Europe Part I: Rome

There are no drinking fountains in Europe. This was the first thing I realized upon arriving in Milan Italy because this was the first thing I looked for after spending eight and a half hours in a plane where water was rationed out in Dixie cups once every two to three hours. The stewardesses do this because they don’t want people in the back of the plane waiting in line for the lavatory where they can overhear them making fun of the passengers. I know this because this is exactly what I would be doing if I were a steward. This is the story in coach class anyway; in first class the passengers are probably using full water bottles to cool there armpits while gargling water in between bites of sushi. They probably throw the full water bottles away after their armpits are cooled…or serve them to the coach passengers in Dixie cups.

So I arrived in Milan at around 8 in the morning Europe time very thirsty, very tired and a very first-time-in-Europe-don’t-know-what-the-heck-is-going-on look on my face. I was meeting my brother at the airport; my plane arrived at 8; Joe’s plane was scheduled to arrive at 8:50. As soon as I got off the plane I realized our plan for meeting in Italy was poorly thought out. Our only method of communication was meeting face to face. Plan A was to meet at the airport, plan B didn’t exist; if plan A fail I was at the mercy of the local Italians; hence my anxiety. I made it through customs with no difficulty and hung around the baggage claim area pondering my next move. Fortunately Joe arrived on time. We caught a bus from the airport to Milano Centrale, aka the train station. By the time we got there I really had to pee.

Me: dude I have to use the bathroom

Joe: just wait till we get on the train

I can’t wait that long

Alright but I think your going to have to pay

That’s ridiculous why would I have to pay

Cause this is Europe

I finally found the bathroom and discovered the gatekeeper charged 1 euro for his facilities, this was the first and last time I have ever paid to ‘throw water’ as they say in Indonesia. Needless to say I took my sweet time.

Initially we had planned on catching a train to Cinque Terre from Milan. The day before leaving for Italy the weather report for Cinque Terre was unfavorable; so we called our first audible. When I’m on vacation the last thing I want is a schedule, particularly one that dictates when and where I need to be. I have a job that does that quite enough. One of the nice things about starting our vacation in the middle of September was we never had trouble booking a hostel the day before arriving. I feel sorry for these people who buy travel packages where you spend your entire vacation with a group of people on a set schedule. We saw some of these mothball conventions during our travels.

“Alright everyone stay together.”

“We’re going to go see this thing over here.”

“No we all have to stay together.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“okay but be back in ten minutes.”

What is this kindergarten? Anyway, all that to say instead of taking a train to Cinque Terre we boarded a train bound for Rome. As soon as the train left the station Joe and I promptly fell asleep.

I had never stayed in a hostel till this trip, but I quickly fell in love with them. A hotel is a hotel, they’re the same no matter where you go. They all come with a bed or two, a TV, a coffee maker with bad instant coffee and a shower. They all smell like anti-smell spray on top of old tomatoes, and if you’ve ever taken a black light into one you probably ended up sleeping on the floor. A hotel is a place you stay, a hostel is a place you experience. Every place is different, every place has it’s own unique characteristics be they good or bad, and if you stay in a hostel you are guaranteed to meet some interesting people. They’re also very cheap. Our first hostel experience was a place located in downtown Rome called “The Yellow.”

From the train station we only had to walk a couple of blocks to The Yellow. We were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by several Aussie’s working at the front desk who referred to us as “mates” and gave us a good orientation to the city. We had to leave a deposit at the front desk to get some towels because neither Joe nor I brought one. In retrospect I deem the decision to not bring a towel with me to Europe as one of the poorer decisions I made. (This hostel being the only time during our trip that I had the use of a towel; at every other location I dried off with dirty t-shirts) We walked up to our room which contained a total of six beds, four of which were already occupied.

“Joe I think there’s at least one girl staying here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There’s a pink suitcase under the bed.”

“could be a guy who likes pink.”

“hmmmm.”

Despite our fatigue (we had slept maybe three hours in the last 36) we headed out into the city to find some dinner.

We took the bus to an area of Rome our Aussie friends at the front desk had declared “non-touristy” and began looking for a delicious dinner. We walked down an old cobblestone street that was lined with restaurants. Deciding on a restaurant with Joe was like shopping for clothes with my sisters. The following scenario played out several times during our travels.

“Hey Joe this place looks good.”

“Hmm let’s keep walking down.”

“This place looks good.”

“yeah uhh let’s see what’s at the end of this street.”

“Okay but let’s sit down soon I’m starving the only thing I’ve eaten today was a bag of peanuts.”

