...and lots of Naked Italian Chicks, and by chicks I mean dudes.

Rome Day 2 (don't enter unless you are in the mooood for reading)

Each day in Rome began with a killer breakfast at the hostel. It was the best breakfast I have had in Europe...mainly cause it's the only breakfast I've had in Europe. Spaniards just don't do much for breakfast, and I don't think Italians do either. But I really didn't find out because the hostel had this delicious all-American, bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich which I devoured three days in a row. It was perfect and filling. I definitely miss American breakfasts.



More vespas as we head to the bus station.




We took a bus to the Vatican. When we walked out into the Vatican plaza, a guy stopped us to try and get us to join his tour. We had already been a little concerned that the line to buy tickets would be long and we knew some other students had gotten reservations. This guy told us the line would be 3 hours long, but we could skip the line if we took the tour. Without giving it very much thought, exploring other prices, or seeing if the 3-hour line really existed...we agreed to the tour. We joined a group of people and walked with them to the tour office where we paid and received our head sets.

Me outside the office, ready to go, but not terribly excited about the amount of euros I'd just spent.


I am proud to say we left the Vatican much more educated than when we left the Louvre in Paris. This was a nice feeling as normally we just stare at things in awe and say things like, "Wow, that looks important. Man, that is old looking." Once the tour started, we were immediately happy about our decision. The lady knew her stuff and everything she told us was very interesting. She also had a British accent, which is always fun to listen to. I decided to be the nerd writing everything down because it was sooo much info and I wanted to remember it all. So if you have already had a tour of the Vatican or are not in the mood for one now, then you may want to skip over this part.

Not really in the museum yet, but the guide pointed out this sculpture. You'll see why later. This statue is a copy of the original we will see. Except notice his right arm reaching up.


Modern looking gold ball in the courtyard.
It is making a statement about the damage technology does to the world.


We stopped in the courtyard in front of these signs to talk about the Sistine Chapel since you are not allowed to talk inside the chapel. You are not allowed to take pictures of it either because the Japanese say so. The walls and ceiling of the chapel used to be filthy, and the Japanese paid to have it cleaned in the 80's. Unfortunately, that means they now own the copy rights to the whole chapel. So no pictures. I wanted to ask if Japanese people were allowed to take pictures, but I didn't.

I will wait until later, when we get to the chapel, to tell you what all I learned about the paintings and Michaelangelo. But one thing I learned is that Michaelangelo is now my favorite ninja turtle AND artist.





Why are some of the statues in the courtyard headless?
Duh... they are ancient. The heads fell off.



Pine cone in the courtyard.
Pine cone= symbol of peace and prosperity.




There are so many things in the Vatican that if you looked at each piece for 3 seconds, it would take you 6 years to see everything. So, clearly, we just hit the highlights.

This little guy is frozen in a position that looks like he is cleaning his right arm. He used to have a metal hook in his left hand. Romans would clean themselves with metal hooks.
Steps for maintaining your Roman hygiene:
First, rub olive oil all over yourself.
Next, scrape off the oil and dirt with the hook.
Then, your ready to go.
If you were rich, you could have someone else do it for you. Luxurious.





Laocoon and His Sons
This is the statue we saw in the beginning. The guy in the middle is Laocoon. He was a Trojan priest. He was the only one who did not trust the Greeks' horse gift, and he tried to warn the Trojans of this. The quote "Beware of Greeks baring gifts" comes from him (if you are someone who is familiar with that quote...I'm not.) All this made the goddess Athena angry so she sent serpents to kill Laocoon and his sons. Now their naked death is frozen in time.

This and many other sculptures in the Vatican combine Greek perfection (the body) with Roman realism (the suffering in the face.)
Also, notice the arm here. It is bent. The one in the beginning was straight. When they first found Laocoon, he had no arm. There was some speculation as to which way the arm went. The Pope held a contest for some sculptors and the straight arm won. But then one day... a lot later... they found the arm. It was bent. So they attached it, but Laocoon is still missing his hand. That's how you can tell if it's a copy or if it's the real thing... that and whether you are in the Vatican looking at the real thing or not.



