Update from Rome

Flickr page updated!

10:00 PM Sunday night

Well, we arrived safely in Rome, Italy and have been enjoying our stay very much. A few people in our group have been sick (my mom, our tour leader, included). We are very tired, but are having a lot of fun.

Thursday was entirely a travel day. We left Portland airport at 7am and arrived in Rome at about 6:30am Rome time. We stopped at the hotel to drop off our luggage and then boarded the bus. We saw the catacombs first (no photography allowed). It was absolutely amazing. After that, we toured a few churches right around our hotel. It is so amazing how old these buildings are. The "new church" as they call it here is 500 years old. They call it "new" because the "old church" is 1500 years old. Amazing.

There are street vendors everywhere trying to sell everything imaginable. It is fun to see them pack up and run with a sheet filled with their goods on their back. It must be illegal and they must have a scout that whistles or something when policia are coming, because in 2 seconds flat they go from trying to sell you a purse to having everything collected up in a sheet on their back and running to a nearby ally.

Saturday we got to tour the Vatican. It was incredible. I took lots of pictures, but due to limited internet, I am only posting a few on my flickr page at a very low resolution. When I get back I'll be posting high resolution photos and lots of them I'm sure.

Today we were able to see the coliseum and the roman forum. We also got to see the jail where it is believed that Paul was held right before he died (the place he wrote II Timothy). That was incredible to see. The coliseum was surreal. It is so massive it is hard to really appreciate it. I took some shots to combine into a panorama, we'll see how that works out when I get home.

I am very tired and very very sore after walking all day for several days now. Tomorrow is a travel day, we will spend from 7am to noon on a bus going to another town in Italy. I will post again with more photos as I can. We have very full days and I have to give up coveted sleep to make these posts. Krista is sleeping right now :)

Bill out.