Saturday, June 27, 2009

Vatican City/Hadrian's Villa

Well Thursday night was a huge success. Most of us all helped prepare a whole lotta food including two kinds of pasta, pasta sauce, potatoes, green beans, bruschetta, melon wrapped with prosciutto, and I think a couple other things. Oh! Apple Torte. It was Asia's 20th birthday and we all had a blast taking lots of photos and eating.

After this we pulled out the bottle of absinthe we had bought a few days ago for this special occasion. Although I hate the taste of licorice, this wasn't half bad when done in small amounts with lots of sugar and water added. At this point we were on the terrace of our residence listening to music, dancing, and having an all around merry time. Eventually though we had to head to bed to get up to see the Vatican the next day!

Well, we felt like we got to sleep in today since we didn't have to meet our profs until 9:45. I'm sickened/its kinda nice that 9:45 is sleeping in for me now. Well, we went into the Vatican museum and were extremely lucky. Cris, my professor, was able to get us into a closed off hallway which held the Augusts Prima Porta (http://www.livius.org/a/1/romanempire/augustus_primaporta.JPG), which is the statue on Wriston Quad on Brown's campus. It was so funny watching people on the outside either A) try get in or B) just take a picture of the hallway. After that we walked around looking at other statues and Cris talked about them. One disgusting thing about the Vatican, since its a private museum, is that they don't have to label anything, nor do they keep anything nice. All of the statues were so dusty or covered in webs. But once I got over that it was definitley cool to see everything in there.

Following the statues, I didn't have much time left because Lily and I had to rush to get to the Accent center (our school building) to finish up our project. But I of course went to the Sistine Chapel before that. The pathway from the museum to the temple is ridiculously long and filled with too many gift shops along the way. There were many halls with so much amazing artwork, but then once you got closer to the actual chapel, there were all of these displays of apparently modern Christian art, none of which was interesting or good. Finally though we arrived at the Sistine Chapel. I didn't realize how high the ceiling was and how far away the amazing art would be! It was pretty astounding though. Definitely hard to describe in words on here. If you're reading this then all I can say is that you must go. (Although be prepared for your neck to be sore for the rest of the day after staring up at everything for so long! I have no idea how that could be painted so well...)

Rest of the day was filled with finishing my project and resting.

Today, Saturday the 27th, we woke up around 8 to get to Hadrian's villa, which was huge. There were so many buildings to see and Sara and Luke gave a presentation on it the entire time explaining all of the different buildings and what we think they were used for even though we can't be exaclty sure. Also, the Romans were so advanced that they could heat staircases.... just insane.

After this we went to Tivoli, a small mountain town near Hadrian's villa to a museum with these expansive gardens and fountains. Pictures will be on facebook very soon. Hopefully today since I'm essentially done with all of my work!!!

For now, eat, nap, pictures, rest up for one more day of site visiting before a complete day off!

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