is only an idle dream. The world’s most wonderful woman will want to cross the ocean again and I will join her and, hopefully, our kids, if the inevitable processes by which their desire to travel with their parents dissipates has not entirely run its course. And, as hard as it is to admit this, I will actually enjoy at least some aspects of the trip(s) and be happy that I took it (them).