Well the past 24 hours have been pretty crazy and I am surprised that I am even awake to write a blog post right now! I wanted to write one though right away because just a few hours ago I attended a Papal Audience, and whether you're Catholic or not, it is something you need to go to at least once. It is cool to see people from all over the world all there in one place to celebrate one thing. It is just really cool, and that is all that I can really say about it.

It is different than I thought it would be. I thought we would all be in St. Peter's Square and the Pope would come out onto some balcony and then wave to and bless the crowd. Instead, it was in an auditorium like room which had secret service type people (not surprisingly) scattered throughout. Everyone was anxiously awaiting the Pope to come out, and different countries had different things they would chant out in anticipation. It was very cool to experience.

We had pretty good seats, and we were pretty much as close as you could get without being in the reserved section. It was very cool to see everything up close. The group of my friends I came with were the first ones there. The night before some of us decided to go downtown Rome and celebrate a few of our friends birthdays, and we seemed to have lost track of time, and before we knew it, it was 5:30am and we headed back to campus to get out tickets and headed straight down to the Vatican, and we got into line right away. It is probably a good thing that I didn't go to sleep because I probably never would have woken back up!

But finally we got into the "auditorium" as I call it around 8:30, and then finally at 10:30 Pope Benedict came out. The ceremony lasted about an hour and a half, and it consisted of different Cardinals saying some prayers in their native languages as well as Pope Benedict speaking in every language that was spoken by all the people in the room. It was very cool. He sat in his chair most of the time and he actually seems very fragile in person.  Finally, he blessed everyone, and then took some pictures with the Cardinals, and went back through his little door.

This was an experience I will definitely not forget! Enjoy the pictures!

Our ticket

Rosie & Devin worn out from a long night....