Rome, Italy Day 1

Rome didn't make a good first impression on us. We arrived by train and from the first train station on the outskirts of town to our train station in heart of Rome all we could see from our seat was strip after strip of old, gritty apartments covered in graffiti. Our hostel, the Funny Palace, was located three blocks from the train station in the African district. Again, the walk from the train station to the hostel, was anything but a display of historical beauty. After getting situated in our hostel we headed out around the city, but since we left our Lonely Planet - Italy book in our room we felt completely lost and decided to just kick back in our hostel and check in with some incredibly worried parents.

The following morning, Wednesday, we were able to score tickets to the Papal Mass in St. Peter's Square. We headed straight for the Vatican, waited in line for a little bit and when they finally opened up the square we got an incredible seat. We sat in the front row of the second section right next to a Swiss Guard. We spent the next two hours sitting in the square taking it all in and talking with the Swiss Guard. As the ceremony started the Pope made his entrance. As you can see from the video and pictures we had kind of a good seat. :)





The Pope made not one, but two passes right in front of us. We were within spitting distance of the Pope, much less the Popemobile (although the Swiss Guards might not look like it, I'm confident they would have stopped any loogies had I attempted that were within spitting distance). For a non-Catholic I can attest it was very cool seeing the Pontiff drive by you.

The mass was definitely the best mass I've attended. I know that isn't saying much, but it was very cool. The Pope said some prayers in Latin then five bishops announced to the Pope what countries were attending from the bishops' languages (French, English, German, Italian and Russian). After announcing what country was being represented in attendance the people of that country would cheer, like a shout-out. By a huge margin the United States was the largest country in attendance. Easily four times larger than the second largest country in attendance (Italy). Each bishop would also name some large groups that were in attendance. The Italian bishop mentioned the Italian Military Academy, the American bishop mentioned a large convent in attendance, etc. When mass ended were very impressed and a little sunburned.

Since we were in Vatican City we decided to do all the sights there. We first hit St. Peter's Basilica. The Basilica is by far the largest church I've ever been in. It easily rivals the Astrodome-styled mega churches found in middle America. We took an audio guided tour of the basilica to better appreciate it. The artwork in the basilica is fantastic. There is a fantastic Michelangelo sculpture as you enter as well as dozens of other great paintings by other famous painters. The audio guide definitely helped us appreciate this church more than others. However, after hearing about 30 different popes and why busts were made of them, we were ready to leave. We realized that we only had 20 minutes to get to the Sistine Chapel before it closed so we ran around the Vatican to the Sistine Chapel and we were able to get in.


We had to walk half a mile through the halls and museums of the Vatican to finally get to the Sistine Chapel, but when we got there it did not disappoint. The chapel is absolutely beautiful. Since we were some of the last people into the chapel we were able to sit down on a bench and really enjoy the room. Lara was able to snag some really nice, illegal photos of the chapel as well ('Pull my Finger' on the left). We left the Vatican tired and very appreciative of the incredible experiences we just had.

We also left the Vatican very hungry and we set out to try to find a non-touristy area of Rome to eat dinner in. We kind of found that cool area in the Trastevere neighborhood. Trastevere is a cool little neighborhood with reasonably priced pizzerias and restaurants and cool shops. We found a cute little restaurant and I proceeded to eat like an Italian. I had a four course meal and completely gorged myself. We left Trastevere with our goals completed; we found a non-touristy area and fed ourselves.

We got back to the Funny Palace pretty happy with our first day in Rome.