It was a constant struggle between the desire to close my eyes for a much needed rest and the need to look out the airplane window to look at the Alps as we flew over them on the way to Rome. They stretched along endlessly and the white, jagged peaks provided a stark contrast to the vivid, blue sky that filled the dome above them. We flew over the historic city on our way to land in the suburb of Campiano, and I could see ancient ruins dispersed randomly throughout the modern metropolis, which looked to be thoroughly confused about the date. Upon landing, we knew we had officially left the cold and gloomy north, and were soon basking in sun as we walked to the bus outside the small airport. We caught a metro from the last bus stop, and emerged above ground into the Termini train station, just a few short blocks away from the hostel in which we would be staying. The streets were busy with honking cars, whining scooters, and the occasion yell or whistle.
Our hostel was exactly opposite of what I had in mind, trying to be super trendy, while just lacking in the simple things like easy check-in and kind/relaxed staff that you actually look for in a hostel. The people who worked there were complete tools, but whatever. Moving on... As we couldn't check into our room for a few more hours, we dropped our backpacks into the storage room and took a quick walk around the neighborhood before meeting Chris and Kyle about an hour later back in the lobby, as they had arrived the night before and the trip to the hostel was much shorter than expected for Dave and me. When we arrived back, the guys were waiting for us, and it was such an incredibly strange feeling to know we were united again, thousands of miles from Madison, Wisconsin, after being separated for way too long. As Dave and I waited to check into our separate room, we caught up on our adventures that had brought us together, Dave and my epic journey, Kyle's long flight to Spain before spending a few hours with Chris who had been staying in Madrid, and their arrival in Rome the night before.
The first thing on the agenda was lunch, as we were all completely starving, and were thinking one thing, and one thing only... pizza. The staple food of a college student, it had been absent from my system in Madrid for far too many months to be considered normal. As we sat down at a restaurant, I could tell that reality still hadn't set in for any of us, and to be honest, it felt kind of weird to all be together again. After living and spending every waking moment with these guys the entire year before, I hadn't seen them in over four months, but within a matter of minutes, the chemistry returned to normal like we were back in 104 College Park. At that moment, I realized just how much I had missed having my best friends around me. My semester in Madrid had moved along like a blur, and while I had met a lot of cool people and made some really great friends, we naturally just didn't have the same type of relationship. Not like I did with these guys who had basically become my second family after moving away to UW-Madison.
The pizza was oh-so-delicious, and after a lazy walk back to the hostel, we separated so Dave and I could drop our backpacks in our room and we all met in the cafe next door where Chris and Kyle told us they had met some cool Slovenian girls next door to their room. Kyle had come bearing gifts from Jen, Mandy, and Tiffany, our lovely neighbor girls and close friends from the year before. It made me realize just how much I missed them too after seeing the photos they sent and reading the play list of the mix CD they made in memory of us. At that moment, I was ready to get back to Madison, and it was the first time that I truly questioned what I was doing spending a fourth of my college career in a different country. Time seemed to have escaped me, somehow, and only one more year at Madison seemed far too little. Looking back to my first days of moving into the lake shore dorms, it feels almost surreal to already be looking on to my senior year. While you don’t notice it day to day, it’s also interesting to see how much things have changed since then. Different relationships, different priorities, different concerns, all of which create a sort of nostalgia that leaves one longing for what once was despite how much one may value what is. There’s a fear that one day I’ll look back and wonder how these great years got away from me so quickly. I think these sentiments resonated a bit with all of us at that moment as we sat around the table together, our thoughts turned inward. There was a collective silence, and I think we all wished we could just see the girls for a few seconds to give them a hug, a look in the eye, and an ¨I miss you¨.
