blog 16 Sunday may 20th!

today is day 1 in Venice! so hello from Venice. :) we are currently staying at a bed an breakfast, which is the best decision we could have made, our bed and breakfast renters have been very helpful. they got us bus tickets and also picked us up and dropped us off from the airport and back into Venice. they are named Fausto and Debra. and he looks like george clooney from nose up. tomorrow we get breakfast at 8am. anything I better than 3am like this morning. we got picked up by a private car service which was a van, and the doorman from our apartment watched us as we climbed into this unmarked van, it probably looked like a very strange situation. lol. there was a surprisingly number of cars on the road at 3:45 am...thankfully not as many as there could have been. because that would have not made for fun driving. we got to the airport at 4...although it wasn't open until 5. we were first in line to go through security. our plane didn't leave till 7. but we started boarding at 6:15ish. since we had no assigned seats, everyone charges to the Gate, but it didn't matter because once w got through, we were shuttled ona bus and actually able to board the plane from stairs outside...like they do in movies! it was so cool. an our group of 5 made it into the front part of the plane, an area I've never Been in! the plane was supposed to be 1hr and 15 min, instead, it took less than 45 min. and we met Fausto at the airport and he drove us to the bed and breakfast. on a side note, cars in Italy are super small, so we were wondering what about families that are larger than 4 people, and we found out th answer to that, faustos car only had 4 passwnge seats, with one more seat in the trunk, but it was an actual seat! the bed and breakfast is this cute little house that's yellow. it adorable! from there we payed and got information , then dropped off in Venice, where we just started wondering around. and ended up on a gondalo ride, ( the long boats with the driver in the red stripped shirt) he whistled and sang a bit, it only cost 16€ each while we watche another group get charged 200€! lol we got information about various buildings, did u know in venice there are more churches than islands? the gandalo was awesome, and our pictures probably are in a million peoples pictures tonight. we did lots of shopping and randomly walked into a few churches. it started raining and once it starte to downpour, we decided at around 5. to find our bus home..that took a little bit of time, but we did it. our bed and breakfast is right across from a pizza place, that we ate supper at, and now we are all in bed and it's 9pm.
so ttyl! marsha

blog 15! saturday may 19th!

yeppers, this Blog is being written to you pretty early in my day. it's currently 7:13pm my time. and I'm actually getting ready for bed. this will be the 2nd night in two nights that I will be going to bed at 8. before I get to telling you the reason why, I shall inform you about my day. today we went out to visit the catacombs. we met our guide..Andrea. (different Andrea from our cooking instructor) at a church we had never been to called gnovoni... something I can't spell or say. from there we bused/walked to saint sebastians church were the catacombs were located under. we had an English guide who was NOT enthusiastic or easy to listen to. I could hve done a better job. it was still cool to see. after that, we as in Kate, alex, and myself, went to find a mcdonalds. signs here are not very helpful. we found one, but there is nothing called fast food here! when w first arrieved in Rome, we were told the only people who eat mcdonalds are children, teena, and tourists. and this was true. I can't even describe the mcdonalds. excep we waited in one of at least 10 lines ( on the 2nd floor, first floor is the mcafe and ice cream) for at least 13min. once we ordered it took us another 10min to find our seats. we literally had to push people out of way to sit down, and people just sit with strangers because there is no sitting room. after that we were planning on taking the hill back to the Vatican because it had a beautdil view but we couldn't remember the bus, so we came back to the apartment, I facetimes my bro and Sis in law jeff and Sarah then we made supper of homemad macaroni and cheese and now it's time for bed, because the car which is picking us up to go to the airport to go to venice is arriving at 3:45am. so goodnight!
First picture is of gnovoni, 2nd is of saint sebastian, and 3rd a picture of two of my friends at McDonald's.

