This afternoon we visited the British Museum, mostly the Early Medieval Gallery and the Medieval Gallery. I could spend days there, or maybe weeks.

I particularly liked the pilgrim badges, the thuribles, and some of the gothic ivories... oh, and lots and lots of other stuff as well. (Expect a few photos later, if they turn out ok.)

If ever you plan a trip to London and to Rome, go to London first. We've done it the other way around, and it's not an error I'll repeat.

I've enjoyed London on each of several previous trips, but it's a terrible disappointment after Italy. In Rome we had hot sunny days, superlative food, friendly Italians, and, well, Italy. In London it's cold, damp, one must search for good food, and I do get tired of that proper British reserve. *sigh* Oh well.

I'm looking forward to Vancouver's fresh sea air.

Oh, look! Here's our neighbourhood while we're in Rome. We're just a short walk from the Campo de' Fiori, and that's where we buy fruit each morning. (Note: link now fixed. Don't you hate it when people move their pages around?)

In other news, I've finally found an English keyboard, which is such a relief after trying to type HTML tags on the insane Italian keyboards. There just isn't enough wine in Rome to help with that.

Today I visited two incredible churches, the Roman Forums, one jail cell, and the Capitoline Museums. I also took 150 photos, and completely filled the digital camera's storage card. (Some photos will appear here later, but maybe not until we're home.)

What I need is a dog like this, who fetches water bottles for his owner. Seen at Piazza Farnese in Rome.

Roman coins offer a unique view into ancient Roman life because they were used by almost everyone on a daily basis, from the emperor down to the Head Count. Coins tell us much about what was important to the Roman people, how they celebrated holidays and religious occasions, and how the emperors wanted to be viewed by their subjects. Coins give us excellent portraits of the emperors, their wives and children, and famous buildings that have long ago crumbled into ruin.

This is from the coin page at deadromans.com, which is quite nicely done. It's got information on how coins were made, metals and denominations, inscriptions, dating coins, etc.

(There are other interesting sections at deadromans.com, too, like the virtual walking tour of the Colosseum, Via Sacra, and Forum Romanum.)

This morning's adventure was a visit to Sant'Agnese fuori le mura (St Agnes' outside the walls) in Rome. It's lovely. This is the church Margaret Visser wrote about in her Geometry of Love book. I'm glad I read that; it was nice to know about so many of the church's details.

Would you like a peek at the church? Margaret Visser's website has photos of Sant'Agnese.

Related Links:
Review of Geometry of Love
previous Mirabilis.ca entry about Geometry of Love

Wandering past the Torre Argentina, we spotted a cat amongst the Roman ruins. Then a few more cats, then dozens and dozens more. You can see photos of the kitties on the ruins, and read about them at bestfriends.org.

PlanetArk says that

Rome's council has nominated the 150 cats who sunbathe around the Roman temples of "Torre Argentina", an archaeological site in the very centre of the eternal city, as a part of the city's historical heritage. "There is a deep-rooted affection for these cats who have an ancient bond with the city," the council said in a statement.

Cats of all kinds have always lived in the shadow of the ancient stones of Rome, receiving food and care from citizens, leading the council to declare them "biocultural heritage".

The Cats of Rome Cat Sanctuary looks after as many of the cats as they can. I guess they're the ones who left dishes of cat food amongst the ruins.

So there's a spa type place across the street from our hotel. Every morning I see their sign, and wonder just what services they're offering, anyway. Massaggi, manicure, pedicure, and bagno turco are easy enough to understand, but what is linfodrenaggio? Fangoterapia? Thalssoterapia? The others?

I'm tempted to go sign up for one of everything, but that might just be too weird for me.

This morning we were at the Vatican again, bright and early, to visit St Peter's Basilica before the crowds showed up. Is it ever splendid! We took lots of photos, some of which I might publish here within the next few days.

We climbed 500 steps up to the cupola. Inside, we looked down on the basilica; outside, we saw all of Rome.

