Roman Holiday

Easter in Rome has a number of solemn traditions, starting the Sunday before. (Well, starting 40 days before, technically, at the beginning of Lent, but who's counting?) The pope attends tons of ceremonies all week long, including a recognition of Palm Sunday (the day of Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem).
On Good Friday, there is a pageant at the Coliseum called the Via Crucis or Way of the Cross. The pope presides over a ceremony where scriptures and other texts are read about Jesus's last few hours. There are 14 so-called "stations" of the cross, or events that happened to him from his condemnation, through his crucifixion, and ending with his burial. As the readers read the texts, screens showed people marching a cross from point to point, starting in the Coliseum itself, and eventually out through the crowd and across to the Forum, culminating next to the pope in his pavilion overlooking the Coliseum.

The Coliseum is on the left, and you can see the pope there on the screen, while across you can just barely make out his red pavilion. He is the little white speck under it. (He looked larger in real life, but this was with a wide angle to capture the whole scene.) There were probably close to 75,000 people right around there.

The next night was Holy Saturday. In St. Peter's Basilica, they hold what is called the Easter Vigil, which is a Mass, combined with baptisms and tons of other stuff.

 Saturday it rained quite a bit, so the Easter Vigil wasn't actually crowded (the square had thousands of chairs--all empty) so we might have been able to actually get into the Basilica, but it was two and a half hours long. We watched part of it on the big screens outside in the square and called it good.

It has been super crowded in Rome since we arrived over two weeks ago. Any time we go to any of the well-known spots, they have all been thronged with people. Well, last Saturday was the opposite of that. The rain had driven everyone indoors, and we ate an extended dinner while we waited for it to end. After the end of the Vigil, we rode our bikes through a quick tour of all of our favorite places, from the Vatican, by the Castel di Sant'Angelo (pictured) across the Tiber, to the Piazza Venezia, then down Via del Corso to the Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Piazza del Quirinale. We also rode down the Via Margutta, which is the street Gregory Peck lives on in Roman Holiday, a favorite spot of ours on our last trip here, and a place that probably deserves its own post. Finally we went home. We were enjoying so much having those places to ourselves that I forgot to take any more pictures after this one. I don't regret it a bit.

Then, Easter Sunday dawned. It was warm and sunny. We rode back down to the Vatican, and this scene awaited us:

You can tell the crowd had completely filled the square and then filled the Via della Conciliazione (the street approaching the Vatican) for about a half mile. I guessed there had to be 100,000 people there; we read the next day the crowd was estimated at more like 150,000.

Well, we pushed our way up to the front and eventually saw a disappointing sight: once the square had been filled (probably early in the morning), they'd blockaded it and wouldn't let anyone else in. A large empty space and plenty of guards separated the wise virgins with oil in their lamps from us poor sinners.

But if you think that stopped me, you don't know me very well. I slipped around to the side of the colonnade, and waited until the guards on either side were looking away from me, then jumped first one barricade, then the other.

Eventually, Trajan decided to join me and, after getting caught and sent back once, made it across as well. I have no idea why, but somehow he's still surprised each time I go someplace that I'm not supposed to.

If you look at the last photo, then this one, then the next one, it should give you some idea of the scale of St. Peter's Basilica. Most pictures make it look large, but it is huge.

You can see how far I had to zoom in to make out just one person. (In this case, Pope Francesco himself, delivering his "Urbis et Orbis" [the city and the world] blessing.)

This shot and the next are details from the corners of the Basilica.

In this shot, I got the bells ringing--something I've never actually seen before. It's a very dramatic sound and fills the whole square.

The pope took a quick victory lap in the pope-mobile, which at this point is a glorified golf cart. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

After all that was over, Trajan turned to me and said "Let's go back to Italy." I laughed pretty hard at that one. (For those who might not know, the Vatican is a separate country, one of the world's smallest. Its eastern limit is the outer border of the colonnade.)

It was a very cool morning, but we had to miss church to see it, so we went home and watched some of General Conference that we had missed, and then decided to go on a bike ride out to the Rome temple site. We discovered it's about an hour's ride to get there, which we didn't mind at all, especially since it got prettier as we went.

 Eventually, we saw the temple in the distance.

 There is a pretty high fence all around the temple site, which is a very good thing, since vandals will paint graffiti on anything they can here. So this is the best picture we could get.

Well actually, it was the best picture we could get until I decided to hop the fence of the building next door and climb up the outside stairwell to the fifth floor. Trajan, having hesitated, was caught by a security guard and had to stay behind.

