Beauty Ever Ancient, Ever New

The Holy Land, part 3

2010-11-08T16:23:00.006+01:00

Well, as I mentioned at the end of my last post, on

Friday

we woke up very early and were out the door by about 6, I believe. Why so early? We went to a 6:45 am mass in the Holy Sepulchre, up on Calvary, in the chapel right next to the site of the crucifixion. Definitely worth getting up early for. It was a beautiful mass--in Latin, and mostly sung. I think knowing a little bit of Italian has helped my Latin skills, because I could actually get the gist of the readings (well...at least the Gospel, as always). Continuing on my theme on the Eucharist from the other day, during mass I was reflecting on how the Eucharist contains the entirety of the Passion. It's a sacrifice, the re-presentation of Christ giving up His life on the cross (about 20 feet away), but it's also the Resurrection. It's our glorious, risen, triumphant Lord! All of that...all of that in that humble piece of bread.

After mass, we were going to go down into the tomb (because we didn't have time on Monday), so we went and got in line. Almost immediately, though, someone came through saying it was closing for a few hours so they could clean the floor. So we ended up with some extra waiting time, which actually fit quite well into our mini celebration of the Triduum that day. Can't skip out on the vigil of Holy Saturday--we literally got to keep watch by the tomb. And I'm really glad we did, it was a very fruitful time of prayer. We prayed a rosary and a Divine Mercy Chaplet together. The Divine Mercy Chaplet was especially good. One time I heard someone describe the DMC as an opportunity for us to call down God's mercy into the world, to cover all our failings and shortcomings. That phrase has always stuck with me, and I was reminded of it again especially during this time. Calling down God's mercy--we were soaking in it, at its source. The blood and water flow from the cross to the rest of the world. It was another powerful experience of being aware of the presence of grace.

So I started out thinking mostly about the cross, and sacrifice, but then sometime during those few hours my focus started shifting more towards the Resurrection. I read the Scripture accounts of it, thought about the women coming to the tomb, thought about Peter and John's footrace (I love how John's subtle competitiveness comes out), and Easter songs even started running through my head.

When they opened the line back up, we were very near the front, so didn't have to wait long at all before we got to go into the actual little room with the rock slab (it was cool to think that that's where the Shroud was, too, since I got to see that last April). We could only stay there a few moments...but as it should be, right? The apostles didn't stay long either, before the angel told them to get out of there and spread the good news. And that is my commission also, especially now that I have seen with my own eyes the empty tomb. He is risen indeed! Alleluia.

After that, let's see...we ate lunch (pita, hummus, falafel, etc), and then went to the church of St. Anne, which also includes the birthplace of Mary. I of course prayed for you there, Mom!

A statue of St. Anne and Mary that was in the church

Right outside that church are the healing pools where people would come and get in the water when it swirled up and all that. AND, that church is the start of the Via Dolorosa, aka the way of the cross. So we walked and prayed the stations of the cross. Those are one of the things that are less-than-historical...there's no record of them until the Crusades, and the route has changed a few times since then. But it was good to have a place to be reminded of the events, and they did happen in Jerusalem.

After that, we had a little free time to walk around. A few of us climbed up a tower at a Lutheran church, for another sweet view of the city.

Here's where Jesus played basketball.

Oh, and here's the Holy Sepulchre--the largest dome is built over the tomb.

We then went to Vespers at an Armenian Orthodox church. St. James is buried in that church. (Most of him. The rest is in Spain, at Santiago de Compostela, where the Pope was over the weekend! His head is in one place and his body is in the other, but I can't remember which is which).

The church also has cool secret passages built in. I'm definitely putting those in any churches I might design in the future.

Anyway, that made me think that St. James, and all the other apostles and saints who are venerated by both the Catholics and the Orthodox, are the best ones to ask for prayers for unification of the Churches--I'm sure they want it. And they know real Truth, so they'll help lead us to it. (Similarly, whenever I see a Protestant Church dedicated to St. Paul or some other saint, I first wonder how they feel about it, and then know that they're praying for that church to come to a fuller Truth, and it's kind of nice to know it's under such good care...anyway). An Armenian Orthodox man met with us after Vespers and told us a little bit about how much the Armenian Church suffered during 20th century persecutions, and how the number of Christians in general in the Holy Land is dwindling. He said they have hope, though...hope that the West will not abandon them, that Europe and the U.S. will come to their aid. That was quite convicting. I don't know enough about foreign policy to know what all we're doing about those things, but I bet it's not enough in the eyes of the people over there.

After a rather sobering end to the afternoon, we headed back for our last evening at Tantur. They cooked a special meal for us, which was delicious--especially the apple pie. A nice American touch, to ease the transition back, maybe? :-)

Saturday

We got to sleep in a little on Saturday morning, and then headed back to Bethlehem for lunch in a nice family owned restaurant. Home made fresh pita bread=the best we had on the whole trip, I think. A young Palenstinian lady came to talk with us while we were eating. She told us a little more about the political situation, and how hard it is for Palestinians to get permits to come to Israel (she doesn't have one). Also, fun fact: her family owns and runs a brewery in Palestine that accounts for 20% of the national economy.

After lunch, we headed back to Jerusalem one last time, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre yet again. This time we were meeting with Fr. Fergus, a Franciscan who's basically in charge of the Catholic part of the Holy Sepulchre (different religions have "custody" of different parts. The Greek Orthodox have the tomb, for instance, which is why the mass we went to on Friday wasn't there). Fr. Fergus was awesome. He showed us around to some parts of the church we normally wouldn't be able to go to, like a place where some of the rock is exposed that's part of the same hill the tomb is carved out of, and we actually got to touch it! He also kept emphasizing again and again that "it's the Resurrection"--don't get caught up in the politics of everything, remember why we really came. The Resurrection, the most important event is human history, happened here. He also said that in a way it's good that things are so crowded and crazy, that fires and earthquakes have damaged the structure of the tomb so it's not very pretty (true), because we're not supposed to want to stay there. We're supposed to leave, to go out and bring this all home with us. It was a perfect thing to hear on our last afternoon.

And then we did head out...our flight was later that night from Tel-Aviv. We flew back through Atlanta and finally arrived back in South Bend at about 11 am on Sunday.

I'm so thankful that I got to go on this trip--it was incredible and so grace-filled, in ways that I'm still realizing. Baruch Hashem! (Hebrew for, Praise His Name)!

The Holy Land, part 2

2010-11-05T04:25:00.005+01:00

Picking up where I left off from the last post...

Tuesday

On Tuesday we went back into Jerusalem. We went first to the Ecole Biblique, a Dominican run French school for Biblical studies. Pre-requisite: proficiency in French, Hebrew, and Greek, and they only give out doctorates. Looks like I have a little ways to go before that becomes a post-grad option...anyway, another really cool thing about the Ecole is that it's located at the place where St. Stephen was martyred. There's a really beautiful church there. We went there to meet Fr. Gregory, a Dominican, who then showed us around for the day.

Here's the exterior, and the courtyard where the stoning happened.

And a portion of the way awesome interior.

We walked from the Ecole to the Mount of Olives, and then up it, which was quite a hike! For orientation: the Temple Mount is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. So from west to east, it goes: Jerusalem, Temple Mount, Kidron Valley, Mount of Olives, and then the town of Bethany is on the east side of the Mount of Olives (that's where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived, and where Jesus would stay when he came to Jerusalem for feasts and things. During those times he hiked regularly up and down the Mount of Olives. What a stud).

So anyway, there are quite a few things to see on the Mount of Olives. We started at the top, at the mosque of the Ascension. Yep, it's a mosque. But they very graciously let Christians celebrate mass there a few times a year.

Next we saw the site of the Pater Nostre, aka the Our Father. That's supposedly the place where Jesus gave the Our Father to his disciples. However, I was a little confused about that because I thought it was during, or right after, the Sermon on the Mount, which happened in Galilee. But anyway, the area was really cool. It was essentially a big courtyard surrounded by walls that had large tile plaques with the Our Father written in every language you could think of. There was also a small area to go down and see the rocks that were the actual spot where Jesus prayed the prayer.

Laura, Chris, and I all studied in Rome at the same time last year, so naturally we had to pose with the Italian version.

Continuing down the hill, we came next to the church of Dominus Flavit, which means, the Lord wept. When Jesus came to Jerusalem for His passion, He sent the disciples ahead while He stayed on the Mount of Olives. He looked out over Jerusalem and wept for it, for the sins of its people. The view from this spot does lend itself very well to contemplation of the city. It was quite moving for me to sit in that same place and also look out over Jerusalem. I found myself wondering what Jesus would think of it now. (Actually my immediate thought was, "he's still weeping", because of all the struggle and controversy and suffering). But there's something different about Jerusalem now than there was back then. The Dome of the Rock is the most noticeable feature of the skyline, and is a symbol of that tension and discord in the city. But at a closer look, tucked behind and almost hidden, the dome of the Holy Sepulchre is visible too, and that changes everything. It's the hidden hope of the city and of the world; a promise that weeping will not last forever. Like I said, it was really beautiful to look with the Lord for a few moments.

Here's the view that I saw...

The next stop was the garden of Gethsemane. There's a church built over the rock that Jesus prayed on. It was really powerful to be there also, just to be there and keep vigil with Him. Unfortunately we couldn't do that for very long, because the church closed for siesta (or riposta, or whatever the Hebrew word for it is...) shortly after we got there.

The last place we visited on the Mount of Olives was the tomb of Mary. What? Tomb of Mary? Wasn't she assumed? You might be thinking...and actually, it reminded me of the first day of my Mariology class sophomore year. My professor gave us a little quiz just to see what we already knew, and one of the questions was, where is the tomb of Mary located? I thought it was trick question:-) Anyway, in the course of that class I learned about the theory of the Dormition of Mary, that she chose to die because she wouldn't want to escape something that her son had gone through. That class pretty much convinced me of that theory, actually. (But the Church doesn't say for sure one way or the other). And while we were at the tomb, I think we were all subscribing to it.

This is the valley south of Jerusalem--the name translates to the Valley of the Cheesemakers. I thought that was hilarious, and if you've seen Life of Brian you'll know why. It gives a whole new meaning to it, in fact.

Anyway, after seeing all those things, we booked it through the city back to near the Holy Sepulchre, so that we could meet with the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilus. Beforehand, we also talked to a Greek Orthodox archbishop. This is when we heard, as I mentioned at the beginning of the first post, that "this is the place" where God chose to reveal Himself in history. He also told us that a pilgrimage has two purposes: to increase knowledge and to increase sanctification. Pretty awesome. Our audience with the patriarch was quite interesting. Like Fr. Lazarus, he told us some things he thought were wrong with the Catholic Church. Some of what he had to say, though, showed a misunderstanding of what the Church really believes. That's kind of disheartening, to know that the leader of the Orthodox Church doesn't truly understand Catholicism--because then how can we ever have a reunion? But after he said all these things, he also gave us keychains and posters, so I guess it turned out alright:-)

We ate a very late lunch after that, and then...I think I mispoke in my last post. I described going to the Syrian Church with the Upper Room on Monday, but I think it actually happened on Tuesday...I think we went there after eating that late lunch. Everything that I said before still applies, so just copy-paste it in your head to right now...:-) And I apologize.

Anyway, after that it was back to Tantur to eat, discuss, pray, hang out, and sleep.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we headed up north to Galilee. On the way, we drove through Jericho and stopped in the Judean desert, which is the one that Jesus went into to pray for 40 days and 40 nights, and where the devil tempted Him.

Some of those heights might have been the ones where Jesus stood!

Also on the way, we went to the top of Mt. Tabor, which is where the Transfiguration happened. The church up there is Franciscan, so nice and Western-looking.

The late-afternoon lighting was gorgeous.

I think my favorite part of the church layout was that immediately off to either side when you walk in the door are 2 chapels, one dedicated to Elijah and one to Moses. A nice touch. I really like the Transfiguration. I often tend to focus on seeing the Lord in everyday life, and sanctifying the ordinary, etc, so it's good to be reminded of His outright majesty and glory. We usually see Him veiled and hidden, even in the Eucharist, but someday we will see Him face to face. And since it was up on a mountain, the view from near the church was pretty awesome. Also awesome was the fact that there was an Italian cafe up there, in the giftshop. It reminded me of the cafe on top of St. Peters:-) It was dusk by the time we were ready to come down the mountain (but come down we must--no tents for us), and we decided to walk the path down instead of waiting for the shuttle.

We then had a short bus ride to our hotel in Tiberius, which happened to overlook the Sea of Galilee. We ate dinner close to it, too, and then hopped a fence to go down and wade in it. There is so much holiness connected to that water, and I felt it all while we were there. That's the water that Peter fished in, Jesus walked on, the storms were calmed on, Peter recklessly jumped in, etc...SO many awesome stories. I loved it so much, in fact, that I woke up quite early on

Thursday

to watch the sun rise over the water.

It struck that that's the SAME SUN that Jesus saw rising over it also. The water's not exactly the same, different molecules and all that, but the sun is the exact same one. I then went back and hopped the fence again and went swimming. I didn't stay long, because we had the opportunity to go to mass that morning before breakfast. The place where we were staying was run by a French Catholic group, and there was a priest there. That was a great blessing. I find I really do miss daily mass when I can't go. So, mass, breakfast, and then we left for the sightseeing of the day.

We visited several churches in the morning--the Church of the Beatitudes, the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, and the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter (when post-Resurrection Jesus ate with the disciples by the sea and then commissioned Peter to "feed my sheep").

Looking out from where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.

My reflections at those churches, the last two in particular, centered mostly on the Eucharist. In the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes, it seemed perfect that there's a tabernacle there now--Jesus continues to provide for us, feeding us with Himself. And then at the Primacy of St. Peter Church, "feed my lambs" took on a Eucharistic meaning that I had never really thought about before (and I can't take total credit--it was pointed out to me by a friend). But anyway, I am one of those sheep that gets fed by Peter (and any priest), when they consecrate the Eucharist. I find that as my love for the Eucharist grows, my love and gratitude for the priesthood deepens also, and this experience inspired some of both.

From there we walked to Capernaum, which is not a functioning town anymore, but more of an archaelogical site. The remains of Peter's mother in law's house and the synagogue where Jesus occasionally preached (such as giving the Bread of Life discourse) are the main things to visit.

The dark stones on the bottom are from the synagogue of Jesus' time.

Next, we drove to Nazareth. On the way, we stopped to wade in the Jordan River. We read from the Bible about Jesus being baptized in the Jordan while we were standing in it--another experience of very tangible grace.

When we got to Nazareth, we ate lunch, then saw the Orthodox church of the Annunciation, and then the Catholic church of the Annunciation. The Orthodox church had a beautiful interior, with gorgeous icons and intricately carved wood detailing. The Catholic church had...interesting architecture. Not my favorite. But the importance of the event totally trumped how the church looked. Fiats and Angeluses (Angeli?) abounded:-) There was also a smaller church close by that commemorated the site of St. Joseph's workshop.

We finally headed back to Tantur for the usual evening routine, being sure to go to bed early, because we got up extremely early the next morning. But that is a story for the next installment...

