S.P.Q.R.

Nate has discovered, through observation and experimentation, that in Rome’s metro the escalator handrails move slightly faster than the escalators.  If you put your hand right next to you at the bottom of the escalator and hold on for dear life, by the time you get to the top you’re reaching three feet in front of you, if you can even still hold on at all.  The world is a mysterious and beautiful place.

I’m reading Howards End and remembering why it’s one of my favorite books.  Sometimes I forget that I love reading, but I think that’s largely because I forget to read books I love.  It’s good to hang out again with old and loyal friends.

We’ve been here two days, and I think I’m in love.  The first day, we set out from the hostel to visit Ancient Rome, accompanied by a Brazilian couple staying in our hostel just as lost and disoriented as we were, who asked if they could come with us.  We found our way down to the Colosseum, where Carolinha and Tiago had to go buy their tickets whereas we already had ours and could skip the line.  Did you hear that?  We were the ones on the ball for once! 

The Colosseum was a lot cooler than I expected it to be.  We got to walk around this very old and very enormous structure, reading explanatory blurbs that made the place seem frighteningly similar to the average modern-day sporting event.  They’d fill it up with 50,000 people by advertising that there would be prize giveaways or that the crowd would be sprayed with flower petals or perfumes.  There was even a canvas they could stretch over the top to protect the spectators from the sun—operated by sailors from the Roman fleet, who knew all about hoisting canvas with ropes.  There were underground tunnels they’d keep the lions and bears and boars in to surprise the gladiators as they popped out from any side of the arena.  Oh, and in early incarnations of the building, the tunnels could be dismantled and that space filled with water for reenactments of naval battles.  I mean it was a really cool venue.  They even had preserved ancient graffiti scratched into the stones from like 200 AD.

The rest of the ancient ruins were spectacular, but I don’t have time to tell you all about them here.  Briefly: the Forum, the original senate hall, a bunch of legal buildings, the rostrum where Roman citizens could stand up and speak their minds to the multitudes, temples, basilicas, palaces, an emperor’s private stadium, and my favorite: the huts of Romulus and Remus, Rome’s founders.  All these buildings were in varying states of ruin, but more than anything it was just cool to look out over the huge square containing all the ruins and imagine what it must have been like in its heyday.  This is pretty much where Western civilization as we know it took shape.

There are tons of Baroque churches in Rome, or medieval churches with Baroque facades.  In fact, we’ve come to the conclusion that most every church in Rome has the same history: ancient Roman basilica, burned in a fire, rebuilt by a later emperor, sacked with the fall of Rome, rebuilt as a fortress, burned, rebuilt as a Christian church, burned, rebuilt as a Renaissance or Baroque church. 

However: there is one church with a slightly different story.  The Pantheon, the most impressive of Rome’s ancient buildings because it was never burned or sacked, but has been in continual use since it was built in the first or second century after Christ.   It’s got this huge dome with a hole in the top you can feel raindrops come through.  The place is just stunning.

Nearby we found the best Gelato of our lives.  I’m not going to tell you where it is so it doesn’t get overrun with tourists, but it has a signed photo of Chris Cornell on the wall.  The pistachio tasted like pistachio, the hazelnut tasted like hazelnut, and the grapefruit tasted like grapefruit.  They were the most true- to-life, not-too-sugary flavors any of us had ever encountered.  I just, ah, there are no words.  There are no words. 

Tried going to a movie to get out of the rain that night, but we couldn’t find any original language theaters—“only Italian.”  Which was cool because walking around and talking to people, we got to just see a lot of Italians.  Rome is a COOL place to watch people.  Italians are awesome, and there are lots of Latinos and tons of Asians.  Bangladeshis stand on every street corner to sell you umbrellas when it rains—I bought one—and our hostel was actually in a very densely Chinese area of town.

Ah, our hostel.  There’s so much more to tell you about that, and about our second day in Rome, but I’m falling asleep at the keyboard and we’ve got another earlyish morning tomorrow, so I’ll leave it for now.  Oh, SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, or something, meaning, the Senate and People of Rome, in use since ancient times, and now the city’s motto, on ancient statues and modern manhole covers and taxis.   Oh, and on the old public drinking fountains everywhere.

It’s uncanny how often on this trip one sight or sound or word evokes the same response in two or all of us— recalling a piece of family lore or supplying a quote from Little Britain or something.  Annie and Nate even spontaneously started singing the same song at the same time once.  We really do share a culture.  It’s cool to be reminded of that.

Photos tomorrow.  Love y’all.

-W.