Three Questions

I'm going to use some strong language in this post. If that's not okay with you, you should probably refrain from reading this one. I believe that strong language should be saved (notice I said "should," which does not mean that I necessarily adhere to this belief all the time) for strong situations, and I can at least assure you that this is one of those.

I don't have much to show you about our trip to Napoli (or Naples), Blue Capri, and Pompeii because we didn't stay there the whole time. We left early because we didn't feel safe. We were told that Napoli was an unsafe city. We were told that pickpockets and perverts ran rampant and wild. Usually this translates into "stay in the good part of town and no one gets hurt," but that wasn't the case.

On the bus getting from the train station to the airport, my professor had her camera stolen out of her bag. She looked down, saw the guy's hand in her bag, and started hitting his hand to try and get him away. He still got the camera. I got felt up on the bus, and I was lucky because someone else felt up my friend with the intention of getting under her skirt. Right after we got off the bus, our group (mostly female) got called cunts by the locals. Later that night, my friend almost got pickpocketed by a kid.

I'm young, but I'm not naive. Those are all things that can happen when you're out somewhere. They happen all the time, and this time, they happened to us. I'd already carried out the precautions: stuck my money on my body, carried a pickpocket-resistant purse (I just made up that term), didn't make too much eye contact with people.

And then the next day, while my friends are walking back from a day at the beach, a guy drives up on a motorcycle and tries to take her bag. He knocks her over and she gets dragged down the street until her purse breaks and he drives off.

I wasn't going to put that part in here. I was going to go through my pictures from Pompeii and mention that we left early but not provide any reason about it. Because why should I? Blogger tells me that the majority of my readers are in the US, across the ocean. I wasn't even there. Antonia and I had walked back a couple hours before from the island. And the reason I haven't been on here was because I was trying to figure out a way I could just move on, even in writing, and not pretend everything happened. It was hard, and that's when I realized that it wasn't the right thing for me to do. Suppressing the truth has gotten so many people in trouble in the past. But even worse, I considered staying silent. But if I'm silent, that guy wins. And so does everyone else who takes advantage of tourists or women or teenagers or people who look a certain way or talk a certain way.

I live my life convincing myself that the world is the most horrible place imaginable. Every stranger is a potential threat. Every situation is a worst-case scenario. Does that mean I live my life in constant fear? No. Because I'm here to live, and you can't do that if you're always looking over your shoulder. I've learned that. But if I can acknowledge the truth, if I can make peace with the fact that the majority of the world and my life is out of my control, if I can live aware knowing that my gender and my color and my culture and my language will always to a certain extent condemn me in the eyes of people I have never met...then I can live without unnecessary anger at God and the world and "those other people." Because all of the danger is danger we as a species created. We were in Napoli for less than seventy-two hours. Other people go through what we did for their whole lives, and it's much worse. Someone tried to take my friend's possessions, but she's still alive and healthy. Someone touched me without my permission, but he didn't break me. I keep telling myself that we were lucky it wasn't worse.

But there's a second question here, and if you're reading this, you've already asked it. Because after you ask yourself Why and you answer it with That's just the way it is, there's a second question. I've been ignoring it, because I've rationalized the first question by essentially saying that there is no answer, but then that throws you in the dangerous realm of I Let Everyone and Everything Walk Over Me Land, and I don't want to go there.

Should things be this way?

See, that's an easy one. No one has to rationalize their way through that one or lose sleep or cry or break things over that one. The answer is no. That's just the way it is was the crappy half-ass answer you got from your parents when you were a kid, and I think you'll all agree that it hasn't gained any strength over time.

That was easy. Let's move on to the third question: what do we do about it?

That's only half-rhetorical, because I'm not entirely sure myself. You individually will make almost no impact. And that's usually where we call it quits. Do we blame the other people? Do we play that awesome game called If Only? That game got played after everything happened in Napoli. If our teachers had been there...if we'd been walking in a group...if we hadn't walked so close to the street...if more boys had been there...if we had been watching more closely...

Blame's what started the mess in the first place. I don't have to tell you that.

Maybe that's where we go from here. Some of you reading this have made stopping discrimination and violence the focus of your lives. Maybe that's where you're needed. Others of us are needed somewhere else. But can we stop the blame? Can we think a little more about things that come out of our mouths? Can we remember that people are never, never, ever to be looked at as objects?

