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Turns out this is a Ferrovia del State (Italian State Railways) train, and it looks the part: the windowsills are liberally encrusted with the same greenish-black gunk that also covers approximately 95% of Venice's statues and buildings (with cousin Vinnie Moldo taking care of the canals).  With more of that great Italian engineering -- did I mention that in the Cisalpino, the "raise/lower curtain" button was placed directly next to your elbow, punctuating the entire ride with loud whirr sounds every few minutes? -- the air conditioner entirely ignores attempts at user control and the compartment door refuses to close.

Fortunately the scenery makes up for it.  I thought Switzerland was a little on the flat side when I crossed over fromm Stuttgart, but here next to the Alps it's a different story.  It would be fun to select a châlet at random and go hiking for a day or week or two...   later.
 

Dateline:	Saturday 19.6.1999 21:46
Location:	The waiting room, Milano Centrale, Milano, Italy

Yeehaw, bienvenuto al'Italia!  After the train deposited it load in the truly cavernous bowels of Milano Centrale, I tried to reserve my couchette.  Nope, it was 20:45 and reservations are not taken after 20:30; fortunately I can still try my luck on the train and so far there's always been plenty of space <knock, knock>.  Then I wanted to change some money: the ATMs were all shut down and so were all the exchange booths except one named "Exact Change".  Sure enough, my $50 traveler's check changed into exactly 81,000 lire, a poor rate and 9.8% commission on top!  And I decided not to change at Geneva because the rate would've been bad...  Finally, I tried to reserve a bed at the Rome hostel, but the number was busy...  until someone picked up and immediately hung up on me.  I was going to go blitzkrieg the Duomo, but I think I'll just sit here in the waiting room, listen to the announcements coming at 10-second intervals, and sulk.

Rome had better be a little better.

---

Due to the phase of the moon or track repairs or something Milano C.le is currently way fucked up: incoming expresses are 4+ hours late and the outgoing train to Bologna is delayed 2:40 (and still sitting there on track 17).  My own (half-empty as predicted) is currently "30 min" late according to the departures table, which means absolutely nothing as the table only records, not predicts.  At least I won't have to wake up at 6...
 

Rome on two cheeseburgers a day
Dateline:	Sunday 20.6.1999 11:26
Location:	McDonald's, via Cola di Rienzo, Roma

The train did manage to get going only half an hour late, but sleep was intermittent at best: the bed was too short and the temperature "es como un frigorifico!", to quote a fellow passanger.  After random bumbling around I managed to haul myself and my stuff to Ostello Foro Italico and, mostly by accident, end up at the Vatican (more on that tomorrow, it's mostly closed on Sundays).  Italy is horribly expensive as usual, but fortunately the public transport company ATAC and McDonald's have conspired to offer cheeseburgers for 1000 lire (that's approximately 1/5th the average price of a sandwich) upon presentation of a used ticket.  I intend to abuse this to the fullest.

I thought the 9.8% commission was a ripoff, but it seems that it's pretty much the standard rate around here.  Being Sunday all the banks are of course closed, but long live VISA: a few button presses and the machine spits out 100,000 lire.  100 burgers!  Joy!!  And now to the Colosseum...

<discontinuity>

Besieged!  The sky is only partly cloudy but the amount of rain alternates between drizzle and downpour -- needless to say, when I left the hostel there was nary a cloud in the sky and I didn't even think about taking my raincoat.  And the nearest (other) indoor attraction is half a kilometer away...  what to do?

I change my plan, of course.  Instead of touring the city center on foot, I made a dash into a nearby subway stop (getting only moderately drenched in the process) and drove a few stops to the suburbs, starting my search for the elusive ACEA Art Centre.  The Musei Capitolini needed to restore its buildings, so all the best Roman sculpture was trucked off to ACEA -- a former power plant!  "The idea was to create a setting where art is combined with industrial archaeology", says Lonely Planet, and there's no way you could keep me away from a place like that.  Finding my way there was rather kinky (it's at Via Ostiense 106, south of from M Piramida, past Piazza dei Gazometro [!]) and entrance was a rather hefty 12,000 lire, but the place was incredible and I had it almost all to myself -- there were 3 halls, each of which had 3-4 guards standing around watching me.  And this in summer when the Colosseum and the Vatican were packed!  It's open until 7 even Sundays (Monday closed), so go take a look while it lasts, as the sculptures will eventually be moved back.
 

My feet are killing me, it's raining again and there's 45 minutes until dinner.  Thank Pope the hostel is already open and I can relax on my first authentic bed in a week...
 

Pizzas and piazzas
Dateline:	Monday 21.6.1999 12:04
Location:	Piazza San Piedro, Città Vaticano

Someday, I want to gather a large group of friends, arm them with hankies of various colors attached to tall, thin plastic poles, and walk around a major tourist attraction -- like the Vatican -- in random directions.

But, flag wavers aside, St. Peter's is impressive.  It's funny though how all the world's religions, despite theoretical bases and loud posturing, have so much in common when it comes to actual practice.  The gold-painted ornate mosaics of the cathedral looked like those in the (Muslim) Dome of the Rock; the foot of a statue of St. Peter was fondled and kissed by pious pilgrims like innumerable Buddha bellies and Jizo heads in Japan; a group of young French monks in their stark brown robes could have come straight from a Zen temple; medieval Japanese artisans expended their energy on statues of buddhas and boddhisattvas, here the Raphaels and Michelangelos scuplted saints...

I'm getting torched here.  Time for pizza!  <discontinuity> I feel stupid.  I just paid L12,000 for a pizza with...  drums, please... no cheese.  And I can't even blame the restaurant, since cheese was not listed as a topping for the one I selected. <sigh>  Well, at least the pizza was quite good (and would've been better if only...) and the restaurant didn't even charge any copierto or servizio.
 

