"We met you at the cat sanctuary!"

Today felt very long, but we really were only out for four hours-ish. The bus ride there and back took up a lot of the trip. I was standing for most of the way there and both buses back in Rome. But I think that was one of the most interesting parts of the outing. On our way there, I was standing next to a young businessman who was learning--of all things--Spanish in a workbook. That got me thinking about how much easier things would be if everyone was speaking Spanish and not Italian in this city. 3 years is a long time to be studying a language--well, relatively speaking. Relative to my knowlege of Italian, that is. It would be so nice to be able to communicate properly! Walking around with Italian swirling around you is like "beautiful white noise," according to one of my friends, and I would agree. Most of the time I just tune it out, because they're talking so fast there's no way I'd understand any of it. But being here is like walking around in the UN: I've heard Spanish, French and German (frequently), Russian, Japanese, and some others I've probably forgotten. It's cool being able to recognize the sounds of these languages--it makes Rome a wonderful culture clash.
So when we got off the bus after riding past the old city walls (Aurelian walls built by Aurelian, not Marcus Aurelius), we walked a few blocks to the Saint Priscilla catacombs. The top part is now a monastery, so it was felt peaceful and small while we were waiting to go underground. Tidbit of awesome: the catacombs in Rome (or outside of Rome during the time of the early Christians) were not where Christians "hid" to escape persecution, contrary to popular belief. They were built to house the bodies of Christians who had died; it was considered unclean in the city to be around dead bodies. So most of these catacombs are outside the city walls. The catacombs themselves were just--there's hardly words. We were forbidden to take pictures or video at all, so I'll just have to describe it. We walked through this intense metal door which our guide shut behind us, and then down some narrow, spiraling stairs. You could already smell the sort of underground, cave-like smell before we had even entered the catacombs. The catacombs themselves were dark, narrow, and filled floor to ceiling with spaces for the dead. It was a little cooler down there, but very humid (90% humidity, our guide said). The ceilings still had the marks where the original creators of these tunnels had scraped the rock and clay away, and the bricks that were holding up the ceiling were just as old. Our tour guide kept saying, "17 hundred years old" about everything, and it was true. Most of the things that we saw underground were the original carvings, paintings, etc. We were able to see original frescoes (paintings that were created while the plaster was still wet) that had decorated the family tombs (mausoleums)--they were paintings that ancient Christians put up there with their own hands! Pictures of Lazarus, Jonah, Noah, the Wise Men who came to see Jesus, and other well-known stories were still on the ceiling in much brighter colors than we expected. One of the most well-preserved rooms had bright red paint on the ceiling--it was beautiful. The coolest frescoe we got to see was the oldest known depiction of Mary with baby Jesus. It was on the ceiling as a part of a larger painting, but in the corner is one of the first ever Madonna and Child paintings. It was--for lack of a better phrase--really cool.
First thing I noticed when we got down there was how small the spaces for the bodies were. They looked like Navy barracks carved out of stone, but shorter in length. Turns out that people's bodies would have actually fit in those; they were literally smaller and shorter in those days. Most people attribute the size difference to nutritional things. It was really interesting. None of the open spaces had any bones, because they had been removed. Outside of the tourist path, however (in the spaces unlit by electric lamps and roped off from guided tours), our guide told us that there were still the bones and bodies of those buried there. There were a few tombs still unopened where we were walking: tiles covered the opening and then were sealed with Roman cement--very strong. And there were so many tombs: 40,000, all told. We only went through a very small section of the tunnels, but there were so many more that would have been easy to get lost in.
It was such a weird and cool experience to walk through the tunnels where early Christians had been, look at the paintings they had created, and read the names of people they had loved. It was like coming home, in a non-creepy sort of way. And even the graffiti (because there was a lot of it in places, with the names and dates of people who had come through in years past) was a little ironically beautiful, becuase this place has seen so many people come and go. I saw graffiti from 1869 and 1954. It was awesome.
Then we left and went to a few small churches. The first one was a mausoleum attached to the ruins of the first official church building (built by Constantine). The mausoleum was for Constantine's daughter, and has been converted into a church now. The second church was dedicated to Saint Agnes, who was a martyr revered for her purity. Under the altar of this church we got to see her sarcophagus, where her actual body still lies. Her head is elsewhere (she was beheaded, so I'm sure the churches wanted to get the most out of their holy relics...).

Some pictures from the day:

Mosaic in the chuch of Saint Agnes by the altar.

Ceiling of the Saint Agnes church.

Mausoleum of Constantine's daughter. It was actually pretty small in there, and dark.

Ceiling around the dome. Those designs you see are mosaics.

Dome in the Mausoleum with frescoes.

The sarcophagus would have sat right where the altar is today.

The site of the earliest building created expressly for Christian purposes.

Outside of the mausoleum.

The atrium-type place where we waited for our catacomb tour.

It had a nice view.

On the bus back, a couple people in our group recognized someone they'd met at the cat sancutary, and they called to him from across the bus, "Hey, we met you at the cat place!" It was really rather amusing. We stopped at a restaurant that specialized in salads, and I had one with avocado and salmon and corn. And then we all took 2 hour naps. It was glorious. I think we're going to get food, now. I want risotto! :)