Day 5: Eternal Art

Hi everyone!!! We had a super jam packed day this Wednesday, and we covered a lot of the city. 

This morning, our day started off with a hotel breakfast before heading off to the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center. At the Refugee center, we were able to spend time talking to volunteers from Italy, Sweden, and other countries. 

We spent time in the supply rooms for women and men, where we talked about the importance of balancing giving and receiving at the center. As well as learning about their focus on integrating refugees into life in Italy, whether that be by offering English and Italian classes at the center, or by learning how to write resumes and participating in various group activities. 

After our trip to the center, we had a presentation from Sofie on more of how the center works, and what the differences are between asylum-seekers, migrants, and refugees. Then, we heard a personal experience and story from a refugee’s journey to Rome from Iraq. It was an incredibly remarkable story, and I (Kelly) now feel as if I can never complain about having a bad day again after hearing about everything he went through. 

As we left the refugee center we made our way to the metro station to take a short ride to lunch!

 

(these are the cool cats who are writing today) 

With sudden rain, some of us had to buy umbrellas … and in other cases a poncho. 

We arrived at the restaurant Gli Archi with many choices of food to fill us up! 

After lunch, we started our way to the Vatican for a guided tour! 

When we first arrived, we started by getting scanned in … a reccurring theme I’m (Emma) seeing in every monumental spot. 

Today was very busy, especially due to the Pope's health concerns and the Jubilee Festival.

Throughout the tour we walked through what is known as the sun room. In this gallery we viewed sculptures dating back to B.C. Sculptures of gods, empires, and house decorations stood tall covered in gold, marble, and bronze. 

This photo above is the goddess Artemis (whom has a necklace made out of bull balls,) it is said that any young women who has a request also had to make a necklace similar to hers. Though many women had to be careful because if she didn’t like what you were asking, karma would indeed occur in the future. 

In the next section we then entered a long hall covered in paintings and maps. These maps represented the civilizations that lived near Rome. This long hall only took a 1 ½ years to paint. 

Lastly, we entered what was known as the School of Athens. These rooms contained philosophers and paintings that represented the story of Christianity and how it became popular. 

We all saw these paintings on the ceiling: 

It looks like 3D sculptures are on the ceiling, but they are actually paintings that have shadows outlining the bodies, giving the effect of 3D. 

Once finished with our tour guide, we walked down many stairs and explored the art that decorated the wall from different famous artists. 

The photo above is of the painting Malaria, 1887 by Maria Martinetti, which was one of my personal favorites (Emma). 

We then made a pit stop at the museum cafe and quickly continued to the Sistine Chapel. 

Inside the Basillica de Saint Pietro, statues stand tall, and murals of saints littered the building … showing that the art of the city is eternal and will always remain. 

Although it was crowded, the church continued its daily service, which anyone could join. I (Kelly) tried to walk up the Dome with Ms. Ducharme and Rev Kirby, but it was unfortunately closed! We walked through the special doors that open only during the Jubilee Year (every 25 years), which was really special for us. It was really cool to be able to ask Rev Kirby all the questions I had, and it was such a unique experience. Since I (Kelly) am writing my final paper about women in the Catholic Church and their roles in the Vatican, this stop in the church was something I’d been looking forward to. Rev Kirby and I noticed that a nun was leading the prayers during mass, which was really interesting to me! 

As you walk down into the tombs of the popes, you spot the sections and shrines next to the tombs of specific past popes. 

Here is Pope Benedict XVI's tomb, who was pope from 2005-2013.

We continued our afternoon by leaving and stopping to get some postcards! We sat in a cafe as we wrote to our families, which we then delivered! Kelly didn’t have time to send all of her postcards to her friends, so some of them are going to be sent just from Rome. Get excited for some potential mail! 

The sun started to show, surprisingly, and it came out at as a prayer service began. The sky turned purple above the Basilica. 

 

As it got closer to dinner time, we walked to the restaurant, Saltilmbooca! We basically all ordered pasta, and everything was just delicious! It’s been a long day, but we all learned so much and had a lot of fun. This was Emma and I’s last day writing the blog (so sad!) and we feel like the trip went by so quickly. Tomorrow’s our day trip to Ostia (yay!!) 

Kelly & Emma