Journal 7: Rome After Two Weeks

I love Rome. I love the food, the layout, the history, the art, everything. Yet, I don't think I would want to live here. I'm am so tired. Today we visited the Pantheon and even though it was amazing, I just didn't feel like I had the energy to appreciate it fully. When I went to the Vatican a week ago, there weren't many people around yet because it was so early in the morning. It was peaceful and I felt like I was able to take all the sights in. When we went to the Colosseum, it was so large that it was easy to walk around and find your little corner of it and just admire the structure. But today, although the Pantheon is quite large, there were hundreds of people trying to see everything that I was trying to see. I can't blame them of course because I'm just as much of an annoying tourist as they are but the fast pace that I was looking at it was upsetting now that I look back at it. And I feel like that is the way it is with a lot of the places we have been visiting. I could spend hours in some of the museums we go to but unfortunately we have to fit so much history into three weeks that there is a time limit on everything. This rushing to see absolutely everything is a big contributor to my exhaustion.

I don't want to leave though. True, I'm definitely not cut out for the city and I miss the country side and houses (honestly, I don't think I've seen one house in Rome) but this city is my favorite by a long shot. It doesn't have the tall buildings made of metal and glass. It has history, and stone. Instead of tearing down old buildings, they restore the old ones and remodel them to fit the desired need. Yesterday we visited Trajan's markets and the museum was held in the ruins of the markets!

This is one of the streets we walk through to get
to the accent center. Yes, cars drive here.

It doesn't have the the concrete sidewalks or the grid-like streets. It twists and turns and some how I make it to where I need to be without actually knowing how I got there. It's fun to see how people can just walk on the cobble stones and cars just come along. Yes, they honk at you and their driving is even worse than those in North Dakota, but I love the interaction.

Blog Post 8: Musei Vaticani

Sistine Chapel

Today was the Vatican Museum. Aaron showed us the way to the Sistine Chapel and then we were on our own. There were so many people at the museum that I quickly lost everyone in my group. I walked through halls of canvasses meant to cover the workers that were doing restorations. It seemed like half the museum was either closed or being restored! I walked through halls with tapestries, paintings, and many other objects that seemed like a blur. I didn't stay long in one room because of all the people. I vaguely remember practically running through the modern art exhibit (that's how much I adore modern art). I finally made it to the chapel. Everything will be alright now I thought, but walking in I was overwhelmed even more. There were so many people and so much going on with the walls my head was spinning! To make matters worst, there were guards everywhere yelling at us to be quite (just a tiny bit counter productive) and telling us pictures were forbidden. I saw one guard run over to a man to inspect the object in his hand, thinking it might be a camera. I stared at the walls and ceiling not really looking at any of it. I always saw pictures of the chapel and thought it would be so wonderful to go and see but when I finally got there, the only thing I wanted to see was an exit. There were so many people I was being nudged about to really concentrate on any of the paintings. This has been the only time on this trip where I would have proffered the pictures to the real thing. Blasphemy, I know, but it's the truth. The walls were painted for those who went to the chapel to look at and reflect on. I stared at the last judgment, picking out pieces that I had studied in my Catholic courses but nothing struck me as "awe inspiring" or "life changing". It was a picture and there were still too many people hitting up against my sides and back. I think the chapel should be revered for its wonderful artwork and I'm sure many who visit the chapel do feel something when looking at the paintings. I just didn't.

St. Jerome in the Wilderness by da Vinci
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Museums#
/media/File:Leonardo,_san_girolamo.jpg

After escaping the chapel. I wondered around a bit. I walked through the Egyptian exhibit about three times and the hall of Roman busts twice. About half the pieces had labels. I saw Laocoön and His Sons, an Etruscan gold fibula, and even the Prima Porta from a distance since the section was closed off. After a lot of wondering I found a section that had many religious paintings of saints, Jesus, and Mary. Many of the artists were from the Renaissance period and the attention to detail was incredible. I particularly liked Leonardo da Vinci's St. Jerome in Wilderness. I was surprised by how many paintings of St. Jerome there were. I didn't know much about St. Jerome, his name was the extent of my knowledge and it made me curious why this man was featured so much. After reading a little about him, I found out that Jerome spent a lot of time in Rome writing translations. He is now considered one of the Latin doctors of the Catholic Church. He spent a fair amount of his life as a hermit in the Syrian desert, which explains why he is depicted in the wilderness.