Italy

Rome, Florence, and Venice, in that order

our first stop after getting off the plane: the coliseum!

museum portion of the coliseum's interior

camera trouble made this picture subpar, but still - you can see where the surface was - there's a reconstruction at the far end - as well as what's left of the chambers and hallways beneath it.

portion of the ceiling in the Vatican

one of the many hallways leading to the Sistine chapel

countryside beyond Florence, visible from the top of the Duomo
view from Ponte Vecchio
"view from the top" of the Duomo
Rachel, Anna and Hailey at the top!
view from the train station in Venice
the three of us after our Gondola ride!
view from the Gondolaone of the canals at night

We - myself, Anna, and Hailey - arrive in Rome at about 7:30 pm, Roman time. Our flight was long, and though Aer Lingus seems to be a much more legitimate airline than Ryanair, we are nonetheless testy and dehydrated because drinks cost a few euros per can. We take a train into the actual city, because no airport actually deposits its clientele in the city limits.

On the train we worry that we will not recognize our stop, but in our car there is a man who speaks very good English and is happy to reassure us. He then asks about our trip - how much time we have in Rome, etc. He makes travel and sight seeing suggestions, tssking that we expect to see any significant percentage of what Rome has to offer in only one day. I ask him if he's from Rome, and he tells me that he is not - he is recently moved there from Spain. His wife is Spanish. They have two daughters who speak Spanish better than he does, he admits, even though he has obviously been talking to his wife longer than they have. When he speaks Spanish to them, he says, they behave as though his butchering of the accent pains them; his eldest will wince, gesturing him to silence, and say, "Shut up, papa!"

He says it is better to start young, and that he puts movies on for them in English, just to begin accustoming them to it. I confirm that this means he and his wife speak in their respective languages; in his case, he responds to her Spanish with Italian, and vice versa. I am envious of this headstart at bilinguality his children are lucky enough to have. When we reach our stop he wishes us luck, and we have a pleasant first impression of Italian hospitality.

From the main train and bus station, we follow our simple directions to the hostel, where we check in and find our 8 person dorm room has no other occupants for the evening. We enjoy its spacious privacy for a while then ask for dinner recommendations at reception. The receptionist suggests we go just down the street, so we do, seat ourselves on the street, and before long a waiter in a tuxedo with a loosened tie appears.

He is very cute, I decide, in the classic Italian sense. He asks for my order first, and I say, "I would like the fettuccine zucchini."

Apparently this method of ordering amuses him. He laughs and tells me he likes the fettuccine also. "What do you like?" he asks Anna, still smiling, and she tells him. He agrees with her decision too, and before he can ask Hailey the same question, she says, "I like ravioli." We feel we have already made two Italian friends.

A British couple overhear our American English from the next table and we get to know them. The man has suggestions for cool places to hear bands, in Cork, and also in London. He and his wife have been in Rome several days and are frustrated by how much there is left to see. They also tell us that the food at this restaurant is the best they've had. We briefly talk politics and economics, topics I'm only newly familiar with, newfound knowledge I enjoy exercising. Then the food comes. Oh, the food. Oh, the wine - two euros for a glass! I am no food critic, but the sauce was heavenly, the zucchini perfectly tender...it is the best thing I have ever eaten, and my friends seem to feel similarly about their dishes.

The woman at the neighboring table mentions that Gabriel, the waiter, is easy on the eyes. We agree. We are speaking English but we have forgotten that Gabriel is drinking espresso from a tiny glass mug and smoking a cigarette nearby. When we pay the bill, he lingers at our table, grinning. "You like Gabriel?" he asks, reviving our private joke. We say that we do. He laughs and points at himself with his thumbs. "I am Gabriel!"

We tip him generously and head off - one of our goals before going to sleep is to see the coliseum at night, and we're told it's not a long walk. The sky is clear and it is warmer than it was in Ireland. We stop for gelati, which is a kind of concentrated and absurdly creamy ice cream, and marvel at the character of the city. It reminds me a little of Brussels, with the square style of the buildings, but the streets are wider, and if you look hard enough you can see evidence of its ancient origins: a crumbling wall here, the broken silhouette of a ruin on the horizon.

At night the coliseum is illuminated, easy to see from any distance, and as we approach it down the broad walled street I feel the ghosts of the Roman empire all around me. I know I am projecting, but I can feel the spectrum of emotion that this city witnessed: the brutality of the goings-on in the coliseum that fills an onlooker's vision, and the power and creativity of the society that designed such a magnificent structure, their attention to longevity. I am deeply impressed in a way I haven't been by other places, on a deep level conscious of the ancience of my species.

We get close enough to study the moon beside the columns, touch the pillars, stare between the bars into the dark recesses of the interior. Couples that look too fashionable to be just visiting are scattered about, kissing, talking, holding hands.

