Last weekend was the first I had spent entirely in Rome for awhile--it was nice! Saturday was very relaxing; I slept in and even had time to watch a movie in the afternoon. We watched Gladiator, because it's set in Rome, and well, we live in Rome...it was really cool, because it showed everything reconstructed and in use that we see in ruins now, like the Colosseum. And, it's an entertaining story. (I won't say good, because it's mostly about revenge...but it does have themes of self-sacrifice and courage, too. And like I said, it's entertaining).
Then, on Saturday afternoon I also found out about a 10K happening the next morning. My friend Evan had seen a poster for it while he was running earlier in the day. He decided to try to get a group together to do it, so 4 of us ended up journeying a little ways up north the next morning for the race. It was called "La Corsa di Miguel". The Miguel it's referring to is somebody named Miguel Sanchez. We looked him up on the website to try to find out why a race in Rome was named after him, but didn't have much luck. We learned that's he was an Argentinian runner born in the 1950s, but didn't see any connections to Italy...also, the English translation wasn't the best. It included great lines like, "His day was infinite.
alarm clock with an apple, head coach, train, work, again
training, night school to complete those studies
who had not finished." So amusing, but not entirely informative.
Anyway, the race itself was good. We got a pre-race packet of things, typical of races like that, that included a long sleeve T-shirt, a poster...and a cookbook. Definitely the most random thing I've ever gotten from a race. But pretty awesome! Mine has recipes for "pane, pizze, e focacce." And it's even hardbacked, and in Italian so they're authentic recipes...I'm pretty excited about it:-)
The course was almost entirely flat, I felt pretty good while I was running and was able to finish strong, so it was an enjoyable run. My time was decent considering my training was minimal to non-existant...haha.
Well, that was the excitement of the weekend! Now it's back to another week of work. But really, life is still pretty relaxed right now, since we're still just getting in to the semester. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. Happy feast of St.s Timothy and Titus!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
In Case I Sparked Your Curiosity Too...
So, in my last post I talked about Coptic Christians in Egypt a little bit, but couldn't give a very clear explanation of how they're different from Roman Catholics...luckily, my dad is both a faithful reader and more knowledgeable than I. He sent me an email this morning that clears things up a bit, and I thought I'd share it in case any other readers have experienced sleepless nights due to my inability to fully explain the situation previously--hope this helps! :-)
They [Coptic Christians] are the successors of the Monophysites, although some of them claim in modern times that their ancestors in the 400's were misunderstood by the Greeks and the Latins. In 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, the assembled Fathers (except the Monophysites, who dissented) decreed that Christ was one person in two natures; the Copts' ancestors avowed that Christ was one person and only had one nature. (Some unfortunate--in retrospect--turns of phrase by the great St. Athanasius against the Arians in the 300's gave their theory plausibility.) The Catholic summaries that are taught in high school and college classes in my experience say that the Copts believe that Christ only has a human nature. I think the modern Copts say that is incorrect; what they believe is that Christ has a mixed nature, both divine and human but mixed together. They call it, “miaphysite.” Still, I think they object even now to the formula of Pope Leo's Tome that was adopted at Chalcedon, especially the phrases, “two natures . . . without confusion . . .”.
They [Coptic Christians] are the successors of the Monophysites, although some of them claim in modern times that their ancestors in the 400's were misunderstood by the Greeks and the Latins. In 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, the assembled Fathers (except the Monophysites, who dissented) decreed that Christ was one person in two natures; the Copts' ancestors avowed that Christ was one person and only had one nature. (Some unfortunate--in retrospect--turns of phrase by the great St. Athanasius against the Arians in the 300's gave their theory plausibility.) The Catholic summaries that are taught in high school and college classes in my experience say that the Copts believe that Christ only has a human nature. I think the modern Copts say that is incorrect; what they believe is that Christ has a mixed nature, both divine and human but mixed together. They call it, “miaphysite.” Still, I think they object even now to the formula of Pope Leo's Tome that was adopted at Chalcedon, especially the phrases, “two natures . . . without confusion . . .”.
The Copts are referred to, along with a few other old, old objectors to the councils, as “Oriental Orthodox.” The regular Orthodox use the term “Chalcedonian Orthodox” when needed to clarify that they follow Chalcedon unlike the heretical Oriental Orthodox.
In the modern world, the Copts have been holding conferences with the Orthodox to see if the differences can be bridged, similar to Catholic conferences with other churches. It's interesting that some Orthodox and Copts say the Copts were misunderstood, that their understanding of “miaphysitism” may actually be faithful to the truth, and that the Orthodox and Copts may re-unite. It appears that the Copts and Orthodox are closer in liturgy and ethos than are the Catholics and Orthodox, so who knows? And the Blessed Mother seems to appear visibly to the Copts in apparitions just as she does to Orthodox and Catholics. See these sites: http://www.zeitun-eg.org/ and http://egypt.suite101.com/
Thanks Dad!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Winter Break Adventures Part Egypt
Ciao from Roma! I got back on Sunday, and will actually be here for awhile now. So this is the last of my Christmas Break traveling posts, but possibly one of the most exciting, because I was just in...Africa! A new continent! To be fair, Egypt doesn't feel much like I imagine "Africa" would be. In food, religion, and culture, it's very Middle East-ish.
But anyway, we left Rome on Tuesday around noon-ish. We were flying on Alitalia, which is a real airline, unlike the budget airlines we usually travel on. We were hoping this meant we'd get a free beverage and maybe even a snack. Turns out, we got a whole meal! It was awesome. When we got to the airport in Cairo we were met by a representative from Pack2Egypt, our tour company. We rode back to the hotel in a big van and got out first taste of Cairo traffic. I think it can be best summed up in this way, using the words of Paul (the tour guy): "Sometimes there are lanes painted on the roads. These are for decoration." It was actually quite terrifying. But we eventually made it to the hotel (after getting in a small accident, we just rear-ended somebody, no big deal...), and settled in. The 11 of us Notre Dame students ended up coming on two different flights, because one group booked later, and I was in the group that arrived to Egypt first. So we waited for the other group to get to the hotel, and then all went out to get dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended by Paul. It was funny--even though part of the menu was in English, we still had no idea what a lot of the foods were. I ended up getting a sandwich, but some people were adventurous: Evan got pigeon soup, and a few of the other girls got something that was like hummus but a little different (we found out later that it was hummus+eggplant, called ba baganog, pronounced sort of like "ba baganoosh", and I'm not sure about either the spelling or the pronunciation, ha). We also got complimentary baskets of pita bread!
The next day, we woke up early to start our tour with our tour guide, named Mina. He was with us the whole week. We started by going to Memphis, the old capital of Egypt. There's not that much to see there, mostly just some statues, including a gigantic one of Rameses II.
It used to be standing, of course, but he broke at the knees...
We went to a place called Saqqara next. It has the first stone structure ever, designed by the first architect ever. Pretty cool.
The next location on our agenda was Giza, which has the 3 great pyramids and the sphinx. We stopped at a few places along the way, including a huge store where they make rugs and tapestries by hand out of cotton, silk, and/or wool. We got to see the process, and it's incredible--they're on huge looms and made of thousands of tiny knots.
They sit there all day every day and tie knots--incredible patience.
We also got lunch at a cute little Egyptian restaurant. The best part was the fresh baked pita bread (literally right out of the oven), which we ate with hummus and more ba baganog.
After that, we went to the pyramids! These are the ones you probably picture when you think "pyramids". I was surprised by how close they are to the city--I guess I always pictured them out in the middle of nowhere. I suppose they used to be, but then the city expanded...now they're kind of in between the dessert and the city, so there's still plenty of sand around. Enough to be able to go on a camel ride, which we did! It was fantastic.
A bit cheesy perhaps, but awesome nonetheless:-)
We also saw the sphinx, but the site was just about to close when we got there, so we didn't get to spend too much time marveling.
But we had time to snap a few pics!
That night (Wednesday), we took an over night train to Luxor. (Fun fact: Luxor is south of Cairo, but the area is called Upper Egypt, because it's upstream on the Nile, which flows from south to north. A bit mind-boggling for those of us who grew up right next to the south-flowing Mississippi...). We had sleeper cars on the train, which was a neat experience. Oh, and we got served TWO meals! Dinner right after we got on, around 8:30 pm, and breakfast at 4 am...because we got to Luxor around 5 am. We went to our hotel, but we couldn't get into our rooms, since check in wasn't til much later. We waited in the lobby for a bit and then started our tour just after 6 am.
We went to the Valley of the Kings first, where lots of Pharaohs are buried. The location was breathtaking. It's in the desert and in the mountains. The color of the sand/rocks (a light yellow...I guess "sand" colored, haha) was very dramatic against the bright blue cloudless sky. King Tut's tomb is there, but you have to pay a lot extra to go in, so we didn't. We went into the tombs of Rameses I, III, and IX. The treasures and the mummies are all gone, but you can still see the sequence of spaces and the pictures painted on the walls.
