Día Tres en Roma

(The Basilica del San Pietro in Città del Vaticano, Italia)

Saturday, December 12th

We got to sleep in a bit today as we weren't planning on being at the Vatican until 10. We ate breakfast in the hostel bar and both had egg and bacon sandwiches with ketchup (the ketchup packets were really hard to open so we resorted to sharing just one instead of exerting the energy to open two). We then got on the metro to the Vatican and after Lizzie stopped to buy some leggings at a vendor, we started to look for an entrance. We got called after by one Australian guy who was advertising a Vatican tour, and we tried to cross the street to get away from him, but he managed to follow us and we were met on the other side of the street by one of his Canadian coworkers. They explained to us their whole deal and then invited us out for beers, (which really didn't add to the legitimacy of their offer). We managed to turn them down, despite their persistence, and kept walking towards the Vatican, but when we saw the line that stretched around the whole of the Piazza, we followed a different guy who was also advertising a tour (that was also cheaper than the first).

We met up with the group led by a British guy named Antony, who turned out to be kind of bizarre (he kept making dirty, inappropriate jokes that no one was laughing at). Three more American men joined the group and just seemed as though they were from Boston. One of them introduced himself as Tim Flaherty, which seemed familiar to both Lizzie and I, and for the whole tour, we wondering if he was some big-wig at BC (we never did figure out how to ask that without sounding like creepers, though). The group stopped at a bar to grab drinks and pay Antony and then we headed to the Vatican Museums, where the tour started. We looked at a bunch of paintings and what Lizzie decided were "handsome sculptures." We also saw a huge marble bathtub that had belonged to Nero, which I thought was pretty cool. The thing was the size of a swimming pool and made out of a slab of rare purple marble. The museum itself was also very cool and there were lots of mosaic floors and frescoed ceilings. One ceiling was even painted to make it look like it was sculpted. The tour finished off in the Sistine Chapel, which was different than I had imagined it to be. It was much bigger than I had expected and much more elaborate. Every inch was covered with painting and Antony explained some of the story behind its creation. Michelangelo did not like the Pope's Master of Ceremonies, and made him Charon the demon in the huge fresco of the Last Judgement, which is positioned over the altar. Also, he had painted everyone in the Last Judgement nude, which horrified the church, and the Church hired a different painter to come cover everybody up.

After the tour finished, Lizzie and I walked through the crypt under Saint Peter's Basilica, where all the popes and even Saint Peter himself are buried. Then we headed upstairs to see Saint Peter's Basilica itself. The place is gigantic! Everything was huge and really elaborate. We did one and a half loops to get all the pictures we wanted and I stopped in the prayer room for a little while, as well. By this point, my memory card was completely full and Lizzie had to take over as prime photographer.

We left the basilica after a while and after taking a picture with the uniformed Swiss guard we took more pictures from the main piazza. The Vatican's staff is currently setting up for the Christmas masses, so there were a ton of people putting out chairs and programs, setting up huge Christmas trees, and putting together the big outdoor screens. As we were leaving, we passed the fountains that Antony had mentioned on our tour. He said that Rome and the Vatican have some of the best water in the world and that people still drink from these ancient fountains. So I wanted to try. Lizzie took pictures of me while I essentially doused my head in a fountain - they aren't really built for convenient drinking. The water was fine - cold, but good.

We then stopped for lunch at a cafe right outside the ancient Vatican walls. There were a bunch of monks having lunch right outside, so we knew it must be good. We both got potato and thyme pizza, which was really tasty, and after we paid, I was put on map duty to get us back to the Tiber. I was successful in this endeavor and we wandered along, stopping for pictures of the Castel Sant'Angelo and then further along at the Palazzo Di Giustizia. As we were walking along the river we passed an ice-skating rink and another open-air market, where I got this wonderful marzipan, shortbread, ricotta, fruit dessert. Perhaps the best dessert I've had in Europe yet. We also passed what looked to be a giant groundhog chilling in the river and a bird swarm sitting in a tree, making the tree completely black. The tree hung over the path we walking along, and we didn't think anything of it until we heard thudding sounds close to the tree. This was the birds relieving themselves on the sidewalk and on the car parked under the tree. That will be a mess later. Lizzie and I decided to walk around the tree instead of under it. We stopped for another photo shoot near the Palazzo, because there was a nice background of a bridge and good lighting, and reminisced on our time in Europe for a while before heading on.

We then crossed the bridge and headed over to Piazza Popolo, which is another big Piazza with a obelisk and, during this time of year, a big Christmas tree. When we got there, there was a street performer doing Michael Jackson impressions, which was pretty spiffy, and then we walked through another of the big shopping districts back to the Spanish steps. We were chilling for a while at the Steps and watched this parade for heart health go by followed by a marching band with an all-female drum core and all-male flag twirlers.

