Tuesday, July 8
Found out that Nicole is in Rome. May get a chance to see her. Going to see the Pope tomorrow and am going to stay here until Thursday. I do not think I am going to see a lot of Italy, but that is ok. Rome has been enough. Everywhere you look; there is something else that deserves a picture. For over 800 years, this was the center of the world. Walking the same roads as great men. There are archeological digs going on everywhere in the middle of town. It makes it hard to fathom the streets of our old cities in the U.S. and makes me wonder what kind of sightseeing a person could do after coming to Rome. Things might be unbelievably gorgeous and take your breath away, but there has never been a place with so much history and power belonging to it and the home of the Pope. I am really looking forward to tomorrow.
Another comment about drivers. Here, there are barely any crosswalks or signs, but even when there are, it does not matter because people cross the street whenever they want. You can tell a tourist because they are the ones waiting to cross. The natives stop traffic, are honked at, do not care, and move on. And here, the honking does not mean the same thing. In the states, honking means, "get out of the way, I am in a hurry and you are slowing me down." Here it means, "Hey, get out of my way because I do not want to hit you." There is a huge difference between the two.
I have also seen what could be called a viaduct, but smaller and many of them and only big enough for one car. There was one that was at the tail end of a junction of two streets and cars were flowing pretty smoothly. I just picture the same street in the states and traffic would be backed up for miles, because some guy had to get through before someone else. Here, nobody seems to care about time. They drive slowly when they have to and fast when they can, but never mix the two. And the number of bikes and scooters is incredible. And they park them all over the sidewalks. But they get by. It is controlled chaos.
They just started Braveheart, but I just finished my bottle of wine, so I cannot imagine I will finish the movie. If the Scotts hate the English so much, why don't they do as the Irish and finish what William started. The cheese curls here are white so your fingers do not turn orange, like they will in the states. I have been saying I am "from the states a lot.
The guy that plays William's uncle is in many movies as the bad-guy. I am glad he gets to play a good guy here. That bad man is the Colonel for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Watching the battle scenes just shows how random war is. Even Wallace gets shot with an arrow, the old guy gets it like 3 times, but that is really all it takes, one stray arrow. Makes you think of the randomness of like and when your time it up, it is up.
Wednesday, July 10
Wow. The Sistine Chapel is just something every person should see. Like did it in 2 1/2 yeas. At least that was the ceiling. The wall took another year or so. Painstaking work. Saw the Pope for a little while. Sat him down, talked some hockey, and talked world issues. Second time in my like I have seen him. There were just tons of people. The Vatican is enormous. Compared to the feeling at Belfast to the feeling today is a complete opposite.
Just so I do not forget, the crucifixion is a lot different from how we see it today. Nails just below the elbow and knees, and the reason they would break the legs is so that they could no longer lift themselves to breath and would suffocate. They would only do it if they needed them to die quickly, usually they would keep them up until they died slowly.