I'm very tired. So tired in fact, I fell asleep during The Sopranos last night. (I'm not really a fan, I was just sitting in the same room with Greg). It's been a 4 Mountain Dew day and I'm planning to crash around 9 tonight.
I'm still a bit embarrassed that Kelly and I were politely asked to leave the Saint Peter & Vatican exhibit yesterday. As you can guess, Kelly was not particularly moved by thousand+ year old pieces of Roman Catholic history. It was bad planning on my part, Kelly could have went to the Children's Museum with Greg and the other kids but I thought she'd be happier with me in her stroller. (She has on occasions been seriously upset when in a strange place without me.)
On the phone beforehand, I was told it would take about 2 hours to go through the exhibit. What I didn't know is that time included an hour long wait in line before you really saw anything. In my opinion it was very poorly set up. First there were headsets (which they were frequently out of and therefore adding even more time to the wait) but those only covered a select number of pieces and you could read all the information next to the item anyways. So as soon as I could I skipped out of the headset option line, saving myself approximately half an hour wait. My next issue was the bottleneck at the beginning of the exhibit. They twisted you though a couple of hallways with a few pieces (including a 3 minute movie overview, I skipped that too) and then through a life sized replica of St. Peter's tomb. After those hallways, the exhibit supposedly opened up into more of a gallery (ha, wish I could tell you for sure) so you could browse at your leisure instead of standing in line shuffling slowly from piece to piece. I also didn't bargain for the dim lights. It makes sense though, the pieces are so old that they really shouldn't be in bright lights that could cause further deterioration.
However... Kelly does not like the dark. Kelly does not like sitting in her stroller and not moving. So after
half an hour in the exhibit (after half an hour waiting in line outside) of Kelly fussing and me seeing approximately 4 items, a guide asked if I'd like to be shown a way out. *blushes* Course Kelly was as happy as a clam in the brightly lit, noisy Children's Museum only a few minutes later. *sigh*
Greg offered to keep Kelly in the Children's Museum so I go back in (which the guide who asked me to leave said they would allow even though they have a "strict" no re-entry policy to that exhibit) but I really didn't want to stand in line again for an hour just to get back to where I left off. I have to admit, I am rather bummed that I didn't see it all. It's not so much the Roman Catholic aspect of it but the history. Like the 4th century Mosaic of Saint Peter moved me so much because sixteen hundred years ago, a man put it together tile by tile. And then the individual histories of the millions of people who have viewed the piece over the centuries. It gives me chills. If I had the time and money, I could be a huge history bluff and collector. But alas, at the moment, I can't even see an once in a life time exhibit for $13.50. *sigh*
Quote of the Day: "History is a symphony of echoes heard and unheard. It is a poem with events as verses." -Charles Angoff
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