Relief and Nostalgia: Homeward Bound

It's weird to be sitting on my couch right now, writing this blog in the spare time I have before I head out to a movie with a friend. Yesterday was kind of a sleep-deprived blur, listless and heavy-limbed as I spent my day alternatively struggling not to take a nap and trying to slide myself off my couch. Today's the first day that I'm alert enough to write this blog, not stumbling over luggage as I make a beeline toward my bed or dialing the obligatory numbers to tell everyone that yes, I'm at JFK/Logan/home, I had fun/missed you/will see you soon, and the bittersweet feelings of Saturday's Romekids farewell ache even more-so because of that.

I think the weirdest thing of all is that it feels normal, for the most part, to be doing nothing but blogging on my couch. I didn't have to be up at 8:30 (though I was anyway) to meet up with everyone downstairs and from there walk halfway across Rome by noontime. I don't have to visit a small church or open space today, or even do anything, because for the first time in two weeks I don't have an itinerary to map out my day. Today is what I make of it, and it feels strange not to have any concrete plans except watching a movie—and it's not like I need to take a thousand-something pictures of a movie so I'll remember it in years to come. But this is what I did before I went to Rome, before I grew to love the Romekids who shared misery and laughter and partying experiences with me, and in some ways it's easy to just sink back into the routine. All I've had to do these past few days is sleep, eat, and talk with my mom and brother when I've had the energy. Tomorrow I'll go back to work, and Rome will start to fade little by little, until it's not so jarring to not hear Italian on street corners or nearly get run over by a motorino.

Right now, though, it's difficult to adjust. I miss the chaos and frustration, the culture shock, the difficulty of getting to know twenty-some-odd people when we have to parade through all the time periods of Rome in two weeks. I miss taking buses and subways, miss the adrenaline rush of fear I always got when a transport vehicle was so crowded you had to hockey-check your way in just so you weren't left behind. I miss damning the accursed 280 bus to a special vehicle hell with Carolyn, Alissa, Katie, and Guerry as we sat on the sidewalk, praying that we wouldn't have to make the half hour walk from Trastavere to Prati. Hell, I miss being able to tell where Trastavere and Prati are, feeling experienced as I walk back and forth between the Piazza Navona and Campo de Fiori, knowing that Termini is always, always our first stop on the subway, give or take an exception or two. I won't get to pass by the Area Sacra or the Colosseum or the Roman Forum or the Pantheon on a night walk or a bus ride. I won't get to waste my euros on shopping, because I won't want to go shopping here for the next few weeks. And when I go to restaurants, like I did Saturday night, it will feel weird to speak with servers, to see them entertain and over-exaggerate as they try to sell their selections rather than expect that we know what we want. I miss everything about Rome, from the blisters on my feet to the frustrations of walking non-stop through the eighty-degree weather to humiliating myself in a supermarket that first day.

And I miss our group —the friends I never really got to socialize with outside a classroom setting. I won't get to try to outrace Allan on the Circus Maximus again, or snuggle with Jordy, or room with Nicole, or complain about the Vatican with Emily and Erika, or laugh with Curley and the rest of the Romekids in a bar on Nicole's birthday. I won't get to see Dan and Jackie squabble while the rest of us look on less-than-secretly, wondering when Mom and Dad will stop fighting and if we somehow did something wrong. I won't get to walk down the street and order a sandwich and gelato from two different shops, loitering outside as I eat my lunch and talk with Carolyn, Alissa, Katie, and Maria. I won't get to see anyone until the spring, and maybe even a while after that, and it hurts to have loved everyone so much only to have to start all over again in a new country for an entire semester. I wish those weeks could have lasted longer, even if I was homesick and exhausted and maybe a little hung-over by the end of the trip. It may sound cliche, or trite, banal even —a million other adjectives for something that has been said too many times —but Rome was a gift for me. I know I almost didn't go, and I know I'm such a paranoid traveler, but I'm glad I gave myself this chance. That I worked my ass off for it, both to earn the money for the trip and to pass the course in general. Because once we got there, once I saw Rome as more than a high school memory, I truly fell in love with it. I experienced independence and friendships in ways I never before thought I was capable, and I'll always be thankful for that.

