Chapella Sistina und Rigoletto

Bienvenue mes amies, ça c’est le quatrième post de moi. Je suis toujours en Rom et aussi le final jour en ce lieu. Demain, je vais partir pour Firenze (Florence), mais ici est un petit souvenir de la Chapelle Sixtine et d’un Opéra qui s’appelle Rigoletto. En suite.

Actually am in Milan right now as this post goes up. The mention of leaving Rome and going to Florence, well that is a little backdated. Hmm...There was no wireless in Florence thus had to back log this entry. The Florence one is still a work in progress...okies, disclaimer over. On we go! =)

I believe that when we travel to different places in the world, we have an idea of where we would want to visit, what we want to see, what we must do. This is the last day that we are spending in Rome; we’ve seen almost everything there is and all that I want to. Sauf un; the Sistine chapel. It was closed yesterday, thus we decided to make another trip today to try our luck. Paulo Coelho wrote once that if you want something bad enough, the world will conspire to help you make it happen; how long it’ll take is another matter all together though. Consider me a museum and art buff; there is a subtle sublimity to art, a transcendent beauty which reaches beyond our mere corporeality and into the élan of the soul (to borrow a phrase from Sarris which is not totally out of context here…right kenji?).

Anyway, the day started slightly miserably; it rained the night before and continued till the morning. We walked out to wet wet world. It was like Paris all over again. A small digression here for all you el cheapos out there: here is a small way to save money on transport (just make sure you don’t get caught). Buses and trams in Europe require you to purchase tickets, which can be bought at either automated machines (Billetterie in French or Biglitetta over here) or at the Tabacchis (essentially the local version of mama shops). However, the onus is on you to validate your ticket on board the bus; the bus drivers only drive, they don’t bother bout ticketing. Thus, you can just simply hop onto the buses and ride for free. Don’t get caught though, if not there’s a small fine to pay. Not likely to happen though.
Okay, back to the main story. We hopped onto a bus (gratuit, bien sur) and headed down to the Vatican again. Guess what we saw.




And it was raining. Cold, wet and miserable. Again.


The queue stretched for the entire length of the Vatican wall, all the way into St Peter’s Square. Argh. So what do Singaporeans do best, or rather, when we see a queue, what do we do? Join it lah…It took over an hour of crawling through the snaking line to reach the entrance of the Vatican Museum. Given the misery that we had to suffer, the trip had better be worth it…

Well, it got from bad, to worse. Don’t get me wrong, the Vatican museum is beautiful, with many rooms filled with religious artifacts, icons and paintings. The place again is huge. But it was hapsolutely hapsolutely teeming with life. Felt like an orange in a Peel Fresh factory, or in a Jack Lalanne Juicer commercial; getting all my juice squeezed out, every single drop. And there were so many detours that they imposed on us to better manage the crowd; a normal 5 minute walk into the chapel turned into a 45 minute marathon. And Korean tourists are SHO rude! Kept pushing and shoving and speaking in that incomprehensible guttural tongue. Wanted to punch this irritating fella in the family jewels; he was just like those honkers in traffic jams, trying to force a way through a gridlock and when inevitably failing to do so, being an absolute idiot. With is no place to move, one just has to be patient, right? No, he had to push, push, push, even a mother in labour wouldn’t push half as much and with much less urgency. Koreans. Rain might be the poster boy of Korean men for some of you, but the common Korean is still very much unattractive. Or at least in my opinion. Dommage.

Enough griping for now. Finally we made it into the Sistine Chapel. For a Lit student, I find myself in the past two entries at a loss for words to describe what I see. Optimus Primate would be so happy to deconstruct me with Lacanian discourse on my failure. You have to be there for yourself and see Michelangelo’s masterpiece. There is no substitute for the real thing. Photographs are not allowed in the chapel…But…Well…



Had to take them all surreptitiously. Really poor photos, but it’s the best I could do. As a word of advice (and I hope you do take this and follow it), if you want to take photos of precious artwork in museums or as such, please do it without flash. You will cause undue stress to the colours and accelerate the degradation of the artwork. You take one picture with flash, the Japanese tourist take another one…the American another one hundred (them being idiots and all), so on and so forth…it all adds up. So please, be nice to paintings, switch off your flashes. Than again, it depends on what you understand by not flashing…either way, don’t do it. Flashing either way harms things…and some things are better left hidden. Period.


