The Eternal City

Sorry friends and family! I know it's been a while... I spend so much time on the computer doing homework and trying to figure out things here in Spain that I usually avoid it as much as I can otherwise.

Anyway, my last trip was to beautiful Roma, Italia, and it was incredible! The entire time we were there we kept saying that the entire city is just a museum. Every corner you turn, there is another magnificent monument or building just waiting to be explored and photographed.

One of the amazing things about Rome is that some of the most gorgeous/historic sites are completely under-appreciated, simply because they are overshadowed by the even more gorgeous/historic sites that are right down the street. A building that, in any other city, would have a long line of spectators waiting to enter, is completely passed by, simply because there is SO much to see. 

I met up with my roommate's friend (Victoria) who'd stayed with us in Valencia a few weeks earlier, and her group of friends was meeting in Rome for a "study abroad reunion," as they'd all spent a year studying in Norman at OU. The funny thing was, the weekend we were in Rome also happened to be the weekend of the Texas-OU game, and I ended up hanging out with a bunch of Sooners! You can imagine the taunts that started after our devastating loss... But don't worry, in case you were asking yourself, the answer is still the same: http://doesoustillsuck.com/

But I digress. Colosseum: huuuge line of people, but incredible & worth it. So amazing to see it in person after seeing it in pictures so many times. 

The Roman Forum: definitely cooler than the Colosseum, in my opinion. Absolutely huuuugeee and just so amazing to basically see what an entire Roman community was like so many hundreds of years ago!

The Pantheon: breathtaking. Probably one of my favorite buildings we saw. It rained a lot while we were in Rome, and I wish we would have gone here while it was raining. Apparently it's really cool to see all of the rain coming into the interior of the building. And I always wondered what happens to the rainwater... but we discovered that there are tiny drains in the floor beneath the oculus :)

St. Peter's Basilica: words can't even describe it... but I'll try. Enormous. Gigantic. HUGE. (getting an idea?) Inspiring. Heavenly... the complexity, size, light, and detail in this building are just mind-blowing. And after studying a lot of religious architecture, I can completely see how this building served its purpose back in the day (and still continues today) - to bring people to God. Especially for a person living hundreds of years ago. I can just imagine an average person coming in to St. Peter's and literally thinking that the choir was a choir of angels singing. The acoustics are incredible. And for a person to feel so small and look up and see this gigantic, sunlight-filled space... wow. If architecture can make a person feel/believe/act a certain way, I think it is most exemplified in religious architecture. And since St. Peter's is the world's biggest church, well... it just might be the most influential of the most influential! You know?  

At the same time my feelings were a bit mixed, knowing how much corruption there was in the Catholic church when it was built, and also knowing how much poverty and hunger there was at the time. The space is beyond amazing, but while taking it all in, I was also thinking about the increeedibblee amount of money that was spent on this building. Anyway, in summary, breathtaking but taken with a grain of salt.

Also another cool thing: while we were looking out from one of the many beautiful look-out spots in Rome (the city was built on 7 hills!), I looked down and saw a column on which I had written an ENTIRE PAPER. It was Trajan's Column, and it was pretty cool to instantly recognize a structure I'd studied so much (without even looking for it!).

We found an awesome little Italian cafe with amazing pasta, coffee, and vino after St. Peter's (and no tourists! Difficult to find in Rome...), and even made some real Roman friends. They showed us a cool neighborhood where more of the locals hung out (and fewer tourists), which was really neat. 

Ok... I'll stop here since I've already written an essay. But basically, Rome trip: success. The only thing I really wanted to see but didn't was the Sistine Chapel, but I suppose that just gives me a reason to go back to Rome someday!