We then stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom but our jaws dropped when we walked in. The place was gigantic and really cool. There were all these side rooms decorated in various styles and it was all really impressive. So we decided we may as well stop for a while. Lizzie got dinner and I got a McFlurry and while we were eating, the woman at the next table turned around and gave us a flyer for another pub crawl. That's something interesting about Rome - they have people advertising everything from tours to pub crawls on the streets and Lizzie and I ran into quite a few of them. We took her flyer and then finished eating. I had been watching the garbage cans in the corner because they were automated and people had been having some problems with them. The one I was watching was so full that it had started spitting trash back out at people. I did not want that to happen to us, hence my careful study of the trash collection area. Two workers eventually came to fix the malfunctioning machine and I told Lizzie that I thought we were safe. We managed to dump our trash without too much trouble and headed back to the hostel. We had decided to go on one of these pub crawls (the one advertised by Tac) and we needed to prepare ourselves.

When we got back to the room, Michelle and Scott were there studying for their last final and we swapped stories about our days, (apparently they had seen us from their tour bus while we were wandering the streets). Lizzie and I got ready and were both a mess. I was trying to put on this sparkly eye stuff but it kept getting all over the bathroom and pretty soon, Lizzie and I were standing in a cloud of sparkles. My hair was also not cooperating and ended up in a ponytail. Very saucy.

We then got back on the metro and headed to the Colosseum, where we were supposed to meet the group. Tac met us in the metro (good thing he recognized us, because I never would have noticed him there) and then we walked to the first bar with two Italians. One proclaimed himself to be a model and the other was a computer science major at one of Rome's universities. They were goofs and I think they had already started their tour of the pubs. So the deal: for 20 euros, we would go to 4 different bars, get free drinks, free pizza, and a free t-shirt. The free t-shirt is what swayed Lizzie and I. At the first bar I made Lizzie order me a Coke every time she went up for a drink and we just chatted with the other kids in the group. Lots of them were just traveling around on their own. It seems that a lot of non-Americans take a year off of school before university and just travel the world for a few months/years (and going to pub crawls, from what I can surmise).

Unfortunately, there weren't very many cuties on this pub crawl - only the bartender and one other Australian guy, but before you know it, we were off to the second bar of the evening. By this time, the two Italians, Margarito and Very Very Awesome, (when Lizzie asked him what his name was, that's what he said - we could get no more information out of him) were completely plastered and needed to be practically carried to the next bar, a process that involved bus transportation, which did not help the situation. I liked the second bar better because there was dancing, and although it was really only kids from the pub crawl, it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards, we moved to the third bar, which also had dancing, although people were becoming more drunk and more annoying.

As we walking to the fourth bar, the cute bartender from the first bar (who is also one of the pub crawl leaders - how's that for a job title?) was walking and talking with Lizzie and I. When we got to the last bar, he told Lizzie and I to wait at the bar because he would buy us a drink. He gave us Long Island Iced Teas, which were really strong, (I ended up hiding mine in a corner of the bar) and then we just talked for a while. His name is Musa and he is half German and half Nigerian. Both of his parents are ambassadors, he speaks 7 languages, and he recently graduated from university with a computer science major, (again - pub crawl leader?). He also mentioned that his parents own a semi-mansion, he played basketball and swam in school, and was moving to a new apartment the next day. We chatted for quite a while.

So I got to dance with Musa all night while poor Lizzie was stuck dancing with Very Very Awesome, who by this point couldn't even keep his eyes open. Musa kept buying me drinks, which I kept hiding in random places and by 3:30, I decided that we needed to go. Musa decided we should go to another bar and so we grabbed Lizzie, (Very Very Awesome followed) and headed down the street. Apparently, Musa knows everyone in Rome, because not only did we get to skip the entire line for this bar because Musa knew the bouncer and owner, we also walked in and about half the bar cheered when they saw him. I felt cool just standing next to him. He also managed to get rid Very Very Awesome, who stormed off down the street. So then he got us all beers, (nasty, plain nasty) and we chilled at that bar until it closed.

He then took the bus with Lizzie and I back to our hostel, saying he wanted to make sure we got home okay (although I believe he had other intentions). He was nice though. If I had actually drank all those drinks he bought for me, I probably would have needed help getting home. But as it so happens, I was the only sober one there, and was actually the one making sure we all weren't plowed down by any Italian drivers. Lizzie and I crashed, seeing as it was about 4:30. Too bad we had to wake up by 8 the next morning.