Get there two hours early, the priest from Santa Susanna advised. So at 8 am we arrived at the Vatican, and joined a chaotic sort of queue for the papal audience. There were 12 thousand people, all clutching red tickets, all being gently pushed by the crowd behind towards three security checkpoints. We were surrounded by clusters of priests, nuns, and pilgrimage groups from all over Europe, Mexico, and from the US.

Our first hour at the Vatican was spent in this crowd, waiting. It was pleasant enough... St Peter's is beautiful in the early morning sunshine, and everyone in the papal audience crowd is happy and excited.

Once inside the auditorium, we had another long wait before the Pope's scheduled arrival at 10:30. The visiting Polish brass band practiced, and so did another band from Germany, and some singers. Cardinals and monsignors began to fill the seats on stage. We had a good look 'round the auditorium, which has got to be the ugliest part of the Vatican. (It's one of those 1970s regretable things, with a hideous sculpture stretching all the way across the back of the stage.)

When the pope arrived, he was on a rolling podium, and was pushed over to his chair. There was much cheering and applause, and great big smiles. People from the back of the auditorium snuck down the middle aisle towards the front to get better photos. Security guys kept sending them back to their seats.

The pope spoke Czech, Slovak, Polish, English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. It must have been quite an effort for him; his English was so slurred that I had to struggle to understand what he was saying. Every time we switched languages, a monsignor (those are the guys with purple sashes, right?) would speak in that language, welcoming pilgrimage groups by name. Most of the groups jumped up, cheered, and waved their flags in response, but the singing groups sang and the brass bands played when they were mentioned.

Here's Zenit's report on the Pope's September 11th address.

My favourite part was at the end, when we all prayed together in Latin:
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem:
sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

We arrived in Rome last night, and we're here for two weeks. What a place! Most streets in our neighbourhood are narrow and cobbled, with lots of Vespa-type scooters trying to pass a lone taxi. There's a colourful market in our local campo, and, oh my! So many amazing things to see. We discovered the Pantheon on our afternoon stroll today.

Tomorrow we're heading off to the papal audience at the Vatican.

If you know of any wireless Internet access points in Rome or London (especially free ones!), please tell me about them.

I have a couple of starting points in London. ZDNET reported that two Starbucks locations are launching trial wireless hot spots there, and then of course there's Ben Hammersley's Kynance Community Wireless, which I mentioned a while back. (See the Wireless Internet access at cafés blog entry from August 22nd.)

Now, what about wireless access in Rome? I found a bit about Megabeam's access in Italy, and I came across the airgate.it and 802punto11.it sites, both of which might be helpful if I spoke more Italian. *sigh* I know there must be some free wireless nodes in Rome, but where?

London Wireless Update:
Slurp and surf - August 29th Guardian article about the Starbucks wi-fi service.
Starbucks.com wireless access page

Update, April 2004:
People who find this posting sometimes write and ask me to provide a list of wi-fi access points in Rome or in London. I don't have such a list; sorry. If you're looking for that sort of information, try NodeDB.

Have you heard about those capsule hotels in Japan? Each person gets a container in which to sleep. Imagine rows of people-sized fiberglass boxes, each equipped with a matress, pillow, television, and not much else.

Justin Hall explains:

Tokyo in particular is built to support people working away from home. A number of "Capsule Hotels" around the city, near train stations, absorb men who miss the last train home or just aren't sober enough to stumble home.

Justin's website tells about his experience in a capsule hotel, and he's got lots of photos.

Now, can an somebody please put pay-by-the-hour capsule hotels in all major airports? It would be so handy for those layovers between "connecting flights" which don't connect very well at all.

You know those rowing machines at the gym? OK, now imagine that same "push with feet, pull with arms" motion powering a recumbent bicycle. It's an eyeful, really. Go have a look at the rowing bicycle.

