Life by Ben

Rome Part II

The second day of sight seeing in Rome was all about the Vatican. As I mentioned in the last post, our tour guide was Scottish Ian, who was raised Roman Catholic and majored in Art History at Glasgow University. The previous day, Ian left us with, "they say it takes a lifetime to understand Rome. It takes even longer to understand the Vatican." No way we were passing on the offer to go explore.

We met Ian at the Romaround office, where he distributed headphones and receivers so that we can follow his commentary without his needing to shout. Being part of a tour group allowed us to skip the really long line, and with the exception of some rain, the entrance to the Vatican was smooth.

Once past security, we got to meet some of our fellow tourists in the group. One pair that stood out was a father and his eighteen year old son. Based in Chicago, the two have been traveling all around the world since February. The son, Jack, was a good kid and was enjoying the break after graduating high school six months early. He'll be attending Northeastern next fall. The father shared that they'd been to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and a bunch of other places. Rome was the last stop. I asked which place he recommended most highly. Interestingly, he was pushing Havana, Cuba. I'll have to check it out.

The tour started with some facts about the Vatican.
• it's the smallest country in the world, with only 900 citizens
• it has it's own currency, airport, army and laws
• there is a zero birthrate in the Vatican (obvious reasons)

I didn't really know what to expect of the tour itself, but I couldn't have imagined a better showcase of renaissance art. Ian's background made his remarks extremely relevant; he pointed out tons of little things in the paintings and statues that really made me appreciate the art.
The Vatican was the most mind-blowing place on the trip for several reasons.

First, the sheer amount of paintings, statues, and cloth artifacts was absolutely staggering. I didn't know Roman civilization existed long enough to produce that much work. There was more of it than I thought possible in the whole world. And all of it was really fucking good.

The second thing that I found fascinating was the lesson on the Vatican's role in Roman history. Christianity appeared in Rome around 350 A.D. and very quickly took priority over paganism. As part of the growth of Christianity, the Pope became the most powerful person in the world. The authority definitely got to the Vatican's head as they slowly tore away at many ancient Roman structures in the sake of building more churches. As the tour guide put it, "no quarry was as close as the colosseum".

The flourishing of art during the renaissance came over 1,000 years after Christianity took hold. As part of the wave of newness in Rome, a certain Pope decided to repair the relationship with the Jews since Jesus was Jewish. The gesture? A little something called the Sistine chapel.
Regarding the sistine chapel, the dynamic between the Pope and Michaelangelo was most intriguing to me.

You see, Michaelangelo was a passionate sculptor who viewed painting as an inferior form of expression to sculpting. However, the Pope was so intent on having Michaelangelo paint the Sistine chapel ceiling that he basically forced him to do it. Imagine doing something you hate for 5 years, and you get the picture.
The most impressive part of the story is that Michaelangelo's sole instructions from the Pope were: "tell the story of the desciples". Michaelangelo was so talented that he then taught himself how to paint and created the best painting in history. I say it's the best because our tour guide spent 45 minutes just telling us about the Sistine chapel ceiling. It's unreal.

All in all, my time in Rome made me wonder what was so magical about Christianity, that it was worth putting above just about everything else in Rome. The funds used to build Rome's 900 churches could have been allocated towards research and development of just about anything. But in stead of a prosperous and peaceful rule of Christianity, the Vatican initiated the crusades and under the cloak of good-doing, the entirety of Europe went into the Dark Ages.

Rome was ground zero for the clash between the old and the new.

Striking the perfect balance between appreciating the past and planning the future is always a challenge.

I think it's time for another renaissance.

Rome Part I

Posting this a bit late, but here are my notes from earlier...

About a week ago we arrived in Rome. The girl at the train ticket counter at the airport hooked us up with a solid shuttle, and since she was also gorgeous, we knew that Rome - too - was going to be great.

The apartment we stayed in was called Envy House and was owned by two Greek brothers. Nicolas learned his English at a British embassy, so he was funny-sounding. Nic gave us a 15-minute run down of the best bars, restaurants, etc' in Rome, which was huge help later on. First time we walked out of the apartment, we saw St. Peter's Basilica, which put us about 3 minutes walking from the Vatican. Played out to be prime location for us.

Italian fast food pizza was gigantic and cheap. I'm talking about a half square yard pizza for like $12. The sit-down Italian food was phenomenal. Had a feast on the last night there, and we agree it was the best meal of the trip. Go to 'Macaroni'.

The bar scene in Rome was right up our alley (no pun intended). We signed up for a pub crawl which got canceled so we went to 3-4 bars in stead. Met tons of Irish, Australian, British, Canadian, and American people... a loud bar is so much better when everyone speaks English.

