Italy Part 2: Rome Wasn’t Toured in a Day

Or was it?

HEY EVERYBODY! Sorry for the long delay, but as you might imagine, things have been quite…hectic around here.  My crazy five weekends straight of traveling are behind me, as well as visits from Colin from Wash U and a week with my brother!  Very exciting stuff that I will all talk about (eventually)!  Look for a bunch of posts in the next few days before we head off on our crazy three-week Eastern Europe adventure! Anyways, on to my travels…

When we last left off, Sam and I were jet-setting across Italy from Venice to Rome.  Sure enough, we made it.  Once at Termini (the main train station in Rome), Sam and I metroed over to the stop closest to our hostel, and picked up real Roman pizza and these fried ball things.  After walking past the building twice, we finally discovered that the brilliantly titled Happy Days Hostel was not its own building, but rather a 5th floor apartment with beds.  While we certainly did have “happy days” while we stayed in Rome, our nights and mornings in the hostel were… not so much.  A strange old man that was definitely not the Fonz chain-smoked in the kitchen and the bed to bathroom ratio was bigger than the number of stolen glasses I have sitting on my window sill (i.e. a lot).  To avoid the queues, Sam and I brushed our teeth in plastic cups and skipped a shower or two.

Not that it was all bad; we did get to watch one of the strangest episodes of Lost on the hostel computer and got a free map with cartoon versions of all the major sites.  The first night we arrived, we decided to check off two of the little cartoons: the Vatican (a short walk from our hostel) and the Saint Angelo Castle.  We realized quickly how beautiful the city was at night and became very excited to explore it by day.

The next morning we did it all!  First, we met up with Sam’s friend and our personal tour guide, Kate, at the Pantheon.  From there we trekked to the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the extravagent Vittorio Emanuel monument, and of course, the old Roman Forum and Collisuem.  Aside from the amazing architecture and design at each site, we also found fountains and sculptures on almost every street and piazza.  Rome is truly incredible in the way its integrated 21st century life with 0 century life.  On one side of a street is a McDonalds.  On the other is an incredibly preserved landmark.  Here are a few pictures:

Kate left us around mid-afternoon, and Sam and I trekked around the city to a few more less-famous places: Pizza Art (a random restaurant where we had awesome sicillian pizza with things like potato risotto, shrimp, and salmon – you know its good pizza when they cut it with scissors…), the old synagogue (by accident, we had been sitting on the steps of the entrance for 10 minutes looking at our map, and then looked up and realized we were “home”), an island with a hospital that we used for a bathroom break, and a beautiful hill on the South side of the city where we sat and watched the sunset over the city.

This took us to dinnertime where we met back up with Kate and her friends to eat incredible spaghetti at “l’archetto,” and expensive drinks at Campo.  Sam and I missed the (what suddenly felt like) cheap pints we could get back in London.  At the first bar we went to, I became memorized by a sport shown on TV called “Hurling.”  Its basically an awesome combination of lacrosse with field hockey sticks, rugby, basketball, and football (the good kind).  Unfortunately, its really only played in Ireland, and I can’t imagine I’d be able to find it anywhere in America with the exception of maybe on “Versus.”  Check out a clip of it below:

I also met up with my buddy from high school, Sean, but it had to be a quick visit because it was already late in the evening and Sam and I had huge plans for the next morning: to be alone in the Sistene Chapel!  That’s right, we woke up at the crack of dawn (6:30) and rolled out of our hostel beds (technically I couldn’t roll because I was in a top bunk, but you get the idea) to head over to the mysterious Vatican Museum which didn’t open until 9.  We had both received tips to try to get there really early and really first in line and sure enough we did!  When we arrived, there was no clear indication of where the line began.  Rather there was just a man standing outside the museum exit and a group of Chinese newscasters taking some pictures of things from weired angles.  Confused, we tried three different places to start the line.  Finally, the guy at the exit walked through the exit (clearly a Vatican worker), and several other people came up to come through the exit.  One of them finally indicated to us where the line began.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, two girls came up to us and realized we were first in line.  Rather than becoming #3 and 4, they seemingly gave up and walked off.  30 more minutes passed until we finally got a few companions to wait in line with, so we have overestimated our wakeup time slightly.  Around 8,our excitiment began to vanish as we saw tour groups start to line up in a different line.  Masses and masses of people filled in and we cursed in agony at our misfortune.  Were we really going to have to share the Sistene Chapel with all these people?  We had been in line since 6:45!  As the tour groups were let in to the museum, Sam and I created drafts on the angry letters we would write to the Pope.  Although they would begin with “Dear Pope,” the rest of the letters are too graphic and inappropriate for a family website such as MTG.

At 8:40, those same girls who had their opportunities to be #3 and #4 in line but were now closer to 10 and 11, asked a guard what the deal was.  Why did we get screwed?  He simply said the tour groups paid more, but we would be let in soon.  Finally at 8:45, 15 minutes earlier than the time we were expecting, the guard let us in.  Sam and I knew that the tour groups had a 45 minute head-start on us, but the museum is kind of large and the Sistene Chapel is at the end.  So we did what we had to do.  We ran.  Signs everywhere pointed around corners and bends of the museum leading us to the Chapel.  We passed guards with raised eyebrows and tour groups wondering what the commotion was, but we would not be stopped.  Finally, we entered an empty room and looked around.  There were no more signs.  It took us about 5 seconds to look up at the ceiling and realize that we had made it.  And we were all alone!

After several high fives, we peered up and walked around the room taking it all in.  The ceiling truly was amazing.  We decided to lay on the ground to get a better view of it all.  After about 5 minutes a guard came in and asked us, “What are you doing?” Maybe it was a trick question, but Sam and I decided to stand up.  Moments later tour groups began to enter.  And that ended our 5 minutes alone in the Sistene Chapel.  Here are some bad illegal photographs I took (pictures aren’t allowed).

We stayed in the Chapel for about 20 minutes.  I didn’t realize that the picture of God touching Adam’s hand was in there, especially because the whole ceiling was amazing and it seemed strange for one painting to be so much more famous than the rest.  Afterwards we backtracked through the museum and looked at some of the other cool things that Popes had accumulated throughout the years, but it all seemed like chump change relative to Mike’s ceiling.

By the time we left we were pretty tired from our lack of sleep, so we took some pictures of the Pope’s house from the outside and headed back to out hostel to check out.  From there, I attempted to meet up with my friend, Nicole, who I would be staying with in Rome for the next 3 days.  She waited for me for over an hour at the Spanish Steps while I practiced my orienteering skills by getting to the Espagnola Palace that was located on my map.  Sadly for both of us, Espagnola Palace and the Spansh Steps are not the same.  But doesn’t “Espagnol” sound Spanish? Sam went off to fulfill his lifelong dream of getting a Roma Hard Rock Cafe shirt, and finally the 3 of us met up to go back to Nicole’s home on Trastevere.  Nicole informed us that we didn’t really have to pay for the tram, and we took her advice to heart.

After a small snack of toast with olive oil, Sam and I had our fairwell in traditional fashion – at a pizza place, called Pizza Boom.  Although my Italy travel companion was gone, the trip was not done yet.  I still had 3 more days to experience Rome with a local’s point of view – or at least a temporary local.  Next up: my 3 well-accomodated days with Nicole!

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