I've been constantly running this whole trip. I've constantly felt like I was in competition or like I wasn't doing enough or I wasn't seeing enough. I focus less and less on the human aspects of our trip with every blog post I make. I know this. But I know that this, the experience I had in Napoli, will be the most important lesson I carry away from here. And what do you know? It's one I've learned before, again and again, a thousand times.

On our first day here, TerTer said that repetition was the mother of learning.

Last week, Hutch and Sebass were talking, and she asked him who they were kidding, we weren't adults, we were still kids. And he looked at her and said, "But you are adults. Of course you are."

That has never been so painfully realistic.

Ostia Antica

We leave for Naples (Napoli) tomorrow, and I'm so excited but also a little sad because I won't have my computer and won't be able to talk to you guys for three days! :(

Today we went to Ostia Antica, which is 30 km to the west of Rome. We took three different trains to get there and didn't have to walk (thank goodness!). Ostia Antica was a Roman city abandoned over time. I've noticed that everyone is getting very well-versed in what we're looking for, so it almost seemed easier, though I was extremely tired from staying up all night then night before.

The first thing we saw was a sarcophagus what looked like a female Endymion on it. AND I IDENTIFIED IT AS ARIADNE. :D (Btw, the general theme of today was EVERYONE GOES CRAZY because we were all so tired and yeah. I also saw the wheel on it, and Dr. TerTer pointed out the moon goddess.



Quote from the Train Ride Over:

Kathryn: What just happened?
Hutch: We're in the middle of the forest.
Kathryn: Back to sleep.

Other Things Kylee Learned Today

I learned that they tried to build an airport at the edge of Ostia Antica and then ended up finding ships in the riverbed. The ships are now in museums. I learned that a columbarium is a name for a niche that can hold an urn...or a pigeon. The word translates directly into "pigeon house." :P A necropolis had many rooms, and the Christian idea (or at least the part in the Bible) about heaven being a place with many rooms comes from the idea of a necropolis. Probably. Also, every Roman city had at least two roads: one running from north to south and one running from east to west. A stoa was a covered porchway.

I'm sorry that I'm not elaborating or ornamenting today. I'm just so tired.

Roman insulae built up from the ground up. Most had three or four floors. They kept their food off the floor so that animals wouldn't eat it and some had charcoal stoves. Said charcoal stoves were outlawed after the fire that happened.

AND THEN WE SAW A THEATER. Katie gave us a presentation on that. There was the house and the orchestra there. The temple to a god was kept in the middle, so that people had a reason to upkeep the temple and use it for things other than shows. The particular one we were in held 3000 people but it was expanded to 4000. It held very lewd performances. If actors (which were all men) were playing men, they wore brown masks, and if they were women, they wore white ones. First, people stood to watch shows. They eventually moved to sitting. The first two rows had comfortable stone chairs for the wealthy. Ancient Greek temples had spots for the gods and muses, and performances were meant to please and appease the gods, but the Roman theater business was...exactly that, a business.

They originally thought that Christians and Jews didn't go to theater performances, but they changed their minds when in Turkey, they found seats inscribed with Hebrew. TerTer made a connection to the bible (Bible? I never know if or when you're supposed to capitalize it) when she said that the gospel writer Luke (who was Greek and a Gentile) used comic roles in his gospel and was therefore probably acquainted with theater. Romans considered comedy better than tragedy.

We also saw mithraeum there, and I need to take more time later to talk more about this, because I didn't know anything about it before this trip, and it's really quite interesting. NOTE TO SELF. Y'all remind me, okay? :)

Dr. Sebastian went a little batty today. :P



You have to love that man.

We went to a museum right after that--it was on-site, and while the rest of the group went to a synagogue, Antonia and I had lunch with Elizabeth, who shared her three-course meal with us (I LOVE HER). Antonia and I were both running on extremely small amounts of sleep, and our iron levels (we're both anemic) were running low. Especially hers. So we had lunch (PORK SANDWICH FTW) and headed back to St. John's for a nap and for packing for Naples and everything.

Gosh, this is such a dry post, and it wasn't even a dry day. When I get back (three days...or four, I suppose), I'll post about Pompeii and about the ridiculous day that was today and Michelle's birthday party, which was tonight.

MICHELLE'S 21ST BIRTHDAY IS TODAY...OR TOMORROW...OR SOMETHING BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE IT'S HER BIRTHDAY AND SHE'S 21!!!

