Saying Goodbye in German: Fire up the Grill

For the first twenty-three years of my life I labored under the mistaken impression that the barbeque was a strictly American pastime. On some level I thought the rusty communal grill in the middle of a leafy State park was a fitting symbol of my country. Then I came to Germany. The grill is a staple of every social gathering, maybe even more central than it is in the land of the Stars and Stripes.

Every sunny day is a cherished event on the German social calendar, maybe because winters are so dark and seem to stretch on ad infinatum. And sunny days are best enjoyed with charcoal. Once semi-warm weather moves in, the grill rolls out and every opportunity is seized to get people together with raw meat and beer. Maybe Ohio State was the exception, but we never had department grill-outs on Tuesdays to celebrate a faculty member achieving tenure. In short, they like to grill and they do it a lot. Maybe I should have seen this coming. This is the country famous for metts and brats. They must cook them communally every now and then.

So, when the Fulbrighters in the western half of Germany started kicking around ideas for the 4th of July, we knew we were guaranteed a typical backyard grill-out. The park would have a grilling section, and we would be able to bring everything our overburdened limbs could carry. We just needed to bring some patriotism and maybe track down some pyrotechnics to make it a truly American affair. We also had to bring our goodbyes as everyone started winding down in Germany and started preparing for life on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

We decided to meet in Heidelberg, a beautiful city along the Necker River in Southwestern Germany. I was particularly excited to see the legendary castle and the river Mark Twain compared to the Mississippi. My ride to the city was made particularly exciting by the domestic dispute at the next table over from mine which started with hushed angry whisper and ended with the Bee Gees-look-alike husband receiving a full purse to the face. Somehow the woman across from me managed to nap and I managed to hide my shock.

Upon arrival, Ben lead a tour through the shopping and restaurant district which basically involved following a single, mile-long street. The town is hemmed in by its river and the hills that support the massive castle, leaving a narrow but lengthy sliver of land for some urban sprawl. At a Schwäbisch bar we met Erin and Elise. In our enthusiastic catch-up we never figured out what we were doing to prepare for the next day’s festivities. This lead to what may be my third ring of Hell: unplanned group shopping. We are Fulbright scholars though, so we were able to organize our menu and divide duties with relative ease, surrounded by fresh produce and frustrated German women picking up the weekend’s groceries.

We walked out with just enough beer and more than enough meat. Marty, Marco, Ben, and I hauled our party across the river to a municipal park on the bank just as lighting started to illuminate the sky with natural fireworks. (Side note: When you buy a crate of beer in Germany, you're getting twenty glass bottles. That is a lot of liquid and a lot of glass to haul any distance. I believe transporting these weighty cases of alcohol has lead directly to the necessity of the German car in a country that could function solely on its public transportation.) Marty and Marco stayed with our supplies while Ben and I hiked back to his apartment so I could prepare Skyline dip in his apartment’s oven before looping back again. Ben’s apartment was conveniently located exactly one thunderstorm’s walk from the park. I would spend the rest of the day trying to get my underwear to dry out without perpetuating any ugly stereotypes about my homeland.

Eventually the dip was packed in a cooler with Elise’s fresh hamburger patties, my shorts were sufficiently wrung, and the party could begin. The next eleven hours were spent on the banks of the Neckar, grilling, eating, drinking, talking, and throwing around a football. Every now and then Ben would cut in with a rousing chorus of God Bless America, or the Coast Guard’s Anthem. It was the most authentic 4th of July I’ve ever experienced on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.

As the evening aged we started to say good-bye, promising to keep in touch as we each embark on the exciting lives as exhausted graduate students. I really have made some incredible friendships over the last year with people who will – unfortunately- be scattered across the lower 48. Of course, this dispersal provides a handy excuse to visit Chicago, LA, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and college towns of the Midwest like West Lafayette, Champaign-Urbana, and Madison. A year ago, these people were just names on a spreadsheet that Fulbright sent along to my in-box. I knew I wanted to travel, and wondered if any of these people would climb a mountain with me, or take a weekend trip to the Iberian Peninsula, or join me in a cavernous beer hall. Turns out they would.

The next day Marco, Ben, and I rolled back upriver to Bonn, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the castle-lined corridor that leads home. When I got back, I began furiously puzzling my way through my project, acutely aware that I only had my precious fossils for a few more weeks.

During a short break from puzzling to get lunch, I ran into three other graduate students from the Institute. They invited me to join them at the Mensa where I explained I would be skipping town at the end of the month. They were shocked I was leaving “so soon! You just got here, yes?” Man, I know that feeling. “Well, we must say a proper goodbye. We must have a barbeque!” I was a little skeptical of this idea. Would enough people really show up to see me off? They waved off my thought and decided we should hold the party on the 23rd, before Dr. Martin left with his family for vacation.

