The Squamidian Report – July 1 / 17
 
Issue #788

Including:
The Ontarion

Hi All,

Canada's 150th. I can remember the 100th  and I'd imagine most of the people who actually read this also remember the 100th. There was Expo 67 at the time as well as some other large celebrations around the country. Just think, here we are remembering an event from half a century ago. Makes one feel old but then getting old is a privilege that not everyone gets to enjoy. Most of us have family members that should still be around for the 200th. Technically, many of us could be as well with just a few more advances in medicine and the medical sciences, not that living that long would necessarily be a good thing. The big question then becomes, will we remember it. Face it, there is only so much room in our heads for info storage. After they are full we seem to need to delete stuff to make more room and don't seem to have much choice of what info is deleted. But perhaps there will be a pill for that some day as well.

Something that was around way back at the 100th was journalists and journalism. There is still a very watered down version of those but back then journalism was a respected career and journalists were respected professionals. Now we have 'news readers' who simply read what is in front of them without paying any attention at all to what is coming out of their mouths. There is no proof reading or spell checking. If an event or situation can't be sensationalized the news industry isn't interested. If one tries to read a newspaper, one becomes very frustrated at the lack of anything of importance in said paper. Its all ads and infotainment. Even the front pages of modern newspapers have become a big ad pushing a product while trying to look important.

The short of it is that I have grown quite tired of both the TV newscasts and the newspapers we get. The papers are no longer worth the paper they are printed on and the TV news has become some sort of 'breakfast entertainment'. Might just as well get our information from Youtube and Facebook. Much more accurate and informative is Greg's final installment of his Italy trip so read on and enjoy.

doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello and “HAPPY CANADA DAY” Everyone!

Keep your fingers crossed that it’s a sunny, happy and safe Canada Day weekend for all!

     Well, I’ve pretty much covered our trip to Rome over the past few weeks but I still have a bit more to elaborate on if you don’t mind! I’ll do my best to finish off the trip this week so be patient and enjoy the ride!

     For the second last day we had to enjoy the beautiful city of ROME, we decided to end our visit with a tour of the Vatican Museum. It was only a 15 minute walk from our apartment and with perfect weather once again in Italy we took advantage and walked north across the Bridge of Angels to the foot of the Fort of St Angeles. Once there you simply turn left or west to walk directly into the mouth of Vatican City. Like I said last week, the Vatican is only a short kilometer west of the fort. If you wish, you can look up The Vatican on the Internet to check out the layout. As you walk up the cobblestone street into the mouth of the Vatican you will notice that there is a piazza that divides the two cobblestone lanes that act as both walkways and driveways up either side of the entrance to St Peter’s Square. On both sides of the streets there are stores of various kinds as well as restaurants. There is even a large Planet Hollywood store that sells everything from musical instruments to tee shirts to movie posters and a wealth of clothing items. We looked around in the store but decided not to break the bank and buy any $50.00 tee shirts. LOL! We walked further into the Square and checked out more of the souvenir shops as we went. There were of course many shops that sold religious items and one of them even sold life sized cardboard cutouts of the Pope himself. I guess if you’re a true Catholic you might want one for your Man cave but it might clash with your poster of Farah Fawcett in her red one-piece bathing suit of 70’s fame! LOL! While looking around at one of these shops Carole found a shelf full of pasta of all shapes and sizes. There was even a section of clear plastic bags filled with “PENIS” shaped pasta for the slightly demented tourist among us! Hahahahaa…… It happened to be right next to the life-sized cardboard cutout of the Pope. It’s hard to believe that if the Pope knew about this item being sold along side his effigy that he’d approve! I know that if you look at a normal sized souvenir of The Virgin Mary from the rear, the figure does resemble a male appendage from the owner’s point of view when erect but, c’mon, does that item belong in a religious souvenir store? Especially right there in the centre of the World of Catholicism! I’m not Catholic so I managed to get quite a chuckle out of seeing a bag of penises for sale next to “His Holiness”! Of course there was quite an array of items that were appropriate for the location but I decided to settle for having my picture taken next to the cardboard cutout of the big guy himself! LOL!