Giornale 5: Campo de Fiori

It's easy to find yourself in the many open spaces of Rome: the first night we arrived in the city, a few of us, led by Dan, walked home, weaving our way through the vacant piazzas to get back to Prati. Since then, it's been typical of us to stumble into some piazza or another without intending it beforehand. The Piazza Santa Maria in Trastavere is perhaps my most frequent haunt, since I so often go with friends to Trastavere for dinner, passing by the tall church and the fountain that we sat around on our first day nearly two weeks ago. The Piazza del Popolo snuck up on me when I, with a small group, took the Metro to Flaminio in order to find the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna—a rather barren piazza to be honest, compared to the tiny but beautiful Piazza della Rotunda and the proud Pantheon that overlooks it and its obelisk. But the Campo de Fiori is the one I love the most, I think. If I had been to the Piazza della Rotunda more, maybe sat by the temple's massive columns or curled up on the stairs of the obelisk, maybe I'd be writing this journal about that square. Because I love the Pantheon and its odd shape, its maintained exterior that is so at odds with the church that lies within, and the clouds that pass over the oculut thes. But the Campo de Fiori has so much life to it. I never fail to feel happy when I find myself there.

The Campo de Fiori is atypical of all other piazzas because it houses a fleet of markets every day, selling anything from cookery to penis-shaped pasta to fresh fruit. The obvious tourist tents are there, selling miniature models of the Roman lupa and the Colosseum, as well as the abundant tents displaying clothing and jewelry for "cheap." Unfortunately, the markets close at two or three, but when I go (and it's always around lunch for some reason), negotiations and advertising are in full swing. And the food is my favorite part. The oranges are huge, far bigger than my head, and the strawberries practically melted in my mouth when I bought them, so soft and ripe. They're so full of color and health, and some places even sell fruit cups, teeming with watermelon, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, and anything else, always fresh. There are shops along the side streets, one of which I bought a dress in, and there's even a crepe shop (and I regret not returning to buy a crepe there); there are bars and restaurants lining the square, forni (bakeries) that sell delicious sandwiches, sweets, and cold pizzas, and even a deli, where Alissa, Carolyn, and I one day stopped in and then subsequently stuffed ourselves on salami (sans Carolyn), a mozzarella ball, and cheese puffs. At night, when the tents are cleared away, the square fills with people enjoying their (somewhat expensive) meals and 5+ euro drinks, strolling around without fear of open container laws. It's a whole different world in the Campo, bustling with people in a way that the other piazzas—save maybe Trastavere—really experience. It feels far less tourist-y, even if it attracts many tourists (myself included), and it's just fun: easy to immerse yourself in the culture of buying and eating fresh food, of window shopping and lingering, of getting a drink at night and watching some friends cartwheel their way down the square. I've been to the Campo several times now, and I have a lot of good memories of it. When I go home Sunday, I will sorely miss it.

Space and Place in the Vatican Museum

Oh, the Vatican Museum: as frustrating and overcrowded as I remember it, and yet just as astonishingly overwhelming as it was the first time. I'll be blunt. I don't like it. For all the gems it has in there, from the room of ancient animals to the Laocoon to the absolutely stunning Prima Porta statue of Augustus, somehow the Museum feels overrated. Sure, maybe it's worth it to go during whatever kind of winter Italy has, when the tourists aren't swarming around the rooms in hoards of ramming elbows and overheated bodies, but in the beginning of June when the weather is eighty degrees and the line to get into the Vatican stretches about three blocks around, I would have rather passed on the opportunity. It sounds terrible and ungrateful. Hell, it sounds spoiled to say. "Oh, I went to the Vatican Museum, and I've seen better" isn't exactly what comes up in casual conversation with people (even if it's true).  And in all honesty, the museum is beautiful. It has incredible exhibits, much like the Met in NYC, with cases filled with gorgeous pottery and jewelry, Egyptian relics, and statues of the gods and prominent historical men—enough to send a Classicist into ecstasy. But it is miserable. Horribly unorganized, confusing to navigate, and so crowded that you could start the trip out as jovial and high-spirited as freakin' Santa Claus and end up in the Sistine Chapel a tired, sweating, swearing misanthrope.

