Big and Small Adventures

Hej san,

Spring has continued to make spotty appearances in Uppsala; the last week has included snow, buds on the trees along the river, and flowers blooming all through downtown. It seems very incongruous to me that it can snow when the sun is around for so long. Living so far north brings you to many extremes. Yesterday when I got out of my philosophy class at eight in the evening, the sun was just about to touch the horizon, and it wasn't fully dark until nearly nine thirty! I'm not sure when it's coming up, but it's earlier than six. Such long days at home means June (although I think I've already surpassed maximum Colorado daylight) so it seems very strange that it's still mildly cool and occasionally snows.

My philosophy class is going smoothly, if not always the way I expected it to. The class is structured around interviewing different people, and it's very student-driven. We choose the readings for each week, and we also ask all of the interview questions. While this allows us to be involved and learn what we really want to learn, it also seems very unstructured to me. This class could be completely different every semester. I wonder sometimes what the learning goals of the class are, since we seem to just be wandering through our personal thoughts on happiness. Despite my occasional frustrations with the class, it's been hugely interesting and a good chance to reflect on what makes me happy.

This week has mostly been about small adventures; learning different embroidery stitches, buying strawberries at a farm stand on main street (in Swedish!), and a day-long spring cleaning inspired by the warm weather. That wasn't totally a fun adventure, I have to admit; discovering the state of the tiles behind the free-standing tub in my bathroom was one of the less-pleasant surprises I've gotten here. It hadn't been cleaned in a VERY long time. But my room is now beautifully clean and well-organized, and that makes me feel good every time I walk in.

Next week, however, is a big adventure. Henri and I are off on another round of travel, this time with a student tour group called Scanbelt. They do tours in northern Europe, and ours will go to Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and to St. Petersburg, Russia. I'm thrilled to see both cities! Normally you need a visa to enter Russia, but as we're going to be staying inside the principality of St. Petersburg and we're with a tour group, I don't need one. I've spent the last several days reading up on the history of the cities and (very briefly) the countries; hopefully I feel better informed than I did in Rome. We'll spend four nights on ferries going to the different cities, (Helsinki, St. Petersburg, back to Helsinki, and finally back to Stockholm) and two nights in a hostel in St. Petersburg. I'll be returning on Tuesday, so next Wednesday look for lots of stories about Finland and Russia.

I have not, however, quite finished packing my backpack for the trip, and as I'm departing in a half-hour I'll sign off here for now.

Until next time,
hej då!

Spring in Uppsala

Hej san,

I feel like it really hasn't been that long since I've written! (This could have something to do with the unfortunately long time between my previous posts.) My time in Uppsala is flying past, and I'm both thrilled and very sad about this fact. There are definitely things I miss about Boulder and home; yellow cheddar for one, and my brother for another. (Yes, Jeff, you just got compared to cheese. I know you're honored.) Especially now that I've finally finished arranging my schedule for next fall, part of me wants to get home and get started on it.

As much as I can't wait to go home, I think there will be a very great number of things I miss about Sweden as well. I only have class in English once a week, and now my own language falls rather strangely on my ears. I'm much more accustomed to the nasal tonality of Swedish. Mind you, this doesn't mean I understand all that much Swedish. I'm just used to hearing it. There are several food-related things; knäckebröd of course, but I'll also miss the muesli, which has a completely different texture to granola I ate at home, and the wonderful semla buns. I'll miss the silhouette of Domkyrkan (the cathedral) looming over everything and the pink castle. (That still makes me giggle. Honestly, Uppsala. Your castle is pink.)

But it's something less definable I think I'll miss the most. In one of my very first blog posts I quoted my Lonely Planet travel guide about two Swedish mindsets: lagom, which means just right (think Goldilocks), and ordning och reda, everything in its proper place. (Actually, ordning och reda means "system and out" if you translate it directly, and most Swedes translate it as "orderliness." I have learned some Swedish!) I've found it to be true in so many ways, large and small. I'm not sure how the Lonely Planet people managed to nail it, but they did.

Instead of dwelling on how much I'll miss it here, I've started to compile a list of all the things I've though about doing and haven't actually done yet. Some of them I've completed since the last time I wrote, and some of them are still on the list. So far the list looks like this:

--go to Carolina Rediviva
--try semla and/or kanelbulle at Cafe Linnea and En Cafe (two cafes on my bike ride home that I've been eyeing for months)
--visit The English Bookshop
--go to IKEA
--go shopping. Gasp! I know. It's not exactly something I do frequently. But I've been watching Swedish fashion for the last three months, and there are a couple of things I want to try. Turns out I can be a girl after all...
--watch the sun rise from the castle. I need to do this soon though, before the sun starts rising before five. It's already getting very close. I don't know why I didn't do it when the sun was coming up at eight thirty.
--order meatballs at a restaurant
--go clubbing at Stockholm Nation. Again, not something I normally do, but I've heard from multiple people (from multiple countries) that Sweden's clubs are the best in the world, so I feel like I should give it a whirl.
--see Gamla Uppsala
--have a picnic by the river

I want to do at least one a week. Sometimes it's hard to actually get myself to do these things; I'm never quite sure if I'm saying the right phrase in Swedish, or if I should be finding a number ticket or just standing in the queue. It's little things that can make you feel stupid that I'm afraid of.

I also am beginning to make plans to travel to other parts of Sweden; I want to see a region called Lake Siljan, and I refuse to leave Sweden without going to Fårö Island. Both are supposed to be incredibly beautiful. Also on the list are Malmö and Kalmar, two cities in southern Sweden. I'm not sure if I'll make it to all the places I want to go, but at least now I'm thinking about it.

You will be happy to know that I FINALLY crossed IKEA off my list! I now have beautiful purple curtains that do a really wonderful job keeping a lot of light out of my room, as I found out this morning when I woke up and realized it was nearly nine. I also got thread in different colors, and I'm (slowly) figuring out how to embroider.

I realized when I was talking to Henri one day that my denim bag, which my Granny made for me, has been to six different countries, and it will be nine, potentially eleven, by the time I get home. Now, I am definitely not a fan of sewing flags on a backpack or bag; I think it looks touristy. But I am going to embroider the names of the countries on the inside of the flap, so they're not obvious. I figured I should practice a bit first though, so my new dish towel has some (very messy) decorations on it now. Needlework sort of makes me feel like a little old lady, but it also makes me happy, so I'm ok with it.

The other excitement of the week was sending Brooke off to go home. In theory she should arrive in Melbourne in two more hours, after thirty-six hours of planes. I'll miss seeing her and her family, but they'll all be so much happier at home with their friends surrounding them. Hopefully her recovery and rehab goes well and she'll be coming back to Steamboat next winter for more racing.

Next time I hope to have some pictures of spring in Uppsala for you. It's really quite different from January when I arrived; flowers are pushing up, cafes and restaurants have tables and chairs set up outside, and there are many more people out. Granted, it snowed two days ago, so I'm definitely still in Scandinavia, but spring is trying. I hope you're having your share of warm weather as well, although I know in Colorado you could be under two feet of new snow. Ah well, we can dream, right?

Until next time,
hej då!

The Curse of Free Time

Hej san,

I know all of you with midterms and projects and papers and to-do lists that never end are giving the title of this post an evil look. Who wouldn't want some free time? Or a lot of free time? That's one of my favorite ways to procrastinate, actually; I love daydreaming and planning what I'll do...on the weekend. During the summer. As soon as I have some free time.

So calling free time a curse? You're all rolling your eyes at me, I know it. Let me explain a little what I mean by the curse of free time, and then you can decide if you think I've completely lost it or not.

