Rome is a fascinating city. Upon arriving, I could see that it was different from any other city I had ever been too. First off, there are only 3 million people that live in the city. The problem with this is that they are all in the main train station at all times of the day. The rest of the touristy areas that the average visitor would see is packed with 753 people per square meter. Of course we are here during a holiday so it could be a lot better the rest of the year, I have no idea. Another indication that it was unlike any other city was that it was Rome and it has cool things like the Colosseum and the Vatican (yes I know, technically a country), and many other awesome things like fountains everywhere.
We mostly by luck made it to our hostel. There weren't really clear directions and the one or two people that gave us directions weren't the best English speakers. Our hostel guy was the most helpful person in the whole country. Seriously, he is a cool dude. If you ever stay in Rome and are looking for a hostel, stay at the Lodi Hostel (different from Hotel Lodi), the customer service is great, and they make some of the best coffee I have ever had. The man spent a while showing us all about Rome on the map he had and then, because our room wasn't ready he had us hang out in the common room and he fed us yummy pastries, something we now are used to as a common experience, bless you free breakfasts. When our room was ready we spent some time doing laundry and planning the week out and then meeting up with other Friedensau buddies. It was nice to see someone other than our small group.
The next day we went to the Vatican. To avoid standing in line for hours one must get up super early. This makes me sad because I don't like getting up early, especially on breaks. But it was worth it to potentially not stand in line. The morning came and we stood in line for two hours. Markedly less than others had several hours later, we found out. We got inside and saw the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo is a genius mastermind. The Sistine Chapel was awesome, but what really struck me as cool was the roof of the building right before the chapel. It had what looked like sculptures coming right off the ceiling. It turns out it was just amazingly 3-D painting.
Later we hung out and at some lunch around one of the gardens and then went and explored areas of Rome close by, including the Pantheon. I think the Romans built some of these things just because they looked cool and frankly why not. It seems like a cool attitude to build a city. Millions of people have enjoyed visiting it. I'd call that a success.
*****
New Year Eve was an interesting experience to say the least. We hear about a massive group of people in a famous square and fireworks that last an hour. Because we love fireworks, hate being stuck in a crowd, we arrived a few hours early. Besides, there was word of a concert. Well there was no concert, and the square was pretty much empty except for a few people who had started the night off early with some kind of intoxicant. They were talking to us in Italian and all I understood was Mafia. They kept saying it a lot so we decided it was probably for the best to move elsewhere. When it became closer to midnight, more people crowded in. But it wasn't until about 23:30 that everyone came. Apparently everyone is still out eating. We were really early. During the hour before, many people were throwing firecrackers into the center of the square. Many people were around it but no one was in the square itself. We soon found out. That's where the people throw their firecrackers. These aren't your average firecrackers. They are very large and extremely loud. Some were very near us and we had to plug our ears a lot. The firecrackers going off and the altogether chaos crescendoed at midnight and finally a few fireworks that left the ground went off. None of it was orchestrated by the city, it was just some people in crowds. People began throwing their now completely empty wine bottles into the square. I was perplexed at how different it was than any other celebration I had seen. People were throwing the big firecrackers into the crowd and they were going off there, it became a bit more like a celebratory riot than anything else. We out of the way and had a good view of the festivities. But because we new the metro would be absolutely insane later, we headed back early.
*****
Since then we have had a rest day where we didn't go out and do much because we have been walking a lot, and we have also experienced some other really cool things like the Colosseum and Palatine hill. Both were awesome. Palatine hill showed me a little better how awesome the Roman Empire must have been as far as architecture and engineering. I have great respect for people who could build that with the technology they had then. Palatine hill and the Colosseum are right next to each other so one can go from one to the other easily, and on the same ticket. I was really happy to go to the Colosseum, it promised to be one of my favorite things in Rome. It indeed was spectacular. During the whole day I had the Gladiator soundtrack stuck in my head. It seemed so appropriate. The epicness of the music fits so well with the epicness of Rome. So naturally when we got back to the hostel for the night, we had to put the movie on. It showed the areas around the Colosseum and of course the Colosseum itself and I felt pretty cool having just been there.
