Four Months in Rome, Part Eleven

Monday, September 27, 2010:

 

Today is World Tourism Day. It’s a free entrance day at the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. It is recommended to pay the €4 reservation fee, but the ticket to get in is free. Not only is it recommended… there would be no other way to go! I had ordered tickets for Cheri and I a couple of weeks ago, but last week we realized we needed to teach Brenda’s painting class on Monday morning (her flight got in at 9 am). Cheri has been to the Sistine Chapel before, so she told me to go ahead and go and she’d teach Brenda’s class alone. I felt bad leaving her “alone” with Brenda’s painting class, but I really wanted to see the Sistine Chapel too. One of the graphic design students bought Cheri’s ticket and we went together. 

When we arrived the line to get into the museum entrance was estimated at a 2 ½ hour wait! There were all sorts of tour groups out trying to get everyone to pay an additional €25 to take their guided tour without the wait of the line. We kept saying we had reservations and just kept walking. There were maybe 20 people in the reservation line! There were about 100 people in the tour group line! I think someone at the Vatican must have been to Vegas because you enter at the gift shop and you exit at the gift shop, and just in case you missed something in the first gift shop there are portable gift shops in almost every hallway! There are many different ways to get to the Sistine Chapel, winding through all of the rooms and hallways of the museum. It kind of felt like being at the Mall of America in Minneapolis. You knew there were thousands of people inside the building with you, but they were spread out over so much square footage, it didn’t seem that crowded. 

When we finally got to the Sistine Chapel, I have to admit I was disappointed. It was beautiful. There were murals painted from the floor to the ceiling… and, of course, across the ceiling… but I don’t know if it was because the ceiling was so high above the floor that everything appeared “smaller” than I expected or if it was the atmosphere inside the room, but I was disappointed. We were shoulder to shoulder as we worked our way through the room. No photos are allowed, but there were a few who think those signs aren’t meant for them. There was supposed to be no talking, but the dull “roar” of everyone whispering was annoying, and then there were the guards that were constantly saying, “Shhh! No talking.” A baby started crying and I thought the guards were going to have a heart attack with all of their “sushhhhing!” We stayed about 15 minutes, then moved on. I think we could have stayed as long as we had wished, but I tried looking at every mural as we worked our way through the crowed, and I got to see The Last Judgment and the two fingers of God and Adam almost touching. I guess I was expecting to feel some kind of spiritual sensation, and got nothing. Still, it is amazing to think about how Michelangelo painted it in just four years!

This experience was so unlike the visit I made to a Jesuit church near the Ghetto recently. I’ve walked by it many times, but the doors are always closed. I checked it out on line and found that it is open to the public in the mornings and late afternoons (no photos allowed). When I arrived, the doors were closed, yet inside were several people sitting, reflecting, praying, and looking at the magnificent paintings and sculptures. I sat for 15 minutes or more and realized this was really the first time I’d sat, in silence, and reflected about my life for the past month. It was very refreshing, and the church host was very welcoming. I’ve been in many churches while here in Rome, but this was the first that really felt like a church and not like a tourist attraction. 

Tuesday, September 28, 2010:

Our day was filled with last minute things to get ready for the Southern field trip to Naples, Sorrento and Pompeii. We leave bright and early Thursday morning.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010:

We had class as usual today, but it seems like it’s been so long since we had class as usual (we had the packaging workshop all last week) that it made for a very busy day. Cheri and I recently found out about an International Graphic Design Seminar being held in Bologna, Italy in just over a week. We decided to go. We’ll miss our Friday morning class, but invited all of the students to also attend. Brenda will critique the student’s identity symbols while we are gone. She’ll be able to help them with color palettes and symbol proportions. I ran out to the train station to buy train tickets (they won’t accept my “American” credit card online!). I found a hostel, which seemed to be close to where the seminar was being held, and it had a vacancy, so booked a room for us to share. I contacted a person from the seminar, and I think we should only have about a five-minute walk to get to the seminar from the hostel.

Today is the seventh day of Sukkot and is called Hoshanah Rabbah ("Great Salvation"). It seemed like all of the businesses in the Ghetto were open, and there isn’t any celebrating tonight, so I’m not sure why the last day gets its own special name.

Sunday, October 3, 2010:

  

The South field trip was very nice, but tiring. We started in Naples at the Archeological Museum. Two of the more popular exhibits, the mosaics and the Pompeii (erotic) artifacts were both closed. 

We were able to see several frescoes from Pompeii. There were many paintings and sculptures. From the museum we took off by train to Sorrento, so I really can’t say much about Naples. Sorrento is a beautiful town on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. This is definitely a town I’d like to return to some day to spend more time. It’s very quaint, very picturesque. In the center of town there is this very deep ravine, and when you look down you can see two roads on two different levels. There are businesses perched on the sides of the ravine with staircases for customers to use to get to the store. I don’t think anyone could pay me enough money to walk down those staircases. My photos don’t look very treacherous, but they certainly looked treacherous from up above! Maybe it is the fall that would be treacherous… and fatal… if you lost your balance and fell over. Sorrento is known for its lemon tree groves and everything you can make from lemons. We had a three-course dinner at the Lemon Tree restaurant. This was a beautiful restaurant on three different levels and can hold between 400-500 people! The students really enjoyed the experience. Pia arranged a surprise for the students after the meal – a local disco opened (it was out of season, so it was closed) for the night so the students could dance. Four of the faculty went to the disco, me included. Pia and Francesco left after a half hour. Alessandro and I stayed until midnight or so.  The next morning I got up in time to do a little shopping before we left for Pompeii.

Pompeii was a very interesting place to explore and the students covered the entire area in the time we had there. Cheri, Brenda and I stopped for lunch; then they headed back to the entrance to buy train tickets while I explored on my own. Both Cheri and Brenda have been to Pompeii many times, although they do excavate new areas all the time. They have added new signage during the last year, which was very useful when reading the map to know where you were. Whenever you saw a large group of people, there was usually something very interesting to see. I kind of found the “brothel” by accident. It is a very popular stopping point of all the guided tour groups. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom inside the brothel. There were fresco painting up by the ceiling that showed what services could be purchased! I didn’t get to the far east end of Pompeii before it was time to leave, so I missed the Garden of the Fugitives. This is the vineyard where the citizens of Pompeii ran through to escape the city during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Giuseppe Fiorelli was in charge of the excavations from 1860 to 1875 and introduced the method used to form plaster casts of the cavities found during the excavating. Casts of the bodies of the victims can be seen in this area, but there are also stored in the Forum Granary along with other archeological finds.

We were only gone one night, and yet we are all so worn out, you would have thought we had been gone for days! Next field trip is in one month (north field trip) and we will be gone three nights! I’m going to have to figure out something different for packing clothes.

It seems we have several sick students right now (via facebook!). I know I have a sore throat. There’s been a little change in the weather, although it got hot today, we have been having some chilly mornings. Everyone is always on the go; I doubt if the students get as much sleep as they should. Hopefully, they’ll keep their colds to themselves!


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