After gathering ourselves for a busy afternoon and evening, we decided to march toward the home of battle and blood its self, the Colosseum, which Kyle and Chris had walked past the night before. Naturally, we are all obsessed with the movie, Gladiator, including the movie quote master, Chris. Needless to say, I was expecting a flurry of Russell Crowe quotes to come spilling brilliantly from his lips, and indeed they did. We had arrived too late to enter the great amphitheatre that day, as well as the surrounding ruins, but we took our time in admiring the iconic symbol of Rome and the great Arch of Constantine that marked his rise as the sole emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 312, undermining the tetrarchy that has previously divided the empire after the retirement of Diocletian. As the sun began to set, we continued our walk into the center of town, past statues of different emperors, ruins scattered amongst modern buildings, and SPQR Senātus Populusque Rōmānus ("The Senate and the Roman People") covering everything. In one of the strangest acts of nature I have ever seen, we looked up into the sky that was showing signs of dusk only to see giant clouds of black birds moving like schools of fish in the ocean. They formed a solid figure that seemed to expand and contract, contorting into various shapes and formations. We wandered, partially guided by whim, partially by a map, through some of Rome’s smaller streets, finding plazas and giant basilicas and cathedrals around seemingly every corner, literally popping up out of nowhere. They were more modern that many of those I had seen in Spain, covered in giant frescos that left me wondering yet again how the human race was capable of such things so long ago.
Remembering my family trip to Italy in eighth grade, I distinctly recall being mesmerized by the Pantheon, built in 31 BC as a place of worship to the pagan gods. In the 7th century, it was converted into a Christian church, and it is the oldest standing domed structure in Rome. Above all, it is a chilling spectacle at night when it is all lit up, and it remains my favorite sight in Rome.
After a pizza dinner in one of the city’s many squares, listening to a very talented electric guitarist in another, and visits to a few more cathedrals along the way, we continued our walk along the Tiber River, which was beautifully lit by the city street lamps and a crescent moon. In an attempt to navigate ourselves back to the Colosseum through some foreign parts of town, we ended up getting a bit lost and walking through some areas that felt a bit too dark and isolated for weary travelers such as Dave and I, still running on an hour of sleep since we had been in Prague a few days before. Gradually, the rumbling of city traffic over the cobblestone streets grew louder, and we found ourselves walking back into semi familiar territory that felt like it was close to the Colosseum. Sure enough, the enormous monument showed itself over the hill to our left, looking positively haunting in the night. This was perhaps our most intimate experience with it, and free of the normal tourist crowd, we had it all to ourselves on that quiet night. More Gladiator quotes were said, and for the first time since arriving, it felt completely normal to be with the guys again. As we walked back to the hostel, my thoughts were strictly focused on my bed, which seemed to be whispering to me softly to come lie down as we made the long trek back to the hostel. For the first time since the morning, I felt truly exhausted, and was out within seconds after saying goodnight to the boys.
The next morning, we woke up fairly early with the intention of getting in line for the Vatican before it got too late. As we expected, we ended up waiting for about an hour and a half in line after a breakfast of bread and fruit from the local grocery store. I remembered some of the things inside from my trip there many years earlier, such as the Sistine Chapel, which was just how I remembered it to be, but even more impressive. Michelangelo’s The Final Judgment is an absolutely incredible work, and I wished that the four of us could have had the room to ourselves with some really comfortable chairs to just stare at it the rest of the day. I really do think you'd need a few hours to really appreciate it and see it all. We saw hundreds of Gothic and Renaissance paintings, and it felt good to know that I could understand them a little bit better after my Spanish art history class, which explained some of the Italian influences.
After a few very fulfilling hours, we headed for St. Peter's Basilica just outside and were soon inside another building I remembered very well from 8th grade. This was only after another delicious pizza lunch nearby. Outside, large statues of St. Paul and St. Peter seemed to watching somewhat accusingly over the passersby, at the same time conveying a sense of divine power and justice. The size of the basilica, once inside, was almost overwhelming, with giant marble pillars, gigantic statues of former Popes, and the Papal alter rising high into the air. The basilica was also adorned by the stunningly beautiful "La Piedad" by Michelangelo that he created when he was just twenty five years old. It's perhaps most interesting because it marks a period at the end of the renaissance, just before his influential transformation to the development of mannerist art for which he is so famous.