The Holy Land, part I

2010-11-02T07:05:00.005+01:00

Well, it's been awhile since I've blogged about anything...to quickly summarize what's been going on since then, summer was relaxing, and the new school year has been good too. There you go:-) Now on to the reason I'm writing--I have something a little more exciting to write about again! Over fall break, (the week before last), I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with 9 of my classmates from my Theology class, plus my professor and his wife. It was an incredible trip on many different levels. It was just fun to travel again (I even broke out the ol' framed backpack), it was an opportunity to get to know some of my classmates better that I didn't know very well before, it put us in contact with the complex political situation over there, as well as the possibly even more complex dynamics between all the religious groups with a presence in the Holy Land, and finally (and most importantly), it was a pilgrimage to the important places in Jesus' life, to the places He actually lived (and moved and had his being). In fact, we realized afterwards that we visited 18 of the 20 sites of the mysteries of the rosary, and one that we missed doesn't count because the coronation of Mary happened in Heaven, and that unfortunately wasn't on the itinerary (unless you count mass).
The overall spiritual impact this trip had on me is probably best summed up by these words, which were told to us by one of the Greek orthodox archbishops in Jerusalem: "the Incarnation happened at a specific time and place. And this is the place." He also said that a pilgrimage has two main purposes--to grow in knowledge and sanctification. I hope I did both during the week.
We packed quite a lot into our short amount of time. I'll go through day by day and hope I can remember everything...

Friday
We left South Bend in the afternoon and took an overnight flight to Tel Aviv (through Atlanta). Having pulled an all-nighter the night before, I had no trouble sleeping through the entire thing. It was actually really enjoyable. With the time difference, we got to Israel in the evening on

Saturday
We were staying at a place called Tantur, which is an ecumenical institute owned by Notre Dame. We ate breakfast and dinner there every day. Dinner was in fact the first thing we did after we arrived, then had a short orientation and went to bed.

Sunday
Tantur is located about midway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, on the Israel side of the wall. On Sunday, we walked down the Bethlehem for the day (through the checkpoint). We started by going to mass at a Melkite Church. I really liked the church itself. For some reason when I think eastern Catholic I think of dark, uninviting spaces, but this church was light, open, and very welcoming.

The Church wasn't crooked, just my camera...

The whole service was sung. I was surprised at my inability to follow along. When I go to Roman rite masses, even if they're in a language I don't know I can at least tell what part of the mass we're on, but here I wasn't even sure about that. Anyway, after mass we ate lunch at the church, with another big tour group from France, and then headed off to the Church of the Nativity. That, of course, is the church built over the spot where the cave was that Jesus was born in. Once you go in the Church you can go down underneath to that cave, and venerate the stones where he was laid. The line was very long, so at first we were afraid we wouldn't make it in the time we had, but after convincing one of the guards to let us in a back way, we did. It's difficult to describe what it felt like to be in all those places (this being the first of many of the week), where you can say what you're doing and almost not believe yourself. It's surreal--but at the same time, very real--that's what's so awesome about it. Because of the crowds, once you get to the actual spot you can never stay there very long. There's only time for a few thoughts, a few prayers (and I kind of felt a certain pressure to make sure I made them good ones...but didn't always), but having the memory is huge. The experiences can be brought to mind and reflected on later, and in fact I will probably be doing that for the rest of my life. But anyway, back to the Church of the Nativity. I prayed especially for my family while I was there, because what better place than where the Holy Family started? We also started what became typical of the other sites we visited--reading the Bible stories that took place there while we were there. So awesome.

Here's the spot where Jesus was born, where Mary and Joseph were too, where the shepherds came, etc...

And believe it or not, that wasn't all we did on Sunday--we also took a taxi ride out into the desert, to a monastery called San Saba (or Marsaba). It's a Greek Orthodox monastery, the only one left functioning out of the hundreds that used to be in that desert. One of the monks happens to be from California, and he is kind enough to come talk to English speaking groups that visit. Hearing what he had to say was really interesting. He explained some about the Greek Orthodox Church, and the things they emphasize (communion with God through the heart, not the head, for instance) and also...told us some things they think are wrong about the Catholic Church. I knew they think we split off and all, but hearing it was still kind of surprising and strange.

There it is...blending in with the desert

After that, we made it back to Tantur in time for dinner, and then had our nightly discussion/debriefing of the day. Those were a good chance to discuss lingering questions or just things that had been brought to mind over the course of the day. It was always good to hear what had affected everyone else, and share some experiences with each other.

Monday (only Monday? I've already written so much!)
On Monday we went into Jerusalem for the first time (by bus, not walking). We went first to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The exterior is not particularly impressive, but...

There are several ridiculously important things to see in there--Calvary, so the site of the nailing to the cross and of the crucifixion, right next to each other, the tomb, the anointing slab, and the spot where St. Helen found the True Cross...those are the main ones. We didn't have time to visit all of them on Monday. We did go up to Calvary (literally up--there's a flight of stairs to the right immediately when you walk in the door). We spent a while there. I remember feeling overwhelmed with gratitude, and the line from St. Paul, "we proclaim Christ crucified" kept running through my head.

Here's the site of the crucifixion--you can duck underneath that altar and venerate the rock. Also, you can't really tell, but there's a beautiful image of Our Lady of Sorrows off to the side.

After that, we went briefly down into the cave where St. Helen found the Cross. References to her are everywhere in Jerusalem--churches and chapels named after her, etc...I guess she was pretty important. It also kept reminding me of Rome, because a lot of the things she brought back from the Holy Land ended up there, so I've seen them from the other end. Now I got to see where they came from! Finally, one last thing we saw in the Holy Sepulcher on Monday (we went there several times, so it will keep coming up): there's a spot underneath the site of the crucifixion where you can go in and see the rock of Golgatha, and see how in a certain part there's a definite crack running through the rock...a crack from an earthquake. THE earthquake. So cool. (And fun fact: that chapel is called the chapel of Adam, because of the belief that Adam and Eve were buried underneath the spot of the crucifixion, so when Jesus' blood dripped down it hit them first, and they were then saved. No historical truth to that, but an interesting theological idea).

After all that, it was time for lunch. We went to a rooftop restaurant with a great view of the city, and ate lots of pita and falafel and hummas and schawerma.

Here's the view from the roof--the shiny gold dome is the Dome of the Rock (and no, there's no Mary on top)

The shadows were kind of funky, but anyway, here are most of the girls! From left to right: Katie, Kaitlyn, Lauren, me, Laura, Theresa, and Laura.

Then, we walked through the city and ended up by the Temple Mount. We couldn't actually go up onto it, because it was unexpectedly closed, but just being at the base was awesome anyway.

This is the view approaching from the west

And, of course, the Wailing Wall is there, so we were able to be part of that tradition of leaving prayer intentions in the wall. It was kind of interesting to think about the Temple, the role it had in the past and the role it could possibly have in the future. Obviously it was incredibly important in the Old Testament, and Jesus spent a lot of time there. (And, sacred architecture in the Catholic Church has roots in the design of the Temple. Since it's described in the Bible, we take cues from that--can't argue with Divine Inspiration). But now--now, as Catholics, we don't really need the Temple anymore. We aren't waiting and hoping for a 3rd Temple to be built like the Jews are (they have a menorah ready and everything. Seriously).

Yep, there it is, just waiting...

I was particularly reminded here, though, of the image of heaven as the New Jerusalem, and I think Jesus is the New Temple in that case (hope that's right...and not heresy, haha). The Temple was holy because the presence of God dwelt there. Now the presence of God is present to us in the person of Jesus Christ. And all of this is further complicated by the fact that this spot became important for the Muslims, too, because supposedly it's where Muhammed ascended into Heaven to converse with God. So now the Dome of the Rock is built there, and dominates the Jerusalem skyline.

In the late afternoon, we went to vespers at a Syrian Orthodox Church. It was all sung by 3 (priests? monks? not sure what to call them...). Afterwards, a very sweet lady talked to us about some of the miracles she's witnessed in that church, and also sang the Our Father for us in Aramaic, the language Jesus would have prayed it in. That church also happened to be the site of the Orthodox Upper Room, of Last Supper and Pentecost fame. I say "Orthodox" because there's also a Latin Upper Room, in a different location...so that made it a little strange. It might have been the place, but not for sure, but it did have to happen somewhere, and if not there then somewhere close by. There's also an icon of Our Lady in the church that was supposedly painted by St. Luke.

When we finished praying in the Church it was time to head back to Tantur on the bus. We finished the day with our typical evening--dinner, discussion, prayer (I forgot to mention before--we prayed Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours altogether every night, I really enjoyed that), fellowship, and bed.

Well, this is definitely going to have to come in installments...and this is a good place for the end of part I. So, to be continued!

Il mio ultimo giorno di Roma

2010-05-15T18:00:00.000+02:00

This post is a bit overdue, seeing as how my last day in Rome was about two weeks ago. But I think I'll write about it anyway.

I started the day by going for a run along the river. I stopped in a church along the way, the church of Divine Mercy. I had gone to mass there a few weeks ago, but stood outside, and I wanted to actually go in the church. It's right by St. Peter's, so I saw that along my run, too. Time #1 of seeing St. Peter's that day.

For the rest of the morning and early afternoon, I cleaned up my desk and did a little last minute packing. I took a break to go sit by the Pantheon for a while and soak in some sun and some Rome, and also Pino made us a ton of pasta for lunch.

At 3, I went to mass at S. Maria Sopra Minerva. It was the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, and she's buried in that church. Most of her, anyway...her head is in Siena. But anyway, that mass was organized by the Angelicum, and so in English! That meant that my last Italian mass had been the day before, but even so, this was a really good last mass. St. Catherine is a doctor of the Church and one of the patron saints of Italy. She had a great love for the Church in general, and wasn't shy about telling the Pope when to straighten out, like that he needed to go back and live in Rome again. It seemed fitting to celebrate her feast on my last day in Italy. After mass, I got to pray right next to her tomb, and I asked for her prayers that I could keep loving the Church just as much as she did, even when I was back in America...because of course it's the same Church.

After mass, I got to spend some time with my friend Christopher. I went with him to buy an Italian breviary from a nearby store, and then we walked to Old Bridge, one of our favorite gelato places. It's up by the Vatican...so time #2 of seeing St. Peter's. And actually, on my way back, I saw something I'd never seen in Rome before--St. Peter's Square was full of cars! It looked like a parking lot. There were several tour buses, and people walking around in suits and ties, too. Never quite figured that one out...

Anyway, after that I went to dinner with a bunch of the archies at one of our favorite restaurants. We all got our favorite kinds of pasta (lots of "favorites" happened that day). After dinner, we ended up walking back to Old Bridge (I didn't get anything this time around), and sat in St. Peter's for awhile. Time #3 for the day. I think that was a record:-)

By that time, it was about 11 pm. We spent awhile just walking around the city, and stopped in a couple of our favorite Irish pubs. I went back to the hotel and took a short nap, and got up in time to walk to the Campidoglio to watch the sun rise over the Forum. It was beautiful! And the through struck me that that same scene has been happening for thousands of years, literally. And it will continue to, each and every morning, even when I'm not there to see it. I guess it's comforting to know that Rome isn't going anywhere. Someday, if I get the chance to go back, it'll be there. But I didn't want to spend too much time already wishing I were coming back, and instead tried to just be thankful for all the time I've already had.

Arrivederci, Roma!

After sunrise, we had one last cappuccino, got on the bus, and went to the airport...and about 20 hours of traveling later, I was home in St. Louis!

Best part of coming home: seeing my family right away, of course. Second best part: the sign my mom made for me that said "Benvenuto a Homa!"

I'm not done yet processing and reflecting on the year...perhaps I'll post more of my musings throughout the summer. For now, I'm actually getting ready to do a bit more traveling--I'm flying out to Colorado for a week to attend the Augustine Institute College Student Summit! Life goes on:-)

Pisa, Turin...and some last things

2010-04-28T09:08:00.005+02:00

Last Thursday and Friday were final reviews. They went pretty well. After that, I had a theology paper to write, a history exam Tuesday, and a theology oral exam this morning. The way things were spaced meant we had Saturday, Sunday, and Monday free (except for writing and studying), so of course, the best use of my time was to travel one more time. This was a trip I had been planning on going on probably since about last year at this time, or whenever I found out that the Shroud of Turin was going to be on display April and May of this year. That's where we went--Turin! And we stopped in Pisa on the way.

Pisa was cool--one of those places I felt like I should see if I lived in Italy for a year. Of course everyone knows what the main attraction is. And even though I knew coming in, it's still a shock to see that tower for the first time. It's really leaning. More than I expected, I think.

We only spent about 3 hours in Pisa, but that was enough time to go in the cathedral and pray for a bit, look at the baptistery from the outside, browse the giftshop (they sell coffee cups, regular cups, and wine glasses that are leaning over, it's pretty funny), take touristy photos, enjoy the beautiful sunshine, climb up the tower, and make it back to the train.

This shows the lean pretty well.

It feels sturdy up there, even though you can definitely tell sometimes you're walking uphill and sometimes downhill...

We had to:-)

From there, we headed up to Turin, aka Torino. You might recognize the Italian name from when the Olympics were there in '06. I remember they always flashed that across the screen and it took me awhile to realize that was the same thing as Turin. Anyway, we got in around 9:30. It was just my roommate Katie (a different Katie than the one I traveled with all of Christmas break) and I at this point. Matthew had come with us to Pisa but then gone back to Rome. Through an unfortunate series of last minute events, we got to Turin without a place to stay for the night. That was a bit unsettling, but luckily we were able to find a fairly cheap hotel not too far away from the duomo.

We woke up early on Monday morning, because our appointment to see the Shroud was at 8 am. Before you go in to see the actual thing, they show you a video that highlights the markings on the Shroud and explains what each of them are. Then you file in to the church and in front of the Shroud. On the way, we passed the tomb of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. I was almost as excited about seeing that as I was about seeing the Shroud. He's one of my favorites, probably on about the same level as St. Josemaria Escriva. So to get to see both of them, in a span of about 2 weeks...unbelievable. And if you want to know more about Pier Giorgio, just ask me, I love talking about him:-)

Anyway, the Shroud itself was a little different than I expected, I guess. Mostly I was surprised by how clean it was. We couldn't stand in front of it very long, but from thinking about it then and throughout the rest of the day, I think one of the things that was most moving was thinking about all the other people that have been in the same Shroud's presence, starting with Mary. We don't have many relics of her...but she was there when Jesus was wrapped in that cloth. And the women saw it laying discarded in the tomb on Easter morning. And many popes and saints have made pilgrimages to see it over the years, including St. Charles Borromeo, who's been popping up in my life a lot recently...(for instance, I just learned that he wrote a document after the Council of Trent outlining how churches should be built to be theologically accurate, and that was the basis for church architecture until about the 1960s. That's pretty cool. He's one of my patron saints, so maybe he's been nudging me towards sacred architecture all along, haha).

We spent the rest of the day in Turin walking around, visiting other churches, including one where Pier Giorgio had his first reconciliation, and also going to a museum about the Shroud. I learned some interesting stuff. They explained about all the markings on it--there are two types, one that's blood stains, and one that's something else. The blood stains show through on both sides of the cloth, but the other kind doesn't show up on the reverse side. The blood is type AB, which matches the blood of all the Eucharistic miracles that have been tested. Also, using computer technology, they created a 3D hologram of exactly what the body looks like based on the markings. So I think I saw what Jesus looked like. And they never say specifically, This Is Real. But all the evidence sure points to it.

