7.8.2006 "Now THAT is a ceiling!"

Ciao All!

 

Good evening to everyone!  It's 9PM here, and we have once more made our trek down to "our" little hole-in-the-wall internet access place!  The people at the desk cheerfully call "ciao!" when we come in now...  What can I say?  We make friends all over the place!

 

This morning I was heading out to make a phone call, and a cute little old lady was coming down the sidewalk as I was going up, struggling with the cloth-covered buttons on her dress.  "Signora" she said sweet, and then rattled off in Italian, motioning towards her buttons.  It only took a second for me to surmise that she couldn't quite get the buttons into the button holes to fasten her dress close, and she was asking for my help.  I was honored (do they usually ask tourists to do this?  I don't think so!  I felt like such a "local"!) to help her out.  She was trying to talk to me, and I just kept smiling and saying "I'm sorry, I don't speak Italian!", but after getting her buttons done, and the tie tied on the back of her dress, she was ready for the day.  "Bella" I smiled, and she (quite literally!) beamed back at me "Grazie, Grazie!"  Wow, I love interacting with the PEOPLE over here!

 

But then again... there are times when the PEOPLE get very ANNOYING!  But I'm getting ahead of myself... I catch you all up!

 

Since we'd read that the Vatican Museum was more crowded in the morning, we decided to take is slow this morning, and head out by about 11ish to walk the short distance down to Vatican City from our apartment.  For those of you who don't know (I didn't before I came over here and started reading all the Rick Steve books!) Vatican City is actually a 100 acre country INSIDE Italy.  It is the home of the Pope, the Vatican Museum (including the Sistene Chapel), and St. Peter's Basilica, including the impressive dome my Michelangelo.  Vatican City has its own armored guards, and helipad, apparently, also!

 

When we got down to the Museum, we started groaning when we saw the line as we came up towards the entrance.  It wasn't until we started down the side of the wall, looking for the END of the line, that we realized just how long we were going to have to wait!  I'd estimate that the line finally ended about a 1/4 of a mile from the entrance... and we started taking bets on how long we would be standing in line!  Fortunately, 3/4 of the wait would be in the shade, so at least we weren't melting in direct sunlight!  Amazingly enough, we only stood in line for about an hour before we got in... this place is pretty darn efficient!

 

On a side note, (and it's pretty minor, but it made our day!) we were purchasing our tickets, and had to choose between the line marked "students" or "bigliette" (tickets), since we aren't members of the EU, and we haven't got ANY discounts anywhere else, we didn't figure it was even worth us trying to get a student discount, and only have to go to the END of the ticket line.  So when Heather and I got up to the window, I asked for two tickets.  The gentleman at the window rattled off something, and I said "Yes, two." (giving him my best smile... I've noticed that smiling helps a lot with keeping everyone happy!!!).  "OK, bella one, (handing me the ticket) and bella two.  Grazie! Ciao."  He said, ahdning us our tickets and change.  We replied "Grazie, ciao!" with another big smile, and moved on our way... I shoved the money back into my wallet, and waited for Gma and A. Cherille and Valerie to finish up.  "Wait, how much did that cost us?"  Heather asked, intently studying her tickets "12 Euros."  (She's been annoyed at the cost!).  "Mine only says 8.00 on the back."  I looked at mine, and sure enough, mine did also.  "How much money did he give you back?"  Heather asked, so when I checked, we realized that he'd given us the student discounts!  It wasn't huge, of course, but it is also so cool to me when people go out of their way to be nice to us!  I was like "I LOVE these Italians!"  and, for the most part, it is true!  Rick Steves warns (quite seriously!) about how Italy can be chaotic and frusterating, but I've really enjoyed the atmosphere!  Sure, I mean, things are DIFFERENT here, compared to the US, but that's what makes it so fun and interesting!

 

