May Break I: Florence, Rome, and Vatican City twice

Recently, everybody on N-Spice decided to leave the Netherlands for over a week. This, of course, caused all classes during that week to be unattended, so the N-Spice organizers decided to declare the week "May Break." I'm not sure if I'm completely accurate on the causal relationships of all of the facts, but I'm pretty sure that those are correct.

Well, a little faction comprised of Dustin, Pug, Tymona, and I decided we would go to Italy and Greece for our May Break. But, since a week is a long time to cover in one blog, this entry will only cover the Italian portion of the trip.

Our first stop was Florence for a day. We arrived on a sleeper train early in the morning, and had to cover a lot of ground before we left for Rome at five in the evening. So, we did. The most notable thing about Florence is the original Statue of David, carved by none other than Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. It tops the replica that is located in near down town Sioux Falls in a few respects: it isn't in Sioux Falls, it was created by Michelangelo, and it is made of marble. Also in Florence I experienced my first taste of truly athentic Italian pizza, which was splendid.

We spent a few hectic days in Italy's capital city, Rome. The first day we were there, we discovered a little secret, that the Vatican Museum, which holds the famous Sistene Chapel, is free on the last Sunday of the month. Turns out that the people in charge of keeping the secret a secret failed miserably, because, as you can expect, there were droves of people waiting in line to get into the museum. As it turns out, the museum closed before we could even get into it, so a morning was wasted. We resolved not to waste the rest of the day, and headed over to St. Peter's Basillica, which, despite more droves of people, did not disappoint. I have previously vowed not to explain cathedrals, but I now feel the need to break my vow of silence. St. Peter's was absolutely the most amazing cathedral I have been in, which is saying quite a bit since I have been in quite a few amazing cathedrals. It was massive, and so very ornate. There were lots of statues of former popes, which surprised me a little bit, but there was also a statue of St. Peter with some lore that is unknown to me about touching the statue's feet. I looked at the feet as I passed, and they are completely worn down from so many people constantly rubbing his feet; the rest of the statue is in pristene condition but his feet are quickly becoming flat, smooth, and unlifelike. After we explored the vast expanses of the lower floor, we jumped in a line to ascend to the cuppola. That trek was also enthralling; we saw the art of the dome much closer, at which point I realized that the pictures of saints and the latin writings were not painted on the dome, but rather made out of tiny glazed tiles arranged to produce the breathtaking effect. Then, we ascended even further and were given the chance to overlook the Vatican City and a large part of Rome.

The next day was conducted in true whirlwind tourist style. Actually, at the very moment I am writing this, I can't even remember where we began. Now, which is taking place mere seconds after you read the previous sentence, but which, as I am writing this, is actually taking place after I wrote the last paragraph of this story, I still don't have a clear chronological order of the things we saw, so I'm just going to start writing things, and the reader should assume they are not in order. The most notable thing I saw in Rome is people. In fact, huge multitudes of people, more than I was able to count. People, everwhere. Our last stop was the Spanish Steps, but I never saw the Spanish Steps, I saw people sitting down on what I could only assume were steps. It was that packed. But I lied, I actually did see, and walk on, the steps. We also saw Trevi Fountain, which was an incredible work of white stone sculptures, water, and people. Oh, no, the people weren't part of the work, there were just massive amounts of people there. Okay, I'll drop the people bit, just so long as you agree to recognize that there were alot of people in Rome. Pantheon - not to be confused with the Parthenon, which will appear in the next blog entry - was one of our sites, and it was impressive, however it was closed. For some reason, May Day (May 1) is an important holiday in Rome, and I really, at this point, have no idea why, but maybe I'll learn some day. Hmm, what else? I can't believe it! It just dawned on me what we saw first, and I can't believe that I forgot it. What would you go see if you went to Rome? The Colliseum, of course, which was our first destination. Waiting in line for the Colliseum, we were approached by a man trying to get us on his tour, and we were wary, but we did finally agree, and despite my incessant feeling that we were going to get hoodwinked, it turned out to be a wonderful deal for us. An eccentric and amusing tour guide showed us around the Colliseum, and then later a kind and very knowledgable woman showed us around the Foro Romano, which doesn't mean Roman Forum, which is what I had guessed, but actually means Roman Marketplace. She included a bit about the part we were walking on was what people in the first century would have walked on. Well, inspired by that, we visited the excavation of where Peter and Paul were imprisoned. That was a very odd feeling indeed, imagining that here was the place where the Holy Spirit inspired Peter and Paul to write parts of the Bible. Incredible. I believe that this writing has hit every important event of the day, even if the events written were not laid down in proper order.

On our final day in Rome, in which Pug, Tymona, and I would leave Rome at 1:30 in the afternoon, we gave the Vatican Museum another try. This time, we learned our lesson about the lines at this place and arrived early, before the museum even opened, so we only had to stand in line for one half of one hour. There was much to see in the Vatican, and much that I didn't understand. There was an Egyptian exhibit, which I spent much of just staring and the thing people have found, amazed that things can be, um, a couple hundred times older than I am. There were other things to see, but they didn't catch my attention, because I was only waiting until the rest of my company was good and prepared to move on to the proverbial crown jewels, the Sistene Chapel (painted by the same Michelangelo that was mentioned earlier in this passage). Before getting to the chapel, a visitor must pass through long rooms painted by other painters, like Raphael. Who's that guy? Judging by my knowledge of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he must have been about as famous as Michelangelo. Well, if he wasn't, he certainly should have been, because his work was absolutely amazing; if forced to choose I might strongly consider rating the Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Museum higher than the Sistene Chapel, but I feel no need to make such claims. Finally, we arrived at the Sistene Chapel, which turned out to be everything people had told me: hundreds of people taking pictures from their waists because pictures are not allowed, and the occassional guard grabbing a camera, probably just for effect, knowing that he can't really do anything about it. Oh, and there's some art, too, but you have seen pictures of those before, I'm sure. Actually, it hurt the neck to look at them painted on the ceiling, so you may be better off just looking at pictures of them. Actually, I heard reports that Michelangelo's neck actually never recovered from a permenant krink in the neck from painting the Sistene for four years. There, now all of my readers think I am completely irreverant with regard to such an amazing work of art, so I'll add that I really did find it jaw-dropping.