Queen Hatsheput's temple was next. She was the first female pharaoh. This structure is pretty memorable-looking, so one of the things I clearly remember learning about last year in History. At the time, though, I don't think I ever dreamed I would actually be there some day...this was also one of the most powerful places we went, I think. While we were there it was easy to imagine how much solemnity and magnificence the procession to entomb the queen must have had. The only thing I've seen that could maybe compare is the procession at JPII's funeral. And the Egyptians were so focused on death and the after-life that they must have made these processions pretty darn impressive, and that's probably an understatement. And really, it's impressive that they believed so strongly in resurrection. How did they know? Was there revelation involved, or did their beliefs just come from an impressive natural ability to discern some Truth? I'd like to learn more about how their religion developed, I guess, and how that timeline relates the Old Testament timeline...
Originally I think it was all painted, so it stood out from the mountain it's built into...but I kind of like the way it blends in.
We went to the Valley of the Queens next. Same idea as the Valley of the Kings, just less important people were buried there--like some queens and princes.
By this point, we felt like we had been sightseeing for a pretty long time, but it was only 11 am. That was all we had on the schedule for the day, though, so we headed back to the hotel, stopping on the way to see a couple more huge statues. At first we weren't sure what we would do with ourselves for the rest of the day, but we figured it out when we got back to the hotel--we realized it was more like a resort. It had a couple of outdoor swimming pools, lots of beach chairs, and overlooked the Nile. Needless to say, we had quite a nice and relaxing afternoon. And of course I went swimming, even though the water was actually freezing--I couldn't pass up the chance to swim outside in January. That afternoon and evening was the most relaxing I've done while traveling in awhile--it actually felt like a real vacation:-)
The view from the back of the hotel--that's the Nile! And those mountains that you can sort of see on the other side are the ones the Valleys of the Kings and Queens are in.
We continued our vacation like experience the next day by sleeping in more than usual. I did get up and go for a run, though. I went out on the main street for a little bit, but I then I realized I felt really uncomfortable--I got lots of stares, and some comments (mostly things like "Nice! Nice exercise!"). And I guess I did look totally out of place--I'm white, I'm a girl and I wasn't all covered up, and I was running. All three are kind of unusual. It's interesting how standards can be so drastically different from place to place. I think in general I dress pretty modestly, but not by Middle-Eastern standards I suppose. I sensed that pretty quickly, and even started to feel slightly indecent that Egyptian men could (gasp!) see my hair. So anyway, running just made it worse, and I quickly decided to go back to the hotel and do laps around the large outdoor swimming pool complex thing instead. That turned out to be much better.
Then, after a delicious complimentary breakfast at the hotel we started sightseeing again! We went to the Karnak temple and the Luxor temple. Both were huge pilgrimage sites for ancient Egyptians back in the day, but of course they're both in ruins now. That made me wonder if someday people would come to places like St. Peter's and walk around the ruins and talk about how Catholics from all over the world used to come there...and then I immediately thought "wait, Catholicism is never going to die out...so St. Peters will never be in ruins". Unless something drastic happens, I suppose, like the Popes pack off to Avignon again permanently or something. But it was a neat moment of remembering that the Church will go on forever, unlike religions that worship false gods.
At the entrance to the Luxor temple, there's an obelisk on one side, and an empty base on the other side. There used to be another obelisk there, too, but turns out that that's the one that's now in Paris! And I saw it when I was there! It was pretty crazy to make that connection. All the Egyptian obelisks in Rome must have come from specific spots in Egypt too...
To be honest, the obelisks look better in Egypt than anywhere else. Egyptian art and architecture always look a bit funny to me in museums and things, but they look just right in context in Egypt.
Our last activity in Luxor was taking a faluka ride (a kind of sailboat) on the Nile. It was very peaceful, and the sun was setting as we were out there, so it was beautiful.
This is a sweet picture, and also shows what a faluka looks like!
That night, we took another overnight train back to Cairo, and arrived just as ridiculously early. Luckily, we were able to get into a couple of rooms in the hotel, and so could take short naps before actually starting the day.
We saw the Egyptian museum first. The highlight of that was all of the treasures found in King Tut's tomb. We also went to a Coptic Christian Church. From what I gathered, the Coptic Christians are sort of like a branch of Catholicism--they have mostly all of the same beliefs, like Real Presence and everything, but they also have their own Pope. Sketch. I wikipedia-ed it last night to find out a little more, and it seems that the main difference in their beliefs from Roman Catholicism has to do with the hypostatic union--they have a little bit of a different understanding of Jesus' two natures. I didn't quite understand what specifically they believe about it, though. We also went to another church, with something called the Holy Crypt--apparently the Holy Family stayed there for a few days during the Flight to Egypt! So cool. Finally, we visited a mosque. It was very beautiful.
After that, we went to the bazaar, which is a giant market. It was actually quite stressful, because all the shop keepers try very hard to persuade you to buy things. In fact, I was afraid to look at anything too closely, because they take that as a sign that you're interested in purchasing and double their efforts. Not very conducive to shopping, if you ask me. The fear of being hassled was quite a deterent, in fact. But there were lots of cool bags and scarves and things, from what I saw out of the corners of my eye, ha.
For dinner that night we went back to the restaurant we had been to the first day, and realized how much we had learned that week, because this time we felt much more knowledgable about the menu.
The next day was Sunday. Our flight left at 5:20 pm and didn't get into Rome til about 8, meaning we had to find a mass to go to in Cairo. We finally ended up with the name and address of a Roman Catholic Church that was supposedly not too far away, a hand drawn map from one of the guys at the hotel reception desk, and word from a website last updated in 2004 that there was an 11 am English mass there. We handed the map to a taxi driver, and he was able to get to the right neighborhood easily, but didn't know where the church was. He also couldn't read English, so had to stop to ask somebody if they knew what street we were supposed to be going to. We passed a building that looked like a church and had a cross on it, which meant it at least wasn't a mosque, and so we got out there. It turned out to be a Coptic Church, though...but luckily there was a guy standing outside who spoke English and was able to direct us the right way. We sort of got lost on the way and had to ask for directions again, but we eventually made it to the right church at about 11:20. We walked in and immediately realized two things: one, mass was in French, not English, and two: it must have started late...because the first reading was just starting, so we didn't even miss that much. God is good. There were definitely times when I was afraid we were going to have to miss mass for the week, which possibly wouldn't have been a sin considering the circumstances. I'm not completely sure, because I decided not to fully discern that until we had exhausted every possibility trying to get there, and if it didn't work think about it more then. But luckily, it did. Lots of little things went right, leading me to believe that it definitely wasn't all luck:-) He wanted us at mass just as badly as I wanted to be there.
We had a few hours between mass and when we had to leave for the airport, so we walked around and went to a grocery store to spend our last Egyptian pounds. Then we went to the airport and flew back!
At that point break was almost officially over...we started classes the next day, which by now was yesterday. I'm pretty excited about my classes. My studio professor is new this semester, and she's a young woman who actually just graduated from the ND grad school architecture program a few years ago. She's incredibly friendly and approachable, and I think she knows a lot, too. We're doing another palazzo project for the first half of the semester, and then a villa project after that! It's been a little rough getting used to actually going to class again...but I'm sure it'll feel familiar soon enough. And it's good to be back in Rome!
But anyway, we left Rome on Tuesday around noon-ish. We were flying on Alitalia, which is a real airline, unlike the budget airlines we usually travel on. We were hoping this meant we'd get a free beverage and maybe even a snack. Turns out, we got a whole meal! It was awesome. When we got to the airport in Cairo we were met by a representative from Pack2Egypt, our tour company. We rode back to the hotel in a big van and got out first taste of Cairo traffic. I think it can be best summed up in this way, using the words of Paul (the tour guy): "Sometimes there are lanes painted on the roads. These are for decoration." It was actually quite terrifying. But we eventually made it to the hotel (after getting in a small accident, we just rear-ended somebody, no big deal...), and settled in. The 11 of us Notre Dame students ended up coming on two different flights, because one group booked later, and I was in the group that arrived to Egypt first. So we waited for the other group to get to the hotel, and then all went out to get dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended by Paul. It was funny--even though part of the menu was in English, we still had no idea what a lot of the foods were. I ended up getting a sandwich, but some people were adventurous: Evan got pigeon soup, and a few of the other girls got something that was like hummus but a little different (we found out later that it was hummus+eggplant, called ba baganog, pronounced sort of like "ba baganoosh", and I'm not sure about either the spelling or the pronunciation, ha). We also got complimentary baskets of pita bread!
The next day, we woke up early to start our tour with our tour guide, named Mina. He was with us the whole week. We started by going to Memphis, the old capital of Egypt. There's not that much to see there, mostly just some statues, including a gigantic one of Rameses II.
It used to be standing, of course, but he broke at the knees...
We went to a place called Saqqara next. It has the first stone structure ever, designed by the first architect ever. Pretty cool.
The next location on our agenda was Giza, which has the 3 great pyramids and the sphinx. We stopped at a few places along the way, including a huge store where they make rugs and tapestries by hand out of cotton, silk, and/or wool. We got to see the process, and it's incredible--they're on huge looms and made of thousands of tiny knots.