     When we reached the point where we had to cash in our registration to join the guided tour of the Vatican Museum we had to wait about a half hour for the tour guide to show up. Once we had all met, we marched at a very quick pace for about a kilometer around to the main entrance of the Museum at the north side of the building. There were thousands and I mean thousands of people in a long line waiting to get general admission to the museum. Luckily we had purchased preferred tickets to the place so we skipped the line to be among the first five hundred or so to enter the museum for that day. Still, we were among what seemed to be akin to one of those “million head” herds of buffalo that Hollywood always showed in the cowboy movies of yesteryear! It was sheer torture squeezing and squishing our way through the narrow hallways of the museum and being bumped, pushed and stepped on the entire two hours or more of the tour. Of course most of the tourists in the masses were foreigners (like us) but not really like us if you know what I mean. They were loud, rude, smelly and ignorant not to mention inconsiderate of others as they asserted their self imposed dominance over anyone within a foot or two of them. I finally had to resign myself to being more like them as I forced my way through to see the items that caught my interest during the tour. I didn’t like being that way but it was either push or be pushed as you avoided being injured in the stampede! Finally we emerged from the museum into the extreme heat of the Roman day. We decided to break from the day and have some lunch in a roadside café. I forget what I had that day for lunch but I believe it was pizza and we indeed needed the added energy if we were to continue our trek through the rest of the Vatican. We made our way back into the line that took us through a few narrow hallways and into the Sistine Chapel, which we had been looking forward to most of the previous two weeks of our stay in Rome. As we entered the Chapel, we were told in no uncertain terms by the “Guards” to keep moving and NOT to be taking any photographs! Once again, we were subjected to the “Herd” mentality and physically pushed at times to move through the chapel. They would not allow anybody to stop for even a minute or two to take in the view of the Michelangelo ceiling art we had so looked forward to viewing. As we looked skyward at the paintings of the ceiling we realized that the chapel is quite small in size when compared to any photographs we had seen on line. The room would be approximately 100 feet long by about 50 feet wide and the ceiling I would guess to be about 40 feet high. Definitely not the cathedral sized structure I had imagined from the world famous pictures I’d ever seen! It struck me as being a total “cash grab” by the Catholic Church. Mind you the ceiling was beautiful but no more so than most of the other ceilings we had seen over the previous two weeks of visits to the Churches of Rome or the other famous ancient Roman structures of historic value. I was surprised to find out that Michelangelo did not create the works of art while laying on his back on tall scaffolding but rather as he stood on the scaffolding craning his neck skyward. WOW! Would that be a chiropractic nightmare for anyone to attempt! Anyway, we were in the Sistine Chapel all of 15 minutes at the very most and were ushered through a tiny wrought iron gate that divided the room in two, crossways and from floor to ceiling, at about the 2/3 point of the length. Once we were through the gate we were rushed out of the Chapel by more of the Vatican Guards. I was surprised there wasn’t a person standing at the exit door holding a “collection” plate! Oh well, it was an experience we’ll never forget and of course will only do once in a lifetime. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering through St Peter’s Square looking up at the Pope’s apartment shuttered windows to see if we could catch a glimpse of His Holiness having a cold one in the afternoon heat! LOL! Of course all of the buildings surrounding the “Square” are magnificent in size and structure. We didn’t enter St Peter’s Basilica but of course had a good look at the outside of this huge place of worship. It truly is a beautiful building. The “Square” covers about 20 acres in size and they have about ¾ of it filled with folding chairs to accommodate the thousands of people that attend the weekly mass held by the Pope. When he appears for this weekly service he stands on a large stage that’s built in front of St Peter’s Basilica on the steps. The chairs in the Square are at a lower level and to see the Pope when he’s giving his sermon one would have to look upward somewhat. From what I could guess, one would have a stiff neck by the end of the Mass.

We took many photos again that day and have yet to view them ourselves since arriving home. Once I get through them and we have them on the desktop computer I’ll be sure to select a few of the good ones and I’ll send them to Doug to be included in an Ontarion edition.

     By the time we had seen most of the Vatican sights it was late afternoon and we began our walk back across the river to our temporary residence. Of course it was like every other day in that we were very happy to rest our weary bones and be content in the fact that our tour of Rome and it’s beautiful features as well as having added the final touch to our vacation was complete! The next day, was the day of our departure from Italy and of course our arrival back in good ol’ Canada Eh!

      The flight was once again a long one but at least it was a non-stop flight and stepping off the plane meant we were back on home soil. Of course to top it all off, the driver of the cab that took us home to KW was a polish immigrant that had lived in Rome for three years before coming to Canada and he told us his life story of living in Rome from Pearson to Royal Orchard Dr! What a fitting ending to a terrific holiday! The entire two weeks was filled with adventures that are now only memories that we will definitely cherish for the rest of our lives!

Thanks to all of you for (hopefully) enjoying my weeks of recounting our adventures in Rome. I hope you felt as if you were right there with us as you read through the past editions of The Ontarion Report!                   

I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now … Greg

PS: Something To Think About>
I think the spaghetti with baby clams was my best meal while in Rome. It was certainly the most unusual! I must admit that I’m not an adventuresome person when it comes to eating so for me that meal was a huge stretch but I’m glad I did it, once at least!
    
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Have a good one..
the doug
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