We left in the late afternoon, and got back to Rome at about 9:30. Now I've been finishing up some last things...packing, visiting places I've always wanted to go, and some places for one last time...I leave on Friday. It's very bittersweet. More bitter at the moment. I'm very thankful for the time I've had here, and I guess it's time for a new part of my life to start. It might be a quieter section than this one, but those are necessary too. Like in a piece of music, it has different movements, and they have to be taken together to get the full effect of each of them. I was sad to leave the U.S. at the beginning of the year, but in retrospect I shouldn't have been quite as much, because I get to go back, and the 8 months doesn't seem so long after all. I'm sad now...and I don't know when, if ever, I'll return to Rome. I guess it just goes to show that I have a bad sense of timing, and the Lord knows much better than I when things should happen. His will is very clear in this case--I'm supposed to go back to America on Friday. His timing worked out at the beginning of the year, and I should trust that it's right this time (pun intended) too. Yesterday I was praying in the church of S. Luigi, one of those ones I've been meaning to go to for awhile, and I realized how fitting that was. I was able to ask St. Louis for some help in my transition back to St. Louis. And the thought struck me that I am not Italian. I am American (and so can you). That's where God has placed me. He brought me here to Rome this year as a beautiful gift and growing experience, but I can't stay here permanently. For one thing, I would need to learn the language a lot better:-)

People at home, don't think this means I'm not excited to see you! I am! But, like a line from a poem they gave us at the end of MSA says, "my heart now has two homes." Or in my case, maybe three or four. Anyway, I guess I'm just incredibly blessed. To have had so many amazing experiences this year, and to have such good things to come back to too. More processing and reflecting on this topic is definitely necessary.

Well before I get too nostalgic for Rome before I even leave...right now I'm going to head to St. Peter's to see the Pope again! One more Papal blessing will be nice:-) Pray for me this week!

Pilgrimage Day in Rome

2010-04-18T12:58:00.005+02:00

Yesterday my friend Chris and I went on a pilgrimage...to see some sights in Rome! We started by going to the prelature church of Opus Dei in Rome, S. Maria della Pace (but not the one by Piazza Navona, this one is up just north of Villa Borghese).

The church (which is more like a chapel) is in this building...it took us a while to figure out where to go, as it doesn't exactly LOOK like a church.

Anyway, why there? Because S. Josemaria Escriva is buried there! He's one of my favorite saints, and has been pretty influential in my spiritual life in the past year...so it was HUGE to get to go pray by his tomb (actually, his casket is behind glass, under the altar in the church, so I don't know if "tomb" is really the right word, but I don't know what else to call it). I was actually just thinking a few days ago that at this time last year, I didn't know much about him at all, just that my brother Steve would often tell me about things he had written in one of his 3 books The Way, Furrow, or Forge. I borrowed The Way from him last summer, mostly because its compact pocket-size size was handy to carry around in my Totus Tuus bag, and somehow I ended up with both The Way and Furrow here in Rome, probably for the same reason (Steve, I promise I'll give them back when I get home! Possibly after I buy my own copies, ha...). His writings talk a lot about having a strong interior life while living and working in the world, and how sanctity can come through ordinary work. He gives pretty straightforward advice and doesn't really beat around the bush. His thoughts are organized into short points that are pretty easy to remember, so when one catches your heart you can keep it in mind all day. And he was so recent--he was practically living in the same world we are today. And he was able to be holy, and he's a saint...so why can't we too? Actually, he talks about that himself: "saints are not abnormal cases to be studied by a modernistic doctor. They were--they are--normal, with flesh like yours. And they conquered" (The Way #133). That seemed very real to me yesterday. He probably also wins the award of "only saint to talk about alarm clocks in relation to the spiritual life"...:-)

After praying there for awhile, and getting to go to mass there too, we walked to St. Peters and climbed up the dome! That's one of those things we always figured we'd do "at some point" throughout the year...and it's definitely time to start doing all of those things. And it was an awesome experience! One of the coolest parts is walking around the neck of the dome inside the church. You can see just how huge the letters of the inscriptions in the frieze are (6 ft. high), and looking down on the church from above gives a new perspective (literally) on how enormous it is. The baldacchino is waaay below you, whereas from the ground it seems to go up forever. So in between the ground and the dome, there is clearly quite a lot of space.

Looking down on the apse--that's the cathedra petri and dove window way down there.

And of course, being outside on the cupola was pretty cool too. There were some good views of the piazza below and the Vatican gardens behind.

A cool aerial shot taken by a creative English-speaking tourist.

Looking down the side of the dome.

You can also go out onto the roof of the church. You can get pretty close to the statues that line the top of the facade, and from up there they look kind of goofy. They're out of proportion so that they look right from below--my friend Evan described them as looking like Lego people.

They're also pretty big, as you can see with me as a scale figure.

Looking back at the dome.

Chris and I prayed Morning Prayer up there (even though it was 3:30--we decided we were just doing it on American time), and also got cappuccinos from the bar on the roof. Seriously. I mean, it's not actually in the church, so it's ok, right? Haha.

This is probably where the Pope goes after the Easter Vigil.

After those two very exciting events, we finished off the day in truly Roman style--pizza and gelato. It was a great day!

In other news, I turned 21 last week, and Pope Benedict turned 83 (on the same day)! Unfortunately, we didn't have a joint party. But my birthday has actually been elevated to quite the feast this year--we celebrated the vigil the night before by going to Hard Rock Cafe and eating cake, we went to an Irish pub for awhile the night of my actual birthday, and apparently there's a package for me on its way from St. Louis that should arrive somewhere near the end of the octave:-) Haha. But in all seriousness, it was great to get to celebrate with my friends here in Rome, and thanks to everyone at home for your thoughts and prayers!

Now it's final project time...and also final two weeks in Rome time. So life will be pretty busy from here on out, trying to fit in all the work and all the fun and sightseeing that still have to be done!

Assisi

2010-04-11T14:02:00.002+02:00

Yesterday several other archies and I took a day-trip to Assisi! One of the seminarians from the NAC helped organized it. Assisi is a beautiful, fairly typical Italian hill town, famous, of course, for Sts. Francis and Clare of Assisi. We had beautiful weather all day, too, which made it even better. And the first thing I thought when I got there was "I immediately recognize why St. Francis saw the presence of God so clearly in nature", because the geography around Assisi is breathtaking--green fields and mountains.

Anyway, we hopped on a train early in the morning, and got to Assisi in time for mass at the Basilica of S. Francesco at 11. We all went to mass together, and then sort of split up and people went off to do different things and explore the city. I stayed in the church for awhile and prayed by St. Francis' tomb. And what would a blog post about a pilgrimage like this be without a description of some of the things I reflected on while I was there? :-)

So, I was thinking about how the Franciscans and Dominicans are kind of complimentary orders, and the simplification I've heard before is "Dominicans are the head, and Franciscans are the heart" of the Church. Usually I'm more drawn to the Dominicans; to the intellectual side of faith and an emphasis on Truth. But I realized yesterday that St. Francis certainly didn't have any less Truth than St. Dominic. He appealed to people's hearts, but with true Charity, not just emotions. And it worked, and is still working, as evidenced by the massive amounts of pilgrims who come to Assisi to see him. And I think St. Francis was such an effective witness because he was charismatic and he appealed to people--but then he had something of substance to offer once they were drawn in. And that was his radical casting off of the world and embracement of poverty. His life really DID witness the Gospel, like that overused quote that's attributed to him, "Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words." (Lately when I've heard people use that quote that to make a point, the point is usually--words are necessary! Switching around the cliche a little, haha.)

Anyway, after eating lunch and gelato with a few of the archies, I spent the afternoon...visiting more churches, of course. I think my favorite was one called S. Damiano. It was a short walk outside the city, and built on the spot where St. Francis wrote the Canticle of Creatures and heard the Lord speaking to him from a crucifix. Later, St. Clare had her convent there, too. They've moved the original crucifix to the Basilica of S. Chiara, so there's a replacement there now...but it was still pretty incredible to be sitting in a church in the spot where part of St. Francis' conversion happened. I love the story of his conversion, too, because it kind of involves architecture...

What St. Francis heard Jesus tell him was "go and rebuild my church, because it is in ruin". St. Francis took it literally, and went and raised money to restore the church of S. Damiano. He sold a bunch of his father's cloth, and gave the money to the priest at the church. When his father found out, he was a little upset, though, and that's when the big show-down between them occurred that ended with St. Francis taking off all his clothes as a symbol of renouncing his old life. He then put on a simple tunic, which I saw in a chapel of relics. (It also included the original rule of the Franciscans, a letter St. Francis had written, his breviary, his shoes, and piece of leather he pressed on his stigmata...it was incredible). So anyway, after St. Francis did this reconstruction project for S. Damiano, Jesus spoke to him again and said, basically, "Umm...I meant reform the people of my Church. Nice try." And then St. Francis started the Franciscans, and the rest is history. Or something like that:-)

That distinction between building the church and rebuilding the Church is one that's close to my heart. I've often pondered the same thing myself--I thought about it a lot when I strongly considered switching majors to Theology, for instance. But as of right now, I think I'm trying to do the second through the first, or at least along with doing the first. Seemingly sort of choosing the opposite as St. Francis...but hopefully not really. I'm certainly aware of the need for renewal in the Church, anyway. Especially right now, especially in America. Nuns supporting Obama's health care, "Catholic" reporters calling for the Church to stop suppressing women...yikes, yikes, yikes. Jesus, your Church is in ruin again. But it's so beautiful how the Lord always raises up holy men and women in times of need to BE that renewal. People like St. Francis, back in the Middle Ages (if he's not a patron of New Evangelization, he should be), and people like St. Faustina and the devotion of Divine Mercy now, which is celebrated especially today--Divine Mercy Sunday! As a side note, this morning I went to a special mass at a church dedicated to Divine Mercy here, and I thought it was really cool that one day I could celebrate a saint who's been around for over 500 years, and the next celebrate a saint who was canonized 10 years ago. The Church is still alive! And the Holy Spirit is constantly working in her! And will continue to. And St. Francis' prayer, "Lord, make me an instrument...", was my prayer too.

After that, I visited S. Rufino, the cathedral of Assisi, which has the baptismal font where St. Francis and St. Clare were both baptized. Then I went to S. Chiara, where the body of St. Clare (aka S. Chiara, if you haven't made that connection) is kept, and also has that original crucifix that spoke to St. Francis. There's a kneeler in front of it with a prayer written in a bunch of languages, including English, that I think is maybe a prayer that St. Francis himself said in front of that cross. So...praying it in communion with him was pretty awesome. I said it in English, but also in Italian, since that's the language he would have been using. You know, just so that the words sounded familiar to the Lord:-)

Finally, last church: S. Maria degli Angeli, on the site where St. Francis died. The whole group visited that one together, and then got back on the train to Rome! It was a great day, followed by a good morning this morning, and overall a good end to the Octave of Easter.

Liturgical Adventures Continued

2010-04-08T18:27:00.003+02:00

Buona Pasqua! (aka Happy Easter!) I've had a very exciting week here in Rome, attending 4 Papal Liturgies in 8 days. The first was Palm Sunday, of course, which I already wrote about.

The next was Holy Thursday at St. John Lateran. Although we got there really early, through a badly organized waiting system, we ended up not getting seats...but we were standing in the back of the nave, so still had an ok view. By this time, a lot of people from other Notre Dame study abroad locations had arrived in Rome, and some of them were able to come to mass too. Oh, and also along the lines of seeing people I hadn't in awhile...while at mass I saw a girl who had been in our high school program at one of my Totus Tuus parishes over the summer, and also one of my Young Disciple leaders from the summer before freshman year of college. What a small and wonderful Catholic world:-)

But anyway, mass itself was awesome. I realized partway through why they picked St. John Lateran to have this particular mass in. It was right after the washing of the feet, in which the Pope washed the feet of 12 priests. At first I thought, "Wow! How amazing to have your feet washed by the Pope!" And then I reminded myself how infinitely more incredible and unbelievable it would be to have your feet washed by Jesus Himself...and then I realized that the 12 original feet wash-ees were lining the nave. (For those of you who have not been inside St. John Lateran or can't picture the interior, the dominating feature of the decoration scheme is 12 huge statues of the apostles going down the sides of the church. They were all designed by Borromini.) So then the connections between the Last Supper, the apostles, and the priesthood all kind of clicked, and St. John's seemed like the perfect place to be for that mass.

On Friday early afternoon, I got to go to S. Croce in Gerusalemme and pray in front of some of the relics of the Passion--a piece of the True Cross, nails, thorns, St. Thomas' finger, and the INRI sign, among others. That was part of a tour organized by Notre Dame Campus Ministry for all the ND kids who came to Rome for the weekend, so we had a nice reunion before going to pray, too. It was awesome to see so many people, and kind of crazy that it was happening in ROME. Anyway, Campus Ministry had planned things for all afternoon, but I ducked out after S. Croce and headed to St. Peters to wait in line for the Good Friday service. The weather was gorgeous--sunny and warm. Normally I would be thrilled about that, but not on Good Friday. On Good Friday I always want it to be dark and stormy. But alas, no luck. The service was really good, though. Unfortunately, because of what would no doubt be massive logistical problems, we didn't get to individually venerate the cross like usual. I kind of missed that part, but everything else was just like a normal Good Friday service.

After that, the day still wasn't over--apparently it's a tradition in Rome for the Pope to preside over Stations of the Cross by the Colosseum on Good Friday night. It's a busy week for him! That event was packed, too, because it wasn't ticketed and so anyone and everyone could come. It was actually the only time I prayed Stations of the Cross all Lent, strangely...I guess I'm used to the ease of having them in English every Friday in the basilica on campus. But anyway, I'm really glad I got to that one time. The reflections were in Italian, but they at least announced each station in several languages, including English, so everyone could follow along somewhat.

The next day was Holy Saturday, and I spent all of it at St. Peters. Almost literally. The Easter Vigil started at 9:15; we got there at a little after 1 to wait in line. It sounds crazy, but it wasn't so bad. Good company, more good weather, good books, and a spirit of being in solidarity with the women (and the whole world) who were waiting while Jesus was in the tomb, all made the hours go by quickly. When the doors finally opened, there were moments when I feared I would get crushed and trampled in the crowd of people crushing in--it was absolutely NUTS. But we made it in alive, and got pretty good seats. I ended up sitting by Stephanie, Jessica, John, and Chris. Mass was incredible. It's one of my favorite masses of the year to start with, so being in St. Peter's, with the Pope, with the whole Church (saints and angels included), and with some of my good friends...pretty much unbeatable. The only slight disappointment was they only did 4 of the 7 (I think) Salvation History readings! I couldn't believe it! Out of all places, I expected the Vatican to go all out and do all of them. The Intercessors win that little liturgical contest. So altogether, mass was only a little over 3 hours, which is shorter than I thought it'd be.

John, Steph, Chris, me, and Jessica after mass! Look at all that Easter joy:-)

Afterwards, we met up with some of the archies who had also been at mass, and all went out and got pizza--a good way to start off our Easter celebrations.

