February 9, 2012- Roma day 2

Rome time.

 We started off the day with a complimentary breakfast provided by our B&B across the street in a pub.  They gave us a croissant (which was pretty good.  Better than American ones, anyways), orange juice, hot chocolate (which is really thick and bittersweet in Italy, but still good), and toast.  The toast was basically oversized packaged croutons.  I had to slather lots of jelly on them, but they were pretty good little croutons overall.  Then we bought 1E bus passes to the Vatican, or it would have been at least a 30 min walk.  We had made really good friends with our apartment manager man and he gave us tips on how to get around town, where to go, what to see, what restaurants to go to, etc.  He was a very stylish Italian man who always wore a scarf and had fantastic dreads (but it might have been a wig…still not sure).   So our apartment manager friend told us how to buy the tickets and which bus to take.  We didn’t know if we had to show the bus driver our tickets or get them punched or anything, so we just held onto them on the bus, ready to do whatever with them when needed.  The bus was pretty dang crowded (especially cause it was only one decker, instead of a double decker like in London). 

A true Roman breakfast.  Probably not.  Complete with crouton toast.

The Vatican, however, wasn’t crowded at all.  It was absolutely fantastic.  We took some pictures in the open area in front of it (which, again, wasn’t crowded.  There’s something to be said for avoiding tourist season), and tried to figure out where to pick up our tickets we’d bought online.  After walking basically around the whole Vatican City and asking directions all along the way, we found the entrance around the back of the wall.  We got stopped every like 2 feet by people wanting to give us tours.  These Italians are sooo pushy with selling stuff.  They get in your face and shake scarves or whatever they’re selling.  Soo annoying.  About 30 people stopped us along the way to ask if we wanted a guided tour of the Vatican.  Go away.  No.

Vatican time!

In front of St. Peter's

Out in a courtyard at the Vatican

In the Vatican we went through rooms and rooms of mini museums.  Some rooms were filled with hundreds of marble statues, others had busts of statues, paintings, architecture, etc.  One of my favorite rooms was a map room that had huge hanging material maps all the way down a hall of ancient Europe.  The maps were stunning and so intricate.  Every room had beautiful ceilings that looked 3D.  We would walk all around the room, looking up at the ceiling trying to figure out if it was actually 3D or just a really realistic painting, and we discovered from investigating the shadows that they just painted them to look super realistic and 3D.

One of the fake amazing 3D ceilings.

A statue of Voldemort when he was a child.

A map of ancient Italy.  Map room- best place EVER!

We stopped off in the rooms Raphael painted frescos (“The School of Athens” being one of the most famous), and they were stunning.  He spent years working on these rooms.  It’s so weird to see something in real life that I’ve seen pictures of my whole life.  

The School of Athens

I saw works by Salvador Dahil, a sculpture by Rodin, one by Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, and several other famous artists.  It was great because I could at least recognize a lot of the names of artists from my humanities classes, even though I couldn’t remember everything about them.  I do wish I would’ve researched this trip and the history more before I came on it, because I felt so ignorant the whole time.  I know I learned about all the history in my classes and recognized a lot, but I’ve since forgotten the actual history behind everything.  I felt so naive and ignorant, and that I was basically fulfilling these Italian’s expectations of dumb American tourists.  At least I wasn’t wearing a fanny pack. 

One of the many hallways 

So the museum essentially takes you through tons of smaller (if you can call them that) rooms that I just described, and eventually leads you to the Sistine Chapel.  The Sistine Chapel is a lot different than what I thought it would be.  I thought it would be a lot higher and more of a long rectangle room.  It was just a small square room.  We all thought it would’ve been bigger, but I guess that’s the American-ness in us coming out.  You couldn’t take any pictures and weren’t supposed to talk.  But people still did both.  I’m not sure really what to say about the Sistine Chapel.  It’s one of those things that are so famous, and it’s just unreal to look at in real life.  It was fantastic, of course, and it’s just weird knowing that it took years to create and has so much history to it.

