Buon Natale!

Merry Christmas! I've had a very relaxing past couple days in Rome. I've done a lot of reading and even had time to watch a couple movies--it's been wonderful!

And yesterday was a very exciting day, because I got to go to the Papal Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican! It was at 10 pm, not midnight, but close enough. It was almost a whole day event, too, because we got there at 5 pm to wait in line. With the weather we had last week, I was a little worried about the potentially very frigid 4 hour wait, but it turned out to be ok. Apparently when my parents left they took the cold St. Louis weather back with them, and it was more like in the 40s or possible even low 50s yesterday--basically it couldn't have been better. It rained a bit off and on, but that didn't matter, because we were warm. Good company and conversation helped the wait to go pretty fast, and before we knew it we were in the basilica! We got very good seats, pretty close to the front. I've never seen St. Peter's so bright on the inside--turns out it DOES have lights, they just usually never turn them on. It was fairly bright while we were waiting before mass, and then when mass started they turned on more lights, and then at the Gloria even more lights came on...it was incredible.

Oh, and in case you heard the story about what happened to the Pope, here's my insider's account: I didn't see it happen, ha. It happened right when he walked in, so he was still in the back of the church, and we were near the front. But we definitely knew something was going on because we heard everyone gasp/scream, and the music stopped, and the guards sprinted down the aisle and everyone was standing on their chairs...and then a little while later everyone cheered, and the music started, and mass went on as usual. We didn't find out til afterwards what had happened. But we watched some youtube videos today, and it was SCARY, even though I knew personally that he was fine and got up and went on with mass like normal. It's just not something I ever expect to witness, I guess.

But other than that, mass was absolutely fantastic. Here's a picture of Katie, Evan, and I afterwards!



Unfortunately, Waffle Houses don't exist in Rome, so I wasn't able to participate in that particular tradition after mass this year. But this morning, my friend Evan's dad cooked pancakes for his whole family, and they generously invited Katie and I to join them. It was delicious! Then we all went to St. Peter's again, for the "Urbi et Orbi" blessing at noon. Papa Benedetto gave a fairly short address in Italian (I bet it was about Christmas...but I didn't exactly catch it all), and then said even shorter things in dozens of other languages. It was very cool.


The Pope is up there in that center window (I promise!) You don't realize how huge St. Peter's is until you see scale figures...


This is the long-awaited Presepe in St. Peter's Square, finally unveiled last night!

The rest of the day felt kind of special, but not exactly like Christmas. I watched most of "A Christmas Story", and walked around the city with Katie for a little while, and then we went out for dinner and got our favorite splurge dessert, tartufo (a fancy sort of ice cream). And I was thinking, the only way I knew it was Christmas this year was from the religious aspect. I didn't have the other Christmasy things and typical family traditions--no game tournament, no ham with cheese sauce dinner, I didn't even wake up and open presents today (except yours, Laura--thanks again!). It was almost a regular day, except we were celebrating Jesus' birth. And that felt the same as always, with the usual reflections that go along with it. (Though I think I reflected more on Mary and Joseph's, especially Joseph's, individual roles in the story than I had in the past). I guess I learned that while the family traditions are nice, they aren't really necessary for it to be Christmas--the Church feast is the same either way. Sort of. With that being said, I definitely did miss being home and will appreciate it very much next year. But I'm glad I have the experience of this year too.

Tomorrow I'm leaving with Katie for our two week tour of Europe! So not only did I celebrate Christmas in Rome, I will get to celebrate it equally as much in about five other cities that we'll be in during the Octave, starting with Wroclaw and Krakow, both in Poland. I'm pretty sure I've listed out before where all I'm going, but just in case...after that we'll be in Brussels and Bruges, and then meet up with a bunch of other archies and a couple other friends I know from ND in Paris for New Years, then Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Berlin. I'll come back to Rome for about 3 days, and then we're off to Egypt for a week! Should be pretty awesome! I will definitely have lots to write about when I get back. Til then, pray that we have safe travels!

Over Already?!?

