sept. 19.  2012

day 10

bus, metro, and finally arrived to the vatican.  we bought and reserved tickets last night, and walked up with no line, which is awesome!  our appt. time was 11:30, which isn’t that early, so you’d expect a huge line by that point, but there wasn’t.  we bee-lined for the sistine chapel as soon as we got in, knowing the girls wouldn’t last too long.  i think it took us walking the halls of the vatican for 30 minutes before we finally came to the sistine chapel.  and that wasn’t looking at works of art, admiring sculptures, or admiring really much of anything.  that was walking straight to the sistine chapel.  it was absolutely beautiful and worth it!  this is jarom and mine’s second time, but it was so great having our girls there this time, and seeing michelangelo’s amazing ceiling that took four years, on his back on scaffolding, with his arm up and paint falling and dripping into his eye.  what an inspired man.

we then walked out of the vatican, saw the now huge line wrapped around the walls of the vatican, and headed for st. peter’s basilica, getting a gelato on the way.  there was a huge line, and when i say huge, i mean gigantic, and i walked up to a woman in the line to ask her and confirm this was the line for the basilica, and it ended up being a sister missionary-so cool!  didn’t even see her missionary badge until after i had asked about the line.  we saw elders over by the colosseum yesterday, and sisters at the vatican today.  crazy!  we decided not to wait in line, because we just didn’t think we could wait an hour or two, on top of an hour and a half getting home, so we headed for the metro.  it’s been lovely relaxing, had dinner in the concierge lounge, and went swimming.

tomorrow we have a huge, long day of  trains, and finally a rental car late at night.  it will be about 9 hours training up italy, into the middle of france, and then back down to montpellier, france where we will get our rental and drive an hour over to our small village outside of beziers.  we look forward to being in one place now, and having more control over what we’re eating, and better access to water that we don’t have to pay for.  that should be nice!