Rome is an awesome city with millions of visitors every year. So you would think that it has a good public transportation system. You would think…but then you would be wrong. It has two metro lines that make a bit of an X inside the city, so if you are unfortunate enough to be in any of the four quadrants without a metro close, which is pretty much everywhere, you have to find another way. Busses run everywhere but its all super ambiguous about what runs where and when, etc. Yesterday we passed a bus stop and for the first time saw some information about the line. This was a surprise to us, most stops don't have any of this information on them. Therefore we elect to walk most places. When we do take the metro, it is almost always really crowded, and as the locals tell us here, it is a perfect place for pickpockets. I have a good pickpocket protection plan, I use a screw gate carabiner on the zipper of my backpack so that it cannot be unzipped without unscrewing the carabiner, then unhooking it, and opening the bag, a process that takes me upwards of 30 seconds to a minute. I also have good situational awareness so I feel like I am in not too big of a danger.
The crowds on the metro are predictable with the time of day and the location of the stop. Obviously at rush hour times by the main station it will be fullest. We combat this by standing at the very ends of the platform where no one wants to walk because its a long ways. This is often rewarded with less crowded areas. One time, we didn't have time to get to the end and the metro was extremely full. We tried jamming ourselves in various cars but it didn't seem to work well. Eventually we could bust in, but by then the doors had begun to close. I wasn't all the way in and the metro began to eat me. The doors closed on me and I was eaten in half. Fortunately technology has a correction for times like this and the doors opened and I could keep getting in. By this time the Italians knew I was in earnest and gave me some room.
Our trip was concluded with a trip to a Roman Civilization museum where there were many awesome things about ancient Rome in it including a model that apparently took 20 years to complete. It is a very detailed model of the entire city in the height of its glory. It was about 30 feet across and I wasn't too keen on leaving right away. We had made plans to visit the beach but that day it was raining and there are fewer things less fun then the beach when it is raining so we elected to not go. Nevertheless we had a great time just wandering back. We got off at a metro stop we hadn't been to before and wandered into a new part of the city and without any intended goal quickly found ourselves in the middle of the dead zones where you are in the middle of the two metro areas where there isn't a metro for a long ways. This made us sad, but after inadvertently going onto American soil via the consulate and then finding a few random side streets that were really pretty, we eventually made it to a metro station. Caching maps of cities on Google Maps with your phone so that when you are offline you can still see stuff is a useful tip that you learn after wandering through a few cities. It didn't really matter anyways because we didn't need to be anywhere.
That night, Michael and I decided that because it was our last night in Italy we needed to actually spend money and go find some place to eat that wasn't a grocery store. When traveling the way we do, one becomes very clever at how little money is spent while still maintaining a sustainable diet. We searched for a long time for a restaurant without previously having one in mind, and after an hour we came across one that looked pretty good. And because it is in Italy, and served Italian food (as opposed to the Chinese restaurants and the various Burger Kings and McDonalds) it was indeed good food. We left Italy on a good note at least with the food.
Morning came and we were heading off to the airport to fly back to Berlin. Remember in my earlier blogs how I said public transportation in Italy is bad, and how I constantly say that German trains are late…well going into this experience with that in mind, my hopes weren't high. This turned out to be a good thing, because it was a normal airport experience, and the plane wasn't delayed more than your average delay, we sat on the runway no longer than your normal time when flying United or American Airlines, and had a really, quite nice flight back. On the flight I could pull out my very rusty German and use it again. I only listened to the German segments of the flight attendants' speeches and did all the conversing that one does with them in German. It was nice to get back to a country where everyone spoke German. Granted everyone spoke English in Italy, and pretty much everyone speaks English in Germany too, but it was nice to be able to speak German. I felt more comfortable with the fact that I could use two different languages to get my point across if I needed to. We made it back to Berlin and the ever familiar Hauptbahnhof and the same familiar ride back home. That night as I settled back into my room by dropping my bags at the foot of my desk, and crawling into bed, I was very excited to be back. But I was also excited about the trip that we had just taken, all the experiences I had had, and all the things I had learned. There is no way I would trade that for anything. And with that in mind, I began the next chapter in my life at Germany…The life after Christmas break.