Our guide in front of Dionysus, the god of wine.
But here he just looks like the god of being really drunk.


Torso del Belvedere...from the rear



Torso from the front
This was apparently Michaelangelo's favorite (but he didn't do it). He thought it was proportionally perfect. Michael loved perfection. When they asked him to complete the sculpture with limbs and stuff, he refused. He would not touch such perfection.
Some people think the torso is supposed to be Ajax's, the hero of the Trojan war. Some people also think The Thinker was modeled after this torso.

I mean, it's really cool for a torso and all. But I'm curious as to what makes it SO different from ALL the other old, seemingly perfect, sculptures...especially the ones with limbs intact. What exactly makes this one SO perfect, Michaelangelo? But if you say so.


Greek statues were in bronze. But the Romans came in and melted all the bronze statues into things like cannon balls. So there are not many bronze ones left. Here is one of the few. They didn't melt this guy because it was struck by lightning and that meant it was bad luck. So they buried it instead. Now it's in the Vatican. He is a lot taller than the other statues. Stupid Romans.


Room in the Vatican that is modeled after the Pantheon.



Example of ancient airbrushing. This guy was not really this ripped. He probably wasn't ripped at all. The guide said he was a scrawny thing, but powerful people had themselves sculpted all the time to appear younger and hotter than they really were.




Mosaic flooring
Do you see a familiar symbol?



The swastika. Before the Germans got a hold of it, it was a sign of good fortune.




This is the tomb of St. Helena.. I think. Or this is just where I heard her story and associated her with this tomb. She retrieved the remains of Christ's cross. Therefore, she is the patron saint of archeology. Also in this room are the tombs of Constantine's son and daughter: Constantine Jr. (or more like the 5th, 11th, or ?th) and Constantina.



Bill Clinton Emperor statue



Egyptian influence.
The Romans would bring stuff back from the regions they conquered.




First Emperor with a beard.
Beards were considered barbaric until this trend setter started sportin' the facial hair.



Getting closer...



Diana, the goddess of hunting and fertility. Her twin brother is Apollo. Diana came out of the womb first, saw her mother struggling with the next baby, and immediately turned around to help deliver Apollo. Girls rule.


More goddess of fertility...there are 3 possibilities those things can be hanging from the torso.
I'll let you guess.



Statues were once painted. But the paint faded. This kind of rang a bell for me, but I did NOT know that the statues used to come equipped with eyeballs.

Weird and freaky eyeballs. I'm kind of glad most of them have fallen out.



The color blue was the most expensive. This blue here was called ultramarine blue...the most expensive. I think this was the crest of the Pope Leo the ?th...so he just wanted to show off his money.



Room of Rafael's tapestries. Except he didn't do them. Dudes didn't tapestry. Only women. So the women that worked for him made them.


Scene's on the tapestries depicting when Herod ordered all the baby boys to be killed.


Gruesome.


Room of maps. Each map on the wall shows different parts of Italy...and they are pretty close to accurate.


Crazy how they could do that without google maps.





Now some paintings from the other turtle.


"Is that old man wearing a Santa hat?" -- Freddie



Ceiling



Me and one of Rafael's paintings




So you leave Rafael's paintings and you're all ready to see the Sistine Chapel, but first you have to walk through the modern art section. And you're just like...really? I'm supposed to appreciate this right now? Do you know whose paintings I just saw?





So, like I said, no pictures allowed in the Sistine Chapel. Remember the Roman soldier pictures from Day 1? Yeah, I don't follow orders very well.

I mean, I will certainly follow the rules if they make sense. I NEVER use my flash when I'm not supposed to. That makes sense. I would never dream of damaging a billion year old painting just so I could have a tiny copy in my iphoto library. But just because the Japanese own it? Who do they think they are?
Needless to say, I risked it and took some Sistine pictures...and they came out pretty good considering they were taken from my jacket pocket.


There are guards all around shhhshing people and watching to make sure no one is taking pictures. I was a weency bit nervous. The guide had said earlier that she had seen people thrown out of the chapel before for taking pictures. Livin on the edge here.


Trying to get The Last Judgment wall...but blurry.


