Rome day 3

St Peters Square where the Pope gives his weekly address

St Peters Basilica the largest Catholic Church in the World

Me and Mom in front of St Peters Basilica at night.

Today we went to the Vatican. We had to stand in line outside the walls for about an hour before they would let us in. I didn't know what to think about the Vatican. It just reminded me of a lot of over indulgence. I thought about the common people and how deprived they were and that they didn't have anything and yet their church had a huge amount of wealth that they put towards things of the world. Anything you can imagine in gold and marble statues, the tapestries and the furnishings, the paintings and everything was just overdone. This is not to say that the Vatican was not grand, it was. It just was too much I think.

We then went back to the hotel and packed to come home. That was a lot of fun trying to get everything to fit into our bags and not have them overweight. We did OK. We then found out we were going to take a bus ride around Rome at night. That was awesome to see all of the stuff lit up and glowing was so cool! We drove past a movie premier and the president of Italy arrived as we were driving around there were police cars everywhere. It was really kind of cool.

We will be leaving in the morning and I am so glad I had the opportunity to go on this awesome trip. I have learned so much and I am excited to plan another trip back to Italy to spent some time at some of the places I thought were cool!

Becky