It's been a bit since I last posted. We went to Galway in the meantime, and enjoyed it. Nice weather too, believe it or not. The link to the album for the Galway trip is here if you haven't perused it yet. In the past month or so most of my classes have ended - not very long after my March break, I had to write another set of essays as "finals." I must say they haven't been my best work. Between the 19th century library system with its 10-day loan times and 2 Euro per day fines and the fact that I had two weeks and a day to produce 5,000 words with few sources and no feedback, my output was not on usual par. Not to mention that simply printing off my finished paper required 45 minutes, a trip that involved three buildings and three sets of computers, requesting the advice or help of 4 people, and ultimately ended with me printing it off the History department secretary's computer. I thought I hated OIT.
Anyway I have the rest of May to study for my Old English final on the 28th. In all likelihood I'll be flying home on the 29th. In the meantime I also have to do some more research for my senior thesis next year, which may involve a couple more short trips. I also have the Trinity Ball this Friday, which is allegedly "the largest private music party in Europe." Trinity is walled, so they let ten thousand or so of us in, formalwear required, and we listen to semi-famous bands all night. Expect some info on that adventure.
In other news, Nicole and I spent last Thursday through Monday in Rome. The aforementioned paper-printing fiasco happened when we were supposed to be leaving for the airport. Even worse, I was forced to depart without a book to read, but luckily I was able to pick up a copy of Angels and Demons in the airport. That way I could pretend like I was a debonair historian trying to save the Vatican from an antimatter bomb while we were there.
Flying Ryanair is an experience difficult to describe to Americans who've never experienced it, and think that Southwest, or the flying they do in general, is total shite. For starters, Ryanair skips the little tunnel into the airplane to save money, instead walking you out onto the tarmac. In Dublin Airport, you must fly from Terminal D, which takes over twenty minutes to walk to (no joke), and is constructed exclusively from wood. Rows of metal chairs are screwed into the wood, and you can look out the plastic windows to wait for your plane. Ryanair passengers are tactless, desperate people. Whenever the card is put up saying the gate destination (=/= screen), people literally sprint to queue up, even if it's still 45 minutes before your flight is scheduled. These craven subhumans will jostle you and cut you in line if you get lazy as well. Once out the door, they sprint to the stepladders, and you have to throw bows like Dikembe Mutombo to get a seat. Also, we were plead with by a guy who looked like Michael Essien to let his wife have the window seat, because she had a rare condition where her cancer flared up if she wasn't next to a window. Something like that.
The first thing I noticed off the plane was the humidity. I guess Ireland has relatively low humidity, though that seems really counterintuitive to me. The second thing I noticed was all the fumare going on. We got in late, and a little old dude that looked like Joe Pesche tried to hustle us 30 Euro for a cab ride that should have cost around 10. After sending this bufone asino packing, we arrived at our small hotel near the Spanish Steps. It was overpriced but not a bad room. We had a small balcony which was cool.
In the morning we got up early and grabbed an open-top bus tour. We went with a third-party tour group after seeing the official ones had a queue that stretched back half a league, four-deep. It was around 75 and breezy, a welcome change from the mid-50s and cloudy of the last few months. I got burned pretty quickly - I always start off the season with a horrendous farmer's tan. We took the whole route on the bus just to get our bearings, which was very pleasant just to ride around given the climate and the scenery. While stopped in front of the Vatican, the cops stopped traffic for a convoy of Ferraris that all burned out going up the Via della Conciliazone to St. Peter's Basilica. I got pictures of most of them you can see in an album below, but we saw them go by again later at the Colosseum and I managed to film it through the fence. If nothing else, it's good for the sound of the engines.
We looped back around to the Colosseum and got off. The area that surrounds it is littered with ruins, between all the streets and buildings: the Forum, the Imperial Forum, Trajan's Forum, various temples and palaces, so forth. We had lunch outdoors under a canopy of grape vines and umbrella pines, surrounded by these ruins. I had some red wine and kick-ass pizza and I must say it was a pretty blissful moment.
There were pretty long lines at the Colosseum, and we picked up a private tour from a cool-looking Australian guy who unfortunately handed us off to an annoying old woman. The Colosseum is about as impressive as I expected it to be. I think it's more impressive that its capacity for its size and the ease with which it was filled and emptied have not been equaled often in the two millenia or so since it was built. It's pretty evident from touring the Colosseum and from visiting other Christian sites in Rome that the Church has a complex about the Christians that may or may not have been killed in the Colosseum. Interestingly, no documented evidence exists to suggest that Christians were ever martyred in the Colosseum, that is, specifically because they were Christians. However, the Colosseum has been defaced by tons of plaques and carvings of various popes who were dedicating things there to the martyred Christians. There is a yearly ceremony and mass held in the Colosseum in their honor as well. As you can see in some of the photos, the Emperor's seat has been replaced with a large cross. Anyway, I suppose it's fitting, given that the Colosseum itself was built to take a shot at Nero, whose colossus of himself as Sol Invictus was destroyed to build it.
