Happy June, everyone!
Today was a lot of fun! We started out the day like any
other with breakfast and rough plans to go to a few places. We hopped on a bus
at the train station in hopes of getting to the church where Emily was going to
do her presentation. As soon as we got on and all sat down, the rain came
pouring down. We sat at the station for about 20 minutes before the bus started
moving. Once we got going, we were headed up to the area where we were
yesterday for the catacombs. Then we kept going further. And further. Then we
made a big turn and were headed back the way we came. And we kept going. We
finally got off after being on the bus for an hour and a half; Brittany asked
Dr. Zaho, “How far are we from the hotel?” and Dr. Zaho responded by pointing
to the building at the end of the road about two blocks away and said, “There’s
the train station.” You know, the place we left from. We essentially rode the
bus in a giant circle to avoid the rain and travel two blocks. Nobody was upset
though; we got to sit down, hang out, and see the city all while being out and
avoiding the rain.
We made it to the church around noon, afraid that they were
closing then. Emily had enough time to present, though, which was awesome. She
did her project on the Coronaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria. This
chapel features a fantastic sculpture of the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa and
portraits of the family that owns the chapel, all by Bernini. It was beautiful.
The whole thing. And a nice priest lit it up for us when he heard that Emily
was presenting information about it. So cool. After that we went back out and
walked towards the Capitoline Museum, over a mile away.
On the way there we decided to stop for a quick lunch. We
chose a small pizza/pasta place in a piazza at the bottom of a large staircase.
It was a bad choice. I got a slice of bad pizza for 2 euro and a cup full of
sliced strawberries for 4 euro. 4 euro is a lot for a cup full of sliced
strawberries. But it was worth it because those strawberries were delicious and
I felt the need for some fresh fruit this afternoon. Anyway, no one liked the
food they got but we were hungry so there were no complaints.
Once we left there we were walking past the Vittorio
Emmanuel memorial building, also known as the Wedding Cake. My parents had told
me all about this place after their trip to Rome, so I was excited to be close
to it to share it with them. The gate to the front was open, so Dr. Zaho
decided that we might as well walk up all the stairs and see what was up. So we
walked up all the steps (there are a lot) to the front doors, entered, didn’t
see a ticket booth and kept going. Zaho wanted to get as high up as we could so
we went out to a terrace and got a nice view, but she wanted more. So we turned
a corner and found a huge glass elevator precariously placed next to the back
of the building. She ended up buying us all tickets to get ride it to the tippy
top of this huge building. The ride up was really cool (I compared it to the
glass elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and the view from the top
was spectacular. It really helped us all get a bearing on the geography of the
city. I got to see the Pantheon from way up high and we were so close to the
Forum and Colosseum, so all the wide shots of the view were dominated by the
coolest monuments here. It was awesome and the sun has never seemed so bright
as the time we spent up there because we were surrounded by the bright white of
the building.
We descended after about 25 minutes up there and walked
around a corner and down a few steps to get into a church that butts up to the
terrace level of the Wedding Cake (which, by the way, was built in the first
decade of the 1900s). This church had the coolest chapel I’ve seen in Italy. It
might have been so cool because it was so different and unique, but it was
designed to look like a cave. Seriously, it was dominated by stone and the
paintings in it were layered like a stage set. I loved it. There were also
these round portraits surrounding the top of the wall just below the ceiling
that featured what I’m assuming were saints. These images were literally
emerging from their frames. One woman looked like a superhero while the man
across from her couldn’t keep the crucifix he was holding within his frame. I
loved them and that church was incredible.
After the church we walked down a flight of stairs with over
100 steps (Dr. Zaho told us this then I heard a man counting out loud with his
son as they were walking up) just to get to the bottom, turn a corner, and walk
up a bunch of stair-type things to get to the Capitoline Museum. These steps
and the courtyard outside the museum were all designed by Michelangelo; that’s
pretty cool, I guess. We stood out there for a while discussing the Marcus
Aurelius statue in the center, then made our way inside. When we entered the
museum and saw the pieces of the giant sculpture of Constantine, only to find
them all covered with clear plastic and scaffolding or something but I was
still excited to see it. After that we began going through rooms.
Before we even saw anything really memorable (besides a cool
Archimedes exhibit and some old murals and mosaics) we ran into a family from
UCF. The two boys go there and the father is an astronomy professor. Weird,
right? One of the guys was wearing a UCF shirt so we spotted him and talked for
a few minutes, though the guard kept telling us to be quiet and the professor
dad had no interest in any of us, including Dr. Zaho.
Interesting/memorable things we saw in the Capitoline
Museum: archaic Greek pottery; the real Marcus Aurelius statue in a beautiful
modern space; a sleeping guard in this beautiful modern space; ancient statues;
some paintings; a statue of the Dying Gaul. As we were walking underground from
one side of the museum to another, Dr. Zaho made us walk up even more steps to
a seemingly hidden balcony area with the most astounding view of the Roman
Forum. Man, was it awesome. We were all stunned when we reached the top of
those steps and saw the Arch of Titus glowing in the sunlight. We all took a
lot of photos and just relaxed while music quietly played from some mysterious
source.
When we were done with the museum, a few of us hopped on a
bus to return to the hotel to grab cash for dinner and a surprise for Dr. Zaho.
