Matt warned me about Naples – within an hour of arriving he’d phoned me to say “If I ever say “let’s go to Naples." Just say no!” The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel about did him in. In the space of that short drive they 1) played chicken with a police car, 2) went the wrong way down a 1-way street, 3) forced the car coming the right way down that street to veer away from them and hit a garbage dumpster, and 4) used the sidewalk and pedestrian/bike lane as a car lane.

So when the swim team was heading to Naples for the long-distance meet in November, Matt was a bit hesitant. But, I talked him into it (how bad can it be, spending 2 days at a pool watching kids swim back-and-forth for 16, 32 or 60 lengths?) With 2 days taken up at the pool on a US military base (Capodichino), we really had only 1 day and 2 nights to explore any of the city and surrounding area. Pompeii was high on the list, and we found a Monday night USO tour of “Naples at Night.”

On our first free night we sent all the swimmers to one room and ordered them pizzas so that the parents could go downtown. We piled 13 of us into 3 taxis and headed into downtown Naples.

If I ever say I want to go to Naples, Just say No! Matt was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!! What an experience! The 3 taxis raced in and out of traffic, horns blowing, hands waving, and us swaying and sliding back and forth across the seats, trying to hold on! Becky, who gets car sick on winding roads had to lay across some laps in the back seat. Not that the road itself was winding, just the driving! After a few translation snafus and 2 attempts to drop us off nowhere near where we intended to go, we made it to the waterfront and had a great meal. The taxi driver did remind us to keep our wallets and purses close, and don’t let any jewelry show – he wasn’t the first, nor the last to remind us of how bad crime is in Naples.

Naples visit recommendation #1 – take a taxi ride anywhere! It’s better than a rollercoaster ride for getting the adrenaline pumping!

On our free day we took the bus and train to Pompeii. The pictures and stories from History and Latin classes don’t do it justice. It’s incredible! They’ve been excavating it for 300 years and there’s still more to go!! Many of the houses are shops are so well preserved that the painted murals and tile mosaics on the floors are still clearly visible! The plaster casts of the bodies that were buried in the lava are eerie and moving. More than any other site we’ve seen in Europe, the tour and audio-guide here brought it all very clearly and gut-wrenchingly to life.

Naples recommendation #2 – spend 2-half days at Pompeii, and another at Herculaneum. There’s a lot to see and it gets a bit overwhelming trying to see it all in just one day, especially if you want to hear everything on the audio-guide, and it’s all worth listening to!

The USO tour on our second free night gave us a chance to experience driving in Naples again – oh boy! This time from a 7 passenger van. We got to experience the twisty, windy alleys and side streets that run up to the castle overlooking the city – some of them couldn’t possibly have really been meant for vehicular traffic!! The tour and history of Naples was interesting and a good way to get a quick overview in and see some of the more interesting spots in downtown Naples. As someone told Matt, Naples is “the most beautiful dirty city in Europe.”

I can’t say I’d put Naples high on my list of “must see places” in Europe, or even in Italy. But I would put Pompeii on that list. Matt also enjoyed Capri when he was there for work, so that and the Amalfi coast are some other reasons to head to Naples. The people I know who’ve been stationed there have either loved it or hated it. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground. In that, and many other respects, it reminded me a lot of Puerto Rico – another beautiful place that’s dirty, has too much traffic, too many bad drivers, and too much crime! It’s a nice place to visit, but once is enough!

LIGHTS! MUSIC! ACTION!

We took our second trip to London over the long Thanksgiving weekend so that we could see the stage version of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, "Spamalot", while Tim Curry was still starring as King Arthur.

What a fabulous show!!! If any of you has the chance to catch it, DO!! Yes, Tim Curry was spectacular – a bit older, and more “filled out” than I was expecting (from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hunt for Red October, Clue, and other movies that I realized are all a few years old!), but he's even better with age! He was fantastic, but with material like that it would be as side-splittingly funny no matter who played the lead! The Lady of the Lake is a fabulous role, too, and the actress who played her was over-the-top brilliant as an over-the-top seductress! By mid-way through the play the audience was primed and we’d all start to laugh as soon as she stepped onto the stage!

I really had some doubts about how the movie could ever be adapted for the stage, but they, or he (Eric Idle) did it and if anything, made it even funnier than the movie! It had everything the movie had, plus a few additional Monty Python bits, an incredible set, and all the zaniness of the Pythons, plus audience participation (at times, quite unexpectedly, at others, spontaneously!), and more!

