The Death Star at the Vatican
Pouring down rain at the Vatican

This morning we took a trip to Vatican City. We started with Vatican News where we had a lesson of the different branches of Vatican News with some of its employees. Nataša Govekar, Roberto Romolo, Alessandro Gisotti, Greg Burke talked mostly about the social media and the languages of the Vatican News. I thought it was really interesting what they had to say about the how the social media of the Pope and the church can be completely different compared to a normal business.

For lunch, a group of us went to Satiricus and I got a huge plate of pasta, that I cannot remember or pronounce the name of (all I know is that is had bacon and cheese). Then the whole class followed Matteo to the Vatican to meet our tour guide for the museum. She led us through some of the buildings, art, and statues. The art was really beautiful and I thought it was amazing how much detail went into every little piece of the buildings. The Sistine Chapel was not what I thought it would be but, I was glad I saw it. I just couldn’t believe that one person could manage to do all of the grand painting.

It started to pour down rain again, but that didn’t stop us from taking a long walk. As a broadcast student, I got to enjoy dinner with Sylvia Poggioli from NPR, Seth Doane of CBS, and Jordan Foresi from Sky Media. It was a great night with food and good conversation. I had the buffalo mozzarella and caprese along with gnocchi with pumpkin flower. For dessert, it was my usual choice of tiramisu that was also amazing but with more cake.

I loved having the chance to speak and connect with people in the international media world. Jordan had a lot of information about how journalists need to be aware of their surroundings. All of his stories about covering different stories were all seemed crazy and fun at the same time. Sylvia mentioned to me that “Umberto D”, one of my favorite movies, that the lead actor was her mother’s math teacher. My mind was blown. I wish I had more time to speak with Seth but I can’t complain about anything from tonight. They all had great things to say and it was a wonderful day.