360 Degrees Longitude

“I am being totally serious. If you don’t believe me, ask Mom.” So he did. “Dad says that we have force fields around us and they get smaller the further south we go.”

“Well, in this case, he’s correct,” September replied casually. “In Sweden your force field was about three feet, and people couldn’t get closer to you than that. Your force field shrinks as we travel south and by the time we cross the border to Italy it will only be about six inches. Remember our campground in Denmark? The manager there complained about the ‘loud Italians’ and when he talked to them he was always backing away? That’s because the Italians were always bumping into his force field.”

Jordan narrowed his eyes to slits and clenched his jaw tightly shut as if a stranger had the nerve to actually talk to him, or perhaps ask him a question, such as, “Where did you get those beautiful blue eyes?” We thought it important to prep him as we ventured south.

The morning we left Switzerland’s green, idyllic Lauterbrunnen Valley, Katrina decided that she was ready to try to walk using only one crutch.

“Katrina, there’s no reason to rush things. You don’t want to put too much weight on your leg too soon because then …”

She cut me off: “Da-ad!” When my name gets extended to two syllables I’m in trouble. “You’ve told me a hundred times! I am not trying to rush it” (adding weakly) “very much. I just hate these crutches and I can tell that my leg is going to be okay. I can just tell.”

I thought of her series of X-rays continuing to show a 5-mm gap in the bone. The last X-ray hadn’t been that long ago.

And so it was that Katrina started to walk with only one crutch. The funny thing was Jordan was now gleefully on the other crutch. The two of them really looked pathetic dragging their suitcases in one hand, and limping along with a crutch in the other.

“People are going to talk,” I said to September, motioning to Katrina and Jordan limping along the train platform, each with one crutch. “Have you noticed people’s gazes darting from Katrina, to Jordan, and then to us?”

Jordan couldn’t cover ground as quickly with a crutch as Katrina. As a result, he would fall behind. Suddenly, when he decided the gap between them had grown too large, he would realize that he didn’t need a crutch, and would run to catch up with his big sister.

We were off to Milan—we picked Milan merely based on the train arrival time, figuring that was about as far as we wanted to travel in one day. After our first connection on the Italian side of the border we saw a family with three children traveling together. September said, “Hmm… those people look American.”

“How do people look American?” I asked. Ever since I’d decided that Europeans have an underdeveloped sense of liability, I had spent a lot of time thinking about how the world perceives Americans. The United States is such a melting pot I had never considered it possible that someone could “look” American. When we lived in Japan, there was no question that we stood out. Conversely as we traveled through Europe I felt we blended in. But September was right—the people she was referring to did ‘look’ American somehow.

“Oh, I don’t know,” September replied. “Gregarious. Kinda swagger when they walk, thunder when they talk, slouch in their seats and put their feet up. In general act like they own the place.”

I said, “Don’t…” but it was too late. September was on her way down the aisle.

“She is going to go get those people’s life story. I’ll give her twenty minutes and if she hasn’t returned, we’ll need to send out a rescue party.”

Twenty minutes later I made my way down the aisle. September was chatting with a pleasant woman as if they had been friends for years. “I’m here to rescue you from my wife,” I said to the woman, although it was clear she didn’t want to be rescued.

“This is Anne from the D.C. area,” September said with an I-told-you-they-were-Americans sort of wink. “They are in Italy for six weeks as part of their homeschooling.”

I smiled at the two American ladies as they traded embarrassing anecdotes about their spouses and in general acted like they owned the place.

It was ironic how we had spent weeks agonizing over bicycle panniers, purchasing the highest-quality panniers money could buy. Yet, when it came to buying luggage, without a thought we had asked Mrs. Happy to take us to the nearest Wal-Mart in Friedrichshafen.

The rain was coming down in biblical proportions in Milan and by the time we reached our campsite it was clear that our new luggage was not as waterproof as the panniers had been.

The next morning we were awakened by the sound of farm animals and loud noises. “What is that banging?” September croaked, trying to get her head off of the pillow.

“Someone’s building an ark.” I had already gotten up and was sneaking a look out, but saw nothing. We gathered ourselves together and looked out into the pouring rain. “What is it you want to do in Milan?” September asked.

“Catch a train to Venice,” I answered. I knew there were wonderful museums in Milan, but Jordan was getting museum weary; we were budgeting our museum time for the Vatican.

It was a 15-minute walk from the campground to the metro station in the pouring rain, and our umbrellas were no match for the deluge. Yet Katrina and Jordan failed to notice because they were so engrossed in hobbling along with their one crutch each and chatting about the plot of the latest comic book Jordan was creating. After nearly four months of being on the road, nothing seemed to faze them. This is a really annoying quality; you want to be miserable, but those around you refuse to yield their sunny dispositions.

