Mass trumps museum--almost.

So I am glad I went to the final day of class, because we had a nice farewell for the teachers, who are in their late twenties, so we all became friends. My class bought our teacher as a farewell/gag gift the three things that superstitious Italians will never give each other, and the magazine he dislikes most. We ended up playing pictionary in Italian the rest of the morning.

Then there was an overly ceremonious presentation of the diplomas in the chapel, followed by the "ordinary" form of Mass, celebrated "extraordinarily" badly. ***WARNING: skip the rest of this paragraph if you do not wish to be subjected to a prolonged rant on the liturgy***For some reason, we got three sermons. Though the Mass was concelebrated by about 50 priests (or perhaps fewer, since who knows how far is too far from the altar before one is no longer able to consecrate,) the main celebrant was the assistant "Magnificent Rector", who couldn't put down the microphone after the sign of the cross and gave us a 10 minute sermon complete with warm up joke before the kyrie (which was sung after it was recited, thereby surpassing even the 9 repetitions of the old Mass), which was followed by another 10 minute sermon in the usual place, but not in the usual manner, as he actually addressed people in the audience congregation, asking them questions, and after he got that minor detail out of the way (i.e. the consecration, which is always Eucharistic prayer II, and as if this doesn't atrophy the most important part Mass enough timewise, they also had no time to consume the precious blood after communion or purify the vessels, all of which were shipped off to the sacristy, where I can only presume the proper magic rituals were observed,) his Assistant Magnificence incorporated another 10 minute sermon at the end of Mass, in a most ingenious way never before seen by me, adlibbing to the postcommunion prayer, in order to turn it into a segue for his "closing thoughts." I do hope that the previous run-on sentence sufficiently conveyed my emotional state at the time, which was also exacerbated by the freakishly bad cantor, who both sang off key, and played the fake organ off tempo. [END OF LITURGICAL RANT]

Yay. After all that, I decided on not going to San Gregorio, since I had already been to Mass, and spent two rather hurried hours at the Palazzo Altemps until I was kicked out when it closed. I definitely need to go back at length, there were simply too many things I didn't get to look at properly, but at least I now know where they are. I also stopped to pray a bit at the palace chapel (thankfully it was empty) since it has a splendid collection of relics. I simply do not understand why the Vatican hasn't removed all the relics and deconsecrated the place. Relics should not be in museums! It is scandalous to have to pay to go see them!

Despite all my grumbling, perhaps God does love me, if only a little. Proof? Well apart from not dropping dead suddenly and going off to my deserved eternal reward (no doubt a hot one), He opened up for me something not normally seen! I was chatting with the girl at the reception, asking about volunteer opportunities at Roman museums as I was being kicked out, when I mentioned it was a pity that the Teatro Goldoni, a theatre in the palace built in 1575, and therefore one of the oldest private theatres in the city, had been closed for "restoration" for so long. I asked when it would reopen; she said it wouldn't for the time being, and then she asked if I wanted to see it! I said yes, of course, so she went off to get a key, and she then took me through bits of the palace I would otherwise not see, and I got to visit the theatre. To be honest, it isn't really such a great pity that the place is closed, but the thrill of going somewhere were most people are not allowed is not to be missed!