We walk back, get some much needed rest, and wake ourselves early to make the most of our partial day in Rome. We get a hop-on hop-off bus like we did in Brussels, and it takes us first to the Basilica. It is still sunny when we walk around the famous fountain and snap pictures of the largest church in the world, but a long line has already formed and we forego the walk-through, opting instead to make our way toward the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel. The wait isn't long, and there's a student price for our tickets. We have been fooled before, though; often the student price applies only to young people of the European Union, so I ask what kind of identification is required to get the discount. I tell the ticket taker I am not from the EU, and he looks at me carefully and asks how old I am. I tell him I am twenty; sometimes I forget I am twenty-one. He says, "You are eighteen," and gives me a huge wink. I stutter, nod, and take my ticket. Anna follows suit. As she pays he points at me again. "How old are you?" "Eighteen!" I exclaim. He points at Anna. "Her too, eighteen!" He nods, seeming satisfied, and we have saved three euros each.

The Vatican is amazing. To study it all would involve days; I read the panels beside the images that really capture my eye and feel I'm shortchanging myself. The fruits of artists' labor coat every wall, every square inch of every beautifully vaulted ceiling, all washed in soft light by strategically concealed bulbs, illuminating the gold paint that recurs on every surface. In the series of hallways leading to the Sistine Chapel, I see intricate, detailed maps of European countries and provinces, biblical scenes, representations of famous clergy, and stunning tapestries.

In the Chapel itself, no photography is allowed and silence is encouraged. Security stationed about scolds the inevitable violators of the former rule, but for the most part people restrain themselves to a murmur if they speak at all. The crowds are huge, but I am mesmerized by Michelangelo's famous work above the altar, the scale, the way beauty and serenity of one figure transitions to horror and grotesque in the next. In fact, I can imagine the atmosphere as easily terrifying as soothing, which I suppose is kind of the point.

I hang out with the Catholic pigeons browsing for edible content on the steps at the exit for a while until Hailey and Anna join me, and we head back to our bus stop. It is raining now, and we are accosted by salesman who were earlier pushing tripods, souvenirs and post cards now brandishing plastic rain parkas and umbrellas. They are especially difficult to discourage in our case, probably because we are three of very few non-umbrella carriers.

Our next stop is the coliseum again; this time we pay to go in, and I'm glad we do. Even though the rain drives us under the eaves instead of permitting peaceful reflection of the might and age of the structure, we have fun using the flash to investigate the unlighted staircases that are still unrestored and therefore blocked off, wondering if some of them lead to the underbelly of the coliseum where doomed people and animals were stored before they faced doom before the crowds. Whatever original surface there once was in the center of the coliseum is gone, exposing the network of chambers and tunnels underneath. Anna mentions they used to fill the coliseum with water and stage naval battles inside it. Looking at its sheer mass, it isn't difficult to imagine.

In the museum portion, they have portions of the old marble colums and statues, the remaining few of the originally numerous. The coliseum, after all, was harvested for building materials by those who ruled Rome after its fall. We see "before" and "after" images of what records and accounts suggest the coliseum once looked like and how it is now. The grandeur, if they're accurate, was once palacial. I'm not sure whether I should be sad that it now wears this ugly, naked face. I think it is a more honest symbol of its former self in these battered clothes, considering the slaughter it saw.

It is time to go back to the hostel so we can catch our train to Florence. We don't board early enough to sit together on the crowded train until after a few stops. The view out the windows is dazzling, wet with rain, hills and vineyards increasingly numerous as we near Florence. At the next station, we are studying our directions to the hostel, printed off from an email that was written in broken English by the hostel staff, when another person wearing a backpack introduces himself. His name is Steve, he has an accent that could be British or could be Australian, I always struggle telling the difference, and actually he is wearing two back packs. One big backpacker's backpack over his shoulders, the kind that is roughly the size of the wearer, and a second, smaller one over his front. This means he is a Real Backpacker, and he is behaving like one, too: eager to talk, introduces himself right off. Real Backpackers have gotten over shyness countries ago and are making their way across the continent(s) in part to accumulate lists of interesting acquaintances made along the way.

Steve is staying at our hostel, so we put our heads together to figure out the directions. I forgot I have a map from our friends who stayed in the same hostel a few weeks before, the group who recommended it to us. I make small talk with Steve: where he's from (Australia, by the way) and where we're from (Kansas, Delaware, Missouri, by way of Ireland) and we arrive shortly at the hostel, which looks a lot like a hotel, complete with automatic doors. There's no line to check in, and before we know it we are upstairs in a less than private dorm this time. Anna and I identify "man shoes" next to the bed next to mine, and we are disappointed. We try to be open minded, but coed living situations are inherently awkward. I point out that the luggage by these bunk beds seems shared and some things draped on the upper bunk are definitely the possessions of a female. Maybe they are a couple. I'm not sure why that is supposed to make me feel better - do I assume all lone men are going to prey on sleeping roommates? I'm sure this assumption would offend Steve.