Friday may 18th! blog 14

Bonjourno! that means good morning! writing this to you the morning after because last night... Somehow I fell asleep by 8 o'clock. pathetic! my last open night in Rome and I fall asleep! oh well. yesterday was our last day meeting up with Paulo as our tour guide. we went and saw some mid-evil churches around Rome, and found out that the English version. of what we call midevil is different to what it was here in Rome. instead of gothic castles, the Romans were trying to prevent the gothic influence, so these churches were built as sanctuaries and monasteries. the first one we saw..which I don't have the nAme of on me...something about four men, was built as a fortress for the pope to protect against German invasions. it's now a monastery. the next church we saw was actually an circular church. This church had paintings on the side depicting the ways various people were put to death as martyrs for Christianity. They were very gruesome. This church is said to be one of the locations or axis for the final judgement, because it is circular. The final church and location we went to see was two houses built in the early centuries under a church. The church is of saint Paul and Peter, because it was said in the houses, they found an urn and they knew it was a sacred urn that held ashes of at least 2 saints, and it's thought to be Paul and Peter. I might of messed that up, but it was something like that. It was again really cool to be in the remains of an ancient house and to see what was still preserved and left over. After we left paulo, Kate, Alex, and I went back to the apartment, we were very proud of our map skills in e again. Once we made it back to the apartment, we geared up and headed back out (after lunch) to go to the pantheon again and really look around. It was once again a very cool site to see. After the pantheon we decided to just walk around towards the Trevi fountain. We stopped at a few stores on the way. ...and somehow ended up by the coliseum. So we just hopped in a bus and headed home. Once home, we took another break, then headed out to find a burkenstock store we had stumbled across once, but didn't mark on a map nor did we stop...of course,we couldn't find it. So we stopped early for a restaurant for supper. This one was prescribed to me by cousin Beth. and it was delicious! All three of us at all our food. And it was such good food!!! We came back to our apartment..and I fell asleep. And that's how our night ended. Today we visit the catacombs, and will also be an early night because we have a flight to Venice we are getting picked up for at 3:30 am. Gross.
Pic 1. With Paulo!
Pic 2, the third church
3. Food
4. Circular church
5. Empty plates
6. First church

May 17th, Thursday

Today we had our exams for class, after our exam, and scavenger hunt, which Kate and I won, we went got pizza sandwich for lunch. Here they weigh the pizza and charge per weight, they also fold it over like a sandwich. It was delicious. Then we met our guide Paulo, and went to the bourghese which is like a villa, garden, and mansion built just for famous sculptures and paintings. The garden area seemed like a central park idea. In the building. We weren't allowed to take anything but our notebooks and bodies, so unfortunately no cameras. We only had 2 hrs, and we had to be escorted out pretty much, we could have spent 2hrs per room, and there were a ton of rooms, each with bunches paintings and sculptures all with unique stories. My favorite was an sculpture of David right before he was to fight goliath. After the bourghese, we made a very proud walk back to the piazza novina to get our favorite gelato, then the plan was to find McDonald's and a few tourist shops, we couldn't find McDonald's...so we ended up at a Chinese restaurant across from our apartment. If was really good, u could taste the freshness if the chicken. Then we came home and did laundry, no we sleep. Ciao
Pics= class w/our teacher, bourghese, and dinner at the restaurant.

Blog may 16th, Wednesday

Today we busted the villa Adriana. Which is actually Haidrians villa. Haidrian was an emperor in older roman times, and he built this village, that had a garden with a palace. It house 3,000 people, 1,000 of them slaves. And it's now a bunch of ruins, similar to ostria. And actually only 1/5th of it has been excavated. It was really beautiful, and crazy what they could do with just stones and cement and clay back then, and how it all still remains. After this, we went to the top of the village of tipoli. Where the villa d'esta was located. This villa was by the d'esta family when one of its dudes who's name escapes me failed at becoming pope, so he became a cardinal of the village of tipoli. So he built this palace with an extravagant garden and fountains. It was beautiful and the fountains many of them still work. And they had many mechanical pieces to them. It was beautiful to walk though, and see the view from the top of the mountain. Also one of the fountains had an organ that was pretty old from the 16th century that played
At like 4:30. It also started raining then too, but it was a nice rain. The bus ride home was better than our ride there. It took an hour at least both ways, but the bus was packed on the way there so some of us stood the whole time, while on the way home all of us got seats. Then when we got home it was a supermarket stop where we got necessities, then we went to eat. We stopped at a tourist restaurant, where the guys convinced us to stop and eat, in the end we each only paid 10€ for a at least, 20€ meal. It had free glass wine which was good, and bread, along with coke cola. And a cappuccino for me, along with the lasagna I ordered which Kate ate bc she didn't like her pizza. So we switched, then because it's rude not to eat all your food, I ate the rest of Alex's lasagna, Then they brought out gelato, which we had told our favorite main gelato place we were coming back to get gelato, and so when our restaurant brought out spoons first was hand fed to Kate, then I had to get my gelato through a kiss. then we went back to our favorite gelato place and ordered smalls and got larges with like twelve different favors it seemed like! Delicious, and they remembered us, and told us to come back tomorrow, which we will have to do, ok I have an exam tomorrow. Ttyl! Marsha

may 15th blog #11? Tuesday!

