Sistine Chapel and Vatican museums ...

 What a crazy day this turned out to be.  Glad we know how to adapt and are not new to the whole site seeing, Italian experience or this day would have put me over the top!  The best advice I can give someone about going site seeing is always know something will change or you will have to change your plans up a bit...oh and research your sites A LOT!

We had plans to go down to the Vatican City and see the Vatican museums, go into the Sistine Chapel and then from there skip the lines and go into St. Peters Basicilica...well nobody told the Pope our plans and they decided to shut down St. Peter's today for the whole day.  Huge bummer as that was the thing I was most looking forward to.  Oh well, hopefully we make it back down there tomorrow and not have to wait in a HUGE long line.

We prebooked tickets to avoid the lines in the museum and so glad we did. Our kids have done so much but they hit their limits a little faster than they used to, so we sometimes decide to spend a bit extra to avoid the lines so we can see more inside.  Very glad we did today as this museum was HUGE!  Besides The Louvre, I have never seen so many exhibits in one place before.  There was a whole wing of Egyptian stuff (which was super neat), a wing of just tapestries, a wing of Christian artifacts, paintings, sculptures, Roman, Greek, you name it, it was probably in there!  We didn't get to see even a small percentage of what was in there, but what we did see what amazing!  There were SO many people though it was hard to really get to see much and really enjoy what was there.

 This statue was found in Egypt, made out of marble and dates back to the 1500-1000 BD!  So, so long ago!  The picture below is a scroll of Nabuchanezer from around 500 BC.

 Beautiful Greek and Roman statues!  The below picture is of a dome in the museum patterned after the Pantheon.

 The above picture is of a HUGE tapestry hanging on the wall.  It was amazing to see the skill these weavers had.  This was a picture of the nativity scene.  There was a huge hall of maps down one of the corridors and we just had to take a picture of the one in front of Italy!

 As part of the tour of the Vatican Museums, you get to go into the Sistine Chapel.  This is where the Pope holds mass and also the Papal conclave takes place.  A whole lot of history has taken place here.  Not to mention the amazing works of art that  Michelangelo did!  I was naughty and took a picture of the ceiling even though they ask you not to, but it was just to amazing!  If you look at the bottom of the picture, that is the painting of God giving life to Adam.  This is probably the most famous of the frescos, aside from the huge one of the last judgement but there were too many people around to get that one pictured.  It was quite amazing to be there after I had researched so much into it.  It was fun to point out the different pictures of the creation and Noah's ark to the kids.  I cannot even imagine what Michelangelo went through to get this chapel painted.  He was an amazing artist that is for sure.

=

 This is what Owen thought of the museums :)!

 These are the stairs leading out of the museums. The kids thought they were great.  If you see the two pink dots in the middle steps, those are the kids with Jake.

And I wish that was the end of the day and the end of the stories, but alas it is not.  On the way back from the metro, I had my hands full of a package I picked up from my Mom, the kids were tired, I was tired, I didn't have my coat on because it was hot and I had put my phone in my back pocket (which is hot pink and big...see where this is going?).  We got on the metro and it was packed with people because we were right downtown Rome.  A few stops down the line and the people that we were standing in front of wanted to get off.  I was trying to get my kids out of the way, the people were trying to get off and all of a sudden I feel my phone leaving my pocket.  I said in a very loud voice, as I shoved to the side to block whoever took my phone and jammed my elbow up, No way, you are not taking my phone!  When I put my elbow up it knocked my phone out of the guys hands and it actually fell between us and I caught it off his coat.  He looked at me like I had assaulted him and was looking at me like I was crazy.  I looked at him and said "Not cool".  He got his phone out of his pocket and walked off the metro like he was the one who had just been scandalized.  All of this happened in about a 5-10 second period, but it felt like it was in slow motion.  Jake had no idea what was even going on until he looked up to all the commotion and I was in the center of it!  My adrenaline was pumping so hard I almost punched the guy, pretty sure that wouldn't have ended well!  All in all, it is a good story to tell now because it had a good ending and I am sitting here with my phone still.  It could have ended a lot worse and I am grateful for the blessing that it did not.  I was a prime target for what they tell you not to do when going on a busy metro and made the mistakes I haven't the whole time in Italy, all it takes is once I guess.  Glad it turned out to be a funny story and not a sickening one!