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Published: January 23rd 2009
The best part of my lunch was the orange juice I saw squeezed into my glass. The rest I could have done without, including the baby octopus calamari which was from a different batch than I had ordered! It brought back bad memories from Charleston and a particular present from the sushi chef...yuck!
After lunch we headed towards the Pantheon. It's so crazy how in the middle of random plazas with everyday shops and cafe's, there are ancient buildings just
there! The Pantheon was ginormous! I still don't understand how the Roman's managed do build all these insane structures. When we walked inside, the space inside was so huge. Apparently the Pantheon is supposed to be one of the most beautiful and complex buildings in the world. It was originally built as a temple to the Gods in 125 AD. It was really interesting to learn that the domes height and diameter was exactly the same. Actually being in the space made it hard to imagine. We saw how wide it was and it was difficult to imagine that the space could go so high! And vice versa. The Romans were geniuses. Also, the center of the dome was open to
the heavens; aka, don’t go the Pantheon on a rainy day because inside or out, you will get wet!
We walked around the Pantheon and took it all in, including the tomb of Raphael. RIP.
From the Panteon, we had a split decision on whether to continue to Piazza Navona, a plaza with the famous statue of the four rivers, or turn around and head to the Trevi fountain. We headed towards Piazza Navona.
We rounded the corner of the Pantheon and tried to turn up a street towards the Piazza when we were stopped by more guards. Apparently the protest was in action and they were coming this way and it was not safe to pass through them. Fine. We turned around expecting to do as we had done earlier before lunch, find a shortcut. As we were coming around the corner of another street, we heard screaming and whistles and yelling and so much noise! This mass of people came around the corner catty corner to us and came straight at us. It was terrifying! We scurried up onto the sidewalk and just kind of stood in a daze watching this mass of people passing us dancing and
singing and protesting. After the mass passed and it started to trickle down to just a couple people, we decided to go back the way we had come and try and get out through the gaurds again since the protest had passed. The guards laughed at us. Apparently the protest would be going all day and we would not be getting through them, no way. The only thing that didn’t make sense was they were keeping us from the other side of the protest. How were they keeping us from safety when they were keeping us in WITH the protest?
So, we headed back to the same place we had just come from and decided we WOULD find a shortcut and these Italian guards needed to screw their heads on straight. We talked to some more guards in a little square about why the protest was being held. Apparently, the government was cutting funds from the Universities and students had come from all over Italy to protest the new law. Even after warming up with the guards, they would still not let us pass to the “unsafe” protest-free portion of the street. The guards asked us where we were trying
to get to, and when we said Piazza Navona, they laughed at us. “The protest is based out of Piazza Navona”, they said. Figures. Defeated, we turned around and found a gelato shop on the corner. We each got some gelato and made our way back to the sidewalk to eat and watch the protest go by. Although it was a terribly uncomfortable situation with guards standing behind barricades and hundreds and hundreds of people passing making all sorts of noise, it was an experience. I can’t say that in the U.S., if the government cut funding for schools, students from across the U.S. would gather together in D.C. and raise hell. The city shut down for this protest, I don’t think D.C. would do the same thing. My gelato was good, though.
At one point, the crowd began to trickle once again and the girls and I decided it was time to move on. We had to walk with the crowd for a little bit until we reached the plaza that the Pantheon was in. The crowd had completely taken over the square! It was insane how in such a short amount of time, the square had completely filled!
Also, there were two streets of protesters coming together in the square so we had to cross one of the flowing lines of the crowd in order to get out of the square. Alyse is really anxious in crowds and did not like the idea at ALL. We all buddied up and it was as if we were playing the game Frogger, darting at opportune times or get squashed. Of course, my buddy was Alyse and all she could say was “don’tletgodon’tletgodon’tletgoohmygodwheredidyougodon’tletgo”. Running through screaming crowds of people protesting is scary. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Getting away from the Pantheon was as if no protest existed. The Trevi Fountain was in the opposite direction of the Pantheon, thank goodness. The fountain was 4 times as packed as it had been the previous day and just as magnificent, especially with the sun shining this time. We took the necessary pictures: coin toss, group picture, leaping, and that was that. A couple of school boys came over and asked if they could be in a picture with us (for some reason this happens a lot to us). They then attempted to talk to us and ask why we were in Rome and
where we were from, blah blah boring, until their girlfriends came over and started raising a scene. (They were on a school field trip, p.s.). We left.
Making our way from the fountain, we headed towards the Spanish steps. Thanks to my guidebook and the obnoxious amount of tour groups and their flags attached to various tall objects, we made it. The plaza was packed! We all thought we had run into the protest again and were not thrilled in the slightest. However, there were all these groups of school children huddled in various groups. Still thinking it was the protest, we were pretty shocked that the country would involve 6-10 year olds in a protest that had been so frightening earlier! We wandered around and tried to take pictures of the steps which had been completely blocked off. Maybe this wasn’t the protest.
We heard English being spoken and split up into a couple different directions to find out what was going on. All the school kids were chanting “Laorrrrah! Laorrrah!” Maybe it was a kids singer….After coming together again and hearing various stories, we put together something about a person named “Laorrrrah” and a famous Italian singer. We
decided to stay.