So yesterday I brought a case of Pilsner and some sausages. The graduate students – Julia and Sandra – tracked down the picnic tables, dragged out the grill, and brought the charcoal. Then people actually started showing up bearing a variety of salads and plenty of meat to grill. We passed wine and beer around at 1PM on a Thursday and enjoyed a cake that Sandra had baked to see me off. Then they presented me with a t-shirt. The front has the scowl of Beethoven and proclaims “Beethovenstadt Bonn.” The back was signed by the well-wishers, and each name was accompanied by a doodle depicting their specialty so I won’t forget Sandra works on ancient horses and Vincent works on rodent teeth. Along with the shirt, I opened a card everyone signed which was tricked out with a limerick composed by a Belgian:

A young lad from Ohio came to Germany
To expand his knowledge on paleontology
He only stayed for a year
Did he learn enough, you might fear
I assure you, he is ready for that PhD degree!

Beautiful. Maybe a few extra syllables wedged in there then would normally be acceptable, but the intention of the poem is much more important. After all this attention I really wasn’t sure how to fully express my gratitude to a group of people who have tolerated my meager aptitude for German, and my staggering aptitude for stupid questions.

I realize I haven’t written very much about Bonn on this blog, but know that I really have felt welcome and comfortable as I toiled on a project that I barely understood until very recently. I feel like I’ve just rounded the corner of calling many of these students and professors “friends” and now I need to say goodbye. A goodbye best said with a barbeque. (Another side note: A party hosted by a separate someone is a rare event. Normally you are responsible for bringing your own cake, and orchestrating the logistics. This leads to dirty German/Hobbit comparisons. A party hosted by other graduate students was an incredible gift that I attempted to repay by editing their English abstracts.)

I hope you have had the chance to gather around a gas or charcoal grill with people you love to spend time with and don’t ever want to say goodbye to. Just don’t do that in a public place with open containers. That’s a privilege strictly reserved for us German grillers, thank you very much.

Tschüss!

High Culture in London-town

The photo album featuring lovely London. The explanation of the final images will be up tomorrow!

Thursday night we had to make a difficult decision. What time were we getting up to wait for tickets for Waiting for Godot (the redundancy was not lost on us)? Some of the calculus: The guy at the ticket window told us to get there between 7 and 7:30. It would only take five people taking that advice to edge us out of our seats. It was also going to be a Friday. More people were in town. More people would want to see this. Reluctantly I plugged 5:15 into my alarm so we would get to the theater by 6. Oh boy.

Roughly four hours after going to bed, my alarm went off. I dragged myself up. Tim was opting to pass on a shower. For me, a morning shower is my morning coffee. I don’t feel like the day can get rolling without it. I used the women’s showers instead of the men’s since I didn’t feel like going down a floor and across the building. I reasoned there wouldn’t be many people up at 5:20 anyway. This was a well-founded hunch which became even more well-founded imminently. I got cleaned off and felt ready to find a line.

As I popped in my contacts, Tim continued to snooze. I started making some unnecessary noise to rouse him a bit. It was getting close to 5:45, we needed to move. As I pondered what to do he rolled over. “You know it’s 4:45, right?” I did not.

Apparently my phone doesn’t update itself when you hop time zones. My phone was still functioning on Central European Time. I had another half hour to snooze. I didn't even think about how much sleep I had actually logged. Nothing like starting an early day even earlier. Around 5:50 GMT we blearily wandered into the Tube and followed our bread crumb trail back to the theater.

There was the giant poster of McKellen and Stewart. Would there be a line? A lone figure moved near the box office door. We had made it. We would see Godot. We power walked up and were greeted by a tired by cheerful thirty-something Asian woman. Her: “You’re here for Godot?” Me: “Yup.” “Well, we’ll be here a while.” “How many are you picking up?” “Four. And you?” “Three.” “Oh, there’s a third person who didn’t need to get up with the sun?” “Yeah, but Mike’s doing our laundry for us instead.” “That’s what he says. He’s probably going to sleep until you meet up.” “No, not Mike. He’s on top of this kind of stuff.”

Her boyfriend, Ollie, showed up and the next four hours were spent happily chatting with these English creative writers while playing Hearts and teaching them Euchre. An Irish woman and her adult daughter appeared around 7:30. Six of us in line, and all the tickets were claimed. People tacked onto our short line right up until 10, hoping for cancellations. The last 15 minutes dragged for hours compounded by an awkward conversation with a guy in line behind the Irish women who wanted an American opinion on Michael Jackson’s death. He then leapt to a Princess Diana comparison and finally just grinned and stared. We were also pestered by an American tourist who was trying to pay someone to repeat the exercise the next morning to get him and his wife seats. Ubiquitous relief when the box office finally opened its doors.

My view for four hours of the London Street. We got to watch the traffic become denser as the morning advanced.