How many of us actually do the things we've daydreamed about? I rarely do. Sure, that's mostly because the free time never happens, or because we don't have the means to make our adventures happen right then, or because they were impractical in the first place. We usually have very good reasons for not making all of our daydreams happen. But think back to a post I wrote a while ago about turning dreams into plans. Henri had to convince me that I could just book a flight and go; it wasn't something I even thought about doing. Perhaps it's because I don't have a spontaneous personality in general, but I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm very much in the habit of thinking and not at all in the habit of doing.

When I think about the things I do, they're generally because of some expectation coming from someone else. I write papers because they've been assigned. I study for exams because that's how students pass classes. When I was a ski racer, I ran or lifted or jumped when my coaches told me to. I tuned my skis because that's what you do before a race. Now, when I say it like this, it sounds really whiny. I don't mean it like that at all. I chose both to be a student and a ski racer, and I love doing both things. My point is that unless you look at the very big picture, you don't see my choices. When you look at even a time frame of two or three months, you see my professors' choices, or my coaches' choices.

Right now, I have free time. I have loads of free time. I have six hours of lectures a week, and next to none immediate required outside work. Swedish does have two exams at the end of May, listening and written, and my philosophy class has a twelve to fourteen page paper based upon a group project also due at the end of May, but these things don't have the immediacy of calculus homework due three times a week. The things I do based on expectation are minimal. When I realized how much time I was going to have after neuroscience, I was delighted. This is what we all dream of. I had no idea how difficult it would be to actually do something with my time.

Perhaps this goes back to my really non-spontaneous personality, perhaps to the fact that I'm out of the habit of doing, and perhaps because I'm out of the habit of decision-making, but I've found myself doing...nothing. I have ideas and plans and things I think about doing. But I haven't been doing them. I spent my time taking quizzes on a website called Sporcle (a really, really good way to lose a lot of time without noticing it) or idly web-surfing. I stayed up late and slept in. And the more I did this, the more it was hard to do things I knew I needed to do. Going to the grocery store (which is a FIVE MINUTE WALK away) became a chore, and I would wait until I had nothing in my cabinet but a couple pieces of knäckebröd (the Swedish name for the cracker/flat bread I'm addicted to). Things I wanted to do, like finish writing my stories about Rome for you? They crossed my mind occasionally, but not often. I became a slug of the highest order.

That doesn't mean I did absolutely nothing. I've spent time visiting Brooke in the hospital. I like to cook her lunch or treats because she can't stand the hospital food. On Easter I made her hot cross buns, which are a British and Australian tradition. It was my first yeast bread, and they turned out reasonably well! Brooke and her parents were delighted, at any rate, and I thought they were very good, if just a touch dense. Hopefully she's going home any day now. I also memorized the names of every country in the world, even the masses of islands in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Australia. I also got caught up on sleep, which felt amazing.

And that's about all I can say for the last three and half weeks.

I don't think this is all bad. Catching up on sleep was important, and I think a serious decompression has been coming on since my second year at university. But at some point I started feeling bad because I was being so lazy, so I kept distracting myself with time-wasting things so I wouldn't think about the fact that I hadn't posted something for you, or actually studied Swedish verb tenses, or gone to IKEA. Yep, still haven't made it down there. I've been thinking about doing that since the first week I arrived here. There have been a couple of times I've thought about getting my act together and actually doing something (notice the first Rome post went up about a week and a half ago) but my motivation putters pretty quickly and I go back to wasting my time.

So what brought on this change? Three posts in two days, and I've started running, and I PROMISE I'm going to IKEA. Today. Right after I see Brooke. Actually, it was a very random article I saw on BBC about willpower during Easter, when there is so much chocolate around. It suggested that willpower is like a muscle; you can train it, and it gets "tired" at the end of the day. I thought about this, and it made sense to me. I used to have a lot of willpower. I blame training for skiing with a bunch of boys; not keeping up was not an option. I can still be very stubborn, but I don't have the self-discipline and ability to self-motivate that I remember having. Perhaps this is because I had help in the form of coaches and teachers pushing me, and in university that is significantly less. Right now that help is very close to non-existent, and so is my willpower.

At any rate, the article suggested ways to "exercise" your willpower, like doing everything with your non-dominant hand or consciously working on your posture. I've never been good at remembering to sit up straight, but I've toyed with the idea of trying to be ambidextrous for years and never really done it. I give it up when I'm taking notes in class, because I would prefer to be able to read those later, but I've been cooking, doing dishes, combing my hair, and writing with my left hand. My handwriting hasn't improved at all, but I'm getting better at dishes. But last Wednesday, I managed to waste very close to the entire day. And then I got mad.

I got mad for lots of reasons. I'm not taking advantage of the time I have here in Sweden. I spend the vast majority of my time alone in my room, doing things I could do anywhere in the world. I used to be an athlete, and believe me when I say I've gotten very out-of-shape. (Granted, laying flat on my back for five days straight during my little hospital adventure last May did nothing good for me, but that was nearly a year ago.) I'm barely doing what is required for my classes, and sliding by on work that's sketchy at best. I think about my seventeen-year-old self, as a senior in high school; she was the most on-top-of-her-game I've ever been. I was in the best shape of my life, I was doing really well in school, I had awesome friends. I know that year wasn't perfect, and I remember plenty of times I was frustrated or tired or sick. But I got mad, because I want that back. I definitely want that body back. I'm twenty, for crying out loud. I'm not supposed to have "peaked" three years ago.

I have ideas about what I want to do, about how I want to live my life. And I haven't been anywhere close to them. I've occasionally made attempts for them; about once a month last year I would get motivated and go for a run. At the beginning of every semester, I swear to myself this will be the semester I stay on top of my homework and study daily instead of cramming before the exam. (It lasts two weeks, three in a good semester.)

Right now I have a 危机. Yeah, that's Chinese, but it works better than any English word I know. Directly translated it means crisis, but if you take the symbols apart, the first one means danger and the second two mean opportunity. The opportunity: I have the time to get myself in some kind of shape. I have the time to write stories. (I have two that I'm been puttering around with for quite a while, and I've always said to myself, oh, when I have some free time...) I have time to write you all incredible blog posts. I have time to learn how to cook new and interesting things. I have time to travel to different parts of Sweden, and find something really amazing for my brother's birthday present. I have time to wander up and down the river in downtown Uppsala and watch the flowers grow, to go to Carolina Rediviva and see the incredible rare books they have there, to do all of the things I've daydreamed about doing...when I finally had some free time.

The danger? Getting caught in making decisions. What do I want to do first? Getting caught in being lazy because I have no deadline. I'll go for a run...tomorrow. Losing my motivation again, and wasting the time I have. Getting caught in feeling anti-social and awkward and lonely. Doing exactly what I've been doing for the last three and a half weeks; getting caught in the curse of free time.

I think 危机 sums it up pretty well.

When I was sixteen I raced a Super G in Vail. For those of you who haven't ever ski raced, Super G is the second-fastest discipline, with very spaced-out turns and occasionally jumps. You have one run per day, and that one run is your race. It's one of my favorite disciplines, because it's not quite as extreme as downhill, but it's still a total rush. Usually you have two Super G races scheduled together over a weekend, but in the case of dangerous weather or snow conditions on the first day, you can run both races in one day. The particular Super G in Vail I'm remembering was a case like that; Saturday had been postponed and we were running both runs on Sunday. When this happens, we use the same course set twice, because rearranging the gates would take too much time. I love it when this happens. My second run on a course set is almost always better than my first, because I've had a chance to practice it first.

