day 4: the great obelisk hunt

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the day's events:

through a combination of me being lazy and really burned out right now (in 2007) i am going to merely quote what i wrote a year ago, which tells everything in at least as good detail as i could right now. and it's kinda funny to see how awestruck i was then.

assignment 1 at the Centro: go find a big stone pillar in a city you've never ever been in before. despite how bad it sounds like it could be, it was actually extraordinarily fun. we were divided into groups of three, assigned a place, and told to go and report all we could about the obelisk that's there. i for one didn't really even know that rome had much in the way of obelisks, but apparently it has more than any other city in the world.

my group was assigned the obelisk in Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano. we had no idea how lucky we were. we got the biggest*, oldest, coolest obelisk in the world, and furthermore it was right next to what i think is the largest basilica on the planet. we had to take the bus, since it was 6km from the Centro. we changed buses at the Piazza Venezia, as our jaws dropped at the immensity of the buildings there, and oh yeah, Trajan's column off to the side. on the 85 bus on the way to P.za di San Giovanni we passed the Flavian Amphitheater, the Forum, the Ludus Magnus and other things that none of us really believed actually existed. welcome to Rome.

we found our obelisk with no trouble and decided to poke our heads inside the basilica. needless to say (i.e. look at the pictures!) we spent almost an hour in the church itself. we also decided to check out the adjoining baptistry, which is the site of the first Roman church and the current building dates to the 14th century. we tried to get in but we thought the door was locked, even though the sign said that the baptistry was open. a beggar woman outside the door started yelling at us as we walked away. we looked back and saw two people leave from the baptistry. it turns out the door, which had an obvious pull handle, pushed in, and the woman was telling us that we were morons. we went inside and saw some wondrous old art, obviously more worn than the stuff from 300 years later in the main basilica. we didn't take pictures in the baptistry, mostly out of reverence. it was not receiving the same tourist attention that the main basilica was. in return for the beggar woman's kindness and our own stupidity, on the way out i gave her 0,50 euro. we finished our work on the obelisk and ate lunch in the plaza outside the main entrance to the basilica.

after some debate on whether the bus made a loop or a two-way line, we got to the proper bus stop. we waited and waited for an 85 bus, but none came. finally an 850 came and we were ready to get on. the driver pulled up, stopped, and apparently because we weren't aggressive enough in boarding, never even opened the door and drove off. we took the next bus, a different route, but it got us back to P.za Venezia and in turn back to the Centro.

upon return we gave presentations on the obelisks, had another fabulous dinner, and then set to work on the advanced greek assignment. that was not fun. we gave up at 12 30 and headed for bed.