Roma...and Pigeon Fighting

Ok it's been too long since I've updated this last. I'm uploading pictures to my computer right now from the soccer match, Vienna, and Rome- and there's about 400 new photos. Unfortunately, the past couple of trips I've taken, my camera has died on me within the first day or so, so if you want to see the pictures from the end of those trips they've both uploaded a bunch to Facebook.

I'm sitting here on a ridiculously lazy Friday, and I've done absolutely nothing productive. It's good though because with all the running around I've done and how busy I've been lately sometimes it's kind of nice to take days like this. I'm going to pull a fast one and Tarantino this post, starting with yesterday and move back to my Rome visit. It's been absolutely beautiful in Bologna the past few days...temperature in the mid 70's and not a cloud in the sky. Italians really don't wear shorts, but yesterday I just said screw it and threw a pair on. Apparently it's REALLY weird to wear shorts here. I got to class and one of the Italian kids asked if I had just gotten back from the beach, and my professor was straight up laughing at me...she was wearing a full on sweater. Walked down to Piazza Maggiore after class and some Italian dude was clutching his manpurse and just straight up pointing and laughing at me...irony so thick you can cut it with a knife.

I got a really nice surprise when I finally worked through the raw humiliation of wearing shorts on a beautiful spring day and got back to my apartment. If you're paying attention at all the title should be a great indication of what's coming next. Yep that's right, freaking pigeon sitting in my kitchen eating my leftovers and staring me right in the face, daring me to make the first move. Props to Nick and Brian for leaving all the windows open for 12 hours straight again. I think its important to point out that I recognized that son of a bitch, which leads me to believe that he caught a heaping whiff of my man-musk and took it upon himself to find out where I live, presumably to peck out my eyeballs and proceed to suck my soul out of my cold, dead body. It's probably even more important to mention that the reason I recognized that incarnation of pure evil in bird-form in the first place was because he had one of his legs ripped off. I even thew him a little piece of cracker at the train station when I saw him...and this is how he repays me. I swear, you give a pigeon an inch and they'll take a mile every single time. Anyway, I was faced with two choices...either try to chase the pigeon out of the apartment, and hopefully rip his other leg off in the process, or nurse it back to health and raise it as a member of my own immediate family. Needless to say, I chose the former. First, though, I called Ale up from downstairs to take a picture of the whole ordeal. I rushed around the apartment like a whirling dervish looking for the most ridiculous clothes I could find at the time, with some pretty good success, I might add. I was armed with a broom, Brian's bike helmet (which I have no idea why he felt the need to bring), and sunglasses for that classic 80's look. I had the pigeon trapped in the kitchen alone for about 10 minutes, just to raise the suspense and get him a little nervous. No sooner did Ale poke her head in and say "Aww look he's hurt...he's not gonna do anything" did the demon-possessed winged-rat fly straight toward her head. She screamed and shut the door, leaving me one on one. There was a brief moment where the pigeon (from here on out referred to as "Nubs") settled down, and we had one of those moments from an old western movie, just sizing each other up and wondering who was going to pull the trigger first. I beat ole' Nubsy to the draw, swinging the broom right for his head. He made a valiant charge, but I brushed him aside and managed to wiggle the door to the balcony open. He made one last run at me (Nubs' Last Stand as it will go down in the history books), before I used my last resort intimidation tactic, something which I believe runs all the way back in my blood for generations, no matter how many times my mom has tried (and failed) to convince me that West Virginia fought for the Union in the Civil War: The Rebel Yell. It worked all the way up until April of '65 for Johnny Reb, and you best believe that it worked for me. The pigeon quickly realized it was no match for me, and victory was swift. I could finally start to relax as I watched the pigeon fly out of view, with a string of outrageous obscenities coming from my porch trailing not too far behind it.