They sit there all day every day and tie knots--incredible patience.
We also got lunch at a cute little Egyptian restaurant. The best part was the fresh baked pita bread (literally right out of the oven), which we ate with hummus and more ba baganog.
After that, we went to the pyramids! These are the ones you probably picture when you think "pyramids". I was surprised by how close they are to the city--I guess I always pictured them out in the middle of nowhere. I suppose they used to be, but then the city expanded...now they're kind of in between the dessert and the city, so there's still plenty of sand around. Enough to be able to go on a camel ride, which we did! It was fantastic.
A bit cheesy perhaps, but awesome nonetheless:-)
We also saw the sphinx, but the site was just about to close when we got there, so we didn't get to spend too much time marveling.
But we had time to snap a few pics!
That night (Wednesday), we took an over night train to Luxor. (Fun fact: Luxor is south of Cairo, but the area is called Upper Egypt, because it's upstream on the Nile, which flows from south to north. A bit mind-boggling for those of us who grew up right next to the south-flowing Mississippi...). We had sleeper cars on the train, which was a neat experience. Oh, and we got served TWO meals! Dinner right after we got on, around 8:30 pm, and breakfast at 4 am...because we got to Luxor around 5 am. We went to our hotel, but we couldn't get into our rooms, since check in wasn't til much later. We waited in the lobby for a bit and then started our tour just after 6 am.
We went to the Valley of the Kings first, where lots of Pharaohs are buried. The location was breathtaking. It's in the desert and in the mountains. The color of the sand/rocks (a light yellow...I guess "sand" colored, haha) was very dramatic against the bright blue cloudless sky. King Tut's tomb is there, but you have to pay a lot extra to go in, so we didn't. We went into the tombs of Rameses I, III, and IX. The treasures and the mummies are all gone, but you can still see the sequence of spaces and the pictures painted on the walls.
Queen Hatsheput's temple was next. She was the first female pharaoh. This structure is pretty memorable-looking, so one of the things I clearly remember learning about last year in History. At the time, though, I don't think I ever dreamed I would actually be there some day...this was also one of the most powerful places we went, I think. While we were there it was easy to imagine how much solemnity and magnificence the procession to entomb the queen must have had. The only thing I've seen that could maybe compare is the procession at JPII's funeral. And the Egyptians were so focused on death and the after-life that they must have made these processions pretty darn impressive, and that's probably an understatement. And really, it's impressive that they believed so strongly in resurrection. How did they know? Was there revelation involved, or did their beliefs just come from an impressive natural ability to discern some Truth? I'd like to learn more about how their religion developed, I guess, and how that timeline relates the Old Testament timeline...
Originally I think it was all painted, so it stood out from the mountain it's built into...but I kind of like the way it blends in.
We went to the Valley of the Queens next. Same idea as the Valley of the Kings, just less important people were buried there--like some queens and princes.
By this point, we felt like we had been sightseeing for a pretty long time, but it was only 11 am. That was all we had on the schedule for the day, though, so we headed back to the hotel, stopping on the way to see a couple more huge statues. At first we weren't sure what we would do with ourselves for the rest of the day, but we figured it out when we got back to the hotel--we realized it was more like a resort. It had a couple of outdoor swimming pools, lots of beach chairs, and overlooked the Nile. Needless to say, we had quite a nice and relaxing afternoon. And of course I went swimming, even though the water was actually freezing--I couldn't pass up the chance to swim outside in January. That afternoon and evening was the most relaxing I've done while traveling in awhile--it actually felt like a real vacation:-)
The view from the back of the hotel--that's the Nile! And those mountains that you can sort of see on the other side are the ones the Valleys of the Kings and Queens are in.
We continued our vacation like experience the next day by sleeping in more than usual. I did get up and go for a run, though. I went out on the main street for a little bit, but I then I realized I felt really uncomfortable--I got lots of stares, and some comments (mostly things like "Nice! Nice exercise!"). And I guess I did look totally out of place--I'm white, I'm a girl and I wasn't all covered up, and I was running. All three are kind of unusual. It's interesting how standards can be so drastically different from place to place. I think in general I dress pretty modestly, but not by Middle-Eastern standards I suppose. I sensed that pretty quickly, and even started to feel slightly indecent that Egyptian men could (gasp!) see my hair. So anyway, running just made it worse, and I quickly decided to go back to the hotel and do laps around the large outdoor swimming pool complex thing instead. That turned out to be much better.
Then, after a delicious complimentary breakfast at the hotel we started sightseeing again! We went to the Karnak temple and the Luxor temple. Both were huge pilgrimage sites for ancient Egyptians back in the day, but of course they're both in ruins now. That made me wonder if someday people would come to places like St. Peter's and walk around the ruins and talk about how Catholics from all over the world used to come there...and then I immediately thought "wait, Catholicism is never going to die out...so St. Peters will never be in ruins". Unless something drastic happens, I suppose, like the Popes pack off to Avignon again permanently or something. But it was a neat moment of remembering that the Church will go on forever, unlike religions that worship false gods.
At the entrance to the Luxor temple, there's an obelisk on one side, and an empty base on the other side. There used to be another obelisk there, too, but turns out that that's the one that's now in Paris! And I saw it when I was there! It was pretty crazy to make that connection. All the Egyptian obelisks in Rome must have come from specific spots in Egypt too...
To be honest, the obelisks look better in Egypt than anywhere else. Egyptian art and architecture always look a bit funny to me in museums and things, but they look just right in context in Egypt.
Our last activity in Luxor was taking a faluka ride (a kind of sailboat) on the Nile. It was very peaceful, and the sun was setting as we were out there, so it was beautiful.
This is a sweet picture, and also shows what a faluka looks like!
That night, we took another overnight train back to Cairo, and arrived just as ridiculously early. Luckily, we were able to get into a couple of rooms in the hotel, and so could take short naps before actually starting the day.
We saw the Egyptian museum first. The highlight of that was all of the treasures found in King Tut's tomb. We also went to a Coptic Christian Church. From what I gathered, the Coptic Christians are sort of like a branch of Catholicism--they have mostly all of the same beliefs, like Real Presence and everything, but they also have their own Pope. Sketch. I wikipedia-ed it last night to find out a little more, and it seems that the main difference in their beliefs from Roman Catholicism has to do with the hypostatic union--they have a little bit of a different understanding of Jesus' two natures. I didn't quite understand what specifically they believe about it, though. We also went to another church, with something called the Holy Crypt--apparently the Holy Family stayed there for a few days during the Flight to Egypt! So cool. Finally, we visited a mosque. It was very beautiful.
After that, we went to the bazaar, which is a giant market. It was actually quite stressful, because all the shop keepers try very hard to persuade you to buy things. In fact, I was afraid to look at anything too closely, because they take that as a sign that you're interested in purchasing and double their efforts. Not very conducive to shopping, if you ask me. The fear of being hassled was quite a deterent, in fact. But there were lots of cool bags and scarves and things, from what I saw out of the corners of my eye, ha.
For dinner that night we went back to the restaurant we had been to the first day, and realized how much we had learned that week, because this time we felt much more knowledgable about the menu.
The next day was Sunday. Our flight left at 5:20 pm and didn't get into Rome til about 8, meaning we had to find a mass to go to in Cairo. We finally ended up with the name and address of a Roman Catholic Church that was supposedly not too far away, a hand drawn map from one of the guys at the hotel reception desk, and word from a website last updated in 2004 that there was an 11 am English mass there. We handed the map to a taxi driver, and he was able to get to the right neighborhood easily, but didn't know where the church was. He also couldn't read English, so had to stop to ask somebody if they knew what street we were supposed to be going to. We passed a building that looked like a church and had a cross on it, which meant it at least wasn't a mosque, and so we got out there. It turned out to be a Coptic Church, though...but luckily there was a guy standing outside who spoke English and was able to direct us the right way. We sort of got lost on the way and had to ask for directions again, but we eventually made it to the right church at about 11:20. We walked in and immediately realized two things: one, mass was in French, not English, and two: it must have started late...because the first reading was just starting, so we didn't even miss that much. God is good. There were definitely times when I was afraid we were going to have to miss mass for the week, which possibly wouldn't have been a sin considering the circumstances. I'm not completely sure, because I decided not to fully discern that until we had exhausted every possibility trying to get there, and if it didn't work think about it more then. But luckily, it did. Lots of little things went right, leading me to believe that it definitely wasn't all luck:-) He wanted us at mass just as badly as I wanted to be there.
We had a few hours between mass and when we had to leave for the airport, so we walked around and went to a grocery store to spend our last Egyptian pounds. Then we went to the airport and flew back!
