Florence, Italy: Aborted Rome

I’m back from Rome. The crisis is averted. I left for Rome this morning with huge plans. I had a list of places I wanted to visit and things to do. Besides doing some homework, I was planning on visiting five churches (including St. Peter’s again). Jen, a girl from TCU, and I left this morning at 8am on a non-stop train.

When we got there we met up with Amanda, another of the TCU girls, who was in Rome visiting her boyfriend. The meeting place: St. Peter in Chains. This church is named after a relic it houses; the chains that reportedly bound St. Peter were brought to it at two different times and miraculously fused together. Also in the church is a bizarre (but really good) sculpture. Michelangelo’s “Moses” portrays the founder of the Jewish religion (in the context of the one who led the people united by a faith, not just as members of a family who believed the same thing) with horns on his head! I was forewarned about the horns, though, since Dr. Plate (one of my TCU Religion profs) is writing on it and another piece I saw in Italy.

When we finished, we went to the apartment of some of the guys from the University of Colorado who also study at the Accent Center (they’re in Rome this half of the semester though). They live a block away from the Coliseum and can see it out their windows. It’s so cool.

When we tried to go to the next church, Santa Maria della Vittoria, it was closed. The Italian custom of the afternoon break is still used in some places … like this church. Jen and I took the time we had to wait to go to our hotel to check in early. That’s when the chaos started.

I booked the hostel two nights ago online and (luckily) had the confirmation number and everything else on my laptop, which was with me. The owner of the hostel didn’t have the booking, and he was full for the two nights that we needed, so he said he knew a friend down the street who had rooms. The place he took us to wasn’t that great. The hotel was in the remodeling process and the room had to have been one of the worst they had. We figured it was better than nothing, though, and said OK. Then he asked for our passports and money. I had my passport, but Jen unfortunately forgot hers at her apartment this morning. He said that we couldn’t have the room and that he had to call the police. I told him to wait, and when Jen called one of the girls back in Florence, she said her passport was in her room. He said he still had to call the police since it’s a terrorism violation, but I said we would go to the train station and go back to Florence right away. He then went into business-mode and made sure that I had his card for the next time I returned to Rome and wanted to find a place to stay. When we started walking outside, he made me talk to him in Italian (which surprisingly I didn’t do too bad), and saw us off to the train station.

Sure, I missed out on some of the sites in Rome. Although, in reality, every time I will ever go to Rome I’ll miss out on some of the sites. The upsides about averting this crisis: I have a full day tomorrow to do my Classical Rhetoric assignment the way it should be done; I can visit a church in Florence tomorrow afternoon; we can now do a cooking lesson with Mike tomorrow night (I already have it booked for 6:30!); I can make it to the mass in English on Sunday morning; I’m not living out of a small backpack for the rest of the weekend — which also means hot showers by the way.

Rome will come and go; or, I guess I should say: I will come and go through Rome. I probably won’t do another trip there this semester. In the next five years: I’m guessing at least one!