The start of yet another month

11/01/08
So we woke up and made our way to the Basilica for our tour. We got a sandwich on the way so that helped us make it through the next couple of hours. We get to the tour meeting spot early so we walked around a little bit. We people watched for a bit and made a few observations.
We then go to the Basilica and it was impressive. A fun fact is that the WHOLE place is covered in stone. Literally, the painting that look like paint are actually mosaics. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling is covered in some form of rock or precious metal. I admit its big but its not that big in my opinion. But I don't know, the statue of liberty fits inside the dome. It's the biggest church in the world. I just thought to myself, "To see this you have to thoughts: disgust or devotion" disgust because of so much vanity and gaudy excess of wealth. Especially when the church preaches modesty and humility in its sermons. Or devotion because this is THE house of god and he deserves to have the biggest and best.
Oh and what I really got a kick out of was to see the "dead popes" who didn't rot because they were so "saintly" also the museum had pieces of Jesus' cross and his face on some cloth. I didn't believe a single thing, because thepopes look like a doll and when I read about about the popes of the past and realized that they were political figures who were corrupt and cruel like any other kind of king of the time. I realized that I could not place my faith in another human being that can't be trusted.
But hey the building was cool, because the popes stole all the marble from the palaces of the Roman Empire. So I got to see some two thousand year old floors at least.
We then went home exhausted and with stiff necks from all the looking up we were doing. We had dinner at a small family restaurant that served us some awesome home cooked Italian food. Funny story time: so at the end of our meal we always get a tiramisu for my mom...and this one was gggoooood. I didn't want any desert but we devoured it in seconds so we got another one and we considered a third one. I don't know if we got a third one but we were soooo enjoying the tiramisu. It was the best we have had by far. The lasagna and other food we had was also really really good. We then went home and Nick had invited his friends from the night before and my mom cooked a meal for all of us. They were all thankful and we all enjoyed a meal with some wine. It was really cool just chilling and hanging out with them. They went out to some club, but I had to stay behind because I had to get my mom and brother to the airport.