Aug. 25, 2001

By John Rabb, Freshman

On Saturday morning, we got up early at 7 a.m. to go see the Vatican as a group. We took a group photo in front of the stand where the Pope comes to say Mass. We next went inside St. Peter's Cathedral and saw where he is buried. It's a big tomb with a golden room below a huge bronze dome. Our next stop was the Vatican Museum where the Sistine Chapel is located. The museum is huge, it took us about an hour to walk through it. It houses many artifacts, sculptures, tapestries, paintings and frescoes from all through the ages--even many years before Christ. The things that I liked best were the war weapons from ancient Rome and ancient Egypt, and the rugs from ancient castles. The Sistine Chapel was the highlight of this trip, though. You were not allowed to talk, take pictures or video record inside. I was interesting because the painting that Michelangelo did on the ceiling had 3-D effects even back then.

After we got back to the hotel, I walked around shopping at the stores and markets around the hotel. Next, I made my way down to the Spanish Steps looking for some English-speaking people to talk to. I ran into Pete Ritzema there, so we walked around the area together. A lot of foreigners and Italians came up to us and wanted to take pictures with us. I saw a Foot Locker store for the first time since we came over here. Pete and I walked in to check out their selection of shoes. We found some models of Nikes that were never going to come out in the U.S. Next, we went to a music store, the prices were outrageous! Also, a lot of U.S. music from the early `90s was just coming out here in Italy. After walking around shopping, I went back to the hotel to take a nap because it was so hot--again!

Every hotel on our trip has had different things to adjust to, such as their two types of toilets--one for personal waste and the other for washing yourself afterwards. Secondly, most of the showers had no curtains or doors, so the water would just get on the floor. Finally, there is no such thing as a king size bed over here, and they keep them about six inches apart in the rooms, which are the size of our kitchens. Even this last hotel, which is pretty nice, is still really different than the ones back home.

When I woke up, I decided to get something to eat at McDonald's. Some of the other guys had the same idea, so Theo, Tahric, Joe and I walked down there together. On our way back, we ran into Andre and Jerrod on their way back from dinner, so we all started back towards the hotel together. On the way, we saw an artist on the street who was drawing portraits of people. I decided to get my picture drawn as a souvenir and so did Theo, Andre and Jerrod. The cost was 50,000 lire, which is about $25 U.S. dollars, and each portrait took between 10-20 minutes to make. While we were waiting for each other, I noticed some things here in Rome that were similar to the other cities we had visited. Almost everyone walks or takes buses or trains to get around. If they ride something, it's usually a bike, a scooter or a moped. The cars, for the people that have them, are small Smartcars or hatchbacks. Of course, you can always tell the people who are doing well--they drive Benzes, even over here. Also, nobody has houses over here, just apartments that are built on top of stores and each other. Eventually, we made it back up the hill to our hotel to pack and get some sleep. Rome is a good tourist's attraction because of all its history.