ROMA

For right now I'll skip on to Italy. It will be hard to single out my favorite pics, but here goes.

Let's start with Rome.

My first night in Rome I didn't have anywhere particular I needed to be, and since I kind of wanted to be everywhere at once, I just started wandering. And I found the Trevi fountain.
Amazing.
Then somehow I found my way to the Circus Maximus, although I'm still not sure how. Of course, since I'm ignorant, I had no idea what it was. I thought: "how nice, a track for everyone!" And it turns out I was mostly right about *what* it was. I just didn't know how ancient it was.
This is the Circus Maximus, with Palatine Hill in the background.

and I could see St. Peter's, and the sunset.

The next day I visited the Vatican museums. I mostly took video, but here are a couple pictures:
St. Peter's, and the 2nd top tourist attraction at St. Peter's: the line into St. Peter's.

The main altar. Guess whose relics are underneath that big boy...I'll give you three and the first two don't count. Too bad they don't let you take pictures while on the Scavi tour, and you actually get to see his relics. You'll just have to trust me that 1) I saw the relics of St. Peter up-close-and-personal and 2) the tour was amazingly awesome.

AHHHH! I think I might die because this sculpture is so amazing. And he did this when he was 24, my age. Damn. Makes me wonder what I'm doing with my life. In the Treasury they have a full-size copy you can get really close to.

This statue in the Vatican Museums stands out because Michaelangelo studied and studied it before venturing out and doing his own magnificent sculpting. It's pretty impressive in real life, since it's so big. I wouldn't want to tangle with this dude.

I'm not quite sure, but I believe this was painted by Raphael.
The next day I stopped over at St. John Lateran...
...and had an "OMG, wish that was me!" moment.

I was quite surprised to see these guys. Is this how they threaten all those immodest women looking to go into St. John Lateran?

And...yet another "OMG, wish that was me!" moment:

Actually, I've managed to run into a wedding just about every day. So...lots of those moments...
I took that one while just rambling down the river Trastevere, killing time and taking in the view. A moment where I was glad to just be me, in the place where I was, to balance out my jealousy of the many wedding couples.

Snapped this next one while waiting to see the Pope at the closing of the Year of St. Paul. Don't piss these guys off. I think the fact that they look silly makes them even more aggressive and humorless. They were checking EVERYONE'S credentials. Even important-looking cardinals:
Anyway, my video of that day is a lot better than my pictures, so when I edit it I'll post it here.
Next we come to the day I visited the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and the Collosseum. Turned out to be the feast day of the early Roman martyrs. So...good day to go, even if by complete accident.
hail Caesar!
I mean, don't get a big head about it or anything...
Hooray for the Triumph Arch!
Yeah. Rome is pretty darn cool.

And then I saw the Pope for the 2nd time during his Wednesday Audience. I wasn't among the most dedicated liner-uppers, choosing to wait a mere 3 hours instead of 4 or 5. I did get pretty close, though, although unfortunately I was seated right behind a huge group of Italian schoolchildren that got restless after about 10 minutes. They were cute for about 15 minutes after that, then just annoying.
The Pope talked to us about the closing of the Year of St. Paul and the opening of the Year of the Priest, and what he hopes the Year of the Priest will accomplish on a parish level, and a bit of the meaning and symbolism of the priesthood.
You'd think I'd remember a lot more details, since I heard the speech in about 6 different languages. But I, like the Italian schoolchildren, kind of zoned out with some of the details. I need to go back and reread it...I'm more of a visual learner anyway.
It was great fun, though, to see everyone cheer when their country or the name of their group was mentioned. I especially liked seeing the choirs that, when their name was called, would bounce up and launch into a song. There were some Bavarians in traditional dress, a mariachi from Mexico, a choir from France, another from Poland, and the Italian schoolchildren in front of me even had their own special cheer. I found out that there were TWO groups from Cincinnati, OH, which I thought was a bit bizarre. I couldn't find any of them afterwards, though.
On my last day I went to see some catacombs. Of course, no pictures allowed, but afterwards there was a huge storm. Actually, it started when we were still in the catacombs when it started thunderstorming. When we came back up this cute little Italian nun (pictured below) was almost hysterical and said "thank goodness you're alright!" We were wondering what she meant until she pointed out that all the electricity in the above-ground part of the convent had gone out, but NOT the electricity down where we were in the catacombs. I was quite grateful, since I hadn't really planned on being in the catacombs in the complete dark with lots of loud thunder in the background, and didn't really want to find out what that would be like. Since it started hailing, we all decided to stick around for a while. And the hail made some of the tiles on the roof fall, which is what the Sister is contemplating.
And, last but not least, the rose that I received while walking around the Circo Massimo. The girl I was staying with recommended we put it in water, but all we had was a beer mug. But it stayed fresh the whole time I was there.