We took a 9:10am bus to Siena today and wandered around all day in the rain. The Fort was closed and the Duomo (“Duomo” means ca thedral, not “dome” as we cognate whores assume) was covered with a giant billboard showing what it will look like after it’s refurbished, but so what? The old part of Siena retains is medieval shape and a lot of its medieval stones. The streets are wider and not as warren-y as those in other medieval towns I’ve visited. Well worth the beautiful ride and the rainy day.

We came back in time to sneak a visit to the inside of Florence’s Duomo. It’s a huge empty space; the one euro audio kiosk did not explain why it’s sparsely decorated and furnished. In fact, the audio kiosk didn’t explain much. The inside of the dome depicts what heaven might look like – remarkable ( especially the foreshortening), but it pales compared to Michelangelo’s vision of the last day in the Sistine Chapel – the Duomo’s seems static compared to it. Of course, that’s a pretty tough act to follow.

Time’s up at this Net cafe…

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We got a slightly late start in Florence and then spent the day enjoyably strolling the city aimlessly with our daughter as our guide. We s tuck our heads in here and there, but other than going through the Dante house museum – some information about Dante but nothing original from the period – we just strolled in the rain. Across from Dante’s hosue is the church where Beeatrice is buried. It is dark, old and moving. We did some grocery shopping in the indoor market next door to our daughter’s shared apartment; it doesn’t get much more charming than that. We had an excellent dinner at Otorino, a restaurant we’d enjoyed the last time we were here; it was as close as we’ve come to ordering a first course and a second course for dinner. Where do the Italians fit it?

We did run into one confounding scam. As we were walking away from one of the outdoor markets, someone ran up to us claiming to be a vendor from whom our daughter and her roommate stole sunglasses this morning. And, he added belatedly, they stole a Gucci watch as well. This theft supposedly happened this morning, when it turns out our daughter was with us. The best we can figure is that I was supposed to be intimidated and pay him for the watch and glasses to get rid of him. I told him to go to hell. Weird.

We went to the bus station, bought tickets for Siena tomorrow, and went back to the hotel to sleeeeeep.

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I feel stuffed. It’s as if we did nothing but eat color yesterday.

We got a late start and didn’t get to the Vatican until 9:45. It’s a good thing we weren’t fifteen minutees later because the line doubled. Even so, we had a twenty minute wait to make it to the security checkpoint. (I wish I’d been taking photos of all the checkpoints we’ve encountered at ancient and religious sites.)

I hadn’t been in St. Peter’s for 35 years in which time it outran my memory. This is what you get if you want to turn stone into spirit and have all the money in the world.

When we left and asked directions to the Sistene Chapel, we were told that it closes in 30 minutes — the cut off is 12:20 or 12:30, depending on whom you ask. So, we hobble-ran the kilometer (our son is on crutches, recovering from knee surgery) and joined the back of the line, six blocks from the entrance. In desperation, we accepted a guide’s offer to get us in their special way. The tour turned out to be surprisingly good, and I feel only extremely elitist at having bought our way in; my pretend consolation is that we didn’t keep non-guide-payers out.

Unlike St. Peter’s, the Chapel has changed since I saw it in 1971. It’s been entirely cleaned, and the colors now are not shy. (A hint if you go: Start at the back end because that way the paintings aren’t upside down.)

It is odd coming as a Jew to the Vatican. While we understand some of the symbolism, we are reading it, not living it. It is as hard for us to get a grasp of the spirituality that chooses to express itself that way as it is for Christians to understand why my wife and son won’t carry an umbrella on the Sabbath.

We walked back from the Vatican, checked out of our hotel, and took a train to Florence where we met up with our daughter who is studying here this semester. (Excellent restaurant: I Tuscano.) We walked a little bit last night: Straight streets, single-file sidewalks, quiet enough at 10:30pm that our son’s crutching banged out loud. [Tags: italy rome travel florence]

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Emanuele Quintarelli suggests that we go further than Peter Van Dijck‘s mefeedia that provides a few broad facets by which tags can be organized. Why not create a wiki at which users can create a much more detailed, hierarchical taxonomy that would know, for example, that Venice is not just a place but that it’s a place in Italy (as well as a place in the US)?

It might work, but it raises three key questions when it comes to tags and taxonomies:

1. Tags have succeeded because they require so little thought and can used without regard for their meaning beyond oneself. (I suspect many of us do consider social meanings, but one doesn’t have to.) Would a wiki that requires us to think about metadata work? Would enough people participate?

2. If enough people participate, could we come up with a universal taxonomy specific enough to be useful? Do we think about things in sufficiently the same ways?

3. If such a taxonomy existed, would we use it? It would be a bottom-up controlled vocabulary, but it’d still be a controlled vocabulary that requires people to look things up.

I suspect that having reduced the problem of metadata to its most elemental form — type in a word or two that will remind us of what a page or photo is about — we will now complexify it usefully to the point at which the complexity gets in the way. It’s impossible to predict where those various points will be. (Complexity reaches its own level of misunderstanding.) I thus don’t think we can predict where Emanuele’s suggestion falls, although I worry that it’s more appealing to information architects than to “normal” people. (Yeah yeah, info architects are normal people. Except not when it comes to information. Besides, have you ever hung out with information architects??? :) [Tags: everything-is_miscellaneous EverythingIsMiscellaneous information_architecture ia folksonomies taxonomy]

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Yesterday we walked an itinerary sketched by Gianluca the night before. And it was a wonderful day.