My first run was about average for me; not slow by any means, but not particularly fast. My second run, everything conspired in my favor. The light was good and sunny, the snow was perfect, and I'd run the course once already. The top of the course is pretty flat, which was one of my strengths as a speed skier. About a third of the way down was the steep pitch, which was three gates long on this particular course (I'd guess seven to ten normal free skiing turns.) The pitch was kind of icy, and my first run I hesitated coming over the knoll onto it and slid on the first turn. That isn't fast, and it set me up poorly for the rest of the pitch.

My second run, I came over the knoll and I clearly remember thinking to myself, "I want to go fast." I moved forward, drove my hands, and stood on my outside edge. I nailed that pitch, and I came flying through the middle flats and the bottom rollers. That run got me a third-place medal in my age group.

I'm telling you this story not because it's one of my favorite days of racing (although it is) and not because I love to think about, read about, and talk about ski racing (although I do). When I came over that knoll, I flipped a switch in my head. I decided I was going fast that run, and that was that. And I did. I can think of six or seven other races when I did the same thing. Now, why on earth didn't I flip the switch at every race? In keeping with the switch metaphor, it's hard to find the switch. Saying "I'm going to go fast" isn't the same as flipping the switch. Deciding to get in shape isn't the same as putting on my tennis shoes and walking out the door and going for a run. I'm not very good at finding it and turning it on, even though I think about it a lot. Doing is harder than thinking.

Right now my "switch" is switched on. I could also say I'm motivated right now, or that my willpower is back. That happened Wednesday night. It's not perfect. Thursday I was motivated and productive until about one in the afternoon before I started being unproductive again. That lasted until about eleven, when I finished my last blog post about Rome and went to bed. Today (Friday) I started over. I went for a run (I am SORE, and that by itself should tell you how ridiculously out of shape I am), I've written this post, and the kitchen is spotless. (Or, it was two hours ago, the last time I was in there.) I don't know if I'll be productive all day today (though I plan to be). I don't know if I'll be motivated to start over tomorrow, or on Sunday, or next week. In some ways, I've been struggling with turning the switch on my entire life. Now it's just more important; I need it on to push myself because I don't have anyone to push me.

I am committing to once-a-week posts for you, however. Though today is Friday, I'm going back to Wednesday as posting day, so this time it'll be less than a week until my next post. I plan to have some kind of adventure to tell you stories about so you don't have to muddle through ski racing metaphors for my introspection again.

Until then,
Hej då

Adventures in Rome: Modern Rome

Previously on Adventures in Rome...

Jamie and Henri explored a country within a city and had their minds completely overloaded with history and stunning artifacts and artwork. Now, they decompress in Villa Borghese before exploring the Esquilino and Trastevere neighborhoods and finally heading home.

Day 4: Villa Borghese
Though Henri and I had only been in Rome for three days (not counting the night we arrived) we felt like we'd been there for weeks. We'd had our heads stuffed full of incredible history and seen some of the most beautiful architecture and art in the world. We both agreed we'd loved every minute of it, but we needed a day off.

Henri and I got a late start that day and walked the now-familiar route to Piazza del Popolo. Instead of continuing down Via del Curso as we had the first day on our way to ancient Rome, we turned east and headed up a sharp incline. At the top of the hill was Villa Borghese. Henri had been here the last time he was in Rome, and he described it as a park. I don't have a better descriptor for it, but it was so much more than a park!

First off, the place was huge. We spent the entire day wandering around, and we never covered the same ground twice. Scattered throughout the open spaces were art museums, a zoo, and a horse track and stables. There were several stands in the park renting bikes to people, and I can see why you'd need a bike to get across the whole thing. One section had marble busts interspersed with the trees, and another was left as a meadow where people picnicked on top of little rolling hills. It was a Sunday, so the park was full of families and groups of friends hanging out.

Henri and I spent some time sitting near a large fountain, just talking. We had been so busy looking at all of the things and listening to our tour guides that we hadn't had one of our three-to-seven hour conversations yet. (And yes, we did talk for seven hours straight one weekend. It was great fun.) Our topics ranged from high school requirements to family vacations to our impressions of Rome to the food we missed most from home. It was fun to sit and watch parents playing with their kids, absorb some sunshine, and just sit. Three days of walking after months of sitting at a desk studying will wear you out.

When we decided to move on from the fountain, we found one of the many stands selling salami paninis and ate them as we walked. They were simple, but they were delicious. We wandered through hollows filled with pine trees and wild grass and past ruins surrounded by lawns and gardens. We were still in Rome, of course, so there had to be a ruin somewhere! We found the Villa Borghese itself, which is an art school in the center of the park. Art students from all over the country compete for scholarships to attend there. We found a small lake with rowboats and lots of ducks, where we stopped and sat again, watching children run around playing make-believe.

Eventually the sun started to set and Henri and I headed down towards Via del Curso to get some dinner. Compared to our previous three days in Rome, it was simple and uneventful, but I loved it just as much as I had every other day.

Day 5: Esquilino and Trastevere neighborhoods
On the morning of Day 5, Henri and I pulled out our trusty map of Rome and looked it over. Of the city within the walls, there were two big neighborhoods we hadn't managed to wander into yet. In a slight departure from our normal planning style, Henri and I picked two points and decided to wander in a triangle instead of from point A to point B and back as we had the first three days. We did cheat a little, and we took the metro from the Esquilino neighborhood to the Trastevere neighborhood, but I think at at point we'd earned it.

Our two favorite finds from the Esquilino neighborhood were the Santa Maria Maggiore and the Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs in English), both beautiful basilicas. Santa Maria Maggiore is one of four major basilicas in the world; the other three are St. Peter's Basilica, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. John Lateran. St. John Lateran is the seat of the Papal throne and the oldest, although St. Peter's is more widely known. All of the other basilicas in the world technically are minor basilicas.

We first found the Baths of Diocletian, the largest public baths built in Ancient Rome. What we didn't expect to find was the Santa Maria degli Angeli inside the ruins of the baths. The outside is crumbling brickwork, and the inside is marble equal to that of St. Peter's. While St. Peter's marble is mostly white in contrast with dark colors, Santa Maria degli Angeli is decorated mostly in pink and pale gold marble. It gave the interior of the basilica a definite feminine feel to it, and it made the whole place seem very light and airy.

After we left Santa Maria degli Angeli we accidentally found Termini, the central train station in Rome. We'd been here that very first night we arrived, but since it was dark and we were delirious we were glad to find it again. (We'd be needing it on the morrow when we had to catch the Leonardo Express to the airport.) Continuing on from Termini we found Santa Maria Maggiore. This basilica was again different from everything else we'd seen; my first impression was "shiny!" The ceiling is gilded with gold, so I wasn't too far off. The colors of the marble was similar to that of St. Peter's, but the shape of the Basilica (and the scale) was very different.

After we left Santa Maria Maggiore, we went back to Termini and took the metro to the Piramide stop, named for the Piramide Cestia. Built around 15 BC, the pyramid was the tomb of Gauis Cestius, a magistrate of a religious organization. It's thirty meters square and thirty-seven meters high. The reason it's so well preserved is that it was incorporated into the Aurelian Wall, which was the outer-most wall ever to surround the city. While our hotel was just outside the wall to the north, this was the first time we'd been outside the wall on the south side of the city. (Remember the beautiful marble gateway I went through the very first day into the Piazza del Popolo, just before I saw my first Roman Church? Yeah, that was the Aurelian Wall on that side.)

