We left our hostel and took the street, tourist map in hand, on the prowl for monuments. We came to learn that Rome, by comparison to Madrid especially, is tiny. Our first, no more than 10 minutes from the hostel, was the Spanish Steps. Brandon bought a hat, I snapped a few pictures and we decided that since finding the Steps was so easy, we might as well carry on the Trevi Fountains, which, while crowded, were absolutely gorgeous on the clear, warm night. The ease of navigating the city and the gorgeous payoff of each monument inspired us to find the Pantheon. We stopped for a coffee and wound our way through the city. Ultimately we missed in our search for the Pantheon but ended up finding the National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II, which was absolutely stunning and probably my favorite building in Rome. While walking I essentially tripped over ancient Roman Ruins that gleamed in the moonlight. We had been walking for about an hour and I already had to pick my jaw up on several occasions, it was a gorgeous night and Rome sparkled under the moon.
It was about this time that we realized that we were walking directly towards the Colosseum. It's hard to believe a building that big and that famous can sneak up on you, but that is exactly what happened. There was a small hill across the street from the Colosseum and I walked up it to try to get above the street lights for a few photos. It was here that the strangest, most wonderfully bizarre event of my trip took place. We had made it to the top and I was grimacing over how poorly my photos were turning out when an Indian man approached us speaking Italian. We told him that we don't speak Italian and he asked if we spoke English. After running through the where are you from, what's your name conversation and he got down to business. "Do you know yoga?" Yes. "Ah good. I need to open my Chakra. To open my Chakra I need to be very tired. So I walk up and down this hill." OK. "I need to be very tired. Would you like to go for a ride on my shoulders?" I wish there was a picture of what our faces looked like. This squat little Indian-Italian man named Sandro just asked us if we wanted to ride on his shoulders while he walked up and down a hill. With smiles on our faces Brandon shrugged his shoulders, why not?
The pictures I took didn't turn out very well, as I had a hard time holding the camera steady because I was too busy laughing watching my 6'4" roommate take a seat on top of Sandro's shoulders and be carried down the hill and then back up towards me. Sandro returned, with cargo intact and dropped Brandon off. They shook hands. There were smiles all around and I thought the exchange was over. Sandro, sweat beading on his brow looked to me and asked, "would you like to go for a ride?" How could I say no? I gave Brandon my bag and the camera and positioned myself on Sandro's shoulders. He straightened up, centered himself and started walking down the hill.
For those of you who haven't been on another person's shoulders since you were a kid let me tell you something, it is a hell of a lot harder to balance when you're not 5 years old. The trip was uneven and wobbly but I never fell. He could feel me rocking back and forth on his shoulders and asked me, "are you in comfort?" Was I in comfort? Not really. It had been a long time since riding on my father's shoulders, but the "little donkey ride" was going OK and I told him through a smile that I was doing fine. I didn't know what the protocol was as far as communicating with the guy who is bearing all of your weight around his neck, is it rude to make him talk to you? Is small talk acceptable? Would the silence be more uncomfortable? I erred on the side of small talk and admitted to him that I like Italy quite a bit and asked him what he thought of the city. When he said that he liked it much more than his home in India, I asked him what he did for a living. He told me that he was a masseur, specializing in feet. Cool, I said. By now he had made the turn and I had run out of material. We came back up the hill in silence. When he let me down I shook his hand and thanked him for the ride. He thanked us for helping him with his yoga, the sweat running down his face now. Then, the man who was just a human mule for two complete strangers dropped a bomb on us: "would you like a foot massage?"
Brandon hadn't asked him what his job was, and as nice as Sandro seemed, getting a foot massage was a little too sexual deviant-esque for him. I declined as well, not because I really thought that he was a molester, but because I really felt like this man had done enough for us. Anything more would be gluttonous. I'm convinced that Sandro was MLK, Gandhi, and Oprah Winfrey all rolled into one portly package. We had just met a saint and he had taken us on his shoulders and the offered to rub our feet. We shook hands again, and Brandon and I went down the hill under our own power this time while Sandro disappeared into the night. We were so blown away with the events that had just occurred that we had walked the remainder of the way to the Colosseum and circled it without even really taking notice of it. It wasn't until we had passed it that we realized, again, that the Colosseum had sneaked up on us. Sandro, at that point in the night, and maybe still now, was bigger than the Colosseum. We doubled back and took some appreciative time with it.
