Home for Now

It feels so good to know that I am settling into one place for a while now. We arrived in Madrid this morning at 9, having left our hotel in Rome at 3:50 am to catch a bus that left at 4:30 am to get us to the Ciampino airport in time to board at 5:55am... It has been a long day.

The Italy trip was great, but exhausting. Of the cities we visited, Florence was undoubtedly my favorite. That said, visiting the Vatican City while in Rome was the highlight of the trip. Hands down. Kate arranged a tour for us, and since it is low season we got lucky again--our tour was just the three of us! Our guide's name was Mitra. She is Swedish and has lived all over the world. She speaks about 7 languages, and her English was probably better than mine. She really knew her audience, and was so well informed. She could answer every question we came up with, even the most random ones that had nothing to do with the tour.

I loved learning about the history and especially the art history of the Vatican. We spent a good while talking about Michelangelo's commission to paint the Sistine Chapel, and I had no idea how turbulent of an assignment it was. The Pope that asked that he paint the ceiling was urged to do so by the architect who was an artistic rival of Michelangelo. The architect's hope was that as a sculptor and not a painter Michelangelo would fail this assignment, and his career would be ruined.

At first he refused the Pope's commission, and was offended that he was not asked to sculpt. Finally he accepted on two conditions; one, that he never have to paint again after he finished, and two, that he could paint whatever he wanted. The Pope agreed, only stipulating that the painting come from the Bible.

The rest is history, but Mitra supplied so many interesting and personal details about the four-year project of the scuptor that were fascinating, and really made seeing the chapel a much richer expereince. Also, we were able to understand and notice things that otherwise would have just gone right over our heads...

For example, Mitra explained that the dark, almost black, squares that dot one area of the painting of The Last Judgement, are uncleaned portions that were left so that visitors could understand how filthy the walls were before their cleaning in the 20th century. So many art books misinterpreted the darkness of the paintings for evidence of Michelangelo's dark side, when really, his perfect use of brilliant color was all the while masked by the residue from the fallow candles that were burned inside the Sistine chapel for so many years.

Also, we were taught who the individual characters are, not only on the ceiling, but also in the Last Judgement. A fun little detail is that the figure in hell, wearing donkey's ears in the Last Judgement is a cardinal who made a snide comment about Michelangelo's work when visiting the Pope.

As if getting to see the Sistine Chapel was not enough excitment for one day, we also visited St. Peter's Basilica with Mitra. It is unbeliveably big. At the highest point it is 399' tall, tall enough for two statues of Liberty to be stacked inside. The entire interior messes with your head. Your perpective is immediately thrown off becuase of the immense sizes of the statues. Along one wall there are cherubins holding a shell filled with water; above them there is an effigy of a saint, and above that, another sculpture. They all appear to be the same size, but, as was explained to us, the cherubins are 6' tall, the second sculpture 12' and the third 20'.

Inside the Basilica are also amazing works by Bernini and Michelangelo, which were thrilling to see. Michelangelo's Pietá, is inside, but she is protected by a glass wall. The statue of Mary holding a rown Christ in her arms was once displayed in the middle of the floor of the Basilica, until one day, a Hungarian man leaped up on the statue and screaming "I am Jesus CHRIST!!" began to hack away at her with a hammer. As Mary's nose and fingers went flying, onlookers did nothign to stop the man, but snatched the freshly chipped souvenirs and ran.

The church issued a plea for those who had pieces of the statue to please return them, and all of the fragments came back, one by one, to the stairs of St. Peter's square in anonymous envelopes, except for Mary's nose. It was restored to her face by taking a graft off of her back and re-attaching it.

We couldn't take much more without a rest, so we went on with our day. However, the next day, after visiting the Colosseum and unsuccesfully visiting the Museo Bughese, we returned to St. Peter's to climb the 551 steps to the Coppola. We did a lot of climbing this trip, but it was worth it. We could see the lay out of the Vatican and the beautiful gardens from above, as well as all of Rome.

I have a feeling the three of us will sleep very well tonight. It has been a long and enjoyable ten days, and though that part is over, our trip is really just beginning.

I moved into my Señora's house today and it is lovely. She is wonderful and I can't wait to get to know her and her two daughters better. We have already decided that Sundays are going to be cooking class days, and we are going to share recipes and learn lots of kitchen vocabulary. It took us about 10 minutes to day to establish what a "pie" is. :) Suggestions for any "American" dishes I should share with them are welcome.

Tonight we are meeting for orientation at Saint Germain Caffeteria, and tomorrow classes begin. Hopefully, I'll get to go for a nice run at a park that Yolanda showed me earlier, and maybe even invite myself to join a few pick up soccer games I've been noticing.

As usual, I love to hear from you all, and I hope everything is going well everywhere for everyone. Ta ta for now.