Weather Reports Are Really Pretty Useless

dear erik,

sorry it's been so long.  i've been Very busy being a tourist since we got to rome.  so far i've seen

the colosseum
the roman forum
the palatine hill
the basillica san clemente
san giovanni in laterano
the borghese gardens and gallery
san pietro
the vatican museum
sistine chapel

there's just so much amazing stuff here.  still - sleep hasn't been great for the past few weeks, so yesterday and today we've just taken the mornings off and not set an alarm and slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, etc. 

it rained a lot when we first got here (and the clouds are lookin' a little ominous right now) but the weather reports have been hilarious.  two days ago i had tickets for a tour of the vatican/s.peter/sistine chapel, and the weather people were all like "Officials are suggesting that people stay in their homes.  A deluge is expected.  If you have plans to travel, consider cancelling them..." etc.  

on my way to meet the tour group, there was indeed a huge downpour that lasted about ten minutes.  then it got super-warm and sunny, then it started raining a little bit, but was still hot and sunny.  it was very weird. 

we were standing in the courtyard, looking at pictures of the sistine chapel so the tour guide could give us lots of background info before going in (apparently, you're not supposed to speak at all in there, although everyone absolutely does.)  anyway - i had my umbrella open because the sun was super-hot and i wanted a little bit of shade, and because i was hoping to dry it out before i folded it up and put it in my purse.  i kept hearing little things hitting it and couldn't figure out what it was, since the sun was pouring down and we were standing in an open courtyard, so it couldn't be things falling off trees or something.

(wow - this is a really long story.)

turned out it was raining while it was really sunny, the end.

all this to say, the whole 'deluge' thing wasn't happening.  then yesterday the weather reports told us we should all be careful because the rain was gonna be so crazy they were expecting flooding in many sections of the city.

sunny and warm all day.  not a drop.

the ominous clouds have moved on for the moment, so here's hoping the trend continues.

i wish i knew more of the history of all these places.  here more than any of the other cities it feels like so much of what is so amazing about all of this is just the age of these buildings/ruins and all the history that has happened.  just imagine - when you take all the popes, emperors, and caesars (sp?) into account, the insane amount of world-changing events that happened in these places. 

i know a little bit of the history of some of them (the borgias, julius caesar, augustus, a few of the artists) but as with most places, most of of my 'history' comes from biographical movies or historical fiction (well researched historical fiction, but still).  i have to go on the assumption that the vast majority of my history is made-up, or altered for dramatic tension.  although in my defense and cynicism, i have to admit my belief that the majority of most peoples' history is made-up or altered, even when they think it's not.

i figure that the beauty of the popes and the emperors is that the behaviour was so outrageous you don't even need to make it up.

after seeing the colosseum, i did a little light research online ('cos online is such a great place to find thoughtful, well-researched facts) and after all the usual 'there's no way to know - anybody giving you a number is just guessing' caveats, people always throw out a number.  conservative estimates for the number of people killed at the colosseum is 1 million.  that's just crazy.

down the street from our apartment is the basilica of san clemente.  it's a very cool little church with a beautiful tree of life mosaic behind the alter, but the really cool thing is that the church was built on top of a church from the 4th century (which was built from a roman nobleman's home), which in turn had a basement from the 1st century that was a mithraeum (which was a kind of cave-like space where people would gather to worship mithras, who as far as i could gather is some pagan god who killed a bull at some point.)

it's just too cool.  you can go through the church, and then if you pay a few euros you can go down into the underground levels, which they've excavated.  it's this huge labyrinth of rooms, and they've uncovered a lot of the frescoes from the 4th century church (including one with some guy shouting 'pull, you sons-of-bitches - pull!' in italian.  very holy indeed.  the story is he told his men to kill st. clement but they threw the ropes around a column instead...something like that.  don't quote me.)

then you go even further underground and you can see the altar room for the mithraeum.   it's this long, narrow cave-looking room with benches along the sides and an altar in the middle.  i guess for this particular cult they would get together and recline on the benches and eat.  i swear i'm not making this up.

great stuff, this history.

another highlight was bernini's sculpture of apollo and daphne at the borghese gallery, which was absolutely Amazing.  i could have sat in there for an hour and just looked at it.  that bernini sure did know some stuff. 

the tour of the vatican museum was really interesting - the woman leading it must be an art historian of some kind.  she took us past a copy of the pieta at the beginning, and told us to take pictures if we wanted, because the real pieta is now behind a huge wall of glass and you can't get anywhere near it.  apparently some guy came in and attacked it with a chisel at some point and broke off parts of mary's face and arm.   it's a crazy story, but you should have seen the look on her face.  "and then this Madman comes in and Attacks the sculpture with a Chisel!  Just Attacks it!" 

we all have our weaknesses.  :o)

it was a fascinating tour, but it was also frustrating because we would walk into a room that is just Packed with insanely famous paintings that i've seen my whole life, and we wouldn't look at a single one, because we would be walking into the next room to look at some alterpiece to discuss the ways it was different from the last altarpiece we looked at.  i was really happy i took the tour, but i was sad to not get a chance to really look at some of the other art we passed.  for example we walked past the entire wing of contemporary art without even glancing in the rooms. 

if it gives you an idea of the scale, it was a five-hour tour and we maybe looked at 1 piece out of every hundred.  never let it be said that the popes were afraid to take what they wanted.  that being said, it was spectacular. 

after all these days in italy, walking through room after room with paintings all over the walls and ceilings, it makes me even more curious about why the sistine chapel is so gobsmacking amazing to people.  i get that it's an amazing achievement, especially for a man who wasn't a painter, and the fact that it's a fresco (i forget the exact number, but i think she said it was done in 450 individual patches) which is crazy; but to get to it, i've just walked through three hundred rooms with religious paintings all over the ceilings and walls, and then i walk into this chapel with religious paintings all over the ceiling and walls, and everybody gasps and talks about what a masterpiece it is. 

there.  now i've offended the catholics and the artists.  a good morning's work.

i'll try to post some pictures again soon.  lots of these places won't let you take pictures at all, so it's been a slow few days, kodak-wise.