The money shot, from where the temple looks oh so much more amazing, and where the air is rarefied and pure, and anyone who, say, came really close and missed out on, should forever regret his vacillation and ponder on where his priorities lie.

Well, obviously, it being Sunday, not much was going on around the site, so after taking our pics we biked it back home.

Today, the day after Easter, is also a holiday here in Rome. In Italian, Easter is called Pasqua, and the day after, Pasquetta. It's typically a day where Romans chill out and have a picnic and take it easy. We walked down by the Forum and Piazza Venezia, which was wall to wall with people. The roads all over town were closed to cars, and people were strolling about and seeing the sights, but I think I've put enough pictures in this post already. Suffice to say, we enjoyed it more on Saturday, when everything was empty. And it's only going to get worse--according to the news, over a million people will be coming to Rome this week in preparation for the canonization of two popes next Sunday.

I think we might have to get out of town for that one. Even people on holiday in Rome need a holiday.

Climbing the Walls, Part I

So, we haven't yet made it to the climbing gym we planned to join here in Rome. It's pretty far from us and we haven't gotten scooters as quickly as we'd hoped. We both miss rock climbing quite a bit. It's interesting how when you're a hammer, everything around you starts to look like a nail. Take a look at these pictures, and try to guess what they all have in common:

Some bank on the Via Merulana

The Pantheon (from the back)

Villa Aldobrandini, South Wall

Nameless wall on the Via Panisperna

Trajan's Market/Tower of the Militias

Near our old school's old school (they changed locations about a week ago).

Collegio Maronita Mariamita, back side (this one seriously looks like a great crack climb with a grate at the top perfect for rapping back down, and if we could see where to add protection we would have probably tried it already)

Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo



Give up? They are all walls that when I look at, I think "I could probably climb that!"











I think Trajan was probably a little worried about me at first, but, as with most things, with steady peer pressure, I have brought him around to my way of thinking.

Here he is in a more candid moment, outside the Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo. You can see he's just looking at the tower.

Or is he?

I suspected he was considering an arete climb.

Later on, inside, I caught him doing this.
















Well, from the number of pictures I've taken of blank walls, you can tell I'm excited about climbing some unauthorized Roman walls, or what I have (perhaps prematurely) dubbed "urban climbing." There are cracks, crevices, footholds, drainpipes, brick gaps, and the like on almost every wall you see here. It's gotten so bad that now, when I walk up to a wall and examine it, Trajan will wait for me and when I come back he'll hold up a hand and say "You don't even have to say it, I already know what you're thinking."

So, hopefully we won't get into trouble. But don't be surprised if you hear of Roman street ninja warlock vatican assassins running amok. Because we're just biding our time, casing the joint, scouting the routes.

The Old, Old World

In America, we sometimes talk of the "Old World."  We live in the New World, "discovered" by Columbus in 1492.  It's difficult to comprehend what constitutes the Old World.  Two years ago when Mark and I were in Rome, we lived a stone's throw from the Milvian Bridge, the site of a major inflection point in the history of Western culture and religion.


Constantine defeated his rival (and brother-in-law) Maxentius and, in the process, is said to have had a dream in which he was told to mark the shields of all soldiers with a sign - the Latin Cross (or maybe the Chi-Rho, there are conflicting accounts). Later, on his deathbed, Constantine converted to Christianity. (It wasn't until later that the Empire became officially Christian, under Theodosius I.)  After his victory, Constantine marched up Via Flaminia into the center of Rome, where he soon would be sole ruler.  This, incidentally, is the way we went to school every morning.

So anyway, it's a cool bridge.

This afternoon, we took a visit to another old site from the era of Constantine (his son actually, Constantius II).  The oldest Catholic Church (324 A.D.) in the world - Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. In the front of it is the oldest standing obelisk in the world (1,500 B.C.).  The obelisk was taken from the Temple of Amun in Karnak.  To the Romans, the obelisk was an historic artifact. Timewise, they viewed the Egyptians the same way we view the Romans.   In fact, the ancient Egyptians were about 1,000 years older to them than the Romans are to us. Note the cross on top of the obelisk, which, of course has nothing to do with Egypt.   The Roman Catholics put a cross on top of everything.

So Contantius II brought the obelisk with him on his only trip to Rome (he was more of an "Eastern Empire" guy).  It was installed near the Circus Maximus (where they held chariot races) and remained there until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  The Circus soon went into disuse and the obelisk (along with another one) broke into 3 pieces and eventually was covered in mud.   In 1587 it was dug up, dusted off and put in front of the church.