That alone would’ve made the trip worth it (we were tempted to get tickets for the next day’s matinee to see it again, but since we’d already booked a tour to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath, we didn’t. I almost think it would’ve been worth the missed tour to see the show again).

It was gray, overcast, and sloppy all day as we did a “forced-march” bus tour of Windsor Castle – nice, big, ooh-la-la, we’re walking through the same rooms as the royal family, a few minutes in the gift shop, and move on the next stop . . . lunch at the second oldest pub in England (aren’t they all?), yummm, take a few minutes to buy the souvenir t-shirts and caps, and back on the bus, on to Stonehenge, and out into the gale-force winds and monsoon rains for a quick walk on the boardwalk surrounding the stone plinths – can’t get too close or touch them now that it’s a World Heritage site, damn graffiti artists ruined it for everyone – then a few minuites in the gift shop, and back to the bus (this time thankful to be rushed out of the rotten weather!), and on to Bath, quick walk around the old town, a few minutes to do some souvenir shopping, then an after-hours tour of the old Roman Baths, a champagne reception and the long drive back to London. Yes, one of THOSE kind of tours. Herd the cattle from place to place, keep them moving, don’t get off the well-beaten path of the billions before you, the schedule dictates all, and the schedule includes lots of gift shop stops! But, it did let us see the additional sites that we wanted to without the insanity of driving on the left from the right side of the car with a gearshift that runs from 1st to 5th, top left to top right as in American cars (shouldn't it go the other way - top right to top left since the driving is on the other side?!!)

We also went up (or around) in the London Eye, and watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace on this trip. We spent a much more leisurely day than we had on our first visit, just wandering around London without the rush of thinking we'll see "everything." We saw what we wanted to and that was plenty. All we're missing now is a "Harry Potter" tour of London and Scotland (although we did get to Kings Cross Station and the London Zoo on our first trip so have done part of that!)

It’s a great city; one that we could keep going back to again and again and never get bored. But, our list of “must see” cities is growing too long for us to make too many repeat trips . . . at least for now! So, that was probably our last London visit. Next on the list – Naples!

I (Lynne) had to go to Berlin for the swim team's Divisional meet over President Day’s weekend (January 27-28). Matt opted not to go because “there’s nothing to do in Berlin.” This assessment was based on the fact that Berlin was destroyed at the end of WWII, therefore, what could there possibly be to see in the CAPITAL OF GERMANY?

After arriving late on Saturday and spending all day Sunday (7:30 a.m. til 6:30 p.m.) at the pool, followed by a group dinner at the Greek restaurant by the hotel, I was looking forward to spending my one free day, Monday, exploring the city.

First stop was Checkpoint Charlie – the point where east met west, face-to-face for about 40 years. A guardhouse stands in the middle of the street, under a billboard with the images of a young Russian and American soldier on the west-, and east-facing sides, respectively. Next to this is the sign with the (in)famous words “You are leaving the American Sector” written in English, Russian, French and German.

The Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie sits next to the guardhouse and my “quick stop” here turned into a 4 hour visit. My trip to Dresden with the Schwimm Verein probably had a big influence on why I was so impacted by the displays at this museum (you can read more about that in the entry on the Schwimm Verein), still, it’s hard not to get drawn in to all the stories of escapes, successful and failed, and what people were willing to do to reach freedom. Imagine how horrendous conditions had to be for parents to throw their children over the wall from the upstairs windows of an apartment building next to it in an effort to give them a chance for a better life. The museum also put a human face on “the evil empire” with images and stories of Russian guards who escaped themselves, or turned a blind-eye to those who were escaping. The displays encourage visitors to “see through the uniform” to the military men and women who were doing their job – following orders. Following these orders strictly meant promotion, and violating them could lead to severe punishment. So, most followed orders, but only to the extent needed to avoid punishment; giving up opportunities for advancement to do what was right.

I didn’t expect to be as drawn in to the exhibits as I was. It was fascinating and moving and definitely worth the trip! An exhibit on religious tolerance highlighted all the similar tenets of the world’s main religions. They should have included a section on the Baha’i Faith, since the main point of the display -- that their holy writings and teachings all say the same thing (man's mis-interpretation and implementation are what cause the conflict!) is pretty much what the Baha'i Faith is all about. It was an inspiring display that should be mandatory viewing in all classrooms, Sunday Schools, and churches/temples, etc around the world! Ah, except then what would we possibly fight about?