Staying in Venice proper would have approached $200 per night, and that was if we could find accommodations. For about $40, we could pitch our tent in Fusina, a short five-minute walk from the ferry terminal, then another 20 minutes on the ferry to Venice. We had just recently retrieved our tent from Zermatt. In the weeks we had been without it, when we stayed at campgrounds we got a cabin. Now that Katrina was out of her cast, the idea was to get back on budget, which meant sleeping in the tent. Yet, while I was standing in line at the reservations counter in Fusina, I hoped with every fiber of my soul that they had a trailer or cabin available. I tried to approach this subject delicately. “I sure am glad it stopped raining.”

“Yes, but it still looks like it’ll be unsettled for a few days,” September replied.

She was playing right into my hands. “Yeah.” I let out a long breath. Then I said, “The ground sure looks soggy. I guess it was raining as hard here as it was in Milan.”

The subtlety cracked. September had been holding our tent but at that moment she thrust it into my arms and with a wicked smile exclaimed, “Sleep in it, wimp!”

www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz

There are only two things you need to know to be a civil engineer. First, you can’t push a rope. Go to the 360 Degrees Longitude Google Earth layer to discover the second one. Then, try to not think about how many times a toilet flushes somewhere in Venice on your visit to San Marco Basilica at high tide.

The weather gave us a reprieve as we strolled the narrow walkways of Venice. September and I were in awe of the city’s history, the Venetian architecture, and the romance of the gondolas, even though we were too cheap to actually ride in one.

I looked at the gondolas and remembered the advice my friend Al had once given me about his time in Venice. He had cautioned, “The gondolas are expensive, but cheaper than the alternative.” He explained that when he and his wife, Rania, were in Venice he balked at the cost of a gondola. But after years of feeling guilty for denying her the experience, he ultimately took her to the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas to make it up.

After being solicited about a dozen times by men in ridiculous black-and-white striped outfits, I turned to September. “It is our only chance. What do you say—should we spend the hundred and fifty euros?”

She choked back a laugh. “Are you kidding? We can take the water bus down the Grande Canal for about a fiftieth of that!”

That’s my girl! But I didn’t want to suffer Al’s fate, so I pressed, “But we don’t get the guy singing to us.”

Which is exactly how I felt. You need to be careful who you marry, because you’ll end up just like them.

To a kid, however, the highlights of Venice are the pigeons and the gelato. Just not at the same time. As I sat on a bridge, looking up something in our guidebook, Jordan read over my shoulder, as a serenading gondola operator passed underneath the bridge. Jordan’s face brightened and, grabbing the book from my hands, he ran to his sister, shouting, “Hey, Katrina! It says here that Venice has the seventh-best gelato in all of Italy!”

Suddenly there was purpose in Katrina and Jordan’s existence. Being in Venice means being lost, as the “streets” are impossibly narrow and all look alike. Looking for Italy’s seventh-best gelato was apparently a common tourist activity, because all we had to do was show a local resident our guidebook, open it up to the page with the sidebar, and they would smile and point us in the right direction.

Italy’s seventh-best gelato was pure heaven on earth. I could only imagine what the first through sixth must be like, but that would have to wait for another trip.

We would have traded all the pigeons in San Marco Basilica for more time in Venice, but our pace needed to quicken. By the time we arrived in Rome, we had made the decision to hit the highlights as quickly as possible and then do the same for Pompeii and get ourselves to Turkey. Italy was turning out to be more expensive than we had estimated, as was the whole of Europe, which was in no small part due to the change of plans after Katrina’s broken leg. Turkey, we expected, would be easier on our budget.

We had arranged to have a package of books sent to Antonili, a friend of a friend in Rome. As we got ready to go into the city to meet her, September asked, “What are you doing with that?”

“It is called a backpack,” I said. “You put stuff into it. I thought we’d need an empty one for the books.”

“Not the backpack, the shirt. You aren’t going to wear that, are you? You haven’t worn it for ages and now when we’re about to meet someone for the first time you pick that out of your suitcase? She’s going to introduce herself and then order a cheeseburger.”

“It’s hot today. I haven’t worn it because it was too cold in Switzerland and then it was raining so much. Now it’s sunny and hot, and there’s nothing wrong with this shirt.” I started to smooth out my shirt to demonstrate how stylish it was. “I can’t believe it! There’s a hole in this already.”

“Just to show you what a good wife I am,” September said, reaching for her needle and thread, “I’ll mend your shirt so you can wear it.” September had learned long ago that I am a danger to myself with sharp objects.

After we met Antonili, our mobile library made a beeline for Vatican City, arguably one of the most influential seats of power in the last two millennia. But who needs history after a shipment of new books? Katrina had just received book two in a long, involved trilogy and Jordan a thick new comic book. They simply sat on the floor in St. Peter’s Basilica and read, although we did make them look up in the Sistine Chapel. Then it was time for the museum.