I've fought pretty hard for some pretty difficult seats (see here and here for examples), but this was one of the most satisfying ticket-line experiences. The seats were cheap but very good making the effort completely justifiable. In New York they sell rush tickets by raffle, making it difficult to plan your evening if the raffle is at 4 and you may or may not actually see the show. Here we had taken all the necessary steps to make sure we had seats, and we had all day to explore the city without worrying about returning for vouchers or getting into the line two hours before showtime.
Mike was supposed to meet us at 10, our laundry freshly folded. At 10:15 he showed up, winded and apologetic. “My alarm didn’t actually wake me up.” Sophia nailed it. Yoonhee had relieved Mike of his duties while he frantically scrambled to meet us. We were pretty punchy at this point and really didn’t care all that much. We had three tickets for the front row of a once-in-a-lifetime performance. All for ten pounds.

Flush with our victory, we did exactly what I expect every London theater patron does after purchasing fantastic seats. We went to the Natural History Museum.

Okay, we did this via Buckingham Palace. We followed the stream of tourists from the Tube stop and found ourselves watching goose-stepping red-coats in fuzzy hats entering the palace gate. We were probably the only tourists in town who just stumbled into the changing of the guard instead of making it a high priority.
Keeping close tabs on our wallets, we extracted ourselves from the hoards and continued to Sir Richard Owen’s brainchild.
I think half of London’s school children went to the museum that day. The line snaked from the imposing, columned entrance, over a bridge and onto the sidewalk. This was especially disconcerting because there is no entry fee and no real explanation for the line. It did give us plenty of time to scrutinize the exterior which is detailed with pterodactyls and saber-toothed cat gargoyles. It reminds me of Orton Hall writ large.

When we finally got inside we dove to the left and into the Hall of Dinosaurs. This is my third visit to the exhibit and it felt like seeing an old friend again. The audio-animatronic dinosaurs have been shuffled, and the descriptions of the extinction event updated, but it still has the mysterious allure of the past as bones and reconstructions loom around myriad corners, a maze of paleontolgy.

The first dinosaur fossil ever recognized as the remains of an giant, extinct reptile. Thank you Gideon Mantel.

From the dinosaurs, into the mammals where a life-sized blue whale model reminds you how punny our species, or any species, is when compared to the ocean’s giants. We power walked past pachyderms and peccaries and finally dove into the Earth History section where they theoretically discussed energy (Tim’s specialty).
The entrance hall was cavernous, but didn't have much educational value. A model of the solar system painted across the wall made no attempt to show the scale of the planets or the distances between them. We rode an elevator into a copper-sheeted globe. I thought the globe might illustrate plate tectonics or the layers of the Earth, but no. It was an enormous modern art installation.

We were getting hungry and I had seen enough fossils and dead animals to sustain me for the rest of the trip. On to fish (technically a dead animal, but it's hard to eat a stuffed red panda) and chips. A couple of blocks from the museum we found a dark pub with all the staples: Fish and chips, bangers and mash, and savory pie of the day. We decided this would do for our English ethnic experience. Unfortunately we walked into yet another corporate business social. Everyone wore pressed dress shirts and conducted their social exchanges with a hesitency that belies spending time with people you see every day, but don’t really know that well.

We people-watched and eventually our beer and comfort food arrived. Mike and I went in for local, hand-pulled ales. We forgot the British aren’t ones for chilling their kegs until we took our first warm sip. Cheers.

British food gets knocked around a lot for lacking small things like flavor or character. I disagree with this assessment. British food is hearty stuff and the muscular food doesn’t need spices to make an impact and sate your hunger. The fish is meatier, the mashed potatoes are denser, and the sausage requires small bites or you won’t get it down. With a strong ale, there are few cuisines that leave me so exhausted or so full.

The exterior of the Plunder Museum.

With good British grub in our systems, it was time for a good British Museum. In 1753, the British Empire opened the door to what I affectionately term the Plunder Museum. The British Museum has artifacts from every civilization and time period that the Empire ever conquered or explored. You can spend a lot of time in there, so I lead a highlight tour to the Rosetta Stone, then into the Assyrian and Babylonian collections and finally to the Greeks. We spent some precious time with the Elgin Marbles, a significant portion of friezes taken off the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.
Over lunch I tried to explain the significance of the marbles and the controversy surrounding the British lord’s extraction of the sculptures from Athens:

Tim: Did someone lose their marbles?
Me: Yeah, the Greeks.
Mike: What are they made out of?
Me: Marbles of marble.

I thought the joking was a sign I should stop the archeology lecture. After the marbles we visited the Asian artifacts where Mike was able to bust out his Chinese linguistic and historic skills to the delight of two Chinese women who we guided through the vast museum.


We glanced at a mummy on the way out and my head spun from our blazing trail through history. As we left, Tim smacked himself over the head:

Tim: Oh man, we forgot to see the marbles!
Me: No we saw them, you guys thought they were really pretty.
Mike: When?
Me: Um, the big room with all the Greek friezes?
Tim: Wait, what? We thought we were going to see marbles.

Hmm. Turns out I need to remember that most of this planet doesn’t have a working knowledge of the English-Greek tension over these 2500 year old sculptures.

We scurried back to Goodenough to snag a quick nap, then meet Yoonhee for dinner. After e-mail was checked and conversation subsided, Tim and I only ended up with about a half-hour of extra snoozing under our belts before grabbing Japanese food and setting off to see if our exhausting morning waiting for Waiting for Godot was really worth it.