At that point break was almost officially over...we started classes the next day, which by now was yesterday. I'm pretty excited about my classes. My studio professor is new this semester, and she's a young woman who actually just graduated from the ND grad school architecture program a few years ago. She's incredibly friendly and approachable, and I think she knows a lot, too. We're doing another palazzo project for the first half of the semester, and then a villa project after that! It's been a little rough getting used to actually going to class again...but I'm sure it'll feel familiar soon enough. And it's good to be back in Rome!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Winter Break Adventures Part Tre
Amsterdam
Our flight arrived in Amsterdam late in the evening on Tuesday, January 4th. We took a train to the city center, and got pizza in the train station for dinner. It was from a place called "New York Pizza" and it was American style pizza--the first time I've had that since I came to Europe! It was good. (This company's slogan was pretty funny, too. It was --Matt and Laura, don't read this part-- "Damn Tasty". We were amused. You can get away with a bit more in Europe, I suppose. And of course we then made jokes about "Amster-dam Tasty"). After that, we went to our hostel. It took us longer than it should have to find it...also, there was snow on the ground! It was the first time I had walked through it all year. There were four other archies staying in the same hostel who had arrived a day earlier, so we saw them when we got there, talked for a bit, and went to bed.
In the morning we went to Anne Frank's house--where she and her family hid for two years before being discovered by the Nazis. It's a museum now, and a very good one. It was informative and had an easy to follow sequence. And it was very powerful. With the subject matter it'd be hard not to be, but I still think it was done exceptionally well. First you walk through the downstairs rooms, where her father's store was, and eventually make your way up to the annex, the hiding place. There's no furniture, because it was confiscated during the raid on the house. Otto Frank, Anne's father, was the only survivor from the family. He was the one who pushed for Anne's diary to be published, and he set up the museum, and didn't want any of the furniture put back. But there are still little reminders of the family. The newspapers clippings and pictures that Anne pasted on her walls are still there, and there are pencil lines on the wall marking the children's growth during the years they were there. At the end, there's a short video clip of Otto talking about how he felt when he read the diary for the first time, and why he set up the museum there--he wants people to learn from their story, and not let anything like that happen ever again. Like I said, it was powerful. Here's the outside of the house:
The annex is behind there but of course you can't see it from the front.
In the afternoon, we went to a Van Gogh museum. It was a bit overpriced, but cool. Unfortunately, Starry Night, which is one of the few Van Gogh paintings I would actually recognize, was NOT there. But oh well. That was basically all the sightseeing we did that day...it was cool to be with the other archies, though. They all left early the next morning, but Katie and I were there all day again.
In the morning we took a tram a little outside the city center to the De Dageraad housing, which of course is something we learned about in history last year. It's just a bunch of residential buildings, mostly, but the brickwork is really cool--there are some unusual shapes and curves and things.
In the afternoon, we went on a free walking tour of the city. It was very cool--literally. In fact, it started snowing pretty hard right at the end of the tour. So when it was over, we went to a cafe and had hot chocolate to warm up:-) We also found a really neat little restaurant for dinner that night. We had delicious burgers and french fries with mayo. And, there was a 33% student discount! Huge.
We left early the next morning to start a pretty long day of traveling. Our final destination was Berlin, but for some reason (probably cheaper prices), we flew first through...
Geneva
Which of course, is in Switzerland. We had about a 4 hour layover, so we decided to go into town for bit. The Alps made a dramatic backdrop for the city. We walked around for a little while and tried to find lunch, but unfortunately none of the shops we went to accepted credit cards. Switzerland is on the Franc, not the Euro, so we couldn't use our regular money, and we didn't want to withdraw a bunch of Francs that we wouldn't use. So eventually we ended up just going back to the airport and getting food there, where they DID take credit cards. But I'm still glad we went to the city--if nothing else, it was nice to get some fresh air and exercise to break up the long periods of sitting on a plane.
Switzerland!
Our second flight, to Berlin, went smoothly as scheduled, luckily. A bunch of other flights on the same airline were actually canceled that day, due to what we think was some sort of strike. But ours wasn't affected at all....
Berlin
When we got to Berlin, we found the train station at the airport just fine, and we knew what street we had to get to and everything...but for some reason, when we first looked at the Berlin metro map, it completely mystified us. I don't know what it was--maybe just seeing so many words and street names in German. Anyway, we must have looked seriously lost and confused, because the guy behind us in line asked if we needed help. We said "sure," and explained our situation. It turned out that this guy's friend happened to be going to the exact same street, and kindly offered to show us the way. It ALSO turned out that both of these guys were on the Berlin volleyball team, coming back from some sort of tournament in Switzerland (they won their match). They were extremely generous in offering their assistance and making sure we got exactly where we needed to go, and I'm pretty sure they've gained a lifelong team supporter:-)
After we checked in to our hostel, we headed out to find dinner (searching for food is a very common, and sort of time consuming, traveling activity). We ended up at a place that was sort of like the Applebees of Berlin, I think. They had lots of different types of food--Italian, Mexican, even American. I got a quesadilla; it was amazing! It was pretty darn cold in Berlin, so we walked straight back to the hostel afterwards and relaxed for the rest of the night.
We woke up early and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. We spent a really long time there, because there were tons of things to look at and read. Large parts of the museum were dedicated to different stories of how people escaped from the East side of the Wall to the West side. They ranged from hiding in cars, to digging tunnels, even to building hot air balloons. The creativity and determination of people on both sides of the Wall to fight for freedom was pretty evident, and pretty inspiring.
This is a replica of the actual checkpoint--I took the picture from one of the museum windows, which is why it's an aerial view.
We went on another free walking tour that afternoon. On the way from the museum to where it started we discovered a sweet grocery store where we were able to get huge cheap sandwiches for lunch, and we bought some German chocolate too:-)
The tour started at the Brandenburg gate:
The tour was really long, about 4 hours altogether...because there's so much to see in Berlin. There's all the WWII stuff, of course. We saw a Holocaust memorial, right in the center of the city. Our tour guide was excellent, and pointed that that's a pretty impressive thing for Berlin to do--they have a monument about one of the things they're most ashamed about as a city. Usually monuments celebrate proud moments...but not this one. We also saw the site of Hitler's bunker. It's under a parking lot, and only marked with one small sign. They don't want to give him any more credit than he deserves.
One of other main things that the tour focused on was, of course, the Wall. Here's a picture of one of the longest remaining sections:
There were actually two walls--the inner wall and the outer wall. The space between them was called the "death zone", because it was completely empty, and the border guards were told to shoot to kill.
Being in Berlin was really fascinating because all the history is so recent. People who are just a few years older than me would remember when the Wall was still standing, and then when it fell and all that. That's pretty incredible to think about. And it's evident that the city is definitely still recovering from everything that's happened to it. For one thing, everything there is pretty cheap--good for us tourists, but kind of sad because it means the city in general is poor right now. And there are huge holes in the urban fabric of the city where buildings are missing because they were bombed. But I think I have faith in the Berliners to be able to accomplish this rebuilding--they're strong. They've been through alot. They united to help bring down the Wall, and they'll unite to make their city great again. Somehow in the short time I was there I think I managed to develop a sense of attachment and fondness for the city and the people who live in it...it was definitely one of my favorite places.
After the tour we had another delicious dinner, including trying a German beer. It was alright...but not as good as Belgian beer. We then went back to the hostel and packed up for the last time, because the next morning we had an early flight back to Rome! As I mentioned at the very beginning of all this blogging, it was really good to get back. It was an amazing trip overall, though. We packed quite a lot into those two weeks, and I think I doubled the number of countries I've been to in my life. And believe it or not, even after all that, I'm not done traveling for the break just yet...in fact, I'm leaving for Egypt tomorrow morning! There's a group of 11 of us going, and hopefully it will be just as awesome as this last trip was! And of course, I'll blog when I get back. Pray for continued safe travels for all of us!
Our flight arrived in Amsterdam late in the evening on Tuesday, January 4th. We took a train to the city center, and got pizza in the train station for dinner. It was from a place called "New York Pizza" and it was American style pizza--the first time I've had that since I came to Europe! It was good. (This company's slogan was pretty funny, too. It was --Matt and Laura, don't read this part-- "Damn Tasty". We were amused. You can get away with a bit more in Europe, I suppose. And of course we then made jokes about "Amster-dam Tasty"). After that, we went to our hostel. It took us longer than it should have to find it...also, there was snow on the ground! It was the first time I had walked through it all year. There were four other archies staying in the same hostel who had arrived a day earlier, so we saw them when we got there, talked for a bit, and went to bed.
In the morning we went to Anne Frank's house--where she and her family hid for two years before being discovered by the Nazis. It's a museum now, and a very good one. It was informative and had an easy to follow sequence. And it was very powerful. With the subject matter it'd be hard not to be, but I still think it was done exceptionally well. First you walk through the downstairs rooms, where her father's store was, and eventually make your way up to the annex, the hiding place. There's no furniture, because it was confiscated during the raid on the house. Otto Frank, Anne's father, was the only survivor from the family. He was the one who pushed for Anne's diary to be published, and he set up the museum, and didn't want any of the furniture put back. But there are still little reminders of the family. The newspapers clippings and pictures that Anne pasted on her walls are still there, and there are pencil lines on the wall marking the children's growth during the years they were there. At the end, there's a short video clip of Otto talking about how he felt when he read the diary for the first time, and why he set up the museum there--he wants people to learn from their story, and not let anything like that happen ever again. Like I said, it was powerful. Here's the outside of the house:
The annex is behind there but of course you can't see it from the front.
