Rome with Uncle Bud - day 2

I have a confession to make. Since I just visited the Catholic capital of the world, I feel like this is the time to make a confession. In Rome, Brian and I did not visit the Sistene Chapel or the Vatican Museums or Trevi Fountain. We did not go into St. Peter's Basilica. I don't remember seeing any art by Caravaggio.
Readers, please pardon me for committing sins that neither Rick Steves nor the Let's Go guide would forgive.

We did, however, visit a fish and vegetable market, the old Jewish ghetto, and Mussolini's facist city-within-a-city. We rode crowded, graffitti-marked metro trains and bought socks from a singing Nigerian named Frank.

But we'll back up to day 2. Uncle Bud was hard at work in the interpreting booth, so Brian and I set out on our own. We visited the old capitol area of Rome, including the Victor Emmanuel Monument, the Forum and the Coloseum.

Forum

Forum

Colosseum

Victor Emmanuel II monument

There are places with ruins from the Roman empire that are better preserved. In Rome, bits of the empire are all over but usually in pieces, with crumbling columns and shattered foundations. Your imagination needs to work not only to fathom how old these buildings are, but to picture how imposing this pile of ancient bricks could have been. What I find most interesting is how Rome has grown up around the ruins. It's not a musuem but a living, growing, sweating city. Temples to the Roman gods became churches, and obelisks stolen from Egypt had crosses stuck on top. Basilicas built in the Rennaisance stand next to rubble from the classical era and across the street is a block of apartments and a busy cafe.

As it started to rain outside the Forum, the smartest people in town were the South Asian guys, who had put away their squeaky toys and started selling umbrellas and ponchos. We walked down to the Tiber River and got caught in a downpour, finding our way to kosher lunch in the old Jewish quarter. Then we walked up to the Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica. It's shaped with two huge arms that encircle the square in a big Catholic hug. The line to get in stretched all the way down one arm, across the front of the square, and into the other arm. We didn't wait. Instead, we crossed back into Rome (only time I have ever entered a new country on foot) and wandered into the nearby neighborhood.

We spent the next hour or two on the sidewalk under the green awning of a deli/bakery/convenience store drinking beer and looking at this church:

That's when we met Frank. We heard him first, singing a religious song as he walked up the street carrying big blue plastic bags. We started talking to Frank, who was impressed that we knew where Nigeria is and that it's an English-speaking country (it embarrasses me when African people assume that Americans, and probably Europeans too, know nothing about their continent). He chatted with us for a while and asked if we would buy some socks. We did. Then he told me that he believed I would be pregnant the next time he saw me. He was wrong. Fifteen minutes later he walked back past the deli and talked with us again. I was still not pregnant. We said a friendly goodbye and he walked away singing.

I have a soft spot for immigrants in most places, so it's no surprise that I liked Frank. But I liked the Romans too. Here's something that would never happen in Germany: in our kosher lunch restaurant, I waited in line for the bathroom. After a few minutes, the woman in front of me was tired of standing there and she banged on the door and shouted. A woman came out shortly afterward and shouted back. She walked away, the line moved on and everyone was satisfied. I liked the emotion, the talking with hands, the friendliness of the shop owner who had a whole conversation with me in Italian even though we both knew I didn't speak any.

Those are my confessions. Forgive me readers, but I don't feel guilty.