I had a great day on Sunday, too. We had a big archie brunch in the morning, and I helped with a little bit of the preparation for that. Then I ran down to St. Peter's (literally) for the Pope's Urbi et Orbi blessing. Unfortunately, the good weather didn't hold, and it was raining off and on all day, very on at that point. I missed the speech beforehand, but made it just in time for the actual blessing. And then I just stood in the piazza for while, watching the rain and soaking in the joy of Easter. (And starting to realize how much I'm going to miss Rome when I leave...in three weeks, eek!). Then later that afternoon, I walked around for a while with Notre Dame people again, and then went to an evening Easter mass, in English this time! My friend Chris was playing the organ, and we sang all the typical awesome Easter hymns--I'm thinking mostly of Jesus Christ is Risen today and Christ the Lord is Risen Today, both personal faves.

One theme that has stuck out a lot to me this year has been that Easter happens in the middle of suffering. The Pope pointed it out in his Urbi et Orbi message, and the priest who celebrated evening mass mentioned it too. The Gospel was the road to Emmaus, and the two disciples were SAD. The women who went to the tomb in the morning were mourning too (pun intended). So the Resurrection doesn't automatically take away suffering, but transforms it and gives us hope. Actually, the Pope says this better than I can; here's the last paragraph of his Easter morning message:

"Dear brothers and sisters, Easter does not work magic. Just as the Israelites found the desert awaiting them on the far side of the Red Sea, so the Church, after the resurrection, always finds history filled with joy and hope, grief and anguish. And yet, this history is changed, it is marked by a new and eternal covenant, it is truly open to the future. For this reason, saved by hope, let us continue our pilgrimage, bearing in our hearts the song that is ancient and yet ever new: “Let us sing to the Lord: glorious his triumph!” "
--Pope Benedict XVI

(And I like that quote because the idea of my blog title is in it! Haha). But seriously. It seems very fitting for the present situation in the Church, too...

After that evening mass, we continued our celebrations by meeting back up with ND people and going to dinner, then getting gelato, then going to an Irish pub. A good end to a good week! And just the start of the Easter season.

He is Risen! Alleluia indeed.

Papal Events: the first of many this week!

2010-03-28T14:50:00.004+02:00

To explain the "many" in the title of this post, here's my schedule for Holy Week: I went to Palm Sunday mass this morning in St. Peter's Square, I'm going to Holy Thursday mass at St. John Lateran, the Good Friday service in St. Peter's Basilica, Stations of the Cross at the Colisseum on Friday night, and of course the Easter Vigil on Saturday night in St. Peter's. Papa Benedetto will be celebrating all of them!

And as if that weren't enough, I also went to a Papal Event last Thursday in St. Peter's Square. It had something to do with World Youth Day. We never quite figured out EXACTLY what it was for, but it was either a sort of send off for Italian youth going to Spain next summer, or a commemoration of the 10 year anniversary of when WYD was in Rome, or a commemoration of the 25 year anniversary of when Pope John Paul II started World Youth Day, or perhaps a combination of all those things. In any case, it was cool. It felt sort of like a rally before the Pope showed up--there were some dancing and singing performances, and lots of Italian youth cheering and holding signs and things. Once the programming started, they showed a lot of videos of Pope John Paul II, from when he announced the first World Youth Day, and from World Youth Day in Rome, I think. And then I remembered that lots of people I know had gone to that, and had stood in that same piazza I was in! We also got some cool free stuff--a hat, a handkerchief, and a candle. So it was a good time all around:-)

And this morning was Palm Sunday mass, also in the piazza. We got there fairly early and got good seats--pretty close to the aisle! While we were waiting for mass to start, we couldn't help but overhear some girls (Americans) who were talking loudly behind us. It was pretty clear they didn't entirely know what was going on--they were wondering if their friends who came earlier had actually gotten seats inside the church, for instance. So at first I was kind of annoyed...but then when mass started, and we all stood eagerly (on our chairs) to see the procession and get a glimpse of the Pope, I realized that that's probably what the first Palm Sunday was like too. The people who ran to the gates of Jerusalem probably didn't all know who Jesus was, they just saw everyone getting excited and knew that was the place to be. And if you're in Rome and have any Catholic knowledge at all, you know that St. Peter's, with the Pope, is the place to be for Holy Week masses. So it was just an authentic re-creation:-)

And actually, it did feel more authentic than usual. We were standing outside, and we really did get excited when the Pope came by. It was easy to imagine doing the same thing for Jesus, instead of the Pope. Picturing myself as part of that crowd from the Gospel leads to harder things, though, because we know the rest of that story--by the end of the week, the palms in their hands had turned to whips and the praise on their lips was mockery and condemnation. If I'm part of the Palm Sunday crowd, then I'm part of that crowd too. And of course I am; I'm a sinner. But I guess it just made me desire to offer the Lord authentic praise. To be able to worship Him as He deserves without later continuing to sin. I'm not at that point yet...but someday. It's also tempting to stand in the crowd and call out to Jesus to stop, to stay and spend time with us, instead of just passing by. But that's what Jesus rebuked Peter for once--for suggesting He do something other than the suffering He knew He had to. So we watch Jesus ride by. And now the stage is set for Holy Week--Jesus is here; our salvation is coming. Those were more of my thoughts during mass...:-)

And besides all that, it was a sweet mass. The weather was gorgeous, we got to hold olive branches, most of it was sung (including the long Passion Gospel--woohoo!)...it was good start to what looks like will be a very good Holy Week.

At the beginning of mass, there was a procession from the altar in front back to the obelisk, where the blessing of the palms and the first Gospel reading happened. Our seats were on the way, so I tried to get a good picture of the Pope...but as you can see, my timing was a little off. Luckily, they processed back up for the rest of mass, so I had another chance!

...which I screwed up again:-) But this one's a little better! And you can tell how close we were, anyway.

Maratona di Roma

2010-03-28T13:51:00.005+02:00

Last Sunday, a group of 6 of us archies, plus Evan's dad, ran in the Rome marathon! It was a crazy experience. We only trained for 8 weeks, and I personally had to take a week off to prevent a slight injury from becoming worse, so I didn't QUITE feel prepared when I got up to the starting line. (I mean, when I got up to way way behind the starting line, which is where I started the race. When there are 18,000+ people running, not everyone gets a good spot). But when we finally started, my nerves went away pretty quickly--by at least the first 5K mark, ha.

Since I've never run a marathon in the U.S, I can't compare the set up of those to this one, but I thought it was organized pretty well. There was a "refreshment station" at every 5K mark, with water, gatorade, and solids later on in the race, and between all the refreshment stations there were "sponge stations". Those are just what they sound like--they hand you a sponge soaked in cold water. It felt amazing. Having something to look forward to every 2 or 3 kilometers really helped make the distance feel shorter, I think. It also helped that we were running in familiar locations, and could check off the landmarks as we passed them: the Colosseum, St. Paul's, St. Peter's, etc.

The other thing that helped keep us going was all the other people! You were never running alone; there were always lots of other runners around, suffering just as much as you were:-) And there were always people there cheering, too. In fact, a bunch of the other archies made signs for us and came and cheered at different points along the course!

So, while the marathon was definitely hard, and definitely long, I felt better during it than I did during my 18 mile run in Sicily a few weeks ago. During that run, I was by myself, I didn't really have enough food and water, and the sun was beating down on me for most of the time (I forgot to mention that the weather for the marathon was almost perfect--overcast and 60s), and by the end I felt like I didn't really have the ability to move my legs anymore...

So I was thinking about this contrast while I was running, and it occured to me that St. Escriva and St. Louis de Montfort would apply this to faith by saying that running alone in the heat without water is like going at the spiritual life completely alone--it's possible to make progress, but HARD. On the other hand, running an organized marathon with lots of other people and people on hand to make it as comfortable for you as possible, and cheer you on--that's like life with Mary and the communion of saints. When you get tired or start to falter, Mary's right there with whatever you need (probably a sponge), and the communion of saints is standing around holding signs and cheering for you. You're still doing the actual running yourself; you take every step of those 26 miles (or 42 kilometers)...but you have a little help along the way.

And not only did I have time to come up with things like that, I also prayed all 4 sets of mysteries of the rosary! It's amazing what you can do with that much time on your hands. 4 hours, 38 minutes, and 32 seconds, to be exact, because that's how long it took me to finish. My goal was to finish, and my secret time goal was under 5 hours, so I was pretty happy about it.

What I didn't realize til afterwards was just how sore I'd be--I couldn't walk down stairs without fairly excruciating pain for about 2 1/2 days. But it's all gone now, and I'll be ready to start training for next one any day now. Just kidding! I'll probably take it easy for a little while. Maybe.

Finally, thank you to all of you who were thinking of and praying for me during the race! I was definitely relying on those prayers. And I probably prayed for you at some point, too--like I said, I had a lot of time:-)

Here are some of us post-race: Gina, me, Evan, Evan's dad, and Courtney. I'm wearing my complimentary backpack and we're holding our finisher medals!

Greece

2010-03-22T13:29:00.006+01:00

Picking up where I left off last time, (now that you've had plenty of time to read, re-read, and reflect on all my adventures in Sicily), the day after we got back from Sicily I left for Greece! We (myself, Evan, Rebecca, and Chris) got into Athens in the evening. We met up with 3 other archie girls who had gotten there earlier in the day and all went to dinner. I tried a typical Greek dish called "moussaka", which has layers of potatoes, eggplant, meat, and melted cheese on top. It was really good! The restaurant we went to had a great view of the acropolis, too, so that was pretty cool. After dinner, we played cards back at our hostel and went to bed.

The next day was Sunday, so we found a mass to go to--well, the girl at the hostel desk found it, actually. But anyway, it was a Roman Catholic service, but in Greek! I recognized some words, like the kyrie, and "amen", and I think I caught a "Petros" in the Gospel...anyway, it was a really cool liturgy. Very solemn, and they used a lot of incense (a little Greek influence, no doubt), and it was well attended. After that, we walked around for a little while and saw the Athen's flee market, went near the acropolis but didn't go all the way up into it, and saw the ancient Olympic stadium. Oh, and for lunch we had gyros, our first of many. They're cheap, sold all over the place, and really good!

Me, Courtney, and Evan--future marathon runners!--in front of the Olympic Stadium

On Sunday afternoon, we caught a bus to a town up north called Kalambaka. We had a little difficulty finding the bus station, but after that everything went smoothly. We were traveling both north and up into the mountains, both possible reasons for what we unexpectedly encountered on the drive there: snow! Lots of it. We got into Kalambaka pretty late, around 11 pm, and were surprised to find that the owner of our hostel was waiting there to show us the way to the hostel! This hostel was amazing, too--definitely my favorite out of all the ones I've stayed in this year. It felt more like a ski lodge than a hostel. We had two rooms to ourselves, one for the girls and one for the guys, and each had its own bathroom. We also had a lounge with a fireplace!

The Alsos House, our hostel

Now, why did we want to visit a tiny town called Kalambaka? Well, because it's right next to an area called Meteora. Meteora is made up of giant rocks coming out of the ground with monasteries built on top of them.

One of the giant rocks

There are trails connecting all the monasteries that you can hike on. We spent the next day doing that (in the snow! It was crazy).

Evan and I

Me, Chris, and Rebecca. We weren't prepared for snow at all, so we're all wearing our tennis shoes (not waterproof) and basically all the layers we packed.

Some of the monasteries are open to visitors, so we got to go in them and even met an English speaking monk in one of them who explained some of the beautiful frescoes in the chapel to us.

No pantaloons for the ladies...

The sign says "Great are wonderful are Thy deeds O Lord God the Almighty! Who shall not fear and glorify Thy name, O Lord?"

There was almost a disaster on the way down, but luckily I managed to avert it.

After a full day of hiking, it felt really good to come back into town, sit down to a hot meal, and then relax and play cards again in the hostel that night.

The next day (Tuesday by now) we spent the morning in Meteora and then took the bus back to Athens that afternoon.

On Wednesday morning we left Athens again, this time on a ferry to one of the islands, San Torini! The ferry was much bigger than I expected, and kind of like what I imagine cruise ships are like. Though maybe those are just bigger than I think they are, too. Anyway, we had "super economy" seats, which entitled us to sit at the tables at the cafe on the ship! That's what we thought on the way there, anyway. On the way back we learned that we were in fact also allowed to sit in more regular airplane-style seats. But the cafe tables were good because we got to socialize during the 8 hour ride (and play more cards). When we got there we were immediately overwhelmed by the geographical beauty. San Torini is a mountainous island, so there are little towns built up high on the hills, and you're never far from a view of the water below. Our hostel there was really nice, too, and we once again met up with some other archies who were there at the same time.

Thursday was our day of exploring San Torini. We rented ATVs and rode them up to the highest point on the island, and then to a few different beaches. The beaches are interesting because there are three different types: one with black sand, one with red sand, and one with white sand. We went to the black and red, but never found the white. The red beach was probably my favorite. We couldn't drive all the way there, and instead had to hike up and over some rocks, and when you get to the top the view is incredibly striking: red rocks and sand, turquoise water, and bright blue sky. It was awesome. We also swam at that beach for a bit--the water was pretty cold, but I'm glad we got in. We finished off the day by going to a place called Oia to watch the sunset--all the guidebooks and even the guy at the hostel said that's the best place to see it. It was kind of cloudy, but the sun broke through just in time for us to watch it sink below the horizon.

Doing some hiking

The red beach!

The dark island on the left is a volcano!

We spent Friday morning in San Torini also. We walked down a bunch of stairs to the old port, sat there for a while, and then took a donkey ride back up to the top. The donkeys must do that walk dozens of times a day, especially in high tourist season, and so they've made a little game of it, apparently. They kept jostling for who got to be in the lead, and cutting each other off around corners, and mine in particular would walk really close to the wall and right under low hanging branches. It was fun:-)

On Friday afternoon we took the ferry back to Athens, and then on Saturday we FINALLY got around to doing Athens sightseeing things, namely, going in the acropolis! The Parthenon was awesome, of course, even though it was partly under scaffolding, and all the other temples there than we learned about last year were cool too. Oh, and we saw the theater were Sophocle's and all those other playwright's plays were originally performed!

This is that theater.

We also walked around the agora, and I loved thinking about how that where Socrates and Plato would hang out and talk philosophy with everyone. Those ancient Greeks were pretty amazing people.

Sunday was a special day--Pi Day! In the American way of counting dates, anyway. But we thought it was awesome that we got to celebrate a Greek letter day in Greece! And it turns out that a lot of Greek pastries are called "pies", like cheese pie, sausage pie, cheese and spinach pie, etc...so that was pretty perfect. Naturally we all stopped at a bakery to get them on our way to the airport. And then we flew home! It was a fantastic trip. And it was also my last big trip of the year. I might go on a few other daytrips (definitely to Turin to see the Shroud in April), but nothing big. So I get to enjoy being in Rome for a while! And with Holy Week and Easter coming up, that should be plenty exciting.

Sicily

2010-03-16T23:47:00.002+01:00

Hello! I'm back in Rome after being gone for a few weeks...I got back on Sunday from a week in Greece, and before that I spent a week with my class in Sicily! Both were fantastic. I'll start with Sicily, if I can remember everything properly...

We left on Friday morning, bright and early to catch an early flight. Our first stop in Sicily was an archaeological site called Segesta. It has an ancient Doric temple and a theater way up on a hill that we hiked up. The location was beautiful--lots of green grass, flowers, trees, and a view of the sea once we got a little ways up. The weather was really nice while we there too--much different than South Bend February weather! The afternoon kind of set the tone for the whole trip: beautiful weather, beautiful geography, and lots of walking and hiking!