After the tour, we stumbled through the museums. I say stumbled because my stomach was giving me a painful reminder that I can't drink three glasses of wine with greasy food without paying a price. We headed to the Palatine Hill for another tour afterwards, with a much more pleasant younger Irish girl named Daniela who would also be our tour guide at the Vatican. The Palatine was great...being among those ruins gives you an idea of what it must have been like to be an Emperor. It occurred to me that living somewhere that sumptuous, in a city like Rome, makes hubris virtually unavoidable, and also makes things like self-deification easier to understand. With that and the lead pipes they used, you can see why they were all a bit crazy. Our dinner that night was similar to lunch, but with a dude walking around with an accordion playing tunes from The Godfather and other jaunty little songs.
Day two started out early at the Vatican. We quickly realized that this was a poor strategy. If you go, DO NOT try to get there early to "beat the crowds." Showing up at 8:15 resulted in a 3-hour wait. The best strategy is to eat early and go when everyone is at lunch. I think I would have enjoyed the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel a lot more if not for the horrendous crowds. They're an interesting reminder of how popes competed with one another to expand and enhance the richness of Vatican City, because everything is labeled with the sitting pope and the date. Ancient sculptures, paintings, everything. I found the Sistine Chapel more impressive for its size than its quality. There's just a ton of shit painted in there. Michaelangelo must have liked painting at least as much as he liked pizza. We went into St. Peter's Basilica after that, and I was pretty impressed at that point. The thing is just huge. There is one church in the world that's bigger, in Cote Ivoire, but its no less impressive for being second. The canopy over the altar is huge in itself, and it is dwarfed by the rest of the building. Not to mention the sculptures by Michaelangelo, and, I dunno, Peter's bones.
Pretty worn out by then, we laid in a park for a while before going back out to see the Trevi Fountain and eat. The Trevi Fountain, while very nice looking, is infested with tourists at all hours, and even worse is covered with annoying-ass people that I could be way less politically correct about if I so chose. They number probably one to every 10 tourists, and the hover around selling buzzing snake eggs, l.e.d. sunglasses, miniature helicopters, and little moldable balls that you can make animals and shit out of. Worse still than them are the ones that hover around with a handful of roses and a camera. They approach a couple, shove the flowers into the girl's hand without saying anything, and then start trying to shake the guy's hand while gibbering in ungodly languages. They want to take your picture on their Xbox-sized polaroid cameras, charge you for the picture, and then take the flowers back. If you hang around the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps for any length of time, you get accosted by these fuckers every 7 minutes or so. Periodically, they walk over to the fountain, rinse their flowers off, drink from it, and go back to the crowd.
On the third day we slept in and went to the Capitoline Museums, which have most of the ancient sculpture and later painting that the Vatican doesn't have. I found them much more agreeable because they weren't as crowded, were well-lit and cool, and had interesting contents. In general I find it easier to look at sculpture for long periods of time than paintings - after a certain point I get fatigued looking at paintings and everything starts to look the same. From there we went to Castel Sant'Angelo. It was pretty cool as fortresses go, and has some good views. With its tunnel to the Vatican, it serves as the pope's "Oh Shit" button, and has worked well, never falling in any of the sacks.
Our departure the next morning did not go as planned. You have to take a special Ryanair shuttle from Termini Station so they can bus you out to the small-ass airport they fly to. We were advised to take the 6:30 shuttle. Termini Station is large and rectangular, bisected by a wide shopping-mall like hall. However, one of its ends turns into a wall that continues ad infinitum, making the station itself impossible to circumvent. We came out of the tube on the wrong side of the building, then started sprinting down two sides thinking we would come to the bus area and realizing to late that we were screwed. When we finally found the bus area, we were too late and had to take the next bus out. This actually ended up being good, because Ciampino Airport is so crappy and poorly laid out, I had no desire to spend more time there. The apron is little more than a parking lot for planes, and your "gate" is where you board still another shuttle that takes you to your plane, and you get on and taxi away.
