Day 34 - St Peters for the Last Time

Got up early so I could head out to St Peters and finish off this drawing. What originally started out as a quick sketch kept taking up more and more time but its pretty much done and I like the result. It was interesting just being in St Peters square at the time as the Pope is sick so they had massive screens in St Peters with a video link up to his hospital. There were a lot of people in the square and they all started cheering when he appeared - quite a popular dude. Various TV crews were amongst the crowd trying to get a story on peoples pilgramage to St Peters to support the pope rather than the hospital.

An old lady came up to me and initially I thought she was a begger. So I just act dumb, pretend I understand a little English and it people really push the point, I'm from a small island in the south pacific (I can't wait to try the no speak English on telemarketers back in Australia - man I hate those guys).

She was trying to convince me that she was from Australia but had never heard of the Solomon islands (I was pretending to be from here) so I was getting really suspicious. I'm drawing and then shes askes if I'm studying to be a priest - one of the more unusual connections. Eventually she went away but I'm still wondering what her scam would have been.

That is the thing about travelling, particularly in Rome - if you suspect everyone is a thief, you generally see it happening. Also working security in shopping centers in Sydney has meant I can usually pick the shifty characters anyhow. Between the gypsys, packs of little kids, people accidently 'bumping' into you etc, you are kinda always on guard.