I’ve been putting off writing about my trip to Rome, because I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it justice. I need better writing skills! I need a larger vocabulary! (Magnificent seems like such a pale word against the images in my brain.) But I know that if I don’t, sooner or later, the images and thoughts will fade and I will only remember fragments of stories, mostly based on pictures instead of actual memories.
I have been secretly yearning to go to Rome ever since I was 13 and saw the movie Roman Holiday for the first time. I understand now that mostly I wanted to be the adorable Audrey Hepburn and have a romance with the charismatic Gregory Peck. In reality, in my two days in Rome, I did not feel like Audrey and I did not meet a Gregory Peck. What happened instead is the movies “Gladiator” and “Angels and Demons” kept popping into my head. I did not like those movies. But I loved Rome… And in some distorted way the images from these movies bought the rich history to life while I stood and gawked at the layers of city which form Rome, from the rubble of the Empire to the majestic buildings of Baroque to the modern day tumble of people and tourists and Vespas...
Roma is quite far away from Torino, but for nothing would I pass up a chance to go there. As I've mentioned, I have been dreaming about this day since I was 13. So I took the night train, a sleeper car, to the city. A full 8 hours of sleep, aided by ear plugs and an eye mask. This was my very first time sleeping on a train, and this glossed over everything that hinted at being unpleasant. In my compartment, there was a mother daughter pair, the daughter being middle-aged, and then another old lady. The daughter spoke some English, and told me they were also all going to Rome. So when they all left the car, I stupidly got off too, only to realize I was not at the central station yet
I manage to take the metro and find my way to the hostel. I booked it mainly because I liked the colors in the pictures (which is probably the stupidest reason ever). I arrive at the hostel, and they are serving breakfast, and it seems all clean and nice, and I breathe a sigh of relief… although I’m told to check in later in the evening. And the lady serving breakfast invites me to join them with a smile.
At breakfast, I meet Emma from Toronto (but currently based in Madrid). Emma invites join her for a walk across the main ancient Roman sites. I gladly accept her invitation. After being alone in Torino for 2 weeks, I crave peers to talk to, and in English, and conversations not about science!
The other nice thing about having a travel companion is you can most often transfer some of the responsibility of finding your way through the city streets. And since Emma had been to this city before I shamelessly let her have all the responsibility of leading the way.
The Colloseum is a 15 minute walk from the hostel, and I hear about Emma’s job teaching little kids English in Madrid. She has nearly finished one school year, and has another scheduled. She has learned lots and lots of Spanish on the way, and I am envious of Madrid and the Spanish, and get nostalgic for the month I spent in Barcelona going to an overpriced language school. People often tell me Italian or French are the most beautiful languages, and although I can see their appeal, for some reason I love Spanish best.
But we are in Italy, and we discuss how easy it is to get mixed up between Italian and Spanish (although apparently Emma knows more Italian than I do also haha).
And as Emma periodically checks the map to see where we’re going, I marvel at the fact that- I AM IN ROME. AM I IN A DREAM? I want to scream or break into a dance right there in the middle of the street. But I shouldn’t scare my new friend, so I keep calm and just exclaim how I love the piazzas and the way people eat outside everywhere and even the crazy traffic... I like the crazy traffic.
We take pictures outside the Colloseum and Forum and Palantine Hill and slowly make our way across town also to the Pantheon. It is quite fun to have a photo buddy in addition to a walking buddy. I admit to Emma that when I am alone I am too timid to keep asking strangers for photos, so I never get anything but my head in the pictures. She says she asks people who look like tourists, and she also offers to take a picture for them in return. I decide I should not be such a chicken about approaching people, and for the rest of the time I am in Rome I put Emma’s strategy into practice.
After dropping in the crowded Pantheon, we grab a slice of pizza and a drink and sit in Piazza Navona. The Piazza has a beautiful fountain and people and artists selling watercolors. My pizza is wonderfully crusty and crisp on the outside while chewy on the inside, and it has wonderful tasting broccoli and artichokes on it. Over the course of my trip I’ve learned the crucial thing about Italian cuisine is to not overdo the sauce or cheese. (Americans tend to do this to their pizza and pasta). We sit and savor our cheap yummy lunch and watch the crowd and feel the sun over our heads and contemplate the beauty of having a siesta after such a walk and such a lunch.
But I only have 2 days here, and as much as I would enjoy lying down on a bench next to a fountain and basking in the warm sun, I need to cram in as much sightseeing as possible! I head towards the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The guidebook keeps warning me about crazy lines, so I am pleasantly surprised as I breeze through the entrance and ticket office. Then I see the line is inside… hundreds and hundreds of people making their way through the vast extravagant Vatican museum to the Sistine Chapel at the end. One can see how powerful and rich this small country the Vatican is from the scope of the museum, and the scale of the building which houses it. I proudly remember that the Vatican is one of 23 countries that has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan. This must be the most powerful of the 23. I figure I might as well learn something and rent an audioguide and wander through pieces of ancient roman sculptures, renaissance art by Raphael, and even modern art collections that pale in comparison to the history of the old art. So for 6 Euro I get a two hour crash course in art history, and glimpses of Vatican history. Of course l forget all the interesting tidbits and facts and history I’ve learned the moment I step into the Sistine Chapel.
