I Got Blistas on My Footsies!

So then, as you do, we went to check out the interior of the Vatican. A pretty impressive place. As I said yesterday it is amazing what you can do with millions of dollars of stolen money and the functional equivalent of slaves.

All we did was walk into St. Peter's itself as the line to the basilica was too long for us to consider at that time. We fought our way in past the tour-groups which clot everything up. Each tour group is identifed by a harried looking man or woman walking around with some kind of identifier on a stick; handkerchief, banner, in one case even a garter. When these tours stop to regroup their members, they cause an enormous hiccup in the flow of people through the church. I suppose they make a ton of money for the cause though.

Almost the first thing you come upon when you enter the Nave is the famous "Pieta" (the Virgin Mary holding in her arms the body of the Christ right after it was taken down from the Cross) to the right. Unfortunately you can only come within about 100 feet of it and from a bullet-proof glass type barrier. This is, as romaviva.com puts it in amusing language, "Following the gesture of a silly person, who in 1972 damaged the work with numerous hammer beats, after the restoration it has been decided to protect the sculpture with a crystal wall." It's still an impressive work, but from so far away and with the dull lighting of the church, the effect is a bit muted. It is a bit odd in one way, and that is through a long lense or binoculars it looks like the Virgin Mary is Christ's age or younger. Which, I suppose, is just another miracle and I should let it alone.

As we walked through we were just about buggered by the size of the church, you could probably fit several conventional churches within it, and pretty much everywhere you looked there was something to goggle at.

POSSLQ ran around until she found the "Eye of Sauron" and then wouldn't leave until I consented to take a picture of her. That's over there on the right. She is puny, sly, and surprisingly quick and I have to be equally sly and quick to get any photos that she is not in. The moment she sees the glint of a camera lens she is off like a deer to interpose her swollen head between that lens and whatever historical object I am attempting to photograph.

I have taken to identifying my photographic object, turning around 180 degrees and feigning interest in some object off in the far distance. As POSSLQ races off to find the right spot from which to insert her head, I whirl around and rapidly shoot three shots of my real objet d'art.

She hasn't got wise to this yet, although I am slowly developing a case of whiplash.

As we walked on we saw little figures of interest almost everywhere. Your eye tends to be pulled towards the enormous statues in the (enormous) cubbyholes of the church, but sometimes it is the little things that are most interesting. As we wandered past an enormous marble pantheon bearing the inscribed name of all the Popes and on towards one of the many "pay per view" museumettes that the Church has placed in the Vatican, the POSSLQ darted over towards a wall and started jumping up and down like a Punch and Judy doll being operated by an epileptic puppet-master.

She had identifed something worth a photo and now, unfortunately, had decided to pre-emptively get in the way. This is a terrible sign for me in the long run, but in the short run I just yelled to her, "look, over there, a stigmata!" and as she ran over to the water fountain I was pointing my lense at I snapped around and took a picture of what I imagine to be the first Hell's Angels insignia known to western man.

Just more evidence of why the Pope is one of those "not to be fucked with" type of dudes.

POSSLQ came back soaking wet and looked at me speculatively. "This doesn't taste like blood?" shehalf stated and half asked and I just nodded gravely and responded that God works in many varied and mysterious ways.

Our death march through the Vatican continued and I saw evidence, as though I needed it, of why the works of art are generally protected from sightseers. One of the statues of some Pope or the other sits out where the public can touch it and there is apparently something of a foot-fetishist in your average Catholic. I noticed that almost everyone who passed the thing reached out and caressed its foot. I sidled over the POSSLQ and whispered to her that I had seen a hulking albino with a knife skulking about on the other side of the nave. As POSSLQ shot off with her "Da Vinci Code" backpack trailing in the air behind her I took the following shot of the statue with (inset) his foot clubbed by centuries of caresses.

In case you wonder, the statue does not have "CLUB-FOOTED SAINT?" inscribed at its base, that is a thing I did with a clever application of Photoshop. Next step? American Currency baby!

Well, given where the dollar is? Maybe Euros.

After a bit we all became tired of being buffeted about byuncaring Catholic brutes (where is the love?) and we slowly worked our way back towards the exit.

As we exited St. Peters we came back out into the light and got an interesting view of the plaza from the "other side."

Below is a picture of something like the "Pope's Eye View" of the Plaza St. Pietro, and as I stood there looking out over the imaginary crowds, I began to feel a bit Pope-like myself as I composed, in my head, the text of my sermon on why we should all love each other as though we were brothers. As the text mutated uncontrollably in my head into an angry screed demanding that I be brought unbeliever's heads firmly placed on stakes, I realized that I was probably not cut out to be a Pope, and took just one last photo of one of the really cool statues that ring the upper rim of the pillars that outline St. Pietro Plaza.

Then it was off to food, drinks, and a fan to lull me to sleep in a Rome that has also cooled down a few degrees. If I weren't getting a cold, all would be well here in Romeania.

I will mention one thing left over from Korea and that is that each time I enter the apartment here in Rome I have a sudden compulsion that I have to take off my shoes.Weird, the one day I was at home there was no such thing, in fact I rather revelled in stomping my dirty shoes all over everything.

TOMORROW: "More On Modern Rome Antics"