I'm so lost on what number I'm on, I'm lucky enough to know what day of the week it is. I'm exhausted, like always, and ready to go to bed reallll soon. it 11:02pm an I just finished my supper dishes. we just had supper at 10:45pm. today we had class in the morning. after class, we were supposed to go to the catacombs, but our professor might have had tickets for a concert, which in fact, he did. so we were given the rest of the day off, till we were going to meet at 5:15 for heading to the bus to take us to the concert. so we walked to a few tourist shops on the way back to our apartment, where I took a lovely 1,5 hr nap. :) it was wonderful. we also snacked alot, because we knew we wouldn't really get supper till late. and late it was. the concert we all dressed up for, I wore one of my 2 new dresses! :) the concert was In an area of town we called really modern. and it was a Beethoven and orchestra concert with singers and violins and a conductor who was awesome. we sat in the cheap sections, so instead of seeing the conductor back, we saw his font as he faced the choir/band. he was very animated,..and young! it was relaxing just sittin there. then we got first on the bus so we all stole seats, and finally back home. tomorrow is going to be a very early day. but it will be fun, ok mighty night!
marsha

Blog 10 may 14(Monday)

Once I get this post published, I will officially be caught up! :) yay!!!
Today was a tiring day, I might say that about every day but today especially felt like it. We didn't even do much, except walk around and go to class. We met our teacher at 9:30 this am, although we thought he said 9. So we were all went to do our own thing while we waited for him. I went down to the water under the bridge and almost fell asleep. That was probably the warmest I felt all day. It was freezing today, and I forgot to grab my jacket. It was also super windy and there was a lot of dust and pillow flying through the air, we saw many people walking around with masks on. It got better by the afternoon. First we went into st. Cecilia's church. She was one of three major females who had churches named after them during the Christian period, her story was that she didn't want to convert back from christianit6, so they tried to kill her by suffocation (which failed), by beheading (which failed), and finally by throwing out a window (which worked) but she then became a martyr and when her grave was opens up in the 1600s, they found her lying on her side, with a golden cloak around her, so the church had lots of gold in it. After that, we took a walk along the river again, and especially on the little island on the middle, which houses the hospital. We then started the walk of replication for Aeneas, who was the mythological legend of the founding of Rome, we had to read the story for class. We started at Hercules alter which actually wasn't the real one, although we saw the pieces from the original in the church nearby. Our teacher talked a lot today about various elements from aeneas and such which are really interesting, if you want to hear them. Basically we saw the old and imperial forums from a different angle, more like one he would have seen when he entered the city. If he would have entered it during Virgil ( the writers) time. After the walk, we went to find food, and we had pizza at this little shop where slices were weighed for price, then class where we learned how to ask directions. Then we had to go out and actually ask people how to get someplace, which was difficult, because our school is housed in the tourist district, so all the people we asked were tourists, in the end we asked people in shops, and tried to convey the message that we didn't actually have to to go to the place we were trying to find. After class, Kate, Alex, and myself went shopping in the district around school. I bought a sweatshirt and bag From a souvinar shop, and got hit on by the store owner ;) he gave me 5€ off on both of my items, and Alex too, because she was with me, and all because I said I didn't have a boyfriend, ;) he gave me his business card and told me to come back :) I also got a few gifts for people, which I'm not gonna mention. Came back to apartment and made spagetti for dinner. And then relaxed/shared our technology. Tomorrow we are touring the catacombs! Yay! :) ok ttyl! Ciao! :)
Pic 1. Church near Hercules t
2. St. Cecilia church
3. Water view!