In the afternoon, we went to a Van Gogh museum. It was a bit overpriced, but cool. Unfortunately, Starry Night, which is one of the few Van Gogh paintings I would actually recognize, was NOT there. But oh well. That was basically all the sightseeing we did that day...it was cool to be with the other archies, though. They all left early the next morning, but Katie and I were there all day again.
In the morning we took a tram a little outside the city center to the De Dageraad housing, which of course is something we learned about in history last year. It's just a bunch of residential buildings, mostly, but the brickwork is really cool--there are some unusual shapes and curves and things.
In the afternoon, we went on a free walking tour of the city. It was very cool--literally. In fact, it started snowing pretty hard right at the end of the tour. So when it was over, we went to a cafe and had hot chocolate to warm up:-) We also found a really neat little restaurant for dinner that night. We had delicious burgers and french fries with mayo. And, there was a 33% student discount! Huge.
We left early the next morning to start a pretty long day of traveling. Our final destination was Berlin, but for some reason (probably cheaper prices), we flew first through...
Geneva
Which of course, is in Switzerland. We had about a 4 hour layover, so we decided to go into town for bit. The Alps made a dramatic backdrop for the city. We walked around for a little while and tried to find lunch, but unfortunately none of the shops we went to accepted credit cards. Switzerland is on the Franc, not the Euro, so we couldn't use our regular money, and we didn't want to withdraw a bunch of Francs that we wouldn't use. So eventually we ended up just going back to the airport and getting food there, where they DID take credit cards. But I'm still glad we went to the city--if nothing else, it was nice to get some fresh air and exercise to break up the long periods of sitting on a plane.
Switzerland!
Our second flight, to Berlin, went smoothly as scheduled, luckily. A bunch of other flights on the same airline were actually canceled that day, due to what we think was some sort of strike. But ours wasn't affected at all....
Berlin
When we got to Berlin, we found the train station at the airport just fine, and we knew what street we had to get to and everything...but for some reason, when we first looked at the Berlin metro map, it completely mystified us. I don't know what it was--maybe just seeing so many words and street names in German. Anyway, we must have looked seriously lost and confused, because the guy behind us in line asked if we needed help. We said "sure," and explained our situation. It turned out that this guy's friend happened to be going to the exact same street, and kindly offered to show us the way. It ALSO turned out that both of these guys were on the Berlin volleyball team, coming back from some sort of tournament in Switzerland (they won their match). They were extremely generous in offering their assistance and making sure we got exactly where we needed to go, and I'm pretty sure they've gained a lifelong team supporter:-)
After we checked in to our hostel, we headed out to find dinner (searching for food is a very common, and sort of time consuming, traveling activity). We ended up at a place that was sort of like the Applebees of Berlin, I think. They had lots of different types of food--Italian, Mexican, even American. I got a quesadilla; it was amazing! It was pretty darn cold in Berlin, so we walked straight back to the hostel afterwards and relaxed for the rest of the night.
We woke up early and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. We spent a really long time there, because there were tons of things to look at and read. Large parts of the museum were dedicated to different stories of how people escaped from the East side of the Wall to the West side. They ranged from hiding in cars, to digging tunnels, even to building hot air balloons. The creativity and determination of people on both sides of the Wall to fight for freedom was pretty evident, and pretty inspiring.
This is a replica of the actual checkpoint--I took the picture from one of the museum windows, which is why it's an aerial view.
We went on another free walking tour that afternoon. On the way from the museum to where it started we discovered a sweet grocery store where we were able to get huge cheap sandwiches for lunch, and we bought some German chocolate too:-)
The tour started at the Brandenburg gate:
The tour was really long, about 4 hours altogether...because there's so much to see in Berlin. There's all the WWII stuff, of course. We saw a Holocaust memorial, right in the center of the city. Our tour guide was excellent, and pointed that that's a pretty impressive thing for Berlin to do--they have a monument about one of the things they're most ashamed about as a city. Usually monuments celebrate proud moments...but not this one. We also saw the site of Hitler's bunker. It's under a parking lot, and only marked with one small sign. They don't want to give him any more credit than he deserves.
One of other main things that the tour focused on was, of course, the Wall. Here's a picture of one of the longest remaining sections:
There were actually two walls--the inner wall and the outer wall. The space between them was called the "death zone", because it was completely empty, and the border guards were told to shoot to kill.
Being in Berlin was really fascinating because all the history is so recent. People who are just a few years older than me would remember when the Wall was still standing, and then when it fell and all that. That's pretty incredible to think about. And it's evident that the city is definitely still recovering from everything that's happened to it. For one thing, everything there is pretty cheap--good for us tourists, but kind of sad because it means the city in general is poor right now. And there are huge holes in the urban fabric of the city where buildings are missing because they were bombed. But I think I have faith in the Berliners to be able to accomplish this rebuilding--they're strong. They've been through alot. They united to help bring down the Wall, and they'll unite to make their city great again. Somehow in the short time I was there I think I managed to develop a sense of attachment and fondness for the city and the people who live in it...it was definitely one of my favorite places.
After the tour we had another delicious dinner, including trying a German beer. It was alright...but not as good as Belgian beer. We then went back to the hostel and packed up for the last time, because the next morning we had an early flight back to Rome! As I mentioned at the very beginning of all this blogging, it was really good to get back. It was an amazing trip overall, though. We packed quite a lot into those two weeks, and I think I doubled the number of countries I've been to in my life. And believe it or not, even after all that, I'm not done traveling for the break just yet...in fact, I'm leaving for Egypt tomorrow morning! There's a group of 11 of us going, and hopefully it will be just as awesome as this last trip was! And of course, I'll blog when I get back. Pray for continued safe travels for all of us!
Winter Break Adventures Part Due
Paris
We got to Paris at about 9 in the morning on New Years Eve. We knew other archies were already there, but we couldn't get ahold of them, and my friend Julie, who we were staying with, wasn't going to get in til about 6 pm. So it was just Katie and I in the morning. We started at Notre Dame, and then walked around the historical district right by it, and over to the Louvre. We considered going in...until we saw the line. Ridicously long. Our plans quickly changed and decided to just keep walking around. Eventually, we got crepes and sat down for a little while, and then went to meet up with a bunch of archies at the "catacombs". I didn't know anything about these; I didn't see them the first time I was Paris. It's an underground area that was apparently originally a mining shaft, and then was used to bury victims of an illness epidemic...so it's kind of creepy, actually--there are huge stacks of bones all around. There are also inscriptions on the walls about death, and how it's inevitable and coming for all of us, etc (They're in French, of course. Good thing a few of my friends had taken French in high school). What struck me most was that hope was missing--the concept of resurrection was completely absent. I think I prefer the Christian catacombs in Rome...
After that, we walked to the Pompidou Center and spent awhile in the bookstore, as per our norm, then ate and split to get ready for New Years Eve celebrations that night! Katie and I went to Julie's dorm/apartment (I never know what to call it), and our other friends went back to the apartment they were renting. We planned to meet back up that night before all heading over to the Eiffel Tower together...but alas, that didn't exactly come to fruition...Katie and I arrived at Julie's place, spent a little while catching up with her and my other friend AJ who was also there, and then realized that we didn't actually really have time to meet up with the other group beforehand. So the four of us navigated the crazy-packed (but free!) Metro to get down to a good Eiffel Tower viewing location. I'm pretty convinced we wouldn't have made it if Julie hadn't been there, with her in-depth knowledge of the Metro stations and ability to actually understand what the French police were saying to us in those stations...but we finally got there. The Tower was all lit up, and had a little countdown and sparkled a lot at midnight. It was cool!
You can barely see the Eiffel Tower back there, kind of looking like it's growing out of our heads...also, this picture is unusual because it actually shows Katie and I together, proving that we did, in fact, travel together. Most of our pictures leave that kind of up in the air.
The next day, we got up and went to mass at Sacre Coeur. Evan met us there, which was cool because we never actually managed to meet up with everyone the night before...it was just too crazy. But Evan, Katie and I spent the rest of the day doing more sightseeing around the city, including a 4 hour round trip journey up the Eiffel Tower...it got a bit cold waiting in line (as in, "my toes were numb" sort of cold), but I think it was worth it. Katie and Evan had never been up it, and I had never been up it at when it was dark outside...so it was good.
Paris was the only repeat-place I went on this trip. It was cool being back a second time--I definitely appreciated the French language more this time around. Even knowing just a few words made it a lot less overwhelming. In fact, something funny happened the first day we were there--I took Katie to Julie's favorite little panini stand for lunch. First of all, I was impressed with myself that I managed to find it. Then, I ordered my panini confidently in French...but my cover was blown when the guy asked me a question back in French and I, of course, had no idea what he said. I was a little too convincing, I suppose:-) Luckily, he also spoke English, so it worked out, and he even taught us a few more French words. I think he appreciated that we at least tried.
