Rome and Vatican City for Christmas

  Rome, Italy
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

We arrived in Rome with our guard up, having been warned by our Rick Steves guide book that scams were aplenty in this city. We had one right away, a "nice stranger" who came after me when I bought our week bus pass at a tobacco shop saying he didn't think we were given the right change (I assured him that we were, as opposed to whipping it out and counting it). We bought a pass because our hotel was on the other side of the Vatican (outside of the city center) but on the metro line.
   
 We chose to stay at a convent for our week here. It seems right to stay with nuns over Christmas and they don't price gouge over the holidays like many hotels do. The nuns were Spanish and belonged to an order that was started in Spanish nun who was later made a saint. She is now patron saint of the lonely.  So, the mission of the order is to serve the lonely people in the world. While hosting tourists pays the bills, the convent also has an assisted living program for little old ladies who live there full time. This explains the elevator and the emergency buttons by the bed and in the shower.

The convent was really a steal for what we got. We paid 70 euro a night and got a full bath in the room, an elevator in the hotel, breakfast and access to a balcony that stretched the full length of the building. They even had clothes lines and clothespins! Not only that, a very tidy nun would come in and make our bed and mop our floor every day. Because it was a Spanish speaking convent, most of the guests were from Spanish speaking countries. One couple was visiting their son from Mexico. He was studying to be a priest at one of the seminaries here. They spoke a little English so we were talking one morning about where we were from. When we told him "Seattle" he didn't seem to know the place. When I told him that it was near Yakima and Wenatchee the light went on. He actually had visited Yakima years ago. Maybe that is the most well known Washington city in Mexico...

   Touring Rome required some advance planning and organizing but we managed to see all the "must-see" sites. Our favorite, of course, was the Vatican - St Peter's, climbing the dome and the museum. As we mentioned on the Pula page, Julius was not that impressed with the Coliseum, especially for 11 euros. The forum (free) was very interesting, especially with the Rick Steve tour in our guidebook.

Night Market

At the encouragement of one of the priests at Blessed Sacrament, the Dominican church we attend in Seattle, we visited their headquarters in Rome. After some helpful directions from an old Italian man (it is not well marked on the map) we found the church and wandered inside. It looked a lot like our church in Seattle. Like the Franciscans, they make all their churches alike. The gift shop was closed which was disappointing, but our prayers were answered at the last minute when it opened up for a few hours in the evening. We bought postcards for all the priests in Seattle and a keychain. Fr Bernhard in Seattle also recommended some other churches around the city that were worth seeing. All were very nice. Baroque seems to be the theme for the churches in Rome.

The Pantheon was another favorite spot. It is amazing what the Romans managed to build. I can't imagine something like that getting built today, much less that many years ago.
The Rick Steves book proved to be helpful again in the many walking tours he had for the city. It is funny to see people along the route also holding the book. We got there early enough before Christmas that the crowds had not started pouring in yet.

After being in Croatia for a month where Serbs are considered outsiders, we were struck by all the immigrants from around the world living here. Most had very public jobs, working in shops and selling flowers and knick knacks at the major tourist sites. We chatted with them a bit when we could. They were the same immigrant groups we find in a lot of other countries, Ethiopians, Bangladeshi and Nigerian. Everyone looking for a better life. Despite the cold and the struggle of making it in a country with such a high standard of living, many seemed to like it here. Because Julius is an immigrant, immigrants and immigration is a topic that we think and talk about more than most people. Traveling around the world has really opened our eyes to immigration patterns in all the countries we visit. What does it mean to be an immigrant in Europe vs America? What does it mean to be an immigrant vs a refugee? What does it mean to be in a country where your children are citizens if they are born there (the US) vs being in a country where citizenship is not a birthright (all of Europe)? Who are the people willing to or needing to leave their homes and live in a foreign country? Where do they come from and why are their countries so bad that they cannot stay? These are all questions we explored and mulled over on this trip, in every place we went.

