Tuesday -- A Day Full of Surprises at the Vatican

No chances for pictures on today's post. We made our way to St. Peter's Basillica and we walked in the door, I turned my camera on and went to take a picture and the "CHANGE BATTERY, LOW POWER" message comes a flashing! Arrgh! I wasn't too upset because I had been here before and have tons of pictures already but there are always a few things I like to capture. Our chapel was running behind in the queue so we stood in line forever with the guides worrying whether we would be able to make our Vatican Museum appointment time or not. While standing in line, what to our wondering eyes should appear but Fr. Brian Dellaert in full vesture with his face smiling so dear!!! It was so good to see him again. I haven't had the chance yet to really talk to him but hopefully I will have time tomorrow to visit with him for a bit.

We had mass in one of the crypt chapels but because of our hurry it was one of the quickest masses in history. I kind of felt our whole day was one of hurry up and herd you through. The crowds of people are so much bigger this time of year than when I was last here and we didn't have Father Pelzel to chip in his little interesting bits and pieces (I miss that!). From the crypt mass, we hightailed it over to the Vatican Museum. Our guides have been a little worried about our group -- we tend to have a lot of gaps in our group due to not everyone being able to keep up with the rest of the group. Today we had a first for our guides. During the Vatican museum tour, we lost not one, but TWO, count 'em, TWO of the group. This slowed us down even more with one of the guides going back to look for them and neither one of them was found. One of them had a cell phone and called her brother to tell him where she was and later met up with the group when we were done. The other was taking a taxi back to the hotel and happened to see members of the group on the sidewalk by the area where we were eating lunch and shopping. Whew!!! They have a new rule in Rome right now that the tour buses can only board in one place. There were such lines of buses that we had to stand and wait for probably 45 minutes for our bus to wait in line to get into the garage to pick us up. That being said, we dropped off a few really tired campers at the hotel and then took a drive by of St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. John's Lateran. We then were dropped off by the Trevi Fountain, walked by the North American Pontifical Seminary to pick up our tickets for the papal audience and then off to the Pantheon. By this time the majority were so tired they just wanted to quit so back to the hotel we went. Cindy and I decided we were hungry for lasagna as we hadn't had any on the trip yet so Rosemary Weaver and Deb Haugen joined us and we went to a local family restaurante for a delicious meal. We each ordered a different dessert and ate some of it and passed the plate to the right so we all got a taste of the different desserts. We had picked up Bob Hart's sister along the way as she was alone and we had a grand old time.

Tomorrow is our papal audience so hopefully we will not lose anyone then. If so, they have the entire afternoon free to get back to the hotel! Now I think I will enjoy the early evening and get some r & r and psych up for our big day tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to post some actual pictures!