The sightseeing in Rome was by far our favorite of the whole trip. We took a colosseum tour with a vulgar Italian guy who made cheesy jokes. We liked him. It was followed by a tour of the ancient ruins of Rome with an awesome Scottish tour guide named Ian. Ian was so good we decided to take the following day's 3-hour Vatican tour with him.

In addition to being an entertaining tour guide, turns out Ian was brought up Roman Catholic and majored in Art History. I now think that's the perfect recipe for a Vatican tour guide.
So let's dig in to the most interesting stuff I learned:

• The Jews directly built and indirectly funded the colosseum: the ancient stadium was built by the emperor who destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Looted goods paid for supplies and Jewish slaves were the labor

• There were 3 sessions per day of fighting in the sandy arena

• 'Arena' means 'sand' in Latin. People still call our stadiums arenas even though the turf is mostly grass or wood

• The Roman aristocracy had the most extravagant parties in history. They even had a god of partying and drinking. It wasn't unheard of to eat 70 (!!) courses at a Roman orgy, forcing "stomach emptying" every 3-4 courses

• An arch was built to celebrate Roman victory over the Jews (same emperor who built colosseum). It was a respected monument until Hitler took a picture under it while visiting Mousilini. Since it was an antiemetic gesture, the space under the arch has been blocked off since the end of WWII

• Romans loved building using an extremely rare rock called Porphyry. There is only one known quarry in the world where the material is found (in Egypt). Porphyry is a beautiful purple color and it is speculated that the Vatican owns every specimen ever mined. The only material that can cut it is a diamond, which makes porphyry the densest rock on the planet. Preview for Vatican post: the Vatican has a giant bath tub made of the material; its value is estimated at $500 million.

Good place to stop till the next post. Sitting on a plane from Amsterdam to London right now. As always, writing is a good passtime.

Building to be remembered

When we were touring the Ruins of Rome, our tour guide told us about an emperor who everybody loved-- even his enemies.
Antoninus Pius was the 15th Emperor of Rome. He ruled for 13 years, and many say his was the most peaceful rule Rome had ever know.
Interestingly, nobody remembers him or mentions him.
The reason? He never built anything.
From 138 to 161 A.D, no major structures were erected in Rome.
I thought that was pretty profound.
I definitely want to leave a legacy. It would be nice to have someone influenced by me in some way 100 years from now, after we're all long gone.
I think Antoninus Pius is a good role model; don't build to be remembered. Be the best you that you can be, and that's the best legacy possible.
Can't think of any better way to live life.

Instagram is Awesome

Traveling has many upsides, one being the pictures you take.
Recently bought by Facebook for somewhere around $1 Billion, Instagram is a free app that lets you edit your pictures in a fun and easy way. Our whole group has been using it throughout the trip.
If you have Instagram, follow me @ berez333, that's where I've been posting the pics from the trip so far!

Barça Thoughts

Arrived in Barcelona Thursday evening, and took the train from the airport. A couple of Spanish tourists gave us their extra train passes, so this city was off to a solid start.

On the way the hotel, we were reviewing the grammar rules for spanish, with my memory working almost perfectly. Ironically, upon disembarking the train, I asked my friends to remind me how to say "thank you". Gracias, idiot.

If you were to find the most central spot on a map of Barcelona, that's where you'd find the Casa Gracia Hotel aka pretty damn cool hostel. Great wifi, comfy couches, beautiful lounge and porch, and nonstop social activities. It was the best hostel of the three so far.

First night in Barça was interesting. Went to a club called Cat Walk, which turned out to have just the right amount of people. Met cool people and enjoyed the Spanish nightlife. The music was awesome and the drinks were great.

Day 2 in Barça was tons of fun. We toured the Olympic village and soaked in the amazing Catalunyan Museum of National Art. But that wasn't the best part.

On our way to leave the Olympic park, we were approached by some German dudes who were looking to sell a couple tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert that night. After some negotiation, four of us bought tickets for the show that started only a few hours later.

We went back to the hostel, changed, and returned to the Barcelona Olympic stadium for the best concert I've ever seen. The Boss was everything I've heard about him, and more. At the age of 62, he is still able to put on a high energy three-hour concert, without a single break. It was amazing, and I'm now a huge Springsteen fan.

Yesterday we went to check out the Las Ramblas market, and the Cathedral de Barcelona, which sported some really impressive architecture. Then we grabbed some tapas and headed to the Parc Güell. Little did we know that Parc Güell was essentially the tallest spot in town. The hills were steeper the San Francisco, and even had outdoor escalators to accommodate visitors.

At the top of the park, we saw a funny rock singer-guitar player guy who was super entertaining. He was wearing leopard spandex and having fun with his crazy music, so I tipped him. Hes just one of a huge group of street musicians in Europe, who play every instrument I can imagine. I think it would be cool to bring the best of them together under one roof and start something. There's way too much talent here to go unnoticed.