We went to Palermo after that and spent the weekend there. As a city, it reminded me of Cairo a bit, and for good reason, because in fact it does have Arabic influence. Before this trip I knew nothing about Sicilian history, and I still don't have a completely clear picture, but I gathered that Sicilian history is above all quite complicated--they've been under the rule of several different peoples at different times. Greeks, Arabs, Romans, Spaniards...not to mention being affected fairly often by serious natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Anyway, while in Palermo we also got out first taste (literally) of typical Sicilian foods. They like eggplants alot, and are pretty well known for almond flavored things (like gelato). And speaking of gelato, they also came up with the brilliant idea of "gelato con briocche", which is a gelato sandwich. Not like we usually think of ice cream sandwiches in the States, but an actual bun, sort of like a croissant I suppose, with gelato on it. I was skeptical at first, but it's delicious.

One of my favorite parts of Palermo was Sunday afternoon. We had free time, and most of us went to the beach! It was a little bit outside the city, so most people took a bus. However, I and some other crazy archies training for the marathon (which is this Sunday!) chose a different form of transportation--we ran about 18 miles first, and then ended up on the beach. Not bad!

We left Palermo on Monday morning, and the next few days were a tour of small Sicilian towns. We went to at least 2, sometimes up to 4 per day and mostly just walked around for a little while. We were making our way inland, and so got to see the biggest volcano in Europe (I think), Mt. Etna!

We ended the week in another big city, Syracusa, and spent a few days there. By then we were back on the coast. In one of our lectures there, one of our professors mentioned a few famous people who spent time in Syracusa, and it's a pretty impressive list: Plato, Archimedes, and Caravaggio! Also, it was the site of St. Lucy's maryrdom, which I didn't know til I got there, but I got to go into the church there that's dedicated to her! Another one of those unexpected experiences I love having and I know He loves giving to me:-)

We flew back to Rome on Friday afternoon. Then, less than 24 hours later I left for Greece with 3 of my classmates, Evan, Rebecca, and Chris. I managed to accomplish a lot in those few hours, though: I moved back into my hotel room (we had to move out for the week so other guests could use the rooms...weird) and I unpacked/repacked my backpack, then on Saturday morning I went to mass, went running, AND watched Hercules to prepare culturally for Greece:-) To avoid "bombing" you with too much information, though, as one of my professors would say, I'll post about Greece later...so stay tuned!

p.s.--for some reason my pictures aren't loading tonight, but I'm going to post this anyway. But I'll try to come back and add them in soon!

Transition

2010-03-06T00:52:00.002+01:00

I just got back from our week long class field trip to Sicily--it was awesome! Beautiful weather, lots of hanging out on the beach and hiking around mountains, and now and then some class time and learning, too:-) Oh, and one of the cities we visited was Syracuse, where lots of famous people have spent time--a few notable ones being Archimedes, Plato, and even St. Paul for a few days! That was one of my favorite fun facts from the trip.

Anyway, our flight arrived back in Rome tonight at 8 pm, and I'm leaving tomorrow for Greece from that same airport at 3 pm. So tonight has been filled with unpacking and repacking, reorganizing things in my hotel room and in studio, etc, etc...finishing one thing and getting ready for another; what's generally known as a transition. I was thinking about that earlier, and thinking how transitions are usually difficult times for me. Moving back and forth between home and school always took a few days to get used to. This year, though, I spend quite a bit of time in transitions--basically all the time we're traveling could be considered that, since we're living out of backpacks and never stay in the same place for more than a few nights. But somehow, none of those transitions seem very hard. And even the craziness of getting back from Sicily one night and leaving for Greece less than 24 hours later doesn't seem that bad. So it raised the question in my mind, am I getting better about transitioning? Or is there just something about these particular sorts of transitions that make them easier? It's probably a little bit of both. I'm pretty sure that my traveling this year is made easier by the fact that I'm almost always with the same set of people when I do it. It takes away half the transition, I guess. Places change, but the people stay the same, whereas when I move back and forth from St. Louis to South Bend, the place AND the people change. And as for whether or not I'm better at transitioning in general...well maybe I'll find out at the end of April, when I come back to the U.S. It's starting to seem like that's approaching rather quickly, especially since our last field trip is now over. And I'm pretty sure that will NOT be an easy transition. I don't want to think about it quite yet, though. For now, I'll focus on having a blast in Greece! And getting some sleep before then, which should help make the transition a LITTLE easier:-)

Paestum, Ercolano, e Napoli...for real!

2010-02-23T08:46:00.004+01:00

Studio project=finished, as of Sunday night, and our review was yesterday. It was so-so...the jurors were kind of tough and the beginning and softened a bit as the afternoon went on (or perhaps the projects just got better and better), and of course I happened to be numero uno to present. But ah well, a little humbling (especially during Lent) can't hurt, right?

But anyway, as promised I can now write about what I did last weekend, which was take a class trip to the Campagnia region of Italy--we went to Paestum, Ercolano, and Napoli. We left Thursday morning at 6:45 am. Why so early? Well, we had to get down to near Paestum in time for our reservation to visit...a buffalo mozzarella farm and factory! On the way we drove past Monte Cassino! Drove past as in, saw it up way up on a mountain, but still. Anyway, "Buffalo mozzarella" is an Italian thing that I've been eating all year, but never really made the connection that it might have something to do with buffalos. I sure learned last Thursday--the place we went made the mozzarella totally on site, every step from milking the buffalo (actually they milk themselves; there's a station in their living area with a robotic milker, and they can go whenever they want), to the final products--mostly cheese, but they also make pudding and yogurt. Everything there is organic, and only sold on site. While we were there lots of locals came to buy cheese. We tried some too, of course, and it was delicious. Apparently buffalo milk has more protein than cow milk...and also lots more fat. And it has natural preservatives, so everything keeps for a few days without being refrigerated.

After that slightly random and not architectural at all side trip, we went to Paestum. There are some Greek temples there that were built at various times, so it illustrates really well the development of the Doric Order. It also started POURING while we walking around, so we quickly took refuge in a museum and spent the rest of the afternoon there, before getting back on the bus and heading to Salerno.

We spent the night in Salerno, but in the morning headed straight to Ercolano (Herculaneum in English). Our hotel was right along the coast, so I was going to go running by the water in the morning, except that when I woke up it was hailing. My plans quickly changed. Luckily by the time we left for the day it was bright and sunny--crazy Italian weather. Ercolano was just a short drive away, so we were able to spend most of the morning and afternoon there. It's like a smaller and less well-known version of Pompeii--like Pompeii, it was buried when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, and was discovered by accident almost entirely preserved. It's preserved a little differently than Pompeii, though, because it was buried in mud, while Pompeii was buried in ash. That means in Ercolano some traces of wood still remain, and 2nd floors on some of the buildings, while those things are gone in Pompeii. It was really incredible to see such a complete ancient city, and think about the people who used to live there...and Mt. Vesuvius is HUGE. I guess I forgot that it's still there...and still active, in fact. The last time it erupted was 1944, but it's overdue to do it again. Luckily, it didn't while we were there, and apparently there'll be about a week's notice before it does.

We headed to Napoli that night. Napoli is where pizza originated, and I believe I ate it for every meal (except breakfasts) while we were there. It was cheap, and delicious. The crust was thin, like all Italian pizza, but somehow still managed to be fluffy. Imo's just might not be the same when I get back...:-) Anyway, the architecture stuff in Napoli was cool too. It's a very layered city, literally--it's partly at the base of a mountain and partly spreads up the side up the side of it. It was under control of the Spanish for awhile, which is evident in street names like "Via Toledo". It's also right along the coast, just like Salerno, and still in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius.

We were in Napoli Friday night, all of Saturday, and Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon headed back to Rome! And like I mentioned in my last post, from that moment til the next Sunday night I was working pretty hard on my project.

I didn't take very many pictures during the trip, except for tons and tons of Mt. Vesuvius from various angles...not quite sure why I took so many, actually. But here's a pretty cool one from a castle up on that mountain in Napoli:

Mt. Vesuvius is the snow-capped one on the right.

Wednesday, of course, was Ash Wednesday. Apparently the North American College here in Rome organizes something during Lent called "Station Churches", which means that every day they have mass at 7 am in English in a different church around Rome. I was maybe going to go to that on Ash Wednesday, but due to a combination of factors (1. I had been up til 4 the night before, and 7 am was just a little too early and 2. I decided I'd like to go to an Italian mass) I went to Il Gesu at a more reasonable hour instead, and I discovered that the Italians have a slightly different tradition about the ashes: they don't make a cross on your forehead, they sprinkle them in your hair. It was interesting. So I didn't have black mark on my forehead all day, I just looked like I had a patch of gray hair, haha.

I've been to the station mass a couple times since then, though, and it's always really cool. There are lots of people there--lots of priests and seminarians, but other various English speaking Catholics who happen to be in Rome, too, like lots of study abroad students. It's kind of surprising how many people I know who go, actually. On Saturday I went by myself, and had to stand in the back because all the seats were taken when I got there. And from my spot back there I saw a couple of other archies (who had gotten there earlier than I), the priest who teaches our theology class, two of the seminarians who help out with our program, a seminarian who graduated from ND last year, and my friend Chris who's studying here in Rome this semester. I'm used to going to mass and seeing people I know, but I'm not used to that happening when I go to a random church in Rome...

Anyway, the station churches are a good thing to do for Lent--sacrifice a little sleep and make a mini-pilgrimage every day. But if I go to them every day then I won't be able to go to Italian masses at all, and I've grown rather fond of those. In fact, when I go to an English mass I've started hearing the Italian words in my head for some parts of it. So I'll probably alternate between the two.

For the next couple weeks I won't really have a chance to do either, actually--we're leaving for Sicily on Friday! And then the week after that is Spring Break, and I'm going to Greece with three other archies. We're hoping for warm temperatures in both places:-)

Paestum, Ercolano, e Napoli...coming soon!

2010-02-16T12:25:00.002+01:00

Last weekend we went on a class trip to Paestum, Ercolano, and Napoli. I didn't mention anything about it on here before I left, mostly because it totally snuck up on me--I was still in "we just got back from Christmas break" mode, and suddenly we were leaving again. But despite that, it was a great trip, as our field trips usually are. And of course I'll write about it all eventually. Unfortunately, though, I don't have time right now--I have a project due next Sunday, so crunch time is rapidly approaching. AND, real life is getting in the way too--I have to fill out my taxes, financial aid forms, a job application, not to mention run 17 miles this afternoon...but I'm hoping to have most of the forms done by today or tomorrow. And then after that when I need a break from drafting, perhaps I'll blog in more detail. So, stay tuned! :-)

And I'll leave you with this fun fact: before this weekend, the last time it snowed in Rome with any significant accumulation was 1986. Then, it snowed last Thursday--but we missed it! And it was all melted by the time we got back...

The Ponte Milvio

2010-02-04T20:01:00.003+01:00

This morning I went running, and ended up at the Ponte Milvio. History buffs (I'm thinking of you, Dad) may recognize this name as the location of a pretty important battle between Constantine and Maxentius in 312 AD. Constantine won, and attributed the victory to divine intervention--he had a vision of a cross in the sky right before the battle. So he decided to tolerate Christianity in the Roman Empire, instead of persecuting all the Christians--not a bad idea, if you ask me. It's pretty awesome to stand there and ponder all that.

Another reason the Ponte Milvio was significant this morning is that it turns out it's just over 4 miles away from where I live. That was perfect for an 8 mile out-and-back route. Why did I want to run 8 miles this morning? Because I couldn't think of anything else to do with my class-free morning? Umm, not quite. The real answer is...I'm training for a marathon! There's one here in Rome on March 21st. My friend Evan decided he'd like to train for it, and somehow managed to talk a whole group of us archies, including myself, into training for it too. We're half way through week 2 of training! If you're a serious runner AND good at math you're probably adding up the numbers and saying "but Caroline, don't you need more than 8 weeks to train for a marathon?" The answer I have is: I hope not. :-) We drastically adapted a 16 week program we found online, and it's going alright so far.

In other exciting recent news, I learned the other day that one of my favorite saints, St. Josemaria Escriva, is buried here in Rome!!! I'm not sure why I didn't know that earlier, and hopefully I'll get a chance to go visit that church soon. Perhaps I could make it a stop along a run one of these days...

La Corsa di Miguel

2010-01-26T09:21:00.003+01:00

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!

In Case I Sparked Your Curiosity Too...

2010-01-20T13:07:00.002+01:00

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 . . .”.

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/article.cfm/apparition_of_virgin_mary_appears_in_cairo_egypt. Our Church says the Orthodox represent true local churches. I'm not sure about the Oriental Orthodox because of their heresies about the nature of Christ. Seems like they can't be too far wrong, though, if the Blessed Mother is actually appearing to them.

Thanks Dad!

Winter Break Adventures Part Egypt

2010-01-19T08:49:00.005+01:00

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!

Winter Break Adventures Part Tre

2010-01-11T21:31:00.008+01:00

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!

Winter Break Adventures Part Due

2010-01-11T16:13:00.006+01:00

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!

Winter Break Adventures Part Uno

2010-01-10T14:06:00.007+01:00

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...

Buon Natale!

2009-12-25T18:48:00.006+01:00

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?!?

2009-12-21T17:37:00.013+01:00

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!

2009-12-15T00:57:00.004+01:00

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

2009-12-09T22:13:00.002+01:00

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.

A Few Things

2009-11-24T13:45:00.002+01:00

I'm about to disappear for a couple weeks. By that I mean that our final studio project is due in just under two weeks, and I won't really have any free time til then (and not much sleeping time either). Oh, and I'm also going to London for 3 days in there for Thanksgiving...we bought our tickets when we thought the project was due tomorrow, and so we'd be able to relax and enjoy the trip. The deadline got extended to December 7th, which is good, but means the trip timing is not as good. But it'll be fun anyway.

Before I drop off the face of the earth though, I want to write quickly about a few things I've been meaning to. First, last week I visited the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls for the first time. It was the feast of the dedications of St. Peter's and St. Paul's. I had to take a bus to get there--it really is "outside the walls":-). It was awesome. St. Paul's tomb is there, along with one of the chains that bound him in jail. Being at the tomb reminded me of something that happened over the summer--the Pope announced that DNA evidence has confirmed that the remains in the tomb belong to a male about the age St. Paul is believed to have been when he died, and from that time period. So it's pretty much for sure that it's him. Anyway, I found out about this during Totus Tuus, and my teammate Craig was SO excited about it. When the boys picked us up that morning, it was all he could talk about. And I remember him saying "I LOVE being Catholic!". So it was way cool to actually be there. I also had some really good prayer time--I reflected on what the relationship of Peter and Paul was like. I imagine that they were pretty good buddies, maybe joked around with each other, both very energetic and dynamic. But then I wondered about the quieter times when they were alone together--did St. Paul ever ask St. Peter to tell him about the time he spent with Jesus? And I thought about how amazingly smart St. Paul must have been, to be able to write all those letters. And they were just letters, things he sent in the mail (whatever sort of mail they had back then. Pigeons? Probably not. Donkeys? Maybe just people?) Anyway, it was sort of a challenge to me to not shy away from deep or intellectual conversations throughout a normal day.

