Monday, January 13th, 2019 (Day 9)

Hello, devoted blog readers! I’m Rachel Farah, one of two computer engineers on the trip and I am from the beautiful Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is already Day 9 of ENGR 271 and I can’t believe how fast everything is flying by!

Our day began with hotel breakfast croissants and class at 8:00 am. Today we discussed Arches and how to analyze art. This was very fitting since we were headed to the Sistine Chapel later that day. After our discussion, we had four more powerpoints surrounding Italian culture and engineering and set off to our rooms to drop off our stuff and head out.

We went out into the rain and began our walk to the chapel. When we arrived we had to wait in the long line of other eager people to see the beloved paintings of Michelangelo. About an hour later we were finally in! We swiped our tickets and began looking at the many paintings of saints. Before we could enter the chapel we had to make our way through various museums of art. A few of us stumbled upon a whole room with various pope mobiles across time. It was awesome to see the change in technology from the popemobile being a horse-drawn carriage to an automobile. We also saw the change from non-bullet proof to bulletproof glass from the popemobile in which John Paul II was shot. They depicted a video of the shooting and the Pope forgiving his shooter which gave me chills.

After this, we continued to the Sistine Chapel and went through many rooms with colorful ceilings and mosaic floors. Each painting depicting a holy moment was decked out in gold and royal blues and reds. It was beautiful how the paintings expressed to us the richness or the Kingdom of God. I was also incredibly overwhelmed by the number of statues, each more intricate than the last. I found my self struggling to take it all in. Each room of art we passed led right into another one and we began wondering if we would ever make it to the chapel.

Finally, after the incredible build up, we walked our way into the chapel. At this point, we had been exploring the museums for about 2 hours and were very ready to see The Creation of Adam. There were guards shouting “No Photos!” over and over again and people smushed together, it was chaos. However, I looked up and saw the breathtaking works of Michelangelo with The Creation of David near the center. To be honest, it was a lot smaller than most of us expected. It was, in fact, the same size as most of the scenes painted above. It got me wondering what made this one so much more special than the rest… Nevertheless, it was beautiful! Adam was painted with his hand struggling to reach out, while God’s arm was strongly placed toward Adam depicting that He is all powerful. We sat on the benches for a bit and just looked up, I don’t think all the time in the world could allow me to ever notice every detail.

After a bit, we got up and headed towards the exit. On our way back to the hotel we stopped by a flea market and got a nice laugh in by looking at all the fake designer items. We popped into a pizza shop for lunch. I got a rice ball with mozzarella in it and maybe I was just hungry but it was probably the best-tasting thing in the world.

Thanks for a nice day Rome,

Rachel 🙂