REGGIO CALABRIA

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THE STATUES: I saw them! "Them" being the Riace Warriors, two Greek statues that are thought to have fallen off a ship just south of Reggio near Riace. Happenstance has altered my life so often, so maybe part of my fondness for the statues has something to do with their happenstance discovery. A scuba diving dentist heard a metallic sound when his spear bumped the bronze hand of one of the statues that stuck up out of the sandy sea bottom in shallow water just offshore. I like to imagine these warriors with great patience waiting almost 2500 years to raise a hand and hail a passerby, like hailing a taxi or a bus. I was a little disappointed not to see them standing since they are over 6 feet tall. Instead they are lying down, cradled in a wood frame, hermetically sealed in the perfect temperature and humidity, for further restoration. No photos allowed, so you'll have to google them. I’m spending an extra two days here so I can go by and visit them again tomorrow. Also, Reggio is a charming city, not at all “brutta,” (ugly) as several Italian friends warned me it would be.
STAIRS: I have walked too many stairs to count. Italians take them for granted. I’m not there yet, but I seem to be getting used to them. You can see from the photo of the sea from my room that I am high on the hill. The land beyond the sea is Sicily. Later I went for an after dinner stroll, called a passegiata, and discovered a covered walkway/escalator. The bride you see on the escalator was part of a big promotion for wedding planning. The fancy cars were part of it, too. On the passegiata, I discovered the huge trees (reminded of ones in India) down near the shore.
FOOD: The restaurant photo I took for a friend in Fairbanks, Carolyn, who encouraged me to emulate Queen Latifa in “Last Holiday” and treat myself special by eating in restaurants even though I’m traveling alone. I had linguini with calamari, and later on the passegiata I ate chocolate gelato. Yum.
GRAFFITI: The graffiti photo, "tiger burning bright," is a line from one of my favorite poems in which the writer marvels and somewhat bemoans the the fact that the god who made the lamb also made the tiger. The other comment in Italian (Fa schifo), roughly translated, says, 'that sucks."

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