Roma

On the final Sunday of every month there is free entrance into the Vatican City Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We heard about this incredible deal on Saturday night, right after we arrived into Rome. A couple other people in our hostel were going to wake-up early, 7:30, so not really that early, and head over to the Vatican. I went to bed at 10:30 on a Saturday to prepare myself for the big day ahead. The alarm went off and we met up with four other people, two Canadians and two Australians, and headed off to the train station. We got to the outer walls of the Vatican City at about 8:50 and got in line with 7,000 other tourists, who all wanted to experience the Sistine Chapel.

Well, after an hour we had moved about 53 feet and it was looking like we were not going to get in, since the door to the museum closes at 12:30 on Sundays. I was stressing out at this point and would not have been happy if I had not gotten in. It was time to improvise. So, this Australian guy, Dave, walks by us and says in his accent from down-under that for 25 euro each we can get to the front of the line and get a tour by one of their professional and well-qualified tour guides. This guy could not have been anymore sketchy and the whole getting in front of the line idea made pretty much zero sense, but as I mentioned before I was going to get in to the Vatican no matter what. I found some other people as nervous as myself about not getting in and negotiated with Dave to get a group deal. He said he could get us in for 20 euro each. We reluctantly accepted.

At this point, I was happy that we are going to get into the museum, but still a little skeptical about this “tour”. So, we go to the main tour office and meet up with some hectic middle-aged women who are going to get us into the museum. This is where it all got a little weird. Some Irish guy comes up to our group and says that all of us should just follow him and we are going to walk up to the front of the line, hop over a small barricade, and jump in line. My initial reaction is that there is probably going to be a riot outside of the Vatican, because we have about 15 people who are all going to cut in line and who doesn’t despise a line-cutter? Well, Dave and his crew were professional line-cutters and they had it down to a science. Sure enough, 15 of us walked up close to the front of the line and hopped right in front of 4,000 severely frustrated tourists. My life was in danger! Did anyone yell? Nope. Did anyone walk back in front of us? No one at all. Were these people out of their mind? Absolutely, in fact, they would have not let me into the Vatican if 15 people had cut if front of me, because some things would have been said that would not have been holy by any means,

There is a part of me that felt a little bad about this, I mean we just did a pretty unethical thing about a couple of hundred feet away from the Pope. Unethical or not, we got into the museum and the Sistine Chapel, while some people did not. Winner! We saw a lot of paintings by artists I have never heard of, tapestries of biblical stories that I was not completely familiar with, and statues of men who needed more clothing. Other than my lack of knowledge in Art History, I did enjoy the experience quite a bit and learned a ton from our Vatican City tour guide who happened to be from Buffalo, New York. The Sistine Chapel was unreal and it is hard to believe that someone could create such a work of art.

We also saw Lance Armstrong racing in the Gyro d’italia later that same day. I think I was more excited to see a 7-time tour de France winner than I was to see the Sistine Chapel. The strange thing is that I don’t think I was the only person in Rome yesterday that felt the same way.

Today consisted of visiting the Coliseum, the Roman Ruins, and the Pantheon, which were all much greater than expected. Rome treated me well and amazed me with its rich history and refined architecture. I would go into more detail, but six paragraphs about my thoughts are probably enough for one day. We are riding the train to Florence right now. David is there. We will visit him tomorrow.

-Brendan