When in Vatican City....do as the Pope does?

Our next day in Rome began with an early wake-up and a trip to the Vatican to visit our bud Benedikt XVI! Unfortunately, there was a little communication error between us and he was busy... so we couldn't meet up - next time dude! I saw JPII (10m away) a handful of years ago, so I've seen the Pope... it wasn't that essential that Benny and I hung out this day.

"Pope! I know you're home! Come out and say hi!"

We were told to get there early because, well, it's the Vatican and it's busy! Yah well... so's the rest of Rome but we did alright hahaha. We thought we'd go and visit St. Peter's Basilica and the square to start our adventure... so we got in line. We thought the line was pretty long - it took us maybe 10-15 minutes to get through security and into the actual basilica... I guess that's short? I dunno.. but the basilica was full of tourist nuns and it was beautiful!

Ooh! St. Peter's Basilica from the front

Now here's a story. We were wandering through the basilica taking photos (no flash of course) and admiring the beauty all around us when we came upon the (glass) tomb of Pope John Paul II - remember him? Anywho, all of a sudden I felt an incredible heat/burning along my upper right stomach/rib area. "What the!?" I thought. I checked my satchel (if anyone knows the bag I carry around... well, it is my satchel. Yes, it's a fanny pack - but worn in a cool way by me so that it doesn't actually seem like a fanny pack...err bum bag. Don't worry, I wasn't a fanny-pack-toting-sweater-around-my-waist tourist that day... that was yesterday). Back to the burning... my satchel was BURNING HOT!! Thinking it was maybe my cell phone overheating, I freaked out "It's on fire! It's burning! It's HOT! I'm burning!" - maybe not something to be doing in such a holy place - but c'mon, it was burning!!!!! I tore into the bag and realized it wasn't the phone, it wasn't my camera.... it was... it was... here's a good time to point out that I carry spare batteries in my bag with me.... it was one of my spare batteries that just so conveniently exploded in a church. Problem solved! Did I forget to mention that April thought I had actually gone crazy during this whole episode? Well, she did. Thanks for your confidence... BEST friend. Mmmhmm...

Ju and her satchel covered in battery acid in St. Peter's Basilica

So anxious to find a trash can to clean out my satchel and toss out the battery (yes I know they are supposed to go in a toxic bin thing, but I don't think they had one anywhere nearby), we finished our tour of the basilica and headed out to the square. Not before a few photos though.

"Lookin' good ladies!", "Thanks Pope!"

By the time we left the basilica, it was maybe 9/9:30am and the lineup that we were in was now about 10x longer and the wait would probably be more like 1/1.5hrs - lucky us, sucky them. Unfortunately knowing our fate for the Vatican Museums, we venture forth, prepared for our long wait in line - luckily it was only 45 minutes!

In front of us in line, there were a group of Canadian husbands and wives (you can tell since all Canadian tourists wear Candian flags -duh). As I was talking to April, I kept saying things like "I wonder where they're from.... hmm maybe Toronto like everyone else" etc etc. in hopes that they would turn around and tell us where they were from. Luckily (clearly my plan worked), they turned around and asked where we were from. As we said London - they were taken aback because... well they hate London. No.. that's wrong - they were from London too - small world! So here we were in line with a thousand people and randomly the people in front of us were from London too - "NO WAY!" as the alpha male had declared. Astonishing.

After playing the "I'm a student - here's my UWO student card with no expiration date (yes!), now can I have the student discount - card", we were finally free to roam around. The museum was everything you could ever imagine - completely jam-packed with people so that you could barely move.... along with the idiots who don't turn the flash off on their cameras - seriously!? We waddled our way along to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel where there were surprisingly even more people - and security guards yelling "SHH! NO PHOTOS!". You would have never guessed you were in a chapel - I think I've heard less noise at concerts. Nevertheless, we snapped a couple of illegal shots and took off to avoid the rambunctious crowd.

Yes, we're the type of people who take photos when you're not supposed to.
No flash, don't worry.

We wandered a bit more and were satisfied with what we saw.. so we "peaced out" (get it?) and walked our way back through the streets of Rome to grab some lunch at the grocery store.

We sat just outside of a castle on a bench enjoying our lunch and the sunshine (normal, non?).... but definitely not enjoying the couple macking on each other across from us. OH WELL!! We each laid/lay/lied (stupid grammar) down and took a small nap only to wake up to see the couple across the way still going at it. Time to go.

Some more wandering, and on the way back to the metro station, we realized something was dripping from our little lulu bag. Drat! The jar of olives had busted open and the juice was everywhere. Just add it to list - I honestly blame the cats for the bad luck (if you only knew the extent of it - I forgot to mention a few details in Milan). We grabbed our packs and headed to the train station (not before going on a 45 minute walk to find gelato). We then boarded a packed full train... with people standing in the aisles and a dirty French boy with no space issues sitting beside April, we were off to Florence!