Not long after that Henri and I decided it was long past lunch time, so we found a place for lunch. I had more of the best gnocchi on the planet, and feeling satisfied, we continued to wander through the Trastevere neighborhood. We found a seemingly endless number of churches dedicated to St. Mary, and Henri did his best to explain that there were different ways of worshipping St. Mary, depending on which of her characteristics you were looking for (forgiveness is the only one I remember). My favorite was Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the oldest basilicas in Rome. It's been restored several times, but the original church was built in 220. It is perhaps the first church where Mass was openly celebrated, though the records aren't super clear. This basilica seemed to be somewhere between Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its lighter marble, and Santa Maria Maggiore, with its gilded ceiling.

Henri and I also found lots of narrow windy streets to get lost in, though we were sandwiched between the Tiber and a steep hill, so we were never really disoriented. We did find several dead ends before we crossed the river below the Vatican on our way home. Our wandering feet somehow took us back to our favorite gelato place, and we again had some of the best gelato ever before continuing on our way towards dinner and home.

Day 6: The Journey Home
Finally the day had come to leave Rome and return to our Scandinavian home. Our flight didn't leave until one, so we had just enough time to wander our way to Termini before catching the Leonardo Express to the airport. I stopped Henri in the small market a few blocks from Piazza Mazini and our hotel, and bought my souvenir from Rome. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it is yet, because I got two, and one is Mom's birthday present.

As we wandered we said goodbye to our bridge and the Tiber, to Piazza del Popolo, and to the churches we'd visited on our very first day. It wasn't long before we were again exploring the narrow side-streets off of Via del Curso; even though we'd done it once we didn't see hardly anything the same this time. We also stumbled upon the Quirinale, which is the official residence of the Italian President. Like everything else in the city, the site has a long and colorful history; it's housed temples to various ancient Roman gods, a complex of Roman baths, Papal apartments, a palace, and now the home of the President. Rome couldn't let us go without showing us one last splendor.

Soon after we passed the Quirinale, we found Termini, though it took a little bit of looking. I still laugh when I think about all of the wonderful things we found without looking, and the difficulties we had finding the things we were actually looking for! We had plenty of time to catch our train. Henri dozed during the ride to the airport, and I watched Italy go by. A half-hour later we were at the airport, doing the usual check-in-passport-security-find-gate gig. We also found foccacia for lunch, and then we were taking off over the Atlantic Ocean. I did fall asleep on the plane, but Henri woke me up when we flew over Austria to see the Alps spread out below us. The pilot even announced when we flew over Innsbruck! (It's a major stop on the alpine world cup circuit, so I was thrilled.)

It was fun to land at Arlanda in the daytime this time around, though it was only about an hour earlier than the last time I arrived here. The multitude of lakes and evergreen trees made me feel more at home than I thought possible after only two months and a bit of living here in Sweden. Henri and I walked quickly through Arlanda (we were both trying to make it back in time for our Swedish lesson at six that evening) and after hurridly buying our train tickets descended into the train tunnel below the airport.

The train station at Arlanda is pretty simple: one platform for trains heading to Stockholm and one for trains heading to Uppsala and Gävle. When we burst onto the platform, out of breath and rushed, we realized we had no idea which of the many train lines we'd bough tickets for, nor which platform we should be on. After carefully researching and managing the public transportation in Rome, we were now disoriented in what was supposed to be our home airport! I blame Henri; the first time I arrived I took the bus.

After using my (severely limited, but better than Henri's) Swedish to read the departure boards, our tickets, and catch several announcements, I think we got on the right train. At least, we got on a train that stopped at Uppsala, and no one checked our tickets and said it was the wrong train, so I'm going with it was right. We arrived at ten til six, so I hopped on my bike and pedaled over to Swedish. Henri had three physics reports due that Friday, so he walked home to start writing. Oh, the joys of real life.

Our trip to Rome was a fantastic whirlwind of history, wandering, and really wonderful pasta. Turns out the Eternal City, always something of a fairytale to me, is as real and as colorful as the rest of the world. Someday I hope to go back, this time hopefully armed with a better grasp of Roman and Christian history. But for now, I'm glad to be in my Scandinavian home.

Speaking of my Scandinavian home, it's been quite some time since I've given you an update about it! As you can see, my writing bug has returned with a vengeance, and I hope to have something about my time since I returned from Rome up tomorrow.

Until then,
Ciao!

Adventures in Rome: The Vatican City

Previously on Adventures in Rome...

Jamie and Henri journeyed through ancient Rome, wondering all the while why history hadn't been that interesting when they were pre-teens in a classroom. Now, they venture to a new country, Vatican City.

Day 3: The Vatican
Henri and I structured our third day in Rome exactly the same way we had the previous two, with one goal at the end of a long wander. This time, however, the goal was physically much closer to our hotel and in many other ways much farther away; The Vatican City.

The Vatican City was declared an independent state in 1929, when the Holy See signed the Lateran Treaty with fascist Italy. (I'm not clear on exactly what is represented by the Holy See, but I do know that it has existed since the fourteenth century and it is not a country.)The Vatican has a population of about eight hundred and is about 110 acres big, making it the smallest country in the world in terms of both population and area. You could fit the entire population of the Vatican into Folsom Field almost seventy times, if you could get them to leave all of their treasures behind. And I do think treasure, in every sense, is the perfect word to describe the things in the Vatican.

The Vatican City has always seemed a little strange to me-a country just slightly larger than my high school, in the middle of another city-and a little mysterious. Maybe it has to do with my lack of knowledge about Christianity and Catholicism, or with popular culture creations a la Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, neither of which I've actually read). When you have a wall (a big wall, believe me) surrounding your city and a secret archive, I guess it's just a matter of course that there will be legends and rumors and conspiracy theories galore. I spent a whole day in the Vatican, and I still feel like I just scratched the surface of the stories and the treasures the city holds.

Henri and I started our day by wandering our way to Castel Sant'Angelo, or in English, the Castle of the Holy Angel. It was originally the mausoleum of Hadrian (the same guy who commissioned the Pantheon) in the second century, but was converted to a castle and fortress in the beginning of the fourteenth century. This is another example of the overlap between ancient and modern Roman history. In its modern history, it's served as the Papal apartments, a prison, and a fortress; Pope Clement VII survived the siege of Charles V's Landsknechte during the Sack of Rome in 1527.

It certainly looks like a castle to me! The statue on the top is of the Archangel Michael, who (according to legend) appeared on top of the castle and sheathed his sword to end the plague of 590; it's from this legend and statue that the castle gets its name.

The castle is now a museum, and Henri and I spent the next two and a half hours exploring. Inside is a spiral corridor that is original from when the castle was a mausoleum; it rises to the level of the circular ramparts. Henri and I also saw the entrance to the (no longer) secret tunnel from the castle to St. Peter's Basilica the Popes used to ensure their safety. Inside the square part are the Papal apartments, though most of the furniture and decorations have been moved to the Vatican Museum.

We also found several very narrow twisty stairways that led to the very top of the castle, where the statue of the Archangel is. I, of course, was delighted to be up high again, and took this picture looking south east. That's the River Tiber below us, which curves out east to run below the castle and then back south just past where you can see in this picture.

This is looking directly east and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. I could tell, even from this distance, that St. Peter's would be very, very high on the list of incredible things I'd ever seen. We had a long journey before we got there, though. After lunch (bolognese americano, delicious) Henri and I met up with a tour guide from the same company that we'd found at the Colosseum. Our tour guide's name was Elena, and after gathering a group of about twelve we headed into the Vatican Museum.

The Vatican Museum is the second largest museum in the world, after the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. would be the biggest museum if you combined them, but Elena was of the opinion that they were a chain of related museums so they didn't count. I found this somewhat amusing. I've heard several different versions of this statistic, but the middle one is that if you spent one minute looking at every piece in the Vatican Museum you would be there for fourteen years.

FOURTEEN YEARS.

