When in Rome: Day 5

Morning:
Kari headed out to see her brother (Jeff) and sister-in-law (Liza) again (remember, the whole Rome idea started with them). She went to the Coliseum and Forum for a second time (and was able to use Alicia’s information to guide them.)

Alicia, Cori and I went out for breakfast and H&M. It’s one of my favorite stores, and I really wanted to shop there.We found H&M, and a bunch of other stores. We bought things. (For the record I, Alicia, only bought a shirt and earrings)

Yes, I heart H&M.

I went into Levi’s to look for jeans, and for some reason got suckered into getting my “Curve IQ” done. What is a “Curve IQ”? I’m not really sure. This skinny stick of a girl measured me, and frowned a lot, and then told me I had “Bold Curves.”

Um, thank you. I think. I’d rather not think about what that means, actually.

Afternoon:
We headed back to our area to meet up with Kari and Jeff and Liza to go to the Vatican. Alicia and I got lunch at Subway. Have you ever ordered the Italian BMT sandwich at Subway (I don’t remember what the BMT stands for)—I always get that at Subway at home (by home, I mean the USA, not Senegal. I'm a confused TCK (Third Culture Kid), okay?). Well, in Italy, at Subway, it’s just a BMT. This answered the question I had been asking myself the whole trip: what do they call Italian Dressing in Italy? Dressing.

When we got back to the flat, we all changed into our new clothes. It’s nice to feel pretty, and not touristy. I regret wearing my black flats, though, and not my sensible sneakers for what was ahead of us.

Side Note: When we got back from Pompeii the night before, Kari told us about her day with Jeff and Liza. One thing she told us was that “Jeff is such a tourist: sneakers, backpack. He’s even wearing a fanny pack.” We have this long running joke about fanny packs, and had been discussing them the day before. Then she corrected herself: “Actually it’s not a fanny pack. It’s a Rick Steves money belt—that Liza got for him.”

Oh, yes. Jeff was sporting Rick Steves fashion accessories. It does not get any better than that. I think Alicia was jealous.

Kari and her family got back from their morning of tourism, and we all headed out to the Vatican Museum.


Our main aim was to see the Sistine Chapel, of course, but to see the Sistine Chapel, you have to see everything else. Everything else is an overwhelming amount of Famous Art.

We didn’t have to wait in line to get into the Vatican, which was a relief because Cori had been telling us about the long lines she waited in four years before. We just walked right in. I was disappointed, because we didn’t have to get our passports stamped (because the Vatican is a separate country from Italy—the smallest country in the world).

Star Trek Fans: Doesn't this look like a Borg Sphere? (You know you're a Trekkie when...you go to the Vatican and see Borg Spheres...)


We started walking down corridor after corridor filled with Famous Art. The popes of yesteryear lived opulently, and the Vatican Museum is the former palace of the popes. I don’t know how the current pope lives in terms of luxury, but in the past, the position of pope was more political than religious. Their living space reflects the power of Mother Church. The first corridor you encounter is a long hall of statues—hundreds of busts and full statues. We thought that the Sistine Chapel was the next exhibit, so we spent a lot of time in this corridor. Little did we know that there was a mile or more of walking to go. I’m not exaggerating: the full extent of the Vatican museum is over four miles long. We didn’t go into the Egyptian exhibit (I would have liked to see that, rather than the statues, but there was no way to know), but we saw most of the rest of the exhibits.

Hall of Statues. The tip of the Vatican iceberg.




After a while, it got overwhelming. It was crowded—it felt like being herded like cattle. Alicia at one point was being pushed along by man’s belly, which she found rather disconcerting. After every corridor, you thought you were surely almost to the Sistine Chapel—but you weren’t. We saw famous tapestries, famous frescos, famous sculptures, famous paintings—famous, famous stuff. Have you ever been a museum, and you know that what you’re looking at is probably really famous, and one day you’ll read about it, and feel like you’ve seen it before, but you didn’t know enough at the time to know if it was famous or not? That’s how the Vatican felt: famous, famous, famous till your eyes were crossing.

This is a ceiling. A ceiling! And not even the Sistine Chapel ceiling, either. Just a run-of-the-mill ceiling in the Vatican.


This is Famous. It changed Renaissance art forever and ever. Can you name this sculpture?


This is the renowned, School of Athens. I, Alicia, was particularly interested in seeing it because I studied it back in the day. Yes, I'm a nerd.


Finally, finally, finally, after walking for miles and after being overwhelmed, awed, and exhausted by marvelous art, we reached the Sistine Chapel.

It was worth it.

We don’t have any pictures of the Sistine Chapel, because you aren’t allowed to take pictures (even though other, naughty people did). The museum personnel who monitor the Sistine Chapel kept repeating in a piercing, nasal monotone that cut through the majesty and sacredness of the room with: “No photos, please. No photos, please. No talking, please. No talking, please.”