Anyway, Katie and I left early on January 2nd (Saturday) for Barcelona!
Barcelona
We got into Barcelona in the late morning and checked into the hostel. All along when we were planning the trip, this day was going to be a "chill" day--do laundry, read, sleep...hang around the hostel instead of sightseeing. We figured we'd need it after being gone for a week already. However, right before we left Rome, I discovered that there's a Marian Shrine (Our Lady of Montserrat) in the mountains near Barcelona that we decided we'd like to go to, and this afternoon seemed like the best time. So we ended up doing that instead, and in my opinion it was totally worth it.
It was about a 45 minute train ride away, and ended with a cable car ride up a huge mountain. So of course, when we got up there, the view was gorgeous! The Shrine started as a monastery, and now houses a statue of Mary that's reported to be miraculous. (There's some question about the origin of the statue, and whether the statue or the monastery came first).
The pictures, of course, don't do it justice, but you can sort of tell how awesome it was!
This is how you get up and down the mountain!
When we got back into the city, we walked around the main shopping street, ate dinner, and went back to the hostel. We really were pretty tired, so we went to bed early. On Sunday, we went to a Spanish mass, except in Barcelona, they speak Catalan Spanish, not regular Spanish. I'm pretty sure that means it's a combination of Spanish and French. Katie understands Spanish pretty well, but the Catalan style was different enough that she didn't catch most of it. And my high school Spanish failed me as well...haha. We went to a Picasso museum after that. It was cool to have an entire museum dedicated to one person's work, because you can see the progression of their abilities and style over the course of their life. And Picasso was definitely very talented. He went sort of crazy at the end of his life, and even that was evident in his painting...it was really fascinating.
The architecture-related things worth seeing in Barcelona were mostly all designed by one man--Gaudi. He has a very distinctive style. The building that's probably best known is a cathedral called "La Sagrada Familia". It's actually still under construction right now--it's been going for about 150 years, but should be finished in about 30! The style's kind of hard to describe, so here's a picture instead:
We also ended up visiting the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, which I didn't realize existed til we got there, but it was really cool. On the sidewalk near it, they had footprints of a bunch of famous athletes, including Lance Armstrong:
I was surprised to find out that my foot is bigger than his.
The stadium was open to walk in and look around (apparently the Barcelona football team used to play there, but they just recently moved to someplace new), but we couldn't get down to the field, unfortunately...
Another sweet thing about Barcelona is that alot of the attractions were on top of large hills, but to aid people in getting up to them, they had...outdoor escalators!
The picture's a little blurry, sorry...it was one of those "snap while walking" shots. Also, this made me wonder about how escalators work--do they self-generate power? Otherwise it seems like it'd be a huge waste, and very uncharacteristic of the usually conversative Europeans. Also, what happens when it rains?
After our full day of sightseeing, we ate dinner (from an Asian food take out place, ha) and headed back to the hostel.
The next day, we were still in Barcelona. We spent more time in each city in the second week that during the first...we had an evening flight out, but all morning to see more of the city. We went down to the beach, which would have been cooler if it were warmer (ha), but was still pretty awesome. We ate lunch and relaxed there for a bit, and then got cold and decided to go to Starbucks to warm up:-) It was quite delicious, and a very laid back day. After that, we headed to the airport and flew to Amsterdam!
Two more cities down, and two to go! Part 3 coming soon!
We got to Paris at about 9 in the morning on New Years Eve. We knew other archies were already there, but we couldn't get ahold of them, and my friend Julie, who we were staying with, wasn't going to get in til about 6 pm. So it was just Katie and I in the morning. We started at Notre Dame, and then walked around the historical district right by it, and over to the Louvre. We considered going in...until we saw the line. Ridicously long. Our plans quickly changed and decided to just keep walking around. Eventually, we got crepes and sat down for a little while, and then went to meet up with a bunch of archies at the "catacombs". I didn't know anything about these; I didn't see them the first time I was Paris. It's an underground area that was apparently originally a mining shaft, and then was used to bury victims of an illness epidemic...so it's kind of creepy, actually--there are huge stacks of bones all around. There are also inscriptions on the walls about death, and how it's inevitable and coming for all of us, etc (They're in French, of course. Good thing a few of my friends had taken French in high school). What struck me most was that hope was missing--the concept of resurrection was completely absent. I think I prefer the Christian catacombs in Rome...
After that, we walked to the Pompidou Center and spent awhile in the bookstore, as per our norm, then ate and split to get ready for New Years Eve celebrations that night! Katie and I went to Julie's dorm/apartment (I never know what to call it), and our other friends went back to the apartment they were renting. We planned to meet back up that night before all heading over to the Eiffel Tower together...but alas, that didn't exactly come to fruition...Katie and I arrived at Julie's place, spent a little while catching up with her and my other friend AJ who was also there, and then realized that we didn't actually really have time to meet up with the other group beforehand. So the four of us navigated the crazy-packed (but free!) Metro to get down to a good Eiffel Tower viewing location. I'm pretty convinced we wouldn't have made it if Julie hadn't been there, with her in-depth knowledge of the Metro stations and ability to actually understand what the French police were saying to us in those stations...but we finally got there. The Tower was all lit up, and had a little countdown and sparkled a lot at midnight. It was cool!
You can barely see the Eiffel Tower back there, kind of looking like it's growing out of our heads...also, this picture is unusual because it actually shows Katie and I together, proving that we did, in fact, travel together. Most of our pictures leave that kind of up in the air.
The next day, we got up and went to mass at Sacre Coeur. Evan met us there, which was cool because we never actually managed to meet up with everyone the night before...it was just too crazy. But Evan, Katie and I spent the rest of the day doing more sightseeing around the city, including a 4 hour round trip journey up the Eiffel Tower...it got a bit cold waiting in line (as in, "my toes were numb" sort of cold), but I think it was worth it. Katie and Evan had never been up it, and I had never been up it at when it was dark outside...so it was good.
Paris was the only repeat-place I went on this trip. It was cool being back a second time--I definitely appreciated the French language more this time around. Even knowing just a few words made it a lot less overwhelming. In fact, something funny happened the first day we were there--I took Katie to Julie's favorite little panini stand for lunch. First of all, I was impressed with myself that I managed to find it. Then, I ordered my panini confidently in French...but my cover was blown when the guy asked me a question back in French and I, of course, had no idea what he said. I was a little too convincing, I suppose:-) Luckily, he also spoke English, so it worked out, and he even taught us a few more French words. I think he appreciated that we at least tried.
Anyway, Katie and I left early on January 2nd (Saturday) for Barcelona!
Barcelona
We got into Barcelona in the late morning and checked into the hostel. All along when we were planning the trip, this day was going to be a "chill" day--do laundry, read, sleep...hang around the hostel instead of sightseeing. We figured we'd need it after being gone for a week already. However, right before we left Rome, I discovered that there's a Marian Shrine (Our Lady of Montserrat) in the mountains near Barcelona that we decided we'd like to go to, and this afternoon seemed like the best time. So we ended up doing that instead, and in my opinion it was totally worth it.
It was about a 45 minute train ride away, and ended with a cable car ride up a huge mountain. So of course, when we got up there, the view was gorgeous! The Shrine started as a monastery, and now houses a statue of Mary that's reported to be miraculous. (There's some question about the origin of the statue, and whether the statue or the monastery came first).
The pictures, of course, don't do it justice, but you can sort of tell how awesome it was!
This is how you get up and down the mountain!
When we got back into the city, we walked around the main shopping street, ate dinner, and went back to the hostel. We really were pretty tired, so we went to bed early. On Sunday, we went to a Spanish mass, except in Barcelona, they speak Catalan Spanish, not regular Spanish. I'm pretty sure that means it's a combination of Spanish and French. Katie understands Spanish pretty well, but the Catalan style was different enough that she didn't catch most of it. And my high school Spanish failed me as well...haha. We went to a Picasso museum after that. It was cool to have an entire museum dedicated to one person's work, because you can see the progression of their abilities and style over the course of their life. And Picasso was definitely very talented. He went sort of crazy at the end of his life, and even that was evident in his painting...it was really fascinating.
The architecture-related things worth seeing in Barcelona were mostly all designed by one man--Gaudi. He has a very distinctive style. The building that's probably best known is a cathedral called "La Sagrada Familia". It's actually still under construction right now--it's been going for about 150 years, but should be finished in about 30! The style's kind of hard to describe, so here's a picture instead:
We also ended up visiting the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, which I didn't realize existed til we got there, but it was really cool. On the sidewalk near it, they had footprints of a bunch of famous athletes, including Lance Armstrong:
I was surprised to find out that my foot is bigger than his.
The stadium was open to walk in and look around (apparently the Barcelona football team used to play there, but they just recently moved to someplace new), but we couldn't get down to the field, unfortunately...
Another sweet thing about Barcelona is that alot of the attractions were on top of large hills, but to aid people in getting up to them, they had...outdoor escalators!
