Day 10 - Europe 2010

We got up and had breakfast, still feeling weary.  A day of sleep would do me good, I think.  I’m usually okay during the day but getting up is a chore, though the adventures to be had kick me out of bed well enough.  We headed to the train station where we caught our train to Rome, passing through some lovely countryside that reminded me a bit of California.  Nick planned our day while I finished blogging!  All caught up!  Yay!

Rome is CRAZY!  It’s kind of like a bigger, more crowded, more ridiculously historic Florence.  Luckily, our hostel is right around the corner from the train station so we checked in quick and headed back out to see the sites of Rome.  We took the metro to our destination and it was insanely crowded!  We were packed in that metro with no room to spare.  Nick said, “I’ve never felt closer to the Italian people than I do now.”  So that is one thing I am not a huge fan of here – crazy crowded everywhere you go.

But we got out and were immediately bombarded by incredible sites, one cool building or arch or monument or fountain after another.  There are statues everywhere, on corners, on buildings, on fountains.  It's like they have so many they don't know what to do with them.  And everything is really close together so you could pass right by some ancient columns and hardly notice because there are other old buildings or cool shops or monuments competing with it in the same vicinity.

We actually spent a good 12 hours walking a good part of Rome.  We started at Piazza del Popolo complete with a 2000 year old obelisk brought to Rome after Egypt was conquered.  Oh, and there are a lot of other cool statues in the area and two very cool churches just across the way, as if the huge obelisk isn’t cool enough.

What was NOT cool was all the wandering slimy salesmen, all from India.  They have these bouquets of roses and they come up and try to put them right into your hand.  They are very forceful about it, shoving them in your face quite suddenly.  One of them even said, “I have a present for you.”  Well, you do NOT want to take those roses.  Because once they are in your hand, it is a pain to try and give them back to the guy.  They try to get you to buy them and won’t let you give them back without a lot of pushing on your part.  Luckily, I watched this happen to someone else and learned quickly.  I got roses pushed in my face four or five times and each time said, “NO!” 

Nick has this piece of junk watch he bought just before our trip, only to have an alarm to wake us up, and he is thinking of pushing it into their hand and making them pay 10 Euro for it.  He was practicing on me and I was laughing.  It's a good idea.

Anyway, we walked down the street a ways to the Spanish steps, as seen on Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn.  All throughout Rome they have these fountains with flowing water that you can drink from.  There was one there in front of the steps and we got ourselves some water that surprisingly tasted like… water!  I had my doubts about it but it really does taste just like from the tap and it’s cold too, which is important here in Italy where it is so HOT!  Anyway, we took a few pictures on the steps and went up the church at the top there.  There were some neat paintings inside and I was pleased to see you could take pictures.

On our way back down the steps, I was distracted by a wandering Pug dog peeing all over the place and missed a step and fell.  Yes, I fell on the Spanish steps in Rome.  How many people can say that?  I hurt my ankle a little but I was okay.  Nick said, “Good thing only 50 people saw that instead of 100.”  Haha!  It’s true – those steps are completely covered with people so I had a decent crowd for my trippage.  Sigh.

We kept walking, heading toward the Trevi Fountain with my camera snapping – snippitty snippitty snap! – and I got to see a sculpture of Moses with his horns!  I guess in the earlier translations of the Bible, they thought it said that Moses had horns.  So in the early Christian art, you can tell it’s Moses if the guy has horns!  This guy actually had what looked like little reindeer horns!  Pretty funky.

We found the Trevi Fountain shortly thereafter and it was SO AWESOME!  It would have been more cool if it was really old but it was built in the 1700s or sometime around there.  But it has water flowing from all these different places into a larger pool that’s big enough to swim in.  The main figure is Poseidon, or some Ocean figure, riding a large sea shell pulled by these fish-tailed horses.  It’s very striking and, unfortunately, very crowded.  You have to elbow your way through to get to the fountain, where the thing to do is throw a coin over your shoulder into the pool in hopes of returning to Rome one day.  We did just that, only to see some ragamuffin boys digging into the pond later for the coins.  Lame.

Next stop was the Pantheon, which was half-covered in scaffolding for some reason.  It made for some tainted Pantheon photos but we took what we could get.  They were actually having mass inside when we arrived so we had to wait a while before going in.  The wait was worth it because the real wonder of the Pantheon is inside, with its unique dome topped by the oculus, a large circular opening revealing the sky above.  We wondered what happened if it rained but we found a few holes in the middle of the floor and learned that the place is concave to force the water toward the drain.  How neat!

I was wanting to plan out the remainder of our stay in Rome and we were waiting for it to get dark in order to check out some of the Roman sites at night so we sat down on a pew and planned, taking a full hour to do so.  Yes, I sat in the Pantheon for an hour planning my adventures in Rome!  The Pantheon!  How cool is that!?

So, we walked a bit more to look at some more awesome stuff – it just keeps going.  We found the monument to Victor Emmanuel, built back in the 1800s to promote Italian nationalism (as opposed to regionalism).  I guess the locals don’t like it because it’s so near their more precious sites and so loud in comparison, taking up a good deal of space and gleaming white in contrast to the rusty colors of the surrounding ruins of the ancient Roman empire.  But we thought it was cool.  There are these huge set of steps leading up to the man on his horse, an enormous striking statue.  There are columns behind the statue spanning the full length of the monument and on each end above the columns are horse-drawn chariots with victorious-looking figures on board.  There are a few other statues around and the whole thing is jaw-dropping except that it isn’t an authentic piece of the Roman Empire.  Still, it gives some hint as to what the Empire may have looked like in its prime, with architecture of equal grandeur.

