Rome Day 5

Today was the day of the Vatican. We purchased tickets online beforehand, but loved our guide the other day so much that we wanted to go on the Vatican tour they did. So I called up the office using Skype and changed our time to 1 - about the time the group was supposed to get there. We meet up with the new guide - a very chipper teeny Canadian named Monica - at 11. She's very energetic, but very, very short, so we're always straining to see her. She leads us onto a bus which takes us to just outside the Vatican. We cross the Bridge of the some-odd Angels and learn more about crucifixion than I ever wanted to know in my whole life. Supposedly the bridge is part of this long pilgrimage where you're supposed to 'suffer and die along with Christ'. Millions do it every year for the fun of it.

So we learn about all the angels on the bridge and head over the river for some lunch. After lunch we head into the Vatican itself and stand in line for tickets. There's absolutely no line so our reservations would have done us absolutely nothing anyway, but Monica told us that yesterday (the rainy day) the line was over two hours long. All the luck of the draw, I guess. Our tickets work out just fine and we get into the Vatican Museums. She leads us through, pointing out all the major works on the way to the Sistine Chapel. We don't see as much as we would have if we were alone, but I think it was worth it. She told us a bunch of stuff I would not have known (where Michelangelo got the inspiration/faces/bodies for the chapel, etc) and I liked getting guided through. It set me up for the next time we get there. I'll know where to go, what I want to see, etc.

We get through the museums, lots of fun stuff there, and it dumps us right into the Sistine Chapel. No pictures allowed because Kodak owns the rights to the ceiling since they paid for the cleaning a while back. They left a couple patches to show you how dirty it used to be - yikes. So you stand there, head craned back to look at the ceiling and the massive walls that are awesome. And all the while the guards are going "SHHHH" and "NO PICTURES". They're very angry in the Vatican.

The tour ends in front of Saint Peter's Basilica. We go in (free - yay!) and it's massive. I know I should feel completely impressed, and I am on some level, but I've seen so many churches and massive rooms and ornately decorated palaces that it's almost too much. I swear I'm going to be throwing up marble by the end of this trip. But it was beautiful and ginormous. Everyone's taking pictures of St. Peter's tomb, which is only part of it because the real part can only be seen on a special tour that I tried to book a month in advance but was refused. Cause when it comes to Christianity, you have to book everything months in advance if you want to beat out the evangelicals. But that's okay - the cathedral and the museums were quite enough. I have the urge to watch EuroTrip again and see how the end scene compares with my view of the Vatican, but that will have to wait till I get home.