So...it finally happened. I got separated from the group and completely lost...inside the Vatican.

This mornings first stop AND only stop was the Vatican and its museums (including a walk through St. Peter's). There is so much to see inside the Vatican, which is massive, that you really do have to dedicate a whole day to it solely. Inside we saw Laocoon and Sons, the Apollo Belvedere, and Raphael's School of Athens, all textbook items (literally). The big ticket art work was Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco. It is everything you'd think it would be. Thanks to restoration efforts, the paint is bright and beautiful and supposedly very close to what it would have originally looked like. The restoration team from a few years back actually left a small square on the ceiling in its unrestored condition to show just how much darker the ceiling had become over time due to pollution and aging. It was very interesting to see the comparison but also a bit depressing as well. So much pollution in this city of amazing art works that need to be protected.

Unfortunately, it was right outside the chapel where I got separated from our group. As we started to exit, I was suddenly surrounded by a group of Polish tourists. I could no longer see anyone from my group and was being forced further and further down the hallway. I found out later that our group had pulled off into a little niche on the side but being surrounded by the Polish on all sides I didn't see where they had went. By the time the tour group had passed by me I could not figure out if I was ahead or behind my group. I walked briskly forward thinking they were ahead but eventually came to the conclusion they weren't. So, I turned around and tried backwards to no avail. Eventually, I ran into a group of about four or five other students who were in the same predicament. We decided to wait at the exit and hope that we would catch them on the way out. However, it dawned on me that we could be waiting for hours since we were sure how much more of the exhibits the professors wanted to lecture inside.

I always hate just sitting and waiting when I could be actively doing something, so I put on my "command voice" (my father willI know exactly what I am talking about) and took charge. I talked to one of the guards (a couple people in the group had already tried talking to a few but they weren't the most helpful or understanding of our situation...I am sure they have to deal with it all too often to really care any more) and asked where I could get WiFi access. The third time really must be the charm, because this guard was extremely kind and gave me directions to a local cafe. I took Nate with me when I found out he had 30 minutes of international calling on his phone. Once at the cafe, we both bought over-priced and not very good sandwiches in order to get access to the WiFi password and then used the Internet to get Heather's phone number. Nate called and got their location and then we went running back to the others. Now the problem was getting back into the museum since we had technically exited and everything is one-way. Luckily, I found the same nice guard and explained where we now stood. He smiled and gave us access to the elevator and just said, "It's no problem!" I was really quite shocked because all the other guards throughout our entire tour of the Vatican had been rather abrasive and rude. I had really expected to have to haggle with him a bit but he just gave me this wide grin and let us right in. I thanked him profusely and got his name: Alessandro. The running joke between James and I now is that I need to always find an Alessandro when we want to bend some rules. :) I really was never scared or worried, just more frustrated that I was missing potential lectures from James ad Heater because I have absolutely adored learning on site from them. However, when we caught up with the group, James gave us a private tour of what we missed and it was fantastic to be able to ask him questions while he explained stuff. It turned out to be a better lecture as a smaller and more intimate group. Score!

Following the Vatican we went into St. Peter's which was massive but so over-crowded with people that I kind of found it hard to enjoy the experience. Half-way through one of the lectures we also realized that one of the children was missing and promptly cut everything short to send out search parties. With 50,000 (that may be a bit of an exaggeration but seriously there were thousands of people in there) people crushing all around us it took a good 30+ minutes to locate her but eventually we did and everything worked out fine.

Mehlanie (my exploring buddy the other day) then treated all of us to gelato courtesy of her husband, who claimed this one particular cafe near the Vatican as having the best in Rome. I then followed a group led by Nate to visit the crypt of the Capuchin monks where they decorated the interior with the bones of the deceased. It was pretty neat and really morbid, but maybe not completely worth the five euro I forked out for it. It was actually much smaller than I was expecting. Nate was super excited though so it was worth it just to make him happy :)

And now I am back at the apartment. We leave Rome in the morning but I will most likely be spending our last night here knocked out with NyQuil. I got sick right before flying into Athens and then with the climate and temperature change my body has just not been able to recover. I have been able to push through most days without a problem but it hit me really hard this morning. I am hoping that just an extra-long night's sleep will do the trick. Fingers crossed!