Strange Things About Europe, Volume 9
1) In general, Europeans really like Americans.
2) In general, Europeans really hate the American government.
This was a weekend to remember, for a number of reasons. Rome was amazing. I will have stories to tell people from this weekend for the rest of my life.
Friday morning at the crack of dawn I was up and ready to go to Rome. We took a bus there which took 3 1/2 hours. That was probably the only rotten part of the trip. I tuned out the rest of the world with my music for most of the trip, but my legs were crammed behind the seat in front of me.
Our hotel should have been really nice. It was a four star hotel (the one in Florence is a three star), but Paulo and I were put in the old wing. Our room was a piece of junk, but at least it had comfortable beds and working air conditioning.
We had made good time on the trip there, so we had 2 1/2 hours do whatever we wanted. So Paulo and I decided to wander around Rome for a while. We had been given maps on the bus, so we felt pretty confident. We found the Trevi Fountain, among other things, on our walk. I did the whole throw the coin over the shoulder and make a wish thing. Then we came to a large piazza with a ton of Carbinieri (basically the National Guard of Italy). We had seen a lot of police around because of Bush’s visit to Rome that weekend, not to mention helicopters in the air, but this was incredible. There must have been nearly 100 officers, fully armed and with shields, just hanging out there. Paulo and I thought that might mean the President would come through that intersection. So we decided to hang out there for a while. Well, to make a long story short, he never came. We did see a small protest group pass by, but that was it. After getting a quick lunch we rejoined the group at the hotel.
It’s hard to put into words just how incredible Rome is. And it really hasn’t sunk in that I’ve now see and been in the Forum, the Coliseum, and the Pantheon. It’s so ancient, but it amazes me at just how much they knew and were able to make and create. The Forum and the Coliseum reminded me of the FSU campus. No, hear me out! They’re right next to each other. As we were walking from the one to the other it felt like walking from Salley to Doak for football games. Speaking of Doak, it’s a lot bigger than the Coliseum. I knew that going in, but I guess I just didn’t realize how much smaller until I had seen and been in it. The Coliseum held about 50,000 back in the day. Doak holds about 80,000. Plus since the Coliseum doesn’t actually have seats anymore (they had been made out of marble and over the centuries that marble has been stolen) it’s hard to get a feel for how many people can be packed into it. But make no mistake, the Coliseum is way cooler than Doak. The fact that the Romans could build it without cranes or any other heavy machinery is unbelievable. That line from Gladiator was going through my head: “I didn’t know man could build such things…”
Now there was a bit of excitement that occurred between the Coliseum and the Pantheon. As I’ve mentioned in past posts, President Bush was in Rome the same weekend as us. This meant anti-Bush and anti-American protests. Well, in order to get from the Coliseum to the Pantheon we had to cross the main protest. It was miles long and had hundreds of people marching in it. Dr. Carribino stopped to let us take pictures of it. We were given handouts and other things from the protectors. It was actually quite a sight. The only thing that kind of pissed me off was seeing the American flag with a Nazi swastika spray painted on it. I don’t care what kind of a message you think you’re sending, that’s not a symbol that should be tossed around lightly.
We stopped to take a look at Trajan’s Column before heading on to the Pantheon. As we’re standing up, looking for which way to go next (this was not the normal route that past FSU groups had taken, so we had to get our bearings), we see a flood of people running towards us. I run up some steps to get a better look; most of our group just ran with the approaching crowd, thinking the worst. I wanted to see if they were running from something or running to something before I decided where to go. As I’m looking I hear explosions. I found out later that it was probably nothing more than fire crackers or smoke bombs. At the time I’m thinking pipe bomb, 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, projectile nails. Now I’m on auto-pilot. I take off running for the nearest alley. Fortunately the nearest alley to me was also the nearest alley to the rest of the group, so I didn’t get separated. A lot of people were seriously freaking out. I admit that I was pretty scared. I did my best to try to calm some people down, but I’m not sure it did much good.
But the show must go on, I guess. We continued on our tour to the Pantheon, though I have to admit it was hard to keep my attention on things after that. Which is sad because it turns out that my favorite part of Rome was the Pantheon. How is that thing still in one piece? How is the roof made out of only one piece of concrete? It’s absolutely stunning inside, as if the architecture of it weren’t enough. Rafael’s tomb, among other things, are in there. By night it was a stunning sight. They say they hold concerts in there every now and then. I want to go to one so bad. I want to hear the acoustics of that building. It was lightly raining when we went there, and the the sight of the rain coming through the hole in the roof was pretty amazing.
That was the end of the FSU tour, but Paulo and I wanted to go see the Spanish steps. As we were walking there we see a pro-American group set up in a piazza. Finally, someone who likes us! The Spanish steps gave us a great view of the city. Paulo thought he knew a shortcut back to the hotel. He didn’t. Admittedly, it was because one of the streets we needed to take was closed due to construction, but it ended up taking us much longer to get back.
We got back at about 7 PM. We needed to be down in the lobby to meet for the group meal at 7:45. I crashed into bed and let Paulo take the first shower. Evidently he tried to wake me up a couple of times, but he didn’t succeed until 7:40. So I had 5 minutes to take a shower, get dressed, and get downstairs. It took me 10 minutes, but the group waited for me. Serves them right if you ask me. I’ve been waiting for those girls this whole trip; it’s about time they had to wait for me.