Eating in Rome is, like the rest of Italy, an easy experience. Now that Mom and Carolyn are not with us, our budget for food has dropped precipitously. Thank goodness for Pizza by the Gram. These shops are everywhere in Rome and have my favorite kind of pizzas - little or no sauce with thin crust and vegetables. They are surprisingly unlike American pizza. Favorites include potato and rosemary, mushroom and hot dog with french fries (sounds excessive, but oooh so good). These are filling meals for just a few euros. Add a deep fried rice/cheese/ham ball and you don't have to eat again for hours. We ate this meal, in all it's variations, every day we were there. The hot dog & french fry pizza was our Christmas lunch after visiting the pope's Christmas blessing.

Of course our main reason for coming to Rome was to celebrate Christmas here. In July we sent a fax to the Vatican to request tickets for the midnight mass (it is much easier than we expected ) and they sent a fax back for us to bring to the Vatican offices on the days before. Just as they promised, tickets were waiting for us there. We waited in line that night for about two hours, next to a family from California and a couple from Venezuela. We all chatted about our trips and many other topics which made the wait fly by. Once they opened the gates it was controlled chaos, people scurrying to get good seats, guards checking tickets to make sure everyone has one, shameless people trying to cut in line. We ended up on the right side of the altar with a fairly good view. It was very thrilling to be there. The church looked great with poinsettias everywhere and all the cardinals in their full regalia.

After Christmas Mass - St Peters

We all got programs which was helpful for me because the service was primarily in Latin. Julius has been to enough Latin masses to be able to follow. Lessons were read in various languages: Spanish, English, Polish, Tagalog and Arabic. The Cantor's voice was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. I guess if you are the Vatican you have the clout to get the best Catholic cantor out there. They also had a mixed boys and mens choir that followed the Cantor as he led the songs. The pope gave a good sermon. At the time all I could understand was "baby Jesus" but we read the translation from Italian the next day.

The crowd was understandably starstruck but we started to wonder how many of these people had been to mass before (our small section was very reverential which made us happy). There was no announcement before the mass about flash photos but you would assume that people would refrain from snapping them during the mass. This was not the case. People not only took flash photos throughout, they also left on that infuriating fake shutter click sound on their digital cameras. This sound is so disruptive and unnecessary I think it needs to be banned. After visiting dozens of churches now I have to resist wrestling the camera away from them and beaning them in the head with it when I hear that obnoxious "ka-chick". During the mass it is all the more galling. Hello, people! If you are going to disrupt the mass with a flash, at least turn the beeps and noises off! It is right there on the menu - just go to sounds and click "off". Also, these people will realize when they get home and review their photos that flash does absolutely nothing to brighten the room past about 4-6 feet. So all those disruptive photos will just show the three rows in front of you and the altar will be in the shadows. At least when you take a photo without the flash the shutter will stay open longer so you can see the altar.

OK, enough with my rant. Despite this little issue the whole thing was great. After the mass we hung out in the square with all the priests, seminary students and nuns who were singing carols and waving sparklers.

Nuns and Priests Whooping it up After Mass

 The Swiss Guards finally hustled us out as it was getting close to 2:30am. We walked back to the convent and the nuns were awake to let us in. This is the only night of the year that you get to break their 11 pm curfew.

The next day we headed back to the Vatican for the Christmas Day Blessing in St Peter's square. A huge crowd was there and the Pope gave another nice message that we read the translation for later. After the greeting the Pope then gives Christmas greetings in 62 different languages. We cheered for English and Kiswahili but the biggest cheers were for Spanish, Tagalog, Italian and Polish.
Any of you who are English soccer fans know how we spent boxing day (Dec 26th). All the English teams play on this day so you can sit in the pub from morning until night watching matches. Sort of like the bowl games on new years day. We spent the afternoon at the Irish pub with all the British expats cheering on our team. Chelsea pulled off a win at the last minute which left Julius in a good mood.
On the 27th we had to say goodbye to the EU and head off to our next destination, Turkey. We left the Rick Steves book with the nuns which they were excited about. Hopefully it will assist other tourists visiting this great country.