Roma Holiday
ITALY | Tuesday, 28 April 2009 | Views [485]
Being on a red-eye flight from Bangkok to Rome, I feel somewhat jaded with travel and just want a place to sleep where I do not have to contort my body into impossible angles to get a decent rest. Coming into land though I watch the graphic of our plane on the screen hovering over Rome and it suddenly hits me - we have finally made it to Europe! After all those papers and exams for Art History and Archaeology, all those art books flipped through, I will finally get to witness first hand the objects documenting the history of Western civilisation. I almost can’t believe that I am about to step onto the continent that seemed so unreachable during university days. Italia! I never believed I would ever make it here.
Stepping off the plane it feels cold, everyone seems to be in their winter woollies and I fear that we may not be prepared thanks to our limited wardrobe (luckily it turns out to be quite warm during the days). I feel somewhat immature as the first Italian I hear speaking English sounds exactly like a badly acted stereotype of an Italian accent and it makes me laugh - “You need-a to trrransfer da money at-a dis-a bank-a”. My first impressions of Rome are grubby. Exiting the train station we are confronted with graffiti and rubbish on the streets. However it seems to be just this area as walking around for the next few days, Rome is one of the cleanest and most picturesque cities I have visited. So much so that Rome is a place I would love to be able to stay in for a couple of months. In an apartment with a shuttered window overlooking a piazza, I would stroll the cobbled streets admiring the art and architecture of the city, and sip cappuccinos and eat gelati while checking out the well-heeled locals in their leather and chic designer gear. However I would hate to be a permanent resident. Rome is a city of tourists. Compared with Sydney, the annoyance I feel in being able to get from point A to point B during lunch hour would increase ten-fold here and I would most likely end up hurting someone. Badly. This could explain why the workers we do interact with are so rude. It is almost as if they just feel disdain for tourists, even though they are probably keeping them employed.
Apart from restaurant waiters marring wonderful days of sightseeing with their bad attitudes, my highlights include
- the Colosseum. We head out on our first day to see this and my first sight of it is mind blowing. Walking down an unassuming street, we turn an equally unassuming corner and BANG, this enormous structure suddenly appears and hits you in the face. We are so in awe that we stop and take photos for half an hour from this distant location!
- the Pantheon. Even after having studied this I was not prepared for the sheer size of it. It does seem like the perfect feat of engineering and I feel like a bit of a nerd constantly looking up, studying every single angle and design feature of not only the interior, but the exterior as well (yes, just the columny bit!)
- sitting in Piazza Navona drinking cappuccinos. Despite the fact that these were $9 cappuccinos - yes, each! - they were worth every cent of the experience. The day is sunny and warm, the square is surrounded by buildings with shutters and flower planters, and the square itself filled with artists selling watercolours, along with musicians. There is a guitarist nearby to our café playing classical Italian pieces and it all creates a perfect Roma atmosphere!
- famous artworks. From the Laocoon and School of Athens in the Vatican, The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, and the Pieta in St Peters, to the Caravaggio’s in Barberini Palace, I get to see them all!
An added bonus for us here is that it happens to be “Culture Week” and entry to all sights and museums is free. These highlights unfortunately are combined with the lowlight, which apart from the service, is hostel living. The Doctor and I do not have the greatest introduction to our means of habitation for the next 11 months. We have been too spoiled in Asia with private rooms inclusive of all possible amenities going for a mere $15 each. In Rome we are paying $30 each for a bed in an eight bed dorm. However we find ourselves in a six bed dorm which would have been better had it not been for Obnoxious Guy. He is not actually staying in our room (or hostel for that matter) but his friends are which seems to make him think that he has residential rights to our dorm. Every time we get back from a long day of walking on weary feet, he is there talking in the loudest voice possible and swearing as if he is getting paid for every F-Bomb he drops. (And you thought I was bad!). He also does not seem to comprehend the fact that The Doctor and I actually are paying for this room and does not acknowledge us once let alone ask if we are cool with him being there. Obnoxious Guy kicks my foot, drops food all over the floor, pollutes our room with his vocals...but worst of all...he wakes me up! The first incident happens at approximately 1am. All in the dorm are finally in bed and sleeping and I am about to drift off. Then the door opens and Obnoxious Guy walks in, stays for about 5 minutes then walks out again, slamming our bunk as he walks out! I have no idea what he was doing there, or how or why he was even let into the hostel, and I don’t understand how he could have the audacity to even think he had a right to come into a room at that time of morning when it was still being occupied by people he did not know! The second incident, he actually ends up sleeping in our room (again he doesn’t bother to check with us), wakes up at some ungodly hour, and starts having conversations in his day-time, every one else is awake, its now ok to talk voice! Thank heavens that this is the last we see or should I say hear of Obnoxious Guy as all his friends have now checked out and perhaps by some divine justice, we now have the dorm all to ourselves and the chance to have some privacy and a peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. Sweet dreams!