MAD-Rome was a mad success! It flew by, actually. I can't believe it's already been over a week since my parents got here...anyway, I believe I last posted after day 2 of our adventures. After that, we had two more days of sightseeing in Rome, and then we went to Florence and Livorno!

On Day 3, which I guess was Tuesday, we started off the day by going to my favorite coffee shop (aka "bar") and having Italian coffee. Dad was shockingly underwhelmed. It surprised me, because I thought that Italian coffee was supposed to be top-notch, and Dad, being a big coffee drinker, would surely love it. But oh well. I think he tolerated it for the week and will be glad to get back to the good old American stuff:-)

After our coffee, we went to the Forum and then to the Colosseum. I had never been inside the Colosseum, so it was a cool experience for me too. Here it is!


Il Colosseo


Then we walked to St. John Lateran, stopping on the way to look at S. Stefano Rotonda, but unfortunately we couldn't go in because it was closed at the time. It was lunchtime when we got to St. John's, so we had a picnic on one of the benches in front of the church.


The church is off to the left of this picture.


Peanut butter and Nutella--essential parts of my life in Rome.

When we were done eating, we actually went inside the church. We stayed for a while, and then walked to S. Maria Maggiore, another of the major basilicas. While we were there, we stumbled upon a Vespers (Evening Prayer) service, in Italian of course. It was awesome! We used Italian breviaries and everything.

After that, we continued our church tour and went to S. Susanna, to pick up our Papal Audience tickets for the next day! S. Susanna is the official American church in Rome, so we stayed for an English mass. Also, there was a painting of St. Genesius, patron of actors. It's nice to know that he actually exists--I had never heard or seen anything about him except from Mr. Leibrecht before DB plays. I took a picture for evidence, of course.


Laura, this one's for you:-)

We were pretty tired by this point, so we walked to a pizza and pasta place, ate dinner, got gelato at the 3rd of my 3 favorite gelato places, and called it a night.

On Wednesday we went to the Papal Audience in the morning! Mom said it was the closest she had ever been to a Pope, except possibly when we watched JPII drive by when he came to St. Louis, except she wasn't looking at the right time and missed him, so it didn't really count. That basically took all morning. For lunch we went to Corsi, the restaurant I had dinner at almost every night of last semester. I had my favorite pasta dish, and it was delicious as always. In the afternoon, we went to St. Paul's Outside the Walls, which I had been to before, and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which I had not been to before. Santa Croce has some pretty amazing relics--pieces of the True Cross and the Good Thief's Cross, thorns and nails, St. Thomas's finger, and the INRI sign that was above the Cross. That was all we had time for that day--we came back to the hotel and ate sandwiches there, I believe, to finish it off.

On Thursday, we left for Florence! We got there in the late morning, checked into our hotel, ate a relaxed lunch, and walked around a little bit. We went in the Duomo and then to the church of the Annunciation that's just down the street. When we got there, though, we realized that it was closed for the afternoon wouldn't open for another 20 minutes. That turned out to be the perfect amount of time to find a bar and take a coffee break...


Dad had Cafe Americano and Mom got yogurt, haha:-)

We went to the church of the Annunciation because it was founded by the Seven Holy Founders themselves (aka the Sette Santi Fondorati--so we can start referring to the parish back home as SSF instead of SHF if we want). When we got there, we learned that there's also a miraculous image of the Annunciation there--apparently the guy who painted it finished it most of the way, but left a blank spot where Mary's face would go, because he didn't feel worthy to paint it. Then he fell asleep, and when he woke up it was finished. Pretty awesome! Dad made the joke that it would be nice if that would happen with my architecture projects. I quite agree.

The next day we slept in, and then went to S. Maria Novella and S. Lorenzo. In the late afternoon, we hopped on a train to Livorno! It was cold and raining when we got there, so the walk to the hotel wasn't much fun. But when we got there we ate supper and played Boggle, so it turned out to be a good night after all.