^ YAY FOR SPARKLETEXT!!! See y'all in four days!

YET ANOTHER QUOTES POST!

Michelle Rau: Guy asked me if I spoke Italian, and I was like, "Nope, sorry dude. I can't flirt with you."

Me: Hi Chris! Hi Jeff!
Jeff: A BIRD SHIT ON MY HEAD.

"Even though they have these traits that make them kind of...stupid." - Carlyn, on men

SPECIAL EDITION: QUOTES FROM THE SHORT BUS

"We forced every Italian off the bus!" *next stop: Italian lady gets off* "NOW WE FORCED EVERY ITALIAN OFF THE BUS!"
"I'M A BEAST!" - Mirau
"The door ate me!" - Sebass
"Our group would be on the short bus." - Hutch
"There are no short buses, only short people." - Me
"I almost fell in an old man's lap!" - Kathryn
"I no speak English." - lady who took one look at us and decided to walk to work
"We look the same. Carlyn's Asian. I'm Asian." - Me
"No one said it was medieval. I just said it was an excellent dragon." - Sebass

"I LIKE FROLICKING!"

"No matter where you are, if someone says, 'hands go up,' everyone's hands go up. And they stay there." - Hutch or Baudot--I don't remember

*Italians make inappropriate jokes about water bottles*

"Peter looked a lot like Dr. Sebastian does in the morning, kind of bumbling around." - TerTer

"That kiss led to...what kisses often lead to." - Sebass, on subtext and Paolo and Francesca

Fail Day (that then turned into a win)

Yay for pride! Though you can barely see it. :P

Today got off to a slow start. I slept a full night for the first time in about a week, got up at 10, and prepared myself to tackle the list of places Sister TerTer had laid out for us. Antonia was going to come with me, along with Kirby, who's in town. But we, along with everybody else, forgot about siesta. Rome totally shuts down for like three hours every day. Also, it was Monday, so the Etruscan Museum, one of the sites on our list, was closed. So, with some quick reconfiguring (and our professors being very nice about the situation), class got pushed from 4pm to 6pm, and we got to go out and see San Clemente with the mithraeum underneath as well as Giovanni e Paolo (especially the domus under the church).




I only took a few pictures today of these sites because they didn't really allow pictures, but there was a spring running underneath San Clemente, so I took a video. :)



I took down a few notes while I was there. We saw frescos and sarcophagi, including a pagan sarcophagus that protrayed the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus. If you don't know that story, it's from Greek mythology, and they told you the story while you were at the site. Hippolytus was the son of Theseus (the founder-king of Athens), and his Roman counterpart is Virbius, a forest god. Hippolytus refused the advances of the married Phaedra, who killed herself in fury after his rejection but left a note making it look like he'd raped her. So, her husband got pissed (or in some cases, Theseus got pissed) and prayed to Poseidon to send a sea monster after Hippolytus. This happened, and the sea monsters got Hippolytus's horses and he was killed. After this, the truth was found out.

Sidenote: Sometimes Carlyn decides to take a flash photo right after a sign tells her not to, and right after she does, this voice comes over the loudspeaker and is like ITALIANITALIANITALIAN PLEASE NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY. Haha!

I also saw a fresco of Jesus (though it was extremely hard to make out). However, they found an inscription at the end that said "God have mercy on unworthy John," so they figure that some guy named John made the fresco. That kind of attitude is very much the attitude of ancient artists, I find. Caravaggio felt the same way. There's a pure aspect to it but also kind of a manipulative one. I'm not sure what I think.

I also found a Madonna and child painting from the 8th century. The man who discovered it, Joeseph Mullooly, O.P. (aka Order of Preachers aka DOMINICANS) found it, and the hole that he dug in the wall to get in was still in the wall on the left side of the painting. There was at first a very "precarious" Madonna and child that then fell out to reveal the present one, which was nearly perfectly preserved. Isn't that weird how things happen like that sometimes? The drawing is flanked on either side by paintings of what they think are St. Euphemia and St. Catherine of Alexandria. As all the figures in the paintings are decked in stones and pearls, they think that the paintings are either Byzantine-era or had a Byzantine makeover. I didn't know who St. Euphemia was or St. Catherine of Alexandria (though to be fair, there are a lot of Catherines), so I looked up some information on them:

St. Euphemia lived in the 3rd century and lived in a rich family in Byzantium (which later became Constantinople). From an early age, she was consecrated to remain a virgin. The governor of Chalcedon (around where she lived) said that everyone had to make regular sacrifices to Ares. Euphemia was found in a house with other Christians worshipping God, which was forbidden. She was taken with the others and suffered numerous tortures before she was killed, probably by a wild boar or lion. Because she was the youngest of the group, she received the harshest torture, including the wheel, which involved being tied cartwheel-style to a wheel and being beaten with a hammer that would break bones. One would be left in this state of pain for days. She is often pictured with a wheel for this reason. She can also be pictured with a cross and lions.

