STO: There's no place like Rome (getting a Pisa Italy)

Monday was a bank holiday here in Ireland, and with not having Friday classes, I had a rare 4 day weekend and used it to take my most ambitious trip thus far - to the boot-shaped land of spaghetti, gelato, the Papal seat, the Renaissance, the World Cup trophy, prosciutto and rampant disorganization. The timing of the trip really could not have been better. I had been having a difficult stretch in Dublin between my slow-healing ankle, my stolen bike and my cell phone's struggles. I haven't documented this but one night after an Ultimate practice, I did my laundry and threw in my warmups, which held my cell phone in the pocket. I actually realized this pretty soon but our demented washing machine autolocks its doors, so I had to watch in horror as my cell phone bounced around in the detergent-filled water. When I fished it out afterwards, it had obviously suffered tremendous water damage. I took out the battery and dried it out, and while it would turn on, there were all sorts of problems. Usually the cell phone would work fine except for the 3 button, which was just totally dead. These were actually ok times, except that I couldn't use the letters 'd, e, or f' in text messages, so I never texted in the past tense. However, at other times, all the top buttons on my phone would act as the 3, and a simple click on any button would count as like a double or triple click. Well Greg Speidel was set as the speed dial for 3, so by pressing basically any menu button, the phone thought I was double clicking on a 3 and call Greg. The cancel button was also a 3, and I couldn't cancel the call by closing the phone until after the call started, so all I could do was take the battery out. Basically I ended up calling Greg like 8 times, including a few on early Saturday morning, and he was not pleased. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and shelved out another 60 Euro for a new cell phone. It hurt me real bad deep inside, and I've not spent so much money I can be assured that I will not be making any big Spring break plans.

Oh so yes, Italy. While I was initially planning on traveling solo, I was able to recruit Thuy and Matt to come along. We flew down to Rome on Thursday night, stay there until Saturday when we'd take a train to Florence. I would stay in Florence until flying out of Pisa on Monday, whereas Thuy and Matt would board another train to Venice for Sunday night. My reasoning for staying in Florence was to hang out out more with my friend Christine Pfeil, who's studying at the Georgetown Villa program right outside the city, and that I've already been to Venice and hate water. Which makes me question why I'm in Ireland, but I digress. So I had an idea that our travel group might be dysfunctional when Matt ran away from us as we switched buses en route to the airport. When we finally caught up with him just before the airport bus left, I cussed him out in public, which was very satisfying.

On our packed RyanAir flight, I sat next to an Irish couple in their 40s who were attending a marriage in Rome. The husband convinced me that Biomass was the energy source of the future, and said that if he was my age, he would invest in a plant in the wilderness of Canada. Then he bought me two beers on the plane, for which Matt and Thuy greatly derided me. He may make the cut for the more interesting people I have met on my travels, the list of which I will release at the end of the year. We did reach Rome in 3 hours + one hour time difference, caught a bus to the city and managed to walk to our hostel. There, our nice Vietnamese-American hostel proprietor informed us that after two beds were destroyed by a drunken idiot the previous night, 2 of us would have to move to a separate hostel down the road. So Thuy and Matt went to this shitty place called Gulliver's, while I was put in a 10 bunk room populated by 9 Canadian girls. Cal 1, Matt & Thuy 0.

The next morning we got up bright and early, and headed across the Tiber to another country: Vatican City. The dome of St. Peter's Basilica (or Basilica di San Pietro) was visible from a way's away and really an impressive bastion of faith and architecture, and totally dominates the city skyline. Though it isn't even the largest dome in the city, being a meter smaller than the Pantheon, it is among the bigger domes in the world that doesn't host professional sports teams, and probably the biggest dome I had seen up to that point. Before we realized it, we had crossed the world's most open border into its smallest country. We fended off various salesmen trying to pitch us a tour for €40+, before finding one for €28, which was well worth it. In our 5 hour excursion within the Vatican, we saw many of the great art and sculpture of the Vatican Museum (the largest museum in the world in terms of total works), the Sistine Chapel, the inside of the Basilica, Michelangelo's Pietà, the Papal tombs and the top of the Basilica. It was a loaded journey, where I learned of the dual nature of Rome. Here was a city with a rich ancient history, with its glory days as the capital of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. It was the first ever city to reach 1 million people, and remained the biggest city in the world for centuries. Then it was sacked and later hit hard by the plague and its population dipped to around a striking 20,000. However, the Renaissance saw not just a rebirth of classical ideas, but also a rebirth of Rome, and the city saw a second set of glory days, this time not of military conquest but rather of artistic brilliance. So today, the modern metropolis of Roma is built around the ancient Roman columns and archs and the 16^th century Italian oils and perspectives.