“yeah I’m hungry too.”

“Well this is the end of the street, here’s a good place.”

“What do you think about the first restaurant we passed?”

Stunned silence; “Joe I just want to eat.”

“yeah but there was a lot of people there so it’s probably pretty good.”

So we walked back. It really comes down to differing philosophies.

My Philosophy: Regardless of where we sit we will be eating Italian so finding a place with fewer people is preferred so we don’t have to wait to be served.

Joe’s philosophy: look at every restaurant in a two block radius and then go back to the first restaurant because it’s the busiest.

As you can see there exists a slight difference of opinion. We eventually received service. I ordered lamb, it was served with cold eggplant and squash; it was not excellent. The wine, however, was. We wandered around for a while in the streets of Rome. We stopped at a pub and had a beer.

“Hey Joe.”

“yeah”

“I’m really tired”

“Me too.”

I caught myself falling asleep on the bus so I stood up for the rest of the trip. We had already been warned that tourists who fall asleep on the streets of Rome wake up with their pockets cut off. We arrived at our room and quickly fell asleep; our roommates were not there.

We were awakened at approximately four in the morning when four drunk girls burst through the door into the room. Their first words being and I quote,

“What’s Up Mother F@#$%!!!”

The following is my best effort of recreating the events that followed.

“Shhhh I think they’re asleep.”

“I’m going to puke can someone hold my hair?”

“okay let’s go throw up.”

Vomiting in the bathroom

“How did we get here?”

“We took a cab.”

“Did I throw up in the cab?”

“yes”

Toilet flushing, more vomiting

“Why are these guys sleeping? Why didn’t they come out with us?”

“Where’s my hairbrush? Someone took my hairbrush”

More toilet flushing

“Why am I on the top bunk? Can someone help me?”

“Are you girls done puking in the bathroom?”

“Why are these guys sleeping?”

My mind drifted back to the time right before Joe and I had passed out.

“James do you want some earplugs?”

“For what?”

“People can be loud at night.”

“No thanks.”

This was the second worst decision I made on the trip behind the towels.

The next morning Joe and I were careful not to wake the girls.

Our tentative agenda for the following day was to tour the Vatican. There was a flyer in the lobby of our hostel about a guided tour, which we figured was a good idea since we had no idea what we were supposed to even see there. We breakfasted at the Yellow Bar located next to the Hostel and toasted our espresso to an excellent day.

Our guided tour met at another ancient church in downtown Rome. The doors of this church had the strangest statues growing out of them. The left door had an armless legless man with a cross carved out of his midsection; the right had an eyeless angel’s torso with a face bursting out of his wing. Apparently these are commemorating the macabre book of the Bible not part of the original canon where people cut off their arms and legs in penance and angels decorated their wings with the faces of slain false prophets. That of course is entirely made up, but it does emphasize the reason why we needed a guided tour; namely to make sense of what we were about to see in Vatican City. Our tour guide was a guy from Canada in his mid twenties who had a very dry, sarcastic and, because of the surroundings, sacrilegious sense of humor which I found hysterical. He went in depth into the history behind the building of the Vatican, all the intrigue, rivalries, scandals etc that surrounded it.

We started the tour at the Castle St. Angelo or something like that anyway. We then moved to the Vatican square outside St. Peter’s Basilica, then to the Vatican museum, the Sistine Chapel, the Cupola and finally inside the Basilica. Some of the more interesting history I learned during our tour: one of the Popes who was overseeing the construction of the Basilica and Square (it took like 120 years to build) died of syphilis; Pope, syphilis, hmmm. A lot of the marble used in the construction of the Basilica was taken from the Coliseum. The bronze used to cast the 9 story solid bronze confessional inside the Basilica was stripped from the Pantheon. Michelangelo designed the dome for the Basilica committed the plans to memory, destroyed them without telling anyone the plans, and then died before it was constructed. The Vatican museum has a giant circular bathtub originally belonging to one of the Caesars made of extinct red marble. Apparently this red marble was only ever found in one place in Egypt and the supply was exhausted over a thousand years ago. The marble is now worth 30,000 dollars per cubic centimeter making the two ton bath in the Vatican museum quite possibly the world’s most expensive tub. Everyone knows Michelangelo painted the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel; many people are also aware that he painted the far wall of the Chapel known as “The Last Judgment.” The Last Judgment depicts Jesus (or as our tour guide referred to him “Big Sexy Jesus” because Michelangelo painted Jesus with massive guns) Judging the earth; calling the saints to heaven, casting the sinners into hell etc. Controversy surrounds this painting of Jesus because He looks peculiarly similar to a statue of the pagan god Apollo which is still sitting in the exact same place it was when Michelangelo was painting Jesus; approximately one hundred feet away in the Vatican museum. Michelangelo was called before the Pope and asked why Jesus looked exactly like Apollo; in answer he stated he had searched Rome for the most beautiful face he could find and apparently the most beautiful face in Rome at the time was the statue of Apollo.

