Ruins =/ 1980s Pole Barns

26Jan 

The Vatican.

Wow. That place is pretty great. And, bonus, it was free today, and double bonus, the pope was speaking, so it was all-around awesome. We got to the Vatican around 8:30 this morning – that is, it didn’t open until 9, so we got in line at 8:30 and patiently waited our turn in line for an hour, until going straight to the Vatican Museum. Which was quite interesting. It’s, like, all stuff the popes in the past have wanted to keep. Lots of orange and black vases, which are super important for some reason. And there’s this room that’s all just maps of history, painted on the walls. So all the places they reference in points throughout the bible you can see now!! Huge on the walls! It was a really cool room. And there was a globe of constellations in the sky. And just the architecture and sculpted walls and gild and paintings. Like, painting the Vatican. A place designed and set apart to be completely for worship every single day. A place of political power and a beacon of hope and stability and faith for billions of people. And you’re painting it. Or designing it. Or building it. Or whatever. Throughout the centuries. So cool. Then we saw the Sistine Chapel, which Bridget really liked, and accordingly, as some parts of this trip, might have been my least favorite part of our trip to Vatican City. I didn’t dislike it, it just wasn’t my favorite. It was absolutely stunning, though. A really awe-inspiring building. Then we went outside to a garden and felt the SUNSHINEEE and read all the stuff we hadn’t known about the Sistine Chapel.

Leaving the museum actually meant leaving Vatican City, which was so confusing to me. Anyway, we doubled back around just in time to see tons of people streaming in to a huge arena and someone’s voice over the loudspeaker. It was the pope!! He usually gives an address on Sundays at noon, but we’d thought he was going to be out of town. Wrong!! I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of Jesus speaking to crowds of thousands, gave me a taste of what that could have been like. We walked around for a bit and eventually found our way to St. Peter’s Basilica – I mean, the line for St. Peter’s, which was rather long, but totally worth it. Oh gosh. St. Peter’s. Talk about huge and beautiful and wow. The tabernacle. Stained glass center and these huggeee gold light things streaming out. I probably stared at it for ten minutes and easily could have admired it for another half hour. Beautiful building. Incredible.

Incredible way to start the day, really. After that we sight-hopped. Followed a map and everything. Still not sure if Bridget was using the map to humor me or actually to look at stuff :P but we saw the Pantheon, oh gosh SO COOL. Archaeologists have deemed it the center where the worlds of math, music, science, and astrology meet up or something, because it shows different stars and the sun in different areas and it’s good at acoustics and the whole “arch with a circle in the middle” thing, which is still today a remarkably difficult piece of architecture. Major props to the Ancient Romans. Ate gelato. And pizza. Then we saw a bunch of churches and stuff. Went to this fountain where people throw coins over their shoulders for good luck, and so that they’ll return to Rome. Watched the sun set from a hill overlooking the entire city. We still have a lot to see tomorrow – we both could have spent more time in Amsterdam just for fun, and another day to see stuff in Salzburg would have been nice, but Rome is kind of the first place we’ve been like “man, we could spend a week here and legitimately not see everything”. After the sun sets, though, really clever lighting illuminates all of the ruins in the city and they’re…amazing. Oh gosh. Wow. Words can’t describe it and pictures can’t begin to do it justice. You’re just walking down the street and you’re like “oh look, that archway has been around for like 3 millennia” connected to a building built like 10 years ago. One structure was highlighted entirely in blue lights. WOW. We finally made our way back and made dinner with John – tomorrow we’ll cook real Italian food, so tonight was Mediterranean!! Couscous with leghen (??) and roasted tomatoes and spinach and delicious. John is a really good cook, just like everyone else we’ve met, and it was so much fun to just spend time in his kitchen chopping vegetables and talking and listening to music. We also made Italian almond biscuits. Over dinner we heard a bit about his adventures everywhere – literally, like the only country he hadn’t gone to was Russia and he’s going to St. Petersburg in a few weeks, so that doesn’t count – and just talked about the world.  We’ve had really, really good experiences couchsurfing – so blessed with lodging in general on this trip.

The pope is up in that window