I only attempted four photos. I was about to take the first one when I got scared that my flash was on, so I shoved it back in my pocket as the picture took. But it was fine. No flash. The following pictures are just edited and cropped so you can see the paintings a little better.

Of everything I learned in the Vatican, the stuff I learned about Michaelangelo and this chapel was my favorite. Michaelangelo did not ever consider himself a painter. He was a sculptor. He did not even touch a paint brush between the ages of 19 and 33. He absolutely did NOT want to paint the Sistine Chapel. When the pope asked him to paint it, Michaelangelo was in the middle of working on a tomb sculpture for the pope. He wanted this sculpture to be his best work ever...the piece he'd be remembered by...plus he hated painting, so he told the pope no. But the pope ordered him to work on the chapel instead of the sculpture. What the pope wants, the pope gets. So Michael worked on the chapel ceiling for the next 4 years of his life.

He painted in a style called fresco, which meant he painted onto wet plaster with wet paint. This is super hard to do and Michael had actually never done it before. You have to prepare the exact amount of paint that you plan to use for the day. If you miscalculate, then you gotta start all over the next day. So he basically taught himself how to paint like this as he painted the ceiling. He started on the end that he thought the pope would see the least...in case it sucked. The first three paintings he did on the ceiling took him 2 years (half of the time it took for the WHOLE ceiling.) But by the end of it all, he was able to paint the last painting in one day.

These paintings at the top of the picture are some of the first paintings. All paintings on the ceiling are scenes from the book of Genesis. The first one (in my picture) that you can see the whole square is supposed to be Noah's ark, except instead of animals Michaelangelo drew naked people. He didn't really know how to paint animals (although I'm sure he could've if he tried). He liked to draw things naked... and more specifically he liked to draw naked dudes.


The next painting is Adam and Eve and the apple, except in this scene Adam is the one responsible for the whole apple fiasco. Some women have attributed Michaelangelo with early feminism because of this painting...but our guide said really, this is not the case. Michael did not care about women. He didn't really like them at all. He just wanted to be rebellious. This is why I like him.




God creating man... This was the first depiction of God as an old fella, which was really controversial back in the day. In this picture, God is about to touch Adam's hand and make him come to life. (God's finger is straight, but Adam's is limp and lifeless still).





One of the last scene's on the ceiling (which I didn't get ALL of it in my picture) is the one at the bottom of this photo (with the sun in it). This whole scene is when God made the sun and the moon...but if you look closely, you can see a special kind of moon. Michael painted God's booty. (Really...LOVE Michaelangelo).

The pope came in and scolded him for painting God's behind, but Michael claimed there was a veil over it and he accused the pope of having an impure mind. HA. People say Michael painted God's butt to make a statement about the state of the church. He was angry at the church and the pope for the way things were being run and this was his way of showing God was angry too a.k.a "turning his back on the church."



When Michael finished the ceiling, he was partially blind from the paint and had some pretty bad back problems from standing and painting for 4 years (not lying down like some people think).
Thirty years later, the pope came back and asked Michaelangelo to paint the back wall. Imagine how much he REEEALLY hated this idea.

The reformation had started and the pope wanted the painting to show the supremacy of the Catholic church. The Last Judgment shows some people going to heaven (on the left side) and others going to hell (on the right side)...P.S. These next pictures are from the signs in the beginning...not the actual chapel.

In case you can't tell, Michael loved to not only paint naked guys, he liked to make them really really buff. In this painting, people just look abnormally ripped. I'm pretty sure Jesus has muscles here that don't even exist in the body. Interesting fact: Michaelangelo studied on dead bodies (which was illegal).



Michael rarely painted women, but when he did...he just painted a man's body and then added boobs. Can you even find the woman in this picture?



These two martyrs sitting on the rocks are holding things to show how they were killed. The guy on the left (forgot his name) is holding a ladder-looking thing. But it is not a ladder. It is a grill because he was bar-b-que'd to death. Bartholomew is sitting on the rock to the right and holding his skin...because he was skinned to death. If the skin came off in one big piece, then that was a job well done for the skinner. Notice the face in the skin. That is a self portrait of Michael, because that's how he felt about having to do this painting.


