Pope Benedict XVI Visits Guanajuato

The Pope came to Guanajuato this weekend. He flew into Leon on Friday and made his way here on Saturday. We weren't planning on going to see him as they were expecting 800,000 visitors in our town. We walked to the market in the afternoon and didn't think it was very bad. We asked people when he was to come, we got lots of different answers. So after the boys took a nap we walk to the tunnel that he was to come threw, that is a 5 min. walk from our place. We were surprised that we were able to get right up front, though we later moved to be in the shade but where still close. It was really fun to see everyone so excited! The love the Mexican people and their faith. You can't see well from the pictures but everyone was dressed in yellow and white and banners and balloons were everywhere.

It's hard to see but there was a man sitting on top of the tunnel and 4 officers went up to get him down, guess they thought he might be a sniper. They had military and police everywhere and they all carry machine guns, it's a little scary! There was also a man drinking a beer and the police made him dump it out. I thought it was nice they were keeping it a family friendly event.

We did wait for 1 1/2 hours the boys were getting a little grumpy. A nice lady by us gave them some bread and a soda. We also met some other really nice people while waiting there.

When he came through the tunnel, they let off 3 cages of doves and people let off their balloons. I'm glad we were able to go. It was a lot of fun even though it was just a few seconds everyone was so happy and cheerful that they saw the Pope. Plus, when else are we going to see a major world religious leader like that again! It's hard to tell from the video as our ipod doesn't have zoom, but we were pretty close. We were able to see him very well and make out his facial features fine. The walk home was fun, thousands of people walking the streets smiling and laughing. I'm glad it brought so much joy to their hearts.

So Sunday he did a large mass on the outskirts of town. He leaves Monday the 26th to go to Cuba for a few days.