Roma Roma. Italy part One-ah!

Well I made it back from Italy. I do not know if Oxford has ever felt more like home to me. Getting back on Monday was absolutely wonderful. We could breathe again. So, in 9 days in Italy, I went to Rome, Assisi, Florence, Pisa, La Spezia, all five villages of the Cinque Terre, Milan and Bergamo. I cannot say what my favorite was, by any means. It was my second visit to Rome and Florence, and Italy still takes the place in my heart as my favorite place in the world so far. But this trip was less like a meal and more like a feast. Exhausting, to say the least. Rome was the most magnificent. Florence was the most artistic. Pisa was the most surreal. The Cinque Terre was the most perfect. Milan was the most modern. So, all in all, this trip provided me with a very thorough coverage of Italy, especially when you include the trains from every place to the next, which gave us a view of both the Umbrian and Tuscany countrysides. My first night in Rome, a few of us were left behind by the big group when they left the hotel for a tour, so we made our own way across the city to the Trevi Fountain, where we had our first gelato (AMAZING…I believe it drips from the lips of the Italian gods), then to the Spanish steps, which we climbed to the top of, then back to the hotel. It was St. Patrick’s Day, so crazy Irish Italians were everywhere, besplendored in their greenery. This allowed me to get in the Trevi Fountain and the fountain at the Spanish Steps without raising very many eyebrows, as everyone was in on the party, it seemed. Ireland did win after all. Futbol that is. Our tour guide almost drove everyone insane during the day, filling our heads with too many popes to take a single one of the poor men very seriously and enough dates that it became much easier for all of us to effectively tune him out. We made it over to the Vatican, St. Peter’s in time to be blessed by the Pope, though, which was incredible. He was definitely my number one person I wanted to see while I was there, the equivalent to my desire to see Tony Blair here in England, which, unfortunately, is yet to work out. And, while I did not get the private audience with him I had hoped for, it was truly quite an experience to see the masses gather under him from all over the world, for this single blessing, like a modern pilgrimage. I also met the love of my Italian life on the top of St. Peter’s because a very few of us made the trek to the very top of the Dome of St. Peter’s for a view of Rome from above, and there I found the most beautiful man I think I have ever laid eyes or nostrils on. (He smelled amazing, you see). He spoke to me. It was beautiful. “You cannot see the Coliseum from here.” Those were his words. But you should of heard the way they sounded coming from his beautiful Italian mouth. My group finally tore me away. But I succeeded in taking one last dramatic look behind me at him, and we made eye contact and smiled. We’ve named him St. Peter’s Heater. Fitting, I think. We walked back across town beside the river Tiber to the Hotel to rest. Then that night walked all around and had spaghetti and wine at a wonderful little Italian restaurant with a very friendly waiter, right on the Piazza Navona (I got in the fountain there as well, of course). It was perfect. Then we had gelato at the oldest shop in the city. It dates back to the 1400s. I had gelato every night I was in Italy and am having serious withdrawals. We also went to the Trevi Fountain every night we were in Rome. I only got in once, though. The next day we went to the Forum and the Coliseum and the most unthinkable thing happened. While I was perched on an overturned column inside the Coliseum, peeling myself an orange I had stolen from the hotel breakfast that morning, I looked up and, I kid you not, watched a guy I knew from camp in Oklahoma in high school, walk right by me. I was shocked to say the least. So shocked that I did nothing. I let him walk by and regretted it for days after. I mean, what are the odds?? So that was pretty amazing. But my most memorable visit to any one place in Rome was after this, when we visited the prison where Paul was kept right up until he was killed. It was absolutely incredible to stand down there in the tiny room. It really does not attract all that many visitors, apparently, although when we were there it was raining quite steadily outside. But you could almost feel the depth of where you stood, which a lot of people were disappointed not to have felt in the glorious Coliseum. After this, a few of us trudged through the now pouring rain to run in the Circus Maximus. That night, we went back to the Trevi one last time, and the next morning, said goodbye to glorious Rome. And it’s delightful bloody oranges.