"Must Be Americans..."

Almost every day for at least three weeks, we talked about ordering a grande gelato from our favorite gelateria, San Crispino, on our last night in Rome. It's not that we have been depriving ourselves of gelato. In fact, I can't think of a day when I didn't have one cone of gelato (or two or three cones). But those were always piccolos and tonight is definitely a grande night. After tossing our three coins in the Trevi Fountain to ensure our return to Rome, Erina, Gabrielle, Megan and I went to San Crispino's and ordered the largest size of gelato they had. At first, Megan started to back out. She claimed that she could not eat that much gelato, no matter what she promised before. She said that we would all feel sick, which isn't the best feeling when you are going to board a plane in a few hours. A promise is a promise, we reminded her and she eventually caved in. We each sheepishly asked for the biggest size they had and filled it with our favorite flavors. We walked home slowly, talking about our favorite moments in Rome.

It wasn't until we were halfway home that we noticed how people around us were staring. Families seated at outdoor tables in restaurants stared and pointed at our massive bowls of gelato. Two men walking past us did a double-take and one of them said, quite loudly, "Must be Americans." We all laughed and looked down at our 7 euro bowls of gelato that we couldn't finish. We really did look ridiculous, but a promise is a promise.

No foto? No problem. (Travel Writing #23)

The Dance

A flash of light catches my eye. I move onto the balcony for a closer look. Down below, in the Campo de Fiori, a crowd is building. Six figures are in the center, dancing with sticks on fire. The idea of making art from something dangerous is both frightening and mesmerizing. The flames blur together, a circle of bright orange in the dark. Someone is playing loud music nearby. The thumping beat intensifies the performance as the dancers begin to twirl. They weave between each other, always waving their sticks high above their heads so that everyone can see. One man steps away from the other dancers and breathes fire as the onlookers applaud. I watch from high above, captivated by the light.

Wrong Turn

I laugh and talk loudly with friends as we try to find our way home in the dark. Left here, no, straight ahead. We take a wrong turn and wander into an enormous piazza. Here it is on the map. I am at St. Peter’s, the largest church in the world. Quiet! This is a place of worship. The piazza welcomes pilgrims who travel for days, months, years. I see the outline of the glowing basilica, illuminated by lanterns from within. Rows of white columns encircle the piazza, isolating this space from the world outside. Voices drift farther away from where I am standing still. The church is closed, but I can pray here. I close my eyes and hear the rush of water from the fountain to my right. This is my holy place.

I have found my home
In an unfamiliar place.
Alone in the dark.

In the Sky

We walk in groups of twos and threes playing follow the leader. He walks quickly and confidently through busy streets. I walk, stop, inch forward, stop, no cars, run. It feels like we have been walking for hours. We stop in front of a stone path that leads up a hill. There is a wrought iron gate at the end, but it is locked. Locks were made to guard precious things. What is this gate hiding? Keep moving forward, always forward. I am breathing heavily now. Just a little bit farther, I think. I hope. We finally reach the top and turn left, past the gate. Try to find another way in. There is another path, now stairs. We are quiet, no breath left for idle chatter. We trudge up flights of stairs, and finally we are here. This cannot be a part of Rome. There are no buildings, no crowds of tourists, no Vespas zooming past us. This is the most green I have seen in Rome. A grove of orange trees offers us shade from the merciless sun, but still we are moving. He leads us through the park, to a stone ledge on the other side. We peer over the edge. We can see all of Rome from this vantage point. We can see every monument, even people walking through the city. I have reached the highest point.

The Lucky Spot

I am sitting in the luckiest spot in the Sistine Chapel. Can I have a moment more perfect than this one? According to Gabrielle, this seat on the bench underneath Perugino's Giving of the Keys to St. Peter is the luckiest place for papal hopefuls to sit during conclaves. Pope Julius II was sitting here during the conclave when he was elected and ever since then, it is known as the "lucky spot." I don't have a desire to be the Pope one day (for obvious reasons), but it feels special and meaningful to be looking up at the Sistine chapel ceiling from this historically significant spot.