After the guided portion of our tour we took the stairs to the top of the Basilica also known as the Cupola which is also the highest point in Rome. The view was great, but there were way too many people and I can’t begin to tell you how aggravated I was with the line going up the stairs that stopped every 20 steps so the fat American tourists could catch their breath. The BO in the stairwell is so bad the Vatican assigns 75 nuns to pray prayers of binding over the stench to keep it from killing people.

After the Cupola we entered the Basilica. There’s really no way I can describe St. Peter’s Basilica; it completely blew my mind. You kind of just have to see it for yourself.

We returned to our room to find the girls still asleep. We quietly grabbed what we needed and headed out to find dinner.

We found a restaurant after examining every establishment in a two block radius. As we were waiting for our food a man wearing a black and white striped shirt and socks, white face paint and a hat with a flower in it sat down on a bench in the square near where we were sitting (our table being outside, almost every restaurant in Rome has outdoor seating). Obviously this strangely dressed man drew our attention. He was in fact a mime and contrary to what you have probably heard about mimes he was absolutely hilarious. At one point he began sneaking up behind people as they were walking by and imitating their gait. This is of course an extremely childish thing to do…unless you’re a mime, and then it’s hysterical. After about fifteen minutes he ran around with a bag and demanded money from people. How does a mime demand anything you might be wondering, well I don’t know but he did; he accosted me and I gave him two euros.

Street performers spawn in the streets of Rome like rabbits, here is a brief list of what we saw in two days: the mime, a sidewalk artist spray painting a portrait of the time we all remember so vividly when the Virgin Mary flew over the Coliseum and the Pantheon during a solar eclipse, standing still was very popular we saw several variations of this including: king tut twice, Cleopatra (I think), a smiling business man which was kind of creepy and I want to say there was another one but I can’t remember, also very popular was pushing around a shopping cart full of junk and shoving a dirty hat in your face, that one was hysterical. We saw a comic act where a man blew a whistle and that was about as funny as it got, several street musicians and a lot of people shooting off these brightly colored helicopter things into the air, I’m not really sure what that was all about.

After a delicious pizza at the restaurant we wandered around for a bit until we stumbled upon a place called Sloppy Sam’s of Rome. Yes, this place actually exists. We stopped in for a drink and met these two girls from New Jersey. After talking with them for two minutes I had a strong idea that one or both of them had recently been dumped and this trip to Rome was their way of “sticking it to him.” I only mention them because during the course of our conversation they said they had tickets to the Rome vs. Sienna Italian league soccer game the following night,

“Really, soccer game tomorrow night? Joe I’ve always wanted to go to a European soccer match.”

“Yeah you guys should come meet us there.”

“Yeah.” We had absolutely no intention of meeting these girls anywhere, but we did have strong intentions of catching this game, which is how we found ourselves the following night standing outside Olympic Stadium discussing whether or not we should scalp tickets from a greasy haired Italian ten minutes prior to the start of the match; but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We arrived back at our room around midnight.

Around 12:30 the girls returned, we were still awake.

Guys: “It’s nice to finally meet you girls.”

Girls: “Yeah sorry about last night did we wake you?”

Guys: “Seriously?”

Girls: “yeah sorry, here you can have the rest of this sandwich, I’m not going to eat it.”

Guys: “Thank you” I never turn down a free sandwich “So who was puking last night.”

Girls: “What?”

Guys: “Someone puked in the bathroom last night.”

Girls: “Are you sure? I don’t remember puking; I don’t think I did; maybe I did, I don’t remember anything after we got in the cab.”

Guys: “Wow”

We talked for a while, they were much more amiable than the previous night. They invited us to Florence; we made vague commitments without committing.

The next day we walked to the Coliseum. We entertained the notion of renting little scooters, but eventually decided the odds of getting run over by a bus were too high. The Coliseum was pretty amazing to see, it was built 1400 years before the discovery of America and its still rock solid. We once again opted for a guided tour so we could get the history behind it, which was well worth it. Our guide recommended watching Gladiator because it’s very accurate, except for the part they left out about using Christians as torches to light the night games. You won’t see that in Gladiator but apparently it was rather common until Christianity became the official religion at which time they started using gypsies.

