Rome in Two Days!

*****I am still having trouble with loading pictures, I think it's my slow internet connection. I will keep trying though!*****

Be glad folks, these past two days have been piled with so much that I decided to force myself to update because otherwise I’m going to forget everything. We arrived in Rome Sunday and that night we had a welcome dinner. I finally got to see my Grandmother and cousin Wanda, who I haven’t seen in quite sometime. Dinner was a bit crazy with a five-course meal with plenty of wine to go around. Grandmother, after having a few, was in the corner screaming, “ARRIVERRRDERRCCIIII ROOOMMMEEE!” to the two men playing music while Wanda was wanting to include every wine glass that we drank in our pictures saying, “I want my kids to recognize me”. I think we established who we were that very night to our tour group.

The next morning, we woke up at 6 in the morning on Monday to make sure we got in line for breakfast, may I suggest a croissant, nutella and banana… you may thank me later. Next we set off at 7:45 to get to the Vatican, which I didn’t understand why we had to be there so early at first, but then I stood in line and slowly watched as the people piled in behind. The Vatican is the biggest tourist attraction in Rome and there are a lot of people that come to see where all the mystery behind Catholicism lies.

Although I loved visiting the Vatican and I gathered a lot of information, it is too crowded that makes it a little unpleasant as well. The room with The Last Judgment and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which depicts the Creation of the World and Fall of Man, was incredible to see up close and the stories behind them made them even more interesting. For instance, in The Last Judgment, in the bottom left corner is a man with donkey ears and a snake wrapped around him and biting his manhood. Our tour guide said that this figure represented Cardinal Carafa who did not like Michelangelo’s work because the figures were naked and that was considered a taboo. In fact, this was one of the first paintings that depicted the body completely nude, even from the backside. Well, Michelangelo was obviously offended by his comments and painted him in this humiliating manner after the fact. This cardinal of coarse complained to the Pope, but this particular Pope liked Michelangelo and said that there is nothing wrong with these bodies being naked because in the last judgment, we are all naked before God. And although I loved seeing this amazingly famous piece of work, it was so crowded in that room that it made the moment of soaking in this massive historical fresco to fade away into the hustle and bustle of the room.

After surviving the Vatican, we went to the Roman Forum, a huge area in Rome that is filled with Roman ruins. The great thing about Rome, to me, is just that. Not necessarily just the Roman Forum, but in general the ruins that Rome has preserved for the world to see. There is nothing like it, and it’s mind blowing to think that you are standing where the Romans stood thousands of years ago. The Colosseum, which we saw next, is exactly the same. I mean how is it possible to keep something so enourmous and historical so well maintained when you have millions of people that have flooded in over the years. It makes me wonder what will be preserved thousands of years from now that will make people look at it in awe, or if anything will even be conserved. It seems now that so many people rebuild more new and bigger buildings everyday, and that’s more important than keeping our old ones.

At this point, Grandmother and cousin Wanda were worn out, and let me tell you, they were troopers, and I’m happy they could experience this. As for Mom and I, we weren’t done with Rome. Later that afternoon, we went back to Rome and visited the main Roman highlights: Piazza di Spagna, Fountain of Tivoli, the Pantheon, and Piazza Novana. Since this is a lot, I’m going to talk about my favorite, the Pantheon. What’s interesting about the Pantheon is not just that it’s the best-preserved church in Rome, but the structure of the Dome. It has a hole in the middle of the dome that is wide open to the sky, and when it rains, the rain just falls into the church. There are 22 holes in the floor of the church that allows the rain to drain, and it has been like this 126 AD. The dome was also used as a way to tell time through sunlight reflecting on the walls of the dome. One last thing that makes the Pantheon dome so magnificent is it is a perfect circle, meaning that if you could turn the dome above you completely upside down and it would perfectly touch the floor, you would be standing inside a large bowl. I was fascinated and the fact that it has rained in the church for thousands of years and it’s so well conserved is pretty amazing.

Tuesday was a free day; some people chose to travel to the optional excursion, Pompeii. However, we decided to have another day in Rome to see a few more things that we hadn’t seen. We started off by going to the Ponte Rotto, a bridge from the 2^nd century BC. It’s in the middle of the Tiger River, the main river running through Rome, and you can’t get to it because both sides are broken off. Although it’s filled with cracks and overgrown plants, it’s a miracle that this bridge is still even standing. I mean, Before Christ! We also visited the Santa Maria in Cosmedin, known for their mosaic flooring and La Bocca di Verita. La Bocca della Verita is a Aztec looking stone face with it’s mouth open. It is said that the mouth would snap shut if you were lying, a good way to tell if spouses were being true. So we got our pictures there, along with everyone else before entering the church.

After we took that in we ended up walking towards the Piazza Novana, where we were going to have dinner with Grandmother and Wanda, and on the way we stumbled upon the Jewish Ghetto. It’s basically another roman ruin that was believed to be a fish market due to findings of massive amounts of clam and oyster shells. But this ghetto is literally like walking through it almost as if it were thousands of years ago, it’s well preserved and you can just see the action that took place here. After that we kept winding around the road and found a set of steps going up towards the Piazza Campidoglio, still unknown what exactly this place was. But what was neat is just on the other end of it, you could see an entire view of the Roman Forum. My point about this day is even if you don’t know where your going or what to do, and I believe this goes for anywhere you go, if you just pick a point and go there, you never know what you’ll run into. We started off that day by wanting to see the bridge and ended up seeing a lot more than we had anticipated.

Also, being that it is now Wednesday, we drove from Rome to Florence. The interesting thing today is we went to Pisa on the way. Pisa has the famous leaning tower, ‘nuff said. And there is nothing else interesting there, and yes, you must do the corny leaning tower pictures. Get creative and just do it, it’s fun!