As we filed into the theater, a sharply dressed Londoner called out, “Hey, Tim!” I wondered if this was a friend of Tim’s from school who just happened to be in London and seeing our show. Before I could reflect on the statistics involved in such a meeting, I realized this was Ollie, the guy we had played Hearts with that morning, only now he was showered, wearing contacts, and dressed for a Friday night out in London. His girlfriend, Sophia, was also dressed to the nines, her eyes carefully lined and her heels giving her an extra four inches.

Usually only your best friends know what you look like when you’re at your most scrubby and can really appreciate the difference a shower and new wardrobe can make. I felt even closer to my fellow Waiters. Of course, this feeling probably wasn’t reciprocated since Tim and I were wearing the same stuff we were modeling at 6AM. Plus we were rocking mussed, late-afternoon-nap hair.

It was time to take our seats. I could count the hairs in Ian McKellen’s beard. I could see every twitch of Stewart’s fingers. I could see every bead of sweat on Simon Callow’s brow. They were in our laps, and they were fantastic. When McKellen walked downstage to set his boots on the edge of the set, he could have fallen into Michael’s lap. During intermission we watched people reverentially approach the boots to poke them, then scramble away. Anyone who says the human connection to relics is bogus should watch how people deal with props touched by the famous and talented.

Most people hold this opinion of Waiting for Godot:

It’s just weird and confusing. But these performers were able to draw out the real drama Beckett built into his play. He didn’t see theater as a string of things happening. Instead he saw it as an exploration of relationships. Waiting for Godot is about Vladimir and Estragon, two guys who have spent a lot of time together, doing exactly what the title says. They don’t know why they’re waiting, but they’re pretty sure they should. They care for each other and tick each other off. Two travelers on the road stop by for some banter and existential musing, then the first act is over. The second act is more waiting. But again, with these performers, it was about how these couples function. How they make it through the day. How essential it is to have a companion.

After the show Mike and Tim were gracious enough to follow me to the stage door for autographs. My brother collects programs and I wanted one from this show to be part of his birthday present. The stage door was around the back of the theater and faced a quiet alley that was filled with flower boxes and the Filipino embassy.

Stewart was out first. He generously signed everything the small crowd presented him, thanking us for our adoring comments. Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup quickly followed. It would be another 45 minutes before Gandalf finally appeared. He tested everyone’s patience and stamina. Tim and I were working on a deficit to begin with, but we knew he had to leave at some point and we had already dumped this much time into the effort.

He didn’t disappoint. After he emerged he chatted amicably with everyone. One girl told him, “I can’t wait for The Hobbit to come out!” “Me neither.” Class act. Really they all were, carrying themselves with thespian dignity while also appearing entirely approachable. No wonder they get to play old men with power, charisma, and wisdom. They don’t really have to try.

With all four autographs in hand, it was time to find one more pub before the night was over. This was Michael and Tim’s last day in Europe and it wouldn’t do to just wander home from the theater and collapse into bed for a few hours before rising with the dawn to catch flights to parts East (Thailand for Mike) and West (Pittsburgh for Tim). We were exhausted, but needed one more toast. We found it near Goodenough College.

The place was all low wooden benches, tarnished mirrors, and ancient photographs. Just what we needed. We raised our glasses to an exhausting trail through Western Europe. Ten days. Four countries. A Dozen cities. Four battered feet. We earned our Euro-tripping stripes and it would be my pleasure to wander with them again. But first I need a nap.

Cheerio!
The London album again.

The Barbarians Conquer Rome

The second photo album of Rome with images of the Vatican, the Pantheon, and the streets of the city. Unfortunately several of the places we visited on the last day don't allow photographs so you may need to rely on my adjectives to get the picture (and pictures taken from Google image searches).

After another night interrupted by drunken roommates who had clearly had spent too much time together (“Ya know, I don’t think you want to be here. I think you hate it here!”) and another morning spent fighting for breakfast, we were on the street hiking past plazas and churches (you can’t walk through Rome without plenty of both) for the Villa Borghese gardens a large English-style garden that houses the Borghese Museum (go figure).

The Museum was once the home of Cardinal Scipione Borghese who was an early patron of Bernini. It’s a relatively small collection but it packs in the big names including all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because of its size, they only let 150 people in at a time so we called two days earlier and got the 9 AM slot. We only had two hours to tour the place before we were kicked out and the next 150 got to come in.