Yeah, that's how I felt too.

After bypassing the queue and buying our student tickets (bring your student ID everywhere, by the way. There are almost always student discounts at museums and the like!) we headed up an escalator into a large square called the Pinecone Courtyard.

There's the pinecone the courtyard is named after. It's a bronze statue of Greek origin, and at one point it was part of a fountain. You'll have to forgive me; I don't remember the rest of the story about this piece. I claim information overload in the fifteen minutes following this picture.

This is looking the other direction from the same point. The golden globe in the center was a gift to one of the more modern Popes. If you look very closely, you can see information panels behind the globe. There are six sets of two panels around the edges of the courtyard, all showing the same thing; images of the Sistine Chapel.

Because the Sistine Chapel is a house of God, the Vatican officials ask that you maintain silence while visiting it. This requirement, however, makes it difficult for tour guides to point out the more interesting points of the artwork or tell stories about Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint it. To solve this problem, they provided replicas in the courtyard so the tour guides could tell their stories and point to the pictures before we went in. And oh, are there stories.

Elena started with a brief explanation of what a fresco is, and how it's different from a painting. A painting is the application of a colored substance (acrylic, oil, water) to a surface (canvas, paper, drywall). A fresco is actually a chemical reaction between a coloring agent and the plaster; the coloring agent carbonizes, changing the color of the plaster. There is no color overlaid on a surface, because the surface itself is colored. That's why frescoes last forever. This also makes frescoes really tricky to do; you apply the plaster to the wall or ceiling, and then you have to wait for it to dry to just the right moisture content before you apply the coloring agent. If you get it wrong, the plaster won't carbonize and you have to chip it off and start over. We can then conclude that good fresco artists were extremely skilled.

So when Pope Julius II decided he wanted frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he wanted the best fresco painter he could find, and he asked his cardinals to find such a man and recommend him. One of the cardinals had a young cousin studying to be a fresco painter named Raphael, but the cardinal didn't think Raphael would get the job because no one knew if he'd be any good (yet). So he instead recommended Michelangelo, knowing that Michelangelo would refuse the commission.

Michelangelo was a bit of a character in Renaissance Italy. He was known not only for is incredible artwork but also for his stubborn temper. He was primarily a sculptor (who carved arguably the most famous sculpture ever, The David) who was fascinated with classical Greek art. He was not, however, a painter, and he considered painting as not even a true art form. Painting was work for those who wished to be artists but didn't have the talent. He was quite vocal in this opinion, which is why the cardinal was sure he would refuse the commission. The cardinal was right; Michelangelo told the Pope no. The cardinal hadn't, however, counted on Pope Julius II.

Telling the Pope no was not something many people in that day and age did, and Pope Julius II was just as stubborn as Michelangelo. The Pope's next message was something along the lines of, "That wasn't a request, Michelangelo. You will paint the Sistine Chapel." Michelangelo refused again, and moved back to his hometown, Florence, to avoid the Pope and the Church. Pope Julius II was not deterred in the slightest. His next message read something like, "Paint the Sistine Chapel or I'll burn Florence to the ground."

So Michelangelo returned to Rome to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, on two conditions. He could paint whatever he wanted, and he would never be asked to paint a fresco again. (Twenty-four years later he got wrangled into painting The Last Judgement on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, but he did get to paint whatever he wanted both times.)It took him four years of sitting on scaffolding to do it. The ceiling consists of nine panels depicting scenes from the Book of Genesis surrounded by images of the prophets and sybils who predicted the coming of Christ. Even with my extremely limited knowledge of Christianity, I recognized most of the nine scenes.

Probably the most famous is the painting of God giving life to Adam, both with their arm outstretched to the other. The other scene Elena took extra time to describe was the panel showing God creating the heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon. God is painted twice, once facing out and once facing into the scene. There are two theories about this. One is that God's work was so great he had to turn all the way around to see it properly. The other theory (the one that centers on the fact that God's pants are painted firmly around his upper thighs when He's turned to look back at his creation) is that Michelangelo wanted the Pope to be able to enjoy both moons from the altar. *wink*

The irreverent, immature part of my brain was giggling hopelessly at this point, saying to me, "Michelangelo painted God mooning the Pope!" Ah...yeah. Potentially, he did. He also painted one of the little angels hiding behind a sybil flipping the bird (the British equivalent of flipping someone off) so it's not completely insane to think that was exactly what he meant by painting it the way he did. Either way, God's bum has been forever immortalized on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Elena also explained several of the important features of The Last Judgement, pointing out Saint Peter with the key to heaven, Saint Bartholomew with his own skin in hand, and Saint Catherine with her wheel. (There are others, but my lack of background knowledge proved too much for my memory.) She pointed out Charon ferrying his boat across the River Styx into hell, which I thought was rather interesting. I didn't expect to find a Greek mythological character in the same painting as Jesus, Mary, and various saints.

She also pointed out one of the demons in hell, the one farthest in the lower right corner who is depicted with donkey ears and wrapped in the coils of the Serpent. That particular demon got his face from a cardinal who dared to criticize Michelangelo's work (too many naked people, and Jesus depicted as young (read-without a beard) for the first time). When the cardinal went to Pope Julius II, the Pope jokingly told him his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so Michelangelo's painting would have to remain as it was.

When Elena was finished with the panels in the Pinecone Courtyard, we started in on the museum proper. The first thing you see are Greek statues and their Roman counterparts. Greek statues are almost always bronze (and hollow) while Roman statues are carved from marble.

I could show you a multitude of photos of the different statues, but since I've already written a small novel about the Sistine Chapel, I'll limit myself to the very best stories. This is a Roman copy of a Greek statue of the sun god Apollo. Not only is Apollo the god of gods in Greek mythology, this particular statue is the direct inspiration for how Jesus is depicted in the Last Judgement.

Alas, I am not tall enough to get a good angle at this particular Vatican treasure (though I don't think most people are). This is the bathtub of Roman emperor Nero, famous for being both the last emperor related to Julius Caesar and for being completely crazy. Like most things in Rome, the scale of the picture is deceptive; that bathtub is thirteen meters in diameter. (That's over forty feet.) It's a single block of marble, and it's made even more incredible by the type of marble it's made from.

Imperial porphyry was quarried from a single quarry in Egypt in the middle of the desert, nearly 160km from the Nile River. The Romans were so entranced with the unique color and grain of the marble that they exhausted the entire vein of marble. Other, similar veins have been found in modern times, but the extreme conditions of the quarry and the distance to the Nile make it nearly impossible to quarry. The other unique thing about this marble is its extreme hardness; with modern stone cutters it takes nearly an hour to cut three centimeters through the stuff. Can you imagine carving and sanding Nero's bathtub in the second century?

This is another example of porphyry marble. Again, I can't imagine the time and skill it took to carve the reliefs into the sides of this piece.

After the three dimensional pieces, Elena led us down two corridors of more artwork. This is the corridor of tapestries, many woven in the Netherlands in the Middle Ages. One of the things I noticed was the incredible moulding and painting on the ceiling of the hall. It was only at the other end that Elena told us the entire ceiling was flat; everything was painted. I was completely fooled, and I still couldn't tell the difference even after I knew it was painted instead of moulding.

This is the corridor of maps, made in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. What boggled my mind was that the greatest error on any of the maps to today's maps was eighty kilometers. That sounds like a long way, but think of the difference in technology between then and now. Somehow I can't imagine that modern people would do half as well since we've come to rely on technology so much.