On a lighter note, I experienced another important part of Italian culture a few days ago. I went to a movie theater! I saw New Moon, one of the Twilight movies. It was in English:-) But, actually, part of it at the end is set in Italy, in a town we drove by between Florence and Siena. They spoke a few Italian phrases, and I understood those! It was fun. And not much different than an American theater. Maybe a place where they just showed Italian movies would be different, I don't know.

Well, I have to go to class now. Pray for me these next couple of weeks!

Living Stones

2009-11-11T18:23:00.004+01:00

The large majority of my blog posts lately have been about all the traveling I've done. That's probably because most of the time, that's the exciting stuff. It wouldn't be quite as exciting to read about what I did today here in Rome, for instance. It'd go something like--woke up, went for a run, showered, went to mass, came to studio, took a break for lunch, studio, dinner, studio...but sometimes the ordinariness and routine is nice. And I certainly don't mean that Rome is boring. The pattern of days makes a fabric that interesting experiences can be woven in and out of (is that metaphor too much of a stretch?:-) ), and each day does bring something unique. I guess none of that is exclusive to life in Rome...that's what life is all the time, anywhere.

But anyway, I wanted to recount a few of the noteworthy experiences I've had this week...first of all, Monday was the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. I never paid much attention to this feast in the past. Last year was probably the first year I had even heard of it (because I had my breviary). But this year, it caught my attention more because St. John Lateran happens to be here in Rome.

Here's the facade! This picture is cool because the shadows are fantastic; almost a perfect "45-45". That's the convention for constructing shadows in architectural renderings--it means the sun is at a 45 degree angle to the church along the ground, aka if the church were sitting on a giant clock with 6 at the door shown here and the 12 in the back, then the sun would be between the 7 and 8. Then, flip that up vertically--it's also at a 45 degree between the earth and the top of the sky. If that sounds confusing, that's because IT IS. Shadows are one of the hardest things to figure out how to do perfectly right.

Anyway, besides having sweet shadows, this was THE first Christian church, built right after Constantine legalized Christianity. So according to my breve, it's the "mother church of Christendom". Liturgy of the Hours for the day is taken from the common of a dedication of a church. It's really cool, with a lot of references to Christ as the cornerstone, us being living stones, the different places where God dwells...things like that. And what was even cooler was I prayed Morning Prayer IN St. John Lateran, after I had gone to mass there too. It was pretty awesome. This feast makes a clear connection between faith and architecture. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this at least a few other times in my blog, but it's an idea that keeps coming up this year--churches (the physical buildings) are important--but only because they're places where more important things happen. The Church (the people) can gather there, and Jesus dwells there. And I also spent awhile reflecting on the idea of "living stones". I thought about all the different ways that stone is used in architecture, from huge, heavy foundations, to intricate, finely carved details. Scripture doesn't really specify what kind we're supposed to be. So I was thinking that our job is just to be the material--to have substance, to have a strong faith...and then let Him form us into whatever shape He wills. And then, of course, to be content with whatever that is...St. Josemaria Escriva, one of my faves, actually says just that--that we should be content to just be foundations.

Then, on Tuesday, my Urbanism class was really cool. We're on a unit of studying churches, and we visited St. Peters. We talked about the route to get there, the piazza, and a little bit about the actual church itself (but mostly about the exterior; we didn't go in). I learned a lot of sweet stuff that I hadn't noticed just by visiting it on my own. Bernini, the architect who designed the piazza, did a fantastic job of working with existing conditions and creating something harmonious out of disparate parts. ("Harmonious" and "disparate" are a few of my professor's favorite words). It's so clever, and so beautiful, and so elegant. Even without all the faith connections, it'd probably be one of my favorite spaces. But since it has both connections, being super important faith-wise, AND super cool architecturally...well...what more can I ask for? :-)

Tomorrow promises to be a good day too--the topic for History is "early Christianity", so we're visiting S. Maria Maggiore and a few other churches near there. I'm looking forward to it!

Florence and Siena

2009-11-10T13:27:00.013+01:00

Last week, I went on ANOTHER class field trip, this time to Florence and Siena (I know, life is rough...). We left Thursday morning, and spent Thursday and Friday in Florence. On Saturday morning we left for Siena and stayed there til Sunday afternoon, and then came back to Rome.

Florence (aka Firenze, in Italian) was beautiful. The first thing we did when we got there was walk to a church up on a big hill called S. Miniato al Monte. The somewhat steep trek up was definitely worth it when we got to the top and had a beautiful view of the city.

Here's the church

And here's the view!

After that, we had free time for lunch and then our usual walking tour around the city, aka class. We went to a church called S. Croce, where a lot of famous Florentines are buried, the most notable being Michelangelo and Galileo. In the evening, we had free time again. I walked around with my friend Katie for awhile, window shopping. (Well, she bought a few things...I window shopped). The big thing to buy in Florence is leather--boots, belts, bags, jackets, and for us arkies, sketchbooks. Unfortunately, everything's kind of expensive--but Mom and Dad, when we come back at Christmas? :-) Haha. Anyway, it was fun just looking at stuff. We also went down to the Ponte Vecchio, (Old Bridge), which, as the name suggests, was the first bridge built across the river. Now it's pretty touristy, with shops lining both sides, but there's still a nice view in the middle.

Unfortunately, the lighting's not too great...

The next day, we spent the morning visiting San Lorenzo church, which includes a lot of things we learned about last year: the church itself, the "new sacristy" by Michelangelo with the tombs of the Medici brothers, and the Laurentian library. All very cool. In the afternoon, I chose to go on an optional visit to the Boboli Gardens, a formal (planned) garden behind one of the palazzos. I sort of blew off my watercolor sketching assignment to do so, but I ended up having time to do it later and I'm really glad I did, because the garden was awesome. One of the professors told us a little bit about it, and then we just had time to wander.

This is near the entrance--most of the garden is up the hill and behind those trees.

The view was great from up there, and I really like this picture--thanks Evan for your good photography skills!

Sweet fountain thing running down the hill--I threw a stick in at the top to see if it would go all the way, but unfortunately it got stuck in one of those heads.

After the gardens, a few of us climbed the dome of the Duomo! It was so cool. It's a pretty impressive dome architecturally, and you can kind of see the structure as you're going up--actually, you're inside it, so that made it even cooler. The sun had just set when we got up there, so my pictures didn't turn out great...but you can kind of get the idea.

Looking down the dome

The city!

Friday night we had time to relax and just chill in the city again, and then we left right after breakfast on Saturday for Siena! There are two main architectural attractions in Siena--Piazza del Campo, and the Duomo. They were both alright, but I liked Florence better as a city. But here they are:

Looking into the piazza--apparently I struggle with holding my camera straight when I take pictures, sorry

The Duomo is the domed building behind me (Also, when I looked at this picture I thought, "Wow! My hair is getting REALLY long!" And it is).

Siena also had some pretty awesome religious items--the incorrupt head of St. Catherine of Siena, and a Eucharistic miracle: 233 consecrated hosts that have been incorrupt since the late 1700s. They were stolen, then found and brought back to the church in a huge procession. Now they're kept in a tabernacle and only brought out on special occassions, so I didn't actually see them, but I did get to pray in front of them. It was pretty powerful.

We left Siena early Sunday afternoon and after a beautiful bus ride, got back to Rome in time for dinner. It was another great trip!

La Corsa Dei Santi

2009-11-04T20:30:00.015+01:00

"La Corsa Dei Santi" is the name of a 10.5K race held annually in Rome on the Feast of All Saint's Day (which was last Sunday). With a weird distance like that, it must be Italian:-) It starts and ends at St. Peter's, and the route includes running by St. John Lateran AND S. Maria Maggiore, two of the other biggest churches in Rome. Now, if you had asked me what this race was last week, I couldn't have told you--I had never heard of it. On Saturday afternoon, though, I was flipping through a free magazine about Rome that had been left for us in studio, and noticed that in the back there was a list of sporting events, including races. This one was on the list. I told my friend Evan about it, and we decided to try to do it (obviously. How could we pass up an opportunity like that?) We looked up online how to register, and ended up walking to an office a little ways away, only to find out that we needed medical forms saying we were healthy in order to run. Neither of us had them, however, which led to frantic scrambling to try and get our parents to scan and email copies of things we had at home (thanks again Mom and Dad and Matt!). Both of us managed to get them, and we showed up early the next morning and registered without a problem. We went to a special mass in St. Peter's beforehand for the participants, too, which was pretty cool. The weather was beautiful--a little chilly at first, but it warmed up just enough to be comfortable. And, like a typical American race, we got a free T-shirt and breakfast afterwards!

I brought my camera so I could take pictures before and after, and then realized I didn't have a good place to put it DURING the race, so I ended up carrying it with me. It wasn't that bad; it's pretty compact, and 2 years of taking my ID card with me every time I ran at ND has gotten me used to holding things while I run. It also meant I could take some pictures during the race of the things we ran by. They're not great quality, because I was running as I took them...but I'll put them up anyway. (To my running friends--I included this whole long explanation of how I have pictures of the route to justify the fact that I brought my camera on a run--I HAD to, please don't disqualify me from the "real runners" club forever!)

Here's Evan and I before the race.

The starting line!

Coming up to the Arch of Constantine

The back of the Colosseum

The side of St. John Lateran--just after the halfway point

S. Maria Maggiore

The side of the Roman Forum

Trajan's Forum--I managed to get a shot with one of the trees exactly covering Trajan's column, so you can just barely see it back there...

The dome of S. Andrea Della Valle, the church we live right by and where I usually go to daily mass

Coming up to the bridge across to the Vatican--you can tell I'm getting more tired and having more trouble holding the camera straight:-)

The home stretch--sprinting towards St. Peters...I got to do it literally, but shouldn't we do it figuratively every day?

Tired and happy after the race

Ambitious readers at home: look up a map of Rome, and using these pictures, can you figure out the route for the race?

This was one of my favorite experiences in Rome so far. I love doing sponaneous things like this. It was a little weird to run a race spontaneously, though--I hadn't done any specific training for it, and so didn't feel quite the same sense of accomplishment when I finished as, say, I did after the half marathons I've run. But for the circumstances, my time was still pretty good (for me at least): 59:35. And it's good to know that there ARE runners in Rome, lots of them, in fact. So hopefully we'll be able to find more races like this in the future!

Tomorrow we're leaving for another short class trip, just 4 days this time, and just to Florence and Siena. So look for more posts next week about our travels!

Lourdes!

2009-11-01T14:19:00.007+01:00

To remind you of where I left off in recounting my travels in France, I had just boarded an overnight train from Paris to Lourdes. It was surprisingly comfortable, especially after the other people in my little 4 seat pod left and I could sort of sprawl out over a couple seats. I arrived in Lourdes at about 7 in the morning, and after a brief map reading failure I made it to the hotel where my friend Sandra was staying. It worked out best for her to come Thursday night, so she had already been in Lourdes for a whole day by the time I got there, and sort of knew her way around the town. The first thing she asked me, though, was "what time do you want to go to mass today?" And I knew it was going to be a good day:-)

The main attraction in Lourdes, of course, is the grotto. Right next to the grotto are a series of three churches stacked on top of each other. (Actually, it's more like the grotto is built into the side of them). The one in the middle is the smallest and I think the one that was built in response to the request of Mary to St. Bernadette. The one of top of it came next, and the one beneath it is the most recent. We started at the grotto, and walked up right as mass was starting. It was in French, but luckily Sandra could translate the homily for me. After mass, we visited each of those three churches, and then went into town. We saw the house where St. Bernadette was born and lived her early life, the one room building where her family was living at the time of the apparitions, and her parish church, including the baptismal font where she was baptized. It was pretty cool to think about how St. Bernadette had actually lived there. I kind of felt the same sort of excitement that I do when I do things like meet my friend's parents or see pictures of their houses--it's cool because it's important to someone that I care about, if that makes any sense.

After that, we got lunch and went back to the big piazza in front of the churches to eat. I suppose now would be a good time for a picture so you actually know what I'm talking about...

Ok, you can't really see the piazza here. This is more of a larger scale view (so you can see the beautiful mountains in the background!) But imagine us eating lunch closer to the church, and then the grotto is on the right side of the church. I didn't take many pictures in Lourdes because my camera battery was getting very low, and I brought my charger but failed to remember that French outlets are different than Italian outlets...

Anyway, after lunch we walked a path with stations of the cross to the left and up a hill from the church. Each station was a statue scene, and they were really well done. We had a little booklet with reflections that were less well done, but mostly because the English translations weren't so great. Some of the ideas were pretty cool, though. I got to go to reconciliation after that, which was cool because I had actually been thinking a few days before that I really needed to go; it had been a while. So what better place than Lourdes, where Mary asked St. Bernadette to pray, pray, pray, for the conversion of souls? There's a short Eucharistic procession everyday at 5 pm, where everyone just gathers across the river from the grotto and the priest says a few prayers, and then everyone processes around the to front of the church and there are a few more prayers. We went to that, and then went back to the grotto to pray properly there for the first time (besideds mass), and then to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner, we went to another procession, this time a Marian one, and it was incredible. It was dark by this time, so everyone had a candle and we walked and prayed the rosary. Between each decade, we sang Aves and held up our candles...it was very beautiful.

When the procession was over, Sandra and I headed back to our hotel and went to sleep. On Sunday, we went to an international mass in an underground basilica. It was kind of cool, but i didn't really care for the architecture--it looked like we were in a basement, because we were, I guess. The best part of the church was that there were huge pictures hung all around of saints. It was a pretty good variety, too, including some popes, classics like St. Terese, and also some more recent saints, like a few of my favorites, St. Josemaria Escriva and St. Maximilian Kolbe. After mass, we went back to the grotto and lit some candles and prayed, then got lunch and it was time for Sandra to get on her train back to Angers. I had the afternoon to keep wandering around. I found a series of reflections on water they had by the grotto (actually, Sandra had told me about it but we didn't have a chance to go on Saturday). It was really cool. I guess I had sort of forgotten the importance that water has in the story of the apparitions at Lourdes (I have a tendency to sometimes forget important facts like that, it's kind of unfortunate--like I won't remember what happens at the climax of a book I've read a few times, but then I get to discover it all over again, so it's not all bad...). Anyway, those reflections and a few of the homilies I heard over the weekend led me to really reflect on how Jesus is the source of life. At Lourdes, Mary revealed the source of a spring to St. Bernadette, and she continues to reveal Jesus, the True Source, to us.

When I got to the train station later that evening, I had a kind of funny revelation (and kind of embarrassing)...when I looked at the clock, I realized that it was an hour off from what my watch said, and then remember that Daylight Savings Time had ended overnight. Sandra and I both completely forgot about it. Luckily, it was "fall back" so I just had to wait an extra hour...I didn't miss my train or anything. The ride was smooth again, as was my transfer on the metro from the train station to the airport in Paris, and then my flight and train back from the airport in Rome (again with the mulitple legs thing). I finally got back just in time for class on Monday!

And now, a series of pictures I've been looking forward to putting up for awhile--Lourdes-inspired grottos that I've been to!

Notre Dame--I promise I've been here, even though I'm not in the picture.

Benedictine--it was just dedicated this year!

