October 27-29, The Travesties of Our Time in Rome Part II

Fifth travesty of our time in Rome – I was wearing dirty socks when I saw the Pope. Our friend, Julie had told me before we left, about the papal audiences on Wednesdays at the Vatican and when we arrived in Rome we trotted over to Santa Sussanna church to get (free) tickets. Incidentally the priest who gave us our tickets and we chatted with (Father Greg) we had seen on the Today show several years earlier doing an interview with Matt Lauer in front of St. Peter's on The Da Vinci Code. He of course didn't tell us this, but there was a little write up on Fr. Greg in some literature we picked up and then we both remembered seeing him. He had a good sense of humor about the whole thing while still towing the party line.

So Wednesday morning we catch the metro at 8:30, even though we were told to be at St. Peter's at 8:30 (two hours ahead) to get a good seat. The Metro was packed and it literally took three trains coming and going before our part of the crowd could push ourselves on. Fortunately being as tall as I am I do not have to have my face in someone else's armpit, unfortunately the reverse is true and someone else's nose is in my armpit. I also had momentary panic when I thought the police officer behind me was getting fresh with me but this was relieved when I realized that the perpetrator was a woman's handbag.

We arrived at St. Peter's around 9 am to an already large gathered crowd, waited in line for security, and then entered the grounds and selected a seat. The square was full of chairs and an awning was set up on the stairs on St. Peter's. The Pope arrived at 10:30 in his pope mobile, surrounded by Swiss guards and made several laps waving to the crowd. We all stood on our chairs in order to see which had the affect of making everyone only see the pope's head magically and swiftly move around the square. The pope mobile then rolled up to the awning and dropped the Pope off and then disappeared. The reading from 1 Corinthians was read in 6 different languages by six different cardinals (Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, Russian). The Pope then gave a message in Italian. The six different cardinals then each read the names of those groups, or churches gathered, in their countries respective languages. Every time a large group's name was read they erupted in shouts of joy, some even singing a verse of a song or playing instruments, which became even louder when the Pope did a special greeting in each of the six languages and would mention some of the groups that He was particularly pleased were there.

And the dirty socks you ask? Well this happens often when you only have 2 pairs of black socks and you're walking around in the black sock/shoe nations of Europe everyday. So while I'm used to this, it just didn't feel right to see the Pope in my dirty socks. :)

After the audience we thought that the crowd would probably head into St. Peter's so we decided to walk to the Pantheon instead. For some reason this is one of my favorite sites in Rome. The grand scale of this 2,000 year old building takes my breath away, especially the oculus which is 30 feet across. I would have loved to see what happened to all that water that came pouring through the ceiling in the storm, because the drainage system for the Pantheon is probably a better design than our modern version.

On our walk to and from the Pantheon we passed through Piazza Navona and noticed a huge police presence and some destruction in the piazza. We had seen a protest the day before at the Colosseum by students who were protesting school reform so we knew it was the same thing, but the police were gathered around a particular building in their riot gear and had a do not cross line. We stopped at a nearby tourist information booth and asked what was going on. The Senate, in the protected building had voted that morning to accept the school reform. The crowd completely protested and it ended in some property destruction and tear gas. The government is trying to cut education budgets across the board from elementary education to graduate research. One Italian citizen explained to us that part of the problem is that Berlusconi didn't and won't tax property (which dramatically decreases revenue especially from the upper class) and because of this the government has run out of money and has to cut things - education being the target. The particularly interesting thing is that the Italian government is trying to sell the reforms as good because they will be like the US education system. The Education Minister has even said that these reforms are very similar to Obama's education plan. The problem as Italian citizens see it is that they currently have the best public education system in Europe and it is no comfort to be told they're going to be like the US.

After being informed we went on our way back to St. Peter's to see the church. After some debate because the line was still incredibly long we decided to bite the bullet and go in. Big mistake!!! I have never been anywhere more crowded. It felt like we were back on the subway. There were soo many tour groups and they would just stop in front of something the guide was describing and block the entire route. They all looked incredibly bored. I wondered why they were there. Because it was so crowded the guards were ushering anyone not in a group to move along, essentially making it impossible to stop and look at anything. We were so frustrated and we just got out which is disappointing when you are in the largest most magnificent church in all of christendom. We did manage to make our way to the less crowded crypt but again because it was busy we were simply ushered through without being able to stop and look at anything.

We left and went home. The redeeming part of night was having a great smoothie and apple crisp back at the Beehive's cafe with some great conversation about the protests with Valentina the chef for the night. We also were able to hang out and talk with Damien, a fellow dormer on a year long trip from Australia. He was in Thailand a short while ago and plans to go back in January so we will hopefully meet up with him again. He was especially kind to us and took pity on our lack of a card reader and downloaded our pictures for us – thus the reason our blog suddenly has pictures. We plan on buying our own card reader in South Africa next week.

On our last morning in Rome before we were to catch our train, I was inspired to try to see Bernini's St. Teresa in Ecstasy statue in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, a short 15 minute walk from the Beehive. I left Duncan to finish packing and headed out only to realize a few blocks later that there were massive protests about the school reform decision going on. I made it through the crowd to Piazza d. Repubblica, only three blocks from the church but simply couldn't go any further. The square and all of the surrounding blocks were completely filled with people. The protest was well organized. There were many banners and huge amounts of balloons that spelled out the people's disgust with the school reform decision. Having been inside the Beehive most of the morning with no clue what was going on I felt a bit like Emperor Nero playing the violin while Rome burned. I went back to the Beehive to tell Duncan to go check it out. We heard that the people's disgust with the decision made the union(s) call for a strike which would mean that the metro would only run in the morning to get people to work and then in the evening to get them home again (however we were unable to confirm this). No strikes or protests affected our train travel out of Rome.

Andrea