Revisiting Ancient History—our visit back to Italy

Thomas Wolfe said, “You Can't Go Home Again” in his novel by the same name, describing how you can’t revisit the past: “You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."[1]

My son Marc and I attempted to revisit our past of 30 years ago, by going to Milan, Vicenza

(our home for three years), and the Venetian Carnivale. For me it was a realization that I can go back to a place, but it’s never the same—it has changed with time just as I have personally changed while living in various other places. It is like looking out the window of a fast-moving train and glimpsing pictures from the past, superimposed on the present.

Our main purpose in the trip was that so that my son, Marc, could show his 18-year-old daughter. Kira, and I could show my youngest son, Bryan, who was born in Vicenza, the land of Bryan’s birth. It was an adventure that emphasized how old I am.

Even before I left, I felt very anxious, which is not like me. The closer departure came, the more anxious I became. Finally, I asked my sons-in-law to give me a priesthood blessing. I felt better after that, but was always looking over my shoulder waiting for something bad to happen.

Bryan and I flew out of Salt Lake City, and met Marc and Kira (who came from Nashville, Tennessee) in New Jersey where we all departed for Milan, Italy together.

The flight was okay, except for the food, and we landed early in the morning of a new day. Marc had planned for the first hotel, Mariott’s “Moxy” Hotel which had a shuttle going to the main terminal of Milan’s Malpensa Airport. We collected our bags, dropped them off at the hotel and began our Milan adventure. We took the train to downtown Milan, and began exploring.

We saw some outstanding street art, before we spent some time at a museum where an
uncompleted Michelangelo statue was the main feature. It was our introduction to Schizophrenic Milan.

I had studied Milan (back when) and knew that it was a city created by force and intrigue among the various aristocracy, especially the Viscontis, who ruled Milan for 130 years. Milan was just one of several city-states like Genoa, Florence,  and Venice, that fought for dominance in the area. Condottiere were paid mercenaries and sold their skills to the highest bidders; it was one of the greatest of these, a friend of the banker, Cosmo de Medici, Francesco Sforza, who grabbed the reins of Milan and became the Duke of Milan.

Sforza Castle

Sforza’s Castle was like a rough-hewn box filled with magnificent treasures inside.  The castle shows the battle scars of many generations. But inside the huge castle doors, there were wonderful exhibits of art and history. There was a large inner courtyard but all the museums, displays, exhibits were in the elegant rooms built against the massive walls. I could envision ancient chaos and business in the courtyard where now there were only lawns, cement and tourists.

The art was often Medieval, and contrasted

with the beauty of the Renaissance statuary. I took a photo of Marc, with his name-sake, Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and philosopher in one area. Another area  contrasts a medieval Madonna statue with the beautiful Renaissance Maddona that surpassed it. The castle was a maze of statuary, stained glass, tapestries, ancient art, armor, and weapons. I could imagine it in many ways, but not as a place where families lived. Inside were a few beautiful arched masonry windows.

Marcus Aurelius (left) & Marc

We moved across the street from the castle, saw some wonderful fountains and had our first real Italian pizza, which Marc and Bryan said tasted nothing like real pizza, but was “tourist pizza.”

Then we were onto the Duomo, Milan’s massive cathedral. The Gothic cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete. It is the largest church in Italy (the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City) and the fifth largest in the world. The spires draw one’s attention to the heavens, as all medieval cathedrals do, but includes ornate flying buttresses that would have appalled a Gothic architect. You either love or hate the art of the cathedral.

Wandering inside the huge building, there was a central entryway, with alcoves to either

Bryan, Marc & Kira in front of Duoma

side. It was like wandering inside a series of sarcophaguses, enormous stained glass windows, altars and marble passion plays. Alongside this was a single confession box that somehow seemed out of place. But then the cathedral never felt like a church.

Across the street from the Duomo is the famous Galleria Vittoria Emanuele II, a massive shopping mall of high class Milanese products. I took a photo of Kira next to a Gucci store and Marc upstairs in the Gucci store looking at $1,000.00 shoes.

