Missed the Pope . . .

But still had a great time at the Vatican . . .

On Saturday (the day after Christmas) we got tickets to go to the Villa Borghese- one of the oldest art museums in the world. The art was fantastic, including several incredible Bernini sculptures, the only downside is that you only have exactly two hours to go through the whole gallery (and they are serious about it), so I didn't even get to part of the upstairs. After the museum, we walked around the mostly shuttered Rome with our new friend from the hostel, Sean. We went to the Spanish steps and to the designer shopping district. In America, the 26th of December is one of the busiest shopping days and we expected all of these stores to be open. To our surprise (and probably to the benefit of our wallets) the stores were all closed. We even had a hard time finding someplace open to eat that night!

On Sunday we got up early and headed to the Vatican. At least we thought it was early, when we got there we found out that early really means 6AM on free Sunday . . . and by 8:30, the line was already all the way around the outer walls and nearly spilling into St. Peter's Square. We got in line and got ready to wait. Some part of me loved all the lines in Italy, just because people in Albania don't really know how to line up. I did not relish standing in line for 3 hours only to have to rush through the museum (they close at 12:00 on Sundays), so when one of those annoying guys offering a guided tour and a chance to skip the line came by, we actually considered it. Maybe if I had been by myself, I would have just waited, but with Connie and the fact that we were already pretty tired from the last few days, we decided that the 20Euros to skip the line didn't sound like a bad deal. That is until we got near the entrance and got accosted by another tour guide! She railed at us for a few minutes about how these people pulling groups out of line were illegal and that no one had the right to skip the line and that the people in the front had been waiting since 6AM and that she was an "Official" guide and that she was going to call the police and . . . . .We were of course a little bit taken back, but our guide assured us that there was no problems and that we just needed to wait until she went inside with her group (she wasn't going to worry enough about us to miss out on her money) and then we could skip the line and go in as promised. We got inside and were put with a group and given very official feeling headsets and it felt mostly on the up and up to us, but who knows. I know that it is not uncommon for there to be guide groups that can skip the line at museums and I don't know the Italian or Vatican rules on the issue, but anyway . . . We were really happy that we got the tour as I think that the museum would have been very overwhelming without the guide. Even with the guide it was a bit overwhelming and I felt that I only really saw pieces . . . Of course, the Sistine Chapel was incredible, but so was the hall of maps and all of the ceilings and all of the statues and there is just too much! And that is not even counting St. Peter's Basilica, which was on just a whole other level. It seems that every Pope has felt the need to add something to the church, so every inch is covered in decoration- and there are a lot of inches to cover.

In the afternoon, we headed back out to stores that had been closed the days before and did some shopping. Let me tell you, it is hard to be in Italy on a Peace Corps budget! Just to give you an idea . . . in the 10 days, including accommodation and travel I spent almost 5 months of my living allowance! But is was worth every penny . . .