Further down the park was a cool patch of land decorated by none other than Gaudí, the famous Spanish architect. His buildings look amazing and his signature is so unique that I'm convinced he is the real life version of the Randian hero Howard Roark.

After that we took a nice siesta and watched the champions league final while enjoying pretty solid home-made mojitos. Chelsea won in penalty kicks and we joined the group from the hotel to go party at a club called Shoko. Had a blast of a night.

This morning (Sunday) headed to the airport and now on our way to Rome. Should be sick to see the Vatican, colloseum, and all the other great stuff. Especially looking forward to the Italian cuisine.

For now, hasta luego.

Late Thoughts on Paris

Never got to posting this after Paris, so here it is...

Crazy how fast our time in Paris flew by. It wasn't better than London all around, but the sight-seeing was definitely fantastic.

Took us some time to find our hotel upon arrival, but using "bonjour, parlais vu anglais?" (forgive the spelling) did the job and we made it to Hotel de Comete in one piece. 3 beds for 6 people was interesting but we made it work.

The lady who ran the hotel was really nice and we spoke in Spanish with her since she didn't know any English and we didn't know any French. My high school Spanish teachers would be proud.

Our first night in town we took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower and I think that's the most excited I've ever been to see a building... Rightly so. It was breathtaking. To top it off, we were surprised- and delighted- to see a 5 minute light show on the tower at midnight.

We thought it would be better to return the next night with wine, so we did. The Eiffel Tower gardens must be the best spot to drink wine on the planet.

During the day we did the touristy sightseeing. The Notre Dame Cathedral was really impressive, mainly because it took 200 years to build and the architecture has held up marvelously. Interestingly, on the way there we stumbled upon the new French President's inauguration ceremony. People seemed pretty pumped to shake his hand, but I don't know much about the guy. All I know is he's a socialist.

The Arch de Triumphe was also cool, but we probably spent no more than 5 minutes admiring it. I think it's more important to the French, or people who can appreciate its historical significance.

The Louvre museum was a spot I'd recommend to anyone who remotely likes art. We only spent a couple hours there, but you can easily spend two full days there if you wanted. I regret not getting the €5 digital tour guide since literally nothing was captioned in English in the whole freakin' museum.

The Gardens outside the Louvre was my favorite daytime spot on the whole trip so far. Words don't do it justice, but picture the most symmetrical and well-kept gardens.

Sightseeing aside, the food was phenomenal. French bread (baguette) is delicious and their pastries were fresh and tasty. My favorite was a pastry filled with chocolate and creme.

The people in Paris were nicer than I expected, but still pretty stiff. Apparently their culture is one in which the facial expression while walking around is naturally just indifferent. Americans are more direct with their facial expressions, less direct with words.

I'd go back to Paris in the future, but only on a special occasion like an anniversary or something.

Next stop: Barcelona.

London Thoughts

Feels like just yesterday we left the U.S. but here we are, done with our time in London, the first city on our 6-city Eurotrip.

I'm sitting on the EuroStar train from London to Paris for the next 2.5 hours, enjoying an attempt digest the past four days.

Having been born in Connecticut, grown up in Israel, and ripened in Florida, my duel-citizen-bilingual-self's understanding of the world has been pretty black and white.

On one hand, I had an American background (age 0-6 and 14-present) with everything that comes with it, including college and a capitalistic economic system. On the other hand, an Israeli upbringing (6-14)- most definitely with everything that comes with it, including overly direct mannerisms, exposure to daily terrorist bombings. and a quasi-capitalist system (pretty much Socialist).

That said, I feel like Europe is somewhat a cultural middle ground between the two. The Euro is very strong and the continent is a quilt of backgrounds. Further, I expect that the UK is a middle ground between the U.S and continental Europe. We'll see.

I mean, the language was obviously not an issue for the past four days. However, the British culture was fairly different than the American. Not better or worse, just different. Not sure I know how to put it into words. It's weird.

Different cultures have always intrigued me, and I think a lot of people share my fascination with accents of all sorts.

The six of us have been attempting to emulate the British accent, but we find ourself falling short. I bet the main reason is that to convincingly sound British, we'd need to learn the British phrases, not just the British accent. And that takes more than a few days.

They call bathrooms 'toilets'. They call exits 'way outs'. They don't tip at bars like we do. They are as racially diverse as Americans, if not more. They love their fish n chips (aka French Fries) and so do I.

What the tourist in me really enjoyed though, was the wealth of history and the impressive architecture, that exudes unparalleled national pride. And rightfully so- "the sun never sets on the British Empire."

The St. Paul and Westminster Abbey cathedrals were magnificent, Buckingham Palace was simply an overkill of extravagance... But the British people don't give a shit, they love the royalty! Hilarious how in the U.S. the rich are demonized and in England they're praised. I guess theres less of a populist-entitlement mentality there.

