Day 43 To idle in Rome

17 Dec 2012

We took off at 8am today to explore whatever we could with what's left of the time we had in Rome. We had a full day yesterday, crossing out almost all we wanted to see from the map we were provided with. We saw the famous Fontana de Trevi, Piazza Spagna, the inside of the Basilica, and heard mass, half way through of which, I dozed. It was in Italian, you can't blame me! Next thing I knew, the homily was over. We were blessed with good weather, hence the full day outside.

Our flight was still at 1705 today, so from Conte House, we walked to the Colosseum to see it during the day. We did not have enough cash nor time to get in and avail of the 12-euro fee, so we just took photos from outside, strolled a bit, and enjoyed the presence of the often elusive sun.

There were Bangladeshi-looking street vendors calling out "maganda" or "mura lang", trying to get our attention to buy. But there was an old Italian man, from whom I wished I had bought those 24-piece deck of postcards he was selling me, only that I already bought postcards (for my collection) from the souvenir shops at the Vatican vicinity the other day. It was definitely a good deal, and heck, those were made of the same paper, but I wished I had bought from him. He spoke gently, almost to the point of breaking my heart, not trying to hard-sell me at all. I regret disappointing him, but we literally did not have much left in our pockets. I could only wish he sells a lot of his merchandise today and the rest of his life.

There was the Paletino structure just a stone's throw away from the Colosseum. We kept walking, guided by our precious map, toward Piazza Venezia. This one was huge! Literally like a white elephant in the middle of the intersection. We braved on, skirting our way into narrow streets as if we were a local, trying hard to feign mastery of the place so as not to attract any human predator on the look out for ignorant-looking tourists such as ourselves. On second thought, there was really nothing much to rob from us.

And then we reached The Pantheon. I used to build one of these in my Ceasar II games, an old-setting now-obsolete (I think) game similar to the Sim City. This one was huge as well. Now I know why, every time I construct a structure like this in my virtual city, I'd always lose A LOT of money. And then I remember, there were always some citizen idling around on the steps of these buildings--the many you see, the higher your unemployment rate. So, that's what I did: sat and idled on one of the front steps, leaned on one of the towering pillars, and asked my aunt to take a photo of me, as if an unemployed citizen. Felt good doing that. Somehow I felt I was crossing out an item in my invisible bucket list.

Inside the Pantheon was a church and the tomb of the artist Raphael. After that, my camera died.

We had gelato on the way back, one last item that we had to experience here. Then we understood why this humble creamy sensation IS a sensation.

The entire neighborhood was like painted rusty orange--it was as if we were walking literally within the walls of the Roman empire. The structures were overwhelming, if not intimidating. We were just ordinary citizens in this planet called Rome.

I kind of hated how we had to rush to see all these. To sight-see and remain tourists. I would have wanted to be a normal traveler, stopping whenever I feel like it, to take in all I lay eyes on, to observe people talking on their mobile phones, to listen to their melodic Italian accent, to auto-focus my eyes on whatever crawling bugs there are in this part of the world.

Like any tourist in a foreign place, I wished I had one more day to just idle around a little more. Without a map, without an itinerary, without rush, and maybe to make it less predictable, without any cash. #

A photographer can never go wrong with the Colosseum.

To idle on the steps of the Pantheon. I'm done.