Notice how all the guys have little cloths on over their wee wees. These cloths weren't there originally (well, Jesus and Mary had clothes on...Michael had SOME sense of modesty for them). Some man came in and saw all the naked people and he said it looked like a brothel. This made Michael mad...so what did he do? He memorized the guy's face and painted it. He painted it right on to the body of Minos, the gatekeeper of hell...HA (below).

This guy got so mad and went to the pope to tattle tale. The pope responded, "I have authority on earth and I have authority in heaven, but I have no authority in hell." And the guy's face stayed. But in the end, after Michaelangelo died, they painted cloths over all the wee wees. Technically, because of what they were painted with, these cloths could be removed, but they think its best to leave them. Don't ask me why. There are naked people everywhere else in the Vatican and on the chapel ceiling...but I guess you gotta draw the line somewhere.


This is what the ceiling used to look like. Just blue with stars. Then a pope decided he wanted something more to look at. Enter Michael.


Michaelangelo's last words (or some of them) were "I am not a painter." Kinda sad...but he was a funny guy in a hateful kinda way. I think he'd be mad at the Japanese too for being so selfish with the picture taking. I'm pretty sure if he were a tourist, he'd have taken some pictures in that chapel too. Or ...actually...maybe he'd just be raging mad about how much attention we give to the chapel instead of his other works. Yeah, he'd probably be disgusted with it all.


Wow, ok. I'm exhausted after all that. And you could probably find all that info on wikipedia...but I feel like I'll remember it better since I had the tour and now wrote it here.

Photo shoot time in the Vatican plaza!
Freddie and Kelly


Freddie blessing me



Chris and Melanie (other students from our program...and two of our roommates that we ran into in the Vatican)


Lillie had already been to the Vatican before. So she sat this day out. Since I didn't have Lillie, I made Kelly take some lovey Vatican pictures with me.

When Freddie takes pictures, he just starts snapping. Then we look up and ask if he's taken one yet. By that time he has taken at least 5.



Favorite. So happy.




Vatican guard... I'm still not sure why the silly uniform.



More Vatican...what are the white things?
Those spots are where they are doing construction, but they don't want you to feel like you are getting jipped on your Vatican experience. We saw the same thing at the Louvre in Paris.



Faux Vatican ... see you hardly notice it.



Inside the Vatican... hurrrge.




See how small those holy men are? And that's zoomed in.


Zoomed out... but you can see the people standing to the right of the brown thing... and how tiny they are. They were having mass.
And at this point, I am about in the middle of the church.



So all this was still behind me. Big big Vatican.



Lots o' dead popes here in the Vatican



La Pietá ... at least Michaelangelo didn't make Mary look like a dude.


Close up of silly Vatican uniforms



Sorry but I am not bringing any of you souvenirs from Rome. Because A) Money and B) No room in my back pack. So instead I took some pictures of what I would have wanted to bring you.

This Roman cat calendar is for my dad.



Lots of pope postcards. The rest of you can have one of these.



Sistine Chapel picture in a gelato shop. psshhha...nothin after seeing the real deal.


Gelato,


How I love you!



Another bus ride home... yay we got seats for yet another super crowded ride home.


Back to the hostel for a bit, then got ready to go out. Took a metro. This was the only time we used a metro in Rome. There are not many metro lines in Rome. Our guide told us that it is really hard to do any construction. The old Roman streets are about 60 feet below the current ones so they are constantly finding ancient stuff during the construction process. They've been working on a new metro line for about 20 years for this reason, and the process is slower here also (says our guide) because they are Italian :)

Neat thing about this metro...it is not divided anywhere. So you can see all the way to the ends. Ok maybe not that neat in photo, but it looked really cool when we went around a curve.



We got off the metro and started walking. Then, while waiting to cross the road, this older Italian man stumbles our way. He is clearly drunk, and he is singing at the top of his Italian lungs. At first, you can't really see or hear him...but just wait a few seconds and you will.

And with that minor, hilarious encounter began one of the happiest nights of my life.

We went to a restaurant that Lillie found in a travel book. Outside the restaurant was this cute little Lady and the Tramp scene.


