For not having traveled a very long distance, we sure did a lot of walking and standing today.  The subject of today was, as some of you may know, the Vatican Museum and the John Cabot University.  Luckily, the museum was about 100 yards from the door of our hotel, but the university was a mile south.

Around 10:30 in the morning, we all stumbled into the hotel lobby to away our infamous guide, Gino.  Unlike usually, we did not receive headsets because we were required to use the Vatican’s brand.  Out the door and up some steps across the street, we arrived at our destination.  Directly ahead is a large, white, decorated entrance to the museum, but that’s not for the public.  To the left of that pearly entrance was a set of glass doors and tons of line separators.  Usually, those lines are filled all the way around the corner and then some, but today they were barren.  Good omens, right?  Well the inside was still full of people.  To enter, we had to pass through a small security station like when entering the other sections of the Vatican.  We then got our headsets and set off for the museum.  Actually, that’s sort of a lie.  Rather than going straight up the stairs into the museum, Gino led us behind the information desk to two stray statues to explain how they used to all be painted.  Surely nobody ever looks at those statues because we received strange looks from the workers at the info desk.

A great view from within the museum grounds

Finally we made it into the museum plaza which had a plethora of branches and directions to go that were filled with rich pieces of history. Guess which one we went into?  None of them.  Since we only had about 2 hours and Gino liked to talk a lot, we headed straight towards the Sistine Chapel.  Along the way we stopped in one side room where Gino took his time to discuss the marble.  Yeah, pretty much just the marble.  The passage to the Sistine Chapel is long and a bit crazy.  It begins with a large, arched hallway that stretches forward for what seems like forever.  That corridor is divided into sections covering art like sculptures, maps, tapestries, and more.  Do you remember how I mentioned there were a ton of people inside the museum?  Well 99% of them were in this segment, all on their way to the chapel.  Most of the time spent moving through that corridor is just getting funneled along with the crowd.  If you’re lucky you can jump out of the stream to the side of a door.  Gino relied on our ability to do so a little too much, so soon enough our group was divided and conquered.  Eventually we regrouped and moved forward through the crowd.  After the corridor were a handful of papal residence rooms which had paintings from top to bottom that were quite impressive.  We were still a ways away from the chapel.  Members of the group got caught in the undertow of the tourists and so had to press on and hope for the best.  I was among those poor souls.

Trust me, the crowds I mentioned showed up a minute later

After the papal residence, tourists are forced into the modern art section which, all in all, is about 30 rooms of content.  Our focus was the chapel so I powered through those rooms.  Along the way I noticed strange works of art with obscured faces and others made of some simple shapes.  I don’t understand modern art.  Finally, I made it to the Sistine Chapel, and soon afterwards the rest of the group made it in.  Inside the chapel, tourists aren’t supposed to talk or take photos so there’s a handful of guards going around enforcing the rules.  Ironically, those guards are the main sources of noise as they constantly shout out “No photo!”  The Sistine Chapel, while not humongous, is impressive for it’s masterpieces of art covering every inch of the walls and ceiling.  While the walls were painted by a handful of unmentioned artists, the ceiling and altar wall were painted by Michelangelo himself.  His altar wall depicts the end of the world and the ceiling has various scenes from the beginning of the bible.  It’s very hard to describe, so below I’ve included a link to a virtual view of the chapel (copy and paste it into your browser address bar).

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm

About a half an hour later, we exited the chapel and too the Vatican, broke off for lunch, and then reassembled in the square an hour later. Nearly one mile southwards along the Tiber in the Trastevere region was the John Cabot University, a small private college that caters to foreigners like ourselves.  The entrance isn’t very recognizable among the surrounding buildings, but once inside it feels very college-like.  It’s a multi-level, more or less modern school.  Rather than it all being in one location, it has two campuses, the northern one (where we arrived) and a southern one not more than 1/4 mile away.  Upon arrival we were led to a classroom where we were greeted by the president of the university.  Previously we had been told he wouldn’t be able to make it because of some emergency, but apparently he had come back just in time.  I don’t recall exactly what he said about where he had been, but I’m pretty sure he said the Italian president had just quit.  Anyways, he gave us a riveting presentation on Italian politics.  He covered politics from World War II up to present day, and it was all quite interesting.  He even gave us an insider tip that around the 2oth, the Italians may be attempting an American strategy to boost their economy which may effect the value of the euro, bringing it down close to a 1:1 ratio with the US dollar.  No guarantees though.

At the center behind the blinding light is the university’s president

Afterwards, we were split into three groups and given tours of the campuses by some students.  Our tour was somewhat awkward since our guide began under the assumption we were incoming students and not just tourists.  Whoops.  That issue quickly became evident and we cleared the air.  The two sites were nice buildings and the University looked like a great school, both sharing similar setups.  We had arrived at a pretty fortunate time since they were setting up for the coming semester but had not yet begun class.  Once all was said and done, the group split up and some students headed back while others visited the local microbrewery.  The beer there was some of the best we’ve ever had, so we’ll be headed back.

That’s all for now!  Tomorrow’s post will be short since we’re giving some class presentations after a lecture in the morning.  Thanks for reading!

– Chris Apfeld

p.s. We’ve had t-shirt/light jacket weather here and after seeing weather reports for back home have no regrets about leaving the country.