Rewind to Rome... Day Three

I actually wrote this post weeks ago in Text Edit but never posted it because I couldn't get through the photo editing process and find some time to post.

Every Wednesday the Papa gives a speech in front of Saint Peter's, so Ann is of the informed opinion, which I would agree to if I had any other experience, that this is the best day to go to the Vatican Museum to see it's wonderful paintings and sculptures, plus the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's itself because if you get there while everyone is trying to go listen to the pope, they're not trying to get into the museum.  Considering the wait was less than 20 minutes, it seems very plausible to me. 

After our breakfast we met at the Piazza Navona at 8:30 and hiked across Ponte Sant'Angelo towards the Castel Sant'Angelo, which is also some old dead (Hadrian) guy's tomb.  We walked down what Ann considers a tragedy of Architecture, the Via della Conciliazione which was put in around WWII or so by some bad Italians who wanted to have impressive military parades... or something like that.  It was early.  She also pointed out a religious shop that had many different sorts of rosaries and would, for free, send them to the vatican to be blessed (en masse) by the pope and then returned to your hotel the next day.

While walking around the Piazza San Pietro we stopped to recollect as some of our number had headed for the head and, while waiting, I snapped this shot of a very happy cardinal.  He was flanked by a couple of priests of some level or other but the bright red beanie was what caught my eye.  Too bad it didn't have a propeller.  We achieved our quick entry into the Vatican Museum... what I honestly think was our first museum since this trip started... although I suppose the Spedale in Siena was a sort of museum.

My only goal today was to find one of the Swiss guard in their beautiful costumes designed in the 1500s or so by Michelangelo himself and take a photo of them with a secondary goal of buying a rosary and having it blessed by the pope for my grandmother.  Someone pointed out this guy, who I'm guessing is some sort of trainee Swiss guard guy because this outfit is not modern at all but it's also not their usual full uniform.  I worried when I saw him that they might have a different uniform to wear in the summer but I was happy to find later that this was not the case.  Sorry the photo's really bleached but it's the only one I shot and I had the exposure setting up a bit high and I'm too lazy to mess with it much in Photoshop.

There's way too much to see in this museum to really talk about it here and the photos I got weren't great, though I did get some nice shots in a few, better lit sections of it, including in the Sistine Chapel itself, which I have to admit was nice but a touch underwhelming.  Somehow I'd decided that it was a much bigger ceiling than it actually is (or at least than it appears, as...), and it's directly overhead, it's really, really high up, and the room it's in is packed with people who won't shut up.  The guards are constantly telling people to not take photos... (yes, I ignored them but I did it rather stealthily, if I do say so myself, so they were never yelling at me), and to be quiet, and I was trying to listen to Ann's podcast about the room and having trouble figuring out what was what, as I had neglected to put my field trip packet in my bag that morning.  So... not the best experience.  Here's one of my contraband shots.

After that we snuck out the group entrance, which gets you directly from the Sistine Chapel into St. Peter's without having to wait in another (2-3 hour) line.  I strongly suggest anyone who visits confidently strolls out this exit if they can at all manage it... preferably in the midst of a group of tourists to avoid being blocked by guard peoples.

The last "official" stop that day was to the Basilica itself.  I will say this... as small as the Sistine Chapel seemed, St. Peter's was HUGE.  There were tons of smaller chapels, a huge center aisle, and amazing art in the form of paintings, frescos, and statues including the beautiful Pieta.  On our way out, we saw a pair of brides entering with their new spouses and it seemed quite sweet and maybe a bit movie-ish.

As we were walking out of the basilica I saw not just one of the Swiss guards but THREE!  I would have attempted to get some better shots than these but silly people kept asking them questions like how to get somewhere or something like that and they were getting in the way of my shots and the other students I was with wanted to go buy rosaries and eat lunch.  Silly people... wanting food... it was only almost three.  Ok... I suppose I was hungry, too... I'm not sure that "hungry" is a strong enough word for what I was currently feeling, actually.  Oh well.  I found them, and I took photos and I'm happy now.  Then, I went and found a rosary for my grandmother, gave it to be blessed and hoped it would appear at the hotel the next day.