The Sistine Chapel was easily the sight of all sites in that city. It's history itself is remarkable as a product of a contentious quarrel between Pope Julius and Michelangelo, but what instantly grasped me was the sheer size of the room. One needs to enter it to grasp how saturated a space can be with art, how much magnificent detail can be stuffed into one room. There is lots of literature out there on the room, most of it written by people better qualified than me, so all I will add is that is freaking sweet. The other highlight of the trip was the Basilica, which beats out any of those grand Parisian cathedrals as the best cathedral I (or the world) has ever seen. We walked to the top of the dome, an arduous climb through crawl spaces that almost caused the claustrophobic Thuy to have a panic attack. Once we reached it though, we had a dazzling view of Rome, and I'd recommend anyone else going there to sacrifice their legs for that view.

We later walked over to the Pantheon, which then became the biggest dome I had ever entered. While there was plenty of great art inside this ancient pagan temple, we were all very arted out at this point. In addition, this dome was less impressive only because it wasn't set on top of a large cathedral and as a result, was not visible from the exterior the way St. Peter's was. Nonetheless, it is a wonder that something that gigantic and unsupported could have been built so long ago. I think after that we attempted to walk home, and ended up making a 15 minute walk take over an hour and a euro, after we got lost and had to take the metro. That night also involved a lot of nonsensical walking, and never again will I neglect to ask for decent places to eat and drink. We spent half an hour trying to find a quality restaurant fitting our budget and our desires for real authentic, delicious Italian food (ultimately successful) and then several hours trying to find a quality bar fitting our budget and our desires for real, authentic debauchery (ultimately unsuccessful). Really the night was only eventful because of Rome's lack of open container laws, which allowed us to buy a bottle of wine and drink it through the streets and subway, and even right by the Coliseum.

We would return to the Coliseum the next day, when it was much more impressive in the daytime. There we paid for the worst tour any of us had ever taken, as the tour guide knew relatively little about the Coliseum nor the English language. It was still a nice structure, and I appreciated the history of walking on the same stone and marble that ancient Roman sports fans had done 1800 years before me and staring at tons and tons of arches. From a distance, all the arches made the Coliseum look like a beehive, but from up close, I was focused on the weathered rock and marble.

Afterwards, we visited the adjacent Forum, which had lots and lots of old structures. My favorite were the free standing columns that were part of a temple long destroyed. My Western Civ knowledge really made this experience more enjoyable than it otherwise might have been. It was hot and we were tired, so the Forum trip only took about 40 minutes, but there was so much stuff there that I think if I had a guidebook with me, I could have spent the whole afternoon staring at Corinthian columns and trying to read Latin. Part of me thinks RL's sole purpose was to prepare us to visit Rome.

At this point, Thuy was feeling very despondent for reasons I can't remember, and she headed back to our hostels separately. From there we walked to the train station, unwittingly through some sort of political rally, and with the weight of our bags bearing down on our very weary legs, we finally reached the ticket booth in sheer exhaustion. Buying tickets for Florence, Thuy insisted that she had to go to the bathroom. I suggested going to the train first, but she snapped that she had been holding it in for 2 hours. So I headed to the train while Matt decided to refill his water bottle. I plopped down in front of the Florence platform, and looked looking up at the clock, I realized that the train would be leaving in a mere 5 minutes. No sweat right? It'd probably leave 5 minutes late, we are in Italy after all, and they'll both be back way before then. So I waited. And waited. I heard a whistle blow. I waited. I considered running onto the train, telling the conductor to hold up. I considered abandoning my friends. Instead, I stood there and watched as the train blew its whistles a final time and slowly rolled out of the station. Thuy and Matt came back a few minutes later. I cussed them out again. It was very satisfying.

After some serious discussion, during which Thuy was in tears, we decided to upgrade our tickets from the 14 euro slow trains (the next one was in 2 hours) to the 30 euro fast trains (the next one was in 15 minutes). So that was a tight bullet to bite, but we bit it and coasted into Florence by 5 o'clock. There I texted Pfeil, who responded in freaking Italian. We ended up meeting her at around 8:30 in some bar across the river which had a free buffet with the purchase of one drink. Crossing that river, we did take the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge famous for the shops built right onto it. While walking down the street that leads into the bridge, you don't even realize you're crossing water because the transition is so smooth. The shops just continue right onto it, and the effect is something special.
Pfeil was showing the signs of a full day of drinking wine by the time she met up with us at the bar. She was her usual sporadic, I-don't-care-what-people-think-of-me self, and was clearly enjoying her time in Italy. It was somewhat disappointing that I only got to see her for a little over an hour, but it was also cool that that hour was in Florence, Italy. That night was yet another uneventful Italian night, but the next day, Sunday, was jam-packed with culture.

