A Gazillion and TEN!!!!!

The Market: What a day. Woke up at 8am, had breakfast (yummy pastries and hot chocolate) at a cute little bar, then we went to the market.



There were TONS of vendors selling all sorts of stuff, but mostly food. There was one vendor selling 7 or 8 different kinds of eggs. The fish section was way cool. Besides the fact that it smelled HORRIBLE! The squids still had their eyeballs, and the big fish (such as the Sword fish) were cut in half right there!



There were big fish heads laying around, too. (Fish heads, fish heads, rolly-polly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up. YUM!) Anyhoo, it was crazy.

The Vatican: We went back to the Vatican and got to walk around St. Peter's Cathedral. The art work there is incredible! I thought the pictures were paintings until Grandpa moved me closer and I could see the VERY small pieces of tile. They were mosaics!!!





It's amazing. Above the place where St. Peter is buried in the Cathedral is a memorial structure of sorts that is 3 stories high. And the dome above that....at LEAST twice as high. The place is HUGE!!! We climbed the stairs to the top of the dome. Well, first we took the elevator past 230 steps, then we climbed the other 321 steps all the way to the top. The view was AMAZING!!!







You can see all of Rome from up there. And all the people below look like little ants. I took lots of pictures, so don't worry. When we went back down, we went down all 521 steps. It was crazy insane.




Walking around: After the Vatican we walked by the Tiber River and walked around until we found the Piazza Novana, a square where lots of people set up tons of different art stands. Some of them would draw pictures of people walking through. There were some really cool fountains and a guy dressed as a tree!!! Lot's of people will dress as someone or something and just stand perfectly still like a statue until they get money.
All of these 'statues' are people who just stand there all day:













It's pretty cool. But this tree-guy was balancing a crystal ball on his hands. He would roll it up and down his arms and then stop it on the tip of his thumb and hold it there! It was really cool because he was so smooth. I got a video of that, too. Just be patient.



We just finished dinner (which was heavenly. I had lasagne and patate) and now we're back at the convent taking a break. Cuz all that walking, especially the Gazillion and TEN stairs, has made our legs ache a little bit. HA!!! For a while I thought the bottom half of my body would crumble right under me!