It's amazing to think that over 400 years ago this obelisk was considered ancient.  It was already about 3,000 years old.  So, given its history, its new home in this square is pretty new.

Then 200 years later the United States Constitution was written.

  

Life Is Beautiful

Started language class today. Our teacher is Costanza. (Not George Costanza, Costanza is her first name. Although we think she might take her shirt off in the bathroom.) We had several teachers two years ago, and she was our last one.

As you can see, she's a bit of a firecracker, and a lovely person. She's passionate about bicycles, and is always talking about how our world (but especially our city of Rome) would be better if everyone stopped driving and started riding. We're considering trying it out ourselves.

Our lesson mostly consisted of listening to a recording over and over. As it turned out, it was a guy telling his girlfriend he was late for lunch because he got trapped in by a really rude driver who double parked. Of course, we didn't figure that out until a good half hour and four or five repetitions later. Even spoken way too fast for us to understand, it sounded like a likely story.

Yesterday, we toured a few language schools. One is literally right across the street (and it's a narrow street). We really wanted to choose that one (nothing like a 30 second commute), but it was just too much fun to show up at our old school and have tons of instant friends. I guess there ain't no school like the old school.

However, at the school across the street, we did learn about an activity last night--it was a weekly get-together consisting of people who want to speak different languages. Even though we decided not to attend their school, we thought we'd go make some friends at their event anyway.

It turned out to be a fairly large gathering hosted at a restaurant across town. People came from all over Rome to speak something other than Italian. We spoke French with a French guy, Portuguese with a Brazilian, a little bit of Spanish, but mostly people wanted to come speak English with us, including a man (also named Mark) getting his Master's in Linguistics in Brussels. For 10 euros there was also all you could eat appetizers. It was very fun. Trajan spoke German to a couple of people, and then a Chinese girl sat at our table and I was like "go ahead, Trajan, blow their minds." He did so, speaking to her in Chinese. Soon they were chopping the air with both hands. For a minute, I thought they might be discussing kung-fu (verbal or otherwise), but it seems that's how you let someone know what tone you're using if you're not a native Chinese speaker. It was fun watching Mark's eyes go wide each time someone new joined the conversation and we engaged them in a different language--it's not easy to impress a European Master's in Linguistics candidate. He was a smart kid--and nice too--so that little bit of shadenfreude was probably beneath me. I couldn't help it, however, since it's one of the few German words I know, and, wo bu zhidao, I didn't want to be left out.

We had our first visitor tonight, a friend of mine named Erin who's working for JetBlue and was passing through Rome with her family. We said hello and had a few minutes to chat near the Fontana di Trevi.

And here are a couple more pics of the ceiling of the church of Santo Ignazio. I can't believe I've never been there before; it should be almost as famous as the Capella Sistina, and it's free!

Trajan and I have resumed our former habit (formed last time we came to Rome) of shopping together and sharing purchases, cooking together, alternating prayers in Italian, and basically acting like mission companions. He took off for a few minutes today without saying where he was going and I was like if he just went out for gelato without me he's a dead man. I have a goal of catching some time to myself--actually, we both do. Even that, we share.

We're figuring out how to eat healthy, getting plenty of exercise, the weather is mid-70's and sunny every day. If I were the type to quote movies, I might even say "Buongiorno, principessa," because, well, Life Is Beautiful.

Accidental Tourism

In Rome it's easy to see fantastic sights by accident.  Yesterday we took a walk around the neighborhood and without even trying we saw :

• The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (where Mark got inspiration for his next book)

• The Pantheon
• Palazzo del Quirinale (Where "Il Presidente" lives and where we nearly got arrested 2 years ago.)
• The Trevi Fountain
• The Spanish Steps
• Piazza Navona
• Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This church has one of the most amazing ceilings I've ever seen. Clearly inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, especially the foreshortening. The cupola seen in the center of the picture below is actually just a painting on the flat ceiling. Damn son!

• A very small church with no name that was completely lit by candlelight.  
• Heard a very cool 2 person street band.

There are over 900 churches in Rome so I'm not surprised to stumble across a no-name church.  Sometimes they can be just as interesting as the brand name churches.

We've gone over one day without nearly getting arrested, which will make my parents happy. After my dad read the last post he observed that we apparently had used up all our bad judgment on the first day.  Off to a good start.