Matt and Thuy were planning on leaving in the early afternoon while I would stay another night, and we set out to have a productive morning and see the David di Michelangelo. The original David is in a museum in Florence that is actually rather hidden and not near the central Piazzas as we had thought (its original location was outdoors in the Palazza Vecchio). So we went through the museum, the Academia, a surprisingy minute building housing such a famous work, and soon enough came into a gallery dominated by this marble masterpiece. I had studied the David in Western Civ, but I don't recall anyone telling me how big it was. I thought it was lifesize, but it was actually 17 FEET TALL. It's rather ironic that the statue of David is a GOLIATH. He's shown in a pose after just defeating Goliath and he's holding onto the thin leather strap of his slingshot. We observed that statue for nearly half an hour, sneaking in illegal photos when we could (like the one I have there), because there really was so much to see. Michelangelo carved an incredible amount of emotion into that marble, and I really felt that David was just taken out of a living moment, instead of a preconceived pose. Adding to the experience, unlike with a painting or a sculpture like the Pieta, we could walk around all 360 degrees and see that Michelangelo didn't leave out any details. I really cannot gush enough about the David - it's just so graceful.

Afterwards, we were hungry and tired, and after debate agreed that the needs of our stomachs were more important than our legs, and decided to get some Italian lunch. Like I'd said, the Academia is in an odd corner of Florence and we couldn't find any food in the immediate vicinity. So we're wandering aimlessly around the back streets of Florenced, hungry and tired, and finally decide to ask someone for directions to a restaurant. We go into the first store we see, and it happens to be a grocery store operated by an Asian lady. So I ask her, "Do you speak English?" to which she replies no. Bah. We then ask "Parliano Italiano?" which is incorrect grammar but she got the idea and said "Si." Well we tried to then ask in Italian for the nearest restaurant, which I think you can kinda say with "Dove Ristorante?" but we failed to do that with the Spanish, French and English hybrid that came out. So she's just really confused, and I want to see if she speaks Chinese, so I try to ask what other languages she speaks: "Er...quelle langues parler?" She is utterly bemused by me, so stuttering and frustrated, I realized there was another option here, and I asked, "Ni huo shuo putonghua ma?" And incredibly, she said "Dui." So I was able to ask directions to the nearest restaurant in a corner of Florence by using MANDARIN CHINESE. What a useful language - there are just so many Chinese around. I guess it doesn't hurt to speak the world's most spoken language.

So we reach a restaurant that looks quality and as we do every single time we go to a restaurant in Italy, we stand around awkwardly, unsure of what to do. Our instincts tell us to wait for a host to seat us, but our experience has implied that in Italy, people seat themselves. So we stand there near a table, and finally ask a server whether we can sit down. The server doesn't speak English but says, "no!" and when we ask why, he points to a sign on the wall that says Open from 11:30pm to 10am. Huh? It's open just at night? We stare at the sign utterly bemused, until we realize taht the ams and pms are reversed, because there's a sign next to it saying Aperto di 11:30 a 22:00. Well our cell phones tell us it's 12:05pm, so we grab a seat. Instantly we're shooed away, and when I complain that it's freaking after 11:30, my pleas fall on deaf ears. So we exit in a huff and can't make any sense of our encounter. Luckily there's anothe restaurant down the street, with the most hilarious logo that you'll see in my facebook album soon enough, and they're willing to serve us. So after we order, out of curiosity we ask the waiter what time it is. Our clocks say 12:20 but she tells us its 11:20. Ah. So Daylight Savings happened that night. Awesome, we got a totally unexpected hour gift wrapped. The US wouldn't have DST for another 2 weeks, so this caught us completely by surprise. Now I'm sorry for being so rude to that previous restaurant.

Then Matt and Thuy left and I took a giant nap. When I woke, I headed to the Uffeze without any real idea what it was, simply because Dan Fine had told me to go there. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that Botticelli's Birth of Venus was there, as well as his Primavera. Once again I gave a silent thank you to Mr. Jarvis and his Western Civ slides, and then power walked through another quality museum. I wanted to go to a 6:00 mass that night so I had to cut my stay short, but I did manage to find my first Cantonese speaker in Italy before I left. She happened to be a gorgeous 24 year old who was sadly with her mother.

I was 15 minutes late to Mass, in part due to that last encounter. When I entered the Duomo, one of the most impressive cathedrals I had ever attended mass in, I was stunned to find a giant throng of people standing inside. There were probably 3 times as many people standing as there were sitting, and all in all maybe 3,000 people present. My first impressions were taht Italians were much better about attending Church than the Irish. The whole show was in Italian so I didn't really understand much, but even I noticed that this was an unusual mass. There was no communion, and towards the end, this priest stood up, flanked by 15 priests on either side of him, and started making a speech. And people would periodically applaud! What was going on here? He spoke for a solid 10 minutes before ending in tumultuous clapping, and I had to ask someone what was going on. She explained to me that this was the first ever mass by the new Bishop of Florence, and I realized that this was a big deal. As the new Bishop walked down the aisle, followed by possibly every single priest in Tuscany, the Church bells started ringing nonstop and some people in the crowd started standing on the pews and taking pictures. It was really a scene unlike any other I had ever witnessed in a church.

To come: Pisa.