Sinners and Saints (but not in that order)

It's been a busy two days in Rome.

My first quest was to have a day apart from the child,
so even though Lilly offered to take me anywhere I
wished to go, I said, "Hey... it's your last day of
vacation, why don't you just do what you need to do,
and we'll meet up later. I'm probably going to go to
the Vatican Museum, and Federica will probably find
that boring." (I'm shifty...)

But the idea was well-received and after a quick
breakfast next door, I headed off to catch the No. 81
bus. I didn't think to ask Lilly where I was supposed
to get off. Nor did I enquire about how to go about
buying a bus ticket. I ass'u'me'd that I would just
pay on the bus. Just like I assumed that one of the
stops would be clearly marked "Vatican" or "St.
Peter's" but neither were meant to be.

I did see a stop for San Giovanni's and for some
reason I thought that was familiar, so I got off the
bus (that I hadn't paid for) and started walking
around. Immediately, I found I was suffering from the
Italian version of IBM (Ishoulda broughta mappa). So
I went around a block, changed directions a few times,
and then saw a sign for a Metro entrance and decided
to give that a shot (buying a map would have been too
easy). Ahh, much better. Stops for both St. Peter's
AND the Vatican Museum.

I opted for St. Peter's first, but not for any
particular reason. As I walked toward the piazza
several different people were offering free
english-language tours of the cathedral. I'm a little
skeptical of anything "free" because it just doesn't
happen usually, so I kept walking, had a wander around
the obelisk at the center of the piazza and people
watched for a bit while trying to decide what to do
next. While I thought about it, a motorcade went by.
I had my camera at the ready, but nope... not the
pope. Just some people who seemed to get a kick out
of everyone watching them go by. At that point, it
was noon, and every single bell in town started
ringing and ringing and ringing. And I thought I
heard an explosion, which Lilly later told me was
actually a cannon that gets fired every day at noon
(not sure why).

Before I left Forano, Gianfranco gave me some advice
on Rome and the piazza at St. Peter's. He said to
find the footprints and look at the columns. Like the
donkeys-in-the-well story, I had no clue what he
meant, but I discovered that there are two spots in
the piazza where you can stand so that the columns on
the outside of the piazza line up with each other.
That's a crappy explanation, but trust me. It was
pretty cool. :)

At one point I realized that the circular piazza with
the obelisk in the middle made a pretty nifty sundial.
Kind of. So I started looking for the shadow. After
a couple of seconds, I remembered that it was high
noon, swatted my forhead, and moved out of the sun and
into the cathedral.

On my way in, I casually latched onto one of the free
tour groups and got a good amount of trivia about the
cathedral and some of the stuff inside. For example,
the cathedral itself is gigantic, and on the floor
leading up to the altar are markings of how other
cathedrals measure up. St. Peter's is 193 meters
long. However, according to our smiley guide, the
builders wanted to be sure that everyone felt welcome
at the church, regardless of their status of the
community. So they decorated by keeping all of the
statues and lettering/details to scale, so the stuff
at the top wouldn't seem so far away. (For instance,
in one section there are three statues from floor to
ceiling. At the floor, the cherubs are about 6 feet
tall, the next statue is about 12 feet tall, and the
one at the top is 18 feet tall.)

Our guide told us that another thing that sets St.
Peter's apart is that visitors are allowed to use
flash photography. Other places don't allow it
becuase of the potential for damaging frescoes,
tapestries, and oil paintings. At St. Peter's, the
oil paintings have all been replaced with replicas
made from mosaic tiles. Yes. Mosaic. Little tiles, no
bigger than the tip of my pinky are used to recreate
huge and very detailed paintings. I have a picture of
one on the website for your viewing pleasure.

Anyway, I took a fair amount of trivia from our
too-cheerful guide, but left the group to wander
around on my own. In doing so, I spotted a short line
for something and (as you do) I stood in it. Turned
out to be the line that would pass where Pope John
XXIII lies in state. (Up until a minute ago, I
thought it was the recently deceased pope, but nope.
I guess that's why the line wasn't so long.)

After another 15-20 minutes of looking around, I
headed back outside and made my way to the Vatican
museum and Sistine Chapel. Getting to the chapel from
inside the museum is a lot like being in a line at
Disneyland. You sort of snake around through
different rooms, think you're almost finally there,
and then find out that you've still got a few more
loops to go. But at least there was lots of good
stuff to see along the way. I became a ceiling fan.
The details and the amount of artwork in the various
rooms boggled my mind. But then, if I can draw a
decent stick figure, I'm a happy camper. Various
photos are online. Cameras aren't allowed in the
Sistine chapel itself, so people just kind of stop
moving and gape upward until their necks give out or
they can no longer bear the silence (or the docents
going Ssshhhhh! when the din starts to rise).
Gianfranco advised me to bring binoculars, and they
would have been useful had I remembered.