Because Michelangelo is a genius and everything I’ve seen before this is dwarfed by his ceiling. It’s tough being a genius though- imagine having to strain you neck and paint this whole ceiling yourself for a decade! I guess to be great, you not only have to be a genius, but also sort of crazy. But I’m glad he was crazy. As I’m sure the other 200 people sharing the chapel with me at that moment are.
Michelangelo is now my unchallenged favorite Italian artist. I now understand why modern artists focus on the abstract and try weird things. Because who can top these guys of the renaissance and baroque period for capturing human form and emotion? One has to be creative through other methods and images...
I get to St. Peter’s Basilica and see Michelangelo’s sculpture called “Sympathy” with a tender sorrowful Mary holding a limp lifeless Jesus in her arms. Somehow it does not matter that Michelangelo distorts the proportions of the bodies to get across his emotion (Jesus is so small, and the folds of Mary’s dress is so massive), nor does it bother me that Mary looks like a young teenager when she in fact should be an old lady at this point. Because the truth is in the emotions conveyed.
St. Peter’s Basilica is magnificent and horrible all at once. The marble and gold and sculptures and massive hall and sky-high dome all attest to the power and money the Catholic Church had and has. Somehow religion gets lost in all these worldly riches.
My legs and feet are now upset at me for using them in this way. So I sit outside under one of the pillars of St. Peter’s square and try to placate them. The view reminds me so much of the movie Angels and Demons I can’t help but giggle. But then I imagine the sight of the crowd that gathers here to wait for the pope. And his caravan of bullet proof cars. I imagine how people gather outside on the square when they are trying to elect a new pope and wait for that smoke signal from the chimney. I wonder what it is like to be in front of such a crowd. What it is to speak on the steps in front of St Peter’s, and be broadcast all over the world, and have people actually care what you say and don’t say. The curiosity and imaginary thrill is enough to make me want to actually hold such a position. Of course, I could never be a pope… but maybe something else...
Anyways, after having fantasies about speaking to thousands of people in St. Peter’s square. I tell my legs to stop complaining and somehow find my way to the metro station without a map. On the way out of the square, I notice there are two focal points in the oval shaped piazza. And if you stand at one of them, the pillars on the side nearest you line up. It’s really cool. I stand there and laugh for awhile, and attract the curiosity of a tourist couple, who also come and stand with me. They look around and are puzzled as to why I am so intrigued. But they are Italian, so I can’t explain myself to them.
I return to the hostel and the manager tells me he has a plumbing problem, so his dorm room is not available, he will find me a hostel somewhere else. I look at the location of the hostel he has found, which is not near a metro stop and roughly 1 km from where I am and at this point my legs are on the verge of quitting, so I nicely complain that I don’t want to walk… And we make the arrangement that I can stay in the living room, and he won’t charge me for my stay if I don’t give him a bad review (other than the $3 Euro deposit I’d already paid through the booking website). I feel quite proud of myself for arriving at this solution without having to be mean about it. Ha.
I meet Emma slightly later at the hostel, and although we both have really sore feet, we agree it’s a good idea to wander out for dinner and take a night stroll across Rome to the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps.
Dinner is only so-so. But I have the Carbonara pastas with bacon, with a thick sauce made of eggs, cheese, and tomato. It’s pure evil, this combination. And cold zucchini with parmesean.
We stroll along the Colleseum, the Forum and Vitorrio Emanuel lit up at night. And all of a sudden I am overwhelmed with the luck I have to be here, and see all this magnificent history I have in front of me. It borders on surreal.
Emma and I stroll leisurely along the streets, coaxing our tired legs to go further. At 11pm, the streets are hardly empty, and we find out that the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps are even busier than during the day.
We take our tourist pictures at the fountain, and I throw in 2 pennies and make a wish.
Emma and I share a small bottle of Chianti red wine on the Spanish steps. We share the steps with lots and lots of other groups of young people, staring out at Rome in nighttime, talking, and drinking beer. And also street vendors that sell little toys which light up and fly. It’s a wonderful scene. I am tired, but content, drunk on the energy of the youth and night around me, slowly sipping red wine, feeling warm and at home.
Unfortunately, eating at a public monument is against the law in Rome. So Emma and I are told to put our red wine away by the police. We move ourselves to a nearby square, and continue to soak in the Roman night air, sharing tidbits of stories and thoughts, finishing off the red wine and the beautiful night.
