Rome 3: Sistine Chapel and The Colosseum

The last day in Rome, which i need to post about so i can move on to the exciting happenings of yesterday, began with Katrin waking me up at 11, with some nonsense about the Sistine Chapel. Oh! Right, that. Yes, i do want to go see that. Okay, i'm up, i'm up.

We took a bus from where we'd been staying with our host, Matteo, to the center of Rome. This took a long time, though we weren't actually that far away. And what they say about Italian drivers extends to both bus drivers and METRO drivers. We finally got there and took a train from there to the Vatican, which is on the far west side of the city. From the train station we walked and walked until we finally saw the city walls, and soon we were standing in front of St. Peter's! I'm not Catholic, but i've studied this stuff so much, it was very cool to finally see it.



We followed a long train of signs pointing the way to the Sistine Chapel, which is inside the Vatican Museum. Katrin and i both used our outdated student IDs to get the discounted entrance, and followed yet another long train of signs to get to the chapel itself. The palace of the Vatican is like a rat maze, it's quite impressive. We tried very hard not to get distracted on the way there, and were pretty successful except for when we encountered the old maps, which both of us were very into.

We finally made it to the Sistine Chapel, which was just as amazing as it's reputed to be. It was also absolutely PACKED. I'm sure you've all seen it, so i won't go overboard with the pictures (which i wasn't even supposed to take...), and just post this one of my favorite panel, The Expulsion from Eden:



After we'd made it to our destination, we were free to get distracted in the rest of the museum, though hunger kept us from tarrying overlong. I was impressed by the papal jewelry, which was too gaudy even for me, and Katrin and i were both amused by this hysterical "artwork," entitled, i am not making this up, The Mute Swans of Peace.



A gift to the pope from, who else? The United States. Sigh.

Our hunger drove us from the Vatican back into Italy (we did not need our passports), in search of pizza. We succeeded, though i was being needy Nancy - the Italian ATMs refused my card repeatedly. Apparently i needed some kind of special chip in my card, and they couldn't do anything without it, so i had no access to cash. I'll take Katrin out for dinner in Paris or something when i'm there. Anyway, this was our post-Vatican snack:



Incredible. You know, French food is supposed to be so wonderful, and it's pretty good for the most part, but nothing really outstanding generally speaking. I think they get a little too focused on being fancy. Italy is a different story. The pizza lives up to its reputation as well as the ice cream and the pasta.

My time in Rome was drawing to a close, and so Katrin and i parted ways. She wanted to relax and i wanted to see some other things, so i headed on and saw this thing - you might know it:



I didn't go in, seeing as it was quite costly and i was short on the paper kind of money. I'm a little sad about that, actually. Next to the Colosseum is the Foro Romano - less talked about, more impressive.



Again, you had to pay to get up close, so i skipped that, but i walked around the perimeter of it and ooh-ed and ahh-ed. The roads going around between the Forum and the Colosseum have ruts in them that are track marks from chariots. Chariots! Rome is really old.

At that point it was time to head for the airport, so i grabbed one last gelato (of course), and that was that.

You know, i almost didn't go. I was on the phone with Matteo only hours before my flight was scheduled to depart telling him i was probably not going to come. And for whatever reason, i changed my mind, and i can't even express how glad i am that i went. Though i suppose my effusive blog entries speak for themselves.

Rome Part 2

The next day i slept quite late to recover from my early flight and a couple of little-sleep nights in a row. I awoke to a kitchen full of tasteless Italian bread (they don't use any salt!) and Nutella, jam, and orange juice. Italian Nutella is the best i've ever had, and it really is different in every country (the US is the only one that has high fructose corn syrup).

Many more folks had arrived at the house, the DJ was already going, and the yard was covered with Burners draped about in the sunshine. I happily joined them, and we talked and ate and i met new people all day.



Food appeared at random intervals, with no lack of vegetarian options after the fit we'd pitched the night before. Pesto pasta, cheese toast (again with the flavorless bread), fruit, potatoes... Katrin set up the lino cut table, and lots of people made prints. A station for making tomato sauce was set up out back, and everyone was gifted a bottle of homemade tomato sauce to take home (which the airline took away from me, tragically). The day was very pleasant and relaxing, and as night fell, things got more exciting, with the DJs picking up the pace and a heck of a dance party.



One of the funniest things all night was the scene in the kitchen. Apparently the cooks decided there were too many people going in and out, so they barricaded the doorway with a table and if you needed something you had to place an order. They were making homemade tagliatelli, so we weren't complaining. The effect was very theatrical, the dining room was packed with shouting, wildly gesticulating Italians, and the kitchen was occupied by shouting, cooking Italians. It was quite the scene.

