In fair Verona...

For everybody worrying about my safety out there, it's been two days, and now I'm writing another blog entry, as promised! Everything is great.

Yesterday Maddie and I got up early to wait in line for the Vatican Museum. It wasn't too bad, we had dressed warmly and we read all we could read in the guidebook about what we were going to see in the Vatican, and only ended up waiting for about 45 minutes. I had brought my passport and everything, but all we had to do was go through a metal detector and put our bags on a conveyor belt, like at an airport, before going into the museum. I guess there would have been more if we were actually going INSIDE the Vatican. The museum's kind of on the edge, like it's part of the wall. Anyway it was cool, we saw a lot of sculptures from the first few centuries A.D. and some cool Egyptian and Levantine art from about the 12th century B.C., also a papyrus fragment from the freking 10th century B.C. (awesome??? yeah... like, oldest papyrus EVER...) And it was also fun to go around looking at the Greek and Roman statues that the Popes had gone and put fig leaves on, for decency. We were so glad we'd bought the little audio guide thingy you type the numbers on and listen to like a cell phone. Where it came in handy the most, I think, was in the Sistine Chapel. Maddie got fidgety and wanted to leave after about 45 minutes in there, but I was glued to that room. I just stood in the middle and stared at the ceiling and at the back wall where the Last Judgment was, listening to that audio guide tell me about the composition of the thing and point out things like the similarity of the skin in the hands of one of the saints, and how the face of the skin resembles the face of Michelangelo himself. Weird things like that. I was also amazed at the size and shape of the place; it's much smaller than I imagined it would be, and also a lot more crowded, both in terms of how many people were there and how much there is to see on the walls and ceilings. I mean it's just an extremely busy room! Very visually stimulating, after 45 minutes I was actually exhausted trying to take it all in, and we left. We then went for St. Peter's Basilica. Oh man. That place is enormous; not as big as the Haghia Sofia in Istanbul - I'll admit I didn't get the same rush as I got in the Haghia Sofia - but it was still a beautiful place. And at one point, all the lights went out, and the guards made everybody leave. That was weird, I thought there might have been some kind of weird security breach or something and it was a little bit scary. Especially because, for some reason, there were thousands of Italian military guys there, probably for mass. Like literally thousands; we had to wait a long time for them to file out, before we could even enter the Basilica. But nothing happened after they hustled us out, which was good. Overall the Vatican was really impressive. I guess I was expecting to meet a lot of groovy pilgrims there, but most of the others that were there appeared to be just regular tourists like ourselves. Same as with the Haghia Sofia, I suppose.

Next we went and had lunch, then went to the Torre di Argentina, the site where supposedly Brutus stabbed Caesar. It was very fresh-looking, like it had only recently been excavated. Right near that site there was a sort of cat sanctuary, which I think Maddie found more interesting than the site itself (oh well.) We weren't there long, since you couldn't go and walk around the site. Wow, looking back on it we did a LOT of walking that day. We saw a LOT of Rome. It's so interesting to see all the Classical influences on more relatively recent art. After spending so much time in Greece wandering from museum to museum and seeing countless marble and stone statues, you get to Rome and it's like, same song, different art period; now we're in the Renaissance, and instead of gods they're saints...? But they still look the same as the gods did over a thousand years ago...? It's really cool. We then wound our way up the narrow sidesteets of Rome, from indistinguishable piazza to indistinguishable piazza, by the Pantheon and nearby obelisk, and walked up to the Mausoleum of Augustus. It's definitely something you have to see; you know it sounds really cool, right? Like, something EVERY tourist would flock to, just to get a photo? Well, it's basically just a cylindrical building of bricks that's overgrown with weeds and vines, with mud caked over the only inscription that's there to read, and beer cans and plastic wrappers all over the place. We weren't sure what to make of it, so we left quickly and went to the Spanish Steps. I'd never even heard of that place, but apparently it's really famous because there were tons of tourists there, and it was really scenic so we took lots of pictures. Sorry I've given up posting pictures on this blog right away, but it's just too dang slow. I've taken over 2,000 all together since arriving in Greece, though, so there will be PLENTY to be seen when I get back to the States!

Anyway, after walking around all day we were exhausted and went back to our hostel, where we met a new guy in our dorm room, Roger from Australia. He was really chatty and we sat around talking to him for a while about where we'd all been and where we were planning to go, and he turned out to be a really nice guy. We went out for a stroll around Rome with him later, planning on going to a bar, although we actually just walked all the way to the Collosseum and nearly all the way back to our hostel before stopping in at a pub for a pint of Guinness. Rome at night is really pretty, but I found it eerily quiet. I mean there was almost nobody out. Anyway, Roger thought we were just these crazy geniuses who knew all about art and architecture and Greek and Roman history, he just grilled us with questions and we totally played it up. I mean, I don't think you have to be a crazy genius to be able to recognize a certain kind of column or be reminded of a certain temple by seeing a similar-looking column formation; three months in Greece will do that to anybody! But we had fun answering his questions, and we were out until about 2 a.m. just wandering the streets of Rome and chatting. All in all a really cool evening.

The next day... that's today I guess... geez, long days!... we left Rome and caught the train for Florence. It took us a lot longer than we expected to get there, so we didn't have enough time to do all the things we wanted to do. But we did manage to see Michelangelo's David (and yes, we saw the Digital David thing at the exhibit, it was SUPER cool to be able to see his face close up and adjust the light to be able to see it from every angle with every sort of shadow!) and we did manage to see the Duomo, the big domed building in the middle of the city, with the Baptissery nearby. We also managed to sample the local gelato (Florence being the place where the stuff was originally invented, supposedly. Maddie the gelato connoissure was pleased.) I'm a little bit embarrassed to say that today's nutritional contents have been mostly consisting of fatty foods; in our rush, we didn't have time to eat other than at the McDonalds by the Florence train station! Gross, I know. But hey, you gotta try the foreign Mickey D's, right? Part of the cultural experience... maybe? I don't know, we were hungry and in a hurry, and living on a budget of 30 Euro a day after lodging doesn't always allow for restaurant meals. The supermarket's always the best bet, but like it says in Kassandrama - "time... marches? Time... tiptoes?"

Anyway, we got back on the train and headed up to Verona, where we are now. The place we're staying at is super sweet, it's this little apartment-turned-Bed&Breakfast. Maddie and I have our own room, there's only a few other people here sharing a bathroom, there's Christmas lights all over the place, and the landlady's name is Flavia. Tomorrow we're going to take a day trip sort of thing, over to Venice, for the day, then come back here for the night. After that it's up to France! We have internet here, so I'll try to post again tomorrow. Ciao!

God, I've had "Waiting" by the Rentals stuck in my head all day. Maybe I'll listen to it on YouTube.