Just another Sunday...

So I've now realized two posts in one day is pretty hard, especially when it's not part of a series on a place I visited. So I'm just going to do a brief overview of my day today, some of which was covered in the last post, some of which was not.

We woke up early to go see the Pope say the Angelus this morning. It was like a Rock Concert. The square was packed and rocking, waiting for him to come out. When he finally did, everyone went crazy. It's always good to see the Pope, who I've come to realize is a pretty small guy (looks even smaller from a window several stories up). Afterward we quickly beat the crowds into St. Peter's Basilica.

Inside we went to mass in the main Apse, which was really nice. I saw our security guard from the Villanova photography project, Manuelle, and talked to him for a bit. I was happy to find that he remembered exactly who I was, and felt like he still gave us some sort of special privilege. Even though anyone who wants to go to mass can go through the security where he was standing, when he let us through it felt like we had some sort of special privilege. Maybe it was the smile and handshake after the five minute conversation we had, but something about it was different than how he let other people who asked him to allow them through for mass felt.

Afterwards we headed to the Vatican Museum, having not done our homework we found it closed on Sundays. From here Jamie and Jaime went to the Coliseum, this weekend being free entrance for women to national monuments, and I headed back to my hotel to do some Blogging. We both took a siesta after that, I think they were pretty tired of walking, then met up for dinner. We had dinner at another first, a place known by locals as "Tony's" Though it is formally called Hosteria del Moro. The food was fantastic. We had mixed bruschetta for the table, and the portions of our meals were the largest I've seen in Rome, while the prices were right on par with what we normally spend. The desserts were excellent as well, and it was nice to be able to sit and make room after our enormous meals for dessert. Good Italian restaurants rush to get your order and your food to you, but once they do that they don't expect you to leave anytime soon. Even after asking for the check it takes twenty minutes for it to come. In the U.S. if you ask for a check, and don't get it right away, well that's normally an annoyance. Here, I enjoy the fact that I don't feel like I'm being rushed at all, and that if I wanted to order more food, or just sit for hours, I could. It's less of a structured meal than in the States.

Tomorrow it's back to work for me, and my two visitors will be doing the Vatican Museum and then just getting lost in Rome (by that I mean just strolling and exploring, not physically getting lost. They could get on basically any bus and get back to their hostel which is right by the train station, it's pretty foolproof if you ask me).