St. Catherine of Alexandria's symbol is also a wheel, as she too suffered this torture. She was born to a wealthy pagan family and said that she would only marry the best of men. This brought her attention to Christ, and she converted to Christianity in her early teens. She converted the Emperor's wife and several people brought to her to try and change her mind. She was eventually beheaded after lots of torture.

After San Clemente, we headed to Giovanni e Paolo, the house that at some point belonged to two Christian martyrs. I have a few pictures in here that I took before I was told to stop using my camera (but to be fair, there was no sign that I saw that said not to).







There's a peacock up there, which we all saw immediately, the sign of Juno. Mary's in the pictures too, so there's the parallel between Juno and Mary, who were both queens of heaven. There was a room of the worshipper, characterized by a person who looked like she was worshipping (it was an orante). We also saw some of the waterways that the domus used as well as a wine cellar (or at least that's what the discoverer Father Germano said when he saw it for the first time). There was also a grave that people found and they have no idea who was actually in there (though they have plenty of suggestions, haha).

I found an interesting scene on one of the walls that involved two men pouring drinks for a woman while baby cupids danced in the background. They weren't sure what it was. Suggestions included Proserpina and Hades; Bacchus and Ceres; or Bacchus and Venus Marina. The sea theme was very prominent.

Other things we saw in the frescos were a lot of geometric shapes like circles and triangles, goats, and ugly faces (demons?).

Sights from the city today!




We headed back for St. John's, super excited that we'd gotten to see everything. We had a little trouble at the Metro stop. One train came by our stop completely empty and didn't even stop, followed by three COMPLETELY FULL trains. We were worried we wouldn't get back on time, but finally, a train came with enough elbow room for all of us. We squeezed in and switched to the red line fine, though I had to get a little belligerent (and, well, Italian) with people in trying to get off.

I was proud of myself.

Today, in class, we furthered the theme of mockery in the Bible in order to discredit or delegitimize people. Three ways they do this to kings are portraying him as grossly obese, effeminate (or gay), or as terrified. We also learned that calling someone bald or referring to someone has having a hunchback was a huge offense in Rome. Then, we discussed kings Herod, Eglon, and Belshazzar and how these themes apply to them.

Belshazzar ends up being slain, by the way--right after Daniel tells him what the invisible hand writes on his wall for him. Like that night. Ouch.

After class, Carlyn, Lauren, Jacob, and I went out to dinner and ended up running into the Fab Squad (aka Sebass, TerTer, and Elizabeth). We had dinner together, where Carlyn had FRENCH FRIES (yeah, I know, right?).




Of course, I had to try one then.



It was pretty good!!!

After, we all got gelato, and there's this ridiculous rum chocolate gelato that tastes like someone put gelato into a tub and just poured a bottle of rum over it (seriously, let's face it--that probably happened). RIDICULOUS.

Flavors of Gelato Kylee Has Had So Far in Italy
- Peach
- Coconut
- Lemon
- Chocolate
- Cinnamon
- Almond
- Hazelnut
- Strawberry
- Yogurt

SO GOOD. I can't wait to have more. I had pizza tonight with anchovies and capers, so I'm still downing gallons of water. It was totally worth it, though.

Tomorrow, we head for Ostia Antica, which is a WHOLE CITY OF ANCIENT ROME. It was a harbor city, to be exact, for the Mediterranean, and it sat at the mouth of the Tiber River, about 30 km to the west of Rome. I've heard about it before in Latin class but never looked into it that much. I'm really looking forward to this. :)

Faberge Eggs

What a Lady, What a Night

I cannot for the life of me get my Lady Gaga videos up here, so if you have Facebook, they're up there. If not, I'm really sorry. Blogger's being such a jerk about this.

