I'm in F'in' Rome

Six thirty is an evil alarm to hear, no matter what country you hear it in. Even though I'd gotten to bed at a reasonable hour, I'd woken up a little in the night. I wasn't in my own bed, and I'm a nervous sleeper these days anyhow. Also: I'm in fucking Rome. I tried to web-surf, but apparently I need a new wifi code from the front desk every three hours, and the connection from my room is pretty lousy anyway. I got good sleep, though, and six thirty hit me as six thirty normally does: like a goddamn punch.
I went back down for another hour.
Eventually, I showered in the common bathroom (which seems to be only mine. Whatever), cleaned my teeth with a bendy brush (failure or feature? Really unclear) and headed to Termini to get my Pape on.
It was about eight when I got to the Metro station, but it didn't seem real wacko. I walked up to the machine to figure out how to buy a ticket. I approached it like I was in a foreign country where I didn't understand the language. I must have looked like an alien who had no comprehension of the cultures and standards of the society in which I was partaking. Luckily, a native took kindly, and basically walked me through: like New York, you don't pay per station, like I assumed. He showed me I could purchase a single ticket and go where I needed to go.
(There were, by the way, English instructions. I would have pieced it together eventually. Still, thank you kind stranger. Or rather: grazie!)
Six stops took me to Octaviano, and another seven minutes of walking got my hopelessly lost. I was walking alongside this gigantic wall that I knew had to be alongside where I was going, but I had no idea where the entrance was. Asking someone was certainly an option... eventually.
Finally, I found my way to the front gate of Vatican City, at about eight forty five. My advisor and mentor in all things Italian, Michele, had suggested arriving at seven, hence my alarm doing my psyche such damage. Nine wasn't so bad. The line didn't look so bad. I wish I had found a cash machine. I had to make sure they'd accept cards.
"Excuse me..."
"Yes, signore?
(You guys can tell who's who, right? OK. Carrying on...)
Turns out this guy at the head of the line wasn't actually managing the line, he was a caller for one of the tour agencies, and he coerced me to join a guided tour, so I wouldn't have to wait on line, or worry about a cash payment (which would have been fine anyway) and I could have a professional tell me things my poor American brain wouldn't inherently know. I set up shop in a Gelateria down the block from the Museum of the Vatican, and waited for my tour group to collect.
Breakfast was pistachio ice cream.

Behold: the lamb of God!

We got on the road at ten. Marta was accented, but led the English-speaking group through a variety of rooms in what she says is the second largest museum in the world (Moscow, she states, has a bigger one). Apparently, the antiquities began to be collected by Popes around the sixteenth century, purely for papal pleasure. While I as glad to see rows and rows of amazing classical statues (kinda why I was here), I was astonished at the venality of the servants of god who would dedicate their time to such purposes of greed. I get how monarchs could lose their way, but if you've been named to lead a religion... how are you supposed to have time to appreciate the billions of items of wealth?

Gods are fucked, man. 

Cool shit, though. Highlights of the collection are pretty obvious: Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's masterwork. They don't allow pictures, which is unfortunate, because you'll never know what it looks like.
It's so far away, I didn't really appreciate any of the majesty or wonder by being in the room with it. I mean, maybe because we were all in a hushed space, but I'm not so much a visual guy. It's a wonderful visual. Honestly, despite Marta having told me in advance, I couldn't easily discern which work was Michelangelo's and which Botticelli's below.
The tour ended with Mikey there, but I felt there were rooms unexplored. It's called the Vatican Museums, and I suspected my group might have been given the bum's rush in just two hours. So while the group went off to exit and see St. Peter's Cathedral, I doubled back into the Papal Space and looked around.
Good move, because apparently, Marta saw fit to skip out on Raphael's work. Who's Raphael, well, only some other artist who I heard of once or twice (I don't know much about art). His work seemed just about as powerful and impactful as that in the Sistine Chapel, was closer to my eyes and easier to experience - and I could take photographs of it!
I didn't, though.
This piece, though, I found interesting. I could swear, one of the books I had growing up had a photo of this sculpture on it.

Say hello to the web, Marta! 

I'll have to check when I'm back in not Rome.
This piece below, by the way, was donated to the Pope, because apparently the poor guy is down on his luck. It's something about world's within worlds, but I kind of see gears within gears, which makes me think of the illuminati, and maybe globalism, and how the biggest religion in the world has not-so-secretly been dominating things for thousands of years. Cool, huh?

Anyway, after another hour plus checking out more of the museum, I went into the yard, dropped a little bit of my father in the garden, and went into the dome.

St. Peter's Cathedral's built by Michelangelo (with a little help from his friends), because the original hadn't been deemed good enough is an amazing artistic achievement. Like so much of the Christian (and all religious) tradition, it takes something simple and beautiful, and makes it gross and tacky and opulent for the sake of ruining it. Gorgeous, but really disgustingly hollow.

It's also, apparently, the highest point in Rome. You can take an elevator to the top for ten Euro, or you can climb for up for eight.

What did the cheapie do?

Two Euros, ladies and gentlemen. I know myself a bargain when I see it. 

Actually, it seemed like an excellent ritual to partake in, which only got annoying when the stairwells got winding and narrow near the top, and the breaths got shallow, and more and more people had to stop at various dropoff points. I kept worrying there wouldn't be another dropoff close by, and then I'd hold up the process of everybody else with my heart attack, but I held off until near the end, and when I stopped, it seemed like the entire caravan got stalled up ahead, so I was able to join up again within a a minute anyway.
The top was breathtaking, as are my panoramic photos, but not for the expected reasons.

I don't think the city actually sways like that. 

There were bars on the windows and... it was a thing. 

Below is an actual good view of the exit from the Museums from the top of St. Peter's.

See, Dad? I don't ruin everything I touch! 

While up there, I had inspiration to rewrite/savage a couple of my oldest, well, for wont of a better word, "hit" poems. I'll keep it in my back pocket until it's done. I started writing up there on the top of the dome, but eventually, felt it was time to come down to the level of the rest of you mortals. And that's when I walked down to earth, to be with the likes of the popes, and stopped consorting with angels. By this time, it was probably two o'clock, which meant I was already really late to meet Michele back near my hotel.