Happy Birthday Derek!!!

My day started out at 9:00AM when I called my little brother (midnight at home) to wish him happy birthday!!! I can’t believe that he’s 19 years old… I mean, I feel like iiiii was just 19 years old recently sooo it’s crazy that he is. It was good talking to him; I think he was out with friends because I heard a lot of voices in the background. He told me that he was leaving the next day for Las Vegas with his frat and that to get there he had to ride in the back of a U-Haul with all the other pledges. God. That sounds totally disgusting to me but he was excited sooo I was excited for him.

After quick breakfast and bonding time with some SCUers (that I had never met… it’s like a reoccurring theme) we started making our way to the bus stop with the rest of our class. On our way to the bus I was PLOWED over by some guy – he stepped DIRECTLY onto my broken-but-better-but-still-hurts-sometimes foot in a really awkward way and I was sent spinning off the sidewalk into the street, almost onto my ass but thank goodness not. Um… WHOA!!

Everyone saw and was really confused about what had happened; all I knew was that I was in a lot of pain and I almost started crying but didn’t. After about 10 minutes the pain went away and my foot was fine… I just got real nervous for a few seconds that I hurt myself again; I don’t think I’d necessarily cry for the pain but I KNOW that if I’d have hurt myself again I would have been bawling at the thought of how much it would suck to move around for the rest of my time in Italy.

Our bus ride to the Vatican was quick (it was actually within walking distance of our hotel but everyone chose the lazy route). When we got there, the sight of the line waiting to get into the Sistine Chapel made me laugh for about 20 minutes. It wrapped around the entire border of the Vatican. This place we went into yesterday with only 30 people now had thousands and thousands and thousands of people wanting to jam themselves into it.

After not waiting in line but taking a secret VIP route into the museum our class was lead by an old lady out into the Vatican Gardens. These gardens aren’t really open to the public (unless you’re loaded and can afford to pay your way into them…) and we were able to enjoy them all by ourselves. Everything about the gardens was absolutely beautiful: the view of St. Peters and the rest of the Vatican, the landscaping, the statues, the various buildings, the fountains… Brittany spent a lot of time stalking Vatican kitties but only found one (and my picture of it really sucks because it’s of it’s ass as it was walking away from us… maaaan). My favorite picture, which I’m looking at right now and it’s making me laugh really hard, is a picture of the two of us posing like dragons in front of a fountain that had a big dragon statue in it; I mean, it only makes sense. OF COURSE we’d pose like dragons to match the fountain.

After listening to a presentation on St. Peter’s that I had trouble paying attention to because all the people sitting around me were totally fidgeting and doing funny/distracting things (I’m like a little kid) we made our way back down to the building in order to go check out the Vatican Museum. One thing about St. Peters tho… Michelangelo was one of the chief architects behind the structure and that makes me laugh because he had ZERO experience as an architect. I’m having trouble deciding whether I like Michelangelo’s personality or not; I’m getting the impression that he is the type of guy that thinks that he knows everything. He NEVER worked with other people (because they weren’t good enough for him) and took on projects that were bigger than anything ever done in the past… impressive but also very cocky.

To get to the Vatican Museums we took a back entrance into the Sistine Chapel (cool!) – the chapel was horrifying. There were SO MANY PEOPLE that I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the crowd… after our time there the night before with just our class, I don’t think I ever want to go back to the chapel. I know, I’m spoiled. But seriously, the crowds ruined the atmosphere.

The museums were a lot less crowded. We spent time looking at some of Raphael’s paintings and tapestries – I want to research more about Raphael… all the paintings I saw on our trip were AMAZING. He painted the way I WANT to paint. They were absolutely beautiful. Is it weird to be jealous of Raphael?!? Cuz I sorta am…

Hatfield also took us to see DiVinci’s St. Jerome (which unfortunately was a copy since the original was away on display in a show in some other part of the world), The Laocoon (which was ALSO a copy because the original was away on tour), and the Belvedere Torso… Everything was all very very impressive. Those three pieces are hugely famous. Anyone that knows anything about art can rattle off facts about any of the three – I’m not even that hardcore of an art history student and I could prolly talk about them for a good while.

The Vatican Museums were HUGE and went on and on and on but we were all pretty burnt out from our day before and after Hatfield’s shpeal we all decided to head straight back to the train station and home to Firenze. Hahaha, it’s funny to me how we all have to travel down to Rome as a group yet, to get back they basically just hand you and open ended train ticket and wish you good luck on your trip home!

Traveling after a long day is really hard… all I wanted to do was get home. I got into one of those moods where everything that came out of my mouth was very sarcastic and mean – I felt myself doing this and after a while just decided to stop talking.

There was one girl in particular that was PISSING ME OFF. It takes A LOT for someone to really get on my nerves but this girl was killing me. She thought she knew freaking everything and had the WORST sense of humor ever. She literally thought she was right about everything. My least favorite type of people are people that make other people feel like they’re really stupid – this girl spent most of her time doing that to me. By the end of the trip I was ready to wrestle her to the ground and slap her in the face… thank goodness Brittany was there to rescue me from her. The two of us spent most of our time trying to ditch her on our way home to Firenze… haha, i’m sorry but if I see her around the SUF campus anytime in the future I’m going to walk by her and pretend I have no clue who she is. I don’t care if it’s mean, I HATE people that treat me like I’m stupid. Cuz I’m not.

My walk home from the train station was long but peaceful. It was around 8ish when I finally got home and my whole fam (except my sorella/compagna di stanza Marilena) was there. It felt GREAT to be home.

Dinner was funny… it was my first dinner without Marilena (who is in Venice until Sunday with her art history class). My family cracks me up. I am not kidding when I say that they think I’m crazy. I think the blonde hair and the fact that I smile and laugh about everything that makes it seem like I’m a crazy party animal because seriously my family is convinced that of the two of us, I’m the naughty child and Marilena is the perfect child. Liek, they LITERALLY used the word perfect to describe her!!! Hahaha, I’m not jealous or upset to hear this or anything, I just think it’s funny because I’ve actually never met another person that’s MORE like me than Marilena. She and I have the same study habits, the same drinking/partying habits, the same sleeping habits, the same cleaning habits, the same freakish organizational habits, the same boy habits… I dunno what it is but somehow the fam has gotten the impression that I’m the wild one and she’s the tame one. Meeh, whatever… it’s all fun anyways!