Moving on to the second, and probably more important part of this post- my weekend in Rome. Thursday, classes were canceled for the 150th anniversary of Italy, not to mention St. Patty's Day. I hopped on a fast train at about 3 and got into Rome at about 5. Alex came to get me at the train station, and we ate dinner at her host, Donatella's apartment. It was really good, with plenty of much needed vegetables. Since it was St. Patty's, I grabbed a beer at a pizza place nearby after dinner, but it turned out to be some Italian non-alcoholic nonsense. Just a terrible surprise on, as my roommate Nick put it, the HOLIEST OF ALL DAYS. I just ended up going to bed pretty early, and in the morning Alex and I went to her gym for a bit before starting out to see all the sights of Rome. The first thing I noticed was how different everything was than Bologna. The people in Rome all dressed, acted, and spoke differently. It reminded me about how different all the regions in Italy really are, and it got me pretty excited for my Naples trip, since that's really far in the South. The culture there must be completely different than anything I've become used to up in the North. Friday was a great day. We walked all around the city's center, starting near the Vatican, and ending up at the Coliseum. Alex took me through a lot of historical squares. I think part of me expected Rome to be much more modern for some reason, but the actual city itself is pretty indistinguishable from an American city. The only difference is, you can turn around and all of a sudden you're face to face with St. Peter's or some ancient castle. I also thought ruins would be everywhere throughout the city, but that also is not the case. At any rate, we got a handle on the subways and bus system, so getting around turned out to be pretty easy. After a bit, we got to the Pantheon, which was built by the Romans as a temple to all their gods, but was later taken over by the Catholic church. It was a mind blowing building, with a huge dome with a hole in the middle. If it rains, the water goes right into the building. Buried inside the Pantheon were a couple of Italy's first kings, Vittore re Emmanuel II and Umberto I. The famous Renaissance painter Raphael is also buried there, and it was really cool to get to see all their tombs up close. The building itself was constructed in the 1st century, but you would never know it because it is so well preserved. Apparently, they're still not sure how the dome was built, but its still solid. It was cool to think about all the pagan rituals that they must have held in the Pantheon, and was my first taste of ancient Rome really. After the Pantheon, we made our way to the Spanish steps, which to be honest, I wasn't all that impressed by at first. They're just a big stairway leading up from one of Rome's most popular districts for shopping to an old Spanish-style church, which I thought was cooler than the steps. At the top you can get a pretty good view of the city. Afterward, we went into the McDonald's next to the Spanish steps, which was the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen. It looked like the inside of a very nice night club or something...it was just so strange. For the record, it seems like people in Europe eat more McDonald's than we do in America- bunch of hypocrites. We made our way to the Trevi fountain, which is beautiful. It's this massive fountain with water cascading down around a statue of Neptune and a bunch of horses. The legend is that if you throw a coin in the fountain you'll return to Rome in your lifetime, if you throw two in you'll fall in love in Italy, and if you throw three in you'll end up getting married in Rome. I threw one in while Alex took a picture, and while she wasn't looking I threw three more in, so keep your eyes peeled for a post in the future of me taking a spur of the moment trip back to Rome and eloping with an Italian supermodel. After the Trevi fountain, we made our way down to Piazza Venezia, where there's this beautiful white building that houses a lot of government, I believe. It's huge, and apparently was built during the Risorgimento (the unification) of Italy, and the Italians think it's an eyesore. I thought it was awesome, though. Alex told me to take a left by the building, and I had no idea where we were going. All of a sudden, about 600 yards away there was the Coliseum right there, and to my right was the old Roman forum: the ancient ruins. I was like a little kid. All those years of studying the Romans, and it was right there in front of my face. I liked the Coliseum the best, but everything was closed so we couldn't go in right away. The Coliseum is almost as big as any stadium I've seen, and they built it almost 2,000 years ago. It sat 50,000 people. Just let that sink in. Also, it made me laugh. In America, owners are complaining and asking for city funds to help build a new stadium when the one they have is 20 years old. I wonder if anyone ever tried to pull that move and get a new Coliseum in ancient Rome. By that time it was pretty late, so Alex and I went to dinner at Donatella's favorite restaurant in Rome, and I had the best pizza of my life, by default with prosciutto, artichokes, olives, and an egg. It wasn't far and away the best pizza I'd ever had or anything like that, but it was still the best so I have to mention it. After dinner, there was this really cool bar next door, so I went in and got myself a nice German helles (thanks for making me a beer nerd Pete, I was content to drink Natty like everyone else before you ruined me- now I can't go back). That was it for the night. Saturday, we headed down to go inside the Coliseum and check out the Roman forum. We started up on Palantine hill, where the emperors built their palaces, for the most part. They were in pretty bad shape, so it was hard to get a good idea of how majestic they once were. Alex said that the pope had taken all the marble from the