Onto my next stop – Bebel Platz. This open plaza sits between the old Opera House, St. Hedwig’s Kathedral, the Humboldt University, and the Altes Schloss (Old Palace) and looks like a big empty square. For me, it was one of the most moving memorials of all in a city overflowing with reminders of WWII. A plexiglass window in the middle of the square looks down into a room with empty bookshelves. Bebel Platz was the site of the Nazi’s May 1933 book burning, when some 25,000 books written by authors considered to be “enemies of the Third Reich” were burned. Plaques laid into the ground on either side of the window tell of the event and include a quote from the poet Heinrich Heine: “Where books are burned, in the end people will burn.” The words are even more frighteningly eerie knowing they were written in 1820!!

From here I walked down Unter den Linden, once the “main street” of Berlin. The wide boulevard runs from the Altes Schloss to Brandenburg Gate and was named for the parallel rows of Linden trees that created a canopy over the length of the street. Hitler had the Linden’s removed so that he could parade his tanks and troops there, so today the replanted, young trees aren’t quite as stately as they once were.

I saw the Brandenburg Gate on my way to the Reichstag – ooohh, ahhh, one of those things that you must see while in Berlin, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It’s an impressive gate in the street with a nice statue on top and makes for good photos, but there’s only so much looking you can do at a gate!

My next stop was the Reichstag building – Germany’s Parliament. This is a beautiful building and the short photo exhibit in the dome makes it worth the wait to get in! During the Weimar Republic (German democratic government after WWI), the extreme right-wing National Socialist (NAZI) party began growing in power (for a wide variety of reasons, primarily discontent over the economy) and eventually won a majority of seats in parliament. In January 1933 a “mysterious” fire destroyed the building. Blaming “terrorists” and using the fear that instilled to manipulate the population and the elected representatives, the Nazi-controlled parliament voted to cede their powers and civil liberties. Adolph Hitler, who had been the Chancellor, was now Dictator. (Are you getting chills reading that . . . see any parallels to modern history? Can you say “Patriot Act”?)

According to the displays, although the Nazis were the majority party in the Bundestag, Hitler wasn’t elected Chancellor until right before the fire and so never actually attended any meetings in the building. After the war, the building grounds were used as a meeting and rallying point for many demonstrations, but the building was still a ruin. In the 80s, it was decided that the building should be restored and the reunified seat of government should move from Bonn to Berlin and the Reichstag (and this was acceptable to everyone since Hitler had never actually used it), and so the building was restored. The dome is a very poignant symbol of democratic government – a circular walkway spirals up the dome around a central column of mirrors that reflect down into the parliament chamber allowing the people to watch over their government and I’m sure reminding elected officials of the proper order of power in a representative democracy. (The rooftop also offers spectacular views of Berlin, and the entire building shows that solar power, energy efficiency, and heat recycling are cost-effective, practical buidling stratgies that can save the government loads of $$ - similar to London's City Hall. Hmmm . . . wonder why we can't do that in the U.S.? Could it be that our engineers are too stupid? I doubt that. I'd have to guess it's that it's too much of a threat to some industries who'd actually have to progress and evolve to do anything that "radical"!!)

My last stop before heading to the airport was the new (opened in May 2005) Holocaust Memorial. This monument to the murdered Jews of Europe is a sprawling field of 2,700 stone slabs on a 19,000 square meter lot near the Brandenburg Gate. It’s a stark and silent labyrinth of tomb-like stones, each one a slightly different size and shape. There are no plaques or symbols anywhere in the field, only the plain stone blocks. The paths between them undulate unevenly so that passage through the area keeps visitors constantly alert, and slightly wary, perhaps reminiscent of the way many in Germany and Berlin felt during the Nazi’s reign.

Everywhere one goes in Berlin, there are reminders of the past, the good and glorious, and the shameful and wrong. Berliners and visitors to the city aren’t allowed to forget (and thereby repeat) past wrongs. Amid all of the “here’s our history in your face – yes, we screwed up!” reminders, there are also the signs of growth and progress and the bold statement that “yes, we acknowledge that, and we have learned from it and will now grow in better ways because we aren’t hiding it, or forgetting it, or pretending it didn’t happen.” It seems that the German’s are facing and embracing their past in a way that allows them to move on, rather than defiantly and proudly clinging to past mistakes under the shameful excuse of “it’s our heritage and we’re proud of it!”

Overall, Berlin was a great city! The people I met and spoke with were very friendly, it’s an amazingly easy city to get around walking and by train and bus, and it has a great mix of metropolitan and small town. There’s a lot more to see and do than I could squeeze into one day, so Matt’s going to have to suck it up and make the trip with me next time!