On Wednesday, Jenn and I made it to St. Peter's to hear the Pope give a blessing. Couldn't be long, right?
A priest read from the Bible in Italian. I nudged Jenn. "That's the Italian word for 'some'!"
Another priest read from the Bible, this time in French. Aha! "That's the French word for 'some'!"
Clearly, our time in France and Italy was doing wonders for our linguistic skills: one word out of a few hundred! Not bad, really.
A third priest read from the Bible, now in English.
A fourth priest read from the Bible, now in ... German? We began to realize we might be here for a while.
After three more languages, Pope Benedict read something in Italian which might have been a sermon. A lengthy sermon, too. Clearly, the Pope hadn't caught wind of Bishop Wiesner's sage advice that a homily should "be about God, and be about ten minutes."
Then a priest took to the podium and started speaking in French. Uh oh. Fortunately, it wasn't a reiteration of the homily.
Instead, it was the Pope giving shout outs to those who had come from French-speaking countries. We looked around the square. A sizeable square, too. Uh oh.
After about two hours in the sun, the Pope blessed us. (It would be, I think, somewhat sacrilegious to have added "by ending the service.")
We proceeded into St. Peter's Basilica, which was at last, something in Rome whose overwhelming nature didn't diminish the experience. It was truly awe-inspiring. It was the reverse of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where we dodged a 6-pound admission fee by attending evensong. Here, we enjoyed free admission to the church itself, then paid extra for both the dome and the museum. Robbing Paul to pay Peter, I suppose. (Apologies for the lengthy setup.)
Touring the tombs of the popes felt a bit... odd? Of the hundred and sixty or so who are buried beneath St. Peter's, I couldn't stop wondering how they picked which ones to showcase. Showcase seems like a poor word, but an apt one.
Later that day, we visited the Pantheon, which seemed to be holding a mass in German. This did not deter tourists from talking and taking flash photography. Ah, well. It was remarkable to look at this domed building, built in the 2nd century, and realize that shortly thereafter, the knowledge of how to construct such a building would fall out of mankind's collaborative conscience. The next domed building was built in Florence, thirteen hundred years later.
Of course, the dome in Florence was fully enclosed, whereas the Pantheon's dome had a great hole in it to admit light (and water, should it rain). I can almost hear it now, in hushed, reverent tones: "Ombrello? Five euros?"
Apologies for the blog neglect. Italy is a bit of a police state: to use Internet, you must present your passport. Software then monitors what you do, and lists of sites visited, indexed by citizen, are handed over to the police at regular intervals. This annoyed us, so where this was enforced (Rome/Venice) we restricted ourselves to checking train schedules.
Also, in Venice, since everything has to be hand-trucked in, things are a bit more expensive. The Internets especially: 9 euros for an hour. Apparently, the Internets are extraordinarily back-breaking things to transport about. We are now in Munich, where Internet is a much happier 1 euro/hour and hope to catch up on blogposts and photos.
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2 comments:
Glad to hear that you are learning the intricacies of international trade. Perhaps there is a business opportunity to be exploited by purchasing an internet and umbrella delivery truck - or maybe boat in Venice.
PLEASE don't leave us hanging for so long in future!! Spend a few bucks on an E-mail or quick update - we were ready to call Interpol last week!!
You WILL understand this if you become parents.
DAD
9 Euros per hour of internet time? Sounds like good training in case you two go on a cruise where the going rate is 16 Euros per hour for a connection that is like slow dial-up at the best of times and sometimes much slower. As you explained to me, Colin, when Mom and I were on our cruise in March:
"Re: ship's internet. It's a giant scam -- they buy a resource in one unit, and sell it in another unit. They pay per kilobyte transferred; they charge for minutes used.
This is a scam: they have a theoretical max (11Mbps) on what they can transfer. Therefore, their cost is capped. The speed of your connection varies as 1/N, where N is the number of users on the system. N is not capped. It's a better scam than the software world, really: at least there's some marginal cost to printing another CD; with cruise Internet the only cost of another user of the system is borne by your fellow cruise passengers."
I think the "1/N" stuff is a fancy way of saying that the connection speed varies inversely with the number of users.
Suck it up, lad! One day, you and Jenn will jettison your backpacks in favour of real luggage, cruises and shore excursions. Then, you will find out what expensive internet is.
Love,
Dad
P.S. Your comments about monitoring of internet activity are both interesting and disturbing. Mom and I were not asked for ID when we visited an internet cafe in Rome (3 Euros per hour).
The Pope and the Vatican are more likely than other people and places to be the target of unfriendly actions, especially in the light of a recent statement in which some hold Benedict responsible for the publication of certain cartoons in Denmark said to be offensive. Perhaps the Italian government thinks like I do and has recently implemented these invasions of privacy to catch the elusive bad guys?
Anyway, apart from the risk of being collateral damage if one is in the wrong part of the Vatican at the wrong time (or of succumbing to exhaustion during a Papal blessing), there is the risk, throughout Rome, of being knocked down by a Vespa driver who has a mobile phone in one hand, a cappucino in the other and his groceries in bags at his feet on the running boards of his scooter as he bobs and weaves through traffic. Glad you negotiated the Vatican and the streets of Rome safely.
Gute reise in Deutschland and Oesterreich!
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