This restaurant could not have been more perfectly Italian. We walk in and it is full. Not a tourist in sight. It is full of Italians. The lights are dim, it is small and cozy, and the music is ITALIAN (finally!) There are hand written notes (in different languages) all over the door frame and walls expressing how much they loved this place.




The tables are long and you sit with whoever you sit with...doesn't matter if you know them or not.


When we first walked in, I was certain we'd never get a table. But within minutes they squeezed us onto the end of a table right next to the door.


Early into the meal,..actually I don't think we had even gotten food yet, but I had already decided this was the happiest night of my life. This place was amazing. Every 5 or 10 minutes a song would come on and EVERYONE in the restaurant would start singing. It only got better.

"I don't think you are allowed to be this happy"



Delish Appetizer


Attacking the antipasto like vultures on an armadillo carcass. Literally the biggest, most delicious balls of fresh mozzarella I've ever tasted.



Winners





Then, the party of people left that was sitting next to us. We scooted over and a few minutes later a cute young Italian couple sat next to us. The girl spoke a decent amount of English, but the guy talked louder. His English was less, which made for the most hilarious display of communication I have ever seen between him, Kelly, and Lillie. I will never be able to convey the level of joy and hilarity we experienced here. But I tried and tried... taking sooo many pictures and a few videos.

The guy (Roberto) mid-gesture and Lillie.


I would pay to have a video of this entire night. Instead, I just took a million pictures of the people across from me a.k.a. Roberto, Lillie, and Freddie.


At some point during all this our food came



This video below is the best I can do. It is dark. But you can first hear all the singing and then, you can get a glimpse of the conversations we had with Roberto. Just imagine lots of gesturing from him as he speaks. Here, I believe Lillie and Kelly were AGAIN trying to ask about the flippin chocolate shot bar. Naturally, Roberto assumed they meant gelato. That's when Freddie and I just lost it at the other end of the table. This whole chocolate bar thing was just a mess...but Kelly wasn't giving up on it. Maybe Roberto started to understand us... I don't know. In this video he is trying to tell us where SOMETHING is in Rome... I think. Just listen.




LOOSING it...the whole night. Freddie and I couldn't contribute much to the conversation since we were on the end and it was loud in the restaurant...but we could hear it all and all we could do was laugh anyways. Forming words was impossible.


At some point, we told Roberto we were from Florida. Roberto says "OH" and starts clapping his hands up and down. Takes us a minute to realize he is saying "crocodilo" and doing the crocodile motion with his hands. Well, our first reaction (as University-minded FSU students) is to say "Noooo.. not gators...Indians! Seminoles!" One of us may have even made a feather motion behind our heads. Poor Roberto is so confused. THEN, it dawns on us that this minimal-English speaking Italian has NO EARTHLY IDEA which universities are even in Florida LET ALONE what their mascots are! He was simply connecting Florida with having the alligator animal. After dying of laughter at ourselves, we told him yes, he was correct, Florida does have alligators. He was, however, familiar with the Miami Dolphins ...so go figure.



THEN, somehow... Roberto and Lillie discovered they have the same birthday!
Imagine how excited we all were to learn this.
Here they are holding up the 2 and the 8 for Nov. 28.



Before we even knew it, Roberto had ordered us some drinks. Drinks we didn't even want. Drinks we didn't even like. Drinks he certainly wasn't paying for. The drink was this red drink that tasted like cough syrup but imagine cough syrup mixed with something that makes your insides burn....maybe fire...because it really didn't taste like alcohol. Just really awful cough syrup. But we drank them. I guess he felt it was something we needed to try.

Freddie accidentally broke his glass.

So...whether it was the atmosphere, the red drink (and some wine of course), being absolutely in love with each other, a fabulous Vatican day OR a perfect combination of all four...it was the best night in Rome and maybe in Europe.


Bus ride home... feeling like we were about to barf up the red drink.


Girl photo shoot time. Duh, we were all dressed up.



Now in front of our hostel. Like I said, Freddie just starts snapping away.


and clearly, we were eatin it up.


ok that's enough.


mmmm no it's not.


last one for real.



Best. Day. Ever.
Longest. Blog. Yet.