After our tour we wandered around some of the other ruins in the area. There are so many ruins in Rome if it’s not at least a thousand years old it’s not worth seeing. Our last stop before heading back was this monument built about 100 years ago to honor some guy who united Italy. This monument is enormous and at the center is this thirty foot tall bronze statue of this guy on a horse. (I don’t remember his name, you can look it up if you’re really interested) The sculptor apparently felt it was necessary to cast the horse as lifelike as possible, consequently hanging off the back of the horse is a set of bronze testicles the size of my torso. (you’re probably asking if it was necessary for me to share that; yes it was)

On the way back we purchased some Cuban cigars. We smoked them at the restaurant outside our hostel while we talked with our new roommates, two guys who really don’t factor into this story very much so I won’t mention them again.

Around 7:30 we hopped onto a bus bound for Olympic Stadium. We decided it was probably a good idea to buy tickets at the stadium instead of buying in advance, not exactly one of our more brilliant decisions. The path up to the gate was littered with trash and beer bottles; apparently we had missed one heck of a tailgate party. We arrived about 20 minutes before the start of the match only to discover that the box office was closed. We turned around dejected. Enter greasy haired Italian.

“You need ticket yes?”

“Yeah you got two tickets?”

“Ci, very good ticket yes.”

“How much?”

“Ticket is 47 euro, yes, for you 50 euro.” He pointed at the ticket where the price of 47 euros was printed. And in case you don’t know 50 euros is like 75 dollars per ticket. Joe and I looked at each other.

“Dude what do you think?”

“I don’t know he looks legit.” Meaning he wasn’t pushing around a shopping cart full of junk.

“I really want to go to this game.”

“Yeah me too.”

We carefully examined the tickets, “It’s got an official looking seal on it.”

“Ticket is good Yes, no problem”

“Let’s do it dude, when in Rome.” (yes I know what that phrase means, I am using it sarcastically)

“These tickets had better be like on the sidelines.”

So we each forked over 50 euros. We crossed our fingers and walked up to the gate. It was automated, when you scanned your ticket the green light would come on and the turnstile would let you through. The moment of truth; I put my ticket up to the scanner and did a Hail Mary.

We had amazing tickets; we were literally sitting at field level about 10 feet from the grass. There was not a single person sitting in front of us. I could have walked right out on to the grass if it wasn’t for the mote in between the last set of chairs and the field, which I can only assume was filled with man eating crocodiles and piranhas. The game was already underway so we quickly sat down so as not to offend the locals. Our plan to avoid getting beaten and mugged after the game was to cheer loudly for the home team (Roma) and pray that they won. Looking at the huge crowd I had a vision of 60,000 angry Roman soccer fans taking out their aggression after a loss on some unsuspecting American tourists. The only thing we had going on our side was we were suspecting. I mentally chastised myself for not bringing a sack full of coins.

Even with that many people the stadium still wasn’t packed, but there was one section behind one of the goals that was suspiciously empty. The Sienna fans were safely cordoned off in their own section behind plexiglass and security guards, I am not joking about this. 20 minutes into the game Roma scored the first goal on a penalty kick and I breathed a sigh of relief. Shortly thereafter a bomb went off, or at least that’s what it sounded like. Joe and I looked at each other wild eyed and then looked around. The players kept playing the fans kept cheering.

BOOOM! Another explosion, and then it was like the flood gates were opened in the empty section of chairs as people started pouring into the stadium and within a minute had filled up the section. No joke it was 20 minutes into the game before the hardcore Roma fans were let into the stadium. The rest of the game they continually waved flags sang songs and threw bombs. Perhaps the craziest fan of all was this old woman sitting in our section a few rows behind us. We kept hearing her voice above everyone else chanting things and yelling at the referees. At one point one of the Sienna players committed a hard foul, this woman wearing her Team Roma pajamas came waddling down the steps to the edge of the mote, she had to have been in her 70’s, and began yelling things entirely unrepeatable (in Italian, if I knew what she said in English I’d repeat it) at the opposing team. When she had finished she waddled back up to her seat amidst a round of applause from the stands. The game ended final score Roma 3, Sienna 1. I didn’t need the sack of coins after all.

The next morning we packed up our gear got our deposit back for our towels and boarded a train for Cinque Terre. We had checked the weather report the day before, it said the next three days in Cinque Terre were sunny with a chance of awesome.