"It is now about fifteen years since I had a happy hour"

The quote from the title of this particular post is by Michelangelo in a letter to his father when he was almost done painting the Sistine Chapel.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Tuesday started out very similarly to the other days -- I got up first and took care of everything while Meghan got ready. As we crossed the street to the bus stop, I was reminded of the traffic you see in cartoons -- all the cars are racing through the streets and then there is a red light and the traffic races from the other direction. The majority of Italian cars are either black or silver, there's not a whole lot of other colors to be found. But motorcycles and Vespas abound. They weave in and out of the traffic and sometimes get so close to the cars that they're passing that I wince for them.

Today was going to be our holy day, so we had the Vatican Museums and St Peter's on the itinerary. And by we, I mean me. Meghan was completely happy, or so she said, letting me plan the entire tour by myself because she got to do her religious things. As we were walking toward St Peter's from metro A, we saw a huge line for the Vatican Museums. Since it was only about 10:30, we figured we should get in line since it would only get worse. And I'm sure it did get worse, but we stood in line for two hours. It was just a bit ridiculous. Luckily for me, I had brought my guidebook with me and had something to read. Meghan entertained herself.

Once we got inside, we walked past about a bazillion statues. There was actually a lot of statues of ancient gods and goddesses, which now that I think about it, might be a little weird. Some of them were really pretty and/or well-done, but after a while, it got to be "just another statue." If you go, make sure you look at the floors and the ceiling, pretty much wherever you are in Europe, not just in the Vatican. So many places have intricate art on these often-overlooked places. To get to the Sistine Chapel, you have to wind through the rest of the Vatican Museums, which wouldn't be bad, except that I have a very limited tolerance for museums of any sort -- usually about an hour and a half. So I'm sure I missed seeing some things as I skimmed through everything, but I got the jist. Anyway, we passed through the Hall of Tapestries, and the Hall of Maps, and even an Egyptian exhibit before we got to the apartments. They were kind of cool because the art in them was very elaborate. In one of the apartments, I got to see the "School of Athens" by Raphael, which was super cool because I'd seen it in so many of my textbooks. There were also other interesting paintings and such, but that's the one that sticks out most in my mind. If you want to see pictures of them, they're on my picasa site. Finally, after what felt like walking miles upon miles with sweaty and smelly tourists, I made it to the Sistine Chapel.

There's signs everywhere telling you not to take pictures or video, but when the Chapel is as crowded as it was, there's not much the guards can do. So I walked to the middle of the room and started taking pictures -- sans flash of course. I have to say, I was kind of impressed. The amount of detail that went into each and every painting in the entire room was amazing. Every surface was covered with art, and I can see why Michelangelo spent years and years and years doing this. Which is probably why he had to miss out on happy hour. Poor man.

Once you exit the Sistine Chapel, you get to walk through the Papal Tzchotzki. It's just a collection of useless, and not necessarily pretty, crap that the Church has amassed over a couple thousand years. I wasn't overly impressed by most of it, and I thought a lot of it was extraneous and ridiculous. I know, I'm really showing my Protestant roots right now, aren't I? Anyway, we spent somewhere between two and three hours in the Vatican Museums, which for me is a very long time.

After we regrouped and started heading for Casa Santa Maria, where we needed to go to get the rest of our holy tickets, it was time for a gelato break. This time, I got dark chocolate and amaretto. The dark chocolate was amazing -- it was almost black it was so dark. And the amaretto was good too, once I got past the slightly alcoholic taste. Then we wandered to the Casa Santa Maria and got our tickets from the Sisters there. Luckily, they had the tickets for the rest of the week, so we were good for the events we wanted to see.

Following a short potty break, we had a planning meeting on the steps of Casa Santa Maria. While we were there plotting with our map and guidebook, a friendly American priest sat next to us and gave us some suggestions of where to go. By this point in the week, we had hit up most of the main sights, and were looking for something to do until dinner time. He suggested a walk up to the American chapel, called Santa Susanna, which was near the church that is home to "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa," a somewhat controversial statue that was mentioned in "The Da Vinci Code."

On our way to Santa Susanna, we meandered past the Italian White House, or its equivalent because I can't remember it's actual name, and we saw a VIP arrive in a car with darkened windows. It was kind of cool because all of the guards on duty stopped and saluted. We also found the Four Fountains, an intersection that has a fountain on each corner. Whenever I tried taking a picture of a fountain here, somebody would walk in front of it, or a car would come, or something else would happen so that the picture didn't turn out. I think I must have taken a lot of pictures just to get one that looked decent of each fountain.

We did a quick run-through of Santa Susanna, which was a pretty church, and then visited St Bartholomew's across the street. Finally we found the home of the statue, and I still have no clue what the name of the church is. After a while, they all kind of blend together. At this point in the day, my camera battery was dying and I had to use the flash to get a good picture, which I hate doing, especially in churches.

We started wandering back toward the Pantheon for dinner and found Piazza Benini, which was horribly disappointing. There was a little thing in the middle of this big open area, and it pretty much was boring. But it got a lot more exciting because it started raining. And of course, I didn't have an umbrella or a jacket with me. Oh, well, I didn't melt. But it was hilarious because, just as the priest had predicted, the tinks dropped all their other goods and pulled umbrellas out of hiding places to sell to all of the unprepared people like me. Since I refused to pay for an umbrella because I had one back at CFab, Meghan and I sucked it up and walked over to the Pantheon.

We tried the restaurant across the street that night because we had been so hungry after dinner the night before. This time, we ordered lasagna and bruschetta, and I got a white wine again. It also came with the bread and olive oil. I really enjoyed this meal, and it was so good. Just thinking about it now makes my mouth water. After dinner, I got a cappiccino and my whole bill only came to ten Euro. How cool is that? And on a quick sidenote -- the restaurants all have outside heaters under their umbrellas. They're big gas heaters and they feel wonderful on cool evenings. I think we sat at the restaurant for a good two hours, but nobody tried to hurry us along. What we were really trying to do was wait for the rain to stop so we could get to the metro station with minimal wetness. I think we managed pretty well, but I got to hear my first thunderstorm of the season while we sat under the umbrellas.

I also decided to add that I like Rome right after it rains, pretty much for the same reasons I like it in the evenings -- less people.