The picture's a little blurry, sorry...it was one of those "snap while walking" shots. Also, this made me wonder about how escalators work--do they self-generate power? Otherwise it seems like it'd be a huge waste, and very uncharacteristic of the usually conversative Europeans. Also, what happens when it rains?
After our full day of sightseeing, we ate dinner (from an Asian food take out place, ha) and headed back to the hostel.
The next day, we were still in Barcelona. We spent more time in each city in the second week that during the first...we had an evening flight out, but all morning to see more of the city. We went down to the beach, which would have been cooler if it were warmer (ha), but was still pretty awesome. We ate lunch and relaxed there for a bit, and then got cold and decided to go to Starbucks to warm up:-) It was quite delicious, and a very laid back day. After that, we headed to the airport and flew to Amsterdam!
Two more cities down, and two to go! Part 3 coming soon!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Winter Break Adventures Part Uno
I've been gone for a while. Not just gone as in, not posting anything, but gone as in, not in Rome. My friend Katie and I have been touring Europe for the past two weeks, and just got back to Rome yesterday. It's good to be back--everything feels familiar, and it really does feel like home finally. And it may be cliche, but I didn't realize that til I was gone for awhile and then came back to it. But anyway, what exactly did I do during those two weeks? Quite a lot, in fact. I'll divide this by city to make it a little more managable...
Wroclaw
We left Saturday, December 26th and flew into Wroclaw (pronounced Roe-slaf), Poland, in the afternoon. We didn't really want to see anything in particular in Wroclaw, though...that's just where Ryanair flies into in Poland. So we got dinner there (we went with a guy we met on the plane. He struck up a conversation by asking to look at my breviary, because he wanted to see the words of the Magnificat in English...so I figured he was an ok guy), walked around a bit, and then headed back to the hostel and went to bed. In the morning, we went to a Polish mass and then caught a train to our real destination in Poland: Krakow.
Krakow
We were on a pretty tight time schedule in Krakow, because we were there less than 24 hours, and there were two main things we wanted to see--stuff about JPII, because that's where he was bishop before being elected Pope, and the Divine Mercy Shrine that's also is the site of St. Faustina's remains.
The house where JPII used to live has been turned into a museum. When I looked it up online, it said it was closed on Mondays, so we decided to go there on Sunday afternoon, and to the Divine Mercy Shrine on Monday morning. So our train arrived, and we headed straight to the museum. We found it with no problem; here it is from the outside:
Those doors to the left of me are Bishop Carol Wotyla's house!
Unfortunately, when we got there we found out that it was also closed on December 25, 26, and 27. So we didn't get to go inside...but just standing on the street where he lived was pretty cool anyway.
This is my sad face, because that sign is informing us that the museum is closed.
The house was conveniently right by the cathedral, though, which WAS open, so we got to go inside that. We also climbed up the small belltower.
This is the bell that's up there--it's HUGE. And the last time it rang was when JPII died.
By that point, it was getting dark, so we went and checked in to our hostel. Then we walked to the city center to wander around and find a place to eat. Like in lots of other European towns, there was a Christmas market in the main square, and lights strung around the main streets...it was neat. After one failed attempt, we found a restaurant that had cheap traditional Polish food. Katie and I both had perogi, a type of ravioli that usually has potato in it, I think, but we ordered the meat version instead. And since things were so cheap, we each got a Coke, too! And after dinner, we splurged even further by going to a different little shop and having pieces of cake, which seemed to be a sort of traditional Polish thing too. And even with all that, we spent less than we would on a one course meal back in Rome. It was awesome! After that we went back to the hostel and played cards, and then went to bed.
The next morning, we got up early and went to the Divine Mercy Shrine. It was pretty incredible. I guess my devotion to Divine Mercy developed the most from Totus Tuus. It's pretty important in the program--we prayed the chaplet together as a team after Evening Prayer every day. And JPII is connected to both of those things, too, because "Totus Tuus" was his Papal motto (of course I know that that originally came from Louis de Montfort, but JPII and New Evangelization were why it was picked for the program, I think), and he had a large role in promoting devotion to Divine Mercy, establishing Divine Mercy Sunday and canonizing St. Faustina and all. And that's evident at the Shrine--there's a big statue and some pictures of him there. So maybe this is a confusing explanation, but basically being at the Shrine was like being at the heart of several important things in my life, and they were all coming together...it was pretty cool. I love all those things, Divine Mercy, and New Evangelization, and Totus Tuus, and even John Paul II, because they're what's happening in the Church NOW. I love Rome for all its tradition and antiquity, too, of course (and I think it's part of New Evangelization to love that stuff), but it's pretty exciting to be around the contemporary movements of the Church, and I definitely sensed that there in Krakow.
And not only is the faith contemporary, the architecture is contemporary, too, as in "modern and funny-looking" :-) Well, part of it, anyway. The chapel with St. Faustina's remains is more traditional. Here's the inside of that:
In the front, to the left of the altar, you can kind of see a picture of Divine Mercy, and St. Faustina's remains are below that.
And here's the other chapel, that contains the second image ever painted of Divine Mercy. The first was apparently really small and painted as a gift for someone, and then the artist was asked to do another larger one, for popular devotion. So it's is essentially the original...
Pretty crazy, huh?
When we were finished at the Shrine, the rest of our day was a series of well-timed travel moves: we caught a tram back to the train station just in time to catch our train back to Wroclaw, where we took a bus to the airport and then flew to Brussels. It worked out amazingly well, especially considering that we planned most of it out the night before, and got lucky with train times.
Brussels
So we got to Brussels, checked in to our hostel (which was in a building that Van Gogh used to work in!), and went to bed shortly after. The main thing on our agenda to see the next day in Brussels was the Tassel House, designed by Victor Horta. It's a prime example of Art Nouveau architecture, and we saw slides of it a lot last year, especially one memorable one of a certain set of stairs inside that house. So we really wanted to see those stairs! It's been converted to the "Victor Horta museum", sort of...mostly that just means you can go in and look at the house, or rather that the house IS the museum. Here's the outside:
We wandered and saw a few other things in the morning, and then made our way out of the city center to the house a little after 12, only to discover when we got there that's it's only open from 2-5 every day. So we had some time to kill. We got lunch (and had fries and mayonnaise for the first of a few times--apparently it's big in that part of Europe), and then stopped in to an art store to look around. It turned out to be one of the most incredible art stores I've ever been in, just based on the variety of things they sold--it was like a craft store+an art store+a drafting supplies store+an office supplies store. So we had plenty to look at while we waited. When we got back to the Tassel House, there was a line outside. It wasn't very long, but it was moving extremely slowly. We decided it was worth it, and so we waited in the what we thought was the cold (we found out what cold really was when we got to Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin...but at the time, it was cold) for over an hour, and then went in! It was really cool; I like Art Nouveau architecture. It's very flowy and natural looking, but elegant. We went through the whole thing, though, and didn't see those stairs...and at the very end, there's a small gift shop. We saw a postcard with the picture we remembered of the stairs, so we picked it up, looked at the back...and realized the name of the place where the picture was taken was NOT the building we were in. All along, we thought we were in the Tassel House, but we weren't. Fail. We checked a map and realized we were only a few streets away from the REAL Tassel House, though, so after laughing at ourselves a bit we walked over there. It's a private residence, so we couldn't go in after all, but at least we saw the outside (and realized our mistake--it would have been a bit embarassing if we never had). So here's the real thing:
Unfortunately, it was dark by the time we finally got there.
Bruges
After that, we went to the train station and caught a train to Bruges. Apparently the locals spell it "Brugge", as we found out from the sign in the train station.
This is proof that I was LITERALLY "In Bruges", like the name of a good movie that came out a few years ago.
Our hostel there was awesome. We knew it would be as soon as we booked it back in Rome a while ago, because the name was "Charlie Rockets". When we got there, we realized it was a bar. Now, it's not uncommon for hostels, especially big ones, to have a small bar in the lobby. But at Charlie Rockets, it was more like a bar with a few rooms upstairs so the bartenders could make a little extra money. It added to the character. And our room was actually quite nice--it was only a 5 bed room, and we had our own bathroom and shower. It was hard to get to, you had to go up a staircase, down a hall, down some stairs, around a corner, up another staircase...the bartender had to take us there the first time so we would know how to find it. Katie and I were the first to check in to the room, and as were sitting there figuring out what our next move would be, were remembered that it was advertised as a mixed gender room, so there was a possibility that our roommates would be guys. And sure enough, right after that occured to us, three guys showed up wondering if it was the right room--the bartender had apparently left them on their own to navigate their way up. Two of them were Italian, from Milan, and one was from Mexico but was studying in Europe. They all spoke English very well, and were all grad students of some sort, I think. We decided to all go out to dinner together (Katie and I got waffles...Belgian waffles), and then ended up getting a drink and playing cards at the Charlie Rockets bar afterwards too. It was a lot of fun, and added to the overall awesome-ness of that hostel experience. Also, in general I don't like beer that much...but I did like Belgian beer:-)
The next day was sight-seeing day in Bruges. One of the main attractions was climbing a tall tower on the main square. The tower features prominently in the movie. Unfortunately, two things sort of went wrong about it: 1. it was super foggy, so we couldn't see anything from the top and 2. apparently they didn't actually film the movie there, because it doesn't look like the tower in the movie:-( But here's the view from the top!