ancient ruins to build St. Peter's in the 1500's, so that didn't help. At the top of the hill, there was also a building left over from the Italy's fascist days, which was pretty cool to see. The hill was absolutely beautiful, though. I immediately understood why even in ancient mythology, Rome's area was viewed in a similar light to Canaan in the Bible. The weather was excellent, and it was just gorgeous. You could tell there was just something different about this place. It was absolutely beautiful, and mind blowing knowing that I was walking in the same area that Caesar, Nero, and of course Maximus once did (okay the last one isn't real, but Gladiator is a heck of a movie). The Roman forum was really the area of all the broken columns. In fact, some columns are the last remains of buildings. It was all built on a hill, and it was just really humbling to see. To actually be there, it made me think about civilization as we know it, and how different it could have been if the Romans had never come into power. It also made me realize that these people were brilliant, brilliant minds, building things and coming up with ideas that we would struggle to do even today. It's no wonder that this city was once the center of the entire world. A lot of our ideas and culture relates directly back to the Romans, 2,000+ years ago. It really made me realize what a small piece of the puzzle I am. The Coliseum did nothing to relieve me of that feeling. It was just so big, and the fact that it was so old just added to it. It's crumbling, and the floor is gone in the center, but you could almost see the gladiators doing battle in the middle of the arena, or a chariot race going around the outside. It made me realize that Romans weren't very much different from us today in the grand scheme of things. Fashion and architecture might change, and new ideas become more popular over time until they are accepted as fact, but in the end people will always be people. If there's one thing that I can take away from my time here in Italy, it is that exact lesson. There's no way to explain what makes people tick, except maybe how they and their ancestors have had to survive given their position in geography. That's it. That's all it boils down to in determining how cultures develop. It's all determined by the measures the earliest ancestors of a civilization take for survival. That's what makes Italians tick, that's why they eat what they eat. We never really had to deal with that in America, which is why that concept might sound strange or foreign. It's just a good thought at the end of the day to remember that people everywhere aren't so different. We all need to do the same things on a daily basis to survive, and we all have the same basic wants and needs. I think that this trip has made me much more accepting of people, all kinds. Well, enough of the philosophizing. After all the sightseeing, Alex and I went for a run in the beautiful park right next to her apartment, since the gym was closed. It's the biggest park in Rome, and there's all these statues and even a huge old mansion that some fascists lived in during WWII. It got pretty dark, and I tried to act tough but really I was crapping my pants that some homeless guy was going to jump us and stick me in the neck with a hypodermic needle. We made it out okay, though. After the run, Alex and I went to this piazza in the center that was absolutely jumping with college kids, and probably a lot that were younger. It was great. Rome parties out in the open at night, which I thought was really cool. We grabbed a panino at Alex's favorite place, and it was amazing...almost made me stop missing WaWa- for a second at least. We walked by the Trevi fountain again to see it at night, and I threw in a couple more coins, just for good measure. Seriously, expect me to have some weird kind of Mormon thing going with a fleet of Italian chicks when I get back home, all thanks to the fountain. Afterwards, we went back to relax on the Spanish steps, where I snuck into the fountain for a picture. You can see it on my Facebook, but there's a picture of me actually standing inside the fountain. I guess the cops were too busy trying to control the street vendors. Speaking of which, those are some wiley bastards, excuse my language, but you'll see why in a second. Alex and I were just sitting on the steps, minding our business, taking in the sights, when a guy selling roses walked up to us. I always got frustrated when Alex would be a little too mean to those guys, because they can't be making much money selling crap on the street. I had always kind of respected them for doing such a hard thing all day...selling absolute crap to tourists who don't want it in the first place. This guy changed all of that. I will never acknowledge another vendor/beggar (which is what they really are) in Italy again. This guy came up and saying how pretty Alex was and all that, just trying to get us to bite. I waved him on, but then he kind of forced this rose on Alex using broken English, saying it was free. Out of the corner of his mouth he turned to me and said "Hey give me a little money." I reached into my pocket, thinking I had a few euros to give the guy, but all I had was 50 cents. He tried to do some weird half-ass hand-off type thing, but when he saw how much I had given him he started raising a scene, saying stuff to Alex. I didn't get into it with him or anything, but I handed the rose and made him give me my money back. As he was walking away he turned to Alex and said something like, "Ohhh you like-a free huh?" I'm not even sure what he was trying to say, but hey pal, don't go telling the girl you're giving her a rose for free-which I thought was weird in the first place, and then bitch about it when the guy you're asking for it has nothing in his pockets. Never again will I even acknowledge one of those bums. Usually I just say no thank you politely and move on, but that guy was a real bum.