may 13 blog number 9

caio my friends an family at home! just wanted to tell you I miss you all, but have completely and inexplicably fallen in love with europe and Rome. :) so this is a blog post for sunday. I'm almost caught up on my posts!..almost. Sunday was our free day, so myself and 8 other girls from the group decided to go to Sperlonga beach. which is normally a 15min bus ride to the train station, 1hr train ride to a bust stop in Fundi, and a 20min bus to Sperlonga, as you may have read, this said normally, so as you can guess, our trip was anything but normal. we were informed that our most difficult part of the journey would be transferring from train to bus that would take us to the beach, while in reality, that was the easy part, and the hard bus was catching the right train to begin with. well...we did not. 7 out of the 9 got onto train 11., because that is the number the person we asked and showed our ticket to told us to get on. we were rushing and trying not to miss our train. we jumped onto number 11, and asked another passenger if we were at the right spot. she shook her head and told us w needed to be on number 12, right next door. we make a headway to the exit,...and the door shut an wouldn't open, we banged on it from the inside, and someone was banging from the outside. ad then the train started moving....we were on the wrong train. lol a man who spoke very little English told us to not worry and we can get off at the first station and switch trains. well then the conductor/ticket checker, asked to see our tickets. apparently w didn't even have our tickets validated, and he explained how we need to get it validated, he unofficially validated it for us. so we were all laughing, because we all knew it would make for a great Story sometime. so 20min later, probably everyone on that train new we had gotten on the wrong one and were all trying to help us. we got off at that station, and told to get on the next train which was stopping in 10min. while waiting, everyone kept asking if we were ok and telling us to get on the train and helpful. we got off at the station we needed. Hopped on the bus, and made it to the beach which was on the Mediterranean sea which is salt water. The village was set in the mountains on a very tall hill with beautiful buildings that we went and explored. I can now say ive swam in a sea, ocean, lake, and river! I can also say I'm very burnt and the sun is more direct over here in Italy, everyone on the trip go burnt. But it was a lot of fun and relaxing..somewhat. We had no issues the way home. Once we got home, we all took showers to wash off the sand, then headed into trestevere ( the neighborhood we live in) and found ourselves a cafe to eat at. I had lasagna, and we payed for some amazing dessert! I enjoyed myself some homemade whipped cream and chocolate! :) then we came back relaxed and slept!
Picture 1.the beach and upper village
Pic 2.looking out from near the top to the water
Pic 3.my dessert! Yum!

Blog #8 Saturday may 12th

On Saturday, although it was supposed to be a difficult day, since we had done a lot of things extra on Friday, Saturday was supposed to be shorter and easier. It was both of these along with tiring and stressful as well. We took the metro to OSTIA which is pronounced like Austria Germany, but isn't the same at all. This is the ruins and old port from ancient roman times. It's crazy to imagine that this city/ruins (which was huge) used to lie on the bank of both the Tiber riveer and the coast line. Now the coast is many miles away and the river never touches the ruin city. This used to be a major trade and military outpost for Rome, because Rome couldn't feed it's entire population, so it needed food to be shipped from elsewhere and the only reliable means was through ship. The town doesn't seem like it would have been much different from Rome today. When you enter, the cemetery/tombs greet a visitor, and the closer you are to the gates, the better off your family must have been. Funerals and graves were used for showing off social status or groups/associations one was involved in. Once passing the gates, there were trading markets, stores, bars, showers, a theater, temples and other such places. All which current roman cities have. All that is left is some of the ruins, but many are said to still be needing to be excavated, although there is a lack of money and curiosity to complete this task in ostia. If an area was import it was roped off, but besides that, one could go wherever one wanted amongst the ruins, amid the rocks, stones, and buildings. There were many tour groups, and school groups, the children were using it like a giant playground. But to still be there and touch stones from who knows how long ago,...crazy. After ostia we were allowed to go do our own thing, so the entire group went on a hunt to get train tickets for both the beach, and unsocial tickets for some to go he Florence. It took 3 hours, one stop for flood at a pizza spaghetti place (I had delicious spaghetti) and back tracking to get us our tickets, plus long talk with the ticket seller. But we did it, then Kate, alex, and myself, metros and bused back to our apartment, where we chilled for a bit then headed to the supermarket and to go shopping. None of the clothing shops were open unfortunately. It's funny how in America. Our shops are open later on weekends, but here they close earlier. We did find an Asian sresale shop where we bought flip flops for the beach. Nothing major happened at the supermarket. Instead of relaxing, like our plan. We ended up going to the colosseum and seeing it all lit up at night. It was fun taking pictures. And we met more of our group there. And when not trying to yell at the millionth peddler walking by. We were kinda loud. We had finally asked someone to talk our group picture, and two cops come Up, and one of the girls was like, we aren't in trouble are we, the cops thought that was funny, because they laughed out loud. Then they "photbombed" another of our pictures, by standing in the background and smiling while the picture was being taken. After that a few of us went and got gelato, and came home. It ended a good day,although we had stressful moments throughout it.
Pic 1.my friend Kate and I outside the colosseum at night
2. My laundry!!!
3.entire group in the theater at Ostia!
4.me outside colosseum at night!
5.me In front of ruins at Ostia
6. Me and more ruins
7.friends outside colosseum
8. Imperial forum at night
9. One more picture of the colosseum

may 11th Friday blog #7

may 11th.