It was Fashion Week in Milano while we were there, and Kira was interested in all the fashions we saw in and out of the shops. Years ago, when we lived in Italy, the Officers’ Wives Club arranged for a trip to Milan and its fashion shows and I recall only how dark and close it was, and the drastic fashions on twig-thin models with wild hair and darkly colored eyes.

The Moxy Hotel we stayed in was unlike any hotel I’d ever seen, flashy purple neon lights, tables set up for all kinds of games for guests to play, and a “Let’s Have Fun” attitude. There was a café/bar in the lobby and lots of action was going on everywhere.

Early the next morning, we took a high-speed train 

from Milano to Vicenza, our next stop.

Galleria

Bryan in the Duomo

Marc, Kira & Bryan with fountain

Kira in front of Gucci

Bryan oogling $1,000 shoes

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[i] Madden, David (2012). ""You Can't Go Home Again": Thomas Wolfe's Vision of America.". Thomas Wolfe Review. 36 (1/2): 116–126

Take Grandchildren to Costa Rica? Why Not? (Part 1)

Recently I took two of my grandchildren, one 18 and one 21-years-old to Costa Rica with me for a vacation. The oldest, James, had returned from a two-year mission to Costa Rica six months earlier, so I decided he could translate and show us his mission.

Our trip was a ball. Having two young adults along helped me feel young again. I tried very hard to keep up with them, although I am sure that they feel I failed.

We arrived in San Jose, the capitol city on Saturday night. One difficulty I discovered while booking

James at customs

the flight was that it is hard to go from Salt Lake City to Costa Rica. Your best bet is to go through Houston Airport, and depending on your layover, your trip could last from eight to 21 hours, and often stretch into the next day. Luckily I was able book a flight that could eight hours going and 10 hours coming back. So we left Salt Lake City at 5:30 a.m. and arrived in San Jose at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 6, 2016. In Houston Airport we only had a short time to go from one gate to the other. When we’d left Salt Lake City, it told us to go to one gate, but we didn’t know that they’d changed gates while we were in the air, so we hiked to one gate only to find that it was wrong and we had to go to another gate a long way away. We were almost running to make the flight which was boarding, when I flagged down one of the carts and they got us there before they finished boarding.

Just to get through customs in San Jose took over an hour; even though there were 28 incoming booths for non-residents to check through, only four were open. I guess they have a two-day weekend for government workers. All we did was check into our hotel and rest.

Jenni at church

Sunday we took a taxi to the local church, where James had attended while he was the Mission’s financial secretary. It was fun for him to see local members, and we “enjoyed” three meetings in Spanish. It was fast meeting, so we felt the spirit, even though we didn’t understand a word. Sing in Spanish wasn’t too hard as I had lived in Italy and sung in Italian—but I am afraid I probably sang the hymns with an Italian accent, as I often pronounce Spanish in the Italian way—which is different.

In Sunday School, the teacher used his tablet to play a church video on the large flat screen TV. I was amazed at the use of technology that as a church librarian I had tried to encourage. They certainly needed to encouragement to use it in a “Third Country.” Right then I realized that Costa Rica is not a third world, but as modern as the United States. Everyone had the newest cell phones, and used them all the time.

Relief Society was fun as a sister from Texas visiting her mother in San Jose, interpreted for me! The lesson by a member of the Relief Society presidency was about visiting teaching and very creative. She showed us a survival visiting teacher kit, and pulled out items and correlated them to visiting teaching. I wrote down the very BASICS of it.

1.       Lock: Lock your mouth about anything your sisters tell you.

2.       Soap: Always have clean thoughts

3.       Toothpaste & brush: Always have a beautiful smile

4.       Rubber band: Be flexible & visit when your sisters can have you come.

5.       Q-tips: Clean your ears so you can listen carefully to their needs

6.       Cotton balls: Speak softly and have a soft heart

Who would ever think that one of the most creative Relief Society lessons I have ever heard was in Costa Rica?