Don't think you can see the pictures really clearly. A pity though because the ability of the figures to just literarily stand out is amazing. The entire chapel is a huge exposition; even the pillars and drapes on the walls are actually painted on. They looked so real, the way they folded and the play of light on the satin-like surface. It was beautiful. We huddled together to get a shot of it =)

The paintings across the ceilings were representative of stories from the bible. Sitting at the corner of the chapel and looking up, it is amazing and almost beyond my faculty of comprehension on how one is able to transform vision into reality. The hand of the master is a work of art in itself. We picture beauty in our minds; Michelangelo extracts the pictures in his mind and turns them into physical entities, giving corporeality to an otherwise abstract irreality. The figures appear to move beyond the ceiling and walls and become three dimensional representations. You have to see it for yourself. As you look at the finger of god touching Adam’s, it looks almost real, as if truly for that one moment in time, man had been able to touch God; for however brief and flitting that moment might have been. And the loss of that touch becomes all the more painful, because we know that there exists an inevitable distance which is so close and yet so far.


The lovely spiral staircase that we have to take to exit the museum. And with that, it’s the end of the Sistine Chapel. If you have the opportunity, do go there; it is a trip well worth it.
For the first time since we came to Rome, we had a proper dinner. Walked across the road from our hostel to Mama Angelo’s to treat ourselves for our frugality and in the spirit of things as well; we bought tickets to watch Rigoletto, an opera by Verdi (if you know who he is). Truly arty farty. Ha. Dinner was wonderful; finally, hot food and meat. Had a beef fillet in Gogonzolla cheese. Mmm…total cost came to 15euros. It is actually really cheap if you don’t convert, and for the quality of the food, it was really good.


Nice huge slice of beef. Probably the last time I’m gonna be able to eat anything like this for the next few months though.

Rigoletto is an opera written by Verdi, based on the play Le Roi s’amuse (which loosely tranglated means "the king amusing/playing with himself". Go figure.) by Victor Hugo (he of the Les Miserables and Notre Dame de Paris fame). It was a three hour snore fest, Haha. There was this old guy who kept snoring. A really expensive nap. Okay I did rather enjoy it though, fell asleep only once. The opera is in Italian, understood almost nothing. But (and here is some pretentious pomposity coming up), the transcendentalism of music is such that it goes beyond language and words, feelings and emotions touch the âme of our existence, there is no need for mere explanations of the actions on stage. Just close your eyes and feel the joy, laughter, tears, pain, sorrow; the full plethora of emotions that make us human. That said, seriously, before going for an opera, read the synopsis or the novel. For all its transcendental abilities, I understood squat until I looked it up on Wikipedia; ever reliable, Marvell will testify to that =)

The experience of going to the opera for the first time was an interesting one. For one, we bought the most expensive tickets; they cost like 100 euros each but we paid student prices so it was half of that. And the fact that they were the only seats left. We had like the best box seats in the house. Felt like a moment out of some film; the one that came to mind was Match Point, at the opera house. And we were so underdressed. Everyone was dressed to the nines; we were like little dowdy, crumpy Asians. And I looked like I just came back from snowboarding in the Winter Olympics or something. It was the battle of mink coats against my ski jacket. Not much of a fight there…


This is the view I had from our box seats. Think I’d wanna try and watch other operas around the continent; I know I do want to catch La Traviata and Les Miserables some time in the future. And next time, will make sure I’m well dressed for the occasion, not like this time. So paiseh…

Okay, that’s all for today. Will be leaving Rome tomorrow and head for the beautiful city of Florence. Am really looking forward to it; and honestly, after 4 days in Rome, I’m glad to be moving on. Nothing much else to see or do here; been such a good boy and have not gone like clubbing around the place and getting myself smashed. Not yet anyway. =). Maybe in summer, will do an European drunk fest trip. Mmm…see how.
Bon, c’est tout. À demain mes amies. Santé!