Sunday was my last day, and we dedicated it to seeing the Vatican, although the museum (and Sistine Chapel) were closed all weekend. I really might end up going back to Rome for a day at least at some point in order to see the museum. Before we went, Donatella ended up making me a huge lunch of pasta and turkey. She usually isn't supposed to make food outside of cooking Alex dinner 3 times a week, so I was really appreciative. I think I charmed her though, Alex said she really liked me. I guess there's just something about my face that makes Italian ladies want to feed me. We waited for a bus back to St. Peter's for about 45 minutes, but I got a ton of candy at a place right next to the bus stop and watched an Italian dude absolutely flip out on the cashier, so it was pretty cool as far as 45 minute waits for a bus are concerned. We caught the bus, and it drove right past this lookout point where you could literally see the entire city of Rome. It was beautiful. I would have taken pictures, but my camera already ran out of batteries, so apologies for not having any pictures of the view or the basilica. Anyway, we got to the basilica, and technically my 3rd country in Europe. All you have to do is go through a metal detector to get into the Vatican. I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was going to be a hilarious little city of clergymen, but it was really just a big church and not much else. I wanted to get some currency, but I couldn't even do that. The basilica itself is so hard to describe. I think it might be impossible to describe, at least with me not sitting in front of this computer screen for another two hours. The inside is covered with beautiful paintings, Michelangelo's "La Pieta" (a sculpture of Jesus after his death), and pure gold. It's literally the biggest church in the world, and stars on the floor mark off where other major basilicas end. I'm proud to say Bologna's held its own. The church is so massive that they paid attention to the perspective presented by the art. All the works in the back are huge, to make them appear closer than they actually are. The same goes for the statues. I'm going to go ahead and say it didn't really help. The altar looks like heaven itself. There are a few popes' bodies on display right in the church, including one who was incorrupt (didn't decompose). The ceiling is so high, the church is just so massive. For better or worse, it's a giant demonstration of the power of the Catholic church. I kind of got the feeling that the basilica was more of a testament to the authority of the church than a means to worship God, which is possible because it began construction during a pretty corrupt period in the Church's history. It was still a spectacle to see, at least. It seemed like when they built it they were trying to outdo heaven itself...and they might have succeeded. I had the privilege of being present during a mass, even though we couldn't get very close. Even though I could only understand a few words here and there, the choir sang for about 20 minutes straight in a particular chant, and it sounded like the angels singing themselves. I zoned out for almost the entire time, just thinking about God and my life, and a whole bunch of things. It was a beautiful moment and for a while I felt very close to God, which perhaps is the purpose of the all the grandeur of the Church. Here's a sidenote: according to Alex, St. Peter's is home to a couple of pretty neat relics, I guess, if you're into that kind of thing. One is a piece of the actual cross and the other is a veil that Jesus wiped his face with on the way to his crucifixion. I don't know if I really believe that the Church got its hands on those items, but I guess if there's any city that would have those things it would be Rome, since they were behind that whole mess in the first place. St. Peter's alone is worth the trip to Rome, if you're ever in Europe. The ancient ruins kind of help too. Along the same vein, seeing Rome was almost worth my entire trip to Europe, so if you ever get the chance to go, do it no questions asked. Anyway, after that I headed on my train, which ironically was the same exact train that I took to get to Wien the weekend before (train 235), and the train that Pete will take to get back this weekend. It took about 4 hours, but I was back in Bologna safe and sound.

It's a big week coming up. I have a midterm, and Pete's coming in on Friday at 5 AM (Train 234 of course, the one I took). We're going to do some pretty cool stuff, and maybe even go to Venice. Keep watching for new posts, and have a good week everyone.