Ron: Yes? Go on.
Veronica: Uh… Do as the Romans do?
Ron: I don’t get it.
- Anchorman
April 1-5I know this will surprise you, but I stayed up all night before Rome. I was on the first flight to Rome on Thursday morning (classes were cancelled) at 6:15 am with my friends Jerry, Isaac and Tess. So I caught a 2 am coach (not bus) from Victoria to Stansted.
In case you didn’t know, a bus is red, has two levels and you ride it around the city. A coach is what us silly Americans would call a charter bus. You can book a seat on one for longer journeys. We rode one to Manchester.
Anyways, I was worried there would be sketchy people around that late (early?), but everyone waiting for the coach seemed surprisingly normal, for Europe anyways. The airport was another story. A lot more people than I thought were spending the night in the airport. And there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge anywhere. No employees of the airport as far as I could see. It was a little sketch, but don’t worry, Mom, I know better than to talk to strangers.
We waited around for the RyanIHateThoseGuysAir
desk to open and then waited around in the line and then waited around for them to announce our gate. I’m sure you’re excited to be reading about all the waiting involved in travel. You know how it works – hurry up and wait.So we’ll skip to me arriving at my hostel. Because the directions were written by an Italian woman, I’m sure, it was nearly impossible to find the place. And I’m not even being sexist here, it was a women-only hostel! But I got there eventually. I had planned on going to mass at 5, but (this will surprise you, Mom) I fell asleep. And slept for like 5 hours.
Since this was a clear sign from God that He didn’t want me to go to mass, I decided to do some exploring. I wandered around, bought some food, avoided eye contact with boys (get ready for the rant later), etc. Finally, I wandered into a cute little piazza, bought my first gelato of the trip and sat on a fountain to eat it and watch the people. Little did I know I was in Il Campo dei Fiori, but whatever.
The next day I was up crazy early to go see the Vatican Museum with Coleen. Apparently, there was a limited number of spaces for the group tour. No one had bothered to inform anyone, I guess, because several people (myself and Coleen included) found out about a week before the trip that they tour after all. I’m totally not annoyed by the complete lack of organization, can you tell?
Well, I feel like Coleen and I got the last laugh because I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s much more fun to wander museums at your own pace than to be part of a tour. I didn’t care too much for the weather, it was a little chilly and damp, but I met Coleen bright, early and slightly late in St. Peter’s Square. We wandered around for a bit, and then finally figured out that to get to the museum you needed to go outside the city walls.
First Moral Victory of the Morning: Walking past everyone in line because Coleen had been smart enough to book our tickets in advance on the Internets.
Second Moral Victory of the Morning: Only paying for one audio guide and sharing it.
The museum was pretty much overwhelming. They had EVERYTHING EVER. Seriously. I can’t begin to describe it here and won’t try. Only regret? Spending too much time in the Egyptian exhibits at the beginning so we didn’t have time to see everything at the end. I think we spent about 4 hours in there, which is a lot of time to spend in a museum, but I felt rushed the whole time and STILL didn’t get to see everything. The Sistine Chapel was amazing, beautiful, breathtaking, etc etc, but I was most impressed by the distinct lack of respect for authority displayed by almost everyone there.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Italian people. You have to admit, they’ve got style. And the fact that half the population is willing to shamelessly hit on me doesn’t hurt my opinion of them either, but it was kinda a shock to go from London, where waiting in queues is a beloved national pastime and the atmosphere in the tube makes the library basement during finals week sound like a kegger, to Rome, where there was no semblance of order. I had nuns cut me in line. NUNS! Does the holiness of being a nun cancel out the grave mortal sin of cutting in line?? I’m not sure yet, but I think I’m taking a theology course on it for my minor. I’ll let you know.
Anyways, the museum rocked. After that we hopped on a city bus to get over to the Basilica of St. John Lateran. On the bus, I totally painted my nails. That’s me, doing my part to help America overcome stereotypes by behaving on city transport. Actually speaking of city transport… No, nevermind, I’m getting ahead of myself.
So we make it over to St. John Lateran in record time (for a people with a complete disregard for order, the busses are surprisingly easy). We got there so speedy quick, in fact, that we had time to go get lunch. This was probably the first incident in Rome that left a bad taste in my mouth. The guy we bought our sandwiches from wouldn’t let me practice my Italian. I mean, I took two semesters (due semester, BOOM, roasted.), but as soon as I started speaking he just cut me off in English. He actually did it to Coleen first, which made me sad because I think she was excited to use the phrases she’d picked up on spring break/taught herself. Stupid jerks in Rome.
