So yesterday was quite the interesting day… Emily and I woke up around 930 am with plans to go to the Vatican City.. one of our other roomates (Meghan Linafelter) is from Sioux City, and one of her fellow SCer’s was going to become a cardinal at the St. Peters, so we went to watch. We got there around 10:30 and it was a pretty big crowd.. there are always hundreds of seats outside in the piazza for the sermons and people were sitting there, there were also security guards everywhere- they even checked our bags before we walked into the open piazza. The ceremony was taking place inside the church but they had set up 4 big screens outside so we could watch. We got to see the Pope talk and hear a few songs and see all of the cardinals in their red gowns.. pretty neat to see, and now I know what the new Pope looks like!
After that we wandered home to work on our Advanced Typography projects that are due this Wednesday.. later around 430pm another one of our roomates comes home from shopping on Corso and says that the Backstreet Boys are down the street.. so of course I jump at the chance to go (if you are family.. I’m sure you remember how crazy I was, I even dyed my hair blue for their black and blue tour.. haha) so Meg L, Emily, Stephanie and I ran down Corso to this record store where a big mob was standing outside.. at this point we thought there was no chance we’d actually get in but wanted to catch a glimpse- welllll after a half hour or so of waiting they start filing people through the line which is absolute insanity but within an hour we squeezed into the record store together.. of course we’re geeking out- it’s been like ten years since we obsessed over this band and now they are all 40 years old and we’re giddy to meet them. We basically only wanted pictures but the point was to buy their cd and get it autographed.. we get up to the bottom of the stairs (their table was at the top) and all these security guards tell us to turn off our cameras and put them in our bags.. so we grab paper in hopes of getting it signed (I used the back of my Fabriano train ticket.. ha) Meg was actually in front of me and when she got up in front of Brian she didn’t have any paper so she looks at him and goes “oh.. I’m with them” hahahahahhaa.. it was funny.. Nick looked pissed off, he didn’t even take a second to look at anyone.. and then Howie and AJ were so excited that we were Americans (we were the ONLY ones there!) So we told them we were from Iowa and in Rome for graphic design.. the security guards are continually shoving us through the line (I’m serious we were only in front of them for maybe 15-20 seconds TOPS) and as we got shoved out the door they said Iowa… POTATOES. Yeah.. apparently they aren’t that smart.. so we go down this creepy staircase that spits us out on a side street and we giggle like little girls cos we have no idea what just happened. Needless to say it was quite the experience.. we get home and everyone pretty much threw their autographs around the living room.. haha. Good times 
On to Paris this Friday! Can’t wait
Sorry the pictures are still screwed up.. you’ll have to copy and paste the http:// adresses into a new browser window!
In front of Castel Sant’Angelo near the Vatican
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The crowd outside the record store
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Me and the autographs
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