Isn't Bruges beautiful? Oh wait...you can't see it. Here's a better picture, from the ground, that captures some of the charm:
We also got some chocolate while we were there, and it was delicious. Belgian chocolate, waffles, and beer all lived up to their reputations, in my opinion.
The next day was New Year's Eve! We took an early train to Paris. But this post is already long enough, so that will have to wait til another time...
Wroclaw
We left Saturday, December 26th and flew into Wroclaw (pronounced Roe-slaf), Poland, in the afternoon. We didn't really want to see anything in particular in Wroclaw, though...that's just where Ryanair flies into in Poland. So we got dinner there (we went with a guy we met on the plane. He struck up a conversation by asking to look at my breviary, because he wanted to see the words of the Magnificat in English...so I figured he was an ok guy), walked around a bit, and then headed back to the hostel and went to bed. In the morning, we went to a Polish mass and then caught a train to our real destination in Poland: Krakow.
Krakow
We were on a pretty tight time schedule in Krakow, because we were there less than 24 hours, and there were two main things we wanted to see--stuff about JPII, because that's where he was bishop before being elected Pope, and the Divine Mercy Shrine that's also is the site of St. Faustina's remains.
The house where JPII used to live has been turned into a museum. When I looked it up online, it said it was closed on Mondays, so we decided to go there on Sunday afternoon, and to the Divine Mercy Shrine on Monday morning. So our train arrived, and we headed straight to the museum. We found it with no problem; here it is from the outside:
Those doors to the left of me are Bishop Carol Wotyla's house!
Unfortunately, when we got there we found out that it was also closed on December 25, 26, and 27. So we didn't get to go inside...but just standing on the street where he lived was pretty cool anyway.
This is my sad face, because that sign is informing us that the museum is closed.
The house was conveniently right by the cathedral, though, which WAS open, so we got to go inside that. We also climbed up the small belltower.
This is the bell that's up there--it's HUGE. And the last time it rang was when JPII died.
By that point, it was getting dark, so we went and checked in to our hostel. Then we walked to the city center to wander around and find a place to eat. Like in lots of other European towns, there was a Christmas market in the main square, and lights strung around the main streets...it was neat. After one failed attempt, we found a restaurant that had cheap traditional Polish food. Katie and I both had perogi, a type of ravioli that usually has potato in it, I think, but we ordered the meat version instead. And since things were so cheap, we each got a Coke, too! And after dinner, we splurged even further by going to a different little shop and having pieces of cake, which seemed to be a sort of traditional Polish thing too. And even with all that, we spent less than we would on a one course meal back in Rome. It was awesome! After that we went back to the hostel and played cards, and then went to bed.
The next morning, we got up early and went to the Divine Mercy Shrine. It was pretty incredible. I guess my devotion to Divine Mercy developed the most from Totus Tuus. It's pretty important in the program--we prayed the chaplet together as a team after Evening Prayer every day. And JPII is connected to both of those things, too, because "Totus Tuus" was his Papal motto (of course I know that that originally came from Louis de Montfort, but JPII and New Evangelization were why it was picked for the program, I think), and he had a large role in promoting devotion to Divine Mercy, establishing Divine Mercy Sunday and canonizing St. Faustina and all. And that's evident at the Shrine--there's a big statue and some pictures of him there. So maybe this is a confusing explanation, but basically being at the Shrine was like being at the heart of several important things in my life, and they were all coming together...it was pretty cool. I love all those things, Divine Mercy, and New Evangelization, and Totus Tuus, and even John Paul II, because they're what's happening in the Church NOW. I love Rome for all its tradition and antiquity, too, of course (and I think it's part of New Evangelization to love that stuff), but it's pretty exciting to be around the contemporary movements of the Church, and I definitely sensed that there in Krakow.
And not only is the faith contemporary, the architecture is contemporary, too, as in "modern and funny-looking" :-) Well, part of it, anyway. The chapel with St. Faustina's remains is more traditional. Here's the inside of that:
In the front, to the left of the altar, you can kind of see a picture of Divine Mercy, and St. Faustina's remains are below that.
And here's the other chapel, that contains the second image ever painted of Divine Mercy. The first was apparently really small and painted as a gift for someone, and then the artist was asked to do another larger one, for popular devotion. So it's is essentially the original...
Pretty crazy, huh?
When we were finished at the Shrine, the rest of our day was a series of well-timed travel moves: we caught a tram back to the train station just in time to catch our train back to Wroclaw, where we took a bus to the airport and then flew to Brussels. It worked out amazingly well, especially considering that we planned most of it out the night before, and got lucky with train times.
Brussels
So we got to Brussels, checked in to our hostel (which was in a building that Van Gogh used to work in!), and went to bed shortly after. The main thing on our agenda to see the next day in Brussels was the Tassel House, designed by Victor Horta. It's a prime example of Art Nouveau architecture, and we saw slides of it a lot last year, especially one memorable one of a certain set of stairs inside that house. So we really wanted to see those stairs! It's been converted to the "Victor Horta museum", sort of...mostly that just means you can go in and look at the house, or rather that the house IS the museum. Here's the outside:
We wandered and saw a few other things in the morning, and then made our way out of the city center to the house a little after 12, only to discover when we got there that's it's only open from 2-5 every day. So we had some time to kill. We got lunch (and had fries and mayonnaise for the first of a few times--apparently it's big in that part of Europe), and then stopped in to an art store to look around. It turned out to be one of the most incredible art stores I've ever been in, just based on the variety of things they sold--it was like a craft store+an art store+a drafting supplies store+an office supplies store. So we had plenty to look at while we waited. When we got back to the Tassel House, there was a line outside. It wasn't very long, but it was moving extremely slowly. We decided it was worth it, and so we waited in the what we thought was the cold (we found out what cold really was when we got to Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin...but at the time, it was cold) for over an hour, and then went in! It was really cool; I like Art Nouveau architecture. It's very flowy and natural looking, but elegant. We went through the whole thing, though, and didn't see those stairs...and at the very end, there's a small gift shop. We saw a postcard with the picture we remembered of the stairs, so we picked it up, looked at the back...and realized the name of the place where the picture was taken was NOT the building we were in. All along, we thought we were in the Tassel House, but we weren't. Fail. We checked a map and realized we were only a few streets away from the REAL Tassel House, though, so after laughing at ourselves a bit we walked over there. It's a private residence, so we couldn't go in after all, but at least we saw the outside (and realized our mistake--it would have been a bit embarassing if we never had). So here's the real thing:
Unfortunately, it was dark by the time we finally got there.
Bruges
After that, we went to the train station and caught a train to Bruges. Apparently the locals spell it "Brugge", as we found out from the sign in the train station.
This is proof that I was LITERALLY "In Bruges", like the name of a good movie that came out a few years ago.
Our hostel there was awesome. We knew it would be as soon as we booked it back in Rome a while ago, because the name was "Charlie Rockets". When we got there, we realized it was a bar. Now, it's not uncommon for hostels, especially big ones, to have a small bar in the lobby. But at Charlie Rockets, it was more like a bar with a few rooms upstairs so the bartenders could make a little extra money. It added to the character. And our room was actually quite nice--it was only a 5 bed room, and we had our own bathroom and shower. It was hard to get to, you had to go up a staircase, down a hall, down some stairs, around a corner, up another staircase...the bartender had to take us there the first time so we would know how to find it. Katie and I were the first to check in to the room, and as were sitting there figuring out what our next move would be, were remembered that it was advertised as a mixed gender room, so there was a possibility that our roommates would be guys. And sure enough, right after that occured to us, three guys showed up wondering if it was the right room--the bartender had apparently left them on their own to navigate their way up. Two of them were Italian, from Milan, and one was from Mexico but was studying in Europe. They all spoke English very well, and were all grad students of some sort, I think. We decided to all go out to dinner together (Katie and I got waffles...Belgian waffles), and then ended up getting a drink and playing cards at the Charlie Rockets bar afterwards too. It was a lot of fun, and added to the overall awesome-ness of that hostel experience. Also, in general I don't like beer that much...but I did like Belgian beer:-)
The next day was sight-seeing day in Bruges. One of the main attractions was climbing a tall tower on the main square. The tower features prominently in the movie. Unfortunately, two things sort of went wrong about it: 1. it was super foggy, so we couldn't see anything from the top and 2. apparently they didn't actually film the movie there, because it doesn't look like the tower in the movie:-( But here's the view from the top!
Isn't Bruges beautiful? Oh wait...you can't see it. Here's a better picture, from the ground, that captures some of the charm:
We also got some chocolate while we were there, and it was delicious. Belgian chocolate, waffles, and beer all lived up to their reputations, in my opinion.
The next day was New Year's Eve! We took an early train to Paris. But this post is already long enough, so that will have to wait til another time...
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