day two: welcome to vatican city! (st. peter's basilica)
day two in italy was no different from day one - after grabbing a delish breakfast at the nun hostel, i headed off to the vatican museums on my own. sadly, julie couldn't get an online ticket because they were sold out for saturday about two hours after i got mine. i was freaking out a little bit while in line because my ticket reservation was for 9am but even with my e-ticket, i still had to wait in line for a half hour. luckily i made it inside and started exploring - there is SO. MUCH. TO. SEE. it was seriously line a sensory overload. i saw everything from egyptian to etruscan art, to the hall of many many statues to early christian art (read: lots of body parts), and of course the sistine chapel, which was smaller than i expected. it was a wonderful 3+ hours but it was a bit overwhelming. they should not have so much stuff in one place but it was more than worth the 12euro. towards noon, the museum started getting so crowded that it literally took me a half hour to get back out. ridiculous.
the rest of saturday was pretty laid-back. julie and i grabbed lunch with her friends in their apartment (a bunch of them got an apartment for the week), then got gelato and walked around some more. unfortunately, we did not get to watch the final four butler vs. msu game (which feels like a long long time ago) because we were both super-tired (or at least i was). plus we would have to get up even earlier the next day (sunday) for easter mass.
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day three: easter mass (in the rain)
well, i guess italy can't be perfect. the weather was beautiful on friday and saturday (i may or may not have gotten a tan) but sunday was cold and quickly became very, very wet. thanks to notre dame, julie and i got tickets for easter mass but after 2+ hours outside (two hours waiting, then a half hour of mass), it started pouring so we bounced. i got to see the pope from afar and got a neato easter booklet so all in all it was fine. plus, this meant that i could take an earlier train to florence to meet up with greg, which is exactly what i did. the rome train station was a major struggle (again). florence wasn't the last stop and for some reason my train number wasn't showing up on the screen... i made it on to the right train with about two minutes to spare. whew.
florence was cool, but i didn't get to see too much. thanks to the rain, we took some pictures in front of the duomo, walked along ponte vecchio, picked up some leather goods (i got a purse and greg got a belt), then ate gelato. we arrived in bologna around 10pm and had a SUPERB easter dinner courtesy of his friends (who all cook). needless to say, it was the best surprise ever. what did we do in bologna? that's coming up next!
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