June 22

Today, the whole group had to wake up early because we were going to be part of the papal audience and hear a mass given by Pope Benedict! We all walked over to St. Peter's basilica together so we would get there around 8:30 am. Mass did not start till 10:30, so we all knew we were going to have to wait there for a while if we wanted to get good seats. So, once we got there we sat down, and after about ten minutes we all realized how hot it was going to be just sitting in the sun. The heat was insane, an umbrella may or may not have been pulled out in order to try to get shade from the sun. At 10:30, Pope Benedict rode out on his famous "Pope Mobile" and made his rounds through the audience. The Pope waved to us, no big deal. (Just kidding, it's a huge deal!)

The most interesting part of attending the mass was being able to hear Pope Benedict speak so many different languages. He spoke italian, english, french, spanish, portugese, german, polish, and there might have even be more! Since the Pope is german and lives in Italy, I assumed he would know german and italian (and also english I guess) but I never really thought about how he would have to know so many languages to be the Pope! It was amazing to hear, and that was definitely my favorite part of the mass!