The problem with the Vatican Museum is that it herds you along like you're cattle. Forget spending half in hour in front of your favorite relic (let's say, for instance, the Prima freaking Porta). That's not happening. Instead, you're likely to catch the room fairly uncrowded in certain spots for scarce moments only—a nice little pocket of space interrupted every so often by a wayward tourist—so as to get pictures and stand in wonder for a minute or two until forced to move on. And maybe you can catch a glimpse of it on your way out of the room, but once you reach the stairs—and I mean any stairs—you're sucked up into the crowd with no hope of turning back. The museum has a very straight-forward goal: get you to the chapel, and then to the gift shops. So even if you don't know where you're going, you'll find yourself being squeezed into a new room soon enough—provided that it's not corded off for some inexplicable reason—nearly on the heels of the person in front of you as you try to shuffle your way forward and maneuver picture-taking at the same time. Some rooms aren't bad. The first few, lined to the ceiling with sculptures, statues, and fragments (and that is not even hyperbolic; every room is brimming with artifacts, a fact that is impressive, pompous, and overall disappointing), don't feel too hectic. There are people, a great many of them, but you can still put your foot down without entangling your ankles with someone you'd rather not. However, the further you go into the museum, the denser the people get—which is an obvious result anyway, but in the Vatican Museum it's like going from stumbling upon a few bees hovering around flowers to being thrown into the entire freaking hive. There's one room, a circular room not unlike a rotary, that is the most frustrating room in the history of architecture. A huge crowd bottlenecks by the double doors, and because every single person wants to take a picture of the statues that line the walls your progress onward becomes pretty stagnant. I didn't even worry about taking pictures at that point. I just walked through the shortcut security opened up, cutting my losses to save my sanity. My patience, however, had long since fallen victim.


Perhaps the most overrated sight of all in the Vatican Museum, though, is the Sistine Chapel. And no, I'm no Philistine. The art is phenomenal. The side wall when you first walk in (and immediately keep your back to because your eyes are on the ceiling) is stunning; absolutely breathtaking; so full of color and emotion and movement, not talked about at all because of the over-hyped scene of God and Adam. But it is damn frustrating, and it honestly isn't worth the wait. Not because the art is somehow inferior to your expectations. Yes, there is far too much to see in one viewing, and yes, the depiction of God and Adam kind of slaps you in the face when you realize it is merely a panel in the scheme of the many panels, not some wide blue ceiling with only God and Adam inhabiting it. I was there before, and I was absolutely miserable, offended, pissed off, when I realized that I had had to endure so much pushing and shoving to get there.

And that's why it's not worth it—because if you go in the height of tourist season, and you have to deal with all the ignorant and disrespectful people leaning on artworks and taking pictures when the signs clearly forbid cameras, you'll hate it. You'll never want to go back. People have said as much. And honestly, I don't know if I will go back again, if it means waiting in the three-block-long line and having to wedge my way through doorway after doorway without being able to stop and just relax for a minute, appreciating the ceiling art of all the rooms that get neglected on the interminable pathway to the chapel. Going a second time has given me a new perspective, because I knew what I didn't before, and I couldn't be disappointed. Sure, I was sweating in jeans and dizzy with hunger, but I wouldn't have minded lingering in the chapel this time: find some pocket somewhere in the sea of flashing cameras and obnoxious tour groups, so that I could just tilt my head back and stare for a while. Honestly, it's disappointing how many people just want to get in, see the ceiling, and leave in five minutes, because they're so exhausted from the ridiculous hike to the chapel. It shouldn't be that way. The museum shouldn't ruin art for people, but ultimately it does. So if I ever come back, and if I ever have the chance to experience a blissfully uncrowded walk to the chapel, I'm making a promise to myself that I'll enjoy it—appreciate all the nuances that I haven't been able to see. Because as it stands right now, the Vatican Museum has yet to redeem itself to me. And no amount of (stolen) Prima Porta can ameliorate that.

Giornale 4: Santa Maria in Trastavere

Italian churches—whether they're big or small, from modern times or the 5th century, or the magnanimous basilicas of the Vatican and St. John Lateran—oftentimes look quite similar. I'm sure that's true of the U.S. too, if you visit a Catholic church in one state and then for some reason find yourself scoping out another one in the next state over. If you've seen one church, you've seen them all. That's the kind of sentiment you get with any theme-linked structure, which is probably why I enjoy ruins more than modern, perfectly maintained edifices. I won't begin to say that these churches aren't beautiful, because a blind man would swoon within the grandiose, echoing aisles of any Italian church. But a lot of the time there is sensory overload: each church blends together because they oftentimes boast the same style, and that was the problem I ran into in high school, when we spent a day just going to church after church in Naples.

