the Vatican

The weather decided the agenda today, how could you go to an

outside site with the forecast for 30% all day, but 80% by afternoon?  So, we went to St. Peters and decided that we should do the basilica and the dome before it started to pour.  It was raining on the way to the bus stop, and every bus to the Vatican was ridiculously full, so when one stopped and 4 people got off, I yelled “go” and squeezed myself in at the front of the bus because we were going to have divide and conquer, but I was the only one that jumped on  

 the bus.  So, I got to ride to the Vatican without any of my group (which we’re not supposed to go off on our own) and a little old Italian guy’s hand in my crotch because he was holding the bar that I was having to straddle to fit on the bus low.  So, that was fun and then I had to hope that the group caught a bus behind me and I would run into them.  I knew that they would be a ways behind 

me, so I went to a store by the Vatican and got a drink and an umbrella and then walked toward St. Peters to see if they had come.  John and 3 other intrepid students had jumped on the next bus and we got to run around the square and take pictures and stuff while John waited on the other group to arrive.  We finally were all reunited and able to get in the line for the entrance to the basilica.  The sad part about this trip was that all of the chairs were in the square like there was a big audience going on.  So, you couldn’t get to the obelisk in the center, the zodiac discs, the four winds discs, or the porphyry disc that make

 the columns in Bernini’s colonnade line up.  But we finally entered the basilica and the pieta is still the best thing going.  I’m sorry, but I don’t like Bernini’s baldachin in St. Peters.  I know that it is kind of “the” Baroque piece, but I think that it is dark and ugly and strangely shaped.  I don’t get it.  That will be the first thing that I do on my art history assignment, maybe turn it around from what was significant that

  we saw, to what I didn’t like that is seen as significant.  That’s right people, I know that you all think that I’m just gallivanting around Europe (which I will be doing soon), but for the first two weeks I’m taking classes.  I have to write a philosophical journal and photo log of things we see and then a paper on one specific piece of art.  So, I’m working my ass off here…No, not really, but I am walking my ass off.  I thought that I was getting ready for this,

 but I’m not ready for this much walking, standing, and climbing.  We finally got through security and the line to get into the basilica and the place was packed.  There are so many tour groups in Rome now, I was here 3 years ago at this same time and there were not tour groups like this.  It is out of control.  I guess that you can only come to the big places in November or something because  the Vatican and Vatican museums were packed solid.