When in Rome...

... Enjoy the art. On Monday, we made sure to get up early enough to get ta spot in line for the Vatican Museums, and sure enough we got there at 7:15 and were about 30th in line. Of course some oblivious French dude with terrible black on black fashion cuts in right behind us, and we made sure to give him a hard time. We also met two girls from Brazil in line and talked with them to pass the time,mane before I knew it we were going in. The hallway down to the Sistine chapel is lined with beautiful sculptures and antique tapestries. Each piece was so intricately designed and created that I can't imagine the number of sculptures and hours that went into creating all of them. My favorite area was the old maps of Italy, as it reminded me of studying geography with my dad back in the day. The ceilings all the way down were amazing as well. One of them, we couldn't even figure out if the figures were sculpted or painted the job was done so well. 

Then we passed into Le Stanze Di Raphael, 4 rooms done by the famous Italian and his followers. I love his painting The School of Athens, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it painted on one of the walls of these rooms. Next were several galleries of modern art, including works by Van Gogh, Dali, and Matisse, then finally came this Sistine Chapel. The security guards are everywhere in there, constantly repeating " No, Foto," but I always get the photo. You can't stop my selfies. Of course the ceiling was spectacular, but one thing about visiting it in person is seeing everything around it as well, and I thought one of the walls was almost as amazing (also you didn't have to arch your neck up while walking backwards to properly see it). I've seen pictures of these famous pieces so often, but it was really cool to see all of the art up close and personal at I Musei Vaticani. 

... Do as the Romans do. And right now, all the Romans are outside of Rome at the beach for Ferragosto, so we decided to join them. We got a train ticket from Termini which didn't have the platform, finally found it, and jumped on just before the all aboard call. We sat down next to a guy and girl from near Queensland, Australia who were in the middle of a 3 month back pack tour. Starting in Malaysia, they've now been to Greece (their favorite overall, especially the fresh food), Germany, Austria (great downhill go carting), the Czech Republic, and Italy, and were on their way to Pompeii and later Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, and the Netherlands. We talked about our travel experiences, sports (the lack of success of Australian football, and the potential success for Australian steam train rugby players in the NFL), and beer (apparently they don't actually drink Fosters in Australia). After about an hour, and a short bus ride, we made it to the Western coast of Italy, looking out onto the Mediterranean Sea, and man was it beautiful. The classic bright beach houses along the water and up the sea cliff, the amazingly blue water below the amazingly blue sky stretching forever and meeting at the horizon, neither interrupted by anything, and the fresh warm sand inviting us down. Before long, we were taking a refreshing dip in the sea. It was extremely salty, which wrecked havoc on my mouth and eyes, but also allowed me to float, which was so peaceful. We walked down the beach a little ways and ordered tremezzini from a snack bar. While we were eating a stealth jet started flying over the beach, doing flips and dive bombs for the crowd. After lunch, we played catch with a tennis ball in the water until we couldn't take the salt anymore, chilled and read in beach chairs under umbrellas, and once again just enjoyed he day. We may well have been the only Americans on the beach, and I certainly stood out against the bronze locals with my pale white skin and blonde hair. There were people playing paddle ball, soccer, and even basketball on a hoop in the water, while others read and tanned, and we did a little of both. We ended the day, and our trip abroad with a gelato overlooking this beautiful scene. It was an unforgettable ending to an incredible vacation.