The Vatican City

We visited The Vatican City a couple times during our trip...all in the hopes of climbing up to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

On Sunday, we attended the Pope's speech, hoping he would give a "shout-out" to AISA, but either he did not do it or we did not hear/understand it. Either way, it was fascinating to watch such a powerful man/world leader speak to his followers.

On Monday, we had tickets to visit the Vatican Museum. We tried to climb the dome before our appointment, but it was too crowded and we didn't have enough time. After we were finished with the museum, the dome was closed for the day, so we decided we would have to try again another day.

Jordan and Jessica infront of St. Peter's Basilica

We had a great view of the Pope during his speech.

Although we are not Catholic nor Italian, it was still interesting to listen to the Pope address his followers.

St. Peter's Square

A Swiss Guard

On Wednesday, we made our way back to the Vatican City in hopes of climbing to the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Unfortunately for us, the Pope also addresses his followers on Wednesday.

We were told the Basilica was closed to the public until early afternoon. We decided to take a double-decker bus ride to waste time, but when we returned at 1pm, the crowd had moved from their seats into a line. They had the same idea as us; to climb to the top of St. Peter's Basilica. The line would have taken hours to get through, so we made the tough decision to skip St. Peter's Basilica. As Jordan always says, "We have to save something for our next visit..."

Cardinals waiting for the Pope to speak

Yes, we were on TV.

A view of St. Peter's Basilica from the Vatican Museum

The Vatican City walls

Ancient Ruins

Rome is such a unique city for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons is the fact that a modern city has been built around the ancient ruins. It is crazy to see thousand year old buildings amongst city traffic and bustling cafes.

The Roman Forum:

the center of political and social activity during the ancient times

Temple of Saturn

Roman Forum at dusk

Basilica of Maxentius

Palatine Hill:

where the rich and famous Romans lived during ancient times

The Imperial Palaces

View from Palatine Hill

Sporting arena on Palatine Hill

chariot raceway

The Baths of Caracalla

It was an unbelievable experience to walk amongst these ruins that are still standing after so many years.

Our Trip to Rome

Due to the sheer volume of pictures and information, we have decided to break our Rome trip post into parts.

While you're waiting for new posts...enjoy these tell tale signs of spring

We Shall See...

Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan promising change.

Elections take place in April, but word on the street is that Jonathan has already won. We've recently been asking the Nigerian staff at school about the elections and who they are voting for. They seem to think Jonathan is the best candidate for various reasons. Here are some of the main reasons: he is not Muslim and he won't make us become Muslim, he does not have high morals (strange, but this was a real comment), and we want to see what he can do. One of our colleagues even said that Jonathan's opponent Ribadu was too principled.

Season Changes

As most of you know, Nigeria has two seasons; rainy and dry. The Rainy season begins sometime in April and ends anywhere from the end of September to mid October. Once the rains stop, the land becomes very dry and the harmattan (small dust particles that blow in from the Sahara Desert) begins to blow into Nigeria sometime in December.

These pictures illustrate the difference among seasons...quite incredible!

picture taken during a small dust storm

Who Would Have Thought

Much to our surprise, we had a nice rainstorm on Friday night. Rain does not usually start until April, so this was an unexpected, but welcome event. The best part, was that the rain cooled down the Saturday morning temperature and allowed us to take part in a walk/run event at school without dying from the Harmattan heat.

The Elementary PE teacher put together a walk/run event to raise money for an American foundation helping kids with AIDS in western Africa. We created a team with the Blazeks and set a goal to each finish 50 laps (12.5 miles) in the three hour event. We ALL reached our goal and did it in only 2 1/2 hours!

Back At It

As of today, January 31st, we are back to work.

We missed nine days of school, but the school board decided that we only needed to make up six of those days. During our break, the teachers met to decide how we would make up the lost hours. We decided that we would extend the school day by 20 minutes for seven weeks (that would take us to the end of 3rd quarter). We also realized we would have to have one make-up Saturday to insure that we could get back to our normal school schedule for the beginning of 4th quarter. The most important thing was to make sure that we did not extend into our Spring Break or Summer Break. Lets just hope that we do not have to close school during the presidential election or else we are going to have to continue with our extended school day into the 4th quarter.