Il Vaticano! Et un petit rendez-vous avec le Pape

Obelisk

Salut, je suis très heureux que vous etes toujours intéressé par mes aventures en l’Italie. Bon, on y va…

Sorry for the lack of updating the blog yesterday. The network was absolutely wonky and kept getting disconnected, and it didn’t help that I was trying to figure out how to work ‘Hello’ with blogger. Can only upload one picture at a time and each one a different blog entry…will have to try and figure it out later again. Gave up trying to do anything by midnight and just went to bed. Charissa battled the network demons though and managed to plough through the night and got hers updated. If you guys want an alternative view to our travels, go to coconutgreentea.blogspot.com and savour un different point de vue. Ça va?

Road leading to the Vatican

I believe several of you would have gone to the Vatican before so the following would not be any epistemological revelation. Here’s an overview of the Il Vaticano.

Saint Peter's Square

This was after we managed to get into the Vatican. To refute a dear friend (the who makes a lot of noise while playing mahjong, you know who you are), I have been getting up early this entire holiday, though it is not exactly my cup of tea. The pope apparently grants us plebeians the pleasure of his presence every Wednesday and Sunday, so if any of you want to meet the pope (or in this case catch a glimpse of him), these would be the best days to go. Of course, it doesn’t help that the rest of the world thinks the same way too.

Crowd queuing to get into the Basilica

We had to jostle with an amazing crowd of people; and this was at 0930. At times like these, being a Singaporean helps; us being perennial queue cutting championship contenders. It was so chaotic and disorganised that through a fortuitous stroke of luck (actually was pretending to take pictures and made my way through the crowd), I managed to get us to the front of the queue. Even then, by the time we got in, it was 1020. The pope was scheduled to make an appearance at 1030 and the entire Basilica was packed to the brim, with hordes of screaming school children. Later through a nice nun (another nice nun also gave us plastic Vatican flags to wave around…haha…will bring back to decorate the choir room), and through a lovely French couple who interpreted the Italian for me, the Pope was to give a special benediction for all students today, thus the spike in the number of people visiting the Vatican. We were really blessed to have been able to attend the short little service, and being students, the gravity and significance of that benediction could not be more poignant.

Pope giving his benediction

Pope Benedict XVI

The entire atmosphere was electric, almost like a rock concert. As the Pope made his way up the aisle, we could see the people just go wild, and I mean really wild. Jumping, screaming and general orgasmia; it was like the Pope was some rock star or K-pop idol rather than the religious head of the Catholic Church. But the most disturbing was the sight of nuns swooning as he stopped to talk to them. Haha. Too bad the picture I took of that moment was too blurred and far away, it was almost hilarious to see nuns in their habits jumping like teenagers. And it wasn’t just the younger ones that were behaving like that. The sight of old Sisters waving their flags frantically with a huge grin plastered on their faces and calling out to the Pope…whoa…the image still haunts my sleep. Getting the shudders just writing this out now…

Words fail me as I try to find the terms to describe the Basilica. If you have been there in person, you’d know the inadequacies of language to provide words to the majesty and awe of the place.

Basilica


Rear of the Basilica


More of the Basilica

All that you see on the ceiling, the frescos and murals, it’s all gold. Gold, gold and more gold. It’s a plethora of riches. The ceiling soars above us and the entire Basilica is cavernous. As I mentioned before, we do not have the same gravity or grandeur in Singapore. The spirit both soars and shrinks here; we are made to feel so small in the presence of God, yet a part of our soul finds the freedom to explore the space, to move closer to a state of prayer because of the space. We are called to look within ourselves, to find the small corner of peace that we so often drown out in the noise of our everyday lives.

We went down to the crypt where past Popes where buried and saw the tomb of the late Pope John Paul II.

Tomb of Pope John Paul II

Just want to say something. I guess that most of us go through life just bumbling through it, taking what comes to us and most of the time avoiding the need to make painful decisions or to take the easy way out. Maybe sometimes, we are called to lead a life less ordinary, just like the late Pope did. How many of us would have had the same courage and tenacity to stand up, to take that first step and take up the cross, no matter how big or small? Do we have the will to find the strength to do what is right and not just what is most convenient for us? Many are called but few are chosen; I guess many are called, but even fewer truly answer it.