Here's an official video that doesn't include me screaming every three seconds.



What I really wanted you guys to see though was her speech that she made. It was sixteen minutes long, and she really said a lot good stuff. Look it up if you have time.

Today, we went to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, which is the only Gothic church in Rome. St. Catherine of Siena died there, and her body (minus the head, which is in Siena). There's a fountain with an elephant in the front. Bernini did it, and there's an Egyptian pole in the middle of the fountain. I talked with my friend Kirby, who says that people asked Bernini to do the elephant (which took some persuading). He asked people not to look at what he was doing, and the people who commissioned him to do it raised the price while he was doing it, so he apparently made the butt of the elephant point toward those people's houses.

Other theories brought up by Dr. Sebastian included that the elephant was about to defecate.

Catherine was a Dominican and wrote a lot of stuff. She's also the patron saint of philosophers.

Then we went to mass at the Church of the Gesu of Rome and saw St. Ignatius of Loyola's study, including the room where he died and original copies of his spiritual exercises. IT WAS EPIC.

I'm sorry I don't have pictures today--my phone (aka my camera) died!!!

I'M SEEING LADY GAGA TONIGHT

Nothing else is important.

Well, I have a few things to post here that I learned today, but yeah. And I think I've established myself as the crazy Gaga fan in the group, which I know will make my friends back in the US extremely happy.



BIKE THIS WAY.

Anyway, moving on. Today, we went to the Calisto Catacombs, which is one of a group of three catacombs in Rome. Again, we couldn't take pictures inside in favor of preserving the art left in the catacombs, but I have lots of information and some cute little pictures that will suffice, I think.

So, the church wasn't official until Constantine made if official in about 313 CE, so before that, it operated kind of under the radar and ran on donations. The catacombs today lay on the first land given to the Christians and were dug out of the underlying lime rock, which was solid but relatively easy to dig through; in other words, it was the best of both words. The word catacomb literally means "placed near the cave," and it wasn't until later on that it came to mean a cemetary. The catacomb we visited today was 25 meters deep and extended 20 km underground. The whole thing was built by Christian fossers, or Christian architects and engineers of the 1st-8th century.

There were three different kinds of tombs: the loculo was a singular rectangular tomb, the archosolium was a single family tomb, and the cubicula was a cube-shaped room (hence the name) used for all the loculi of one family. Lots of families could be buried together in a cubicula too. I looked up a little extra information on Wikipedia (don't hurt me!) and found that the underground passages are called ambulacra. The cryptae were passages decorated with the art or the frescoes (those are the little cave-art-type paintings in the catacombs). Graves dug in the floor of the catacombs were called formae, and they were less common. You could either buy your grave or have the church pay for it (and you kind of paid for this by making the church donations and such).

There are a lot of martyrs and popes buried in the catacombs, including the original catacomb of St. Cecilia. Her body was since removed and put in the crypt at her own church (which I saw earlier on this trip), but her original one was in the catacombs with an American-donated statue of the position she was originally found in. The same statue was underneath the altar of her church.

The catacombs were used until the 8th century, when all the bones (remember, there were just bones left, because the bodies would be wrapped in linen, sprinkled with quick lime, and sealed inside the catacombe with quick lime that stuck a marble or stone tablet with an inscription to the opening) were moved to one place in the city. Since the famous martyrs and popes weren't there anymore, people didn't have a reason to be there, and the catacombs were forgotten and rediscovered in 1852.

We saw a lot of familiar frescoes in the catacombs, including banquets (an idea of the afterlife popular in the Gospel of Luke, particularly), Jonah and the Whale, the Good Shepherd, the anchor, and the cross. We discussed a common picture of Jesus with a wand getting Lazarus out of the tomb, a sign of Christians integrating magic and things they knew from their pagan contemporaries into their religion.

After that, we had class and talked about Dante. Then, some of us went to St. John of Laterine before coming back to campus. Pictures from that are going to be posted tomorrow on account of Gaga. I'll also post the Faberge egg pictures and include some tidbits from class. But until then, I'm on the edge of glory. Peace. :)

Vatican Museum Day!

Today, we went to the Vatican Museums, where I've been before, but I never got the opportunity to stay in them all day and just look to my little heart's content, so that made me happy.

Wow. Hello, run-on.

