The Vatican

So I took the metro to the Vatican City, today. The Rome Metro is pretty simple; It's a giant X, and Rome Termini is the central hub, just down the street from my hotel.

They've got great trains down there. Instead of posters everywhere, they have little television screens. And they've got the radio on when you're waiting for the tracks, so it's not that eerie silence. Plus, the trains don't have doors between them, like those double buses, except the entire train. It's awesome.

So I get to the Vatican and eat at this restaurant right in front of the Vatican City. They probably get a LOT of business. I had one of these combo plates with lasagna, potatoes, veal, and vegetables. And some wine. It was great.

Then I went into the Vatican Museum, which is essentially the Vatican.

The thing about the Vatican is that everyone wants to go to either the Sistine Chapel or St. Peter's Basilica. That being said, most people barely know or care that there's a ton of other really cool art from the Renaissance and ancient Egypt and some other time periods that's all housed at the Vatican, also.

Now, I'm one of those people. But, the Vatican knows this, so, the entire museum is set up like a freaking maze of art, frescoes, tapestries, sculptures, that ends with the Sistine Chapel at the end of the rainbow.

Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera after yesterday and was only able to take pictures until about halfway through the journey to the Chapel.

I guess I was able to look at the art more instead of just blazing through all of them and taking pictures. And you're not even supposed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, anyways. I probably would've tried to sneak one or two. The Sistine Chapel was pretty gorgeous looking, but the lights were really low, and it turns out everything's kind of far away and on the ceiling, so it's probably not the best view.

But, seriously, I wish I had pictures of St. Peter's Basilica. It is really one of the most jaw-dropping, magnificent, incredible buildings I have seen in my life. It is enormous. And it is gorgeous.

Above the altar is a stained-glass dove exploding out of sculpted clouds.

I don't think I've ever seen old art that awesome.

I came back on foot, and by this point, as a culmination of my past two days of walking, my feet were starting to feel awful. I switched to shoes at least, so it might've been better, but I was just getting sloppy. I started getting lost really easily. I ended up going all the way back to somewhere I came from because I was going West instead of East.

"Hey, why is there another river on this map?"

And I kept on thinking I was on one street but I really wasn't. Street signs are funny like that here; they have them on the sides of the buildings, not on posts on the street. And they're sometimes not there.

This guy tried to get me to give him 10 euros because he made a little friendship bracelet around my wrist. He said one loop is for luck and another is for...I can't remember. I probably should've just told him I didn't want a string bracelet as soon as he came up, because I knew he would want me to give him money after that. But I wanted to see where it was going, I guess. He said it was "his job." But I'm not giving someone 10 euros for tying a string around my wrist that most pre-teen girls probably do in their spare time. Especially because the smarmy small talk/compliments are clearly so driven towards one goal: "Oh, where are you from? America? Oh, you look Italian."

I look Italian.

I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and went out to dinner and decided that since this was my last night in Rome, I would stuff myself to the brim. AND I DID.

I bought something that lets me upload photos now, but I don't think I'm going to edit any of my last posts; I'll just put up things i found interesting in new posts.

Avete Forbici?