Fall Break- Rome

On Thursday morning we went over to the train station around 8 to catch our train to Rome. The ride was only about 45 minutes and relatively uneventful, unless you count Alex getting on the completely wrong train… It’s alright, somehow he ended up in Rome 10 minutes after we did. So we go down to the metro to head over to our hostel, but for some reason it’s packed. Can’t turn around in one spot without getting pushed in some direction by mobs of people packed. This was, of course, not actually IN the metro, but on the platform thing that you wait at before getting on. I was afraid people were going to accidentally push people onto the tracks…

The mobs were composed of a lot of kids- anywhere from elementary to university age, and some older adults carrying flags and whistles. Everyone was singing and yelling, and some people had drums and were banging them, and there was just a lot of noise in general. 2 metro train things had to go by before we finally got on, and even then, we were still smashed up next to people with our suitcases. Since there were so many people around, we decided to pretend to be Spanish.

The metro cleared out pretty quick, and we noticed this group of 3ish Italian guys across from us. I’ve never actually heard Italian being spoken before, so I didn’t know how easy it is to understand when you’re paying attention… well they were trying to guess where we were from, since it was obviously from the suitcases that we were foreigners. They decided we were Spanish, and one of them finally asked Lindsey if we were Italian. When she told them that we were American, they were really surprised, and started yelling things in English- “I love you!” and “50 cent!” It was just gratifying to be able to pass as Spanish… At the hostel (really a camping ground- Camping Village Roma), we checked in, grabbed lunch, and went back into town.

The metro was again still packed- at lunch we had seen the news and learned that the tons of people we saw we actually protesters- the Italian government was considering privatizing their entire educational system, so teachers all across the city had taken their students out of class (they were supposed to have school that day), and took them downtown to several plazas and the middle of the city to protest. I guess the whistles and flags were to make sure that all the classes stayed together. Anyways, there were so many people that the Italian government actually closed a few metro stations in order to stop more protesters from showing up there. There were police all over the place and the Italian version of the Green Berets running around.

We wandered around once we got off the metro, and eventually found our way to the Trevi Fountain. I threw in a coin- so I’ll go back someday! Of course, I’ll probably be 80 by the time I can travel again, but whatever. From there we went up the Spanish Steps, walked an obelisk with hieroglyphics on it, passed by the Column of Traja (which we couldn’t get near, because the green beret guys had blocked that plaza off), and ended at the Pantheon. It actually just started to pour as we walked into the Pantheon, so we had pretty good timing. You could see the rain coming through the big hole in the ceiling, and they had the area right under the hole roped off, where the rain was getting all over the marble floors. It was pretty cool looking.

We kept walking and passed by the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and by that time it had cleared up a little bit, so we weren’t getting as wet. We passed by the Roman Forum and the Arch of Constantine to get to the Capitoline Museum. The Capitoline Museum was all statues, so there were lots of old Roman and Greek busts, huge statues of Athena and Apollo, giant feet and hands that had broken off of larger stuff, and the bronze statue of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf was there. Do you know how old that thing is? It’s from like the 5th century B.C!! OLD. Lindsey and I took some awkward pictures next to it…

After the museum we found an out of the way restaurant, with great food, and the most hilarious waiter. It was this old guy, with this giant white beard, who was trying to teach us words in Italian. He actually spoke Spanish, so we just ordered that way. The entire week actually, in both Switzerland and Italy I was kind of surprised to find that our Spanish was usually just as useful as English, if not more so. After the restaurant there was a hookah bar just a few doors down, so we chilled on the pillows there and got desert. Mmm, baklava…

Around 11:15 ish we started walking toward the metro, which was really far away, hoping to catch it before they closed. On the way there some people at the front walked really fast, and ended up getting separated from the slowpokes in the back (me, Grant, Lindsey). Of course, I was the only person with a working phone, and when we got to the metro, it was not only closed (at like 11:45), but the rest of our group was nowhere to be seen. Lovely. We just grabbed a taxi, and hoped that they had either made the metro before it closed, or would think to get a taxi too. Of course, it would have been easier if someone other than me had brought a phone…

Back at the hostel we had to wait around for them to get back, since my stuff was in one of their tents: since there were 7 of us, and the tents were 3-person occupancy, one of us was the odd man out, and might be sleeping with random strangers. That person was me. I had put my stuff in one of our other tents just so no one else could get to them. It was colder than I thought it would be that night, since it had been raining all day, so sleeping was not really that fun…

The next day we got up really early, grabbed breakfast, and went over to the Vatican, since we had heard a lot about the terrible terrible lines that are there. When we got there around 9 there were enough people, but not enough to be forming a real sort of a line, so we went to the Vatican Museum first. The museum is pretty much just a walk through the different rooms and hallways of the Vatican… except it feels like a museum, because every tiny surface, the ceilings and the walls and the floor are covered in such exquisite detail that I can’t imagine anyone actually living here. Of everywhere I have been so far, there has been nothing so rich as the Vatican.

You walk through the different hallways, with their gold encrusted walls, 20 by 20 feet paintings, and rooms down completely by Raphael, and you can sort of see how some rooms have ropes at the entrances for when it’s so completely packed that they have to move people through like cattle. It wasn’t like that for us, and we got to the Sistine Chapel on our own time, not being slowed down by people in font, or pushed by people behind.

We stepped into the Sistine Chapel, and to be honest, I was kind of surprised by how small it was. I guess I have been so used to all of the Gothic style churches, with their huge windows and giant doors that I expected something like that. It was about the size of my church at home, a little bit longer lengthwise though, and obviously way more elegant. The thing that was to be impressed by was that ever surface, on the walls and the ceiling, every single little surface was covered by the originals done by Michelangelo and Botticelli, among others. Also the way that Michelangelo had to get the proportions right on the curved ceiling in order for them to look normal from the floor was amazing for his time.

From there we went back outside to go to St. Peters Basilica, but by that time- around 12- there were so many people that there was a big line. There was also a huge line for the museum; while we got to walk how we wanted, the people in line were going to be in line throughout the whole museum, and some of them were stretched out the door, and around the wall encircling the Vatican itself.
Afterwards we jumped onto the metro and went to the Coliseum. We were lucky again to miss the worst of the lines, and were able to wander around pretty easily. It was actually really pretty- you could see though the main playing arena, to where the animals and the gladiators used to be held, and it now had grass growing in the different cells- it was actually very pretty. Right across from the Coliseum were Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, with lots of ruins that we walked around. There were a few different temples, the ruins of the emperor’s residence, and the Stadium of Domitian. The stadium was my favorite.

We grabbed dinner somewhere, walked around some plaza that is good for nightlife to see everyone in their Halloween costumes, and went back to the hostel. The journey back to the hostel was not cool, since once we got to the metro, the bus running back and forth from our metro stop to the camping place was no longer running, so we had to walk like a mile in the rain, past some hookers… you know… And then in my tent there was this random guy sleeping when I got in there, so I had Lindsey sleep in the other bed just in case.

The next morning we got up early, packed our stuff, and headed over to the Vatican to see St. Peter’s Basilica. Someone needed to stay outside with bags, and my feet were killing me, so I just sat out and read. It had finally gotten nice out, and there was a marathon going on, and it was just good to have some alone time. 7 forms of transportation and about just as many hours later, I was back in Barcelona, and exhausted.

The end!