After looking at the incomparable paintings on the walls and the ceiling, of course, I'm thinking about what else I need to do here before my time is up. This may be the only time that I am ever in the Sistine chapel for more than a few minutes. I am certain that if I do come again, I will be pushed through the room quickly by a crowd of tourists, with barely a few minutes to glance at all the art. What can I do in this overwhelmingly beautiful room that was created for the Church? I take a few more minutes to look around and then I pray.

Creative Writing #4

I was chatting with a friend as we walked hurriedly through the brightly lit staircase. We did not see the signs that the group was following. Instead, we talked about our schedule for the next day and the church that we visited early that morning. We walked quickly through the small door that the rest of the group quickly passed through. I walked through this portal into a room and I was slightly surprised at the abrupt drop in temperature. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a wave of color that surrounded me. Royal blues, deep crimson and sparkling gold shone from the hundreds of paintings on the walls and the ceiling, surrounding me in a treasure chest of color. I instinctively looked up and saw images that I have seen a thousand times crowded together with thousands of figures across the length of the small chapel. I was standing alone under one of the most celebrated artistic masterpieces in the world: Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

I walked into the chapel, still straining my neck to see some of the panels above me: the Creation of Adam, the Creation of Eve, and the Flood. These scenes were smaller and closer together than I expected, which made the entire chapel look smaller than I imagined it would be. I heard the burly guard who accompanied us growling “no photo” but I was not bothered. How could I capture all of this art, color and light in a series of photos that could only record a small, flat image? I could not waste precious time in this room looking at all of the art through the small screen on my camera. I walked around the perimeter of the chapel, trying to comprehend the idea that I was seeing all of the paintings in the Sistine chapel without the interference of thousands of other people. I could stand in the center of the chapel and look up The Final Judgment without being jostled and pushed through to the exit by the constantly moving, noisy mass of visitors. In fact, the quiet murmur of a few students sharing their knowledge of the paintings was the only sound in the room. Some students stood together in small groups while others wandered around by themselves, all stopping every few minutes to study a painting on the wall or craning their necks to see all of the frescoes on the high ceiling. Walking backwards towards the benches that lined the walls, I stared up at the images on the ceiling, trying to identify the figures and subjects that I saw in different scenes. I sat on the plexiglass-covered stone bench and I decided to write about this experience in my journal while I was in the moment.

I pulled my journal out of my bag, which took a few minutes since I did not want to stop looking around while I attempted to open my purse, and I started to write. I wrote about the bright colors and the surreal feeling of being in the Sistine chapel, but I was not satisfied with this latest entry. As I looked down at the handwritten words on the white page, they seemed inadequate; too small and simple to convey my excitement and wonder. I could not describe the exact shade of the brightest blue or how the light brightened some paintings while others were left in darker shadow. I could not explain the feeling of looking up at the Creation of Adam and wondering if Michelangelo would ever know how iconic this work would become for generations centuries in the future.

Surprisingly, I was also overcome with a desire to pray in this beautiful chapel. I am not very religious, but as I looked up at all of the art commissioned by popes and completed by a pious artist who created the stunning art as an offering to God, I was motivated by the beauty around me to give thanks to God or at least the belief in Him that has inspired so many artists to decorate the many churches around Rome. At this moment, I knew that I could never describe the emotion that overwhelmed me when I looked up at the paintings around me because it was deeply personal and private. Although I do not have a detailed record of all that I saw in the Sistine chapel, I am satisfied with my own memories of the night that I finally understood how much beauty can inspire people to believe that there must be a power greater than man.

Escaping My Former Self (Travel Writing #24)

As I sat in the airport waiting to board the plane to Amsterdam for the first leg of my trip to Italy, I fantasized about my imminent stay in Rome. I imagined myself strolling along the Tiber and then rushing past the Colisseum on my way to class. My limited Italian would not hold back my complete assimilation into Italian culture for five weeks as I lived in the heart of historic Rome. The ultimate test of my authenticity would be whether other tourists identified me as one of their own or as a local who had lived in Rome her entire life. My daydream was abruptly interrupted by the flight attendant’s announcement that the flight was boarding soon.