The main thing we wanted to see in Livorno was actually just outside Livorno, a shrine dedicated to La Madonna della Grazie, also known as La Madonna del Montenero. She's the patroness of Tuscany, the region that Florence and Livorno are part of. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who mom has a huge devotion too, visited there and had a conversion experience there, which is the main reason we were going. We took a bus and then a funicular (which Dad says is like a cable car) up a large hill to get there. There was a great view from the top!


You can't spell "funicular" without "fun"! This is one of those beautiful self-portrait pictures that I still can't get quite right...


The Mediterranean Sea is in the background--Livorno is right on the coast!

The actual shrine itself was pretty cool, and has been visited by alot of important people (like Mother Seton).


Two great mothers:-)

JPII was also here back in the day, as well as a few other popes I think, and, one of my personal faves...St. Josemaria Escriva!


This quote is from The Way ("Cammina") and says something to the effect of "first by yourself it was hard, but now you go to your Mother, and with her, it is easy". That's a paraphrase--those who know Italian better than I, don't laugh at my translation:-)

Mom really wanted to get something from the bookstore, but it closed from noon til 3, and we got to it at about 12:15...so we decided to take the funicular down the hill, get lunch, and then come back. We found a nice sandwich shop and had a two course meal--sandwiches, and then ice cream bars an hour later (we had lots of time to kill).


Italian panini!

We went back to the bookshop for a bit, and then came down the hill for good and went back in to town. We saw one other church, but then it was too cold to do any more walking around, so we got our luggage and headed to the train station. We arrived back in Rome safely on Saturday night!

On Sunday, we went to mass at Il Gesu, the Jesuit church, because we hadn't been in there yet. Afterwards we cooked French toast and omelet and had a typical Sunday brunch. In the afternoon, we went to the Catacombs. It took a while to get there, because the buses were confusing, but we finally made it, and it was definitely worth it!

When we first went down there, I was thinking about the enduring nature of the Church, and how even persecution couldn't stomp it out and in fact just made it stronger, and how that same Church is still alive today...those were exciting thoughts. As the tour went on longer though, I started to just be a little more creeped out--we were walking down extremely narrow halls lined on either side with stacks and stacks of old graves, mostly empty, but a few that were still sealed up...and I guess my imagination just ran away a little bit. So I tried to focus more on what I had originally been thinking. And then on the way home, a neat thought occured to me--that style of living doesn't really appeal to me, the sneaking around dead bodies thing...I mean, those early years would definitely be an exciting time to be a part of the Church, but I don't really like picturing myself being a part of it--and that's ok, because God didn't want me to be a part of the Church at that time. He wants me to be a part of the Church TODAY, right now, at this specific point in history. We aren't facing outright persecution right now, but we're still fighting. And THIS is the time, out of all of history, that He decided to put me in. I guess I'm not done figuring out why yet...but it's kind of cool to think about that.

When we got back to the hotel, we ate, and then played Hearts. Dad won pretty handily. It was a lot of fun! Then we just hung out and talked for awhile, since it was Mom and Dad's last night in Rome and all.

This morning we woke up early and I went with them to the train station, where they caught a train to the airport and hopefully got on the plane and will get home smoothly late tonight (St. Louis time...it'll be in the middle of the night in Rome time)!

If you're still reading this, I'm impressed. I'm also impressed that Mom and Dad were able to live it all--we packed a lot into a week! It was a fantastic week, in my opinion, and I'm sure Mom and Dad would say the same!

I Can't Believe It's Finally Happening!

Operation MAD-Rome is officially underway (and actually 2 days in)! MAD stands for Mom And Dad...see, almost exactly a year ago, when I was in the car with my brother who was about to get married in about 2 hours, we somehow came up with this crazy idea that it would be awesome to give our parents a trip to Rome as a Christmas present this year, so they could see the city, and me, all at once. It wasn't really a serious idea when we first threw it out there, but then we thought about it more, and talked about it with the rest of our siblings, and then, somehow...they're here! We've been hardcore sightseeing for the past few days, pretty much non-stop since I met them at the train station, actually.