The first floor features a series of rooms with Bernini sculptures and the occasional Canova in the center and paintings on the walls. Each room was a quiz called name-that-myth. Venus, Pluto, Apollo, and Mercury all made appearances along with special guests from the Bible like a more determined David than Michelangelo’s. I think the most stunning sculpture was Apollo and Daphne. Bernini carved them right as Daphne, a tree spirit, transforms herself. They didn’t let us bring cameras, so here’s an image ripped from the Internet. You really need to see the leaves:

Upstairs were the paintings with every school and country represented. Really the Borghese would be a great primer on Renaissance and Baroque art before tackling one of the expansive European museums like the Vatican or the Prado…I would like to take this moment to remind you that this is the blog of a paleontologist living in Germany. If you think I babble more about art history in countries other than Germany than about fossils, stay tuned. The fossils are coming. But also know one of the great experiences of this year has been learning about the history of Western Art by actually visiting all these incredible collections. I already knew I would learn a lot about dead animals. Back to excitement about art…

Finally we were ushered out, slightly disappointed that a finished work by DaVinci was on loan. After the Last Supper we were doomed to see the stuff he never finished painting. Then we wandered into the garden, having finished a museum before lunchtime. We sat by an idyllic fountain and listened to a man play Vivaldi and Mozart on his recorder. We might have sat there all day if, you know, we weren’t in Rome.

Our next destination was the Pantheon. The building was constructed first by Agrippa (a buddy of Augustus) then Emperor Hadrian (after the first burned down) who had the bright idea of capping the temple to “All-Gods” with a massive dome. It’s the largest, unreinforced concrete dome in the world. How’s that for a superlative?

The dome thins towards the occulus and the admixture of the concrete gets lighter (pumice instead of granite) as you get closer to the top. It’s spectacular.

Really gazing into the Dome is the only reason to go in. The niches used to house sculptures of the major Olympian gods, but the place became a church in 609 and the sculptures were hauled out. The religious art inside the Pantheon - or the Church of St. Mary and the Martyrs, coincidentally the name of my Christian rock band – isn’t too inspiring, but the bodies are. Raphael is buried under the vault, along with the first king of Italy, Emmanuel II.

After staring upward in awe just a little longer, it was time to continue our journey south of the city to the Appian Way.

When Christianity started to take root in Rome during the 2nd century, the Christians needed a secret place to bury their dead. Fortunately the volcanic tuff around Rome is easy to dig out and sets like concrete once exposed to air. At least forty catacombs have been discovered around the city. The one we were headed for contained 15 km of tunnels on multiple levels that burrowed under the fields and roads leading to Rome. To get there we had to take a bus then actually walk the ancient cobble stones of the Appian Way. It was lined with farms and ruins. After a stroll past long lines of pine and olive trees we arrived at the Catacombs of San Callisto.

There wasn’t much to see, just a ticket booth and groups of older tourists wandering around. You must wait for a tour guide to enter the Catacombs and we were never given any timetable of languages and tours. We just waited and wandered aimlessly with the older folks.

Then a busload of Scottish Tourists arrived, excitedly discussing the workout they were about to undertake. They clearly spoke English (or Scottish as the case may be) and we thought we would probably have an English tour very soon. An Australian Salesian priest appeared and called for the English-speakers to gather. The Pope has charged the Salesians with curating the catacombs and the priests act as daily guides. Our Scottish companions were giddy with anticipation. After an introduction on the history of the site and the art we would see underground, Father started to lead us into the ground. Josh and I fell into the back, figuring we had the best ears in the group and would be able to hear over the rest of the Scots. We didn’t bank on the Spanish and Italians following close on our tails.

We did catch the important points though. We entered a room where the Early Christians met for the Eucharist. One group was discovered and all quickly became martyrs. The tomb of St. Cecelia was also in the catacomb. The Priest/Guide/Australian asked, “Does anyone know what she is the patron saint of?” Everyone chimed “Music!” And giggled with delight at getting the answer right. It was like being in kindergarten (not that I didn’t enjoy kindergarten). This furthered my theory that aging is really just an attempt to escape childhood followed by eventual acceptance of immaturity once again.

The walls were decorated with frescos of the Eucharist, Baptism, and the symbols of Christ like the fish and anchor. Many of the people who were buried in the catacombs converted at a dangerous time and are rightfully respected for their courage. What I think is more remarkable is how many were converted simply by hearing the message. There wasn’t a whole lot of literature going around. It was just people speaking about the gospel, and these people left families and traditions to follow something new. Talk about an intense historical moment.

The Scots were part of a church group and their priest started to set out the bread and wine and pass out readings in one of the worship chambers in the catacombs. We were invited to participate. Two forces were pulling Josh and I in two directions: The Rabid Tourist was drawing us back to Rome. There was still so much to see. The Guilty Catholic was compelling us to stay for mass in the catacombs (not a bad experience either). We received the tour guide’s blessing to move on. As we walked out he showed us Greek inscriptions and frescos that he wasn’t able to share with the larger, more geriatric group. We emerged from the Christian-made caves and walked back to the bus stop along the Appian Way.

Through the course of this Italian journey I was reading The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. It recounts his adventures with a tour group along the Mediterranean and eventually to the Holy Land. In it he described the Capuchin Crypt. His description fascinated me and forced me to put it on the itinerary.

In the 1500s someone brought some soil from Jerusalem and presented it to the Capuchin friars. Naturally, everyone wanted to be buried in the soil of the Holy Land. Soon there were more bodies than dirt. So the friars took the next logical step. The started piling the bones of their deceased brothers on top of the soil in the crypt. Well that didn’t look very good, so someone came up with the idea of using the bones as Lego bricks.