Right nearby was Trajan’s Column, famous as the tribute to Trajan for his victory over the Jews.  After their defeat, they column was created to illustrate this victory.  It is a famous piece and was cool to look at, though I wish we could have gotten closer.

By this time, we were very near the heart of the ancient Roman empire, with the Forum and Capitoline Hill nearby and just down the street was the Colosseum!  We hadn’t planned on visiting any of those places but they were within view so we figured, what the heck?  We walked down to the Colosseum, getting a peak at the Forum nearby with its ancient ruins of columns and arches.  Tomorrow we could get a closer look on our visit inside.  Then, we reached the Colosseum just as it was getting dark.  It was pretty rad, though we thought it would be a bit bigger.  We walked around it and enjoyed the nighttime view with the arches lit up.  Right next to the Colosseum is the Arch of Constantine, much like the Arc de Triomph in Paris, commemorating his victory that led to the legalization of Christianity.

Our Roman tour was not over!  We headed a few streets over, looking for yet another awesome fountain supposedly worth seeing at night, and actually passed an ancient temple site on the way.  Yes, how cool is that that in Rome you just have these incredible historical sites sitting in the middle of everything.  It was actually quite a few feet down from the street level, discovered after the demolition of a church on that spot in the early 1900s.  Inside the dig are a few old temples with only platforms and a few columns remaining, along with some scattered large marble chunks.  We especially enjoyed that the site, closed off from the public, seemed some sort of cat sanctuary.  They were all over, enjoying the sprawling playground of cool rocks undisturbed by outsiders.  It was a neat find.

We got to our fountain which was indeed very cool.  It had four men on either side of it, rather large, and the reflections of the light on the water could be seen playing on the statues.  The whole square there was very active.  There was a little band playing, just a guitarist, a drummer, and a bass player, and they were jamming it up with some good tunes.  There were a few street performers, and, of course, the Indians selling their crap.  There were some artists too and we stopped to watch a guy paint a Roman cityscape with just a little roller.  It was cool.

We finally were headed back to the Metro, and were very glad because we had been walking nearly 12 hours!  We made it home around midnight and found our hostel to be pretty interesting.  We are, unfortunately, on the fifth floor and apparently the internet doesn’t make it all the way up here.  There are five bunk beds in our little room, the walls painted ketchup red.  All the beds were taken except two, as far apart from each other as possible.  We both have top bunks and Nick took his by the window, looking up at the ceiling saying, “It looks like it’s about to cave in.”  Haha!  It’s true!  There are some serious cracks up there and a bit of beveling.  Hmmm… The bathroom is out in the hall and the shower fills the bathroom up with water whenever you use it.  Overall, it’s a real winner but we just laugh about it.  This is the stuff that makes memories right here.

PHOTOS:

Welcome to the insanity of Rome.  Please jam yourself into the Metro as cramped as possible and enjoy the wonderful smells of your sweating neighbors.

And my first picture of me in Rome is with Spidercow!  They have these cows all over the place - I saw one in Bucharest when I was a missionary there - and they are all painted differently.  I thought this guy was pretty cool.

The obelisk at Piazza del Popolo.  It was very interesting to have this ancient monument next to these balloons and even a stage set up for a concert nearby.  Ancient meets modern everyday here in Rome.

And here are some more statues in the Piazza.  I had to move around a bit to get the statues without the stage in front of them.

Nick wanted me to take his "Where's Waldo" picture here.  These are the Spanish Steps and Nick is somewhere here in the picture.  Can you find him?

And here we are on the Spanish Steps, before my epic fall.  Don't worry, I only fell down two steps, not the whole thing.  Maybe someday I can be that awesome.

Need a refreshing drink?  Fill up at any fountain in Rome for some cool water.  This fountain was right in front of the steps.

At the top of the steps is a church and I went inside and took some photos.  This was my favorite piece that was actually hidden away behind some bars.  I like the subject, of course, and his calm pose.

And let's not forget Moses with his reindeer horns.  You don't see that everyday.. unless you live in Rome.

The awesome Trevi Fountain!  It is striking both in size and craftsmanship!

A closer look at the subject of the fountain.  You can imagine all the running water made quite a noise but it was beautiful.  I would love to know when the fountain is less crowded so I can enjoy it more.

Here I am throwing in my coin.  We'll see if I make it back someday.

Nick in front of the Pantheon.  I am not a fan of all the scaffolding but oh well.

The oculus and coffering of the Pantheon dome.  Awesome!

A bit more of the interior of the Pantheon.  Raphael is entombed nearby.

The Victor Emmanuel monument.  You can go to the front but not up the steps or anything.  Too bad.  It is so huge and impressive!

Trajan's Column illustrating the defeat of the Jews by the Romans.  As you can see, dusk was fast approaching by this time.

Can anyone say AWESOME!?  None of my photos are edited by the way.  It really looked this cool.

One of the figures on the fountain we visited.  I wish I could remember the name but it was something like the Four Seasons or Four Winds.  Not sure.

Here is the back of the singer/guitarist near the fountain, entertaining a crowd.  It was 11pm and lots of people were out despite the late hour.

I love watching artists do their thing!  I don't know if I could handle the pressure of a big crowd watching me work!  If I wasn't any good, I 'd be so embarrassed!