Well, i finally went to bed around sunrise after an amazing night, slept until 3 PM and then 3 hours later hit the road to Rome with Katrin, her boyfriend, and 2 London-based ladies. We stopped to visit some new friends in Calvi d'Umbria, who are starting an art community and run an "agriturismo," which is like a bed-and-breakfast, but with olive trees. We had an adventure trying to find the out-of-the-way place in rural Italy in the dark, but we stopped and walked around the village, population 900, and had gelato, which i deemed the best ice cream i'd ever had. I'm partial to nocciola (hazelnut), and it tasted more like frozen nut butter than ice cream. The town was utterly charming, the agriturismo ideal, and the wine plentiful! It grew late as we talked Burning Man, art, and voodoo, so we left in search of dinner. Italians eat late, as is common in Europe, but not as late as Spaniards, so we counted ourselves lucky to find a pizza place open at 11 PM. And this was no drive-thru - we had a full meal, from bruschetta to (even more!) wine and sparkling water, pizza, dessert, coffee, and lemoncello. We were the last customers of the night, but they were not about to expect us to have anything less than a fabulous meal. Oh, darn!

We eventually made it to Rome, where we were staying with one of the people who had hosted the party in Alviano. I hit the hay immediately, for the next day was to be filled with sightseeing in a busy city...

Rome is Really Old

So, i got well enough to put myself on a plane and fly to Italy! I was there for four days, and there's so much to tell i may have to split this into two entries. But i'll start from the beginning. Also, i took 150 pictures, so i'll link to most of them instead of posting them all here.

The impetus for going to Rome was for a "Burning Weekend," a weekend long party out in the country near the city for European Burner types. I arrived in Rome early on Friday, and was to meet up with two women from the group who would hang out with me and then go with me on the train to Alviano, a nearby town closest to the party site. They were just getting on the bus when i arrived, so i figured i would look around some while i waited, and then meet them in an hour. I took myself to get a sandwich, see a Baroque/Romanesque cathedral (Santa Maria Maggiore), and have some gelato. No chance of avoiding gluten in this country! I got totally distracted and when i finally looked at my phone, it had been an hour and a half and i was late. But just then i recieved a text message from them saying they were also late... ah, Europeans! They fit my attitudes towards time perfectly.

We finally rendezvous'ed at the Spanish Steps. Helen (English/Irish) and Aurelie (French) were emissaries from the party organizers, and we also met Katrin (German). The four of us bonded quite quickly, and were pretty inseparable for the whole weekend. I was delighted to find that both Aurelie and Katrin live in Paris, so now i've got some friends there!

Our first project was to go to art stores to find supplies for making linoleum cuts, which was Katrin's project for the weekend. We strolled leisurely around Rome, popping in and out of art stores, stopping for a panini and wine, until we found a place that had what we needed. They also had this incredible counter where they would custom blend oil paints! I just about keeled over. Just look at those pigments!!



I also spotted some very funny and well done street art.

After our art store expeditions, Katrin went in search of flip-flops, as it was quite warm and she was wearing tights and boots, and the other three of us headed for the Trevi Fountain, which somehow i'd never heard of. It was incredible!



It's "good luck" to throw a coin in, but i don't know about that guy next to me, who was pulling money OUT of the fountain!

We headed to the train station after that, and had a really fun train ride to Alviano, where we waited for Massimo to pick us up in his tiny European car. No one was at the house yet, so we dropped our things off, and then went to another little tiny town nearby to get food and wine. Katrin and i walked around looking at things - she loves these little cars, which are like enclosed scooters, and they're everywhere in Italy. After groceries, to get wine we went to a winery! It was the first time i'd been to one, and they actually opened it after hours for us, so we got a private tour. I was such a total tourist, everywhere with my camera, but it was SO COOL.

We tasted wine (Aleatico, Merlot/Sangiovese, Grechetto, and Malvasia) and and took back six very large bottles. I thought the wine was amazing. I could really taste the difference between the wines, and they even had a white wine that i really really liked. I thought it was some of the best wine i'd ever had, and we paid less than 2 euro/liter! After we got back in the car, the Europeans were all like, "Yes, well, it is not so good, this wine, but it will do." Ha!

We drove back to the house - and by way, what they say about Italian drivers is VERY true - and other people had started to arrive. The sound system was getting set up and dinner was cooking. We opened the bottles of wine, and i started meeting lots of really amazing people, including a group of Americans who are starting an art community between Alviano and Rome. The DJs got going and people were dressing up and dancing, and the kitchen was full of Italians shouting and cooking. Dinner took forever to cook, and though i and another vegetarian had reminded them continuosly that we needed food too, and they'd assured us there would be something for us, when they finally spread out the polenta, just dumped it on the table, the meat sauce was dumped all over the top of it, and their answer to our indignation was to scrape off the sauce and call it vegetarian. No thanks! So we made some pesto pasta ourselves, and it was quite delicious.

I have to say, the pasta was incredible. Okay, obviously, it's Italy. The bag i opened was Barilla, the same thing i can buy at Food Lion in Virginia. But it is NOT the same stuff inside! I couldn't even believe how good it was.

This is already long, so i'll stop here, and write more in the next couple of days.

(In reading back over this, i realized how may times i've said something or other was "incredible." I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but it was all very awesome. Maybe i need a thesaurus.)