Dateline:	Monday 21.6.1999 21:46
Location:	Ostello Foro Italico, Roma, Italy

That does it: I'm templed out.  The Vatican museums suffer from a serious case of Hermitage syndrome: when you've slogged your way through several (literal) kilometers of massive halls filled to the brim with thousands of the world's best ancient and Renaissance-era paintings, frescoes, tapestries, sculpture, flag-waving guides speaking loudly with funny accents, etc, by the time you finally reach the Sistine Chapel about the only reaction is "That's it?".  I mean, it's not bad, far from it, but you've already seen thousands of copies of "Creation" and "Last Judgment" on paper (not in the least in the museum itself), so the newly restored Technicolor originals the size of a postage stamp 10 meters above your head fail to impress.  I've also had (way) more than my fair share of decapitated and castrated Greek/Roman statues, here all bolted to the wall in series with no other explanation than "16" or "47" referring to an informative line of text like "Male bust"  in a sign in a another hall.

But, as you'll come here anyway if you're in Rome, a few tips.

1. There is an unwritten student discount, students pay L12,000 instead of L18,000 (at the moment).
2. You can go almost directly to the Sistine Chapel, and you probably should.
3. Go early, as last entry (15:45 in the summer) is also the time they start emptying out the museum!  Two large exhibits, including the interesting-looking Museum of Missionary Ethnology, are actually located after the exit of the "main" museum.

Absolutely everything in Rome is currently being repaired and/or restored: the Colosseum, St. Peter's, Raphael's and Michelangelo's frescoes in the Chapel, even Stazione Termini.  A good thing in the long run, I suppose -- most places here have needed a good scrub from some 2000 years.

Rome!  One of those places so mythical, like Jerusalem, that it's hard to translate the vision into reality...  or rather the reverse, reality into vision.  But when you walk on the Via Dolorosa or enter the Colosseum, myth meets reality and you realize, like a tagline spraypainted in your mind, or an obnoxious blinking tag in your browser, that

JULIUS CAESAR WAS HERE

(or JESUS, as the case may be).

And now I'm leaving, after a mere two days.  While I'll certainly be back, probably on this very trip in fact, I'm not too unhappy about leaving Rome in particular or even Italy in general, as this place is just a bit too chaotic for my anally compulsive Nordic sense or order.  And I'm also a little tired of cities and warp-speed travel -- after only a week on the road!  Hopefully another week spent snorkeling on the beaches of Malta will cure this.

---

I've noted one nasty thing about Italy: it's probably one of the few places in Europe where popular support for fascism is alive and well.  In most of Europe, you're far more likely to encounter anti-fascist graffiti or stickers in public places; in Geneva I noted with amusement a radical vegetarian group's "Gegen Fleischismus" (Against Meatism) stickers with a hand breaking a pork chop swastika.  But in Rome, stickers and pamphlets adoirned with unbroken swastikas and the white-power "target" logo proclaim Italy for Italians and foreigners out.  Brr.
 

The Cookie Monster
Dateline:	Tuesday 22.6.1999 8:20
Location:	A pier facing the Mediterranean, Catania, Sicily, Italy

As I sit here watching the endless blue sea and bright Mediterranean sun shining on down, last night seems like a bad dream...  but, in retrospect, the story is amusing enough warrant retelling.

So at four in the morning, I wake up to this incredibly loud crinkling noise.  My first reaction is that the train is on fire and the crinkling is the sound of insulation burning or something -- what else could it be?  But even to my sleep-addled mind this sounds too unlikely to warrant immediate panic, and soon enough the horrible truth dawns on me.

<CRINKLE> <CRINKLE> <aaaaarghmmunch> <chomp> <chomp> <chomp> <gulp> <slurpp> <CRINKLE> <CRINKLE> ...

Yes, the one other passanger in my compartment has decided that this would be an excellent time to devour a box of cookies.  I barely managed to resist the homicidal urge to throttle him, but I still have no idea how anyone can eat so loudly.  In fairness, the train was at the time boarding the ferry and I would probably have woken up anyway, but still...
 

Dateline:	Tuesday 22.6.1999 13:27
Location:	Siracusa train station, Syracuse, Sicily, Italy

I've run into too many cases of Italian chaos to recount, but Syracuse takes the cake.  Dig this: the station (which itself is, surprisingly, new and rather well organized, except for minor omissions like missing toilets) contains an information office.  However, the office does not have maps of Syracuse and neither are there any elsewhere in the station, even on the wall -- except at the bookstore for L6,000 a pop.  The station is located far away from the center and the ruins, but there is no bus stop at or even near the station; if you drag yourself to the nearest one you'll find that it doesn't have maps or descriptive place names and you have to buy your bus tickets elsewhere.  Oh, and did I mention that the area is serviced by three different bus companies, who don't even properly mark which station belongs to which company?

I quit!  Back to Catania, and the evening's ferry to Malta (L90,000 and that's with both low-season and youth discounts!).  At least Catania's tourist office, located in the station, was glad to drown me in free, English propaganda...  now I just need a stable phone connection to Malta so I can make reservations. <sigh>

After all that running/training around I dumped my bag at the station and headed for Catania city.  It's not bad, not bad at all: a bite-sized Rome, small enough to cover on foot in two hours.  The massive cathedrals, theaters, tree-lined piazzas, headless statues...  the only differences are that most of the trees are palms and that there are occasional really annoying blasts of grit-filled wind.  In shade it's very nice, but in the sun it's very hot, even in the evening.
 

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