Finally reached Mecca!

Or at least from an art historian's point of view I reached Mecca today. After seven weeks in Rome I finally made it to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Now you may ask yourself why I waited so long to see what everyone else raises to Rome to see. I had already ventured over to Vatican city numerous other times to see St. Peters and Castel St. Angelo. But I waited very patiently because my program paid for it and I had a very knowledgeable guide to enhance the experience. And even better, we got to wear these cool secret agent, think Jack Bauer, type headsets so we could hear our tour guide. And the best part, we could take them out of our ears when we didn't want to listen anymore! Now I don't think life gets much better than that!

But before I even think of talking about the actual art in the Vatican Museum, I first have to tell everyone about how fabulous today was in Rome. We were taking our Vatican tour in the afternoon, which is the opposite from our usual morning Roman civilization classes, so we got to sleep in and enjoy ourselves. As I've mentioned earlier, Rome has been VERY rainy and cold. We've even had hail and the Tiber River is getting rather high. But today we woke up to the most gorgeous sunny day. The pope himself couldn't have ordered better weather. So I sat outside at the bar, and by bar I mean coffee and food place, and drank a cappuccino and did some reading in the SUN! I didn't even need to have my coat on. It was absolutely incredible. 

After the perfect sunny morning it was time for the Vatican. The Vatican Museums are very interesting because you would think that the Vatican would not have art from the antiquity. Because Catholicism doesn't real match with the polytheistic religion of the ancient Romans. But the popes wanted to show the power of the antiquity, so they have filled their museum with the largest collection of ancient Roman art. It is interesting to see the ancient art because a lot of the art from the Renaissance was based on art from the antiquity. After looking at all of the really old stuff we got to the art from the Renaissance. Architecture from Bramate and the art of Raphael and Michelangelo. I loved seeing the School of Athens in the pope's library.

But by far the most extravagant part of the Vatican Museum was the SISTINE CHAPEL! After taking so many art history classes and spending hours of my life writing papers about it, I can't believe I actually was able to stand in the Sistine Chapel and it is totally worth it to have a sore neck! Everything was perfect. The ceiling where Michelangelo depicted scenes from Genesis to his Last Judgement on the wall of the chapel. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. But I have no pictures because you can't take pictures inside. And I wasn't about to sneak pictures. Plus, I was in such shock that I was actually there, that I didn't even think about my camera! Just an amazing place.

And what kind of amazing day wouldn't end with drinks and dinner with good friends at our favorite Irish Pub in Rome. We headed over to the Scholars Lounge from the Vatican to relax and have a drink. What a fabulous day!

And I'm headed to Venice this weekend for Carnivale!