Then we went and ate.  We were headed back to the hotel and just stopped when we found a place that had enough room for the eleven of us who were still in a group.  I think I had ravioli in a rose sauce.  It wasn't bad, wasn't awesome.  I think the restaurant has two menus depending on whether you're Italian or a tourist.  I'm informed that this is not an uncommon practice.

Back to the hotel to rest a bit... my photos stop after St. Peter's, so I can't say for sure what I did but after whatever I did (which may have been something as sacrilegious as watching TV), I decided I'd had enough Italian food and went in search of the mythical kebab shop near the Campo di Fiori.  I needed some cash too and unfortunately, found the food (after running into some cohorts who set me on the right track) before I found the bankomat but I found the latter and headed back to the former and bought a doner sandwich, two dolmas, and some rice pudding (to go).  Then, stopping at a nice-looking bakery, I grabbed six amaretti, wonderful little almond cookies that were crisp on the outside but soft and buttery on the inside, and a gelato which I think was mint and dark chocolate but I'm not sure and I didn't have my camera on me.  Then I went back to the hotel, eating the gelato, got up to my room and gave a cookie to my ailing roommate, and sat down to watch TV while eating my dinner.  Mom, it wasn't Anatolia, but it wasn't horrid... well, the rice pudding wasn't great, really but... anyway. That was the end of day three in Rome.

Rome Day Two

In an attempt to just get this written so that I'm up to date, I'm going to try to keep this brief.  I've been procrastinating writing for the past three days because it seems like I have a lot to catch up on so rather than agonize about it further, I'm going to take the Band-Aid removal technique into hand and just do it... fast. 

Last post I discussed Monday, our long first day in Rome next up is Tuesday the 8th, which was a half day.  We met in the lobby of Hotel Tiziano at 8:30 after satisfying our hunger at the hotel's ample buffet breakfast of cereals, fruits, ham, cheese, bread, a variety of pastries and beverages.  Not the best spread I've seen but certainly varied.

Our locations for the day were all on the south side of the Tiber river in the Trastevere area.  Before getting down there, though, we stopped a couple blocks away from the Campo di Fiori to look at the facade of a building and I discovered my first Roman film crew.  According to a guy wearing a vest emblazoned with something like Hollywood Special Effects team, it wasn't a film shoot, merely something for publicity but it looked like a lot of setup for a publicity op.  They even had one of the giant fill lights that look like orbs and are used to light up the park at night during ACL. 

The first real stop was Santa Maria in Trastevere which was the home of many beautiful mosaics by Pietro Cavallini.  The ceiling was not lit very well but with my 1.8 lens on a half second exposure I was able to see the actual brightness of the ceiling's gold leaf and the panels filled with pink, green, and blue.  There was also a really nice statue of St. Anthony of Padua with notes all over it containing, I'm guessing, prayers and requests to the saint.

After that, we went over, very briefly to San Crisogono, a small chapel with beautiful floors and a dead lady in a glass box, like Snow White but old.  I think we found out later that she'd died in the mid1800s and was beatified in 1920.  She had a small altar and while we were there, a priest was holding a mini mass for about eight people.  At first I thought it was a funeral so I thought it would be impolite to take photos.

The last stop that day was Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.  It's choir loft houses a beautiful Cavallini fresco of the Last Judgement but getting to it is a bit of a challenge.  It requires talking to the nuns who live there (under a vow of silence) and getting permission to go up, eight at a time in their little elevator to see it.  It was worth it, as it was very pretty and the view down into the main section of the church was nice.  They also sell beautiful cards and nice lavender soap (I think they make them themselves) so I bought a brick of the latter.  Even just sitting in my room it perfumes the air.  The photo is the ceiling in the church but I'm not sure who painted it.

