Rome, Italy Day 5

April 4, 2010

Day 5 Rome, Italy

I figured we should get to the Vatican earlier than the day before so that we could get good seats and it's a darn good thing we did!  Thinking that the weather would be similar to the last few days (gorgeous), I didn't bring a jacket, just my scarf to keep me warm for the first hour or so.  That was a mistake.  When we got out of the metro it started to sprinkle a little bit.  I figured it was no big deal and that it would stop.  There was an amazing amount of people heading to the Vatican already, even though mass was at 10:15 and it was only 08:30.  We walked as fast as possible, by-passing as many people as we could and passing all the vendors trying to sell us umbrellas.  I still thought we were in the clear, weather wise.  When we got to the wall of Vatican City, the guards had it blocked off to everyone.  You had to stand in line.  Trevor found a huge gap in the line and we snuck ourselves in pretty close to the front.  You have to understand that the line was probably 10 people thick, kind of like a big crowd of people swarming.  It took a little bit of patience, and finally a small group of us was let in to get in line at the security screening.  Once past that point, it was a mad rush to find some good spots in the same place that we had sat the night before.  Thankfully this time the Pope was going to be outside as well.  Trevor found us some great seats, while I got us some great souvenir mass books.  And then we waited.  The longer we waited, the worse the weather was looking.  It started to rain.  I hid under my scarf (it was big, so it did a great job hiding me from the rain) while Trevor curled himself up with his Gortex jacket.  Behind us was guy praying the rosary annoyingly loud.  I think Trevor wanted to punch him.  At 10:15, mass began and for the second time this trip, we saw the Pope live.  It was awesome.  Mind you, almost the entire time we were looking at the Pope through umbrellas and people's shoulders, but it was still very cool.  About halfway through the mass, some nuns sitting behind us offered us an umbrella.  That made the mass much easier to sit through.  I was cold and wet, but excited.  Then, for the briefest moment, the rain stopped and I was able to get a bunch of pictures, but it was not to last.  After the mass finished (only 2 hours this time), we waited because people weren't moving and then I realized that the Pope was going to the balcony to address the people.  Everyone clapped when he came out.  After a while of listening to him speak in Italian, we decided to start heading out before the crowd.  This seemed like a great plan, but it turned out others had the same plan and worse than that, there was only on way to get out of St. Peter's Square.  Trevor called it a mosh pit.  We were pushed from all sides, packed together ridiculously close.  It was crazy.  At one point, a girl grabbed my arm and walk with me for a while.  A little weird, but we bounded over the fact that we both spoke English.  And then we were out.  It was still raining and I no longer had my umbrella (or other people's umbrella's to hide under as I did during our exit).  I was soaking.  We decided to head back to the hotel so that I could take a hot shower and warm up.  We tried to get down to the Metro, but it was crazy packed.  Good thing if you crossed the street, the other entry was completely empty.  We headed back to the hotel, I took a hot shower and we hung out for a while before venturing out again.  We had wanted to go to the Catacombs, but apparently they were closed due to Easter, so we went back to the Vatican after eating a lovely lunch at our downstairs restaurant.  I wanted to see the inside of St. Peter's Basilica and after waiting for 40 min in a line that went almost all the way around the edge of St. Peter's square, we were in.  We happened to be there just in time to see the start of another mass (this one not lead by the Pope).  Then we walked around taking pictures of the crazy huge and very pretty Basilica.  Other churches around Rome had nicer paintings or better decorations, but this one was by far the biggest with crazy huge marble statues.  It was neat.  With no more plans, we headed back to the hotel to spend our evening there (mentally preparing for the insanity of the next day).  We bought a 3 Euro 1.5L bottle of wine and shared it.  It wasn't that good, but what do you expect for 3 Euro.  And that is how we ended our stay in Rome.