The skeletons of over 4,000 Capuchin brothers who died between 1528 and 1870 were used to construct the decorations of chapels lining the crypt. Columns of femurs and tibiae are crowned with skulls and mandibles. Fleur-de-lis made of ribs and lantern holders of illia and coxyxes hang overhead. There were even skeletal Putti made with a skull and two scapulae for wings. In the final room of the small crypt was a sign in five languages that read, "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be...” It was time to be uplifted. So we decided to climb St. Peter’s Dome.

We didn’t have time for it the day before, and we were running tight on time so we jogged to the Vatican. They let us in, we bought our ticket and we started up the first flight of spiraling stairs.

We emerged at the base of the dome (which was designed by Michelangelo) and were able to get close to the massive (that word is impossible to avoid when describing St. Peter’s, it doubles as an unintentional pun) mosaics and really appreciate the expanse of open space over the altar.

A service was going on below us, and the people were nearly impossible to distinguish from one another.

We were really high up and we still had stairs to climb.

The next flight followed the curve of the dome as we walked between the copper covered exterior and the cement, mosaic-encrusted interior. The hall actually warped as we rose to the peak and finally emerged and saw this:

Well, we saw this and a bunch of people trying to photograph this. It was tough to find a spot, but we elbowed in and started pointing out all the landmarks we could see and stood in awe of the number of domes this city can lay claim to.

With a final salute to the city, we climbed down again, past the famous statues over the facade of the Basilica, and did some souvenir shopping. Our most important purchase was real Italian cannoli. The ricotta, vanilla, and chocolate chip-filled pastry was perfect for capping a long day wandering all over the city.

After dropping off our gifts at the hostel, we needed one more meal. The Italians like to eat in several courses and Josh and I hadn’t done the full culinary tour that starts with an antipasta plate, then pasta (go figure), then meat, and finally coffee and desert. I mused on where to go and Josh sheepishly suggested La Montecarlo, the chaotic place we had been the first night in Rome. We’ve been well trained not to duplicate an experience on vacation, but we also felt we had rushed the restaurant the first time. We knew it would be cheap and we would be able to get the full traditional meal. Off to hang with Monty.

It was a Saturday night and the place was packed. A line had formed in the alley next to the restaurant where large groups of locals negotiated with the waiters and each other for a spot to eat. We stood back and watched the blur of food and motion and smiled. This was Italy. We were asked several times for how many were in our group, but never by the same person and never on a piece of paper or notepad. The party behind us was inexplicably kicked out, and the couple ahead of us was seated before the couple ahead of them. The inefficiency of the operation was frustrating to my American and new German sensibilities. I leaned in to Josh, “Remember, these are the descendents of the people who built the aqueduct. These are the people who conquered Europe before telephones. What happened?” At the same time the energy of the place was infectious. I was willing to wait and watch, even if it meant being seated at 10:30 PM and not getting our first course until 11:15.

We toasted the city and a successful journey across the Italian Peninsula. We ate fried artichokes, sipped wine, and spun real Italian spaghetti. We also were stuffed. Our dreams of getting through all the courses were quashed by a skewed Italian perception of portion size. After midnight, it was time to do some last-minute exploring. We needed to find the Trevi Fountain. It’s a Roman icon and if you pitch a coin into the water, you’re assured another visit to the city, or maybe a chance to fall in love, or even a new Vespa. I guess it depends on your frame of mind. We found some useless small change and sacrificed it to Neptune then watched groups of friends and lovers eating gelato and tossing coins. I really hope I get to come back.

We continued to wander and chat in search of a bar for a parting drink (a Kemble cup, if you will). Afterwards we made the unfortunate decision to walk back to the hostel. An hour-long hike across Rome, buzzed and tired, is not the way to cap off a Saturday night despite what you may have heard. We were tucked in at 3 AM and my alarm went off at 5:50 AM. Groggily we packed, brushed our teeth, and hurried to the bus station where my airport shuttle was waiting. Because of the rush, Josh and I exchanged a quick hung goodbye, and I was gone, rumbling past ruined aqueducts for the airport and my Ryan Air flight back to Frankfurt-Hahn. Josh left a little later by train for the International Airport. As I took off from Italy, last minute postcards recently dispatched, I tried to reflect on the previous two weeks. It was almost too much to process.

I can’t tell you how many paintings I scrutinized, statues I walked around, or times I said “wow.” I can tell you that I saw, did, and said all of that with my brother. The previous five years didn’t afford us very much time together, and this trip reintroduced us to each other as we start the unenviable task of becoming adults. We probably won’t be able to share as many memories together for a very long time, and that thought really bums me out, but for now I’m just happy we were able to share two weeks on the boot.

I hope you have some time to spend with your family, biological or surrogate, this weekend. Only two more months until I am reunited with mine!

Ciao!

The final Italian photo album. Have fun!