I had been talking up the Vatican museum for a couple of years. “Maps of course haven’t always looked like this,” I’d said, pointing to our giant wall map that we used for planning before we left. “In the Vatican, there are maps and globes that date back to Christopher Columbus.” Now we could study how our perception of the world has evolved over the last 500 years.

I knew much less about other parts of the Vatican museum. For instance, many, many statues on display were missing an important body part. A nose, or a finger, or a hand, or even a head. More often than not, they were also missing a penis. That raised the question as to why all the statues were male and nude in the first place. And those statues that had all their important bits looked as though they could benefit from the medication that I find advertised in my e-mail spam folder. I thought it might be some Freudian commentary on celibate priests, but I kept those thoughts to myself. Jordan did wince and hold his crotch every time we walked past a eunuch statue.

“Easy there, Little Dude,” I said. “You’re safe as long as you’re with me.”

“I don’t get art,” I said to Jordan, pointing to a pedestal. “You’d think the missing body parts were simply damage, but that doesn’t explain this one.”

There were some toes on a pedestal that was clearly set up to display a full-sized statue, but, the only thing on it were some toes. Not even an entire foot. At least humor me with a statue.

History is a fickle friend. And foe. The people of Pompeii—how many died? Maybe 20,000, or even 50,000? All those people got up one morning worrying about their jobs, or their kids’ health, or the neighbor’s dog who barked all night, and by the end of the day they were all dead.

Pompeii was a must-see ever since September and I read Richard Harris’s Pompeii. The city of Pompeii was a huge, bustling port city buried by Mount Vesuvius, located across the Bay of Naples, when the mountain erupted on August 24, A.D. 79.

On top of my agenda was to swing by the brothel, but it was closed. By this I mean the brothel ruins in Pompeii, which hasn’t been opened for business in two millennia. I wanted to visit the archaeological site, but it was roped off.

In Pompeii it’s possible to see many aspects of Roman life on display in suspended animation. “Times have changed,” I said, looking at a bas-relief in the House of the Vetti. Compared to the statues and paintings of naked men in the Vatican, the statues and paintings of naked men in Pompeii looked like they all OD’d on the medication that I find in my e-mail spam folder. “We’ve been noticing differences in people as we’ve traveled from place to place, but here we can see differences in people over time.”

“Time has changed nothing!” September exclaimed, looking at the same bas-relief. “Men are still enamored with their private parts.”

There are many places within the city where we came across plaster casts of people where they died, with expressions of agony clearly visible on their faces. One such place is known as the Garden of the Fugitives; we studied a cast of a man as he lay on the ground with his arm over a woman and child, as if he was trying to protect them.

“I wonder if history would have turned out any differently if Pompeii hadn’t been destroyed,” said September. “If all those people had been allowed to lead normal lives and pass their DNA to the next generation, what would be different today?”

“Hard to imagine,” I said. “Would the Roman Empire have played out in largely the same manner, with Constantine converting to Christianity? The world as we know it would be vastly different otherwise.”

“Maybe. It’s interesting to think about,” September said. “I remember reading in Jordan’s Horrible History books that toward the end of World War I a grenade exploded in a foxhole with seven German soldiers in it, six of whom died. The seventh was Adolf Hitler and he barely had a scratch. How different history would have been if that had ended differently.”

To see the entire city of Pompeii would take days, but it is possible to take in the highlights in a few hours. Jordan’s attention span for this sort of activity was about 30 minutes, so we put him up to the task of moving a specific pinecone from one end of the city to the next without using his hands.

I played the Pompeii Pinecone Challenge. I kicked a pinecone, like a soccer ball, all the way through Pompeii. I had to make sure it didn’t go over any fences, and I had to figure out a way to get it up the stairs. The scariest part of the challenge was when a stray dog wanted to play “fetch” with the pinecone. When I would kick it, the dog would fetch it, and then he would chew on it. Finally, we gave the dog some bread so he would forget about the pinecone.

When we got back from Pompeii to Sorrento, where we were staying, we found it had been transformed in the hours while we were in Pompeii. Merchants had their wares out on tables to the edge of the street. Pedestrians were out in huge numbers, engaged in vigorous hand-to-hand conversation.

I nudged Katrina. “Watch people as they talk to each other.” We had been people watching throughout Italy, but the warm summer night and the sea breeze coming off the Mediterranean seemed to make the scene more Italian, with people practically bumping noses as they talked.

“Nah. Six inches is as small as they come,” I replied with vacant authority.

We had started our twelve-month around-the-world trip in Europe for a reason: to get into the rhythm of traveling in a place where it was easy to find a rhythm. You can expect things to work. Things like the rail system, or the phones. You can eat a salad at a restaurant or drink the water coming out of the tap and expect not to get sick. Stuff that, as Americans, we simply took for granted. That night before we left Sorrento, I fretted sleeplessly just as I had before we left California.

9.

The Incredible Disappearing Force Field