After the corridor of maps we went into the Raphael Rooms, which were once the Papal apartments. Remember the cardinal who wanted his young cousin Raphael to paint the Sistine Chapel? Well, he'd learned his lesson about trying to manipulate Pope Julius II, so this time he just outright asked the Pope if Raphael could have just one wall in just one room. The Pope agreed, and when he saw Raphael's work kicked out all of the other painters and told Raphael to do the entire apartments. Many of the frescoes are biblical scenes, while others depict the Pope in an important historical or political moment. I don't remember most of the stories about the different frescoes, but I'll share the two stories I do remember.

These are bibles from all over Europe in different languages. One of the Popes (I unfortunately don't remember which one) sent copies of the Bible in Latin to bishops and cardinals in all of the different countries, who translated it to their native language and sent a translated copy back. The Bibles are wonderfully old and priceless just because of that, but they are also linguistic treasures because they're huge samples of languages for which we know the translations.

Alright, I know. Another interesting picture of...a wall. (My previous post about Rome also featured a wall picture.) But this is actually one of my favorite stories from the Vatican Museum. The last major Sack of Rome (Rome, being at the center of such a powerful Empire, has been sacked and looted many times) was in 1527 and came about because of a convoluted bit of politics. From what I understand, the Holy Roman Empire was fighting the Kingdom of France over control of the Papal States. The Imperial Army defeated the French, but when the Empire had nothing to pay with the soldiers mutinied and sacked Rome. German soldiers under Charles III, the Duke of Bourbon, ransacked the Papal apartments, forcing Pope Clements VII to flee to Castel Sant'Angelo. While in the Raphael Rooms, the German soldiers carved graffiti into the frescoes on the walls. If you look very closely at that picture, you can see VKM carved above an X in the plaster. (VKM, in old German, stands for long live the king.) Also carved into a different fresco: LUTHER. This was the time of the Reformation, when Martin Luther and his ideals became the roots of today's Protestant religions.

And this is where I wish I was a history major again. It's so easy to imagine German boys, indoctrinated with the Reformation, seeing the splendor of the Vatican and wanting to make their mark on it before they had to go and fight again. It almost felt like Pope Clements VII had just vanished into the secret tunnel between the apartments and Castel Sant'Angelo.

After the Raphael Rooms we (finally!) got to see the Sistine Chapel for ourselves. I've heard stories about how the artwork truly seems to breath, and you half-expect Jesus to turn his head and judge you as well as the figures painted in The Last Judgement, but it never quite made sense to me. You don't get that feeling from looking at pictures of the artwork, and they're both two-dimensional representations of the same thing. Oh, I can appreciate the fact that the original is always better than a copy, and I've always felt the time and effort put into the art is astounding. I had no idea what I was missing.

I can only give you the same cliches I'd heard a million times and discounted: the figures painted on the ceilings and walls did seem to breathe, and the panel on the ceiling depicting God descending from the heavens? He's painted as if He's diving from the ceiling to the floor of the Chapel, and I kept glancing back to make sure He was still up there and not coming down to join us. There really aren't good words to describe the works of the genius that was Michelangelo. I can only tell you that if you ever have the slightest chance, go see it for yourself. The lines, the crowds, everything is worth it. The pictures don't do it justice.

We were given twenty-five minutes in the Sistine Chapel before we were supposed to meet at the back and continue on our way. It's not a particularly large room (comparatively) so I initially thought that would be a good of time to enjoy the frescoes. (Don't forget to look down, also; the marble work of the floor is beautiful too.) So when three minutes later Henri tapped my arm and told me we had to go, I was unpleasantly startled. Turns out it had been the full twenty-five minutes; good thing one of us kept track of time.

After the Sistine Chapel we went to St. Peter's Basilica. The old basilica was built in the fourth century, and it was rebuilt beginning in 1506. It was finished 120 years later in 1626. It has the largest interior of any church in the world; you could stand the Statue of Liberty up in the dome and have room to spare. Tradition and some historical evidence say that Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, is buried under the alter. I knew from a very long way away that St. Peter's Basilica was really big, and really incredible, but I still had no idea what I was walking into.

I took three pictures once I was inside: this one, one to the right of it and one to the left of it. I'm only posting this one because my pictures don't do justice to what I really saw. I can tell you a few interesting stories about the Basilica; the circle of porphyry near the door is where Charlemagne was crowned, and to the right of this picture is Pietà, a statue carved by Michelangelo of Mary cradling Jesus after he'd been taken from the cross. It's the only work he ever signed.

There are a million more stories to be told about the basilica, and a million other pictures I could have taken, but after I took my three panoramic shots I just stopped. I stopped trying to cram my head as full of Roman and Christian history as I could, I stopped trying to take pictures, and in some ways I stopped thinking. I just wanted to look, and to be exactly where I was. I told you had no words for the Sistine Chapel; it's even more true for St. Peter's Basilica. I have no words.

As Henri and I exited the basilica, somewhat shell-shocked and awed, we were brought down to earth a little bit by the sight of one of the two hundred Swiss Guards who have served the Pope for hundreds of years. They were protecting Pope Clements VII when he was running to Castel Sant'Angelo, and they are most likely the reason he survived. Most of the two hundred at that time were killed. The Swiss Guards are known for their bravery and loyalty; they're also known for their rather...recognizable...uniform. Leonardo da Vinci designed it, and I think we can agree he had talents outside of fashion. Henri and I began our wander home, stopping for gelato and dinner (in that order!) on the way. Once we returned home, we again fell into our beds, exhausted, somewhat overwhelmed and incredibly glad we'd chosen to come to Rome.

Up next:
Day 4: Villa Borghese
Day 5: Esquilino and Trastevere neighborhoods
Day 6: The Journey Home

Adventures in Rome: Ancient Rome

I have to admit that I was never that interested in Roman history in middle school. It just seemed like too much time to really be comprehensible, and I always get it mixed up with ancient Greek history. I can now announce I’ve found the solution to this disinterest; go to Rome and see it for yourself! The city is incredibly dense with wondrous things to see and learn about.

Day 0 - Journeying
My Roman adventure started at five in the afternoon in the Uppsala Centralstationen, where I caught the train to the airport with Henri. One uneventful trip through check-in and security later, we got on our plane to Rome! Henri was jealous because I got my passport stamped every time; he’s an EU citizen, so he never does. We arrived at the airport, caught the train to the city center, and found ourselves standing outside Termini at midnight, not quite sure how to catch the bus to our hotel. A little wandering and waiting (and some quality time translating the Italian bus website before we left) paid off and we found our bus.

It was a crazy bus ride; we went whizzing through the city at relatively high rates of speed for the many tight corners we went around. Everything we saw was big and old and we had no idea what any of it was. It was a complete blur, and we couldn’t wait to start exploring once we weren’t so punchy and tired.

A little more wandering from the bus stop to our hotel address led us to a large unmarked door with a suite of random things inside. Our hotel consisted of four rooms and a patio in the basement apartment, run by a sweet old Italian man who spoke very little English. He showed us to our beds and Henri and I crashed.

Day 1 - The Colosseum
The next morning we started a tradition of careful planning that served us well for the entire trip. The plan: see the Colosseum, and take the longest way possible to get there. We estimated it was about five kilometers in a straight line from our hotel to the Colosseum, which is about the same distance from my apartment in Kantorsgatan to the BMC where I had my neuroscience class. It took me about an hour to walk the distance in the week before I had my bike.

It was nearly four and a half hours later when we finally reached our destination. On the way we found the Piazza del Popolo, which is just inside the ancient walls that enclosed the northern-most part of Rome. The marble gate was incredible.

In the center of the piazza is one of several ancient Egyptian obelisks, which were transported from Egypt. It was covered in hieroglyphics and had one of Rome's famous fountains at the base. On the north side of the piazza (just to the left once you're through the gate) is "Jamie's first Roman church." Henri and I went inside to see it.

