Assault on Hadrian's Keep

Today was an interesting one. Technically our day off, a large percentage of us thought that idea ridiculous when it comes to visiting a city as magnificent as Rome and set our alarms for eight in order to get to Vatican City and see the Pope. While we probably didn't have to arrive at 9:30 for a noon blessing the wait wasn't especially bad standing outside St. Peter's Basilica when it turned out the mass happening inside was televised. When the clock did finally strike noon the Pope appeared at the window of his apartment far off to the right of the square and it was magnificent. He addressed the crowd in Spanish much to the joy of the Spanish tourists who every so often would cheer louder than the Pope's microphone. It was definitely worth the early rise.

We split up after that with a few of us going off in search of an interesting church with a giant stone sun-dial, others made lunch a priority, and the last few decided to go check out a12th century castle that used to be the home of the Popes and was built on top of Hadrian's mausoleum. I ran off in search for the castle. Exploring the six floors of Castel Sant'Angelo was an enormous undertaking when you take into account all the views from balconies, the inner rooms full of mythological paintings, and works of art worthy of any museum.  In addition to the deep history of the Castle, the hours became a blur and before long it was late into the afternoon.

After a long walk along the Tiber, I promptly fell asleep when I arrived back at the apartment, only to be rudely reminded of an actual assignment I needed to get done. Sleep was pushed off in favor of completing a presentation on the biology present in the Colosseum from all the different seeds brought in by exotic animals in Roman times. Grace and I present on Tuesday, should be fun!

I'll try and work on getting pictures back up with each post, the wireless is quite terrible so trying to upload anything is a tremendous task. I'll also try to start incorporating Crowley into more of the shots for fun. On to my last few days in Rome! A city I'll never forget.