The Tower of London had the crown jewels and tons of knight history. The Globe Theater and Abbey Road were a humbling reminder of various awesome British artists. Trafalgar Square was cooler than Times Square.

All in all, London was everything I hoped and more. The weather was surprisingly perfect while we were there and we saw everything we could think of. The hostel wasn't even that bad.

Can't wait to see Paris for the next few days and then off to Barcelona, Rome, Prague, and Amsterdam.

Stay tuned for thoughts on wine, cheese, and French people.

Superheroes Come From Families, Too

Watched the new Avengers movie last night and thought it was awesome.  An hour of character-building and an hour and a half of pure action.

As I was letting the story unravel, it hit me that every single superhero has a family background that set him or her on path to greatness.

Thor and Loki come from Asgaard.  Thor is the son of the king, Loki is the adopted son.  Awesome set up for intense conflict.

Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk, had a stillborn child with his first wife, who became the Red She-Hulk down the road.  Banner fathered two sons with his second wife, who died later on.  He also had a daughter with a warrior woman.  In his childhood, Banner was close with his cousin Jennifer, who would turn into a She-Hulk when they were young. 

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is the son of a wealthy industrialist, Howard Stark.  Tony enters MIT at the age of 15 to study electrical engineering and computer science.  His parents are killed in a plane accident, and he inherits the Stark Industries empire.

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, was born to two Irish immigrants.  Steve's father died when he was a child, and his mother died when he was a teen. 

Natalia Romanova, aka Black Widow, was born in Russia and her parents were killed in a fire when she was a child.

Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, witnesses the murder of his parents by a mugger in Gotham.

Clark Kent, aka Superman, was born on a planet called Krypton.  When Krypton is on the verge of annihilation, his father sends him to Earth on a spacecraft.  He is then brought up by two salt of the earth parents.

Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, was an orphan being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben.  On a fateful day, Uncle Ben is shot by a criminal, and dies in Peter's arms.  I'll add that Spiderman's archnemesis, the Green Goblin, is the father of Peter's best friend.

And the list goes on... Notice a pattern?

There are backgrounds that foster steady lives of stable income and "normalcy".

And then there are the backgrounds of superheroes.

But here's the catch- Neither a "strong" family background nor a "weak" one will determine how successful and driven we are.  It's only our interpretation of our background that matters.

I come from an extremely loving family.  My mother, father, and sister are the best I could ask for.

Yet, I am as driven as anyone I have ever met.

Like I said a few posts ago, I don't believe in compromise.  I truly believe I can have it all.

 

Multitasking

Multitasking is the spreading of attention between a few projects or tasks, and most people agree it's an important skill to have. 

But I think that being able to focus on just one project is equally valuable, if not more.

knowing when to multitask and when to focus is the challenging part. 

One tip I've heard over the years is to check emails 3 times a day rather than continuously (e.g. 9am, 1pm, 4pm).

Another one is listening to music while cranking out a project.  Using headphones will decrease distractions.

I saw a blog post this morning that supports my point:  It uses Sheryl Sandberg as an example.  Sheryl is the COO (Chief Operations Officer) at Facebook.  Last year she made over $30 million between salary and stock-based compensation.  She's also on Time magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in the World list.  But Sheryl Sandberg leaves work every day at 5:30pm.  She gets it.

A guiding principle for knowing whether you're spreading yourself too thin or not is the stress level you're feeling.  If it's too much to handle, it's probably a good idea to take a breather, grab a cup of coffee, and let things fall into perspective.

The most important habit we can exercise as efficiency seekers is really simple, though.  When you're too busy to do something, just say 'no'.  People will appreciate the honesty.

Under-promise and over-deliver.  Can't go wrong.

 

Investments Trump Handouts

When I was little, my Dad told me,

"Give a man a fish, he'll have food for a day.  Teach a man to fish, he'll have food for a lifetime."

I think that's as true today as it ever was.

In spending my time, I like to think of every minute as a minute of activity that will pay dividends in the future.  In that sense, no time is actually spent.  All time is invested.

We all have a very short time on this planet, so time is the most valuable resource in the universe. 

Going around asking people for fish is one way of spending time.  But the last thing I want is to depend on someone giving me fish, so I'd rather invest my time in learning how to fish. 

The beauty about people is that we all have different priorities for investing our time and different "investment horizons".  Some people invest their time working.  Some invest their time reading.  Some invest their time gardening.  The list goes on.

I recently came to the conclusion I'm never going to retire.  Sitting around doing nothing just isn't the person I am or will be.  Maybe teaching will be a good 'retirement' job for me.

Investing my time to becoming the best me possible is my priority.  Maybe I subconsciously do what I do so that when I'm ready, I can be a wise, old teacher. 

Giving people fish?  Any schmuck can do that.

But teaching people to fish?  That's definitely something I'm passionate about.

After all, what's a better investment than an investment in people?