This weekend is spend holed up and studying after quite the end to the week on Thursday and Friday. I finally paid a visit to the Vatican Museum (after waiting for line for 6 hours in torrential downpour) the day after the Primo Maggio concert at Piazza San Giovanni where we rocked out to communist anthems and other pop songs among hundreds of thousands of drunk Italian college kids (and our professor, bahaha).

My adventure started Thursday morning at our last conversation class of the semester (so sad!!) where we laughed and practiced for our esame orale, and since I was already out I decided to take a venture out to Pigneto in hopes of finding the Madonna Mr.Klevra painted last week (as I saw on Instagram) as part of the Pasolini Pigneto event that was going on. It was super cool to see such a big mural in the middle of the small neighborhood. It turns out that entire block was full of cool artwork by Omino71, UNO, HOPNN, Hogre, Alice, #Cancelletto#, and more. Once I was done looking around, however, I realized that since it was a holiday the buses weren't running and I was forced to trek back to Piazza Venezia and got to spend 30 minutes laying face down on my bed before heading out to concerto di Primo Maggio. My Sociology of Rome class met up because it was a course requirement to attend and we ended up being release to battle the madness on our own. It was a crazy mix of singing and mosh pits and beer bottles thrown everywhere (the city was traaaashed), but it was so interesting to see everyone so rallied up about the anti-State movement centralized around promoting communist principles in Italy. We danced most of the night away and sang Bella Ciao at the top of our lungs as all of the Italian classes have been practicing that song in class since the beginning of the semester.

After the concert a group went to Trastevere to get pizzas at Dar Poeta and sit in Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere in front of my favorite church to chat and eat and have a good time. I was exhausted by the time I got home, but it was well worth the 10+ miles I walked that day... However, I had to wake up early at 6:30 to meet my friend in line for the Vatican museum at 8:30 the next morning. Even at 8:30 we were halfway down the second block of the line waiting to get in. Other people ended up coming and meeting up with us later in the morning and we played games and whatnot to pass the time until the torrential downpour began and we tried to crowd 10 under one small umbrella which obviously didn't work. After 6 hours of waiting in line we finally made it into the museum soaking wet and tired from the wait. It was well worth it since we got to see all of the things we learned about from Paolo in Renaissance Art such as the image of Sixtus IV with his nephew, librarian, and others by Melozzo da Forli and all of the Raphael rooms, and of course the Sistine Chapel. We were rushed through the Sistine Chapel as guards were yelling at us to keep moving but we snuck our way through the gate against traffic and found ourselves a corner from which to stare at the amazing Michelangelo ceiling in typlogical association with the Tempus Legum and Tempus Gratiae images lining the walls leading up to the Last Judgment. It was awesome to be able to understand the imagery in all of these famous images instead of passively appreciating their beauty, but the crowds and guards shouting "Silencio!" through the microphone were quite distracting and I see now why Paolo hates tourists so much for ruining the experience of being in the Sistine Chapel.

We ended up spending the entire day around the Vatican area since we left close to 6 pm and I got home and passed out from exhaustion since I was on my feet for too long over the past two days. The next two days were spent desperately preparing for finals (since we lacked a dead week like I'm used to on the semester system it was quite the struggle to prepare for three tests over one weekend). Overall, it was a great way to spend one of my last weekends checking things off of my Rome bucket list.