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!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
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