I was in awe. Like the cathedrals of Stockholm and Uppsala, the columns and arches made the space seem bigger and more graceful than normal. The stonework, painting, and other artwork was incredible. And while I was drooling? Henri was busy informing me that this was pretty standard, as far as churches went, and I should wait until I saw one of the proper basilicas. I thought he was crazy.

Three churches later, I was starting to think he might be right. Every church was beautiful, and every one was different. One was painted predominantly in blue. Another had an elliptical dome instead of a round one. We visited nine churches that day, and I can say that as far as examples of human-created beauty, Rome topped anything I have ever seen.

During our wanderings we also found the Piazza di Spagna, which is at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. My history here is a little sketchy, but the steps were built by an important Frenchman and were at their time quite an architectural marvel. They lead up to one of Rome's larger churches, which was unfortunately under renovations. The view from the steps was quite nice though.

Many quirky, narrow side streets later we stumbled onto the Trevi Fountain. This is the most famous fountain in Rome, a city famous for its fountains. The story goes that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain, you'll be sure to come back to Rome someday. My twenty cents now rests comfortably at the bottom of the fountain. Hopefully the story is true!

Finally Henri and I decided that despite the fact that we hadn't yet reached our destination and we weren't quite sure where we were, it was long past lunch time. We ate lunch at a little place with tables and chairs set up in the street. I had lasagna quite unlike anything I've called lasagna before; penne-style noodles, red sauce, ground beef, and cheese baked in a bowl that sort of reminded me of how French onion soup is served. It was delicious! I was also reminded of one of my favorite parts of Romance cultures: wonderful crusty bread with every meal, and generally with olive oil. I was in food heaven.

After lunch we continued our wandering; we knew which direction to wander in, if not exactly where we were. Two corners later, we were suddenly confronted with Capitoline Hill, and the magnificent National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. It's made entirely from travertine marble, which is quarried north of Rome. It's impossible to miss this white building, particularly on sunny days when it just glows.

To the left of this building is Via dei Fori Imperiali. Mussolini built it straight through a lot of ancient Roman ruins; if you've ever seen video of Italian troops marching up and down a street during WWII, this is where it happened. On either side of the street the ground drops to the ruins, which are about ten meters below the level of the road. At the end of the road is the great structure itself, the Colosseum.

Ok, I switched perspectives on you. Now Fori Imperiali is on the right, and the Colosseum is just visible past all of those trees. The ruins just in front are remnants of the Augustus forum.

This picture was taken from the same spot, just turned 180 degrees. The two domes are Catholic churches, built over a thousand years after the ruins before them. The tallest column seems to be another obelisk, but according to my (very cursory) research I did when I got home, it's not considered an ancient Egyptian or an ancient Roman obelisk.

And there it is: the goal of Day One. The Colosseum captures the imagination of almost everyone who hears any of the stories of gladiators and lions; it's one of the most well-known buildings in the world. It lives up to all of the hype.

When Henri and I finally arrived to the piazza just outside the Colosseum, we were approached by a guy selling tours in English. After a couple of questions (do we actually go inside, are you approved by Colosseum officials; our plan did not include getting scammed!) Henri and I joined the tour.

It turns out that one of the reasons the Colosseum is so well preserved is that various popes throughout the years rebuilt parts of it. There are two reasons proposed for this (outside of genuine historical preservation): 1. they felt somewhat guilty about their efforts to...recycle...marble from ancient Roman temples and buildings, like the Colosseum, and 2. they wanted their names on something as cool as the Colosseum. So when you see large stone plaques with Latin names on them, those are the popes who helped rebuild.

You can tell the difference between original and renovation by the stone work. All of the original Colosseum was built from travertine marble, which you can see in the picture above. The blocks were wired together with bronze rods to keep the whole thing from falling down. The holes you can see in the marble were chipped out to get to the bronze rods to make weapons at some *cough* undefined later point in history. (I'm telling you, kids, pay attention in history class!)

This is the inside of the Colosseum. Almost all of the seats have fallen (or been taken) apart, but you can see one section remaining almost directly across from where I was standing. Below that, you can see a small portion of the reconstructed arena. Everything below that was hidden from view, and fed the trapdoors that released the famed starving lions or swallowed up the dead fighters. The other thing I found really fascinating was that the Colosseum, at one point, had a canvas roof that could be unfurled at will to protect the spectators from the sun and rain.

As we were leaving the Colosseum we were informed that our tickets included entrance and guidance through the archaeological sites on the Palatine Hill, but as it was after entrance for the day (4:00) we could come back tomorrow and join another group, no worries. So Henri and I began our wandering home. We stumbled across another block of ruins called the Largo di Torre Argentina, sunk into the ground in the middle of modern buildings, and then several blocks later the Pantheon, which was filled to the brim with tourists. We decided to come back this direction the next morning and see the inside when it was hopefully less crowded, and continued on our way home. (Turns out all that walking can be somewhat exhausting.) After the best gnocchi I have ever had, we again crashed in our beds, while visions of crumbling marble danced in our heads.

Day 2: The Palatine Hill
Day Two in Ancient Rome had much the same structure as Day One; wander until  we got to Ancient Rome, tour the Palatine Hill, wander back. We did, of course, want our wander on the way there to coincide with the Pantheon, but we figured we could make it happen. If we found it without looking for it, surely we could find it while we were looking for it.

Every morning we crossed the Tiber River; we were staying on the east side of the river, and ancient Rome, as well as the modern "downtown," are on the west side. Not able to remember the names of all of the streets, we simply named the bridges by where they crossed to. For example, "our bridge" was the bridge that was closest to our hotel.

The next bridge downriver was the "train bridge" because of the metro line it also carried, and the bridge below that one was the "courthouse bridge," although courthouse seems an entirely inappropriate word for the building we were referring to.

This is the main entrance; see the relative size of the cars parked in front? The building extended three or four lengths of the entrance on either side. It's massive, beautiful, and very old-looking. Henri jokes he'd break a law in Rome just to be able to see the inside. I told him he was on his own for that particular adventure.

This is a perfect example of the little streets we wandered down all morning. Roman people seem to be very keen on growing things, and there are trees, vines, and potted plants all over the city. Our wanderings also brought us to a small market, where we bought two clementines to snack on as we continued. Perhaps it was the fact we were hungry, or that we were eating outside, or that we were simply eager to be delighted, but they were wonderful, although somewhat more tart than the ones we have at home.

Alright, I know. Interesting picture of...a...wall. The interesting bit is the column on the right side; it's of ancient Roman origin. I have no idea what building it was originally part of, but it illustrates a classic characteristic of Rome; you have columns, churches, apartment buildings, and everything else built in the last twenty-five hundred years all mixed together in this fantastic overwhelming whirl of history. It's completely incredible.

Our wanderings then took us to Piazza Navona, another one of the bigger piazzas in Rome. Another Egyptian obelisk and another beautiful fountain, graced the center of the piazza. Along one side was another huge white building that sort of reminded me of the courthouse. Henri declared it a church, and I thought he was crazy. Churches are not that big. I had clearly yet to learn that Henri was right about everything related to Roman churches (though to be fair, he'd been to Rome before.) It was a church, although there were other offices and things to either side of the church, in the same building. One was the Brazilian Embassy.

Here you can see the church/embassy/other important things on the left. Also notice the interesting oval shape of this piazza; we'll come back to that later.

From here we started trying to find the Pantheon, and we quickly discovered that it is halfway impossible to find something you're actually looking for in Rome! Quite a bit of wandering later, we did find it, and it was happily less crowded than the day before, though still busy.

