The POPE!

Greetings from the Vatican

It has been a day filled to the brim with history and art. This morning the three of us caught the metro over to Vatican city. It is still very hot, in case you were wondering about that aspect of things...

We hopped on to the rather long line into the Vatican museums which moved pretty quickly. It turns out that it was just the line to get into the area where you get tickets, but all in all the whole thing only took about 30 minutes. Instead of telling you about the wonderful 30 minutes we spent on line I'll tell you a little about what its like being on the streets of Rome. There are vendors clustered around most of the big historical sights. There are cart vendors ( those who sell food and those who sell useless junk and small replicas of things) scattered around. I haven't bought anything from them because the drinks are too expensive and the food is pretty iffy looking. Then there are people who walk around trying to force you to buy sun umbrellas, hats or guided tours. Its actually pretty funny because all of them must get their wares from exactly the same place- the umbrellas look like the kind that come with tropical drinks and it makes one wonder where the "trends" for this kind of stuff comes from. Today there was actually an accordian player serenading us on line which was unusual.

Once we got in to the museums we started to head towards the Sistine Chapel, the main attraction. This led us through most of the exhibits in the museum, which was nice because I don't know if we would have gone out of our way to see them otherwise. My favorites were the animal room, filled with small statues of animals, and the tapestries (ok, this also happened to be one of the only rooms with air conditioning. It was a coincidence, i swear). We eventually made it to the Sistine Chapel, which was, of course, fantastic. I hadn't realized that the entire thing was incredibly detailed. Its not just the famous center of the cealing, its every part of the walls and the floor. We made it out- the whole museum was also packed to the brim with tourists, and that made it a little unpleasant at times. It made me claustrophobic and people tend to smell when packed like sardines in the heat. Yum.

Then we sent some post cards from the legitimate VATICAN POST OFFICE (!). And realized that we had somehow missed the Raphael Rooms. So we had to walk back through all of the exhibits we had just seen, which wouldn't have been sooooo crowded if they weren't chock full with other camera toting fools. It was worth it though, I really enjoyed getting to see The School of Athens. After finishing up and make our escape we walked over to St. Peter's Basilica.

The piazza outside of the church is big and elaborate. There are two large fountains and an obelisk in the middle and the walls are topped with statues of figures who I'm sure are historically significant. Gorgeous. We walked over to security to enter the Basilica- free but you have to be dressed right. Allie wasn't, it turns out, because she had short jean shorts on. Emily and I went in and saw the tombs of some former popes and then the main building. As expected, it was verrrrrry big and verrrrrry elaborate. I'll post pictures asap.

On our way back we stopped at the Spanish Steps and I dragged Emily and Allie over to San Crispo for what is aparrently the best gelato in Rome. I can't complain, and even Em and Al admitted that it had been worth it...

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