Vatican Romin'

Here's a photo album that has pictures from our tour of Ancient Rome and the beginning of our adventures in the Vatican. Tomorrow I'll attach another album with the rest of the Vatican and our final day doing as the Romans do.

Warning: Beyond this place there be art.

Our hostel in Rome was one of the strangest I’ve briefly slept in. Josh and I woke up at our usual 7-ish and saw people! The showers were occupied and we puttered around, fighting for breakfast rolls and downloading photos from our cameras. The photo part took a little longer than expected and we got a later start than planned when we boarded the subway and started rolling to Vatican City.

We popped out of the station (with an Angels and Demons poster overhead. Clearly someone saw a marketing opportunity) and didn’t see much that would indicate a separate, sovereign country was nearby. Literally no street signs or big arrow that said “Vatican.” A very German-looking tour group was walking in a direction that seemed right-ish. We compulsively followed.

And there we were, walking along the massive wall that encloses the smallest country –by landmass and population – in the world. This independence has only existed since 1929. I’ve always thought it was pretty cool that the Catholic Church has its own country, but really it’s a shadow of its former real estate. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the only stable power in Rome was the Church. It ruled Rome for centuries. In order to keep the Catholics from meddling with Mussolini, he separated them from Italy. I just wish they required you to stamp your passport when you cross the border.
Because we were running a little late, we forwent the traditional entrance through St. Peter’s Square and went straight for the Museum. It was sprawling and at varying stages of modernity. Some displays offered detailed explanations of the art and artifacts (the Eutruscans were particularly well-covered) while others barely offered the artist's name (the Renaissance Picture Gallery). I waffled over getting expensive audio guides to accompany the journey. Josh just dove in. I followed. Really, he had the most to gain with the guide anyway since it would have shut me up. Maybe by now he’s learned his lesson.

We started with the Early Christian Art, most of which was recovered from the catacombs that surround the city. Early Christians used a very different iconographic language than their Medieval counterparts. Where Gothic churches are filled with images of the crucifixion and the Madonna (to the point where you wonder if there’s anything more to the Christian story than Death and Mary) the sarcophagi were covered with intricate scenes of redemption and miracles. God stays the hand of Abraham, Jonah makes it out of the Great Fish, and Jesus raises Lazarus.

The Good Shepherd (not actually a representation of Christ) was eclipsed by the Christ on the cross. There's an interesting psychological shift to think about.

Why don’t we use these more jubilant images more often in Christian iconography? We’re still more interested in the martyred saints than the Love of God. But that’s just my two cents.

Our first taste of Raphael through his Transfiguration.

Then we entered the picture gallery to spend some more time with Late Medieval artists, the Renaissance masters like DaVinci and Raphael, and then into the Baroque with Caravaggio and Ruebens.

Caravaggio showing the internment in the tomb.

But we’d seen a lot of that before. So we headed into the Ancient Art.


The Vatican literally has entire hallways packed with ancient statuary. Every patrician’s bust ended up in their vaults and every emperor is represented at least six times. The noble robes of politicians and bared flesh of the gods leads the way to some of the most important statues from the ancient world such as Laocoön and His Sons.

The doomed priest is famous for saying, “I fear the Greeks, even when bearing gifts.” The gods didn’t like his suspicions about the Trojan Horse, so they sent giant serpents to kill him and his sons. The bulging muscles and vivid expressions were shocking to Hellenistic Greeks and a revelation when they came out of the ground and people like Michelangelo took a gander. The statue was impressive, but not nearly on the scale I imagined it. Laocoön is life-sized if slightly smaller and fits comfortably in his niche in the courtyard of the Belvedere garden.

Another highlight of the Greeks was this bizarre statue of the Nile who seems to be suffering a plague of babies rather than a plague of frogs:

Mummies, Eutruscan jewelry, and Greek Pottery paraded by. We were flashing back and forth across 3,500 years of art history and the whiplash was starting to wear us down. It was time to settle comfortably in the Renaissance. Down a sequence of hallways that must have stretched for a half-mile were gorgeous Flemish tapestries.

Along a massive stretch of hallway were 40 maps, primarily of Italy, all painted by a single cartographer. On the ceiling were painted scenes from the lives of the saints and Bible that somehow corresponded to each region and country. It made me wish I knew my Italian geography better, not to mention the lives of the saints.

We were getting close to the Main Event as we followed signs for the Sistine Chapel. But first we needed to see Raphael’s masterpieces including the School of Athens in which all the heroes of the Renaissance get dressed up as Greeks. Davinci takes a turn as Plato, Bromante (the guy who designed St. Peter’s) is Euclid, Raphael as Apelles, a famous Greek Painter and so on.

Then it was time to see Michelangelo. Throughout the week Josh had been reading “Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling” by Ross King and had been our source on Renaissance characters, especially Mike. He was grinning his dimples off as we finally stepped through a small door and looked up.

The ceiling is expansive and incredibly high. This is a key point because you need to crane your neck to take it in. You look up, then need to roll your vertebrae, and try to soak it all up again Figures ripple with motion and energy. As with so many other famous work’s we’d seen, it lived up to all the hype.


