Vatican City



Pope Benedict XVI



The second full day we were there was dedicated to Vatican City. We made our way over there to see the Pope and hear him speak in St Peter's Square at 1030. There was quite a crowd (though prob not as big as it would be during the main tourist season). The pope drove in a vehicle around the crowd then up to his place on the stair of St Peter's Basilica and then there was a reading from Matthew in 7 different languages and then the Pope spoke.

After we heard him speak in English we headed over to the Vatican Museum (otherwise we wouldn't have accomplished what we wanted to for the day cause he usually talks for like 2 hrs and it was like 1130 by the time we got out). We stood in line for a while for the museum, but then we finally got in. We wandered around inside and eventaully made it to our destination, the Sistine Chapel. We sat and stared at the paintings (done by Michealangelo - we learned about them/were tested on them in Art History class) for a while.

After the chapel, we wandered our way through the museum and found a room dedicated to the aborginal people of Australia, that was interesting. By then we were tired and hungry so we made our way out. We decided on gelato for lunch, very good choice (it is going to be hard going from gelato back to ice cream... gelato is so much better, and the chocolate gelato that I had in Rome was EXTREMELY good). Then we headed back over to St Peter's Basilica.



me in front of St Peters



Boy was there a line to get in, it stretched almost all the way around the square. But it went relatively fast, took about half and hour to get in. All I have to say about the inside is WOW. I can't even discribe it. The art was beautiful! And the Sacrasty... oh my goodness! We walked around and admired for quite some time. After the inside of the basilica, we went down to the grottoes (under the basilica). There we saw graves of many dead Popes, and 2 queens. The highlights we definetly seeing Pope John Paul II grave and the gave of St Peter. John Paul's gave was quite simple, which made it stand out. St Peter's grave was just the oposite, really elaborate. It was beautiful. We were eventually rushed out becuase they were closing, we had gotten to the grottoes just in time.



swiss guards at St Peters



After the grottoes, it was getting dark, and we were hungry so we decided to go back. We took the metro back and went to the store and got some pasta and pasta sauce and made that for dinner, we invited Ali to eat with us, because he was there. We ate, Ali wasn't a fan but he was polite about it, and then we went back to our room to relax for a bit. After a while, Ali came back and told us not to go to sleep, cause he was cooking us dinner... and he wouldnt take no for an answer.


We ate a second dinner of hot dogs and sat around with Ali and Amin (from Iran) and the Italian guy staying there. The conversations got alittle more interesting that night. They told us that facebook and most email are illegal in Iran, and what is not is filtered by the government. They have to use a portal in order to get on facebook. We also learned that the Iranian people like Americans, its the government who doesn't. Also Amin said that he would like to one day come to America, but doesn't think the American government would let him (he is an Art professor back in Iran).



After dinner the Italian guy gave us some fruit to eat... it was like nothing I had seen before. It was orange on the outside, but on the inside it looked weird. He didn't know the name of it in English, and I don't remember what he called it in Italian, and if I couldn't spell it. I looked it up though and I think it was a Persimmon. It was pretty good, different but good. After that though, it was time to hit the sack because we had a long day of traveling ahead of us.