If I were in serious trouble, I'd be thrilled to have Bishop Jorge Leonardo Gomez Serna on my side. A Catholic news article, Colombian bishop leads dramatic hostage rescue bid, explains what the bishop's been up to:

A Colombian bishop staged a bold mission to obtain the release of hostages held by rebel forces, leading 500 people from his diocese into a dramatic confrontation with the guerillas, a Bogota journal has reported.

Yay bishop! I wonder what the guerillas thought of this? Here's more from the article:

Eventually the convoy encountered ELN guerillas, and the bishop demanded a meeting with their leaders. After some negotiations, a local commander identified as "Samuel" appeared with several aides. The bishop then surprised the group by beginning to pray the Rosary, and in a second surprise the guerilla leaders joined in the prayer.

"Samuel" announced that he would release one hostage immediately, and others in coming days. But Fr de Roux rejected that offer. "If you are waiting for us to thank you, we will not," the priest said. "Freedom is a right that comes from God, and by releasing hostages you are only recognising that right-- not doing us any favour."

It's exciting enough that we're going to Rome, but cooler news yet: we have tickets to next Wednesday's Papal Audience! I don't know about your agenda, but nothing on my calendar out-ranks that.

A Grist Magazine article asks "Is biodiesel the fuel of the future?" It tells the story of Charris Ford's truck, which is "powered by grease, all of it drained from restaurant deep-fryers in the nearby resort town of Telluride."

Ford's truck runs on biodiesel, a fuel that can be made out of virgin oils from plants such as soybeans, corn, canola, coconuts, or peanuts, or by filtering and processing used vegetable oils, principally restaurant grease. Biodiesel is not new; indeed, when Rudolph Diesel first described plans for his engine in 1893, he thought he had designed something that farmers could fuel themselves using peanut oil. (Cheap petroleum hijacked his dream of rural self-sufficiency.)

But if biodiesel isn't new, it is newly popular: Production in the United States is growing fast, from about 15 million gallons last year to an expected 20-25 million gallons this year to as many as 40 million gallons next year. Still, biodiesel comprises just a tiny fraction of the 55 billion gallons of diesel fuel consumed annually in the United States, when it could account for a lot more: The U.S. Energy Department concluded last year that current soybean production and waste grease could produce about 6 billion gallons of biodiesel annually. Major oil companies such as BP and Gulf Oil are getting into the biodiesel business, and the fuel is already used in vehicle fleets across the country, including that of the U.S. Postal Service. (Retail biodiesel is hard to come by; only about 30 drive-up pumps exist nationwide.)

Biodiesel makes so much more sense than oil from the Middle East. (Or from anywhere, actually.)

Several reports have told of plans to search for St. Matthew's burial site at Issyk-Kul Lake, Kyrgyzstan. Last summer a news24.com article, Archaeologists to dig for apostle Matthew, [Update: sorry, that article is no longer available] explained that

Vladimir Ploskikh, a member of Kyrgyzstan's Academy of Sciences, said the expedition, inspired by old legends, will set out under his lead in the near future.

A manuscript of a long-ago archbishop known as Vladimir says the body "was kept in a monastery on the shore of the Issyk-Kul Lake and the whole Christian world knew about it," according to Ploskikh.

(Take a look at this map, apparently from the Bibliothèque National de France's collection. I'm guessing it's part of the manuscript mentioned in the article quoted above.)

Today a somewhat disjointed Pravda article reports that "IPV News USA Director Sergey Melnikoff is certain that he found the grave of one of the authors of the Gospel." Ah, but did he? The article also mentions that "Representatives of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences claimed that Sergey Melnikoff falsified his discoveries in his chase after a piece of sensation."

Meanwhile, others think that Matthew is buried at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Still others believe he's in Salerno, Italy or in Trier, Germany.

Related links:
About Kyrgyzstan - from the Kyrgyz Embassy in England.
Issyk Kul - Wikipedia
The Issyk Kul Lake - photo page - sangha.net
Issyk-Kul - the sunken cities, and treasures: facts and legends - elcat.kg
Lake Issyk-Kul - studyrussian.com (Text and photos)