Dinner was decent. Nothing too special. Good company though. I’ve been having a lot of fun with my crew. Our crew was missing two this trip though (Brooke was in Sicily because she had already been to Rome and Chelsea was in Florence with her boyfriend who flew in from the States on Friday). I started out on this trip not liking the two hour meals; now I look forward to them every day.
Dr. Carribino took about 12 or so of us out around Rome at night after dinner. He took us to Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Even though they were repeats for me I still thought it was cool because everything looks better at night. As I was climbing the Spanish Steps with Laura and Salita this dude comes out of nowhere with his hands in the air and his eyes bulging out of his head. I talking like an inch out of his head. It was gross. Salita screamed. We ran past him. This guy who was selling roses saw it and laughed, then gave them both a rose to try to cheer them up.
I slept really well that night. I was so tired from walking around and running from bombs and crazy people.
Saturday was spent in the Vatican Museum, which included the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. First of all, the line just to have the privilege to get into the city took us an hour to get through. Then we took a look at about 10% of what was in the Vatican Museum. Who picked what we saw? Why, Mrs. Duckworth of course. Ugh. I’m so sick of her. I just wish they gave us maps and a time and place to meet back. But no, we looked at really random stuff that she wanted to look at. We completely skipped a lot of the rooms.
But when we got to the Sistine Chapel I was blown away. Not at first though, because I really didn’t think I was in the chapel yet. I always see pictures of the chapel before the restoration, when everything looks a little yellow, and when it’s illuminated very well with lights. When I went it had been restored gloriously but was only lit by the sunlight coming through. Once I started to look around I was astounded. It’s incredible that anyone could create that. Michelangelo was an incredible talent, and a believer on top of that. He’s slowly becoming my favorite artist, now that I know a little bit about art. I loved the fact that Mrs. Duckworth wasn’t allowed to lecture in there and we could just enjoy it.
St. Peter’s Basilica is huge! It’s the biggest church in the world (though it’s about to be second biggest, as soon as that church in Africa beats it out). It’s cool that they have written on the ground where the other big churches of the world would end if they were placed inside of St. Peter’s. The second biggest is in London, so I think I’ll visit it when I go next weekend. There are many relics in that church, including a piece of the true cross and the head of St. Andrew. I’m not sure that I believe the relics are authentic (I know I don’t believe they should be given the amount of importance they are given), but just the fact that they’ve got some dude’s head in their church is a little creepy.
After a break for lunch we went back to the bus to see a couple of things in Rome that were a little off the beaten path. First we went to Ardeatine caves, where a massacre occurred during WWII. The story goes that a group called the Partissans killed 33 German soldiers. Hitler was furious, and said that with 24 hours 10 people would be killed for every German killed (so 330 people). The German soldiers rounded up Jews and people in prison first, then took males from households suspected of being Partissans. They took them to these caves that were outside of Rome. They were bound, made the kneel, and shot in the back of the head. They were then thrown into the cave. Many of them did not die instantly. They found that they had miscounted and had actually gathered 335 people. They decided they couldn’t just release the other 5, since they had seen everything they had done, so they killed them as well. There was only one witness: a farmer from a nearby farm saw the whole thing. The cave was sealed with dynamite. After Italy was freed by Allied forces the cave was opened and the people were given a proper burial. Today it is a monument. On Friday, President Bush had been there as part of the D-Day commemorations. We actually saw where he signed his name in the the visitors’ book.
The last thing we saw in Rome were the St. Domitilla Catacombs. These were basically underground graves for Christians in 100-300 A.D. I really wasn’t that impressed. There was a really old fresco painting down there, but our guide didn’t tell us much about it. I don’t know, I was expecting more personally. I just seemed like a hole in the ground with holes in the sides of the walls.
The trip back home was no more fun than the one there. I fell asleep for most of it. Jessica fell asleep on me. We got back to the hotel at around 9 PM. I ordered some dinner from the Pizza Taxi (not too good, but what can you do) and went to my room to watch CNN. That’s when I saw that former President Reagan had died. I was filled with mixed emotions about this. I was sad that he died, but I was glad that his family’s suffering was over. I was glad his own physical suffering was over, but I don’t know if was a believer, so his suffering might not be over for all I know. Most Presidents are Protestant though, so hopefully somewhere along the way he made a legitimate decision for the Lord.
I stayed up king of late watching things about his life. I thought it wouldn’t matter, because I’d be able to sleep in. My roommates were still in Amsterdam. What I didn’t know is that they were coming back Sunday morning at around 8 AM. Crap. I thought I’d be able to sleep until noon for the first time in more than a month. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Oh well, I needed to do homework anyway. And it gave me time to type this thing up too.
Tomorrow I have an oral presentation to give in Grand Tour and a test in Modern Italy. Neither should really be that hard, but I still have work to do on them.
I’ve got another six rolls of film that I’m going to turn in to be developed tomorrow. I’m going to a different place that will have them done in one day. I’ve seen the quality and it’s really no worse than what I got, and mine took a week to get back to me. So I will hopefully have new photos on my site by the end of the week.
Finally, thank you to all who prayed for us while we were in Rome. The Lord protected us, even though we had a good scare. Pray is powerful people! Be sure to keep me in your prayers as this program comes to an end. Pray that I stay focused on my work and that I stay safe.