That was it for the class stuff that day.  I joined Ann and her boys and Lawrence for lunch at a small place that Ann was familiar with from her previous trips in and it was very good.  After that we walked over to the hotel that Lawrence will be staying at when he returns to Rome with his wife so he could show us (Ann) one of his favorite restaurants.  It looks like a nice spot and it might be interesting to find again.  I don't remember what it's called but I think it's something like "The Cistern".

After that, we took the tram back to the hotel and, after sitting around contemplating what to do with myself for the rest of the day, I went off on my own to explore.  I ran into a tiny gelateria on a back street who knows where and grabbed my gelato for the day, lemon and frutti di bosco, I think... and wandered around taking photos down driveways and into courtyards.

I managed to find a couple of big things to cross off my list including the Trevi Fountain (which was swamped with people, mostly tourists, mostly eating the expensive gelato sold right in the square around the fountain).  I found this Japanese woman amazingly diverting, as she was wandering around with three cones (with mini cones on top) in her two hands, looking for her family so that they could claim them as their contents melted down to her hands as it was very hot that day.  It was a great place for people-watching.  People contorting themselves in odd positions to get the right photo, a priest in a long white robe carrying a backpack and roller blades, and kids, bored at looking at old stuff (I'm guessing here).  I found them all much more interesting than the fountain, but here's a photo of it for good measure.

My next goal was to find the Spanish steps as they're just a bit farther north than the fountain but I wasn't trying very hard to get there in a direct manner, mostly just wandering wherever it looked interesting to go.  As I was standing at a large intersection getting my bearings, I saw a parade of cars pass, the first of which was flying the Chinese flag.  I'm guessing the ambassador or something like that was headed off, followed by about 7-8 other cars.  I went off in the right direction and found myself going up a slight incline, waving at people I passed and  ran into one of the four or so Aveda salons in Rome... which is situated, interestingly enough, directly at the top of the Spanish steps themselves.  The steps were nice but I didn't find them nearly as nice as the steps in Paris up to the big cathedral where the scavenger hunt in Amelie was filmed, as they don't go up steeply enough to actually see the full flight of steps from the base.  To see them properly requires being on the 4th or 5th floor of the buildings facing them (I'm guessing, anyway).

I wasn't aware that the area around the Spanish Steps was the high-class shopping district in Rome or the home of the Plaza hotel... but it is.  I wandered around, window shopping and wishing I had the money for the beautiful jewels in the shops and telling myself that it didn't matter that I didn't have the money as I didn't have anything to wear them with.  Oh well.  Apparently the Cow Parade is in Rome... again (?).  I found two of them near the base of the Spanish Steps and a few others around later on, one of the ones near the steps was cloud patterned and had a swastika carved into it (by someone other than the original artist, I'm guessing).

As I wandered through the high-class shops, I ran into what appeared a retrospective of police vehicles in Italy including an old car, motorcycles, and even a new SWAT type van with one of the iRobot (makers of Roomba) bomb robot things.  It looked like they were preparing for a big event.

The shop windows and displays are beautiful in Rome, an art in themselves.  Ties are artistically curved to show off their sheen and patterns and placed with careful attention paid to color coordination with the others in the display.

I arrived at the area in front of (what I later learned to be) the Parliament building to see a small gathering of people waiting around a smaller group wearing all black with black and white patterned scarves around their necks and heads, with "PALESTINE" embroidered on them in red, green and black lettering.  I wasn't sure what was going on, but I felt it would be interesting to stay and watch and see what would happen.  

What ensued was a dynamic performance by fourteen men and women discussing the state of things in Palestine, individual stories of Palestinians, and occasional bursts of song.  It was performed primarily in Arabic and Italian and only occasionally in English but the performance was enough to understand the idea of the stories without necessarily comprehending the meaning of the words.

The performers were diverse, though most appeared to be in their twenties or thirties and they were lead by an older woman who spoke both Italian and English and (presumably) Arabic who spent much of the performance sitting in the audience, watching.  Each of the members played a role, speaking a story or translating it from Arabic to English or Italian.  The performance moved through a variety of emotions; sorrow, joy, despair, anger, betrayal, hatred, fear, hope and love.  

