wanderlust: Italy

So my mom loves the late John Paul II. When the Vatican announced that JPII was going to be beatified, I got a text from my mom that announced that. Two hours later she sends another one... "I got hotel rooms!"
Who's going to say no to visiting Italy? Not I, said the fly! (I still can't believe that Mike, did indeed, say no, but that's another story). So mom, Mart, Michaela and I headed out on April 26th.

Mom and Mart hanging out on the escalator...we made it!

Mom was thoroughly impressed with the sheer volume of JPII paraphernalia.

Nice knockers!

Trevi fountain!

Here's the Castel Sant'Angel. Pretty. We jumped on on of those fun hop on, hop off buses to get a ride around the sights.

We saw all these cute little trucks filled with plants and flowers, here's one perfectedly situated near the JPII bus...

Look at those hotties.

Went to dinner at a lovely place that we went to back in August--same waiter who threw antipasto plates at us! It was awesome.

Magda even came over from Poland with her bf Niko. It was so good to see her, and meet him!

Niko and Kayla touring the Colosseum.

While Madga, Kayla and Niko were at the Colosseum, mom and Mart and I walked out to the catacombs. This is mom in the Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis. It is here that St Peter traditionally met Jesus while the former was fleeing persecution in Rome. The story goes that Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, where are you going?" (Latin: Domine, quo vadis?). Jesus answered, "I am going to Rome to be crucified again." And that made Peter realize that he had to go back to Rome, where he was crucified...upside down.

What are you doing??

The Tiber river, looking lovely at twilight.

Visiting the Trevi fountain again.

View of the pillars in St Peter's square.

The Vatican was quite the busy place! The beatification had events planned over the weekend of April 30-May 2. The big ceremony was on Sunday in the Vatican, and they were estimating that over one million people would be there. Saturday evening we were hanging out at the Vatican, and mom's plan was to sleep out so we could be close or in St Peter's Square. So we sat down, thinking we were in for the long haul.

Here's mom getting ready to face the night in her Jesus wear.

There were tons of people with the same idea, so groups singing, and waving flags, and one girl (a self proclaimed 'JPII freak') interviewed mom for her college media class (below, left of mom). Then the police made us all leave. Sad.

So then the plan was to leave our hotel at about 3am to go to the Vatican (they were moving the barricades leading into the Vatican at 5am).

A lovely early morning sky with LOTS of peeps.

We moved, but didn't quite get to St Peter's square. Lucky for us, we were right by one of the big screens so we could see everything. It was amazing how even though the crowd was there for a very good, catholic reason, people were quite pushy and some downright rude (mom saw a lady shove a priest who was trying to give communion so he would turn towards her--she SHOVED A PRIEST!!! Who does that??)
Anyhoo, it got warm. Kayla was getting sunburnt. oops!
It was an awesome experience. And we still had a few days in Rome!

I heart gelato.
I would eat it everyday.
twice a day, actually.

At the Thanksgiving mass that was on Monday. Mom went super early and got a seat waaay up in front, where she SAT. Kayla and I wandered in the back. :)