Day Three ? Going to the Vatican ? We ? Rome, Italy

? Rome, Lazio, Italy
Saturday, October 15, 2011

The students were a little groggy at 8:00 am. We wanted to take them down and get their railpasses validated and get them moving early.? It took a half hour to get them all going.? They were very sluggish and it took a while to get them going.? If we didn't make it an assignment to plan activities each day, they would wait until the last minute and not really do much.

Jason, Brad, and I took off for the Vatican.? When we emerged from the subway station, it was packed with people.? We decided to do the museum later in the day to avoid the crowds.? We went into Saint Peters.? The line almost stretched around the square, but was moving pretty good.? We were packed in like sardines.? They were having a special event for some people and the alter area was roped off.? I wanted to get in there, but had to settle for a railing around 100 feet away.

My camera was starting to act funny.? Last night it would shut-off early and I had to turn it off and then on to get it to work.? Now it would not even do that.? I switched to the video.? I am hoping that it will still work on the trip.? I am not really good at video.? If it something moving, it doesn?t look too bad.? If it is stationary, it looks bad.

I got some rosaries for my sister and my mom.? The shop was so small and the people buying stuff were very rude.? I finally had to push past a few people, who butted in front of me, to get to the cashier.? We decided that the crowds were too big and went across the Tiber to get lunch.? Hopefully it will be less crowded when we get back!

We found a nice pizza place with Wi-Fi and settled in for a long lunch.? The pizzas were very good.? We had a beer or two and were feeling good.? At the end of the meal, the waiter brought out three glasses of Lemon Cello.? Brad and Jason only took a few sips before giving theirs to me.? It went down easily.? It wasn?t until we started walking that I found out how powerful the Lemon Cello was!

There was no line for the Vatican Museum by the time we got back, but it was still crowded.? We went through some galleries on Roman and Greek statues.? After a while, they started to look the same.? We worked our way into the main crowd headed towards the Sixteenth Chapel.? It was hard to move around.? I saw a side gallery on Egyptian art and we went in.? I followed a side gallery in that exhibit and it brought us out at the beginning of the museum

.? It actual was a good thing.? The crowd had died down and we could easily walk through the main galleries.? The rooms were just as spectacular as the art they contained.

We finally made it to the Sistine Chapel.? It was crowded.? Two guards were asking people to be quiet and to not take photos.? There must have been a new problem with my camera, because I had several pictures on my camera from this room.? I do not know how that happened.

Towards the end of the museum, Aja called and said that the riots were near the hostel.? A building was on fire, there were several dumpsters on fire, and a bunch of cars were vandalized.? All of the students were at the hostel.? We called back later to get an update.? Our original plans were to go to the Roma Sparita restaurant again, since we had reservations.? We decided to quickly return to the hostel to check on the students.? As we left the subway station, you could see smoke and lots of people standing around.? There were police everywhere.

When we arrived, I immediately told the students to pack.? There would be a bus outside in an hour to take them to the airport.? I told them that Penn State was going to charter a plane to take them home tonight

.? No one really believed me.? The students were set on going out on the town, so we talked to them about being safe.? We started to go to our dinner reservations, but were stopped by the crowd of people.? We turned back to maybe find a taxi.? There was a thud from something exploding.? We assumed it was tear gas.? Then we heard sever in a row.? That pretty much killed the dinner plans.? We went back to talk to the students.? They were still dead set on going out for the night.? We advised against it, but the two sisters who run the hostel said they would be safe if they took a bus.? Once on the other side of the protest, they would be safe.? When they got outside, they found that the busses were not running and decided to stay in the area.

We were informed that we should have brought our bags over this morning.? We were only in our room for one night.? I had asked the guy who was at the reception desk this morning if we had to move.? He said we were in the same room tonight, so we left our bags in the room.? The sisters had to move us over to the Secret Garden hotel.? It is another one of their properties.? They took us over and we got ready for dinner.? The new room was much better than last night?s room.

We went back to the hostel to check on the students.? The sisters were feeding us wine.? They were very funny.? We enjoyed talking to them.? When we left to get something to eat, they asked us to bring them back some beer.? It was the least we could do since they were feeding us some wine.? On the way to dinner, we got a whiff of tear gas.? It was not pleasant!

After dinner, we shared some more wine and beer with the sisters.? We had a great time.

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