I sat through it all, taking over 200 photos of the performance.  At the end, they joyously paraded and danced around their "stage", hopeful for the future of Palestine and its people.  They ran through the audience handing out more of the scarves they wore.  I got one while I was looking through my images, placed over my shoulders by one of the performers with a thank you.

After that, I wandered back in the direction of the hotel, called Ann as she'd been talking about this restaurant that, for 15 euro, gives you a huge anti pasta selection she was planning to go to that night so I could find out where they were and if they were still going.  Some of the other students had been talking about going, so I thought there'd be more people.  Ann and her sons were waiting with Lawrence in the Piazza Navone for one of his old students to join them for dinner.  I found them there and, after waiting a bit longer, we headed for the restaurant without him.  It was tons of food but I didn't think it tasted nearly as good as what the huge tables of Italians around us were having smelled. Oh, and on the way to the Piazza Navone, I saw my second film crew for the day.

After that we went to my second gelato stop for the night, a small place near the Pantheon that had really good gelato.  I think I had strawberry and peach.  That's a guess.  Afterwards, I headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Rome Day One... Ups and Downs

Monday morning, early... to Rome... I had to schlep all my stuff down to the train station with everyone else and hop on the 7:57 train to Roma Termini.  It was a long ride on a full train and I spent it reading Last Watch.  Upon arrival, we headed for our four star hotel, the Hotel Tiziano to check in and leave our bags.  My first room, 204 was really nice... there were two full beds and one twin but the twin was tucked in its own little corner, away from the others, which I liked a lot... Unfortunately, it was not to last. 

Shortly after we arrived, we left again, as this was going to be a long day of touring the ancient sites of Rome, as we headed to the Campo di Fiori one of the girls asked if she could switch rooms with me so that she could be with the other people in my room... Since I really liked my spot and she didn't know what their room was like because it wasn't ready for them, I told her that I'd think about it, hoping to see it later on before I decided... more on that later...

This marks the beginning of about two hours that were just awful... after we got to the Campo di Fiori, Ann talked for a minute and, when she was done and people were headed off to get some food from the venders, I asked her if she knew where there was a cash machine and rather than simply saying something like, "Sorry, no.  Look around and I'm sure you'll find one." She responded in a voice that sounded, I thought, like she'd had enough of me and just wanted me to leave her alone and acted like I'd asked her something almost offensive... seeing as she's been in Rome dozens of times and I've never been, I thought it was a fair enough question to ask.  Apparently she didn't think that was the case. 

I spent the next twenty minutes walking around looking for one... in tears.  It really doesn't help that that would have been completely prevented if she'd given me the 90 euro I was supposed to have for our meal allowance in Rome, which I still haven't gotten and we only have one day left.  It also didn't help that I was starting to think this whole trip was a mistake.  I've never been good at joining groups, finding friends, and generally getting along with people.  Now I'm in a foreign country with no family, no friends, and no Andy, and, since I don't feel like any of the people on this trip care to spend time with me, no one but myself. 

I spend most of my free time alone, no one asks me to join them for dinner or to go somewhere unless I'm right next to them, no one calls me or texts me.  I've asked people to do stuff with me and it seems like they usually don't feel up for it, if they're already going and I ask to go along, I feel like I'm just a tag-along.  If I don't make the effort to be with people, I end up alone.  Maybe it's not a fair way to look at things, as there are people who seem to care, or act like they care, but it only lasts for short periods of time.  When I'm not around any more, it seems like I don't matter.

At the time, I'd not had anything to eat at all, so you can imagine that a lot of what I was feeling was due to my general grumpy-ness when I've got low blood sugar issues but sometimes I can't help feeling invisible even when I'm not hungry.  Usually I just deal with it and try to do something on my own as I generally find things better when I'm alone because I don't have to go at someone else's pace and I can do what I want to without worrying about what they want but I still feel lonely.

