Today was our last day of class in Rome at the Pontifical University. I have to admit that I will miss climbing four flights of stairs to get to the classroom, just a little bit. Not too much, but maybe a little bit.

Tonight was finally the night we went to the Musei Vaticani — the Vatican Museum! I have been looking forward to this moment for so long, that to finally be here was incredible! Jill took the night off, but left us with the guidance of Rich. Dinner was provided by the museum, a table filled with various cheeses, finger sandwiches, meats, etc., and I sat with Eritha and Mr. Hesting. I enjoyed the cheese and some sort of vegetable dish, before going back up to try the finger sandwiches. Everything was delicious, and then we were off for our private tour! Well, it wasn’t as though we had the entire place to ourselves, it was more about it being much less crowded than during the day.

Before I knew it, we were walking through rooms filled with ancient statues that Romans had carved from marble. I became overwhelmed with awe and thus began tearing up. We kept walking because we couldn’t spend too much time in any one place (if you were to spend one minute looking at every piece of art in the museum, it would take you over 12 years to see it all!), and I pulled myself together. And then we walked through the Gallery of Maps and into the Raphael rooms. Cue the waterworks. The School of Athens was right before me, and as I stared at the ginormous detail of the paint, I began to tear up once more.

And then we were in the Sistine Chapel, with The Last Judgment on a wall and stories from the Old Testament above us. It was breathtaking, and painful to look at. No really, holding your head in that position is comfortable for only so long before it starts to hurt. Also, the security guards in the room, put in place to prevent people from taking pictures of the infamous art, kept talking into the speakers and saying “Shhhhhhhh, silenzio per favore. No talking, please. No photos, please. Shhhhhh.” I understand why they were trying to keep the talking to a minimum, with the amount of people in there at any given time, all the bacteria of breath would affect the paint, as would the pictures. It’s something I will always remember, though: being shushed in the Sistine Chapel.