We headed off to the Sistine Chapel but by the time we got there at around 1230, it was closed. The ticketing office opens from 0900 to 1220 only and the chapel/ Vatican Museum (they’re the same place) closes at around 1530. So, if you want to visit the chapel, you have to get there within those times. If not, you’d have to come back again another day; which was what happened to us. Tickets cost 12 euros and students pay 8. Must flash your student card though and you must be below 26. Mature students need not try. Ha.

Thus thwarted, we went in search of the Castel Sant’Angelo.

Castel Sant'Angelo

It’s another crumbling ruin; the façade still holds, but the interior is testament to years of wearing and tearing. The interesting point about this place is that it was a refuge for past popes to escape to. There is a land bridge that connects the Vatican to the castle; according to an Old Italian man whom we chatted with, in times of crisis or if the pope was in imminent danger from invading huns and what not, he would run from the Vatican and seek sanctuary within the walls of the castle. The image of an old man with his mitre and robes running for his life from the Vatican…haha…sho cute, too irresistible not to conjure that up.

Ok, my favourite part, saving the best for last right now. This has to be the cutest army in the world; I figured that the main reason for their uniform (and I hesitate to call it that; the word is costume, not uniform. A uniform is like our no.4. Even Malaysia’s ugly electric blue crap qualifies as one. Cirque du Soleil probably inspired the genesis of this one) is to distract the enemy. Too busy laughing, can’t attack the Vatican, problem solved. Must have taken them years to figure that out. And it works; the Vatican hasn’t come under siege for like what, 2-300 years? Perfecto. Now for the SAF…

Swiss Guards (clowns) =)

One More!

Shall leave you with this picture; sitting on St Peter’s square and just watching the world go by, something we can’t do back home. Wish you were here.

Enfin, c'est la tranquilite de la vie

Roma Roma, La Citta Bella...

As promised, here's the meat to the teaser in the previous post. Rome is a city of ruins; the litany of modern life exists within the ancient walls of antiquity. It is amazing how ruins dot the entire landscape and we see the world just passing by, as if they have been there forever. Oh wait. They have. Hmm...and by the way, all photos that are here are completely original...=)

But before I carry with the exposition on Rome, I have to dispense a small vitriolic on the f****ed up ness of budget travel. And do heed the following advice; its free. As Caeser once said (I think it's him, but as shome of you know, I can be wrong. like Marvell.), that while others learn from their mistakes, he learns from the mistakes of others. So here goes. We are poor students, so we try to find all ways and means to cut back on expenses. Our flight to Rome was in the morning at 930, but we had to be at the airport by 7...Mmm...so being the el cheapo that I am, I suggested to sleep at the airport overnight. It is an hour and a half out of Paris centre and it costs 13euros for the bus ride there; not exactly easy to make the 7am timing if we were to leave the next morning. Thus we set out for the airport the night before and squeezed on board overcrowded buses in the incessant rain. A miserable start. Great. But the best is yet to be. (like ACS' motto, though as we know, the "best" in that case will never be...notice the use of the conditional clause "yet to", thus the unfortunate implication that the best is not, and may never, be.)
On reaching the airport (which is called Beauvais[BVA] by the way; loosely translated, it means something like "beautiful going/ beautiful place to go". so not true.) we find that it closes at 2300 and we can't stay there. So we're stuck between a rock and a hard place; to go back to Paris (and we have nowhere to stay for the night there either), to sleep outside the airport (temperatures are sub zero, and the ba chang that i am cannot stand That cold a temperature), or to find our way to a hotel and spend inordinate amounts of money which is not in our budget. Devil and deep blue sea; not the best of choices. Deep blue sea it is (at least there's still hope of salvation and not eternal damnation. and given how "guai" i've been, i'd be burning for a very long time). The nearest hotel was 2km (alleged) away and it costs 70euros for the night. Thus we walked our way therein the freezing rain at 9pm at night. Mind you it might sound early, but the sun sets here at 1745 now, not like back home. There are no pavements, road signs and civilisation around the airport; we walked on with blind faith. 2km never seemed so far nor so miserable. In the army I've walked for whole nights and days and not felt this miserable. On the up side, the hotel was fantastic, given the price. Oh and there was wireless...wow. Anyways, we stayed the night and than hiked back to the airport at 630 the next morning. Sore shoulders and feet all round. bleah.

