Day 13 - Storming the Vatican

We began the day with the Musei Vaticani. It was incredible. To get to the Sistine Chapel, we went through a lot of museum and saw many cool things. Thankfully, we could take pictures.
Outside. Not the most attractive building.

Tabitha and Shamra getting excited. Alisha is excited too, she just hides it better ;)

Sierra was rapping while Mckell laid out a beat. It was amazing.

It has been a little stormy of late.

Roman copy of the scraper.

Lacoon and his sons. Incredible!!

School of Athens!

Raphael's self-portrait is the guy with the black beret.

Michelangelo, supposedly

Plato and Aristotle

My favorite part.

Painting opposite the School of Athens.

The steps were intense. Just kidding. I just liked the sign. And how it looks like I am slipping down the stairs. Maybe I was...

Part of the modern art collection exhibit that is right before the Sistine chapel. Not particularly appropriate, in my opinion. It isn't that I don't like modern art, because I do, it just doesn't seem to be the right place for it.

And then we entered... The Sistine Chapel. Pictures were not allowed... but I snuck a few anyway.

Last Judgment. Incredible in person.

As clear as I could get it.

Then we left the chapel and saw more museum on our way out.

Those are all part of the Odyssey frieze that I believe was found in Pompeii.

Transfiguration by Raphael.

St. Jerome by Da Vinci.

Achilles and Ajax playing a game.

Way down.

And up.

That was the end of the Vatican, and the end of our school day.

After getting some delicious pizza at Pizza Ré, we headed to the Modern Art Museum.

Walking there.

The Museum.

No pictures were allowed, but we saw some pretty cool stuff. Nothing mind-blowing (except for the Fountain perhaps...), but it was all really awesome. And it was also on the small side so we got done fairly quickly. Well, Tabitha went to the zoo so we needed to wait until she was done there. So we sat on the museum steps and played cards.

Unfortunately, it was windy. At one point, a card blew away. We were right at the edge of the stairs where there was an 8 or so foot drop. Between where we were and the ground, there was a large and very long bush. It landed right on a place in the bush that would be unreachable if we tried to grab it from the ground. Only one choice: we had to somehow get the card from where we were sitting. But it was too far for our arms. Quick thinking led us to a solution. Ali and Shamra held my hands as I balanced my foot on an electric box (not really sure what it was) that jutted out from the stairs and grapped the card with my toes on the other foot. It took a couple of tries, but I finally got it. Quite an experience :)

We headed to the hotel next to meet up with the group. Together, we went to Mark's brother-in-law's restaurant (Mark's wife is a native Italian so all her family still lives in Italy). It was incredible. We started out with plate after plate of hors d'oeurves. Mozzerella balls, meat slices with cheese and jam, eggplant balls, absolutely delicious cheesy potato balls, and so much more. It was crazy. We stuffed ourselves. Because we thought that would be it. But we were wrong. Then they brought us taglietelle with white cheese sauce on it. It was really good. A little too al dente for me, but still quite delicious. THEN they served us the second dish of pasta. This time it was these short cylindrical noodles with a red sauce on them. So good. I wish my stomach hadn't been so full because I would have enjoyed them more. For dessert, they gave us an incredible, rich chocolate cake/brownie/cheesecake. Oh. It was incredible. I am so surprised that I got everything down, but I've been eating a lot more since I've been in Europe so my stomach has been stretched out ;)

After that, we wobbled back to the hotel and slipped into food comas. Wonderful.