Isle of Rhodes

I split from the group last night to do a solo day trip to the Isle of Rhodes. I've always held Rhodes in some sort of mystical, almost fairy-tale like quality.

Part of my Dad's side of the family is from Rhodes, and I remember his uncle, in his old-age, speaking very fondly about his boyhood days there.

As I got older, I learned that some of my closest friends turned out to have ancestry tracing back to Rhodes.

The place has always intrigued me, and, as I found myself in the Greek Isles this week, I couldn't resist going there.

The boat trip there itself was great. The group I have been traveling with was staying in Fiora, a city at the top of the mountain on which the island of Santorini sits. I took a cab down to port a few hours early and, after a quick meal, laid on the dock of the port, the only person on the it, for an hour or so. It was a dead silent, star-filled night. All I could see besides the white tips of the waves were the shadows of the mountains that towered behind me.

The overnight trip was not bad at all. I woke up at 7 on a couch on the boat, went outside to one of the boat's balconies and watched the sea as we pulled in to port.


I arrived in Rhodes this morning around 8:30.

I bought a map and wandered around the old city, trying to make my way to the Jewish section. I didn't realize that I was holding the map upside down, and somehow ended up at a huge palace.

Sensing I was lost, a man asked if he could help me out. Yes, I said. I pulled out my map. He turned it right side up.

He pointed out some key locations and marked them with his pen. His deep and humorous sounding British accent intrigued me and we began to talk. Now technically retired, he had been a Royal Air Force officer who had specifically worked on designing and building nuclear weapons. In his words: "I worked all of my life to destroy Eastern Europe, but in the end, I ended up falling in love with it."

What he fell in love with was the palace that I had run into; it's stones, it's history, and most of all, it's underground tunnels. His name is Graeme Jones, and he now goes by the occupation title: "explorer."

The palace, which had been at different times the headquarters for both the Knight's Templar and the Crusades, holds a series of underground tunnels beneath it that nearly cover the length of the entire city. Having realized that there is no definitive map of these tunnels, Jones decided to do just that. He has spent the last 5 years mapping, measuring, and getting to know the tunnels, moats, walls, bricks, and stone that surround and are beneath the palace. At this rate, he says, he'll be finished in 40 years. Now 60, he admits that he probably won't get the chance to see his project completed, but he says he really enjoys doing what he's doing one day at a time.

We talked for a while, and before long, a few other people joined in. Jones asked us all if we'd like to go on a stroll. He took us on an in-depth and exciting tour of the palace's moats, leading us into pitch black tunnels when he could, showing us where draw bridges used to stand, and telling us exactly how battles were fought, with what, and exactly where.

He showed us the wall of the moat, telling us what layers were added when, which bricks protected which empire, and which stones destroyed others.


Jones loved to talk and, not wanting to spend the whole day learning about this moat, I left the tour after about one hour and a half.

I found the Jewish section of town and quickly found what remains the only intact synagogue on the island; the old Jewish section of town was bombed and destroyed during WWII. Luckily, this one synagogue remains. It was the synagogue in which my uncle's family used to belong, as well as my friend's families - before they all came to the United States.


I quickly found a plaque that listed the family names of the once lively synagogue.


I quickly found my family connection on the list (Franco), as well as the families of many of my closest friends.

Wandering around the synagogue, I found many documents either commemorating or memorializing many of these families. One such document:


Walking around the synagogue and it's accompanying museum, it became obvious that this now nearly non-existent Jewish community used to be a very active one and was a central part of the lives of those Jews who lived there. I learned that the Jewish community of Rhodes used to be large - around 1600 people prior to WWII. However, on July 23, 1944, all of the Jews in Rhodes were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. Only 10 percent of those survived the war and returned to Rhodes. Then, for various economic reasons - not to mention the creation of the State of Israel -, people began to move away. I spoke with an employee at the Synagogue today who said that only 7 Jewish families remain on the Isle of Rhodes today, less than 30 people.

The employee I spoke with was a young man probably around my age. He is a member of one of those seven families and, throughout our conversation, I couldn't help but wonder how the people connected to me were once connected to the people that are connected to him.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the charming city. I climbed to the top of the pillar on which the Colossus of Rhodes - one of the 7 wonders of the World - used to stand, and I enjoyed a few beers and a good meal in the hot, beach sun...

It's a surreal feeling being the only person standing on the stone-lined street that the Crusades used to line down. It's a creepy feeling standing on a spot inside a palace's moat in which thousands of people fought and died. It's a strange feeling to imagine a centuries-old Saturday morning service in the same synagogue that I stood in today, thinking about the then-children, now all grandparents, great-grandparents or great-great grandparents of many of my friends and family, now passed on and sitting way up high on that family tree.


I used to think of Rhodes as a mystical and fairy-tale like place. I still do.

Amsterdam

Arriving in Amsterdam last Thursday afternoon and quickly making my way through the airport to the bus station seemed a little too good to be true. It was a very swift maneuver; maybe ten minutes tops - and this includes the Starbucks pit stop. And especially, coming after my Paris airport/metro experience - where a good hour and a half found me, among other things, three ticket machines that don't accept Visa, a change station that doesn't give change, a pack of gum that finally got me that change, the correct train track, the actual train, the actual train going in the right direction - I was shocked that this time, in Amsterdam, it wasn't too good to be true.