That's us along the cold, dark road...trying to look happy. The girl in the centre's Charissa and on the left Kelly. And that's me. Can see the rain dripping off my hood....


Caught in the act of eating a tomato at the airport...haha...think i look a little bit thinner..just a little...

The flight to Rome was alright; Ryanair was ok. Not the most comfortable flight, but hey, budget air travel, you get what you pay for. Okay, question and answer time; how do you know that you've left france and arrived in italy? (clue: The vatican is here; and god loves italians..he might be one) The sun shines on this land. While Paris was cold, wet and miserable, the minute we stepped off the plane (felt like movie star by the way, since it was off a gangway and not a port), the sun was blazing hot. Its cold here too in Rome, but at least the sun shines. (Geographically and not religiously speaking, it's cause Rome lies further South, thus closer to the equator. And Jesus was Jew, not Italian. Just in case you didn't know.)

Am staying in this hostel called the Yellow hostel...haha...i know, sounds wrong...but its relatively cheap, 20euros a night, and its located in a fantastic neighbourhood, close to the terminus and city centre. Breakfast is included in the price and there's free internet; if you have wireless, you can tap into the network here as well. So hey, if you're on a budget, it comes highly recommended. if you trust my judgement of course. Here's the street where the hotel is at; lovely architecture of the buildings, and they are old, largely around the 18th to 19th century.


Have done several of the touristy areas already:

The Coloseum; If you watched Ben Hur or Gladiator, you'd remember this place. And as the etymology of the name suggests, it is really big. How big? Well...about this big...


=)

Keeping in line with my current love for big, ruinous things...

started a love affair with a roman pillar at the Pantheon. As we all know (i'm assuming a substantial breadth of general knowlege here), the Pantheon used to house the Roman gods in days long past. Today it has been appropriated by the Catholic church and is now, well, a catholic church. On a small aside, almost all chruches in Europe are monuments. They are old, massive and extremely grand. Most of them have gold leaf on their walls and ceilings and beautiful frescos coloured with deep lapis lazuli and rich magentas. Some are so beautiful that it is almost vulgar. One can almost understand the frustrations that had arisen at the opulance of the catholic church which formed the foundations of the split by Calvin and Martin-Luther. There is so much gold and gilt, almost too much. You have to see it for yourself. But these churches in Europe have something magical about them that we lack in our local ones; they bear the gravity and richness of their age and there is a lovely sense of awe, nostalgia and calm when you enter them. One can just sit, pray and find that inner peace that eludes us in the hectic everyday which we live in.



This is the Fontana di Trevi, it is an extremely beautiful fountain, and it would have been romantic except for the huge crowd and touts. Beware of them and just reject their goods if you're not interested; they are mostly north africans or pakistanis and are trying to make a living here, but they can get on your nerves. And the crowds. Oh god, I have to speak out against the most obnoxious of all travellers, the specie Obnoxiono Americano. Americans act as if they own the world and the world owes them a debt of gratitude. They are rude and tend to dominate entire areas, showing scant courtesy to fellow tourists. The young adults are the worst; smug little know it alls. And they look down on us Asians, like we are still shackled with the chains of colonialism; the condescendence is just so blithe and blatant. For God's sake, I can speak better English than you, you little American twats, get a life.


Okies, for the last and not least of the presentation today, we go to the Piazza di Spagna! Like this photo best of all...haha..."kiam pah bin". The dome in the background is the Sistine Chapel; will be heading out to the Vatican tomorrow, hopefully will be able to catch the pope as well, maybe not an audience but at least a glimpse of his Holiness. Hopefully we won't have to try and play "Long Live the Pope" any time soon. Those of you who know what i'm talking about... =) The P.Spagna is another really old monument, it's a huge flight of stairs leading up to a church. Unfortunately it's undergoing restoration now, so no photos of that to show. But I do have this:

Technically speaking, this is how it's supposed to look like...in the 18th century...haha...

Okies, that's all for today from the land of pizza and pasta (the former is inexpensive relatively, the latter isn't). Will tell you how the visit to the Vatican goes tomorrow. Un fait bon, c'est tout maintentant; si tu es toujours interesse par mes aventures, n'oubliez pas reviendre de cette page, oui?
Ciao.