The night's weirdness had peaked with Sandro, but wasn't over yet. We left the Colosseum, again looking for the Pantheon, and were walking down a side street when we heard a drunken choir of men singing the baseline to the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army." The commotion was coming from a bar called Shamrock Rugby Temple. I had walked by it without giving much thought but Brandon slowed and then asked me if I had seen the guy in the Bobby hat standing on top of the table. We turned back and poked into the bar. It was full of drunk, elated rugby fans, many of whom were standing and dancing on top of tables and everyone was singing. Some of the men were wearing rugby jerseys, the man wearing the Bobby hat had accessorized with a pink scarf, some were shirtless, and others were wearing lingerie. I'm sure you can figure out what is going on here. Brandon and I stood by the bar for a minute or two, not saying anything, just smiling and taking it all in. Eventually I leaned over to him and got started with stating the obvious, "Do you realize that there are no women in here?" Yeah. "I think this is a gay bar." Yeah. "Do you wanna get a drink?" Yeah, he said with a smile. We tried to get the bartender's attention in a normal fashion, without taking off any clothes or letting any winks fly. We probably should have because the bartender didn't give us a second look, even with a 20 Euro note in my hand I couldn't get his attention. None of the men there thought us worthy of buying a drink, I guess they knew we wouldn't put out and we left the bar, satisfied with the story, if not by any vittles.
We made our way back to the hostel, completely satisfied with the night. Reeling from it all: the monuments, the ruins, the Sandro, the Shamrock Rugby Temple. It was an unbelievable night, I don't know if I've ever smiled that much in one 4 hour span. We dropped by the Yellow bar, ordered a drink and made broken English small talk with a guy from Chile and his friend (who looked a lot like Cheech). We had a few drinks, made a few jokes and then went upstairs.
The next day we went to the Vatican. I saw St. Peter's, which is probably the most impressive single building I've ever been in. It was a bizarre experience being there at the center of Catholicism. There were so many people that were having a serious spiritual experience and I felt like a fraud, as I was just there to take pretty pictures. Michelangelo's Pieta was incredible. We did the Vatican Museum later. Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite movies of all time, and there is a scene where Robin Williams tells Matt Damon that he doesn't know what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. I went to the Sistine Chapel and you want to know what it smells like? It smells like whatever perfume the woman 2 feet from you smells like. Or, if you're lucky, whatever variation of Old Spice deodorant the man who is taking pictures next to you is wearing. Don't get me wrong it is an absolutely beautiful ceiling, a truly incredible scene, it just wasn't what I expected. To begin with, it was much smaller than I thought it would be. Secondly, as I already mentioned, it was crowded. I had been in Italy for 9 days and had down some super touristy things but the Vatican, and the Sistine Chapel in particular, was crawling with tourists. There was no elbow room. It was beautiful, but not what I had pictured.
The Chapel was at the end of the museum, we had been serious and admiring art for a good 3 hours by the time we got out of the Chapel and when we did we were in serious need of a good giggle. We found our inspiration in one of the last rooms of the museum, it was some Papal relic, but it looked like a jewel encrusted trowel or a cake server. Next to it was a Papal gavel or something like that. We went off. The Papal trowel was evidence of the Pope's secret love of spelunking, which was further evidenced by the Papal rock hammer lying next to it. We would pretend to be the Pope's secretary and say in a strange accent, "Ze Pope ez in ze cave, he cannot be reached." Things grew from there and we got more imaginative with excuses why the Pope couldn't be reached including scuba diving with Robert De Niro and performing a one act play with Robert Downey Jr.
It was our last night in Italy and we went on a pub crawl put together by the hostel. Everything that we had learned, all the culture and art that we had taken in over the last 9 days we completely blew out in a night of heavy drinking and even heavier debauchery. There were so many students from so many different places. Leaving the 2nd bar there were people staggering, by the time we left the 3rd bar it was a full blown shit show. I left earlier than most, getting lucky on taking a bus. I can't speak to the rest of my compatriots, some of them probably ended up in the cave with the Pope. The next day we got to the airport and came back to Madrid. We were both worn out and it was good to be back, even if it meant dealing with Cristina's senile act again.
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