What I've discovered, therefore, is that you have to find certain aspects of each church that really speak to you—that distinguish themselves from the blur of religious imagery, the decorated apses, the caged-off niches that always have some specially-framed paintings of saints, the virgin, or Christ. For Santa Maria in Trastavere, I wasn't so much moved by the ceiling—a glorious, gold plated work that had twisting triangular designs and a depiction of the virgin in the very center, floating above her adoring followers—as by the sculptures (as I so often am), the beautiful apse, the stained glass windows, and the inscriptions on the outside. Before you even enter the church, you have to pass through a door that leads to the marble-floored porch, shaded from the sun and ultimately still outside. And what makes this porch so wonderful are the ancient inscriptions: they line the front and left walls, slabs of marble carved out with ancient Greek and Latin prayers, intentions, names, and symbolic pictures. Even the center door—which remained unused as far as I could tell—sported gold-lettered Latin: "This is the door of God. The just shall enter into it."

 

The inside is full of the standard Italian pomp and circumstance. High-vaulted ceilings throw echoes all around the rectangular room, creating a kind of eerie presence that seems bigger than the crowd; religious chants play from speakers hidden somewhere; marble floors boast swirls of designs beneath the pews; niches cage off beautiful paintings. You feel small inside this shadowy and ominous church, as you perhaps should, the altar staring down at you from the top of the aisle and the iconic images of Mary and Jesus fixed in the ceiling, the dome of the central apse, and the pictures in the niches. The apse, though, is beautiful. Sure, it features the typical Jesus-and-Apostles scene, with a ring beneath their feet of thirteen sheep—the center-most one depicted as Jesus, Lamb of God—but the colors of the mosaic are beautiful. The background is gold, matching the ceiling above it, and reflects the light of the church streaming in through the windows beneath it.

 

Perhaps my favorite part, which is consequently a part you could easily miss because of the way the central apse attracts all attention, are the three stained glass windows that tower high above on the back wall. They depict three men, my guess being Matthew, Luke, and John, whose names are written into the central apse below the decorative mural. They're absolutely beautiful in color, the blue, red, and gold of their respective robes all the more brilliant for the sunlight streaming in through the glass. Their portraits are simple—three men with halos, standing in specific devout poses—and easily overlooked if you consider the size of the hall, the niches that run along the right and left side, and the beautiful statues carved into the wall (which I, of course, loved). But when I looked up at the wall I walked in through and saw those three (and only three) windows, I felt relief settle over me. Mosaics and plaited ceilings are lovely (if abundant) in churches, but they aren't particularly vibrant. The colors are washed out, no matter how beautiful, and become somewhat gloomy after too long--maybe to impose religious solemnity, who knows. But it's nice to have a splash of color thrown in every so often, and I like the idea of three saints gazing out over the church, illuminating the building with light.

Momentary Blindness on the Aventine

The air smells clean, cool wind skirting over the skin of my left arm, my face, and my neck, bringing goosebumps to the top of my flesh as I sit amongst the gravel. The tree at my back is curved enough so that I can recline against it and stretch out my legs, the stiff bark biting at certain angles and digging into my lower ribs, but nonetheless comfortable as I rest my head against it and listen to the soft scritch-scratch of my hair catching on the wood. The gravel grinds under my feet as I pull up my knees to rest my notebook on them, crunching all around me as passersby take the straight path to the parapet that overlooks the city. There's a fountain to my right, filling the air with the sounds of trickling water, as the steady stream splashes against the ground.

The sounds of many people fill the Aventine, including the chatter of an Italian woman as she pushes her stroller around in a circle, the jingling clatter of the wheels bouncing against the uneven ground. As they pass by in front of me, her child babbles nonsense words that grow louder and then fade into the distance, muffled by the crunching rocks and the soft conversations of the park's inhabitants. High up in the trees the birds twitter and sing, one with a musical trill, another with a grating caw, a third with a single chirp every few seconds, and still another with a jackhammer-like cry that jars the air. A bird comes to rest in a flutter of wings around the site of the fountain, its feet silent on the gravel and its beak mute. A muffled laugh and low-spoken Italian pass by, a sneeze sounds behind me and attracts a "bless you" from somewhere to the left, and in the distance the low rumble of an airplane grows steadily louder. The garden is mostly free of the sounds of traffic, the cars below the parapet swallowed up in an ocean-like roar of white noise, though that peace is shattered twice by the siren of an ambulance and the snarl of a motorcycle speeding away. The birds continue to sing from the tree tops, the wind plays with my hair as the shade makes me colder, and from both left and right shared conversations—in Italian, German, and English—float just barely above the rattle of jostled gravel.