Upon leaving the house, we looked at each other and noticed this:

If we were girls, we'd go home and change.  Ain't nobody got time for that.

This morning we visited 3 language schools to decide which we wanted.  The school we attended 2 years ago has moved farther away.  I found that there's a school about 50 meters down the street. That seemed like a good option. The second is a 6 minute walk. Another good option.  Lastly, we went back to the school from 2 years ago.  We were greeted with smiles and the staff all commented on how much weight Mark has lost.  They all remembered us and everything about it.  One of the staff is a rock climber.  So guess which school we're going to?  Yep, the one that is nearly a 30 minute walk every day.  "You want to go where people know, your troubles are all the same. You want to go where everybody knows your name.  Norm!"

Day 1

It feels strange to be back in Rome. No, that's not what I mean. I mean, it is strange, but not. I guess the strangeness I'm trying to convey is how strange it doesn't feel. It feels totally natural. What I mean is . . . never mind, let's start again.

It doesn't feel strange at all to be living in Rome, not even on the first day. And that's . . . pretty strange.

Oh wait oh wait. I first need to say something about the flight. The best thing about it: Delta now has little USB chargers by every seat (maybe you all already knew this but I didn't) and so my phone never ran out of power. Between San Diego, JFK, and Rome, I got through a whole season of Suits (excellent) and my first viewing of The Hobbit Part II - The Many Loves of Legolas (meh). Through it all, I didn't have to power down my phone and settle for in-flight-mag-sudoku even once. Those meals are getting better all the time, too. Even the little brownie tasted like food. And let me just say, if you don't have custom earphones, they're so hot right now. I didn't hear a thing except what I wanted to the entire flight.

Then we arrived. We took the train from the airport, even though a taxi would have been more convenient and only slightly more money. I happen to love trains, except when they're attached to a wedding dress. Then I really love them.

In the first day, we: walked by the forum and Coliseum, ate pizza, ate pasta, passed up

gelato, saw a Michaelangelo (there were other sculptures there, too, but I was like shyeah, right, other sculptures, how many ninja turtles you got named after you? Answer--a big doughnut (that means zero)), and hunted for (and found) an electrical adapter. We tried not to nap (did you know that if you can somehow resist napping when you change time zones, your jet lag is proven to be 8 times more miserable?) but failed, somewhere around 6AM on our internal clock, which was 2 PM local time.

So, after a nap, we went out again, ate pasta (again), and pizza (again), saw more of the architecture of this gorgeous city (again), passed up gelato (again and again and again--it's pretty damn hard, let me tell you--we live 2 blocks from my 2nd favorite gelateria anywhere, and #1 favorite in Rome), and took a few pictures.

 We live by a pretty popular night life area, which is about a block away--close enough to cruise by when we're bored, but far enough that the noise doesn't bother us.

At one point, we walked by Trajan's Market, which (I'm like 85% sure) is the name of the area containing the tower behind Trajan here in the background.

I've walked by it tons of times on past trips, and always wanted to see it up close. It has a wall around the base, but there appears to be a sort of garden or park surrounding it. I always just wanted to go chill in that park. In the past, I've walked all around it, but there's no clear entrance--it's part of a museum I think.  In any case, before, I didn't have the climbing skills I do now. It took me less than 5 seconds to climb 2 stories of wall and get inside. Trajan was just as quick once he decided to follow. (Overall I'm a pretty good influence on him, wouldn't you say?) 

Well, we had a grand old time until the guards (who expected guards?) heard us discussing the tower, showed up, and threatened to have us arrested. Now, our Italian is rusty, especially when authority figures are angry at us, so it wasn't immediately clear whether they were saying "don't move, we called the police" or "if you don't leave, we're calling the police." Since we liked the sound of the latter, we decided that was what they said, whether or not that was what they said. However, when we tried to leave down the stairs they used, they blocked us. Instead, they corralled us back toward the wall we climbed. We were like "Climb down the way we came up? Really?" Obviously, back home in the US, this just wouldn't happen. American Criminals in the US have rights, including the right to hold their victims liable for any harm befallen them while breaking, entering, or trespassing. So, if we'd been in America, all we would have had to do was let go on the way down, break a few bones, and we could have been rich. Unfortunately, Italy doesn't work that way. In the end, we made our way down the old fashioned way: without mishap.

So, there you have it. Pizza, pasta, Michelangelo, architecture, and the threat of arrest. A pretty epic (if strange) first day. Which, for us, is not at all strange.