Our first real day in Rome was nothing short of incredible. We ate breakfast (they have nutella packets out every day it's heaven), and then were were off super early to wait in line for the Vatican. The sun had just risen, but it was warm already. Which was good because we had to wait in line for an hour to get in. The outside walls of the Vatican were huge and ancient, like a fort:
Also in the lobby there was this super weird modern sculpture that we couldn't stop staring at:
what even are you?
When we got in we saw a whole slew of breathtaking Renaissance paintings. There were some by Raphael and one by Leonardo da Vinci, and countless others. We saw "the Transfiguration" by Raphael, which blew me away by how bright the colors were. It's nothing you could ever capture in a photograph, it wasn't even something I thought was possible. And it was huge, about 12 ft x 8ft. Here's a nice copy from Google (mine was crappy):
We saw many many more rooms stuffed with paintings and history, As well as white marble sculptures and busts. I still can never believe that someone can carve stone to look like fabric.
Fun fact: some ceilings, like this one, aren't carved but painted. It's completely flat, but painted to look like carvings.
We also saw the Raphael rooms, including "the School of Athens", one my personal favorites. It's actually the size of the entire wall. See that dark square in the lower left hand corner? That's a tall door frame. If you look at the mural, you can see Raphael's very brushstrokes on the wall, it was mind blowing.
Because it's a holy place, and there's so many people, you can't talk in the Sistine chapel, so Linda gave us the explanation of the history and murals themselves. It was here that my camera died :( I was an idiot and took a 10 minute video of Linda talking. Kids, don't do that. Your camera will die immediately.
The inside of the Chapel is much bigger than people made me think it would be. And the figures on the ceiling were bigger than I had thought. To paint that high and that large, and it turned into a masterpiece? Incredible.
After this (oh yes there's more) we saw Saint Peter's Basilica, the biggest structure I've ever been inside (we saw the Pantheon the day I'm writing this and it was even bigger than that).
And then we had lunch on a restaurant of our choice on a short but beautiful block of shops and eateries. My group all had pizza and it was delicious. Definitely worth the wait.
After that we walked to the Piazza Navona, but on our way we stopped at the Ara Pacis. A giant white altar inside a modern glass building. We were all so tired by that point that we sat ourselves down on the massive stone benches inside and just gaped at it.
At the Piazza, with it's Christmas markets, we were given an hour and a half to roam around (haha...roam Rome) In my opinion was more of a carnival than a market. There was a carousal and carnival games just like in the states. Some of us bought gelato and sat around one of the three fountains in the plaza. I had pistachio and chocolate :)
At night here vendors like to sell these green lazers and these blue light up toys that you slingshot into the sky and then they come down like a helicopter.
We also saw a street artist who did spray paint-ings. With stencils and bottles of paint he made beautiful painting of mountains and moons and the Colosseum for 10 euros a piece. And we saw a pair of fire dancers too!
It was a full day and we were ready for dinner. Dinner was close by and it was similar to what we had had the first night. The antipasta was tomatoes on bruccetta, the second course was pasta and sauce and the third was a giant salad with beef and cheese in it. Mm. We were full after that.
We then took the bus and the train back to our hotel and collapsed into bed. What a day that was.
I hope Evanston is doing well, I heard it was really warm there. Boy, I hope we get snow for Christmas.
Shoutout to Ms. Wickham's 2nd period class: Good luck on your test on the Aeneid!
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