Vaticani Musei

Ciao? Guten Tag? Bonjour? Okay, the language is getting confusing. I keep mixing up my sayings. Between learning phrases in three languages from the trip, and my German language classes in school, I'm getting confused. I will say Chris is faring better than I am, though I can order food like nobody's business (no surprise there). Yesterday we went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica. St. Peters was the most beautiful building we have ever seen. It was Chris' clear favorite. The museum was also very interesting, and we especially liked the Egyptian collections. The Sistine Chapel ceiling was beautiful, though it isn't nearly as bright as it seems in pictures. The whole museum was hot and very crowded. I can only imagine what the high season is like. Yikes. Also, we tried to take a shortcut to the Bascilica like Rick Steves told us about, but a very nasty tour guide lady pointed out that we were not with her group, and the guards pushed us away and made us take the other door. That was about an extra hour walk, plus 40 minute wait in line! Oh well.

After spending six hours there, we headed for the Colosseum. It was closed. Apparently, in Italy, you can close major attractions with no notice. I mean, we flew halfway around the world so Chris could see this freakin' death ring, and it was closed due to rain a few days before. So, grumpily we headed back to our hotel area. We are staying in a nice residential area, but there are very few restaurants besides pizza and Asian food. We didn't fly here for Asian food...so we ended up at the same restaurant as the day before! We had about 100 baby clams and mussels between us. There was an appetizer, a pasta...It was great! The seafood is really tasty here. The waiters recognized us and were very friendly. They even helped me with my pronunciation :)

Ciao