Marble SUCKS to walk on.

Especially when you already have back problems. Why couldn't the Vatican be floored with something nice and squishy? Those popes are old--if they fall on marble, they might break! If they fell on foam, on the other hand, life would be just fine.

Anyways, if you haven't figured it out, we went to the Vatican today. We didn't meet there until 1:30 though, so we had plenty of time in the morning to kill. But that time quickly vanished into a trip to the cafe, where they're training a newbie who was having major issues with the cappuccino machine. He couldn't even figure out what cups to use! Our usual friends were laughing at him as he tried to figure it out. That, and a trip to the market, 61 pages of reading, and trying to communicate with our landlord about the lack of fixing of the plumbing situation. A plumber is supposed to be coming tomorrow morning to deal with it so hopefully that actually happens.

Getting to the Vatican was also quite eventful. We took a bus from the Campo and started waiting in the crazy long line snaking around the Vatican wall. After about 20 minutes of this nonsense, our teacher, Lisa, pulled us all out of line and took us up to the "reservations only" entrance, despite our lack of reservation. She pulled out some paperwork and ushered us inside, arguing with the guard outside until we were all through security. There were some tense moments as she got taken away by one of the guards and over to some sketchy side window and we almost all got kicked out of the Vatican but Lisa can talk her way out of anything. 20 minutes later and we were inside with our headsets. They made life SO MUCH EASIER. Lisa could talk to us from wherever and we always could hear her despite crowds and obnoxious small children. (See figure 1--convenient headsets! with the Basilica in the background!)

Anyways, we wandered around the Vatican for a while, moving through numerous courtyards and sculpture galleries and painting halls and basically it just goes on FOREVER. I think the Vatican is super cool and all, but after already seeing it once, today was a long, long day. I don't really think the Vatican is something you need to do twice, just for future reference.

But it really is cool, nonetheless. And you know what was even cooler? Randomly, in the Sistine Chapel, I ran into someone who went to my high school and I've know basically forever (Kerri Spangenberg, for my curious mother). We played barbies together as toddlers. Anyways, she's been studying abroad in France and is traveling with her family and just happened to be in the Vatican the same day as me! Pullman follows you everywhere, apparently.

After spending four hours in the Vatican museums (no, we didn't even do Saint Peter's Basilica, that's next week), we were exhausted. So we got gelato, which made our walk home so much better than it could have been. But, we didn't get home until 6:45 and had to stop at the bakery to grab some bread and then hurried up to the Rome Center for a mandatory movie. It was a documentary about Piazza Vittorio and these people trying to set up an orchestra there and was interesting but not what I wanted to do after a long day of standing on marble. Piazza Vittorio is where the immigrant community sets up shop so it was a crazy movie with basically a bunch of random people playing random instruments. Again, interesting, but unnecessary.

At 8:45ish it was time to head home (finally) after an incredibly long day. Tomorrow is Saint Peter and Paul's Day, a holiday here to honor the two patron saints of Rome so there were supposed to be fireworks or something tonight at 9:30 but we definitely haven't heard any. Unless Italy has mysterious silent fireworks, I'm going to be really grumpy when they start lighting them off as I'm trying to sleep! Hopefully they're just not going to light them off tonight. And thankfully, tomorrow we only have one class! Our others were canceled because of the holiday--the places were we supposed to go to are closed. What a wonderful opportunity to catch up on my homework... It's Monday and I'm already behind!

As I write this, I feel like it doesn't seem like I did much today but really, we did! And I am incredibly exhausted so I should definitely be going to bed soon. And I need to wake up early so I have plenty of time to skype with my favorite sister ever! I know this wasn't as epic of a post as I promised, but more will be coming soon!