After finding a bancomat and a sandwich (and gelato, which I didn't take a photo of because I was still weepy and depressed, mango and fruits of the forest) the group was to meet at Largo Argentina, a collection of ruins only a couple blocks from our hotel.  Then we walked past more ruins towards the Piazza Campidoglio and Capitoline Hill which were designed by Michelangelo... I think.  I wasn't too interested in listening to Ann talk about it.

It wasn't until we started heading to the forum that someone asked me what was wrong and it was my roommate from Santa Chiara who is nice and she told me that a friend of hers had been on this trip in the past and has had similar experiences with Ann.  She also said that I could walk around with her, but apparently that offer was only limited to the next five minutes because it didn't last long.  Not to mention that, only that morning, she'd left me in the room to head off to the train station with another girl rather than waiting for me.  Maybe people just don't see what they do but there are definitely people who want to spend time together and do so, and I'm not one of the people that anyone picked.

Anyway, between her gracious offer to let me walk with her and Lawrence saying that no one could forget me after I said that I felt no one remembered I was around and that I felt invisible, I was able to cheer up enough to start taking pictures of the Roman Forum, our next stop.  It was big and full of broken marble stuff.  It seemed that other people were more impressed with it than I was but I've found that to be pretty par for the course when it comes to Rome.  

What I found to be the most interesting thing is that it was all under river silt for years after the area was flooded by the Tiber.  Even today people are working to excavate the forum ruins from the muck of thousands of years.  As we walked out of the forum proper area, we saw a crew of people working through a guard fence.

We headed off through the Arch of  Septimus Severus towards the Arch of Constantine which sits very near the Colosseum, our next big ancient site for the day.  It was big and a bunch of it was closed off because they're in the process of putting in a platform that puts visitors over the center area where there would have originally been a floor and allows them to get a better look down into the under area where the slaves and animals were kept. 

After that, we went past two tall memorial pillars with carved figures running in a spiral up them in a counter-clockwise direction on our way to the Pantheon, which is only a few blocks from our hotel.  It was an interesting building with a hole in the center to let in the rain, which seems silly.  I bet it looks really pretty in a rain storm, though.

Dinner out at a sort of mediocre place, pesto pasta and a pizza.  Afterwards we went to a giant book store just down the street from our hotel that Ann said had a nice sized selection of books in English, which was true.  Unfortunately, they were quite expensive.  I didn't get any as I'm still working on my last Watch book and I stole a copy of Sense and Sensibility from the book trade at Santa Chiara before we left for Rome.  After that we got gelato, this time I got a photo.  Dark chocolate and the fruits of the forest.

Headed back to the hotel for an early night after our long day walking around Rome.

Here at Last!

I have managed to actually arrive in Italy, find my fellows and get to our housing... without losing anything, missing any flights, trains, or stops or getting lost.  No sleep on the plane or train but a two hour nap after getting to the room helped me feel more real after all the travel.  It's just after 10 PM now and I can barely stay awake although tonight's dinner of spaghetti with a spicy tomato sauce and roasted turkey with some simple yet flavorful steamed spinach helped me feel more stable.  Dinner is served nightly at 7:30 PM and I hear rumors that they rarely repeat, so this should be a gastrointestinally pleasing six weeks.

The food on the plane wasn't worth discussing but at the Rome Termini train station I was happy to have a simple panini from a chain that was much more pleasing, with better ingredients, better than any sub shop in the states.  Prosciutto, mozzarella, lettuce, and tomato pressed inside a soft braided roll.

Our room isn't as cramped as you might expect, although the bathroom and shower stall are very tight.  I will say that we have a fabulous view.  Our windows look out over the center's plaza and out to the rolling hills beyond the city's football field.  I'll be sure to post some images when I feel more alive.

Today's flavor, from the local gelatteria, was half and half pineapple and strawberry.  Very fruity and refreshingly light after a long day and a half.