Our Audience with the Pope

Yesterday we went to the Holy See and arrived in the middle of the benediction. St. Marks square was absolutely packed. The Pope himself was there with the clergy, and they were delivering blessings in different languages. The clerics with him took turns announcing which groups were present that the Pope was going to bless specially. The English speaking cleric read a list of about thirty names of groups including a high school in texas and and a college band. Everyone else who spoke english was blessed too. Afterwards we went to the Vatican museums, where I was miffed to see that they had crammed all the ancient roman statues into one narrow hall, and outfitted them with fig leaves. The museums were nothing special, but they were packed with a herd of people migrating to the sixtine chapel. Way too many people in there, took hours to wind our way over. The chapel itself was good. The painting was immaclate adn brillianly done for optical illusions. However, it was packed with tourists taking pictures despite the signs everywhere which said it was expressly forbidden.
After we left, we climbed to the top of the dome and saw rome from the hieghts before going inside. The line to see John Paul IIs grave was huge, so we decided to pass.