The Last Day by Shannon Wells

I'm writing this as we are sitting in the Philadelphia airport, one 10 hour flight down and one to go until we are back in good old Rock Hill, SC. Sorry we didn't get on last night, but we had an amazing day with little time except to soak in whatever we could of Italy.
Yesterday was amazing!!!! We started off the day with a 6:30AM wake up call and a 7:30 departure to...VATICAN CITY!!!! We started off in the museums and they are everything you could ever imagine and so much more. The museums are huge with tons of things from tombs to mummies, tons of art, sculptures, statues, and of course, The Sistine Chapel. We had an amazing book given to us by our tour director, Tim, that explained all of the sites and it gave us tons of great information on the Sistine Chapel. You see it in books, but to be there, is amazing. If you don't know, the Sistine Chapel is where the lock all the cardinals during the conclave, which is the time that a new pope is elected. The room is amazing and there is just no words to explain it. Walking with Sally, Stephen (her husband) and Tim Drueke (our Registrar) during the tour, we definitely spent some good time in the Sistine Chapel taking time to sit down and stair up. Sally wanted to lay down and stair at the ceiling but she settled for just sitting and looking up.

After the Sistine Chapel we had to take a little food break and again for the 2nd time on the trip we paid a fortune for our food. What we have learned in Italy is that if you order your food to go it is the cheapest, you sit down inside and they make you pay more, you sit outside and order food even more. So basically for a sandwich no bigger then my hand (but amazingly good) and a Diet Pepsi in a can I paid $13. The can of Diet Pepsi costing $4. Lesson learned again!! Then of course I had to get gelato...soaking in Italy:)

After food, we traveled to St. Peter's Basilica. It is the residency of the Pope and basically the center of the Catholic religion. The line looked to be forever long, but after only 45 minutes, we were inside the basilica and it was more then I could ever imagine. I have never seen such a beautiful building. I have already decided that I want to get married in the Sistine Chapel, but after seeing that, I want to get married in the basilica:) The building is huge and we spent tons of time walking around and looking at the beautiful artwork and of course reading our trusty book and getting all the history we could. The next adventure was to the top of St. Peter's. It is about 530 steps to the top but we heard the views are amazing. Did I forget to tell you how cold it was in Rome that day, and we were about to go up to the top of St.Peter's where the wind was crazy!!! But we trekked up to the top starting with big long steps and towards the top, small spiral steps to steps that my shoulders touched both walls on each side and to steps where your upper body was tilted sideways due to the dome structure. Walking out onto the roof was awesome, we saw all of Vatican City and all of Rome. We took tons of pictures and had to make the trek back down, which was alot faster, but still just as scary!!!

We hit up a few more monuments and historical buildings and met up with the team for dinner. We were told to be ready to eat and we were. I think every type of food that Italian we had that night. I was sitting at the end of the table and got all the dishes first, let me tell you, a stressful job. As soon as you dished one thing another bowl of something was coming out, you didn't even have enough room on the plate nor enough time to eat the food before more came. All the players did awesome and at least tried some of the new things and even found some new favorites liked the fried zucchini. We had amazing honeydew, meatballs, two different kinds of eggplant dishes, beans, mozzarella cheese balls, prosciutto, bread, fried rice and cheese balls, fried zucchini and for dessert fruit salad.

The night ended with my final goal of the whole trip which was Trevi Fountain at night. It was beautiful, although my batteries died while I was there about ended up paying $10 for 6 batteries, I know I was robbed, but it was worth it! Video of the Trevi Fountain at night, a night to remember!

It was a long day but a great finish to our trip. I can't believe we are back in the states and I already had some fries and chicken fingers that I missed so much. I'm looking forward to my big bed and nice soft pillows, but always will have my experience in Italy. A once-in-a-lifetime trip that has truly changed my life. I fell in love with the people, the culture, the way of life, and of course the Smart Car!

I hope you enjoyed our blog. Pictures will be up this week as we get back to Rock Hill and put them on Snapfish. It was worth the wait!