BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

I had been waiting for Sunday and seeing the Pope at Psalm Sunday Mass ever since we bought the plane tickets to Italy. I was SOOOOOO excited! We woke up at 5:45am and got ready, listening to Christian music on Casey's iPod. We found really good chocolate cookies in the hostel to eat for breakfast and left around 6:45am to walk to Vatican City.

We got to the line outside at 7am. We saw a guy in line wearing a plaid shirt who we had seen two times before, wearing two different plaid shirts. It was strange to think that we were beginning to recognize people! We waited in line and talked to Scott who was standing by us. He is a deacon who lives in Rome and is from Illinois. They opened the security at 8am and we got in and got REALLY good seats. We were shocked to get seats in the first place because I assumed they would be reserved for priests and nuns and such but I guess it is just a free for all. We were in the middle of the section closest to the front, on the right side of the main aisle. I sat like 5 seats from the middle aisle-which is where the opening procession would go down! We were given olive branches instead of psalms. There were huge psalms that they gave to the people in the middle aisle to hold up during the procession.

At almost 9:30am exactly, the procession began-first with the cross and priests, then bishops, then cardinals, then THE POPE!!!!!!! The first thing I saw was his gold hat! He was riding on top of a little white car. I was so happy that I cried two tears and then started taking pictures and videos. We stood up on the chairs to try to get a better view, which angered the guards and one of the guards came over and yanked a guy off his chair and said something to him in Italian and threw him on the ground. That was not very Christian of him. Pope Benedict did a blessing of the psalms/olive branches at the obelisk in the middle of the square and then his car took him up to the front altar. On the way to the altar, he went right down the middle aisle and at one point, HE WAS LITERALLY NO MORE THAN 10 FEET FROM US!!!!!!!!! He was smiling the whole way and it was so cool!!!

The people we were sitting next to were Spanish students, about our age and they were EXTREMELY RUDE!!! I was so frustrated because I wanted to tell them to leave, but I didn't. Two of them were making out, one was plucking her eyebrows and then checking to see if we saw her by looking at us in her mirror, and the others were sleeping the whole time. It was very offensive. Just guess it shows what problems there are with youth in the church in Spain. They were so disrespectful!

So other than them, Mass was great! The readings were one in English, one in Spanish, and the Gospel (the Passion) was sung by 3 priests...so cool! We got little books with all the music, readings, prayers, etc. so we could follow along. We could understand enough to know what was going on most of the time. I couldn't get anything from the homily though. I know it was supposed to be directed at youth, so I'll have to look it up and read it online. The petitions were read in Portuguese, Arabic, French, Polish, and German by a native speaker from each of those countries. For Communion, they had a Vatican staff member with each priest who held a yellow and white striped umbrella so that we could locate a priest to get Communion from. At the end of Mass, the Pope did a blessing in at least 8 different languages and everyone cheered when they heard their language.

After Mass, we met Jeff Dole, a former ISU student, who is now a seminarian in Rome. We asked him lots of questions we had come up with and he told us lots about the history of St. Peter's Basilica, St. Peter's Square, and the Vatican etc. He also showed us the spot where Pope John Paul II was shot, which I did not know about before. Miraculously, the bullet weaved through his organs and did not damage anything. He also told us that the obelisk in the middle of St. Peter's Square is thought to be the last thing that Peter saw before he died. He told us the story of how they moved it to its current location. He also recommended that we visit St. John's Basilica, one of the other 4 main Basilicas in Rome.

We walked to the metro and rode to the Coliseum area. We stopped at the Roman Forum gift shop to see if we could get tickets there to avoid the line at the Colliseum and a guy told us that the Colliseum was closed to prepare for the Stations of the Cross that the Pope does there on Good Friday. We were heartbroken because here we had gone to Rome and not even seen the Colliseum! So, we walked to the Colliseum and saw people going inside. Turns out that guy was wrong and we got inside! We met a couple from Texas-Lizzy's favorite couple ever-and had them take a picture of us. I think they ruined the inside of the Colliseum because the area where they would have had gladiator fights looks like a maze made of bricks. It was turned into a small city and market area many hundred years ago, which is very unfortunate. I would much rather see the area where the gladiators fought. Oh well.

As we left the Colliseum, it started to rain so we walked to St. John's Basilica. We stopped at St. Clement's on the way which is a smaller Basilican in Rome. We didn't stay there long. San Giovanni-St. John's had Mass every hour that we were there. In the main sanctuary area are statues of the 12 disciples with the weapon/way they were killed. For example, Bartholemew (I think) was skinned alive, so he is shown with a human skin in his hand. It is all made of stone, of course. In front of the altar, there is an opening with stairs that lead down, which is where the table from the Last Supper is kept. It was under glass and looked like the real thing to me. Above the altar is the box with the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul.

We left the basilica and stopped at our last gelateria on our way to the metro. It was not as good as the other one, but it was still gelato! I got cream, raspberry, and cotton candy. We metroed to the Spanish Steps which are basically just steps with azaleas planted there. Nothing that special. Lots of couples and people drinking alcohol. We looked above the steps and saw another obelisk-a sign of a major basilica! So, we decided to go quickly. The nuns told us that you could get another indulgence if you went to all 4 of the major basilicas, but we only ended up getting to 3. Oh well!

As we were coming out of the basilica, the sun was setting. It was a gorgeous, red, firey ball. We got on an elevator with two couples to get to the metro station. The elevator hesitated a bit and one of the guys said, "Maybe backpacks aren't allowed." He was joking of course. When we got to the metro, we saw the father-what-a-waste from the day before at Pope JP II's grave but we could not get a picture before the metro came...what a shame! We metroed to the end of Line A and got a taxi to our hostel. We had to do some bargaining with the taxi men. They were trying to charge us double what the hostel told us it would take to get there. You're not going to rip us American girls off! The taxi driver didn't play any music or anything. It was just silent. Lizzy asked, "So has it been a busy night?" and got no response...pretty sure he only spoke Italian! We laughed so hard in the back seat, trying to be quiet so he didn't notice.

We arrived at our hostel-the Flower Inn B & B and it was the CUTEST little hostel/B & B ever!!! It had only been open one month and we found it on hostelworld and loved the pictures, so we just HAD to stay there. It was very nicely decorated and everything was SUPER clean! We went to bed at about 10:30pm. And that was how the best day of my life ended!