So, we took off through the Vatican Museum.  The painting were gorgeous... there were a LOT of them!  Everywhere we went, bright colors brought images from the Bible and History to life on the walls and ceiling around us.  The path we walked was a MAZE, but fortunately, it is all laid out in a one-way, easy to follow path, or we'd have been lost for SURE  (For the record, we haven't gotten lost ONCE in Rome... which is simply amazing for us!!!).  We walked through many halls and rooms and galleys, displaying the amazing talents of the artists of the world, including a refreshingly un-crowded display on modern religous art, before finally reaching the much anticipated Sistene Chapel.  How do I describe it?  (I always seems to be having this problem!)  It was very, very colorful, and seeing the skill of Michelangelo was very cool.... however, I was also a little disappointed, simply because the room was absolutely PACKED with people (I mean, we're talking, like, Metro train crowded...  There was no personal bubble space!!!!), and the guards kept saying "Shhh!!!!" really loudly, clapping their hands to get people's attention, and yelling "No Photo!  No Photo!"... I know they were just doing their job, and, of course, they have to be firm and loud to get tourists attention, but it REALLY ruined the moment for me!  After following the crowd (oh so slowly!) in the human river between the little tiny entrance door, and the little tiny exit door, and admiring the ceiling and walls as I went, I was ready to get out of there.  Had there been less people, I probably would have used Gma's binoculars and the pictures we had in our tour book, and take time looking at individual pictures more.  Instead, what I got was an overall (and that view WAS impressed, I assure you!) view of the Chapel... adn then I was ready to go!

 

After the Chapel, you've about reached teh end of the Vatican Museum, so we skimmed through the rest (OK, OK, we actually skimmed through a lot of it getting TO the Chapel, we just skimmed faster!  In all honesty, we've seen SO much, and there is SO MUCH to see, that we were all feeling a little art-overwhelmed, I think!  Not to mention, simply being tourist travel weary...), and exited right beside where we'd entered.  We wandered back along the line (much shorter now at that time!) to get to the entrance into the piazza of the Vatican City.  Steping through the arched entryway, you don't hardly see the piazza because huge columns (2 deep) interfere with your view.  But when you step through those columns, you find yourself in a VAST circle Piazza, boardered with these massive columns, and framing the grand entrance to the chapel, with an oblesk (sp?) commanding your attention at the very center of the piazza.  Everything was light colored, gleaming in the sun, from the columns, to the stone on the ground...  Anyhow, it was cool, very, very cool!!!

 

We had to wait in line, again, to get into St Peters, but the line moved fairly quickly, and we got inside relatively quickly.  Since we'd been sure to dress appropriately, we skipped right through the "modesty checkpoint," and got into the actual builidng.  Walking into it is like walking into.... (words failing me!) a different world, I guess.  Everything is SO BIG!  I felt like an ant... only maybe smaller...  Bacteria or something!  The square footage of the base of the columns is probably bigger than the area of my bedroom!  And there are LOTS of columns!  St. Peters can hold 95,000 people... 95, 000!  Just IMAGINE that number of people in one place!  The colossuem the other day only held 50,000, and it was HUGE!!!!  The art work was beautiful on the inside (all the pictures in the dome are actually mosaics, not paintings) and the statues were (also!) huge, but the most spectacular thing was simply the massive size of the whole building (building... I think of buildings as houses... this was like a super structure!!!)  I was quite impressed, if you haven't picked up on that already!

 

So, we saw the place on the floor where Charlemangne was coronated, we saw the place where Peter was killed (on a cross.... upside down, for those of you who slept through religious History!), which is also the place he is buried.  We saw Michelangelo's piéta (we actually had to come BACK for that, because I didn't want to miss it!), and we admired the oh-so-large dome  (4 feet narrower than the one at the Pantheon, but quite a bit taller).  Then, we got down to the fun part... climbing the dome!  (Gma and Auntie Cherille decided to do their own thing at this point!)  We stood in line (again!!! always lines!), waiting to pay our 4 Euros to get up to the top  (again, cheaper than we had anticipated!  I love finding things less expensive than planned!).  This is where the part about being annoyed with people comes in...  For the most part, we have found Italians to be a bit more expressive towards us younger gals than Americans... it is totally not uncommon for people to whistle, stare, honk their horns, or call out to us as we walk around.  At first, it was little weird, we thought it might not be very safe!  But now that we've been around it (and read Rick Steve's.... he suggests taking it in stride... for the most part, he says it is harmless.  If you're feeling endangered, he advises being firm, adn sticking to public places... common sense stuff which we'd already planned on doing Mom, no worries!), for the most part, it is just annoying.  I mean, we've kinda accepted it as part of the experience of being here, but it still is enough to keep us going "honestly!  It isn't like we're the only females around here!!!" (Side note:  However, I want to make it clear that for every guy who has been slightly less than proper in their conduct, there is at LEAST one person who balances that...  Today coming back from the market, a man saw us coming, and stepped off the street into the trash filled gutter, so we didn't have to... we thanked him!  And there was the guy at the ticket place at the Vatican Museum who gave us the discount... and the older man who helped us get to that Palazzo Reale in Rome, and countless others who have offered advise from where to go to get to our hotel, how to use the ticket machines at the metro, where to go on train tracks, and where to get the best pizza around... :-) )  Anyhow, in line, we found the rudest person yet!  Seriously, this guy creeped us out.  He started out being a couple people behind us in line, but he was in a hurry to get to the dome, so he started pushing through the crowd very subtley...  Valerie got the worst of it, when he WOULD NOT stop moving forward until he was pushing up against her.  This kept happening for about 10 minutes (it had started with Heather, but she'd managed to slide away.  I kept trying to get an elbow between him and Valerie when we stopped, but it didn't work too well!).  She'd move forward with the line, and then he'd be RIGHT THERE behind her.  And it wasn't just the body contact, although that was disturbing, no, he had to check each of us out, up and down... Grrr!  I know, I know, I shouldn't really expect any differently, but it is downright annoying!  Finally, Valerie turned around and said (WAY sweeter than I would have!) "Do you want by?  Here, go ahead!" just to get him away from her.  Then, we watched for the next half an hour while he did it to every other young woman in the crowd near us...  By then we were just plain disgusted!  And glad that he'd left us alone, but a little upset that we hadn't stood our ground and "just happened" to step on his foot HARD or something!

