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Published: January 11th 2007
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Since the plan was to be in Tunisia on the morning of the 7th, there’s a sly pleasure in finding myself, a day later, trudging to the bus station in Palermo. It feels like I’m pulling a fast one, swiping a few days from under an unsuspecting nose. At the station I’m just in time to watch the 10:30 to Syracuse putter down the street. The station agent - a gray-haired man whose
gravitas wouldn’t seem out of place in a Senecan tragedy - grimly informs me the next bus doesn’t leave till half-past two. This is - briefly glimpsed - what I’d expected from Sicilian transport all along. When I suggest I try the train station instead, a man beside me wags his hand and makes a face that all but asks, “When you went tumbling down the Stupid Tree, did you leave any branches behind?”
I catch a mid-day bus to Catania and a Syracuse-bound bus just a half-hour later. As we’re pulling into the city twilight is falling; soft bands of light stretch across the horizon where the sky meets the sea. There are Christmas lights strung across the bridge connecting Syracuse to the handsome
peninsula of Ortigia; in a small square in front of the Templo di Diana, a brightly decorated tree twinkles above children playing. It’s a heart-swelling scene, a last, lingering taste of holiday cheer. Then the bus turns and turns again, the driver apparently looking for the one street in Ortigia not fit for framing.
Because it’s one of Sicily’s most popular tourist traps, Syracuse boasts a high standard in its swank hotels and B&Bs. Fortunately, for an intrepid traveler who has no standards, there’s always a deal to be found. I find a room in a starless, charmless place just over the bridge from Ortigia. The desk clerk - a jowly guy with green, mirthful eyes and stubble on his chin - offers me a choice of rooms: one
con bagno for €30, one without for twenty. Had he realized I’d crap in the pillowcase if it would save me money, he would’ve skipped the preliminaries. He shows me a fluorescent-lit box with a window overlooking the staircase - as stirring a sight as the Coliseum to my weary, budget-strapped eyes. When I’m unpacked and on my way out for the evening, there are three dour men in
heavy coats smoking by the door. They’re like a page torn from my Brooklyn childhood: these same men carrying white boxes of pastries to Sunday dinner, the day’s
Oggi tucked under their arms. In the morning it feels like they’ve swabbed the halls in Old Spice - a gratifying whiff of nostalgia, if ever there was one.
It’s been a happy surprise to find myself in Syracuse, sitting in the elegant Piazza del Duomo, my face warmed by the Sicilian sun. The days are lazy, tuned to a local rhythm that sees the city shuttered for most of the afternoon. I wake up, I walk through Ortigia’s streets in a narcotic stupor: past flower-filled balconies and crumbling churches. I eat - Christ, do I eat. I’ve sampled the
arancini and
calzones from every shop in town; I’ve tried the aptly named
bombetta - a dense ball of cheese, prosciutto and dough that plumbs the depths of my stomach like a lead sinker. I shuffle from one café to the next, discovering, by my third day, which piazza faces the sun in the afternoon, which restaurant overlooks the sea for sunset. It’s a balancing act that straddles the fine
line between crippling boredom and pure bliss. At night I read under the bright fluorescent lights in my room: the streets are too cold, and a blustery wind blows through the piazzas.
But my thoughts are moving forward, my mind spinning and whirring over the weeks ahead. A good friend from back home plans to meet me in Cairo, and it’s with a feeling not far from dread that I realize I’ll have to curtail, however briefly, my free-wheeling ways: to make a promise that at a certain time on a certain date, I’ll be exactly where I said I’ll be. True, it’s a bit disingenuous to suggest that a three-week romp through Egypt will be like a slow promenade over a bed of hot coals. But sitting with my guidebook to Tunisia, with its promises of sweeping sand dunes and lost Punic cities and eerie
Star Wars landscapes, I realize - as all travelers must - that there’s too much to see and too little time to see it. I also realize that while a month in Egypt is, for me, a small part of a very long trip, my friend’s probably had to mortgage unborn children
to score three weeks of vacation time - making me almost desperate to ensure those weeks are entirely, utterly unforgettable.
I’ve dog-eared the pages of my guidebook and put asterisks next to promising hotels. I’ve planned a rough itinerary from Alexandria to Abu Simbel. I’ve looked at costs and travel times, posted thoughtful questions on travel fora, dusted off a bit of the Arabic I picked up in Morocco. I’m a travel machine, ready to take my jihad of love to the Middle East. When I look up from my guidebook I’ve almost forgotten where I am, until a bellicose old man - the hat pulled low over his bull-frog’s face, a tie neatly knotted beneath his chin - wags a reproachful hand at a passing scooter. Suddenly it hits me: this is life, my life. And then the fountains in the piazza light up like the 4th of July.
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