Today we visited the Vatican city to look at the overwhelming and vast collection of art held there. The highlights for me were (perhaps rather predictably) Raphael's frescoes and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. I found myself rather overwhelmed by the sheer volume of both artwork and tourists I was surrounded by - the Sistine Chapel itself was practically shoulder-to-shoulder packed with people, interspersed with guards shouting out "NO FOTO" and shushing to rather little effect. Today I also gave my presentation on the papal Swiss Guard, which I felt went decently well despite my trying to pack a whole lot of history into not much time - it was somewhat difficult for me to decide what to include, and what to leave out. Leaving the Vatican, a small group of us (Brandon, Molly, David and I) were pretty certain that we were passed by the Pope's motorcade. There was a significant Italian police force present, and a small crowd lined one side of the street and started applauding as a black Mercedes passed, escorted by several police motorcycles and cars - the Pope, wearing a red-trimmed white robe, waved his hand out the back window of the car at the bystanders (including us!). We got pretty lost on the walk home after we decided against taking the bus, but as a result ended up getting a beautiful view of the entire city from a lookout point in front of a nice white church with a fountain in front of it.

We just had time to stop in at Despar then grab a brief dinner before our 7:00 movie, a documentary about the creation of an orchestra in Rome composed of immigrants to Rome from various nations. After the movie we walked over to the river to watch a fireworks show at the Castillo Sant'Angelo, which we soon found was not visible from our vantage point in the center of the Ponte Sisto, but the view from two bridges down was excellent, and the show turned out to be almost a full 1/2 hour - the evening weather was perfect, and the bridge we were standing on was crowded with people watching. The traffic had even stopped on the bridge, much to the ire of some of the motorists. I'm hoping to get a fairly early night tonight in preparation for tomorrow's early class (9:30 am D:).