When we were ready to go to the restaurant for our final dinner, we hopped on a
packed bus at the train station. And when I say packed, I mean we were like
sardines in a tin can. It was pretty awful at the beginning. Fortunately, I was
sandwiched between Rosie and Brittany but I know others weren’t as well of as
me in the situation. When we finally got to our stop, we hopped off and it
began raining. None of us brought our rain jackets because when we went back to
the hotel the weather was beautiful. So we pushed through if, hugging buildings
and hopping from awning to awning. Then it got worse. It was basically a
torrential downpour when we hit the spot with no awnings or coverings of any
kind. Suffice it to say, we were all soaked. But it began to slow down and we
were about a block from the restaurant, so we went for it. As we were about to
make a right, we almost literally ran into Dr. Zaho and Chelsea, who were
heading in the opposite direction. So we joined them and went the correct way
to Hostaria Costanza.
Hostaria Costanza, the restaurant we ate at, is in a
location that was part of the Pompeo Theater, the place where Julius Caesar was
murdered so many years ago. So this place has a neat history, it’s adorable,
and everything everyone ate there was perfect. Katia and I shared a veggie
appetizer; this plate had zucchini, onions, eggplant, and green peppers on it.
All were grilled or fried and each thing was delicious. Ugh. I can’t even talk
about how good those onions were. I’ll never eat onions that good at home.
After we finished our appetizers and ordered our main course, we gave Dr. Zaho
her surprise. While we were in Florence, my roommates and I stopped in an old
bookstore near our apartment. Geoff found this amazing book about Florence that
was written in English and published in the early 1900s. We had to get it for
our professor. So we gave that to her tonight, as well as a lovely card with an
illustration of our beloved Santa Croce on the front. She didn’t see it though,
because she didn’t want to open it and cry too hard at dinner.
We ended up telling her how much we appreciate everything
she’s done for us, and she pretty much did the same. A lot of very nice things
were said. I cried. A lot of us did. This trip has been so incredible and
wonderful but still stressful and hard at times. It got pretty tough to be
together with 12 other people all the time, so tensions ran high sometimes, but
overall we all get along really well as a group and we’ve learned to love one
another and notice all the little things about each other. It’s a wonderful
thing and we’re all aware of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our
relationships with each other, a kind that we won’t be able to find with anyone
else.
Anyway. After our little festival of kind words, we got our
food. I got gnocchi al tegamino, which was potato gnocchi with a tomato,
mozzarella, and basil sauce. It was so good. Maybe the best thing I’ve had on
this trip, I don’t know. Katia got artichoke ravioli that was also very tasty.
Once we were done with our meals we did the best and worst sights, sounds,
touched, tastes, and smells of Rome. My bests: entering the Pantheon for the
first time (sight); the live music everywhere (sound); playing with one
another’s hair (touch); tartufo (taste); and fresh cut flowers at an outdoor
stand (smell). My worsts: men on the street outside our hotel (sight);
squeaking noises made by dumb teenagers during Rosie’s presentation (sound);
the cold and wet marble in the catacombs (touch); purse sandwiches by the end
of the week (taste); and bathrooms (smell).
While we were in the middle of sharing our experiences, we
paused to take a look at the dessert menu. As we were doing this (rather
quietly, I might add), a man that was sitting behind us stood up and started
speaking to Dr. Zaho in a harsh tone. None of us speak Italian but we all knew
he was saying we were disturbing his dinner. I turned around and looked at the
woman she was with and the couple sitting near them; both women looked pissed
and pretty much ugly as hell with the bitter looks on their faces. Dr. Zaho
talked this guy back into his seat then got up to tell management that we had
been disturbed. All the waiters pretty said they don’t like that guy anyway,
but the owner likes him because he has money. So a waiter came over and,
according to Dr. Zaho, “schooled” the guy. As he was doing this, the man from
the second couple began yelling at us. Literally yelling at us, the same phrase
over and over. This man was complaining about us being a disturbance but he
hushed the entire dining room with his shouts.
It was ridiculous. But I urged us to finish out bests and
worsts, so we did, and the second couple was so annoyed that they left. We
decided against dessert there because we wanted to leave and I suppose not give
any extra money to the owner or something like that. As we were leaving, Dr.
Zaho went over to the man who had started this whole scene and said something
to him along the lines of, “Bye, enjoy your dinner! Have a good night, and good
Sunday.” I didn’t notice this, but the man was apparently wearing a large Star
of David necklace, and as you probably know, Italy is a very Catholic country
that is very serious about Sundays. So by her saying have a good Sunday, she
took a great subtle jab at him. Oh man, it was great. I didn’t see his reaction
but I guess he had nothing to say to that.
So we left the restaurant in search of dessert. We decided
to head back to Tre Scalinin in Piazza Nuvola for some more tartufo. No
complaints there. It was just as delicious this time as it was the first. After
hanging around for a while and chatting amongst the group, we made our way
home. A few split off to go out, but me and others came back to the hotel. We
got on another packed bus. I won’t miss that part of Rome. Well, I probably
will in a weird way. I didn’t shower last night so I was stoked to come back
here and shower. As soon as I got into my room I realized that Ana Maria was
out and would be out for a while so I decided to pamper myself. I cleaned and
clipped my toenails, shaved, showered for a bit longer than usual, and just
took my time to get clean and comfortable. It was wonderful.
Now it’s 2 AM and Ana Maria isn’t back yet. I’m so tired and
tomorrow is our last day in Italy and I don’t even know how I’m going to handle
that. I plan on eating gelato and seeing a few more sites before I can say I’m
done. Who am I kidding, I can never really say I’m done with Italy. I’ll miss
the heck out of it. And the people I’m with. I can’t wait to be home in my own
bed but jeez, I’ve become so comfortable here in this situation. All good
things must come to an end though, right?
I’m going to bed now. Good night!
No comments:
Post a Comment