We spent all day Friday at the Vatican. It was really nice out the entire time we were waiting in line to get into the Vatican Museum and the line moved very quickly, so it didn't feel like we were standing for all that long. All we had to do was avoid all of the people trying to sell us things (like scarves) and offering to take us on tours inside the museum. Once inside, we explored the Early Christian art exhibit first. The set up was really interesting for a museum, and a religious museum at that. The artifacts were really classical (think white marble) and they were mounted on these steel, industrial-looking stands.

I actually thought it was pretty cool. The best part about this was seeing some of the artifacts that I just took a midterm on back at school (like the sarcophagus of the two brothers).

It is so nice to be able to actually see things that you've studied in class ... especially when the knowledge is so fresh in you memory

The Early Christian art exhibit led into a stamp exhibit that didn't interest us at all. I didn't even take any pictures in there. The stamp exhibit rather awkwardly led into an exhibit on Chinese culture in the basement. There was a lot of really interesting things in this exhibit, but all the information plaques were written in Italian, so I didn't learn anything about what I was looking at.

My favorite part was the area that showed the influence of Christianity in China. There is this really cool group of fabric panels that evidently depict a few of the Christian saints, but they look like little old Chinese men ... it's great!

Of course, the highlight of visiting the Vatican Museum was seeing Raphael's School of Athens and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The School of Athens kind of snuck up on me. All of a sudden I was in a small room with 100 other people and they were all staring at me... well, actually, they were staring at the wall behind me.

So I turned around and, BOOM, there it was. I was staring at Raphael's depiction of Michelangelo and it was literally inches from my face. The crowd had to keep moving so before I knew it I was out of that room and being issued into the Sistine Chapel where I wasn't allowed to take pictures, take video, sit in the middle of the floor, or talk. Yeah, trying to keep 300 people who want to vocalize their utter awe to their neighbor from talking is quite difficult, but there were guards everywhere and they kept everybody in check.

It was raining when we left the museum, but we trudged ahead to St. Peter's Basilica. Well, there was a line stretching all the way around the square when we got there. So we wandered around the square for a while and then witnessed the mad dash to get in when they opened the gates. What we didn't know at the time was that people were running to get good seats for Mass (because it was Good Friday). We actually watched a young priest jump one of the fences so he could get in faster. It was almost utter chaos. Ever see a scene from a western movie where there is a herd of horses locked in a paddock and then someone opens the one gate and all the horses push to get through that one tiny gate? It was like that...

We did eventually get in, and Mass had already started, so we didn't sit. After awing at the beauty of the building we went back outside and watched about 20 minutes of Mass on the giant Panasonic TV screens they have in the square. That TV screen was as close to the Pope as I got. I'm not Catholic though, so it wasn't a big deal.

If you ever make it to Rome, go to Vatican City because the architecture will just blow your mind.