May 18th
Woke up at 10am and hung out with Franco and had some breakfast. Watched a couple movies and then later headed out to the Vatican. Vatican City is surrounded by a huge wall, God save the queen, but we'll make sure we build these walls to keep the millions of dollars of gold and jewels in the Vatican safe... oh wait I mean the pope...
We walked around to the front and looked into the front gates where there were these men standing wearing these ancient Italian outfits....they have probably been wearing these outfits for hundreds of years... http://www.daveliu.com/images/travel/italy/rome/vatican/Guard

The Vatican is it's own country governed by it's own rules. http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/vaticancountry.htm

We got there late so we couldn't go into the city, but we plan on going tomorrow...if we wake up and get out of the house before it gets dark...

We did however go into the main circle where the pope comes out to speak...it is an outside place where many chairs are set up. There are sculptures of people way high on top of the edges of the walls. In the center of this circle there is an Obelisk with a fountain and on the floor of this there are circles that look like some sort of astrological dates...but I couldn't really read them because they were in Italian. I tried to Google it, but without knowing what they were really all about it is a little difficult. I will ask around next time we are there and then give you the scoop when I find out. The best I can come up with is that it is a big sun dial...I also had a really weird thought that people were buried underneath these circles...it would be the perfect way to make someone disappear...but then again I think I lived in Chicago too long and the Mafia is seeping out of my consciousness because we are in Italy...but then again...

We walked across town and got some pizza, come on you have to have pizza while in Italy...it was OK. I miss Chicago pizza...or a good Zelda's...I think the pizza I like is Sicilian and we are far from Sicily. The pizza they make here is more like...crispy cracker like crust with a little sauce and they just kind of throw a few things on there. I think David had a few olives with the pits still in them and a piece of lunch meat ham thrown on there with a handful of artichokes. I just had sauce. cheese and basil.

Walking through the town has it's different smells...there is a smell of jasmine everywhere, but also the smell of not enough public restrooms so men tend to just relieve themselves wherever, which leads to a smell that is less than savory...It is also not the cleanest city, people tend to leave rubbish on the sidewalks and on the streets, but we have seen this most places, except for Holland, but I also think that in Holland they are cleaning the streets all the time, so it is hard to tell if the people are actually cleaner, or the trash is just picked up quickly enough so you don't notice.

After a long bus ride we made it home and fell asleep with hopes of waking up before 10am...