this was a day we were told would be very long and difficult. many of the buses and the trans were on stike. so we had to walk a long way away. we met our guide who's name is John Paul in English, but pronounced japie, at the wedding cake building, which I don't actually know what it was. it was right next to the old forum, the imperial forum, and we could see the colosseum. we toured the old forum. which is where the old senate building was and other significant ancient buildings that are now pretty much nothing but ruins. except the buildings which were converted into churches. they were the only ones that survived the multiple rebuilding and tear downs that occurred during the years. we walked around and heard many different stories. and we looked up, and realized we made it the colosseum. we took a group picture of ourselves all in svsu gear outside the coliseum, and as soon as the picture was done, threw off our shirts because it was so hot outside. it is easy to distinguish who are tourists and who is a local by looking at what people wear, but since it was so hot, our entire group decided we would look like tourists in tank tops and shorts just because it was soo hot. after lunch of a hot dog (on pinnini (flat bread) ) and gelato, we heard about and toured the inside of the colosseum. WE ACTUALLY WENT INSIDE THE COLOSSEUM!!! it was awesome, and even grander then what I imagined. from the colosseum, we left to head to the baths of caracala. this is like the social place that many used to be around, it is also the spot we all were able to finally go to the bathroom. it was a really interesting place to see the ruins and how intact they were and how smart the Romans were with their bath heating system and such. after the baths we decided to add some of what we would have done the next day, that day. this included seeing st. Clemente's church. this church part was built in the 11th century. the church was burned and redone, with various pillars and marble taken from other marble architecture. the next layer down was part of the original church. this had one of the original paintings with the some of the first recorded words written in italian instead of Latin, it said "hurry up you bitches" there was another floor down, which was a roman building, that was thought to be a house, then converted into an area for the cult type guild dedicated to Mithras. then there was another layer below that that was a public building, and thought to be a mint. and yet, we went another layer down into a house that was from the first century. its crazy to believe that the ground floor used to Be here and the ground went up so much higher. on our way back we walked by the imperial forum, which is where agustus built his own forum or square. we were left to go our own way, and a few of us ended up at the restaurant Andrea (our cooking class teacher) owned. we ate at about 6/7 and we were the only ones because most people don't eat until 8 or 9pm. we also received the student discount for a 4 course plus side dish and wine meal that was only 10€. it included a pizza elephant ear bread Thingy, bruscetta, bread, pasta and olive oil, and desert of ice cream and coffee. it was good, and I ate all my pasta so I'm doing a good Job of eating like an Italian! we were still hungry, somewhat so we walked farther in town to get gelato, and when we got to the place Sullivan mhad blight us some, the workers got super excited and just started handing is different flavors on spoon: then they kept adding flavors to our cones. sooo gooood!!! that's all for this day! (Friday)pic 1. Me in colosseum 2.the colosseum 3. Walking along forum into colosseum 4. Eating my hot dog outside colosseum 5.Renee and I on bus coming back from
Our busy day 6.the wedding cake building 7.&8. Imperial forum 9. The baths of caracalla 10.Titus triumphal arch 11.me with the view!

Day 6th thursday

On thursday, we had a very busy day. First we had Italian class from 10-1, with a break in between. On this day we learned how to shop and names of various foods at the supermarket, which is where we had to go for a scavenger hunt. we met up with our professor at 2, and walked to the grave of augustus, known as the mausoleum. It is a crumbling building, that when we were once "lost" in the city walked by and didn't know what it was, but it was cool walking by it again and knowing exactly where we were and what it was. In the museum across the street, we visited the sacred alter, which had pieces glued back together and taken out from holding up structures of other moment, through a freezing method 100s of years ago. The alter was huge, and I wish we could have seen it in its original form, complete with color and all it's images. From here, we visited saint augustines church, we visit so many churches it's difficult to keep them straight, but each and everyone of them is beautiful and one could spend hours looking at them. You can't tell from the outside, but inside gorgeous! Then it was time for WINE tASTING!!! I learned so much about the history of wine during this "class" and a lot of information dad will like to hear about about different wines and history and origin of their makings. Our teacher was massimo, who spoke broken up English, and made it difficult to understand him, but he did a pretty good job. Did u know Italy used to have over 400 types of grapes? But around 60 types were lost during WWII because of insects. Not only did we learn about wine and italian wines history also a bit of American wine history too, we also learned how to examine wine by it's smell, color, legs,and carbon, all which play a hand in its fluidity, the Amount of carbon dioxide, and taste. We got to try three different types of wines, all red wines. Number 2 was the best, not to strong or weak. We also leaned how to examine their acidity, Tonic, and alcohol levels. They served us a bit of food, because we were all running on an almost empty stomach besides some gelato our teacher bought us,. I tried legit anchovies..gross! Haha but I tried everything on my plate, and anchovies was the only thing which we knew the name of. After tasting, our entire group went and got pizza at a restaurant, I ate my entire pizza, I'm getting good at rating all my food and not being rude. It's rude to leave food on your plate. After this, I decided to hang aRound the squares with some of the group, and we enjoyed a nice drink at a bar. It is the best way to enjoy the city and night life. Pictures are of the mausoleum, alter, and church.

