Salerno

Salerno

Part I: Platform 9 and 3 quarters

This morning I felt like Harry Potter trying to get to Hogwarts in the chapter when the brick wall, where he normally accesses platform 9 and 3/4, is blocked. The Rome Termini station is HUGE. Luckily, I made it to the train...

One of the small pleasures (and challenges) of traveling is that when you manage to find a location (especially as someone with a poor sense of direction) by a certain time (when the train leaves!), is that you feel like you've accomplished a tiny obstacle. It makes me see a process more as a series of steps, rather than one big overwhelming AAAAAH!

Now for this 3 hour train ride to Salerno. ان شاء الله ojalá that I will find the hostel okay.

Part II: Harbor / Med School / Teatro

Using my Spanish to get around, patched together with the little Italian I've picked up, I managed to find my hostel. I checked in and wandered down to the harbor, which had a slightly melancholy feel due to the overcast sky. The harbor had jetties made of these enormous, man-made blocks. They looked like a giant's building blocks.

I chose to stay in Salerno because I read online that it was less touristy and less expensive than Sorrento, the other major town on the Amalfi Coast where foreigners tend to stay.

I will remember these seaside Italian towns for their washed-out, post apocalyptic, dying decadence look. The buildings are usually painted warm, fruity colors, have paint peeling or are chipped away in places, with drying a laundry a common sight hanging outside windows. The streets are cobblestoned, narrow, and you always have to beware of a car or roaring motorcycle coming around the bend.

I have to admit I felt a little melancholy myself. Despite being quite independent (and also socially awkward sometimes), I'm also very social and felt myself longing for the company of a friend.

But on the other hand, I thought, when I'm alone I can go where I want without having to worry about someone else.

I ended up at the local medical school, which is not currently a school but a museum about the early studies of medicine. The exhibit had quirky videos of Italian actors pretending to be medieval doctors, explaining the philosophies and procedures they used at the time. I was pleased to learn that they got a lot of knowledge from the Arab world. ;-)

After that, I followed the line of an ancient Roman aqueduct and ended up in a small gallery showing contemporary Japanese art. I got chatty with the curator (or perhaps she got chatty with me; it seemed she wanted to practice her English). She was very nice and explained the techniques if each piece to me. When I told her I was planning to go to the theater later, she offered to drive me there!

The theater I went to was a local one, where they were showing an autobiographical play by a Palestinian man, the main actor and who has lived in Italy a long time. The story followed his family's expulsion from their lands, his childhood, and how he came to study in Italy. Although the play was mostly in Italian I could understand the basic plot line, and the entire performance took place behind a transparent screen. It had a really neat effect. At times you could only see the actors' silhouettes, and there was a particularly beautiful solo dance scene with the woman who played the main character's mother.

At other times, the screen lightened so you could see the actors' faces and a partial view of their bodies, and the screen was also used to show animation.

A really nice Italian girl who didn't speak any English helped me find my way back to the main road that I needed (I've been very lucky so far to find kind souls who assist me with directions, which is often a godsend for someone like me who has a poor sense if visual spatial organization). We somehow had a conversation in Spanish and Italian. I found out that she studied sociology, and was born in a town near Salerno.

I got back to the hostel and was joined in my room by a Chinese girl who spoke Italian and a little English. Between my Spanish, her Italian, and our shared English, we talked about where we had been and where we were going.

I am consistently amazed at how people can communicate (at least at a basic level) without speaking the same language. Although I'm a pretty experienced traveler, I don't normally like the idea of going places where I don't know at least a little but of the language. Luckily Italian has enough similarities with Spanish that I've been ok.