I hope to make an actual blog soon and copy and paste into here, but right now I don't have much time :)
Just wanted to let you all know that Yuri and I arrived safely in Florence yesterday, Sunday, and we met our Bel Canto Institute collegues and leaders last night at 5:00! Before that though, we went to our host home and met the host lady, Barbara, and her nephew and his finance who also lives there :) Barbara then helped us find where we were supposed to go downtown, as we have to take a bus to get there! I believe Yuri and I are the furthest ones away from the various schools, but that's ok. It's either a 40 minute walk, or a 10 minute bus and about 7 minute walk, so we opted for the latter today. Yuri and I now feel like local commuters with our July bus passes, lol. I will probably walk it a few time, but with my 2-hour Italian class starting at 8:30 in the morning, it's very tempting to get on a bus ;)
Well, I am typing on an apple computer with a foreign keyboard, but hey, at least it's free! The language school has 6 free computers with internet access to use, which is very convienient. The only thing is, you gotta give it up if someone has signed up for a slot!
I can post some of my second day in Rome, however, so I will do that!
Saturday was pretty relaxed and chill, with fun moments interspersed :) We left the hostel pretty late, around 10:30 or 11, and headed straight to the Vatican via the metro (mastered yet another subway, lol). Fortunately, since we got there later, so there wasn't any line! I had also read in our guide book about cheaper tickets for students, so we both showed our Colorado student IDs and got in for 8 euro instead of 13! Yippee :)
We started with the picture gallery, home to Raphael’s last painting, The Transfiguration, along with some pretty neat other paintings. Apparently, the Vatican Museum is the richest museum in the world. Period. So, with that said, there was a bunch to take in, and I’m sure I didn’t even come close to fully appreciated all the art I was walking by too fast ;) You could be there for 8 hours and still not see everything, so we picked and chose. We got to go to the Octagonal Courtyard and see some beautiful marble statues, and also to the Gallery of the Maps and the Hall of Constantine where the original painting stands of Constantine declaring Christianity legal. On the way to the famed Sistine Chapel, we also got to go through the Raphael rooms and see both the School of Athens and the Liberation of St. Peter. It’s too bad that these are just “on the way” as the path lays out, because people are just rushing past them trying to get to the Sistine chapel. Yuri's legs got some muscle, and now she knows how to walk with a good pace, yay! I had to wonder where she was going so fast today, lol!
Ok, back to the museum… So then we finally got to see the Sistine Chapel, and it was gorgeous just as the first time I saw it. It wasn’t nearly as crowded though as last time, and I actually got to sit down on the side where there are benches for at least 15 minutes while Yuri did her rosary (she’s Catholic) and I marveled at the paintings and enormity of it all.
After that we went and stood in line for St. Peter’s Basilica, yet another engineering and artistic wonder. The first thing I went to was La Pieta, Mary holding Jesus’ body after he was taken down on the cross. I am still moved every time I see this statue by Michelangelo, and stood there for a little while taking it all in. Whenever I see the statue, I am moved by the moment of Jesus’ death and lifeless body.
After that, I had decided that I wanted to do something I hadn’t done before, and that was to go to the TOP of St. Peter’s Basilica’s Dome!! Whoa… not really sure how high up it was, but let’s just say that I counted 498 steps on the way back down! Yep, Heather climbed up and down at least 1096 steps today, and hardly broke a sweat, actually :) You could either pay 5 euro to take stairs the whole way, or 6 euro to take a lift part of the way. Well, of course stairs!
So, up I went, in my sundress and backpack and jacket no less (can’t show shoulders in the church!). The first opening was only about 160 stairs up, and that was up at the top of the inside of the dome, looking down into the church. Well, I didn’t know that wasn’t the top, so I marveled a little and thought it was cool. Then I stepped back out and saw people going up more stairs… ok, guess I will follow. OH Boy! Yes, there were more stairs, lol. And they got narrower and narrower as you went up them! The last bit was about a 18 inch wide spiral staircase, with no railing and just a vertical rope to steady yourself as you climbed! But the view was so worth it :) I took a video and pictures, and actually the bells of the church were ringing in 5:00 as I was videoing, so that was pretty neat! I stayed up there for about 10 minutes, cooling off, and taking it all in… then came the climb down. By the end, my leg would shake if I even put a little pressure on the front part of my foot, lol.
Well, after finding Yuri out in St. Peter’s square, we took the metro back to the hostel, got out our music to study, and took the metro to a beautiful park and the Piazza del Popolo up north. We got Burger King for dinner and took it to the Piazza to eat! Then we walked and found a beautiful pool inside the park, and stayed there for about 1.5 hours, watching the sunset, barely missing a thunderstorm, and listening to and memorizing our music. It was very relaxing. Then, we came back to the hostel, and I wrote some emails and went to bed!
The train ride to Florence was very relaxing and calming. I studied music, slept, and wrote :)
Then, we got into Florence via the train, got money from the ATM and a taxi, and he took us to our host family!!
OK, I will have to end there. Thanks for journeying with me, and I will hope to find a way to get pictures up soon!
Heather (which is a very hard name to say in Italian...)
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