Yesterday we started by checking into the hotel, and then visiting my studio and di per di, the grocery store across the street. Those 3 places are where I divide most of my time, actually:-) And no joke about di per di--sometimes I'm there multiple times a day. Anyway, after lunch (which was the purpose of our di per di visit), we went to the Pantheon, S. Maria Sopra Minerva (where St. Catherine of Siena is buried), Piazza Navona, and the Spanish steps. We went in the churches at Piazza Navona and on top of the Spanish steps, too, which somehow I had failed to do so far. And speaking of failing...whenever we pass a church, which happens quite frequently here, Mom asks me what it is. Usually I have to say "uhh...I'm not sure...", haha. Anyway, after all of that, we went to dinner and then to mass. It was raining after mass, but that didn't stop us from making the trek out to our first of many gelato stops, my favorite place, Giolitti's. Also, I used my recently purchased umbrella for the first time ever. (Where did I get it? Where else but di per di, of course...) Turns out umbrellas a quite a nice little invention--it's too bad it took me 20 years to figure that out.

Today was Vatican Day! We started by going on the Scavi Tour, down into the catacombs to see a bunch of old mausoleums and finally, St. Peter's bones. It was pretty incredible. Also, there's a chapel right by where the bones are, and it's in the shape of a Latin cross, like tons of other churches...but in most of those churches, the altar is in the short end, with the crossing pretty close to it. Here, the altar is in the long end, with the crossing at the back of the chapel. It's an allusion to the fact that St. Peter was crucified upside down--his chapel is sort of upside down too. I got a huge kick out that, being an architecture nerd and all. When the Scavi tour is over, you pop out right by JPII's tomb. That worked out well, since that was one of the places that I think Mom wanted to see most, out of all of Rome. So we stayed there for a little while, and then we up to St. Peter's Church itself. Obviously we spent quite a while looking around there. We went to adoration for a little bit, and I prayed especially for the rest of our family back home, aka our generous benefactors:-)

We spent all afternoon in the Vatican museums, which culminate in the Sistine Chapel. It's amazing--better than all the pictures. There's SO much there; you could spend hours just in that room. The paintings in themselves are enough to make it awesome, but then Mom also reminded me that that's where new Popes are elected...and that just makes it even more incredible. The Holy Spirit works hardcore in that room. And we all got to stand in it! We got gelato again for our walk back, from another of my favorite places, Old Bridge. Then we got dinner and had another relaxing night.

Tomorrow is going to be another pretty full day--the agenda includes the Forum, the Colosseum, S. Maria Maggiore, AND St. John Lateran. And maybe we'll even have time for gelato again, who knows? :-)

London and Other Recent Adventures

As I was recently reminded by a good friend and apparently fairly frequent blog-checker, I have not posted in a while. This is true, but not unexpected, since I accurately predicted this would happen in my last post. But anyway, my final project is turned in, my review is tomorrow, and I have free time again!

So what have I been up to that kept me so busy in the last two weeks? Well...I went to London for the weekend of Thanksgiving. Our flight left at 6:30 am on Thursday, but we had to start the traveling process at about 3:45, when we left to take a bus to another bus stop with the bus to the airport...I think I've mentioned before that it always seems like traveling takes alot of steps. On the bus to the airport, we met another American student who went to prom with my friend Katie's good friend from ND. Small world, I guess.

When we got to London, we took a bus from the airport to the center of the city (via Baker Street. If you know why that's so cool, then you're cool). We walked around for awhile and saw some important things, like Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square (with St. Martins-in-the-Fields, THE precedent for most of the Protestant churches in the U.S. I was surprised to find that it was there; I guess I always pictured it being in a field somewhere or something). In the evening we headed over to the flats where the ND students studying in London live, and ate Thanksgiving dinner with some of them. It was delicious. We had a typical American feast--turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables, gravy, cranberry sauce, pastry things...and three kinds of pie for dessert. It was was good. It was weird spending a holiday away from home...and I know Christmas will be even weirder.