We didn’t really know what we were waiting for but we knew it was supposed to happen at 3 and it was already 3:30. Alyse, Andrea, Jessi, and I were standing behind this group of school kids who at first, paid absolutely no attention to us. After standing for 20 minutes and talking amongst ourselves and pretending to know who we were waiting for, one by one, the kids started to get a little curious. It started with one absolutely gorgeous little girl who kept staring at me when I talked. Then a little boy started paying attention to Jessi. Every time I would say something to Jessi, the little girl would whisper in her friends ear, they would turn and look at us, giggle, and then turn around again like I had not seen this just happen. I was getting gossiped about by a 6 year old Italian girl! Finally, after the entire group had turned in our direction and started telling rumors about us in Italian to each other, did Jessi say “English?”. This promptly made all of them break out into little Italian giggles. Then, the little boy turned around and started talking to
us in English.
Then alllll the kids turned around and began practicing their English on us. “What is your name, Where are you from? How many years do you have?”, etc. They were very proud to tell us they had 6 and 7 years (I didn’t know other languages existed when I was 6). They each told us their names and laughed insanely when we said ours. Surprisingly, they were determined to pronounce our names right and went back and forth between Jessi and Josse and the difference multiple times. It was wonderful! Their teachers were basically using us as an English lesson! Unfortunately, they younger kids had waited for Laura long enough and they had to leave. We also talked about leaving since we were waiting around for a person we had no clue about but decided to wait around for another 15 minutes. Thank goodness we decided to wait because not 5 minutes later, Laura was spotted walking down the Spanish steps. It was so exciting! It was as if we had known who she was all along by the way we were acting. She had an amazing voice! Of course, it wasn’t until she was about done
with the song that I remembered I had video on my camera, duh. When she finished, we waited for her to begin singing another song but she walked off the steps and into a mass of media! That was it. We all went with the crowd and huddled around the media in hopes of getting a better glance of Laura before she got in her car. She was waving at the crowd and talking to the press and then she disappeared into her car and drove off. So unreal! We had seen an Italian popstar.
Of course, after this spontaneous event, we needed to caffeinate and stopped by a little coffee shop (or bar as it is called in Italy) on the edge of the Spanish plaza. As usual, the coffee was delicious.
From our coffee shop we went to Piazza Popolo. This was my favorite word to say in the Italian language. Before I left, I talked to Doris, the Maltese hostel lady and she pronounced it in such a fun way. PO polo. We passed more Laura supporters that apparently were waiting for her in her next destination and learned she was singing around Rome all day to
promote her new album.
We wandered around the Piazza, going into a chapel and gazing at the paintings and sculptures. From here, the sun was beginning to set and we still had another destination to hit. Piazza Navona.
Following my book some more, we walked past Caesars tomb and out onto the river where we stumbled upon a castle. We then navigated ourselves through little Italian alleyways to Piazza Navona. The protest had obviously been based here. Trash was everywhere but it barely took anything away from the Piazza. The fountains were gorgeous! The famous neptune statue and even the Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini which was under construction was beautiful! We walked into a church the book had recommended. What's beautiful about Italian churches is everything is ornately decorated. We simply sat in the church for 10 minutes just looking around us. Some people were praying, some tourists were taking pictures, and we just sat taking it all in and listening to the story of the church. After 10 minutes, our bellys took over (suprise suprise) and we headed out to the cafes lining the piazza. We went from cafe to cafe, reading the menus, getting harrassed
The Spanish steps
Before we knew what was going onby managers to sit at their restaurant and hearing whats wrong with all the other restaurants. Finally, when one of the managers said he'd take 10% off our bill, we chose that one. We love our food, but we love our food cheap more. We sat down with the intention of taking our time so we ordered a couple bottles of wine and some bread and did just that. We really got to know each other that night, talking about all sorts of different matters, some important (like family), some irrelevant (irrelevant enough i dont even remember). We ordered food when we got around to it and taste tested everyone elses meals. This was basically assumed and discussed when deciding what to order. We sat at dinner for at least 2 hours.
When we finally paid our bill and moved on from the restaurant we were 6 very happy girls. As if we hadn't done enough that day, we decided to get more wine and head back to the Trevi Fountain as it was recommended to see at night. When we got back to the fountain we split up into different tourist shops, some looking for Italian gear, some looking
Our friends
before we knew them for wine, and myself, looking for a european convertor to recharge my camera battery after taking at least a gazillion pictures that day. I was very annoyed when the only one I could find anywhere was 20 euros! So we gave up on the wine (Trevi was very pretty at night but also very crowded and appeared to be a popular romantic destination) and after a long day, headed back to the hostel. However, we did stop and get the second round of gelato on the way. I thought the gelato man was rather rude about samples and the portions were small and overpriced and as I am stubborn, did not buy anything from him. On the walk home we passed by the gelataria Sabrina and I had eaten at the day before and I gave in and bought myself a cone. These people were nice and let me try various flavors and gave bigger servings. Much better.
Arriving back at the hostel, everyone was pretty much immediately in their beds. We figured out we had walked the entire city of Rome in one 13 hour day. I also quite pleased to learn that the convertor i bought was a
So excited for Laura!
Lao-rah! add in a little roll of the tongue and some italian flare very good and actually rather cheap travel investment. Not only does it convert to European plugs but also to American and British plugs as well AND you can plug your Ipod in. I felt much better about the 20 euros and no matter how you looked at it, the day was absolutely perfect.
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