After church we walked to several members’ houses. The first home was a very humble one of a sister who served us baked Yucca and Gallo pinto (their favorite food of rice and black beans). Four of the local missionaries ate with us, and she stretch a pork roast to serve far more people than it was designed for. Again, a very humble home with boards showing through to the open air, but the sister’s daughter sported a cell phone.

Next we visited the ward mission leader and his huge family that lived together in one home that had been stretched to make several homes. All of the grown members of the family, along with their children, sported and used NICE cell phones. They had a large flat-screen TV in the living room.

I had fasted that day and as the day went on, I began to get a migraine! Finally, I excused myself, leaving my grandchildren there speaking all Spanish, and took a taxi home. I hadn’t gotten used to the currency exchange, and my head was so foggy that I watched the taxi’s price counter go higher and higher. I began to panic because I thought it said, “60 million colones,” (about US $120.00), and panicked because I had barely brought that much money with me. When I gave him the money, he corrected me and told me it was only “6 million colones” about $12.00 US money. I was so grateful that he was so honest as I was totally a ditzy tourist. My grandchildren were still hungry, even after a lunch and two Costa Rican traditional dinners, so we ate at the hotel restaurant, which served the most flavorful salmon I’ve ever taste (either that or I was starved after eating only protein bars that afternoon).

Monday I rented a car and we drove across the country to the Pacific beaches of Guanacaste. 

 

Coffee plants

I hate to drive or ride in a car, and my driver was my 21-year-old grandson, so I quailed at the thought, but it was okay. I felt at peace and enjoyed the trip, which I know was a real blessing. Taking a private shuttle there was $500.00 each way, and the bus stopped in every town and took forever. I even checked on flying—but it was prohibitive, too. Fortunately, the rental car cost $210 (including insurance) for four days.

There is a way to get to Guanacaste that is much more modern and faster than I realized, but I had downloaded a google navigator map on my phone and we followed it. We left in a torrential rainstorm, which added to the fun. I assume I had chosen on the app that

Along side of the road

I wanted to avoid toll roads (of which there are many around San Jose), so it took us on every mountainous back road in the country. It was beautiful and reminded me of the very rural big island of Hawaii where we lived during the late 1970s, and I kept repeating the thought every time we saw something new. Heavy rain accompanied us for over five hours—until we reached the desert plains of Guanacaste.

Our hotel resort was on the beach of Playa el Coco, and we could walk down to the beach, which was

Our hotel

really fun. Our suite had a full kitchen, living room and one bedroom with two double beds and a futon bed in the living area for my grandson. IT WAS AIR-CONDITIONED, which was wonderful in the 90-degree weather with 90% humidity. Yes, I am a wimp, but I walked around with my clothes completely wet unless I was in the suite. Up above, looking over the cove, was a restaurant, lots of swimming pools, a cafeteria (which we never saw open), a gift shop and other facilities. We could take a shuttle that came every five minutes, or we could walk the steep incline. I decided I’d walk down, not up.

On Tuesday, we goofed around, bought food at the gift shop, then body-surfed in the beautiful beach. I had reserved a snorkeling tour for the afternoon, and it was fantastic.

James with pufferfish

We first went to some rocky islands in the bay. I hadn’t snorkeled for years, and it was something I’d always loved to do, especially on our favorite beach of Kona, in Hawaii and on the Baja coast of Mexico. We saw tons of beautiful fish, and the guide showed us a pufferfish and a spiked pufferfish. I don’t swim, so I used a life vest, but still was able to enjoy the sights. I wandered and every once in a while, my grandson would come checking on me to make sure I wasn’t lost.

Next we went to a beautiful secluded beach and snorkeled where the water wasn’t over our head. The guide gave us fresh Costa Rican pineapple and part of the time I rested. I had had rotator cuff surgery two months previous to our trip and my arm wasn’t as strong as I had liked.

One other lady was on our snorkeling tour with us, and I enjoyed talking to her about genealogy, of which I am a tremendous fan. 

(TO BE CONTINUED)