Rome is great. It was like Disneyland, but the rides and stuff are real. Also, you have to stand in line for everything, it's hot, and people hassle you all the time. I recommend checking it out. I made three albums of pictures, one of the city and various places, one of the Ferarris and leftovers, and one of art and sculptures. Check them out, they have lots more info on specific places and things than I included here.
Special Note: I need to print a retraction of my criticism of Chris Lofton. Turns out he had cancer the whole time and was playing through recovery from radiation and surgery. Boy do I feel like an asshole.
Anyway I have the rest of May to study for my Old English final on the 28th. In all likelihood I'll be flying home on the 29th. In the meantime I also have to do some more research for my senior thesis next year, which may involve a couple more short trips. I also have the Trinity Ball this Friday, which is allegedly "the largest private music party in Europe." Trinity is walled, so they let ten thousand or so of us in, formalwear required, and we listen to semi-famous bands all night. Expect some info on that adventure.
In other news, Nicole and I spent last Thursday through Monday in Rome. The aforementioned paper-printing fiasco happened when we were supposed to be leaving for the airport. Even worse, I was forced to depart without a book to read, but luckily I was able to pick up a copy of Angels and Demons in the airport. That way I could pretend like I was a debonair historian trying to save the Vatican from an antimatter bomb while we were there.
Flying Ryanair is an experience difficult to describe to Americans who've never experienced it, and think that Southwest, or the flying they do in general, is total shite. For starters, Ryanair skips the little tunnel into the airplane to save money, instead walking you out onto the tarmac. In Dublin Airport, you must fly from Terminal D, which takes over twenty minutes to walk to (no joke), and is constructed exclusively from wood. Rows of metal chairs are screwed into the wood, and you can look out the plastic windows to wait for your plane. Ryanair passengers are tactless, desperate people. Whenever the card is put up saying the gate destination (=/= screen), people literally sprint to queue up, even if it's still 45 minutes before your flight is scheduled. These craven subhumans will jostle you and cut you in line if you get lazy as well. Once out the door, they sprint to the stepladders, and you have to throw bows like Dikembe Mutombo to get a seat. Also, we were plead with by a guy who looked like Michael Essien to let his wife have the window seat, because she had a rare condition where her cancer flared up if she wasn't next to a window. Something like that.
The first thing I noticed off the plane was the humidity. I guess Ireland has relatively low humidity, though that seems really counterintuitive to me. The second thing I noticed was all the fumare going on. We got in late, and a little old dude that looked like Joe Pesche tried to hustle us 30 Euro for a cab ride that should have cost around 10. After sending this bufone asino packing, we arrived at our small hotel near the Spanish Steps. It was overpriced but not a bad room. We had a small balcony which was cool.
In the morning we got up early and grabbed an open-top bus tour. We went with a third-party tour group after seeing the official ones had a queue that stretched back half a league, four-deep. It was around 75 and breezy, a welcome change from the mid-50s and cloudy of the last few months. I got burned pretty quickly - I always start off the season with a horrendous farmer's tan. We took the whole route on the bus just to get our bearings, which was very pleasant just to ride around given the climate and the scenery. While stopped in front of the Vatican, the cops stopped traffic for a convoy of Ferraris that all burned out going up the Via della Conciliazone to St. Peter's Basilica. I got pictures of most of them you can see in an album below, but we saw them go by again later at the Colosseum and I managed to film it through the fence. If nothing else, it's good for the sound of the engines.
We looped back around to the Colosseum and got off. The area that surrounds it is littered with ruins, between all the streets and buildings: the Forum, the Imperial Forum, Trajan's Forum, various temples and palaces, so forth. We had lunch outdoors under a canopy of grape vines and umbrella pines, surrounded by these ruins. I had some red wine and kick-ass pizza and I must say it was a pretty blissful moment.
There were pretty long lines at the Colosseum, and we picked up a private tour from a cool-looking Australian guy who unfortunately handed us off to an annoying old woman. The Colosseum is about as impressive as I expected it to be. I think it's more impressive that its capacity for its size and the ease with which it was filled and emptied have not been equaled often in the two millenia or so since it was built. It's pretty evident from touring the Colosseum and from visiting other Christian sites in Rome that the Church has a complex about the Christians that may or may not have been killed in the Colosseum. Interestingly, no documented evidence exists to suggest that Christians were ever martyred in the Colosseum, that is, specifically because they were Christians. However, the Colosseum has been defaced by tons of plaques and carvings of various popes who were dedicating things there to the martyred Christians. There is a yearly ceremony and mass held in the Colosseum in their honor as well. As you can see in some of the photos, the Emperor's seat has been replaced with a large cross. Anyway, I suppose it's fitting, given that the Colosseum itself was built to take a shot at Nero, whose colossus of himself as Sol Invictus was destroyed to build it.
