Vatican Splendors

My sis was bored today, or restless, or something…..so she showed up at my house and said "Let’s DO something!"

Funny how that works.  I was wanting to go to the current exhibit at the Florida International Museum:  Vatican Splendors, from St. Peter’s Bascilica, the Vatican Museums and Swiss Guard.  It has been open a couple of weeks and I have been holding it loosely on my "to-do" list.  So today was the perfect opportunity to ‘to-did’ it!

Welcome to Florida International Museum – the first stop on the North American tour of Vatican Splendors – celebrating 500 years of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums and Swiss Guard. A once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of the Vatican’s extraordinary collections of Art and historical objects.

Yep.  That’s the official ‘blurb’.  What it SHOULD have said was….

Welcome to Florida International museum – the first stop on the North American tour of Vatican propoganda, replicas and drawings of some really cool stuff you COULD see if you were privileged like the pope.  A once-in-a-lifetime hyped up non-exhibition of the Vatican’s extraordinary collections of Art and historical objects of which we will actually exhibit two small paintings, 4 Swiss Guard uniforms, a handful of vestments…..and lots of frames with words in them telling you about the REALLY neat stuff that we will never let out of our hands for any reason at all.

I hope not to offend anyone who holds the Vatican in high esteem – but what a crock!  The lines were quite long, we waited over 2 hours for our turn at the "treasures".  And that would have been OK, if there had actually been any treasures!

I believe that the Vatican DOES house some amazing artwork and ‘treasures’.  When the aeds hit saying some of these things would be on display, I was stoked!  I love that kind of thing – the kind of thing I THOUGHT would be on display…. artwork by masters, beautiful samples of religious symbolism, some amazing vestments and personal artifacts of bygone eras and popes……

I should have known better, I guess.  The Vatican does not exactly have a reputation for being forthcoming and sharing.

Sigh.  Twenty bucks……feeding the Vatican coffers.  Double sigh.

Ah well.  If I had not gone, I’d have kicked myself for missing the opportunity.  So its just as well that I went.  However, this experience has soured me on attending future "amazing" exhibits at this museum.  Besides, what little there was to view was poorly lit.  Very poorly.  There was glare on the paintings and on the plastic casings surrounding the ‘artifacts’ so that you couldn’t really see.  And the taped "guide" I purchased, was boring beyond belief – added nothing to what I could read for myself from the plaques on the wall.  It was also out of sync with the poorly labeled exhibits.

Good Lord – am I complaining much, or what?  Yep.  I sure am.  It pi**ed me right off!

But as a consolation prize I got to babysit Aniah tonight while her parents went out to the Gasparilla night parade.  (Gasparilla – the city’s "elite" get dressed up like pirates so they can get drunk, act stupid, and wander down the streets waving guns).  And Aniah, as always, is different by leaps and bounds than she was the day before – did MY kids grow and change this fast?

And now I am enjoying updating and reading diaries (even though I have a "Vatican – sized" headache…..)

So today was not a total loss.  But me and the Vatican…….well, we’ll never be close.  lol