My family went to the Great Synagogue for services. My son’s knee was hurting, so they came back to the hotel for a rest. We then walked to the Monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II and the tomb of the unknown soldier. One of the guards approached us and asked if we were Jewish; our son wears a yarmulke, so he was either a Jew or has bad taste in headgear. The guard was also a Jew and told us about his injuries in the first Gulf War. Throughout the day, strangers came up to us and identifyied themselves as Jews; this is not an experience we have in Boston, and it felt pretty good.

We then walked to the Trevi Fountain, which was more interesting than I’d remembered. Those of us who handle money on the Sabbath threw coins in, thus guaranteeing – according to the legend – that we would feel like gullible tourists. We ate in a random pizza place to everyone’s satisfaction, and then walked to the Pantheon, a beautiful building. It’s been a Christian church for about 1500 years, but it still feels like a pagan boast.

From there we went to the Piazza Navona, the shape of the chariot race track that once was there. The buskers were entertaining, and the coffee at the sidewalk cafe was priced, let’s say, enthusiastically. The piazza was yet another in a day of glorious public spaces.

We walked a little more, made it to the piazza where they burned Bruno (O burn, Bruno!) and then we pooped out and took the #8 home. We rested a bit and had a delicious Indian meal near the hotel in Trastavere.

Today we wandered through the Sunday morning flea market for about an hour. It is one gigantic, crowded market. (Interesting taxonomic item: Things people leave a flea market with. In our case, it was a toothbrush and two hair clips.)

We then went to the Colliseum. Being there forces you into multiple perspectives, none of which you can manage: What was it like to be a spectator? A victim? In another culture 2,000 years ago? (Note to tourists: When the guides outside tell you that for 8 euros per person they can skip you over the 45-minute wait, what they actually mean is that they can skip you over the 7-minute wait. Surprisingly, we didn’t fall for it.)

The Palatine is next door. You approach it by going up a walk at the crest of which is Titus’ Arch, a memorial to his victory over the Jews. “People like him were not allowed to go through it,” a guide said to the large crowd surrounding him, pointing to our son. Jews were barred from the gate until the Allies liberated Italy in 1945. Pretty amazing. But, the Roman Empire crumbled and the Jews are still here. So, now what does the arch memorialize, eh? In your face, Titus!

The vista then opens on a field of ruins in various states of repair. One can almost imagine what the scene must have looked like when the Empire was in flower and committed to being magnificent in public. Fascinating, moving, eerie.

We had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant that had been recommended to us: Marguta (Via Marguta, 118). It was fancier and more expensive than we’d expected, but it was also delicious.

From there we wandered through the Piazza del Popolo (all spellings approximate). The exhibit of models of Leonardo’s inventions was actually not the rip-off I anticipated, although I’m really not convinced he invented the bicycle. We wandered a bit more and came back to the hotel, only to find some open wifi. Woohoo! Gotta love the open wifi. (Thank you, Belkin54g!)

The weather has been perfect and the city is continuously surprising. What a great use of 2,000 years. [Tags: italy rome travel]

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The ancient Romans were small in stature, so I realized today that I could totally have kicked Caesar’s ass.

Yeah, baby! America! #1!

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Time is running out at the Internet cafe I’m typing this from, so this will be quick.

Fine flight. Little sleep. Breakfast consisted of a granola bar thrown at you from the front of the plane as first class brought their kids to watch.

Into the hotel at 12:30. Out for a walk at 1. We wandered aimlessly around Trastavere (sp?), so named because it’s across the Tiber. (Note to self: Build piazzas in Boston. The American idea – bundling all of a city’s free space into a mall or two – just doesn’t work as well.) Dinner with Gianluca B., a grad student I met here last year – great fun. Spray myself, my family, and a visiting soccer team as I try to drink from a sidewalk watering tube. Asleep at 10:30. Up at 8am. Eat the free breakfast. See my family off as they go to the Great Synagogue for services. I report to the local Internet cafe, present my papers, get the retinal scan, pass through the metal detector, and am lightly probed by the Microsoft Trusted Anus system, and log on.

Loving the trip so far.

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The little Internet cafe in Rome from which I’m writing this wouldn’t let me go online until I produced my passport, which they then dutifully photocopied. Chilling effect? You betcha.

Get used to it. This is what the digital ID totalitarians want for us. (Note: If you don’t want this type of ID control, then you are ipso facto not a digital ID totalitarian.)

PS: They have also rearranged the keyboard to confuse the enemy. I’ve been copying and pasting angle brackets, not to mention giving a three finger salute to type a @. Damn foreigners!

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David isenberg, my friend, asks for bloggage to announce the following:

I’d like offer a special deal to readers of your blog that does
not appear on the official F2C website. It is about 50% off the
standard early bird pricing, $295 (vs. regular early bird at $595).
They need to use code FOBDL when they register at
http://www.pulver.com/f2c/ Unfortunately, this deal expires on
February 28.

F2C: Freedom to Connect, will happen April 3 & 4 in Washington DC.

I am going. I am speaking there. See you there?

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Plug in your zip code and find the local gas station with the lowest prices…

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