Sunday, April 22, 2001

Special Gelato Addendum On two consecutive dispatches, I neglected to address certain very important gelato issues. The first is that on our last full night in Roma, we took Sara's recommendation and hit Tre Scalini, in Piazza Navona. Negotiating the trials of the place—

Us: Yes, I'd like a large cup with—
Counter Guy: You pay first! Over there.
Us: Um, okay. Could you just tell me what flavors [they were hidden behind the counter]—
Counter Guy: Pay first!
Us: [later, at table] Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm
Waiter Guy: You can't sit! Different price for service!

—led us to the notion of the Gelato Nazi. However, as with the soup, it was worth it—clearly the winning gelato of the trip, edging out Bar Vivoli in Firenze. Also worthy of note, is the place I wandered into in Brindisi. (Didn't catch the name, but if you're looking, it's the last place before the water.) It may be in part that they served me slabs of caffe, cioccolato, straciatella, and nociolla in a cup the size of my head (I think it was actually a to-go carton); but this stuff was neck and neck with Bar Vivoli—a virtual tie for second place. Shortly before our ferry, I got a second head-sized portion—my farewell gelato. <sigh>

To much ferry-board ooh'ing, we approach Santorini's cresent caldea, where a volcano collapsed into itself 3,600 years ago. We strike ground at 5pm on Friday, take a bus up the sheer cliffs to Fira (Santorini's principal town), and strike out for our hotel. Finding it, we get busy standing around being utterly amazed at the view from our balcony. I knew we were right on the cliffs; but, once again, this is not what I expected. Incessant picture snapping ensues. Soon after, the drinking commences. (We went out to lay in a stock of booze for our in-room fridge. I mean, with a balcony like this, you would go out for drinks?)

M: This is not at all what I expected. I thought Santorini would be, not exactly touristy, but slick, developed, and unadventurous.
M: I don't think you have to worry on that point.
M: This is just amazing. Here we are, having locomoted ourselves to what is, for all practical purposes, the edge of the world. I just get this massive isolation vibe: it's rustic, surrounded by water and cliffs, and a million miles from anything.

Morning, and Matt and I try to arrange travel to Turkey. To our dismay, the weather and winds are picking up, which plays havoc with the ferry schedule. Also, we're going to have to hop a couple of islands—and no one here knows the ferry schedules for the other islands! On Monday, we're just going to have to take to the water, and take our chances. Returning to the room, we crack open a couple—I decided I really missed drinking during the day (cookouts, river floats), and am pursuing that past-time here.

We decide to take a random walk out through the funky streets of Fira, and I stumble on just what I'd hoped to: a scooter rental place. (I'm keen on this, despite being a motorcycle rider who has more than once posed the question: "Who is the coolest guy in the entire world?" A: "The guy on a motorcycle sitting at a stoplight beside a guy on a scooter." The other guy may as well be on a tricycle, wearing a propeller beanie.) Nonetheless, without a moment's delay, I procure a nice shiny red one, and nose it north, toward the town of Ia. The road snakes along the cliffs on the outside of the crescent, and this twenty minute ride alone is worth the rental price (3000 drachmas (less than $10), for the whole day). In Ia, I park and walk out to the very northern tip of Santorini. The winds pick up, and rain is threatening, so I take shelter and coffee for a while, then roar off again.

This time, I head far south, toward the beaches, and the ruins of Ancient Thira—which sit on a high, high promontory. This is reached by a steep, shoulderless, zig-zagging road cut out of the mountain side, and roughly paved with stones. Taking the whining scooter up this is pure madness; I call an end to it halfway up. The weather's really turning now, so I bounce down the mountain, and get this toy conveyance back to its owners, and off of my hands.

I meet the others back in the room, and find the view doesn't stop being startling after time. I still can't stop shooting, and go out alone to get a frameable one of myself (with the help of my faithful timer). Then Matt and Mark take me to the other edge of town, where we get a view back toward our balcony—in PopeVision!.

We head for dinner; over another stellar Greek salad, I suggest that what we all really, really need is to start or join a commune. Simply put, the ways in which we moderns live are just deeply, deeply at odds with our evolutionary makeup. In the ancestral environment (which term refers to the environment in which humans evolved), we pretty much hung out in closely knit bands of 80 or 140 people. Everybody knew everybody else, most were at least distantly related—and, most importantly, they all lived AND worked together. They weren't like us, constantly surrounded by strangers (untrustworthy by definition—and humans experience the same hindbrain reaction as apes when encountering others: "tribe" or "not tribe"), having to work intimately (and thus trust and depend on) mere acquaintances, with spatially fractured lives—living one place, working another, recreating a third, and getting from one to the other in hermetic steel boxes guaranteed to keep us from interacting with anybody on the way.

Take child care, just for starters. In the ancestral environment, child care was no problem. A mother who wanted to go to work, say, picking berries, or flaying hides, or whatnot, could simply take her baby with her—on her back, or in the grass nearby. Barring that, there was NEVER any lack of daycare—run, not by strangers, but by aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Children were raised communally, and moms had options. This is in stark contrast to today, where moms have two bad options. One, they can work, and shuttle the child back and forth to daycare (with unrelated, largely unknown, guardians and playmates). Or, two, they can stay at home and slowly go mad living in isolation in garden communities where they might be remotely close with a few neighbors (and get some tennis, or the odd coffee klatch, out of the deal).

This simple contrast between how we currently live, and how we're hardwired to live, is incredibly illustrative. Humans lived in these small, tight clans of gatherer/hunters for 99% of human evolution. We haven't evolved any since this new fangled institution of agricultural society came along; never mind the sliver of time of industrial society. And the information age? Please. We go sit in grey cubicles and stare into electron guns for ten hours a day and make long distance calls to talk to our family members and lifelong friends. Is it any big mystery why we're all neurotic and on antidepressants?

We (and by we I pretty much mean me, and most of you reading this) need to live in a commune. The details aren't terribly important; we could live in an urban apartment building, we could run a computer consulting business. But we need to live together, work together, intermarry, and raise children together. Increasingly, believe these things are absolutely key.

The sun finally peeks out, just in time to set.

Morning and, after Matt and I stumble out for coffee, we all get busy sitting on the patio—drinking, eating pistachios, watching the cruise ships in the caldea, and debating whether we have the motiviation to hit hit the other, better ruins on the island—Akrotiri. But the sun is out good and strong today, casting Santorini in a whole new, more appropriate, light; and life here on the patio is good

Tomorrow: back on the ferries—Mark back to Athens for his flight home, Matt and I for what should be the most exotic and challenging leg of the trip: Turkey.

Michael