Italia Day 2: Rome

We woke up bright and early the next morning and headed out to tackle our full schedule. First we went to the Vatican...where we bumped into another group from the fund (our school) and claro cut in line with them. The Vatican was absolutely amazing! The first exhibit was an egyptian exhibit...complete with real mummies! You could even see the toe nails on the mummy, which was alive about a thousand years before christ. It was crazy. They also had many egyptian statues, of the gods etc, and egyptian heieroglyphs. The next exhibit was the Greek and Roman exhibit, which included a lot and a lot of statues, including ones of gods and important figures like Cicero. The next exhibit had a lot of awesome roman statues and items like old roman baths and I even saw a pig statue....which I was of course very excited about. After those exhibits there were a lot of rooms with paintings in them and finally we got to the Sistene Chapel!!!! It was indescribable! I still cannot believe that the cieling can be finished in one lifetime! Michelangelo is a genius and I am such a huge fan of him after visiting Italy! I even snuck a picture of the cieling before the Vatican Police (they have their own police) came up and told me I wasnt allowed to take pictures. After we left the Vatican we went for more Italian Pizza...and then of course we had to get some gelato. We had pizza and gelato at least once a day when we were there. After lunch we went to see St. Peters Basilica, but after seeing the line me and Nicki decided we would rather go to the Coliseum, so Clare went to St. Peters Basilica with the other group.  Here are some pics from the Vatican:

Mummy

Hall of Greek/Roman Statues

Heracles

Roman Bath



Pig Statue...my fav :)



Sistene Chapel Cieling

The Vatican does not mess around when it comes to crosses

We got to the colieum and there were these gladiators everywhere trying to get people to take pictures with them...luckily, we had been warned! What they do is pretend it will be free and then after the picture tell you you need to pay 20 Euro....we were too smart for this and so while we were in line we watched person after unsuspecting person get jipped. When we got into the Coliseum it was amazing! It was crazy how much technology they had back then, that we are still using almost the same exact builing techniques as thousands of years ago blows my mind. When we were at the Coliseum we bumped into my friend Nicole and her boyfriend that was visiting, Jeremy, and decided to get gelato with them afterwards...because another gelato was definitely necessary. Then we met up with Clare and went to the Ruins. Here are some pictures from the Coliseum:

Animal Bones Found after the Fights

Us being fighting animals

The Ruins were absolutely amazing. There were so many amazing Roman Temples and it was so incredible to walk down the street that thousands of years ago romans used to walk down to go pray to their gods. The Roman Ruins are basically this area of Rome that has been preserved for thousands of years, just hasnt been touched. It is called the Roman Forum and there were marketplaces, government buildings, houses of Emperors, and temples here. Here are some pictures from walking through it: