Most of our first week in Rome was spent walking to the Vodaphone shop in Via Corso to try to get the two internet pens to work!! One for me and one for the children to stay in contact their friends -being teenagers, facebook had become very important. If anything is remotely difficult in Australia then the same is enormously difficult in Italy in another language.
Technological language is another language in itself and can lead to hair being torn out!! I was so frustrated in my efforts that I bought another internet pen from Wind phone company too but that too did not work for a week even though the charmingly handsome salesboy promised me that it would. They just neglect to tell you the finer details like… you have to activate the thing first before you use it!!!
I find the young salespeople in the shops in Italy very unhelpful and Romans are so ‘over’ tourists as their city is the most popular city in the world filled with millions visiting this city more any other.
Always be extremely polite to a Roman if you are asking directions because if you are rude then they will actually give you the wrong directions on purpose!! So still at the end of the week, we had three internet pens with none working… We were returning to Roma again so I was more concerned about introducing the children to Italian life and the food and flavours and choosing wonderful things to cook at the Campo di Fiori Food markets although we did walk to all the famous spots.
However you should always make hay while the sun shines as I was not to know that next time we would return it would be raining and rain in Rome is a disaster as it is difficult to walk.
Rome fills me with a feeling of awe and respect for the marvels of human culture and history. To build those magnificent buildings and move those ancient columns in 57 AD – the Pantheon is simply incredible and yes I know they had thousands of poor slaves that always died building these huge constructions ….!!! but they are all just so inspiring that they always give me hope just to know that we are capable of many incredible things.
There is so much history, so much antiquity – I love the way you walk around the corner and boom !! – there is a magnificent structure standing there over 3000 years old and on another corner another from 1000 years back!!! The streets are like walking through one huge museum. St. Peter’s Basilica just takes my breath away. I have been so many times but always the same feeling. A feeling of majesty and just Wow…..!!!! simply incredible!! I want to kneel down and bow in respect to the great Bernini and Michelangelo – their sculptures move me so much.
I could go there every day and never get tired of looking at all the beautiful coloured marble – thousands of different colours – the beauty of our earth to produce such magnificent stone and then to have it turned into flesh – stone made into flesh, like blood made into wine!! Such homage to God and the artists spent their lifetimes creating it. What immense projects they pursued. Maybe they thought that this would get them into heaven.
Little did they realise that they were creating heaven here on earth for thousands and thousands to admire for millenniums. I am sure that Bernini would have said when he arrived at St. Peter’s pearly gates in heaven he would have said,” ‘Humph!! This is nothing compared to what I built for you back at the Basilica!!!”