From the chapel, I set out to another section of the
museum where to see some fine art, and then remembered
that I don't really like fine art. But the one
Caravaggio painting was well worth the walk.

Then it was back out into the humidity. Friday
actually wasn't so bad, there was even a nice breeze
to help keep the heat down. When I left, the line to
get into the museum went almost around the block and I
was happy to see that I had timed my visit just right
(everyone else must pay attention to the advice not to
go in the middle of the day).

Soon, I was back at the apartment, resting my tired
feet and listening for sounds of life next door since
we were all meeting back up at 7 for dinner and a trip
to Villa Borghese (Rome's Central Park). Dinner was
over near the Vatican at Lilly's apartment and
following the meal, she took us (me, Fed, Marisa-the
grandmother, and the grandmother's neighbor) on a tour
of Rome at night. Lilly had planned for us to go to
the park for a balloon ride, but it was closed down
for some reason. Anyway, she took us past a bunch of
sights (St. Angel's Castle, The Coloseum, etc.) and to
the top of two hills for views of the city at night.
One thing I've come to like about Rome is that even
though it's a giant city, the stars are still visible.
We went past a fountain that's been featured in a
cell phone ad (whose jingle likes to stay in my head
for hours at a time) and then went and had a gelato
before returning home.

Saturday was independence day. The family planned to
leave again for a weekend at the beach, but I had
other things in mind (namely, not spending another
cozy weekend together). It was July 2, Live 8 day and
Rome was hosting a concert. That was my excuse to get
out of the beach weekend, and I really wanted to see
what it would be like. The event was held at Circo
Massimo and had about 30 people/bands scheduled to
appear. Of them, 27 were Italian artists. The other
three were Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Duran Duran.

Imagining the crowds, I wanted to get there early, get
a good spot and settle in. I assumed Duran Duran
would be the last act and planned to stay through
until the end. I had promised Lilly that I would stay
until they left for the beach so that I could say
goodbye to Federica and Marisa (who were staying for a
full week instead of returning to Rome on Sunday), but
by 10:45 they still hadn't arrived. Concert starts at
2:30... eek. Finally, the phone rings and it's Lilly
(who overslept). She lets me off the hook with saying
goodbye to the kid over the phone (sniff sniff) and I
race out the door for the bus (which I now have a
ticket for). I got to the Circus expecting a circus,
but it was kind of a ghost town. I must have walked
past 200 portopotties before I saw any kind of crowd.
They were there, but very small in numbers. It was
only about noon, and the sound check was still going
on. The place itself looked like it could hold
500,000 people, but I'd say less than 1/16th of it was
full. Maybe if they'd put a few more "globally known"
stars on the bill they'd get a bigger crowd.
Whatever, though. As people slowly trickled in, I
parked myself in the shade (on a hill) and people
watched while a few other bands did their sound check.
The highlight of the pre-game show was when a water
truck hooked up a hose and doused the (crazy) crowd at
the center of the stage. This happened over and over
again and was just as funny each time. Another
highlight was an absolutely spastic black lab who kept
bounding around the hillside, chasing butterflies. It
was a slow day. :)

Finally, 2:30 rolled around and the first band started
to play. Don't know what he sang about, but he was
good. Kind of sounded like Neil Diamond. Then it was
time for the Live part of Live 8 when we received a
feed from London and saw Sir Paul (soon-to-be Sir)
Bono, and the rest of U2 kick off the show with Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which has been stuck
in my head ever since). It was great. Our small
crowd went wild when it was our turn to be seen on the
big screen, and then it was U2's turn to take the
stage. I think we heard 4 measures of Beautiful Day
before the feed was cut and we were stuck watching the
roadies set up for the next act. I thought that the
least they could do was entertain us with other shows
during the inbetween times, but I guess I'll just have
to buy the DVD when it comes out.

To my joy (because at this point my back/tailbone were
killing me), Duran Duran was the 3rd group up. They
only did 4 songs, but they sounded fantastic (except
when Simon LeBon tried to hit a high note at the very
end of one song). But still, they (mostly) looked
great and sounded as good as ever. They were happy to
be reprising their role from the Live Aid concert in
1987.

And then it got boring.

I wasn't sure how long it would be before Tim and/or
Faith would show up, and I was really uncomfortable.
Still in the shade, but slowly sliding down the hill
and not really enjoying the cloud of second hand smoke
that I sat in. So I got up, stood on the sidewalk
looking down on the crowd for a while, and then gave
up entirely at 5 and headed for the Hard Rock Cafe
where I watched the London show and had a burger. So
Italian!

A couple of hours later, I headed back to the
apartment. Lilly's brother has super duper cable, so
I settled in with some other coverage of the concert,
did a load of laundry, sent some photos, and had a
quiet night. It was great.

Today... who knows? I'll figure something out. :)

Happy (almost) 4th of July (and a belated Happy Canada
Day to Roxane)

Best always,
Michele

Trouble finding me?
www.michelesumma.com