Sounds

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Besides my usual tricks of travel, I added something new for my most recent adventures. I brought along a tape recorder.

I think the most surprising aspect of this is not what I managed to record, but rather what I managed to hear. I have travelled looking for interesting sights, and I have travelled exploring different tastes, and frequently I have no choice but to be very aware of unusual odors, but I think this is the first time that I have sought out sounds.

So when I stood in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican I heard three dozen school children singing "Benedetto" in a manner so hopeful that I kept an eye out for movement in the Pope's living quarters.

And on deck of the fast moving ferry where the wind was so strong that I felt sure it would blow my hair into the sea, I heard the laughing of the North Wind, a sound so strong that no sea shell could hold it.

And walking across St. Mark's Square in Venice I heard the cooing of ten thousand pigeons all intent on getting too fat to fly.

And sitting in Dante's church I heard forty voices joined in saying the Lord's Prayer.

I heard the tolling of bells drown out the turmoil of city life. I heard the strange, hollow sound of footsteps in the catacombs. I heard the deep throated blasts of a ship's horn and the blended tones of a dozen monks chanting.

My tape recorder didn't make it out for most of these, but I heard far more than if I had never slid it into my suit case.

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