I quickly gathered my belongings and stood in line at the gate with the mass of people trying to board the plane. I looked around at my fellow travelers and I noticed that they were all Indian. Many of the women were dressed in traditional, brightly colored saris and were talking about what they would do first when they arrived in Mumbai, their final destination. As a second generation Sri Lankan-American, I had often made these trips back to my parents’ homeland where I stayed in the same place and did not explore the cities at all. I pitied these travelers because they were clearly not trying to have their own adventures in a new, exotic country. They would never venture out of their comfort zone to create a new cultural identity, like I would during my stay in Italy. I boarded the airplane and said goodbye to my old life.

After two weeks in Italy, I realized that assimilating into Italian culture would be much more difficult than I originally thought it would be. Everywhere I went, I was constantly reminded of how I was different from true Roman citizens. Indian men walked uncomfortably close behind me and whispered “hello, miss India” or “ciao, mama” as they passed by. A grocery store clerk handed me a bottle of curry powder while I stood in front of the selection of spices in the store, trying to find seasoning for my pasta. Even the server at San Crispino’s looked at me for a minute and asked, “where are you from?” as he handed me my cup of honey gelato that I had ordered completely in Italian just two minutes earlier. I was still desperately trying to be adventurous and truly belong in Rome, but I could not break through the cultural barrier that separated me from the authentic Romans who were never mistaken for tourists as they traversed the city.

Now I look back on my time in Rome and I know I was able to assimilate into Italian culture as fully as I ever could. I am still disappointed every time the baker at the forno asks for three euro in English after I order my tramezzino di prosciutto e fichi or when the purse vendors in the street try to attract my attention because they think that I am a wealthy tourist. Nevertheless, I have had more Roman adventures than I ever dreamed about and it is time for me to return home and embrace my Sri Lankan, American and now Italian sides.

Thinking in Italian

In Italian class, we are taught how to say things like "I like" (Mi piace) or "I am" (Io sono), but we don't spend a lot of time learning the future or past tenses. Maybe this is because our time in Italy and Italian class is extremely limited, but I like to think it's because our teachers want us to learn how to be in the moment, no matter what we are doing. Instead of saying what we used to like or where we will be going, we have a chance to talk about what we are doing at that certain moment. Usually, I am frustrated when I don't know how to communicate exactly what I am thinking but I like this limitation.

A Moment of Tranquility

We are at the Basilica di Santo Quattro Coronati, in an ancient cloister in the middle of Rome. After walking through the busiest streets in Rome, I am shocked at how quiet and tranquil this cloister is. I am sitting on a dark stone bench listening to the only sound in the room (possibly the only sound in the building), the trickle of water from a twelfth century fountain in the center of the courtyard. I wonder if the quiet is due to the nuns' vow of silence or the seclusion of this small church high up above the bustling streets of Rome.

We were just told that this church dates back to 500 AD, which makes me wonder how much of this courtyard is really that old and how much has been recently added. I think it is safe to assume that the shrubs in tan plastic pots are recent additions. It is more difficult to guess when the painted patterns of red and green teardrops or the stained brown and yellow triangles were added to the underside of all the arches that frame the courtyard. There are also fragments of rocks on the wall, some with writing on it. These are probably from the excavations in the church that resulted in the discovery of all these ancient artifacts.

There is a sign that details the restoration efforts. It is fascinating to see the picture of an ancient column that was cleaned by laser. I usually think of restoration works as an expert using a delicate brush to carefully clear centuries of dirt from ruins, not the use of high-tech lasers to remove dirt quickly and efficiently.

There is one stone on the wall that is a mystery to me. In the center, there is the word(s?) LOCUSURICITFELICITATIS. It is strange because the words are carved almost haphazardly, like the carver was in a hurry to finish this particular inscription. The stone seems out of place next to smaller stones with lines of carefully carved inscriptions. Did the carver have a reason for rushing through this inscription? Was he less skilled than the carvers of the other stones I see?

I also find it strange that there is a small gift stand inside the cloister. After walking around the open courtyard, I see a table and a card stand with postcards and books on sale. Even though I know that we are still in Rome, it surprises me to see this particular part of the modern world in this quiet cloister. It seems intrusive, like it is disrupting the peace in this silent space.