Anyways, I forgot it was Friday and got a sandwich with meat. Okay, it was Good Friday, I was in Rome and about to go see relics of the crucifixion and I still forgot. Whoops. Anyways, for the first time in a while I was reunited with all my London friends. Thank goodness, you know us London Programme kids can’t handle being in a foreign country without 130 other ND kids. Naturally, I got separated from the group, but Coleen managed to give me directions over the phone and I found everyone again. We stood in line at Santa Croce en Gerusalemme to see the Passion Relics (according to Wikipedia these are “a part of the Elogium or Titulus Crucis, i.e. the panel which was hung on Christ's Cross; two thorns of the crown; an incomplete nail; and three small wooden pieces of the True Cross itself.”), but right before we were getting to the chapel, they told us that they needed to take the relics for… something to do with Holy Week. I was under the impression they were needed for the stations of the cross, but I never saw them there.
Don’t worry though; this is Italy. Rather than kicking all of us out, they let us all file through very quickly. Jog might be a better word than file. After we all collected back out in front of the church, we walked back the direction we’d come from to the Holy Steps, or Scala Santa. These are supposedly the stairs that Jesus took to be condemned at trail. The original steps are covered, but there are windows where there is supposed to be blood on the stairs.
We waited in the queue out in the sun for some time and a priest came out to warn us about pickpockets. Climbing the steps was actually awesome. Everyone crawls up them on their knees. Maybe it was because it was Holy Friday, but the place was packed. It took quite some time to make it up the stairs, but it was great. I mean, don’t get me wrong; it hurt. I actually had bruises on my knees for a few days. But it’s pretty hard to be concerned about sore knees when you think about the Passion. We actually climbed the stairs at about the same time Jesus would have, which is awesome if you think about it.
Anyways, I made it to the top, and it was such a good feeling I immediately wanted to do it again, but the line was crazy. I tried to find a priest who spoke English to make a confession, but didn’t have any luck. So I went to an early dinner (gelato) with some friends and then bussed back over to my side of town. I wanted to find a converter because my phone was quickly dying. So after some shopping and a change of wardrobe, I hopped right back on the bus and went over the Coliseum. There were a LOT of people there and I was a little concerned I wouldn’t be able to find the ND group, but I spotted them right away.
We pushed our way close the spot where the Il Papa would be and waited. And waited. I was so happy I’d thought to bring a snack and some water with me. My bag started to get heavy after a while, so my friend Joey, being a gentleman and knowing that the pattern matched his shirt, offered to hold it for a while. Until I made fun of him too much and he gave it back. Anyways, eventually they got around to the stations of the cross, which was in Latin, naturally. After, everyone chanted “Viva Il Papa” and “Benedetto” for a while then we peaced out. I was excited to see the pope, but he was so far away and up on a hill so I couldn’t really see anything.
The next day all the losers, I mean, other kids, had their Vatican tour, so I explored the city on my own. I spent some time in Piazza Navona, which was pretty sweet. The space used to be a Roman stadium and the modern piazza follows the same shape. One of the fountains there is the Fontana del Quattro Fiumi, or Fountain of Four Rivers, by Gian Lorenzo. I can remember learning about it in the art history class I took freshman year. The difference between pictures on slides in a dark room and the real thing is overwhelming. I can remember being amazed that my professor had seen so many of the works we studied and thinking I probably wouldn’t get to see them for a long time, if ever.
That afternoon we met at the Pantheon for a tour of local churches of interest. Coleen and Shannon (the girl I threw in the Parisian dirt on spring break) were there too, and we made it there a little early, so we decided gelato and some quick shopping was in order.
Coleen made the gelato run and Shannon and I started wandering looking for cheap sunglasses. It never ceases to amaze me that the sketchy guys with sunglasses are everywhere when you don’t need them, but then magically disappear when the sun is glaring and your old sunglasses that Peter irrationally hated finally fell apart. We wandered through a few tourist shops before we found one with sunglasses and I managed to find an obnoxiously large but lovely pair for the low, low price of only €5!
By the time we had both picked out occhiali da sole and made it back to where the group had been, they were gone, of course. But, as usual, Coleen saved the day by giving us directions. The first church we went to, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, had a fun statue of an elephant out front. “Sopra” means above and I was unnecessarily excited to see this church because I had learned about it in my theology class in the fall. Back in the day, when Christianity suddenly became cool, the ever resourceful Romans had been like, hey, we have all these temples for Minerva just sitting here gathering dust, let’s build churches for our awesome new female deities on top. No joke, that’s exactly what they said.
