Day 12: Rome

Today started with an organized tour of the Colosseum, which was excellent. Plenty of pictures for you to view. The most noteworthy thing about the Colosseum: it is (per wikipedia) the 39th most visited place in the world, with over 4 million visitors a year. Let me do the math for you…this is over 11,000 visitors every day. Guess how many women's toilets there are? Seven. SEVEN. Not seven locations, seven actual toilets, total. And the bathrooms were not built until 2007. They are located by the entrance….the one entrance. For 11,000 people every day. Just like the one exit. So you enter, go to the bathroom, do the tour for a couple hours, fight the crowds back to the entrance so you can use the bathroom again before leaving, then fight the crowds back to the exit. Italy!!!

After that, we split up and I went to a few churches spread throughout the old part of the city. Many churches close between 1-3:30, which really screws up my plans, but today I waited it out to see what I wanted to see. Again, see the pics.

We went out to dinner at a fancy Italian seafood place. On the way, we stopped into an Anglican church because Susan is trying to find a gift of a cross (not a crucifix) for a friend and not having much luck. Anyway, this church is having a concert tomorrow night, kind of an opera greatest hits, so we bought tickets. The church is small; it should be awesome.

OK, not much else to tell you about today, so I'm going to hit some random topics.

Music in restaurants (and some shops): very American. A few nights again in a tattoria (casual traditional restaurant) in Rome, we pretty much heard the entire George Michael s(God rest his soul) collection, both pre and post Wham!. I've heard Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Elvis, extensive 60's music, etc. We can't figure out if it is because we are eating early in restaurants so they are catering to the tourist crowd until the locals roll in around 9pm, or if restaurants in the city are always catering or the tourist, or if they just like American music.

Panhandling: Begging has been common in all three cities (especially at the church entrances), but Rome has been really bad. The Vatican was the worst. It is really sad….old women hunched over, men with physical deformaties, etc. In addition to the panhandling, we are constantly being approached when at tourist sites, especially the Vatican and the Colossem….men selling selfie sticks, people offering tours, people offering "free advice" when they see us consulting a map (a common scam), it is almost nonstop. I just say "non" over and over again. One guy at the Vatican was insistent that he could help us, so I actually stopped, looked him in the eye, and gave him my best "I'm not telling you again, A-hole" non. The guy held up his hands and said "I'm not a murderer, I just want to help you". Susan found that one hi-larious. Tonight after dinner we were climbing the stairs out of our subway station and laughing about something. There was a young man sitting on the top step, and as we approached, he started asking for money. As Susan passed him, he reached for her. I firmly said (unfortunately in English because I didn't know how to say it in Italian): "No touching. NO TOUCHING." He still touched her arm (and purse, which she was wearing across her body), but he didn't hold on to her. I told Susan she should have slapped his hand away. I don't care if they ask for money, but any touching is off limits, always. I think the main problem is…..

We scream "We are Americans": I get it when they hear us talking, and I get it when they see me holding a map, but I'm amazed at how many people (sales people, restaurant hawkers, etc. taken one look at us and start speaking in English. It happens when I'm alone and when I'm with Susan. No one is confusing us with being Italian. My last trip to France, several people approached me in train stations etc and said something to me in French, so I started to feel good that I could blend in that well. That is so not happening here. We were telling our Vatican tour guide this story and she said yes, we do not look even remotely Italian. We asked her what we looked like, and she immediately said I look German or Swedish. Ummmmm…Swedish? I have no idea where that came from; maybe the light colored eyes. She told Susan she looked like an American, ha ha. Then she said Susan might look a little Italian, which made her happy.

Religious on the streets: One of my friends asked if we have seen Cardinals on the street. No, the only cardinals (dressed in their religious attire) I have seen were at Midnight Mass. I've seen very few male religious the entire trip. However, nuns are a much more common site. Interestingly, they are all teeny-tiny. I'm not sure I've seen one as tall as five feet, and they all look underfed. They have been all ages; I've actually seen several that were quite young. Again, I'm only counting those I've seen wearing their 'professional attire"…it is possible I've seen more that were in lay clothing.

Speaking of nuns, I have an interesting story from Midnight Mass. When we were moved up to the reserved seats, there were a couple nuns sitting in our row, and couple sitting in the row in front of us, but they were clearly all together. In our row, there were a few empty seats between the nuns and I, and there were a couple empty seats in front of me. A good looking man with a wife and a couple kids comes into the row in front of us and starts talking to the nuns sitting in that row. They are all speaking in Italian, so I didn't know what was happening, but the nuns were shaking their heads. It quickly becomes apparent that the man is trying to get a couple of the nuns to move to our row so his family can have 4 seats together. The nuns aren't having any of it. (Keep in mind there are still plenty of available seats in this section.) The jerk calls an usher over, and the usher makes the nuns move back to our row. One of the nuns sits next to me and gives me a 'what are you gonna do?" look. I patted her on the shoulder and resisted the urge to call the guy an asswipe. Seriously, nuns getting bumped out of their seats at church?!?!?!?! Which brings me to my next topic….

Rick Steves: I know many people find him tedious, and while I also think he can be annoying, I like his travel books. I don't always agree with his advice, but he is closest to traveling the way I like to travel. I've learned how to adjust his advice to fit my style. For the first time with this trip, I downloaded several of his podcasts. Some of them are walking tours of buildings or neighborhoods….I'm less keen on these, as they need to be too detailed (Susan, however, has liked them.) What I like are his cultural podcasts; I've listened to several of them on the train rides between the cities. He did one on the role of women in modern Italy, and it was fantastic. He had two females colleagues that work in Italy (one American, one Italian) and both married to Italian men, talk about the challenges females face in the Italian workforce, the ways boys/men are babied by their 'mommas", etc. It was very enlightening. Italy is at least a few decades behind America when it comes to equality in the workforce, and I'm sure the role the Church plays in Italian society does nothing to help the cause. The nuns in church were screwed going up against a man…they are second class citizens for being female, and they are in a career that has always been in a subservient role to their male 'counterparts', which I thinks makes ALL men see them as subservient creatures. The whole incident was disheartening. I'm staring to think I will not in my lifetime see any progress towards women having an actual voice in the church.

On that note, I'm going to call it a night. I need to come up with some type of game plan for tomorrow. Ciao!