First Glimpses of Italy - Turning Tuscan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Going Native - page 6

First Glimpses of Italy
H alf way through my second year at Brandeis, I began dreaming about spending my junior
year abroad as an exchange student. I considered schools in France, Israel and England. I
finally settled on the University of Bristol on the west coast of England. It sounded marve-
lous, but it turned out to be a long, gray, cold and dreadful year of studying French, Russian
and philosophy. My dormitory room had an electric heater with a timer that heated the space
for four minutes at a twist, so you had to interrupt your studying fifteen times per hour to
stay warm. Food was awful, as only the British can make it, with grilled tomato halves and
deep-fried bread topped with baked beans grilled in bacon fat—for breakfast! It rained in-
cessantly day after day, and I was almost constantly wet, cold and lonely.
Fortunately, there was a month-long Easter break. I grabbed the chance to take a train from
London to Athens and experience Greece, land of Socrates and Zorba, for the first time.
From the moment that the train crossed over the Yugoslav border and the Greek soldiers on
board all began singing together, I knew I was going to like this place. I spent a few days in
Athens, made my way via ferry to Crete, continued by bus down to the south shore of Crete,
then hiked a few miles to a tiny fishing village called Matala. (Joni Mitchell sang about it
about a few years later in her song about Cary and his cane…)
ItwasthefirstplaceIhadeverbeenwheretherewasnoelectricity.Therewasasmallcolony
ofhippiescampingoutinthecavesthatdottedthewhitecliffsoverlookingthebluewatersof
the bay below. The word was that the ancient Minoans had used the caves as burial grounds
and that the recesses carved into the cave walls—where we spread our sleeping bags—had
been the niches where the dead were formerly laid to rest.
There was a woman in the village who cooked omelets in the morning and the evening for
a few drachmas. You could have either cheese or potatoes in your omelet with a choice of
either Coca-Cola or retsina wine to wash it down. There were no other menu options, and
the nearest shopping town was miles away with no bus connection. So, in effect, you could
stay in paradise for only pennies a day for as long as you could stand eating omelets twice
daily.
I lasted about a week. On the final day in this tiny oasis outside of the world, one of the
Americans came running along the beach shouting “King is dead! King is dead”! His little
transistor radio was the gap through which the world intruded; Martin Luther King had just
been assassinated. Those of us who are old enough can remember exactly what we were do-
ing when we heard the news that John F. Kennedy had been shot. I will always remember
King's death in that same way.