Lourdes--the real one:-) I'm wearing the same T-shirt as when I was at the BC one, but I didn't plan that; I just noticed it now, in fact.

Well, that completes my fall break adventures. It was a great week, and I'm looking forward to traveling more!

Paris!

2009-10-30T00:57:00.013+01:00

This is an overdue post, but I have a good reason for not getting around to it yet...I was actually (gasp!) doing schoolwork pretty much straight from the time I got back from France on Monday morning through Thursday night. We had two projects due that night, one for studio and one for urbanism. It's nice to have them both turned in and have a relatively work-free weekend ahead of me (or at least a chance to catch up on some non studio work--I have a marker drawing for watercolor and a few churches to visit and analyze for urbanism, but both of those should be pretty enjoyable, actually).

Anyway, my trip is more interesting to read about than my homework schedule...so, I left last Wednesday morning for Paris. It was actually more like the middle of the night, though, because I had to get to the train station in time to take the 4:30 bus to the airport for my 7:30 flight. For some reason traveling cheaply usually seems to involves lots of legs in the journey. All of that went smoothly and I landed in Paris and took yet another bus from that airport to the city. The drive was about an hour long, and if I didn't know better I'd have thought we were driving through the midwest--we even passed cornfields. The bus dropped us off right by a metro station, and I successfully navigated my way to THE Notre Dame cathedral, where I had arranged to meet my friend Julie. I also successfully bought a metro ticket from a machine that was in French, without knowing a word of French. I was proud of myself until I found out later that I COULD have just changed the language setting to English. Then I just felt silly for not realizing that. Ah well. I got to Notre Dame about an hour before Julie and I were meeting, but mass was starting right as I walked in, so I was unexpectedly able to hit up daily mass! (That's happened to me fairly frequently, actually, and I suspect that He Himself may have a hand in arranging that:-) ).

Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame! :-)

When Julie came, she took me to her favorite panini place (based on quality and on price) for lunch. Unfortunately, though, Wednesday turns out to be the day that she has class for about 12 hours (I'm only exaggerating slightly), so we couldn't hang out in the afternoon. She suggested that I go to the Louvre, though, which seemed like a good idea, especially because it was raining. I got in for free thanks to being a student residing in Europe, and spent all afternoon wandering around in the midst of amazing artwork. The Louvre is HUGE. Even with all the time I spent there, I still didn't see everything. But I did see some pretty cool stuff--including the Mona Lisa, of course...but to be honest it didn't seem that much different or better than Da Vinci's other pieces. I also saw a lot of things that I had learned about last year in Architectural History and seen lots of pictures of, so it was cool to see them in person. And I didn't remember that most of those things were in the Louvre, so every time I came across something that I recognized it was a cool little "Oh! I know what that is!" moment. Here's one of those such things:

Note the size of the doorway compared to the size of this guy.

By the time I left, it was getting dark. The glass pyramid thing at the entrance looked really awesome all lit up, so I have a fairly hilarious series of pictures of me attempting to take one of myself with the museum in the background. Here's one of the better ones:

By "better" I mean "better of me". It doesn't quite capture the stuff behind me, though, so here's a good one of that.

One of these days I'll master that self-photography thing...and have pictures like this AND with me in them.

After my mini photo shoot, I met up with Julie and our other friend Meghan who's also studying in Paris, and we went back to their dorm--I guess that's the best word for it. A bunch of university students live there, anyway, but in singles, and they each have their own bathroom, and there's a kitchen on every floor. So a pretty fancy dorm.

On Thursday, we were all able to spend the whole day seeing the sights of Paris together, because Meghan doesn't have class on Thursdays and Julie has one from 8-10am. Nice for them, and lucky for me too. We started at Sacre Coeur, an impressive looking church built high up on a hill. It's fairly recent, built around the beginning of the 20th century, I think. (In America, that would be a really old church...but here it's practically new). It's built in a classical style, and I liked it alot. It also has perpetual adoration in the main part of the church, which is pretty cool. Here's the view as you approach it:

From there we wandered around the neighborhood near the church, and got paninis again for lunch. We spent the afternoon walking around, too. Here's a picture of a random sign we saw:

It says "I was in Paris". Pretty accurate.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant with authentic French food. I had French onion soup with French bread, and steak and French fries (apparantly that's a common combination). It was pretty good, but I think I like Italian food better, to be honest. I also tried one of Julie's escargot, but didn't really like it. It was too much work to get it out of the shell in the first place, and too squishy. But I'm glad I tried it.

That week also happened to be fall break for the ND students studying in London, and another one of our friends from there was getting in to Paris Thursday night with a few other Londoners, so we went and met them by the Eiffel Tower after dinner. It's really pretty at night--all lit up, and it sparkles for 5 minutes on the hour every hour.

Walsh reunion in Paris! From left: me, Julie, Tina, and Meghan

The next day, Friday, Julie and Meghan both didn't have class, so they did the tourist thing with me again. We saw two main things: the Shrine of the Miraculous Medal where Mary appeared to St. Catherine Laboure, and we actually went up the Eiffel Tower. Both were awesome. Here's the shrine:

St. Catherine's incorrupt body is preserved to the left of the altar.

And here's a shot from the top of the Eiffel Tower!

This is the Seine river. I had to look up how to spell that, because like most French words, how it's written and how it's pronounced don't necessarily have a direct correlation.

After that, we got a quick dinner and went back to the Louvre, because Tina and her London friends hadn't been there yet. Before I knew it it was time to head to the train station for my overnight trip to Lourdes! Julie, Meghan, and Jim (another ND student in Paris) very kindly escorted me to the station to make sure I got there alright, and after killing time browsing the teeny English section in a few bookstores, I boarded the train!

I think I'm going to pull another "to be contined" on this one...so stay tuned for my weekend in Lourdes!

Field Trip (Part 3, aka Venice!)

2009-10-21T00:35:00.006+02:00

So, I left off last time with our vaporetto ride to the hotel, which actually wasn't a hotel--it was a converted convent. I'm pretty sure a religious order or consecrated group of lay people of some sort still has some connection to it, but I'm not entirely sure what that is. But apparently they rent out rooms fairly cheaply to travelers, just like a hotel. The cool part is that the decoration scheme is left over from the convent days--there are statues of Mary everywhere, and crucifixes in every room. Anyway, the first thing on our minds when we got there was getting dinner. We ended up at a little pizza place that somebody's guidebook recommended that had amazing prices and giant pizzas, so Katie and Evan and I split a diavolo (pepperoni) for 10 euro (total, not each). Drinks were only a euro, and on the way back we spotted a gelato place with cones for a euro, so we had a very cheap full meal. And then we pretty much went to bed, because we were exhausted.

The next day, Friday, we had our usual tour in the morning and time to work on assignments in the afternoon. My tour group went to several churches in the morning, but none of the big name ones (aka none that I had heard of before). I also rode a gondola during a tour! It was only 50 cents! And it was only across the Grand Canal, but still...this is me on the gondola (I promise! Even though you can't see the gondola part...)

The boats above my head and to the left are what the one we're on looked like

For dinner on Friday, the professors suggested that we all go somewhere together and "have time to socialize", so we went to a restaurant right by where we were staying. I had lasagna, and it was quite delicious. None of the professors sat at our table, so it wasn't THAT different from a regular meal, but it was still neat being there with everyone else around, and definitely a good idea. We get to see a different side of the professors on field trips, and it makes them seem more like real people and not just like teachers.

Saturday's tour was just three churches: Il Redentore, San Giorgio Maggiore (both by Palladio, who also did La Rotonda), and Santo Spirito, a crazy looking church that I had to draw for my "watercolor" class. I really like Il Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore, both the exteriors and the interiors. (Actually, I like San Giorgio's exterior more, but Il Redentore's interior) Anyway, both are right along the Grand Canal, and are actually meant to be viewed from across the canal. Here's me with San Giorgio behind me!

and a random man walking by...oops

the second try was more successful

When the tour on Saturday was finished, we were basically done with class for the week. We just had to finish up our assignments in the afternoon, and then enjoy the city Saturday night and Sunday morning! And I actually got to do really cool things during both those times. Saturday night I went to a classical music concert that Aida, one of the coordinators of the architecture program, had told us about. It was a string group (a couple violins, maybe a viola, a cello, a bass, and a harpsichord), and they played a few different pieces, but the main one was Vivaldi's Four Seasons (aka Quattri Staggioni). It was incredible! I really love how stringed instruments sound in general, I think. And the Four Seasons is a fun piece of music. (The other people I was with, Evan and Tiffani, are both more knowledgeable about classical music than I am, and so would probably be able to use a better word than "fun" to describe it...)

On Sunday morning, I got to go to a high mass in the Basilica di San Marco. That was also pretty incredible. It was in a side chapel, not the main church, but the space was still huge. The walls and ceiling were covered in mosaics....just like the cathedral in St. Louis:-) Also, Venice has been more influenced by Eastern cultures than other parts of Italy, and the Byzantine-ish-ness definitely comes through (in the architecture, anyway. Not really the liturgy).

Here's a fun fact about Venice: it's sinking. I can't remember exactly why; I know we talked about it in my Italian class last year...but it's demonstrated in a very real way by the fact that the Piazza San Marco floods on a fairly regular basis. It was flooded on Sunday morning, in fact. They set up little elevated walkways everywhere so you can get around without getting wet, luckily. It reminds you that things aren't permanent, as some day Venice will most likely be underwater. But it also creates some sweet picture opportunities...

note the cool reflection in the water!

After mass, we wandered around for a little while and then headed to the train station. The ride back went smoothly, and we arrived back in Rome on Sunday evening! All in all, it was a fantastic trip.

Now we're on a week of break, so I'm actually typing this from my friend Julie's room in Paris. I got here yesterday and will leave tomorrow night for Lourdes! Paris has been awesome so far too. I'll have to expand more on it later, but for now I'll give a brief list of what I've seen so far--Notre Dame, the Louvre, Sacre Coure, the Pompidou Center, the Moulin Rouge, the Opera House, the Arc de Triumph...we're going to the Eiffel Tower and the Miraculous Medal shrine for sure tomorrow. Now we're off to eat authentic French food for dinner!

Field Trip! (Part 2)

2009-10-20T14:16:00.006+02:00

To continue where I left off in the last post...we arrived in Verona on Tuesday night. My hotel room there was amazing--I was in a quad with 3 other girls, and we had a small kitchen, a small but nice dining room table, 2 big rooms, and a bathroom with a jacuzzi in it, no joke. After we got excited about it and had practically all of the other archies come in to see it, we went to find dinner. We went to a pretty typical on-the-cheap-side restaurant, and most of us got pizza. On the way, we saw a building lit up on a hill a little ways away, and I decided I would try to run there in the morning. I went the wrong way a few times, but eventually found my way up that hill in time to see the sunrise over the city...it was absolutely gorgeous. Verona has a river running through it and is surrounded by a few green hills with trees on them, so it is very beautiful, especially from up above. Also, when I got up the hill I learned that it wasn't just any building up there, it was a church dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. She has a special significance to me, because the grotto at Notre Dame is a small scale replica of the one at Lourdes (which I will be seeing this Saturday!!). At first I couldn't actually get into the church, or anywhere near it, because there was a gate leading up to it that was closed. There was also a sign that said it didn't open til 9. However, at about 7:15 a guy came and unlocked the gate, and then went up to unlock the church. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to go in, because of the time and because I was wearing my running clothes, but I figured I couldn't come all that way and then not try, so I waited til the man was out of sight and then went for it. The church was dark inside, so I couldn't see very much of it, but outside behind the church there was a statue of Mary and a sort of mini grotto. I stayed there and prayed for a little while. It was awesome and totally unexpected, sort of like finding out about St. Dominic's tomb and then being able to visit it. Another small gift from Jesus and Mary:-) That was probably the highlight of Verona for me. Oh, and there was another tower to climb after lunch, and I took a picture of that church from the top...

it's in the furthest-back-and-up center, with a green roof

We left Verona earlier than usual, because we had an afternoon visit to Villa Rotonda, near Vicenza! Villa Rotondo consumed many many hours of our lives as freshman archies, because we drew it several times as we were learning how to draft: in plan, in elevation, in both 1 and 2 point perspective....and, these were the first drawings that we ever watercolored. So it has a very special significance to our class. Also, last year was the 500th birthday of Palladio, the architect who designed it, and we had a big celebration at Notre Dame that involved a cake in the shape of Villa Rotonda. So it was pretty incredible to finally see it with our very own eyes. Here it is!

all 4 sides are symmetrical, you can see 2 of them here

Besides Villa Rotonda though, Vicenza was only so-so...our hotel was sort of on the outskirts of town, so we had to take the bus in to get dinner that night, and then it took us quite a while to wander around and find a place to eat. When we finally did, it turned out to be a pretty local sort of hole in the wall place, so the food was good. I had pizza again:-) My run in the morning was alright, nothing special though--it was through busy streets with sidewalks just like the ones in cities in the U.S, so I almost could have been back there. I also have a small confession to make--for lunch in Vicenza, we went to McDonalds. They had a euro menu! So it was pretty cheap, and everything tasted the same as at home...my strawberry milkshake was quite good, in fact. We left Vicenza that evening by train, instead of bus, and arrived in Venezia (aka Venice). We had to take a vaporetto from the train station to our hotel. A vaporetto is Venice's form of public transportation--it's a boat bus, I guess. Anyway, it's pretty cool. Here's a picture of one that I took the next day (or possibly the day after, I can't remember--we were in Venice for 3 days).

the yellow one is where you stand to wait, and then the boat that says "Actv" on the side is the actual vaporetto

Part 3 will be my adventures in Venezia! A presto!

Field Trip! (Part 1)

2009-10-19T18:40:00.005+02:00

My class field last week was awesome! There's so much to talk about I almost don't know where to start...but I suppose I should start with the very beginning (a very good place to start)--we left on a train Sunday morning for Bologna. It was a nicer one than I had been on before when we went to Cinque Terre. Thanks Notre Dame! The ride went very smoothly and we arrived in Bologna in time for lunch and then class at 2, which meant walking around the city with a professor and getting a tour, basically. That was one sort of class we had this week. The other was free time to complete our assignments, which involved sketching and analyzing different parts of the city. Each day basically followed the same schedule: I got up and ran every morning (an idea that I stole from my friend Evan--we decided it'd be sweet to run in every city we went to) breakfast at 8 (provided by the hotel--delicious. And I am now definitely a cappuccino drinker, no use denying it anymore; I don't even like to add sugar), class from 9-12 (usually the tour kind), lunch, class from 2-5 or 6 (usually the "free time" kind), and then the first half of the week we'd hop on a bus after that and arrive in our next city for dinner. We spent 3 whole days in Venice at the end of the week, though, so we didn't have to move around quite as much then.