I can’t describe the Sistine Chapel to my satisfaction or yours. It’s incredible. It’s everything that they say that it is. It’s more than they say that it is. I wanted to lie down on the floor and gaze up at each and every intricate, detailed, phenomenal part of the fresco. I'm pretty sure the guards would have yelled at me, so I didn't.

Eventually, we had to go back into the real world. (In the process of re-entering reality, the six of us managed to get almost entirely separated from each other--Alicia stayed behind to listen to the (Rick Steves) audio tour on her iPod, and somehow ended up outside before the rest of us found our way out--but we all finally stumbled out of the entrance, blinking into the ordinary sunshine of an ordinary Saturday afternoon in Roma).

After miles of Famous Art, and after the Sistine Chapel, we were tired. Cori, Kari, and Liza decided that they have Art ADD. We all wished that the Sistine Chapel could be at the beginning of the tour, not the end—because by the time you get there, your mind is full-to-the-brim with incredible Art, and almost can’t handle one more piece—no matter how majestic the Sistine Chapel is.

Kari, Jeff and Liza headed out again to do more tourism, and we arranged to all meet at a restaurant called Ivo’s for dinner. Cori, Alicia and I went back to the flat, physically and mentally exhausted, and rested till we went out for dinner.

Evening:
As usual, it took us a while to figure out how to get where we were going. We eventually worked it out after extensive map-checking and cross-referencing with the internet and Rick Steves. We had to take a bus from Termini station to the restaurant, and half of Rome got on the bus with us, which, as you can imagine, was an extraordinarily uncomfortable and unpleasant experience.

We found the restaurant, and enjoyed a pleasant evening with Kari’s relatives, getting to know them a little better and telling them about our lives in Senegal. We ate outside, and since it’s a popular restaurant (and we’d gotten there unfashionably early) the people who arrived after us lined up against the wall and watched us eat.

Alicia was sitting on the end of the table, and got the brunt of the passersby and the envy of the waiting, hungry customers. At one point, a man walked past her, and sneezed on her shoulder. Then, a family began waiting for a table, and leaned against the wall across from our table. They had a cute little boy—probably about two years old, and he had a helium balloon. After a few minutes of waiting and squirming, the cute little boy walked up to Alicia and bopped her with the balloon, which she didn’t appreciate (I think she was as offended with the balloon bop as the sneeze).

In Rome, there are a lot of street vendors, just like in Africa. When you eat outside, the street vendors come to you. So, we were sitting there eating and minding our own business and the onlookers when one of the vendors approached us, selling roses. I’ve lived in Africa most of my life, so I just ignore people very well; however, Liza, Kari’s sister-in-law, wasn’t ready to ignore the guy, or let him off the hook for interrupting our dinner. She began to question him in English about his job, but he didn’t speak English. He just had a strange and almost creepy smile on his face. He held a large long stemmed rose in one hand, and, never taking his eyes off of Liza’s face, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a giant lighter, about the size of a small paperback novel, which he proceeded to light up for us. It also had a flashlight, which he shined on our table. We waved him and his giant lighter away. Instead of leaving, he put the lighter down on the table. Again, without taking his eyes off of Liza, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a handful of smaller lighters, which he waved under our noses. Laughing, we finally waved him away and resumed our dinner.

A strange phenomenon happened at the end of this dinner: Cori didn’t finish her dinner—again. Cori always finishes her dinner. We were not sure what Italy was doing to her appetite. She didn’t even take it home with her to finish later. This is so rare an occurrence that it was quite necessary to include it in the group journal.

Of course, we had to wait for the bus—again. We really had become resigned to waiting for buses—what else could we do? We were simply catching the same exact bus back to Termini, to take another bus home—and we even knew which bus to take from Termini. (Incidentally, I should add that we discovered the night before, coming home after Pompeii, that the bus we had to take from Termini went right past the bus stops we had lingered by on the first night--remember the Opera Singer and One One Six? So, either we weren’t asking the right question, or the bus drivers were lying to us have a little fun. They were probably in cahoots with the fake priest.) We waited, and we waited, and we waited—buses came and went, very few people got on and off, and the crowd at the bus stop grew larger and larger. After waiting over thirty minutes, our bus came at last, and far more people than should ever cram onto a bus crammed onto the bus.

We were so tightly packed that Alicia, Kari and I (Cori somehow got separated from us and was pushed towards the front of the bus) were standing in the back of the bus with no access to handholds, but it didn’t matter—when we tilted, everyone tilted, and everyone just held each other up. There was no space to fall—we were pressed up against each other and total strangers. In between Kari and I there was a very tall man—our heads came up to his lower chest. At one point, the bus turned violently (because Roman bus drivers care nothing for their shocks or their passengers), and the man accidentally lost his grip and brought his elbow down on Kari’s head. When he realized what he had done, he patted her on the head like she was a little girl and apologized in Italian and English.

Up next on Day 6: we decided that we would undertake a rare and nearly-impossible undertaking: we would walk around an entire country.