On the wall below the story of Creation is Michelangelo’s later Last Judgment. The Optimism of the Renaissance was fading in Italy (the Reformation had started to divide Europe) and the Last Judgment shows it. Instead of balanced figures elegantly aloof, we see pain and anger as a muscular Christ (with a torso borrowed from a statue of Hercules) hurls sinners downward. Something Baroque and Mike wasn’t ready to fix it.

Then we finally popped out of the museum. We had probably walked a couple of miles through the halls, but we still needed to see the object of our religious pilgrimage: St. Peter’s Basilica. After a quick sandwich at the cheap but poorly advertised museum cafeteria, we walked out and followed the wall through a colonnade and suddenly broke out into Bernini’s St. Peter’s square. Hundreds of columns formed massive arms embracing the devoted. We saw the windows the Pope occasionally pops out of (he was in the Holy Land at the time we were there) and searched for the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. We never located it.

Time to go in. Walking past yet another obelisk and more signs to cover our knees and shoulders, we crossed past the sealed Jubilee Door and entered the Cathedral. It wasn’t all that shocking. I think I was more moved by my first view of the Cologne Dome. It just didn’t seem all that big. Then I saw people shuffling around near the alter, barely discernible forms under what looked like a normal-sized canopy. But the canopy was 100 feet tall. The scale slowly sunk in as I realized the statues were two stories high. It was massive, but everything was massive. The figures ensconced near the ceiling were larger than those at ground level. With the perspective they looked like they were the same size and the roof closer than it was. It was hard to appreciate the scale without people crawling on the ceiling.

This scale is intentional. The building was built to hold tens of thousands (60,000 have crammed in before). That’s a lot of people and you can feel lost in a massive, distant place of worship, so the scale makes it feel smaller, more intimate like your worship space at home. Except my worship space doesn’t sport work by Michelangelo, Canova, or Bernini.

Under the grate is the tomb of Peter and the reason to build the massive worship space that surrounds it.

I don’t know how spiritually moved I was as I gazed in awe at mosaics, the play of the light over gold leaf, or the Statue of St. Peter that has been an object of devotion for centuries. I wasn’t really thinking about God. I was thinking about the men who had conceived this project, who had built these walls, and installed the art. There is no modern building that took such effort. I know the logistics of building a sky scraper or stadium are daunting, but we use steel. We have motors. This was all built with simple machines and muscle in the 16th century. All for the glory of God, but also demonstrating the achievements of men.


Onto the street. On to food. We followed a Lonely Planet recommendation to a restaurant called “Dino and Tony.” The façade didn’t look like much. In fact we walked past it at first. It was roughly 7:00 PM when we poked our heads in the door. It was dead. One table sat eating. That was it. Suddenly the perfect stereotype of the Italian restaurant owner burst from the back. “To eat?” “Yes.” Suddenly another guy appeared the room was entirely rearranged as tables merged and divided. We stood and watched the swirl of activity we had somehow sparked. When the dust settled, we were shown to a neat table in the center of the room.

Tony asked something. Josh instinctively nodded. Another question. He nodded again. Tony was confused then turned to me, “Bianco? Rosso? (White? Red?)” “Bianco.” Then another question. We nodded.

Soon we had a feast spread before us. We had ordered a half-liter of white wine and an antipasta plate that was actually made up of three plates, one with a pizza, one with fried things, and a final cheese and meat plate. We had planned to just stop in for a snack. This was dinner. We watched Tony bicker with Dino and help a couple decide what kind of pasta they really wanted. I think he would be ready to make-up a whole new recipe on the spot if you wanted him to. When we told Tony it was time for us to move on without pasta, he looked hurt. After a day spent recharging my Catholic roots, my guilt almost forced me to order something.

But we made it out, and started to hike towards the Castel Sant'Angelo, a set piece in Angels and Demons, and refuge for Popes on the banks of the Tiber River. We thought it would be a nice walk around the building, but as we approached we saw a large gathering of people. We were curious what everyone was excited about. I saw a sign that said “1000 Miles” that had a Fiat logo on it. Then the engines roared and we saw a parade of cars from the 1930s go by. Reporters interviewed the drivers who were on a cross country race and had reached a check point. I really wanted to cross the Castel bridge which was near the main stage and the sitting VIPs, so I dove into the crowd. I also wanted to see the speaker’s platform. This was not one of my better ideas.

The crush of humanity increased its pressure around us as we got closer to the bridge. I haven’t felt that cramped since I saw Obama in Prague. Children were being passed over the crowd, or were nearly crushed under the spectators’ feet. Finally we broke onto the bridge. Josh gave me a look that said “Never Again.”

We sat and watched the proceedings from the bridge with our feet hanging over the Tiber, decompressing after a day spent absorbing some of the most important pieces of art in Western Civilization. It was heady stuff which meant we needed beer, gelato, and bed. Only one more day in the Eternal City…

The pictures one more time.