Roma

I made it to Rome on Friday around noon. It feels like I packed a little lighter this time (which worries me; what did I forget to bring??), so I don't think I'll be complaining as much about all the stuff I have to carry (but don't hold me to that.)

The first thing I did, after making sure the ShapeCam survived intact (whew!) and taking a quick shower, was eat some pizza. The pizza here is gooood. Huge chunks of mozzarella with basil, or eggplant drizzled with a little olive oil...mmm...and cheap too. Very nice. I joked with Nicoletta before I left, saying that Italy was all about pizza and gelato. But so far it's true ;) I haven't had any yet this time, but I've seen people eating gelato everywhere here and at all times (people were eating gelato while waiting in line for the Vatican Museums at 8:30 yesterday morning!!)

My hotel is very close to the Trevi fountain, and so I wandered over to see it after I ate my pizza. I also made it over to the Capuchin cemetery before succumbing to my jet lag. The Capuchin cemetery is not a burial ground for a certain type of New World monkey (like you anthro folk may think), but instead a few rooms in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione, which are decorated with the skeletal remains of 4000 Capuchin monks. They wouldn't allow any photos to be taken (I think it's because they wanted to sell more postcards.)



Eating gelato at the Trevi fountain:



I crashed very early Friday night and woke up with enough time on Saturday morning to get over to the Vatican Museums before the lines got very long. The Vatican Museums are huge and include Egyptian artifacts, rooms designed by Raphael that were once the private apartment of Pope Julius II, and, of course, the Sistine Chapel. Even first thing in the morning, the Sistine Chapel was packed with tourists. It was very hot in there, and the guards kept yelling at people to be silent: "Silenze!" It was very beautiful, but after having seen so many replicas of all the artwork (and the room itself), I was less impressed than I thought I would have been. Maybe it was all the people bumping into me, or maybe it was the shrieking guards who were making more noise than any of the visitors. (Or maybe I'm just a horribly jaded critic already?)





St. Peter's Basilica was gorgeous. Saw Michelangelo's Pieta, and went into the Vatican grotto and saw where the Popes are buried.







While I was eating my pizza at lunch, I met a guy from San Diego who is here in Rome studying to be a priest. He heard me struggling to order in Italian (this involved me pointing and saying "pizza?" with an Italian accent) and came over and introduced himself. He wasn't as enthused to be in Rome (or to have met the Pope a few times) as I thought a soon-to-be Catholic priest would. I was hesitant to tell him that I study anthropology, but when I did, he told me that what I thought were wax figurines in St. Peter's were the actual dead bodies of past Popes. He said that it was their strong Catholic faith that kept their bodies from decomposing, and that none of the Popes decompose after death because of their faith. Ok. Whatever.

After lunch I wandered over to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, past the Imperial ruins, and then to the Colosseum. When I was standing outside the Colosseum trying to take a picture of a couple of guys dressed up as gladiators, I was tapped on the shoulder by a former student of mine! I was her osteology TA at UIUC in 2002, and now she's living in Vienna and teaching English. It was my first full day in Europe and I'd already run into somebody I knew! Unbelievable. I told you this happens to me a lot.







I don't have to be at the museum until Monday, so I think I'll wander around Via del Corso and the Villa Borghese today. I'm already well on my way to a severe espresso addiction and I'm fighting all my "OMG, I need to buy those shoes and that leather bag!!!" urges. It's warmer here than I thought it would be at this time of year (the priest said this was unusual weather for November.) I think it's going to get much colder later on during my trip, so I'm going to enjoy this while I can!

Ciao bellas!