The church was pretty cool, it had the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena and Fra Angelico. Well, it had most of St. Catherine of Siena. Those damn Sienese stole her head and smuggled it out of Rome. We next went over to Chiesa del Gesù, which is the mother church for the Jesuits. The right arm of Saint Francis Xavier, sometimes called “the hand that baptized a million,” was there, which was cool, but it wasn’t incorruptible, so that was… interesting.
Then we meandered over to Sant’Andrea delle Valle (St. Andrew in the Valley), which is allegedly built on the site of the house of the woman who nursed St. Sebastian back to health after the tried to martyr him the first time. Unfortunately, the front of the church was covered in scaffolding, so that was lame, but it was still pretty cool. We also had to run across like 5 lanes of traffic to get there. Also cool.
The last church we went to was Sant'Agnese in Agone, which I had actually already seen because it’s in Piazza Navona. The church was nice, but there were strictly no photos allowed. And since this wasn’t France, I thought they probably meant it. St. Agnes in Agony concluded our tour, so I got some gelato with friends and called it a night.
The next morning was typically beautiful and sunny, like it always is in Italy. Just kidding, it was raining and cold. Since I had packed for Italy in the spring, I wasn’t really prepared. My Easter outfit ended up consisting of a black skirt, black hose, black flats, and green sweater and a pink, kinda-sorta-waterproof raincoat. It was interesting. I was up bright and early and actually got
there on time (I’m shocked too, Mom). I got confused and somehow made it through security and into a folding chair without a ticket (Italians are big on security?) before I realized the rest of the Notre Dame group was still outside St. Peter’s, so I went and got my apparently useless ticket and found seats with some friends. Because there were so many people there, mass was outside in the square. And it rained. And rained. And we waited and waited. Don’t worry, there were plenty of cute Swiss Guards to keep us occupied.Mass was good, I suppose, or would have been if I could hear anything and had any idea what was going on. And you probably think, that since there were so many people, they had a plan for communion. Nope. It was chaos. I had to elbow a lady in the face to get to a priest. Not really.
After mass I changed into some drier/warmer clothes and then met everyone for lunch (the prices were higher on the English menu) and then went to the BEST gelato place. I mean, by the end of this vacation, I was pretty much an expert on gelato and this place was everything I look for: cheap and delicious. I actually ate one triple scoop and immediately went back and got another. I think you called me in the middle of that, Mom.
After that, I went and checked out Joey and Anne’s hostel, and then...
Actually, this is the perfect time for my rant about Italian men. On the way to Joey and Anne's I took the bus by myself. By now, I was getting pretty fed up with creepy guys on the street, so I was pretty worried when I bumped into a guy on the super crowded bus. I reflexively muttered "I'm sorry" in Italian and he said something back in Italian, so I thought, "Score!" and said, "Mi dispiace, non parlo italiano," which means "I'm sorry, I don't speak Italian." Unfortunately, he answered in perfect English. Damn. He just said, "Oh, I said, 'Don't worry; it's not your fault.'" Then he went back to minding his business. A few minutes later, just when I was beginnning to think there was at least one non-creepy guy in Rome, he said "So, you're from America?" Damn, damn, damn. I was supposed to get off at Termini and walk a few blocks, but I (wisely) decided to just go in the nice, crowded station. He followed me in, asking my name and asking me to go to Bologna with him. When I turned him down, he said, "Ah, but I have fallen in love!" I just kept saying, "No." and "Mi dispiace." and he kept following me, but I finally communicated that I would not be going with him anywhere, now or ever and I had no interest in him, and escaped into a bookstore and waited for him to leave. I had to get pretty short with him before he left me alone. Ugh. Men.
I mean, there are nice, polite men in Italy, I'm sure, but I certainly didn't meet any in Rome. Walking to the supermarket, buying some gelato, riding the bus, I couldn't do anything without getting hit on. Which only bothered me sometimes.
Anyways.
...and then Joey and I went to dinner. I can’t remember the name of the place or even where it really was, but the salads and the food was all so delicious. Afterwards, Joey, Anne and I toured Rome on the city busses at night. It was so college. I recommend doing it if you're ever in Rome at night and out of spending money. They never check tickets on buses, so we hopped on and hopped off whenever we saw something good. The monuments all look so beautiful lit up at night. We bought a cheap (but good) bottle of wine, sunk the cork with a chapstick and drank it on the way to Il Campo dei Fiori (where I had been earlier in the week) and met some friends.
The next morning I woke up early and flew back to foggy London. I knew it would be last time I flew RyanAir, but I didn’t know it would be the last trip I took that semester. But that story comes later…
Mom, I didn’t talk to strangers in Rome, but the strangers talked to me!
