Here, Eat This! The Adventures of Kiki Maraschino

The secret to not waiting 3 hours in line for Italian museums is to cough up 30 bucks or so for the “skip-the-line” guided tours. At the Vatican Museum they start about two hours before the museum opens. The only problem is that then you have to follow a guided tour. I don’t know if it’s ADD or individualism, but I can’t seem to stay with a tour. I kept jumping ahead and lagging behind, making the tour guide insane. At one point I told her I had to go to the restroom and she tried to make me wait for the scheduled restroom stop 20 minutes later. You can’t make a woman over 40 wait that long unless you want to see what the goofy-looking Swiss Guard does to people who pee on the floor of the Sistine Chapel.

The Vatican Museum is a collection of marble, gilt and gold like you have never seen. It is really overwhelming. The entire ceiling is awash with gold. Some of the statuary is really trippy. There is an entire room of male nudes with their penises lopped off, thanks to Pope Pius IX and Catholicism’s weird obsession with the human body. I wonder where they keep all of the penises.

Babies and creepy children are allowed to keep their penises, because chopping them off would be weird, right?

And boobs are cool. In fact, the more, the better.

Foot fetish? No problem.

There are a lot of babies in the museum. And a lot of beheadings. None of John the Baptist though. I think these are Judith. At least one of them clearly inspired Artemisia Gentilischi.

The guide was really into the 4 Raphael chambers. Lots of muscular butts.

And what was Sylvester Stallone doing there?

You heard me.

There is a lot of Egyptian art there too, but I guess the guide had to pick and choose from the miles and miles of art. But before the Sistine Chapel she whisked us off to the snack bar past a Chagall and two Dalis. I complained, “You are skipping the entire 20th century!”

We made our way into the Sistine Chapel, where no photography is allowed. It is just as well because it allows you to totally become immersed. Everyone focuses on the ceiling, but the wall behind the altar is a gorgeous blue and had enough going on to keep me there all day. I sat on a bench and put on the glasses I never wear and just fell into the splendor. I found this picture online:

The tour guide forced me out against my will. I just wanted to stay there all day but for some reason I HAD to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Oh, The Pieta, well, that was almost worth leaving the Sistine Chapel.

But most of the art and design was kind of garish. Pope John Paul II’s tomb  was there, and I almost wanted to pry it open and see if both of his forearms were still there.

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I now know why Italians can eat so much pasta and gelato and still fit into their high fashion ensembles. They are so active I can’t keep up with them.

Tuesday we thought we would catch the hop-on hop-off tour bus and see a few sights. Our rented apartment is one block from the vatican, so it seemed like a bus that hits the tourist sites would stop nearby. But we had to walk about a mile to the stop next to the Palace Saint Angelis.

I wanted to see the Trevi Fountain, so we hopped off the bus at that stop. Again it was a much longer walk than we expected. Even though we are traveling off season, the square was a madhouse. But we were able to get close enough to toss our coins in the Fountain, guaranteeing our return.

We slogged back to the designated bus stop, but the bus goes so far so slowly we didn’t have time to make another stop before Bob had to get to his gig for soundcheck. An open double decker bus really is the best way to see a city, though, there were statues and ruins everywhere.

We had eaten a late breakfast, Bob and I splitting a prosciutto and mozzarella panini. Here the bread for the panini is very thin and crisp. It’s one of the best things I have ever eaten so greasy but with delicious grease. It’s ubiquitous here, kind of like the ham and gruyere sandwiches you can live on in Paris.

So we had a very small lunch of pizza by the slice before bob had to go meet up with the band. It wasn’t as amazing of an experience as you would expect.

Pizza in a cone

Later, Bobs mom, Bridin, and I had an excellent dinner at a random local place. Borgo pio has been very lucky restaurant-wise. Bridgin had gnocchi in a pesto that would make American pesto hide its face in shame. I had osso bucco, which wasn’t as hot as I would have liked, but was nonetheless spectacular.

Then we took Uber to such a desolate place our driver insisted on going to check it out before he dropped us off. I loved the driver because he spoke Spanish and we communicated perfectly in a sort of Spang-talian. It kind of screwed me up because now my Italian keeps lapsing into Spanish.

The club was cool, if a little small. Komatsu, the Dutch band that’s opening for them on this tour are very clean and tight. Heavy rocking. The Freeks were fantastic. I think the band challenges Bob, and having Jonathan there gives him a solid place to jump off of. At one point the band was doing their slow spacey prog rock and Bob was drumming fast and intense. Bridgin told me it was like the drums were our heartbeat. From the outside our bodies appear slow and placid, but inside our hearts are going a mile a minute.

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Before coming to italy I had purchased several tours. One of them was to see the pope`s Wednesday afternoon talk. I certainly would not have bought a tour in order to get a ride if I had known our apartment was literally one block from the vatican. I spoke to the tour on the phone and they saw no problem and it was too late to get my own ticket.

The coach dropped us off even further away than the bridge of angels. As I walked, cursing the cramp in my calves, I applied some good old Catholic logic — your suffering could not even compare to the suffering of Jesus. Jesus had way more to contend with than leg cramps.

The huge square at the vatican was cordoned off into large seating sections thank god! Chairs! People were hesitant to approach the front but a lifetime of concerts has taught me to just keep walking towards the stage until somebody stops you. So I got 3rd row. Center!

Pope Francis appeared on one of those econo metal stairs on wheels they use to get high things off the shelf in Costco. A bunch of guys were pushing him way too fast so it was like

here…comes…the…pope…there…goes…the pope….

But I thought it was really cool he hit all the sections so everyone could see him up close even way in the back.

The talk was very long, exacerbated by the fact that it was interpreted into about 8 different languages. The sun was hot and of course there was no shade in St Peters Square. There is also no water available. They need vendors like at the baseball game. But. As I suffered from terrible thirst I thought about the Roman soldiers giving Jesus vinegar when He asked for water.

Pope Francis did give a nice homily about The Exodus not only being an escape but a journey of hope, and how in these difficult times we should choose to travel the way of hope.

As the Mediterranean sun bore down on me, I realized I only had to be there for two hours. Jesus had to hang out in the sun for three hours.

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