Rome Part 1

Rome Part 1

Sept 28

It’s been a nice rest in Tuscany, but Rome awaits.  Andiamo!  It’s going to get busy fast. 

We depart Tuscany and head to Rome, a relatively short ride.  Our hotel, Hotel Oceania, is nicely situated and well appointed.  It has a bunch of stairs and a mini elevator, if you can even call it that.  I don’t attempt the elevator, it scares me.  My room is on the 3^rd floor, which means the 4^th floor in Italy.  You’d think that meant 4 flights of stairs, but each flight is 2 flights, so you do the math.  It was a loooooong way up.  Its okay, I’m totally up for it since I’ve been working out for over a year now, every day.  Bring it on.

 Many people in our group sent their luggage up the elevator first, and then went up after it.  Ken and Sue somehow lost a suitcase during that maneuver, and it had their souvenirs.  Heart breaking.  Looking back, I wonder if it arrived at the floor above ours, where there was the "American Hotel".  That just occurred to me. Leave it to the Americans to steal a tourist's suitcase. 

After we check in, Stephen walks us down to this central plaza where there is a big fountain and he shows us a map, which has some big monument or something, oriented in the opposite direction from the way it sits in reality.  I quickly write on a notepad:  “when you see this, don’t go that way, go the other way” and I take a photo of it.  I don’t know why, since that would be my natural inclination anyway.  We pass a McDonalds along the way and I am craving a McFlurry.  It seems kind of sacrilegious to have McDonalds in Rome, so I don’t.  There’s gelato here, but still I want a McFlurry.

Stephen takes off to get us Metro tickets so we can head to the Vatican, where we have an appt to get in, and we can’t be late.  Then he disappears and doesn’t come back.  Something must be wrong so we wait and wonder.  Something is off.  We check our watches and scan the street for him.  Suddenly, whoa here he comes running, his adrenaline pumping.  Apparently he got stalled at a metro ticket place, that refused to give him enough tickets, then he had to run to another ticket place and something else went wrong.   I got lost on the details but it was a tour guide’s acid trip apparently.  He is a Ninja however, so he works it out and returns to us in time with Metro tickets.  We board.  He smiles, a warrior.  I try to give him the secret Ninja hand sign, to indicate my approval but he doesn’t get it.

Vatican City is HUGE.  Not just HUGE, but H-U-G-E.  There are enough tourists there to populate a country of their own, just like Vatican City did.  There was some kind of strike or uprising at the Coliseum or somewhere, so everybody decided to hit up the Vatican today.  Just our luck.  Stephen usually leads his group on a guided tour of the museum, with himself as guide.  This time however the Vatican has changed  the rules, and he is not allowed because he is not an "official Vatican guide."  Leave it up to the Vatican folks.  He quickly obtains us the prefab audio guides, and we try and look like a big family instead of a tour group, so he can still point out important things to see.  We tour the Museum and it’s a lot like all the other Museums, and I am getting jaded unfortunately.  “Oh look, a fantastic piece of art surrounded by gilded gold wonderment, yawn…..”  I feel a flutter of guilt, but I think it comes with the territory, being around all that Catholicism and all.  I toss a little confession-slash-request for forgiveness out into the airspace, pretty sure a Saint is there somewhere and will hear me.  I gather my respect, tune out the tourists and forge on.  If I had Stephen voice in my ear, I’d be paying more attention.  The audio guide isn’t capturing me whatsoever.

After the museum, we have the chance to roam the Vatican on our own.  Stephen says to meet at the obelisk.  I personally can't remember what an obelisk is, so I find somebody to cling to, thinking that if I get lost, my penance will be forth coming and well deserved given my former attitude issue.  I’m not up for that today.  I follow someone into St. Peter’s Basilica.  OMG there is Michelangelo’s Pieta.  I am dumbstruck.  The rest of the world fades to black.  All I see is Jesus in the lap of his mom after the Crucifixion.  I cannot move. 

Michelangelo sculpted it when he was 24 years old.  I look and see Marilyn, also transfixed.  My tourmate Vicki has tears.  It is moving beyond words.  I cannot breathe.  Tears brim my eyes and spill over.  I let them fall.  I too am a mother, and a Christian.  The representation of the moment that Mary held her Son after he was brought down from the Cross has pierced me to the bone.

But eventually the flashing of the cameras and the bulging crowd dissolves the magic and I move on, trying to keep myself in range of somebody I know.  At one of the glorious alcoves, I see Stephen.  There is Mass going on.  He stops walking and genuflects briefly as a sign of reverence as he passes the Priest.  On the way out of the church he dips his fingers in the font of Holy Water and blesses himself.  I want to put it on pause, and ask him if he is Catholic, or Anglican, or?  There is never time for this kind of sharing, and it frustrates me.  I have to keep it in perspective within the confines of a “holiday tour”, but it enlarges my respect for Stephen and weaves an additional layer into the fabric of this experience for me.  I know he has a PhD in Religion, but I want to talk with Stephen about his personal faith and about theology, not about religion.  We move outdoors and Stephen has to find Cindy, who got split off and still has her audio guide.

Later we have dinner on our own and so as usual, we dine in small groups.  I can’t recall what I had because I can only think of my time at the Basilica and food seems irrelevant.  We retire that night, after a long long day.