A few weeks ago, a class on the architecture of St. Peter's unexpectedly turned into a morning spent absorbing the bizarre scene of a papal audience. My classmates and I did our best to catch a glimpse of the pope as he zipped around, standing and waving like some Miss America contestant on top of a parade float.
My secular self was baffled. A shock of white hair, a white robe, a little white vehicle cruising around -- that's all it took for tens of thousands of people, including myself, to stand on their plastic chairs, desperately snapping photos? I had no idea what was going on. The pope was on a JumboTron.
The circus of that morning wasn't unlike the giant "Primo Maggio" rock concert -- with its roaring crowds, speakers and video cameras -- that I attended a few days before. Only instead of newspaper-ridden fields, rainbow "pace" banners, and huddled bunches of joint-wielding teens, there were clusters of nuns, fanny-packed fanatics and groups of schoolchildren in conspicuously matching yellow hats.
The main event wasn't an Italian rock band but instead, robed Armenian cardinals and a tiny Benedict XVI huddled on his giant throne. Like a lot of things in Rome, it was a time warp, little changed from the papal appearances of centuries past.
For the most part, Rome is a city that forces you to slow your pace long enough to get lost and happen upon its myriad spectacles -- sometimes bizarre, like the papal circus, but always surprising and often beautiful.
Stateside, we hustle through so much. The frustration of dealing with the slow pedestrians and the non-existence of coffee to-go here has confirmed that, by comparison, our general pace of life on the East Coast is feverishly fast.
Rome demands a more relaxed approach -- a slower pace that, as finals begin and end their frenzy, might not be so far from that of the wistful last days of seniors savoring life at Dartmouth until the last drop.
At its worst, Rome is complete and utter chaos. A wrong turn down a cobblestoned street and one finds herself disoriented and stuck behind a giant pack of immobile tourists, or caught between cat-calls on one side and speeding scooters on the other.
Recent days of rain have unmasked this city as one of inefficient bureaucracy and pedestrians, of over-crowded public transportation and sometimes painful slowness. It is an environment entirely not conducive to working, which has, needless to say, thrown a wrench in my plans to stay ahead of final papers.
But at its best Rome is a city of complete and utter kismet. It's a city that delivers a live papal audience to a professor's lecture on the public function of the Piazza San Pietro. It's a city that seems to always -- however indirectly -- drop you where you want to be, a city for strolling and lolling, long dinners and cafe stays.
Possibly this is just a consequence of being in an unfamiliar environment, but like stumbling on the pope that day, so many unforeseen events have left a strange aftertaste of disbelief and wonder in all of our gaping (and now blessed, thanks to Benedict) mouths.
Today I was trying desperately to find the gardens of the Gianiculum, a large park that seemed not far from our apartment on my map. A wrong turn down a promising street produced a dead end: beautiful jasmine covered walls, but no accessible gardens.
I turned around and started to hustle back the way I came, ready to head home and stare down a laptop full of final drafts, when I heard the voices of two men ask if they could help me.
As further proof of Rome's penchant for serendipitous moments of beauty -- the guys turned out to be male models.
I have to confess that spatial orientation has never been my skill. But I like to think that the amount of wandering I've done this term isn't just me, but Rome: This is a place for getting lost and eventually happening upon the way forward.
If I've taken anything from this term, it's an appreciation of the unexpected delights on the way to our determined destinations. Arriving at the end is more beautiful when you've gotten lost along the way.