Anyway, there was so much to look at and so much to see that I didn't quite take a connections or analytical standpoint. Mostly, I just sat there and looked, which was nice because sometimes you have to do that. Especially in the Sistine Chapel.

Some of the awesome things I saw today were the Faberge eggs collection, which not only had the famous Easter eggs linked to the Russian monarchy but also some other trinkets from the time. Best quote from the exhibition: "enameled cockerel with its glittering diamonds jumps out of the shell."

It turns out that I didn't have to make connections; the museum made a lot of them for me.

Connections! (You have to imagine this being done with jazz hands like Michelle does so much)
- In The Final Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, you can see Charon at the bottom beating people with an oar as he takes them across the Styx. How can you tell it's the Styx if it's a Christian painting? People are holding their noses. Because the river smells. Wow.
- The museum said that the idea of God converting people with his words goes back to the idea of Orpheus, who was able to charm things with his music.
- The Jonah symbols so prominent on Christian sarcophagi are not only related to Endymion the sleeping shepherd and love of Selene the moon goddess but also to Ariadne. That didn't make much sense to me, so I looked up this picture:



This, the sleeping Ariadne, was made in the 2nd century BCE, originally thought to be Cleopatra. Later, as it was being shuffled around, they re-identified it at Venus or a sleeping nymph. Then, they found that the snake in the sculpture was actually a serpentine bracelet, and due to other pictures found in gem carvings and sarcophagi, they identified it as Ariadne. I think this is the Ariadne who helped Jason out of the Labyrinth, but I'm not sure, because apparently there were two Ariadnes. I think it's safe to assume in this case, though.

They also quoted this piece of scripture: "But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet." Apparently this was the prophet Jesus said that everyone should trust for a sign (though in the Gospel, he gets mad at people for asking for a sign). This is Matthew 12:39.

- I FOUND A PICTURE OF FORTUNA!!! I WAS SO EXCITED!!!



You can see the globe/sphere that she's standing on, which represents instability and an ability to roll in any direction.

Other pictures!!! I'll see if I can add some captions to make this more interesting.




^ Yeah. That's my hand. On a FINGER.




^ IT'S A COPY OF La Verita!!! Remember, the sculpture I fangirled over yesterday? AND IT'S IN THE VATICAN. CONNECTIONS ALL AROUND!



Dr. Sebastian was particularly enamored with this pinecone-type thing we saw outside.





But then again, so was I. :P




New feathers! Wore them today.




And this statue. Brb dying.






Aboriginal exhibit! A British couple particularly enjoyed the pictures I was taking with the headdress and made me show them the pictures. :)












Contemporary art!!! I don't know why I got so excited over it. But I'm pretty sure you've seen pictures of the other things--the Sistine Chapel (which is not all the Adam and God thing--there's more on the ceiling, and it gets ridiculous to try and process, but yeah...a lot of people said that that was the way they perceived it before they went, so I guess I'm just clearing that up), the School of Athens, all that good stuff. But this stuff is good. Or some of it is. Sometimes you just get guys obsessed with painting the Vatican while it's raining.





And lunchtime!







I think those two groups of people were being taught how to eat by the tour guide. We made lots of jokes, most of which were by Sister Terri (who I will for now on refer to as TerTer because I love her that much).

BECAUSE SHE DREW ME A PICTURE OF JESUS AND SIGNED IT.



Antonia and I always get very excited when we find St. Sebastian (well, when she finds St. Sebastian--she's much better at finding him than I am...I bet she's better at Where's Waldo too). Because...you know, Dr. Sebastian is epic and yeah.



And then we saw more cool stuff.












LOOK IT'S ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA!



And here's a cast of the Pieta. It was nice, though, because I could get a closer picture.




The staircase Antonia and I affectionately named the WTF staircase, because it becomes a staircase...gradually? What I liked as I was going down was the fact that everyone visiting the museum: German, Italian, Spanish, American, Chinese, French COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING as we walked down. Because, like I said, it's the WTF staircase. :)



View from the little lookout deck in the museum.



"SO MANY HEADS. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?" - Dr. Sebastian



^ PEACOCKS AND PICTURES OF SAINTS (namely Mary). JUNO AND MARY ARE CONNECTIONS. *MICHELLE RAU DANCE*



^ A picture of the temptation that's not, as Antonia says, "All RAWR."

I'll post the Faberge egg pictures later. There's way too many of them, and they would totally take over my pretty educational post here! :D