Anna and I change into a skirt and a dress, respectively - we have decided that for at least one night, we will not look like bums in a famous European city. We decide to familiarize ourselves with the streets just around the hostel and look for dinner. It is late, but we are happy to find a charming place that is still seating people at 9:30. We order two pizzas and a bottle of Chianti, since Chianti is like twelve miles from the table where we sit. The wine is fantastic and so is the pizza. We take our time, not feeling rushed since two more groups have come in after us and seem very local. They converse loudly with one another and the staff in Italian. Two small children roam the dining room unrestrained, occasionally returning to their chairs to pick at their food. A dog naps under its owner's table. We finish with tiramisu, tip well, and walk up to the river to see it in the moonlight before heading back to the hostel.

The next morning we drink coffee with biscotti in a little coffee bar cafe place. People file in and out, often standing at the bar to drink their coffee instead of sitting down. They take espresso like shots.

First order of business today is seeing the David at the Academic, hopefully to avoid the long lines projected by our travel guides. We are lucky; we are some of the first to enter the museum. We marvel at the David in the near-silence of the empty room. It is one of the more beautiful things I will probably see in my life, but I had especially anticipated seeing Michelangelo's "Prisoners," the incomplete statues found in his workshop, a series commissioned for a project in which they were meant to represent, ironically, how the soul is captured in the body. I had heard accounts of their power, that they seem to be struggling to free themselves from the rock, and represent well Michelangelo's famous philosophy about sculpture, that he was freeing the image from the marble, not creating but revealing.

By the time we have walked through the rest of the museum, it is choked with people and their heat and noise. We are glad we were able to experience the David in the relative solitude we had, and get back out on the street. We spend the rest of the morning doing a little shopping, walking through the very cool indoor market - like our English Market in Cork, but a little bit more amazing, I have to admit - and then make a pit stop at the hostel for a recharge and to check email to see what restaurant mom and Duane recommended from their stay.

Our next destination is the Duomo, and again we somehow miss the line. Maybe that has something to do with the almost 500 narrow stairs one must tackle in order to visit the top! We're talking original, sometimes spiral, sometimes ridiculously steep, medieval stone stairs that rarely provided a hand rail. We linger on the landings to catch our breath, laughing about the entrance fee being worth it for the workout. At one of these built-in resting places, there is a display of some of the original tools used to create the cathedral, which is crafted largely of marble and is beautiful and enormous. The cache of tools all seem too small to build a log cabin, let alone a towering stone work of art, and too flimsy to lift even one of the blocks of stone that make up most of the structure. What determined humans can accomplish with limited resources will never cease to amaze me.

The journey is worth it: the view from the top is stunning, and the sun has reappeared for the occasion. We take pictures, enjoy the cool wind, and enjoy the trip back down quite a bit more, snapping shots of one another and looking out the windows at the changing angle of the city below.

A few streets over, we eat at Za Za's, the restaurant my mother and stepfather frequented not too many years ago. The world is, ultimately, quite small. We are served the house wine in a decanter, as though it is available on tap, and it is the most wonderful tasting liquid I have ever had. We are given baskets of bread and a plate for oil and balsamic vinegar, so that we barely have appetites when our beautiful food arrives.

After dinner, we walk across the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's oldest bridge, clotted entirely with jewelry stores, and eat gelati at the gelaterria recommended by a friend of a friend who studied in Florence. We get the kind she recommended - cookies - and we are so blown away we go back in for second helpings. Then back to the hostel to rest up for another early morning and afternoon departure for Venice.

A night and another beautiful train ride later, we are unloaded facing the Grand Canal, and the third consecutive absurdly impressive place I've seen. We walk, gawk, getting a feel for the price of gondola rides and taking thousands of pictures of ourselves on and beneath bridges, by wide and narrow canals. We eat gelati again, then find our gondola. Nicolas is our gondaleer, and he has several silver eyebrow rings, but he is courteous and shares city history and geography with us at intervals, mostly leaving us to enjoy the peace and silence of the water. Even in a city bustling with tourists, there is a sleepy, contented age to the spaces just a street over from the main tourist draws. It is the nearest I will come to time travel, I imagine, to hear the row in the water, watch the ripples bounce off stone black with age and exposure, stare up at shuttered windows that decorate thousand-year-old living quarters, their shabby sturdiness a stark contrast to the intermittent gleaming stone and marble churches.

Enormous slices of pizza and a last moonlight stroll through the maze of streets nearest the station, and we board our bus to our hotel. Yes, a hotel! It is inexpensive probably because of how far it is from the actual city, but Italian public transportation makes it accessible for us. We take hot showers in our private bathroom and watch Walker, Texas Ranger with Italian voiceovers on our private television before drifting off.

Then: twelve hour journey back to Cork, most of that spent on the bus from Dublin to our fair city, and were welcomed back to Ireland on our walk from the bus station. While we were gone, the city put up the Christmas decorations. Through propped-open pub doors we can hear the distinct singing and strumming of traditional music. A car honks its horn enthusiastically and waves a Cork green and gold jersey out the window; apparently there has been some recent success in one of the many sports active at the moment. I marvel that all this distinct Irishness - even the beginning of a cold drizzle - alert the homecoming receptors in my mind, flooding me with contentment. While I wasn't paying attention, it seems, Cork has become my home away from home.