Then we made our way over to St. Peter’s Basilica.  On our way there we got stopped by more people wanting to give us tours.  One guy stopped us and asked, “have you been?”  I replied, pretty annoyed because I was sick of all the sellers, “yes, we just got out.”  And he was just like, “no, I mean to my apartment?”  Haha oh man funniest thing ever.  Then about 2 feet later this group of Italian guys cat-called to us and called us to come over and talk to them.  They started yelling, “bella Americanos!  We love you!  Come here!  Where are you going?!”  We just walked off laughing.  I’m pretty sure I got more attention from men in Italy than I’ve ever had in my entire life.  And yes, much of that attention came from greasy old Italian men, but I am still completely flattered.  I should move to Italy.  It would do wonders for my self esteem.

St. Peter’s – ahhhh…another stunning piece of Rome.  It was HUGE inside and had statues everywhere.  The main thing I wanted to see, “La Pieta” by Michelangelo, was super far away from us.  It was roped off and you were back about 30 feet from it.  So that was suuuuper lame cause we couldn’t really see it.  But we had a great time walking around looking at all the other architecture around the Basilica.  We touched St. Peter’s feet (said to be good luck.  His feet are completely smooth from everyone touching them), and saw the baldacchino (by Bernini.  It’s a huge pavilion-like bronze structure that basically looks like the outline of a 4 poster bed). 

Touching St. Peter's feet

"La Pieta" with maximum zoom

Just one "little" sculpture in St. Peter's

Bernini's "Cathedra Petri" and "Gloria"

The Balacchino

Oh, and a quick gelato stop with our friends we saw at St. Peter's

Oh, and we also ran into our roomies in the basilica.  They turned out not to be an American “couple” but two guys from California studying abroad in Spain with the UC schools.  We chatted for a bit and learned that they’ve basically been everywhere so far, just traveling around, and we made plans to meet up with them for dinner that night at 8.  So after that we did a bit of shopping, got gelato, and stopped off at a castle on our way back (St. Angelo Castle, which was closed sadly, but we still got a fantastic view of the river). 

View of the river in front of the castle

Bridge in front of the castle

Then we got back on the bus to meet up with the guys to get dinner.  I watched other people get on and put their tickets through this machine on the bus that marked the time on it, so I did the same (and Courtney did too).  We told the other girls to do it, but they were just like, “no, I’m not sure we should do that.”  Then like 3 mins into the ride these police men came around asking for tickets, checking everyone’s.  They saw that Kayley and Kristi’s weren’t time stamped and got really mad.  They made us get off at the next bus stop and told them they had to pay 100E apiece for it.  They tried explaining that they were with us and they just didn’t know they had to put them through the machine.  The policemen asked to see our passports and I basically fainted.  I had visions of spending time overnight in jail, of me being interrogated in dark rooms, with the US embassy unable to protect me.  And I hadn’t even done anything wrong!  The girls tried to argue with him, and we all just felt sick.  One asked if we were tourists, and I was like, “obviously.”  Seriously idiot?  You know we’re tourists- we’re clueless Americans who have no idea what we’re doing.  Eventually he let them pay 50E together, and after they handed him the money the cops became like our best friends.  They asked us where we wanted to go and helped us find the right bus to get on to get there, wishing us a fun trip in Italy.  Whatever.

Then we met up at our place with the roomies (Reid and Bryan) to go eat.  We went to this restaurant best friend manager told us about.  I got tortellini, which was delicious.  The guys were super fun and really interesting to talk to.  They have traveled so much that it was cool to hear about their experiences.  The waiter at the restaurant liked messing with us, and pretended to take away our plates after we had taken one bite and stuff.  He was basically hilarious and I’ve found that Italian waiters really like messing with Americans and teasing them.  Oh, Italians.

Oh my.  Real Italian food.  Yes please.

Italian flag- lights at night

After dinner we went with the guys just exploring Rome at night.  We walked over to the Trevi Fountain again (where I got to throw in a coin and make a wish) and got gelato.  Ahhh, delicious.  Third time’s a charm.  It was beautiful at night and all the famous buildings and architecture were lit up.  We walked down a road that was about a mile long and had lights strung overhead all the way down the road that was striped with the colors of the Italian flag.  We just walked around with the guys, checking out some of the monuments at night, and then chilled in our sketchy apartment together.  They had been to Belgium before they came to Italy and had lots of Belgian chocolate to share.  Best roommates ever.

Gelato with the roomies in front of the Trevi Fountain