Returning to the hostel after another long walk and metro ride, we all decided to take a little rest before planning our next move for that evening. We all had a chance for a little nap and a shower after being on our feet since early that morning, and we found new life as we headed to the grocery store to buy some more food since all would be closed the next day. On our way home, we found a small pizza-by-the-slice place where we happily decided to continue our streak of pizza meals. Having made plans to go out with the Slovenian girls earlier that evening, we opened a bottle of red for a celebratory toast and headed upstairs to see what they were up to. We spend a number of hours talking and getting to know Petra, Tadeja, and Alitza, who studied together in Slovenia, and although they were slightly more spread out through Europe these days, still traveled together frequently. They also spoke English quite well, which made it easy to have a good time. As it got later, we decided to head out to a club they had heard about, and after bartering with the understandably grumpy cab driver for a pretty cheap fare, were on our way to an unknown part of the city. To our utter disappointment, upon talking to the only two people at the club, we learned that it was not only closed, but that everything was closed that night throughout the city. It just didn't seem possible. It was Saturday night in a big European city. Nothing should have been closed. The reason? It was the weekend before New Years. Not an excuse in my book. Sorry, Rome. We tried our luck at one more place the girls had heard about, and sure enough, no one was there. Disappointed by our luck, we hailed two more cabs and again negotiated an acceptable price to return back to the metro stop near our hostel.
The driver for the girls went flying ahead at full speed and we quickly asked ours to catch up. He stepped on the gas, and we were immediately flying through Rome, over the cobblestone streets, at a positively ridiculous speed. All of a sudden, our driver took a hard left, and before we could object, we were separated from the car ahead of us. He assured us that it was a faster way, despite our rage, and sure enough, within minutes we arrived at the metro stop. The only problem was that Termini is a huge train station, and after a few minutes of waiting we accepted that we had lost the girls. Severely bummed at our unsuccessful search for nightlife and the loss of our new friends, we made the short walk back to the hostel, cursing fate with every step. Dave and I decided to drop our coats in our room before heading upstairs to meet the boys, and to our surprise, the Slovenian ladies were waiting for us with our boys at the elevator door when we returned. We exchanged stories about our crazy cab drivers as we again left the hotel in search of a speckle of nightlife, as hopeless as it may have been. Determined beyond belief, the girls even tried a few hotels, whose lobbies were closed, and in one last attempt, a lonely receptionist amazingly let us in for a drink in their comfortable chairs. We passed several hours there talking and laughing about how this was the best Rome had to offer on our first night, but in the end, it was actually a lot more fun than we could have ever predicted. After making plans to explore the city with them the next day, Dave and I went back to the muffled snores of our roommates in the hostel, laughing about the idea that we had seen the Vatican, St. Peter's basilica, had a few delicious pizzas, and went gallivanting through Rome with three gorgeous girls from eastern Europe all in one day. That, in the words of the great Ali G, is unquestionably "safe".
The next day was spent visiting the Spanish steps and Trevi fountain with the girls and the rich Italian sunshine, along with a few smaller churches we found to pop up every few blocks. As the girls wanted to spend a few hours shopping, we took the more stereotypical manly rout, marching onward to the Colosseum, hoping to actually make it inside this time before the sun went down. I also remembered the Colosseum well from our family trip, but this time it was complete with Chris's hilarious rendition of the famous Gladiator quote, "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." As the sun lowered in the sky, its reddish light reflected beautifully off the ancient stone. We took another long walk around the city, and grabbed some pizza from our favorite local joint, successfully eating pizza for every meal other than a few breakfasts in Rome. We had coffee with the girls in the morning, said our goodbyes, grabbed one more slice for the road, and marched off to Termini station together to catch the metro and bus back to the Roman suburb. Having successfully conquered Rome, we were anxious for the next stage of our epic European journey. An eventful New Years Eve in Paris awaited our arrival...
No comments:
Post a Comment