Night at the Vatican.

It took me forever to find the right shutter speed to take this picture. Night photography is hard. All the other pictures from last night will be on Facebook very soon!

Last night, Alex and I made one of the best decisions we've ever made. We went to the Vatican at night. Alex had heard about their "Vatican museums under the stars" offer in which you purchase your tickets for 19 euros and you get to see almost everything except the basilica (which I'll go back and see another day). The best part of this entire experience was that we didn't have to wait in a single line. Not to get through the doors, not to pass security, not to print our tickets, not even to get into the Sistine Chapel. To give you an idea, some of our friends had tried to visit yesterday morning and gave up when they realized they would have to wait four hours just to get in.

Anyway, the only thing we were a little nervous about was actually getting there, but we almost made it without any problems. A few tips on finding the Vatican if you've stayed on the bus one stop too far:

•  follow the group of Asian schoolgirls and try to blend in. 
• when you lose the Asians, follow the nuns.
• look for attractive blonde men in goofy suits. whatup swiss guard. 
• now you've found the vatican.

Like I said, we breezed right through the metal detectors, exchanged our online vouchers for real tickets, and practically ran up the escalator to the galleries. Then began two hours of long hallways full of incredibly old statues and tapestries, followed by rooms of classic and then modern art, some well lit, others wonderfully dark and creepy. We saw paintings by Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon, and others before we made it to the Sistine Chapel. Oh my God, the Sistine Chapel. I really cannot describe how amazing it is. The figures on the ceiling are so real it's eerie. I felt like at any minute one of those bodies was going to fall down on me. I can't imagine how insanely crowded that place would have been during the day, but at 9 o'clock at night, there was plenty of breathing room. Alex and I even found a place to sit along one of the walls, so we basically just hung out in the Sistine Chapel for a good half hour. Rebel that she is, Alex tried to sneak a picture of the ceiling. She both succeeded and failed. The guard yelled at her but didn't make her delete the picture, and I got a good laugh out of it all.

We got pretty lost on our way home, but at least my Rosetta Stone training taught me to count to ten, so I understood when the old man we asked for directions told us to take bus "quattro, nove, due," and we got home at a reasonable 10:30. 

As for the rest of this weekend, our plans include activities that will be either incredible successes or total failures. Either way, it'll make for entertaining blog posts. So get ready.