At the bus station I asked some guy which train to take in to the city. He was headed that direction too, so he showed me the way.

An interesting guy, he's a Dutch college student studying Industrial Design. He lives in Amsterdam with his family but travels three hours daily getting from his home in Amsterdam to his college, and back.

I asked him about Industrial Design. He was fascinated with my Starbucks coffee cup. "Do you know why there's that indention right there?", he asked, pointing to the indention on the top of the cup. "No," I said. "Do you?"

"No, but there's a reason for it." And after a short pause he laughed, admitting, "I'm only a freshman. One day..."

He told me that Holland is a very smart country in terms of industrial design. For example, he told me, it is a law that each classroom in Holland must have windows on the left side of every room. This is because most students are right handed and, having windows on the left side allows sun to flow into the room, shining light on the student's paper, leaving no shadow on the page for the (right handed) student.

He got off at his stop, I transferred buses, and made my way into the city.

The bus ride was nice. It's very relaxing looking out the window and seeing the suburbs of a town at dusk - the kids playing outside, everyone biking or walking home-, while all the while feeling the excitement of an approaching big city.

Everyone talks about how crazy Amsterdam is, but no one really talks about how beautiful it is...which it is.


I got into the city itself around 6PM, right as the sun was setting, and walked around for a couple of hours before getting in touch with my other friends in town.

I love going to cities on water (I think the arrival-walk-around-the-water walk is my favorite thing to do upon arriving somewhere), and I really enjoyed this walk up and down the various canal-ed streets. It was a nice cold night; as I walked down the quiet canals, the sun was setting, windows were open and I could see families eating dinners, boats were slowly making their way down stream. I was the only person walking down many of these streets, and the colors of the sky mixed with the brushes of trees, wind, and water made the walk extremely charming.


The following day we visited the Van Gogh Museum. I loved it. Since coming to Europe, I've seen a lot of art. Much of it is very church related or grandiose, a little (or way too much) overdone. The works of Van Gogh, and especially Monet, really caught my eyes. Their paintings of nature and portraits of regular people was a real breath of fresh air. More than anything though, I really gained a sense of appreciation for pointillism. I never really understood it until I found myself standing an inch away from one of Van Gogh's forest paintings; all I could see were brushed dots and it was just fascinating to move back and watch the dots turn into depth and shadows and trees and ground.


We also visited the Heineken Museum, which sounds much cooler than it actually is. We went excited - on the lookback, not really sure why? -, but found ourselves in a serious exhibit about the history of Heineken. Throughout the hour long exhibit, I couldn't help but think: Who gives a shit?

The Anne Frank House was a very powerful exhibit. It's somewhere I've wanted to go my entire life, and it was an extremely eery and creepy place.


Anne Frank has always been someone who has fascinated me since I was a child; after reading her diary when I was 9 or 10, the book and her picture scared me, and I often kept it hidden at night. I remembered a certain picture from the photo section of her diary especially standing out to me when I was younger. It was a photo of everyone in the house posing for the camera. As I saw that picture last Saturday at the museum, for the first time in many years, I immediately recognized it. Remembering the creepy feeling it used to give me, I was shocked at the label below it's frame: "Taken in this room."

It was creepy standing in her dark bedroom, with the blinds still shut, wondering where in this room she would sit in the dark.


It was creepy as I approached the bookcase, knowing that many people, including the Nazis that had captured her and all those inside had gone through this bookcase...They probably ran a lot faster than I did though...Or did they? Did they sneak up quietly or did they break in loudly?...The mind can't help wandering once you're inside.


It was creepy sitting in Anne's parent's bedroom wondering where they all were when the Nazi's captured them that morning.

It was creepy looking out the window, the window Anne mentions in her diary for peaking out sometimes, and wondering if I am seeing the same things she saw.


One of the creepiest things about the museum took place before I even went inside. It was a foreshadowing of what was to come. Just before leaving the brightly lit up ticket office and entering the dark house, a quote from Anne's diary is posted on the wall.


Amsterdam was a wonderful trip. There are some things I think I'll keep to myself. For example, I'm not going to tell y'all about the sex show that we went to.

Oh yeah, but look what did make a pop up:

Look closely, it's Hotel Atlanta!

Via Trieste

This charming street, a block or so from NYU in Florence's campus, has a little-known, possibly well hidden history behind it. Not one to often blurt out facts, theories or did-ya-know's, this one caught me off guard a bit, and I definitely think it's worth a share.

I usually walk home after class. At night, it's especially nice. With a little music on the ears, a nice breeze a'flowin', and a beautiful sunset, the walk home is quite delightful. Via Trieste is an especially nice walk down; it houses beautiful yet modern looking apartment buildings, bringing a modern and very refreshing suburban type feel to one street in this mostly ancient looking town.

Anyway, I found out why Via Trieste is so modern, and it isn't charming at all. Via Trieste was re-built after World War Two. After it's main building was torn down (and replaced with these new apartments), the street was renamed (Via Trieste, meaning "Sad Street"). The main building that was torn down was a Nazi headquarter building; it was the Nazi's main center for interrogation in Florence during the war.

Knowing what I've learned about the horrors of Nazi interrogation, this charming walk becomes a bit creepy. And now, as the beautiful sunset turns quickly into black night, I walk just a little faster down Via Trieste.