In order, this is the front of the Pantheon, the inside of the dome, and one picture of the inner walls. The Pantheon is interesting for a variety of reasons. It was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa to be a temple to all the Roman gods, and then it was rebuilt by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century A.D. as a monument to a triumphant battle...somewhere in the Roman Empire. (Again, smacking twelve-year-old self for reading under the desk during history.) It's since been converted to a Catholic church, Santa Maria della Rotonda. It's also interesting because it's almost two thousand years old, and it's still almost perfectly preserved. It's the largest dome ever made from un-reinforced concrete. It's also an architectural wonder for several other reasons that have to do with the dimensions of the dome and the angle it rises at, but I didn't follow most of the details. I can tell you it was very big and very impressive.

Our goal of seeing the Pantheon completed, Henri and I continued to wander through the little streets on our way to the Palatine Hill. We again stopped for lunch in a small side street just before we reached Capitoline Hill. The different varieties of pasta was mind-numbing; I could have returned there every day for a month and not tried everything. Happily fed once again, Henri and I continued on our way.

As we walked past the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, I noticed lots of people climbing the steps to the entrance, which was high above ground level. I've always liked being up high, so Henri and I started climbing. Lots of steps later, we discovered there was also an elevator that you could ride to the very top of the Monument. Needless to say, I was quick to buy a ticket to one of the highest points of Rome.

This is looking northeast from the top of the monument. The biggest dome you can see against the skyline is St. Peter's Basilica.

This is looking straight north. The long street you can see running straight from the monument is Via Del Curso, which goes all the way to Piazza del Popolo.

This is a direct 180 degrees from the other picture; you can see the Colosseum, the majority of the forums, the temples to ancient Roman gods and emperors, and the whole Palatine Hill. This reminded us of our big goal for the day, and after taking in the sites for a while (and the gloriously warm sunshine!) we continued the rest of the way and joined our tour.

The Palatine Hill was, in ancient days, the address to have in the world. According to legend, the cave at the base of the hill is where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf. Romulus went on to found a city on the hill and named it after himself: Rome. (I think the legend also includes him killing his twin, but I'm not clear on details of the story.) The emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Domitian all had palaces on top of the hill. (The word palace comes from the name Palatine.) Domitian's palace is the best preserved, as it was the last built.

This was a stadium he had built for his entertainment. Young men would compete in running and throwing competitions, and occasionally fighting competitions. You can see some of the remaining marble, but most of what you see here is brick. Most of the palace was built from brick or concrete, and then covered with panels of marble. (It was cheaper to do it that way.) This led to one of my favorite stories from the tour of the palace; Domitian was so nervous about getting assassinated he had all of the marble polished until it was actually reflective. That way, he could stand with his back to the wall or he could see someone sneaking up behind him. The funny part: he was poisoned by his wife.

We also learned something about the other arenas that had been constructed by ancient Roman emperors. The Colosseum is, of course, the most famous, but there is also the Circus Maximus, on the east side of the Palatine hill, Domitian's private arena (the one pictured above), and much larger public Stadium of Domitian. The Circus Maximus has been left as ruins and preserved as it was, but the Stadium of Domitian was in a very central area of Rome and has been rebuilt as the Piazza Navona. That's why it has the unique oval shape I mentioned before.

The archaeological site also included the world's first botanical garden, temples to most of the Roman gods, the first paved road in the world, and most of the Roman forums.

This is the temple to Venus and Aphrodite. To the right is the road I mentioned, leading to the Arch of Titus. The Colosseum is just behind my right shoulder from where I was standing.

This is the arch of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. That's the Colosseum behind it. Whenever an emperor had a major military triumph, they built an arch (or the Pantheon, if you're Hadrian) to commemorate it. These arches were the model for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

This picture is taken from the top of the Palatine hill, in the botanical gardens. The three huge arches are remains of the Temple of Massenzio, who was a Roman emperor in the third century A.D. What you can see there is about a third of what the temple actually was. It's hard to tell from this picture, but later I went and stood in the right arch and it is incredibly massive.

This picture is taken from the same vantage point, pointed to the left of the Temple of Massenzio. There are two temples in this photo. The one on the right, that sort of looks like two separate buildings, is the Temple of Romulus (not the founder of Rome, but the son of Massenzio). Through the bushes you can just see a set of bronze doors, which look green with age. (They're leading into the round part of the building.) Those are the original doors of the building, built eighteen hundred years ago. They have the original locks in place, and when archaeologists found the original keys, they were able to determine that the keys and locks still work. Absolutely mind-blowing.

The one on the left, with the scaffolding on it, is dedicated to another Roman emperor and his wife. I was starting to hit information overload at this point, so I can't remember which emperor, but I was interested because it was the first known temple to be dedicated to a human woman (as opposed to a goddess).

This is my favorite photo of the Roman Forums. You can see the remains of the brick walls, marble columns, and in the background, the Palatine hill (right) and the Colosseum (left). Walking through the forum is a somewhat unique experience because of the lack of fences and "do not touch" signs. Chunks of marble, labeled with ID numbers and coordinates, are scattered all around for people to touch and examine. You can walk through some of the rooms of the ruins, and see remains of statues. Of course, not everything is open to the public, but it was fun to be able to trace a marble relief that was created two millenia ago.

It's tricky to read when the photograph is this size, but carved into the marble on the top of the columns is Senatus Populusque Romanus. Translated from Latin, it means the Senate and the People of Rome. To understand exactly how incredibly cool this is, you need a very (and I do mean very) broad understanding of Roman history.

Romulus (disputably a real person and not just a legend) was the first of seven kings who founded and ruled Rome, some time around 750 B.C. After the seventh king, around 500 B.C., Rome was ruled by the Senate. Julius Caesar upset the power of the Senate in 49 B.C., but was never considered an emperor for a variety of reasons I never really understood. His adopted heir, Augustus, was the first "official" Roman emperor. The Roman Empire changed sizes and emperors rapidly, but was eventually split into two halves, Eastern and Western, in 395 A.D. The Western Empire crumbled into the barbarian states, recognizable as the modern western European countries, in 476, and the Eastern Empire became the Byzantine Empire.

500 to 800 is considered the Medieval era of Rome, and Rome was ruled by various Popes who accepted Byzantine rule (and fought with France a lot). In 800 Charlemagne was crowned the king of the Holy Roman Empire, which marked the end of Rome's acceptance of Byzantine rule. The Papacy continued to fight with France and occasionally Germany all the way through to modern history. The other bit of history to note is the Roman Renaissance, which was in the 15th century.

And voila. Rome in a nutshell.

The phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus dates back to the origins of the Roman Senate, around 500 B.C. Someone, some time between 2500 and 2000 years ago, carved those words into those marble blocks and probably watched as they were set atop those columns. He (they?) had no idea that the Senate would last until the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, or that popular representation would be the philosophical basis of so many modern governments, or that SPQR (the abbreviation) would still be on Rome's coat of arms in the twenty-first century. SPQR has survived arguably one of the most tumultuous histories ever, and there it stands. Talk about the Eternal City.

As we were staring at the Latin words, a voice came over a loudspeaker announcing the closing of the archaeological site, and Henri and I followed the crowds to the exit. Another, somewhat shorter, wander home took us to our favorite part of modern Rome thus far, the Gelateria del Teatro. Hidden in a tiny alley off one of the narrow rambling streets, it has the best gelato I have ever had in really interesting flavors. My favorite: raspberry and garden sage.

It took a while for Henri and I to motivate ourselves to finish the walk home, where we again crashed hard.

Up next:
Day 3: The Vatican City