After the tour, we stumbled through the museums. I say stumbled because my stomach was giving me a painful reminder that I can't drink three glasses of wine with greasy food without paying a price. We headed to the Palatine Hill for another tour afterwards, with a much more pleasant younger Irish girl named Daniela who would also be our tour guide at the Vatican. The Palatine was great...being among those ruins gives you an idea of what it must have been like to be an Emperor. It occurred to me that living somewhere that sumptuous, in a city like Rome, makes hubris virtually unavoidable, and also makes things like self-deification easier to understand. With that and the lead pipes they used, you can see why they were all a bit crazy. Our dinner that night was similar to lunch, but with a dude walking around with an accordion playing tunes from The Godfather and other jaunty little songs.
Day two started out early at the Vatican. We quickly realized that this was a poor strategy. If you go, DO NOT try to get there early to "beat the crowds." Showing up at 8:15 resulted in a 3-hour wait. The best strategy is to eat early and go when everyone is at lunch. I think I would have enjoyed the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel a lot more if not for the horrendous crowds. They're an interesting reminder of how popes competed with one another to expand and enhance the richness of Vatican City, because everything is labeled with the sitting pope and the date. Ancient sculptures, paintings, everything. I found the Sistine Chapel more impressive for its size than its quality. There's just a ton of shit painted in there. Michaelangelo must have liked painting at least as much as he liked pizza. We went into St. Peter's Basilica after that, and I was pretty impressed at that point. The thing is just huge. There is one church in the world that's bigger, in Cote Ivoire, but its no less impressive for being second. The canopy over the altar is huge in itself, and it is dwarfed by the rest of the building. Not to mention the sculptures by Michaelangelo, and, I dunno, Peter's bones.
Pretty worn out by then, we laid in a park for a while before going back out to see the Trevi Fountain and eat. The Trevi Fountain, while very nice looking, is infested with tourists at all hours, and even worse is covered with annoying-ass people that I could be way less politically correct about if I so chose. They number probably one to every 10 tourists, and the hover around selling buzzing snake eggs, l.e.d. sunglasses, miniature helicopters, and little moldable balls that you can make animals and shit out of. Worse still than them are the ones that hover around with a handful of roses and a camera. They approach a couple, shove the flowers into the girl's hand without saying anything, and then start trying to shake the guy's hand while gibbering in ungodly languages. They want to take your picture on their Xbox-sized polaroid cameras, charge you for the picture, and then take the flowers back. If you hang around the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps for any length of time, you get accosted by these fuckers every 7 minutes or so. Periodically, they walk over to the fountain, rinse their flowers off, drink from it, and go back to the crowd.
On the third day we slept in and went to the Capitoline Museums, which have most of the ancient sculpture and later painting that the Vatican doesn't have. I found them much more agreeable because they weren't as crowded, were well-lit and cool, and had interesting contents. In general I find it easier to look at sculpture for long periods of time than paintings - after a certain point I get fatigued looking at paintings and everything starts to look the same. From there we went to Castel Sant'Angelo. It was pretty cool as fortresses go, and has some good views. With its tunnel to the Vatican, it serves as the pope's "Oh Shit" button, and has worked well, never falling in any of the sacks.
Our departure the next morning did not go as planned. You have to take a special Ryanair shuttle from Termini Station so they can bus you out to the small-ass airport they fly to. We were advised to take the 6:30 shuttle. Termini Station is large and rectangular, bisected by a wide shopping-mall like hall. However, one of its ends turns into a wall that continues ad infinitum, making the station itself impossible to circumvent. We came out of the tube on the wrong side of the building, then started sprinting down two sides thinking we would come to the bus area and realizing to late that we were screwed. When we finally found the bus area, we were too late and had to take the next bus out. This actually ended up being good, because Ciampino Airport is so crappy and poorly laid out, I had no desire to spend more time there. The apron is little more than a parking lot for planes, and your "gate" is where you board still another shuttle that takes you to your plane, and you get on and taxi away.
Rome is great. It was like Disneyland, but the rides and stuff are real. Also, you have to stand in line for everything, it's hot, and people hassle you all the time. I recommend checking it out. I made three albums of pictures, one of the city and various places, one of the Ferarris and leftovers, and one of art and sculptures. Check them out, they have lots more info on specific places and things than I included here.
Special Note: I need to print a retraction of my criticism of Chris Lofton. Turns out he had cancer the whole time and was playing through recovery from radiation and surgery. Boy do I feel like an asshole.