 

OK, enough about my ranting and raving over the un-gentlemanly dude in the line!  But, before I move on, I do want to heartily thank all of you gentlemen readers, and all the men in my life who are polite, honorable, and just plain decent enough to show a little respect for us ladies as PEOPLE, not just bodies!  You've shown me how REAL gentlemen act, and therefore helped me set my standards high!  You are awesome!!!!

 

We opted for the cheaper way of getting to the top of the... climbing... the whole way!  (The other option was to ride the elevator to the base of the dome.)  After about 200 steps, we got to the roof, and the base of the dome.  We actually walked around on the inside of the dome, looking down into the basillica.... THAT was cool!  Birds eye view!!!  From there it was another 320 steps (getting steadily narrower and smaller!) to climb up to top of the dome.  It was very, very crowded, with little room to move around, but it was DEFINITELY worth the sweat and teh crowds!  The view was SO amazing!  We didn't get to spend nearly enough time at the top, since or feet were killing us by then, and we knew we had the whole hike down, and the crowds were pretty bad, but looking out over the city of Rome was definitely one of those "Wow, I'm in Rome!" once-in-a-lifetime moments!

 

The climb down was uneventful... Heather and Valerie found it easier to take off their flip flops and proceed barefoot going down the sloped, ramp-type steps.  I'd worn my shoes with more tread, but they were giving me some nasty blisters, since practically all I've worn this tip are my flip-flops, so I was ready to get off my feet!  We did take time to go below St Peters, to see all the tombs of the Popes... Including Pope John Paul II's burial spot.  I was glad we'd taken the time to do that...  For having so much power, I think that John Paul did a pretty darn good job of using his position for the good of MANY people, not just himself.  His simple, basic, plain, flat tombstone perfectly fit my image of a humble servant.

 

We had to run back into the basillica to see the pièta (Long ways away, smaller than I expected), before heading back to our apartment.

 

We relaxed some, I even slept (How, I'm not sure... I already had an early morning nap this AM...  I'm just tired, though!  So tired, in fact, that I'm actually looking FORWARD to the plane rides... I won't have anything to do but sleep!), before coming down here to get online.

 

Now we need to try to finish up our food, pack, and get ready to leave Bella Italia.  Sad panda!  I'm ready to get home, but I don't know if I want to leave yet, either.  There is so much more I'd like to see, and simply to soak up more the culture...  But, I'm sure I'll come back someday, so I am just thankful that my first trip over here has been (overall!) so enjoyable!

 

Heather and I might try to sneak away tomorrow morning and head over to Trevi fountain and throw in a coin over our shoulders and make a wish.  According to tradition, the person who does that will return to Rome.  We also want to do a little more shopping for souvenirs!!!  Then we fly up to Hamburg tomorrow afternoon.  We'll be spending the night in Hamburg, before flying to Heathrow Wednesday morning, and then on to Seattle.  We'll be arriving in Seattle at about 4 or 5 PM, I think.

 

Thank you all for being so supportive of, and excited about our trip!  It has been a blast for me to share it with you from my perspective...  Of course, if any of YOU go on a similar trip, I'd love to follow along on your travels by blog... so invite me!!!!

 

Love you all, and ciao for now!

Dani

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