St. Peter's and the Vatican

Today we are spending the afternoon at the Vatican. No one else in my group wanted to go in the morning to see the papal audience (I know, you are probably thinking the same think I did--why the heck would you NOT want to go see the Pope when in Rome?!), so I didnt get to which was kind of disappointing, but we left later in the day to go tour St.Peter's and the Vatican Museum.  We got there after a LONG; HOT walk but we had tickets so didnàt have to wait.  Our our guide was Paula so she took us through the Museum first.  We walked through the halls with the Greek and ROman statues, then the tapestry room, map room, Rafael's rooms, and I know Mrs. Haas would be proud that I remembered and recognized so many of the pieces!  It was almost a 4 hour tour, so pretty long, and after a while we were all tired and hungry, but it was all so beautiful.  I don't think I can even attempt to describe what it was like to walk into the Sistine Chapel.  It was breathtaking.  We sat there for a long time just to take it all in, but I could have sat there for days!  We kept going through the ROyal corridor, past the quarters of the swiss guards and then the Pope, and got to St. Peter's.  Again, there are no words to describe the beauty or size of that Church.  I was hoping to get the chance to climb the stairs to the top, but there wasnt enough time.  We spent a lot of time in the Church learning about tthe different artwork, and then we approached what looked like a chapel.  She started to explain what it was, and it was the resting place of Blessed JP II.  I didnt realize that we would see that, so that was a good surprise.  We walked through St. Peters square, went to eat again, and then spent the afternoon at the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Roman Forum.  We had a free night, so we met up with some of the other students and went to dinner at ?Nauchiamo, i think was the name.  We got to see almost all of the sites again at night which was magnificent, and we ended the night eating gelato on the stairs of the Pantheon.  Read that sentence again.  I ended my night, eating gelato with my tour group and some of the locals, on the steps of the Pantheon. (I have a video of that to show when I get home) How awesome!  Everytime I look around, I still cant believe I'm here.  I seriously that this is too perfect to be real, it must be a dream!