day 5! may 9th

hello readers! :)
so still trying to catch up in this writing! :)
we had to get up super early this day, 6am, aka 12am at home. we took a bus to the Vatican for the audience with the pope, and when I say pope, I mean.. THE POPE! we got there at 8:30 but the event doesn't officially start until 10:30. we were super close to the front in actual seats. I've been informed that Someones parents/gparents watched a video of the popes audience and saw us. they said bible verses in different languageS so everyone could understand them. then they welcomed specific groups who were visiting and when they call your name the groups cheer and the camera finds them and the pope waves at you, well the students and faculty of Saginaw valley state university was also welcomed and our group of 14 cheered so loud it was awesome! :) just being there was so awe inspiring. I'd say everyone should get the chance to sit in the popes audience, except bring suntanr lotion. I hav yet to get burnt on this trip knock on wood. :) after the audience which was in the circular part of the outside of the Vatican, we ate lunch then got into the museum of the Vatican. this part is connected to both the Sistine chapel and st. peters church. the Vatican was beautiful. the sistene chapel is where the cardinals are Locked into the sistine chapel to vote on a new pope. apparently the current pope is called a transitional pope used to just bring back the church from the craziness of the past pope and before the next big named pope. the sistene chapel is where michealangelo painted the celing. it took him 4 years with only 3 Helpers. he was pretty much forced to draw the ceiling even tho he considered himself a sculpture person and not a Painter. so in the painting he used many elements that pretty much dissed the church. such as ther being no cross or mention of Christ on the entire celing, god was portrayed as weak because his butt was hanging out and his back facing the audience. it also shows two men kissing. the final judgement only shows Christ with very angry Angels making it seem like a scary time. the other paintings there, were done by other painters forced to paint, they were forces because said art and math and science were gettin too much ahead over religion, so these artists requires to paint so they decides to add math with lines and such to convey science and math still with art in paintings at the church. one of these images called "heaven over the Keis" look it up, it's really interesting. I then had a dehydration, plus some other issues that made it so I was unable to completely appreciate the rest of the Vatican, so hopefully I will be Able to go back some day. the Vatican. for those who didn't know, is also not part of Italy, it is it's own state. :) the museum also had rooms of sculptures, paintings, and tapestries. st. peters was beautiful, and the best part of the trip. it had marks on the floor for other churches to show the grandness and size of st. peters church. the church had a statue of Mary holding Jesus after he died, and the story goes that michaelangelo did it, but it was before anyone knew who he was, so one night he snuck into the church and wrote michaelangelo from florence on marts chest, it was then one of the last works he actually signed. the pope is considered the strength and fall of the empire. during Christianity, there was a huge struggle about the roles of slavery, the church marks the place where or near at st. Peter was burned. he died at a circus...a spot of gladiators and shows and executions. pope became resident of Vatican in the 14 the century. the Vatican was sooo full of people it was very claustrophobic. and made the day very long, we barely got to stop to rest, and when we did, it was a dash to find the shade. we had to have our shoulders and knees covered to enter the church, but it was good to wear my dress. the chapel was supposed to be quiet and no pictures were allowed, but it was a mass amount of people and everyone was talking pics, so o couldn't appreciate the grandness of it. everything was so beautiful, and I wishI could go back some day. ;) ok, onto the next blog! I keep trying to get caught up, I'll get there eventually. Pictures from outside and popes audience, museum ceiling, and church, and pope!