Friday was another sightseeing day. Among other things, we went to a Christmas festival in Hyde Park, and saw St. Paul's Cathedral. We went to an Evening Prayer Service there, and it really confused me--they had readings from the Book of Revelation that included things I had never heard in that book before and sounded kind of sketch, but then at one point they also said the Apostles Creed, all of it, including the part about believing in the Holy Catholic Church. So I suppose I don't really understand the Anglican Church's relationship to the Catholic Church. And I guess even if I did, I'd have to relearn it soon anyway when it changes...we also went to a Starbucks, where I was able to get one of those huge, soft chocolate chip cookies. Soft cookies are probably one of the foods I miss most here. We also walked to the Globe, but got there right after it closed, so we couldn't go in. We did get to see the outside, though. It was smaller than I imagined it to be, but still cool. After that we went to Modern Art museum right next door, but ended up not really looking at any exhibits and instead spending all our time in the gift shop. They had alot of good art and architecture books there. When we walked back outside we realized that the bridge across the river right there is the one that was destroyed at the beginning of the 6th Harry Potter movie! So we walked across it of course. We had fish and chips for dinner (except I didn't have the fish, I got something else).

Saturday was probably my favorite day in London. We started it off right by going to see Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross Station! Seriously. We also went to the London Tower, which is the old castle fortress thing. It seemed very pleasant--pretty walls, green grass, right by the river...it was kind of hard to convince myself that so many bloody things had happened there in the past. For instance, I saw the tower where St. Thomas More and Ann Boleyn and others were held before they were executed...

Saturday afternoon, we saw Wicked! We got fairly cheap student tickets. It was very cool. It was dark when it was over, because it gets dark in London at approxamately 4:30 pm. No joke. And it not like that's when the sun sets--that's when it's DARK. It was also raining. We wandered around for a little while and finally got dinner at an Irish pub. Then we went to the ND flats for a bit. Things got interesting at midnight. We had another 6 am flight with 3:30 bus situation, so we didn't want to pay for a hostel that night. But, we weren't allowed in the flats after midnight. So we were essentially homeless, wandering the streets of London in the dark and cold. We took a bus to the train station our bus was leaving from in the hopes there'd be an inside place we could wait, but no luck. So we wandered some more. We found a McDonalds that was open til 2. That's possibly the most thankful I've ever been to go to a Mickey D's. At 2, we walked back to the train station. We stood outside for awhile, and bought a pasty to share, and then went to the actual bus stop. We found a place we could at least sit down in, and waited. In retrospect, it was quite a humorous situation, but it the time it was fairly miserable. But even though I was miserable, I knew that it WOULD make a good story eventually, so that actually made it a little better. 3:30 finally came, and we started the journey home. We got back to Rome at about 10. I showered, went to studio, and didn't leave much for the next week or so...

So that was London, and that last sentence pretty much sums up my last week, too. I was in studio. We did take a few breaks, I guess. On Friday we went to a pub for a little while. When we walked in I was surprised that it was so crowded, and then I remembered, oh yeah--it's Friday night! I kind of lose track of the days right before a project is due. Also, yesterday I took a longer mass break than usual. My friend Evan and I went to S. Maria Maggiore. That's where the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception actually happened, if I heard right in the Italian homily. So cool! We also took another break in the afternoon to go see a ceremony at the Spanish steps where the Pope presented a special wreath to the statue of Mary there. Unfortunately, we got there just a bit late and missed the main part of the ceremony...but we did see him drive away in the Pope-mobile:-) There were tons of people there. Apparently the Immaculate Conception in Italy is a holiday equivilant in importance to Thanksgiving in America, and Rome is the place to be for it. Christmas decorations are going up all over the city,too, like lights, and trees...and it's starting to seem more like Christmas! We listened to alot of Christmas music in studio, too. I love it!

Last night I finished my final project. I sat in on reviews all day today, and will do the same tomorrow (including my own). I have a small history assignment to do, and a history final on Friday, and then I'm done for the semester! Crazy. I also realized recently that this is the first semester in quite a long time that I haven't written a single paper. Kind of weird...good thing I have things like this blog to keep me from completely forgetting how to express myself in written form.