Anyway, back to Bologna...since it was Sunday, we went to mass at 6:30, and then to dinner. After dinner, I met up with my friend Maria from ND who happens to be studying in Bologna for the year. We got gelato and walked around. It made the world seem very small, to go to a small Italian city and see someone I know there from the U.S. And it made me appreciate again the awesome opportunities that ND provides for studying abroad--I know people all over the world right now. Maria told me something interesting that I didn't know--St. Dominic is buried in Bologna! I was very excited to hear that and of course decided immediately that I would have to visit his tomb the next day. Luckily, that wasn't very hard to work out, as it turned out to be one of our stops during morning class. It was amazing. I also got to go back to that church for mass at 12:30, and it was one of my favorite Italian masses so far. The chapel was small and peaceful, and the people there reminded me of daily mass go-ers back in the U.S. That afternoon the temperature suddenly dropped and it rained a lot, which was sort of uncomfortable, but not too bad. Bologna, like many other cities, has a huge tower that can climbed up by a lot of stairs, so a group of us decided to do that. Here we are at the top:

From left to right: Alex, Adriana, me, Evan, Anne

Bologna actually was supposed to have 2 huge towers right next to each other, but the other one was leaning too much and had to be chopped short. The one that we climbed is also leaning, but not as much. Turns out Pisa is definitely not the only place where towers lean...

After Bologna, we went to Montova (Italian for Mantua). This was Monday night. The days and cities definitely started to blend into each other. Liturgy of the Hours and the mysteries of the rosary helped me to somewhat keep track of the days, but still. Anyway, our dinner in Montova was one of the best meals I've had so far in Italy, if not THE best. The atmosphere was great--Evan and Katie and I went to a small restaurant on a piazza, and sat at a table with a canvas umbrella thing overhead and a candle on the table. We had delicious red wine. I had risotto, a type of rice, and some grilled vegetables. Our waitress was very nice and we even got a student discount. It was very peaceful. Life felt good. Afterwards, we walked around the town a little bit and found 3 cool things: a milk vending machine where you could get a bottle of fresh milk for a euro, which we did of course, a giant echo tube, and a castle with a real moat. A successful night. In the morning I ran by some lakes, and felt kind of like I was back at ND...the highlight of the rest of the day was definitely seeing Palazzo del Te in the afternoon. It's a building designed by Guilio Romano, who studied under Raphael, and we've been hearing about it since freshman year...it's one of the things I remember best from our architectural theory class 2nd semester of freshman year, actually. It's unique because in classical architectural, there is a certain way that elements are supposed to be put together, and here Romano doesn't do it right, but he does it in a way that shows he knows what's supposed to happen and deliberately chooses to change a few things around a little bit. One of my professors described it as a sort of "architecture inside joke". So here's Katie and I standing in the courtyard!

Next we hopped on the bus for Verona, but I think I'll leave you in suspense for a bit as to what all happened there, because this post is so long I don't have time to write it all now...it's going to have to happen in installments:-) But more to come soon!

La mia settimana

2009-10-10T14:19:00.003+02:00

This post will probably not be as exciting as my last one, because I've had a pretty normal week. However, I wanted to blog today because I won't have a chance to for a little while--next week we're going on a class field trip and I'm not bringing my lappy. Plus, internet isn't free at most of the hotels we're staying in. I'm sure I'll have all kinds of cool stuff to write about when I get back from that, so get excited for the week after next...but for now, I'll try to come up with something interesting to say about each day of this past week. (I suppose this is a good exercise in finding the beauty in the ordinary...)

Monday--I wasn't as sore from Cinque Terre as I thought I'd be!

Tuesday--we did human figure gesture drawing in my "watercolor" class. If you know what that is then you know why it's an experience worth mentioning.

Wednesday--I met and talked with an Italian probably more than I ever had before...after noon mass I stayed in the church to pray a rosary, but ended up getting kicked out because it was siesta time. The guy who told me I had to go turned out to be walking in the same direction as I was, and we chatted a bit. By that I mean, he talked and I listened...he didn't speak much English and quickly figured out that while I can understand basic Italian, I can't say much of anything myself. But he turned out to be a philosophy student at a University pretty close to where our studio is, and told me that he has another American friend there who's in the same position as me--being able to understand but not speak Italian. And he was surprised that I was Catholic, because he didn't think many Americans were. I guess what he said isn't that important, just the fact that he was saying it in Italian, and I understood it all (mostly)!

Thursday--the lasagna we had for dinner was amazing.

Friday--we had a "mid-project" review for our urban reconstruction project. It's not really mid-project, because it's due the Thursday after we get back from break. Anyway, it went well! The professors liked our design for the most part (it's a group project), and we finally figured out our roofs successfully! They had been giving us quite a bit of trouble before. Also, this was the one month anniversary of our arrival in Rome:-)

Saturday--I bought a plane ticket to Egypt for a week in January! Also, in about an hour I'm going to leave to pray the rosary with the Pope! It's a special thing for university students, and the intention of the rosary is "Africa". A broad topic to pray for, so it's a good thing there will be a lot of us there.

Well, pray that we have safe travels next week!

Verso l'alto and Other Hiking Adventures

2009-10-05T10:14:00.000+02:00

I love water. I love drinking it, especially when I eat pizza that's apparently really salty for dinner and I'm thirsty all night. I love showering in it, especially when I'm tired and dirty and haven't bathed in about 48 hours. And mostly, I love water in large quantities. HUGE quantities. Unimaginable amounts of water, like the ocean, or even a lake, or here in Italy, the sea. Something about it just captivates me, and I could sit there and look at it for hours. It's so fascinating, and always invites a bit of reflection, too. Why am I talking about this? Well, I got to spend alot of time by the sea this weekend! A group of friends and I (there were 9 of us altogether) went to Cinque Terre for the weekend. Cinque Terre literally means five earths, or five lands, or something to that effect. It's an area in northern Italy with five small coastal towns connected by hiking trails.

We took an overnight train to get there, and arrived at about 5 in the morning in the first town. (Well, half our group got there then. The other half accidentally missed the stop we needed to transfer in, and had to come up with new travel plans on the fly. Luckily, everything worked out and they made it just about an hour later than us...but that's another story). Anyway, it was still dark. We didn't really have anywhere to go or anything to do, so we went out to the beach just outside the train station. We hung out there til the sun rose and then got started with our activities for the day at about 8ish. We walked around the town, bought passes for the trails, and started hiking. The trails between the towns have a wide variety of difficulty, and we decided to go the direction that would give us the hardest hikes first, and then the easier ones at the end. So our first hike took about 2 hours, and was alot of up and down and narrow little paths.

I had a lot of "verso l'alto" moments, where I had to repeat that phrase to myself as we were going up a particularly steep portion to have the energy to keep going. "Verso l'alto" means, roughly, "towards the top". It comes from Blessed Pier Georgio Frassiti--he was a young Italian man who lived in the early 1900s. He's awesome for a lot of reasons, and one of my current favorite saints (even though he's not quite a saint yet), but among other things he loved to go mountain climbing. Once, on a picture of him halfway up a mountain, he wrote "verso l'alto". Towards the top of the mountain, and towards the top in our faith. Keep striving, keep ascending. And the journey matters, not just the destination. So anyway, sometimes I remind myself of that when I'm running up hills, and it was quite helpful during this hike, too:-)

It also helped that the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. We were basically walking along trails built into the side of a cliff the whole time, so when we looked right we saw the sea way down below us, when we looked ahead we saw more cliffs off in the distance with more of the towns, and when we looked left we saw up the rest of the cliff we were on. For awhile it seemed like every time we would round a little corner the view was more incredible that the past ones had been, like it just kept getting better and better. (And that reminded me of "further up and further in!" from Narnia).

Anyway, after a couple of hours we finished our first section of the hike and got to see the second small town. We walked around for a bit and then sat on some rocks by the sea to rest and refuel with sandwiches and fruit.

The next section of the trail was also difficult and took a long time, made even more so by a little detour we decided to take...we saw a sign that advertised a beach, and decided to follow it. We were pretty high up at the time, and so had to descend quite a ways to get there. The path leading down was probably the second most challenging part of the day, the first being coming back up. It was definitely worth it, though. We got in the water right when we finally reached the shore, and it felt great. The waves were coming in pretty hard, so we had to exert a fair amount of effort just to remain in the same place and not get carried out to sea or crashed into the rocks along the beach...the whole experience was pretty intense from start to finish. We definitely earned that beach and the water, and that made it even more awesome.

At one point, after we had gotten out of the water and were just relaxing on the shore (and eating more sandwiches and fruit), I wandered down a little ways away by myself and sat on a large rock right by the water. The waves were crashing on the rocks right in front of me. I just watched, mezmorized, for a little while, and then of course a few reflections/analogies came to mind that relate that water to life...

First, I thought about the rocks that the waves were breaking on. They weren't huge, but they were pretty big. As the waves came in, these rocks interrupted their flow and the water just splashed up and over them, pretty violently. In other areas without these large rocks, the water just continued undisturbed all the way to shore. From my point of view, seeing the big picture, it was obvious that the solidity of these rocks was what was causing to waves to crash hard against them. But from the rocks' point of view, it must have seemed like the whole sea was nothing but turbulence. So then make those things represent us, engaged in our spiritual battles, and you can probably guess the connection here...the more solid you are, the more evil is going to seem to crash around you. You'll come up against difficulties and challenges, simply because you refuse to be moved along with whatever direction the world is going. But you will be able to stand firm and not be shaken. And in fact these crashes are proof that you ARE solid, even if it doesn't feel like that. This isn't really a new idea, just a new way of thinking about it that I'd never had before...

Also, after thinking about the craziness and the violence of the waves coming and going out, it seemed like quite a contrast to then look far out to the horizon and see such peaceful and quiet waters. You can hardly tell that there are waves at all out there, in fact. And then I thought about how gigantic the sea is surface area wise, and it occured to me that most of the sea is in that calm, steady state. It's just on the edges where the changes occur. And that I compared to way we experience emotions. Ideally, we should have a strong inner core, peaceful and steady. On the surface (or on the edges..), our feelings might change, emotions going up and down like waves flowing in and out, but that doesn't affect that other, deep part of us. And as long as that deep part really IS strong enough to not be affected by small surface changes, then those shouldn't worry us, whether they're good or bad.

When we were finished at the beach, we had to climb back up to the main path. It wasn't easy, but we all made it, all in one piece, no less. From there it was just a short walk to the next town, where we celebrated by getting granite and in my case, gelato. It was late afternoon by this point, and we'd only been to three of the five towns. Luckily, the next two trails were MUCH easier than the first two, and much shorter as well. We breezed through them in no time, and ended up in the last town just in time for dinner. We went to a fairly nice sit down place, and everyone but me had seafood. That's really the only food I'm picky about and won't eat if I don't absolutely have to. My pizza margherita (cheese pizza) was delicious, though, and I splurged on a dessert (tartufa--a kind of fancy ice cream), which made it even better. By this point we were all pretty much exhausted, but with the good feeling of knowing we had really done something that day. We had a small mix up when we tried to get to our hostel--we had planned to take the 10:30 shuttle bus from the town, but it turned out that that bus only ran til the end of September. We had to take a 10 minute train ride to the next town and then take a taxi. It worked out alright though, and we got to experience crazy Italian driving firsthand.

We went to sleep almost as soon as we got there, but woke up early to take the first bus back into town. We went to the beach (a different, much calmer and much more easily accessible beach), and went for a morning swim. It felt great, although the water was a bit cold. It was really clear, though--we could see straight to the bottom even in places that were seven or so feet deep. We hung out on the beach for awhile, and then went to mass at 11 in the local church. It was a really neat mass. First of all, it seemed more like a parish than the churches I've been to here in Rome. They had a bulletin, and even a couple of altar servers. Also, the altar was set up for the priest to celebrate ad oriens, and I realized again that it really does just make more sense that way. At the end, the priest said some special prayers to Mary, because the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is this week. Then for the closing song, we sang the Salve Regina--in Latin, in the same tune that I know. I was pretty excited about that, because I really like singing it in general, and because there I was in little Riomaggiore, able to participate fully, in that part at least, with my Italian brothers and sisters. It was cool.

After that, we got lunch and sat on some rocks by the water to eat it. Then it was time to catch our train back to Rome. Traveling back went smoothly, and we arrived at about 6:15 pm. It was a great trip, and now I'm really looking forward to doing more traveling, which I'll get to in about a week. The week after this one is our week long class field trip to Bologna, the Veneto, and Venice, and then after that we have our week long fall break. I do have a fair amount of work to get done before then, but I definitely have things to look forward to!

Cool Thought of the Day

2009-09-30T00:25:00.001+02:00

This came from yesterday during a short presentation by an Italian architecture professor at a grad school here in Rome--one thing he said, roughly (because he said it in Italian and then one of the ND professors translated) was this:

Designing architecture on paper is like composing sheet music--it's a way of representing the thing, but not the primary way it's meant to be experienced. Just as music has to be heard, architecture has to be seen in real life. And I suppose that's why I'm in Rome...

Also, I think I'm going to start reading Papal Encyclicals and/or Vatican II documents. Does anyone have any ideas of what a good one to start with might be?

The Little Things

2009-09-28T11:11:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I've updated...hmm. Also, we have an Urbanism project due tomorrow that I really should be working on, so I'll have to keep this short, and hopefully catch up more later this week. Probably the biggest accomplishment I've made since last posting, besides seeing the original icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help and going to a Papal audience, has been doing my laundry. (Ok, so those other two are pretty important--more on those later!) For now, laundry.

The hotel we live in acquired a washing machine a few years ago pretty much just for us Notre Dame students, and they let us use it for free. However, there's no dryer, so we have to air dry everything. We have a sign up sheet in studio, and I decided to go on Sunday morning, because I knew I wouldn't be doing any work at that time anyway. (On purpose. I try to keep the Sabbath by not hesitating to do fun things Saturday night instead of working, and I don't go in to studio until at least early to mid afternoonish on Sunday...and I definitely look forward to this guilt-free re-creation time). So anyway, I washed everything just fine, and then took it up to the terrace where there are a few drying racks. I laid everything out and sat there and read. It was wonderful:-) The only small snag came when someone who works at the hotel came out to water the plants...and got some water on my almost dry clothes. Oh well. They eventually dried, and now I have clean clothes! And I think I'm going to start looking forward to laundry time; it's kind of exciting, and a good chance to catch up on reading, journaling, things like that.

This morning I another had a small adventure, but again, a quiet one. For my "watercolor" class, my assignment this week was to sketch the interior of the church of St. Cecelia. I went once last week and did most of it, but then siesta time came and the church closed. So I had to go back today to finish. (Side note about the class--the professor is awesome. He's very good at drawing and watercoloring, and doesn't beat around the bush about helping you to get better; ie offering plenty of constructive criticism. And he does it about as tactfully as Coach Burrus.) Anyway, I got to the church at 8, figuring there would probably be a mass then I could go to, and then stay and draw. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Mass is at 7:20, so it was just ending as I walked in. Also, a little nun came up to me and told me that the church isn't open to the public til 9, so I had an hour to kill. It turned out well, though--I found a little bar just a few streets away. I got a cafelatte and a nutella cornetto. Also, this particular place didn't charge for sitting down at a table (most do), so I was able to chill there and sip my coffee while attempting to read an Italian newspaper. I understood some of the headlines, and then was quite excited to find a Sudoku. It's awesome that numbers are universal. Another reason that math is so great, right mom? :-)

These two incidents may not be quite as exciting-sounding as going to mass at St. Peter's, or being in the same room as the Pope, etc, but they were both very interiorly satisfying. Probably because they WEREN'T very exciting, just the normal little things of everyday life--things that I'm starting to feel more comfortable with here.

Well, I guess this IS fairly short, by my standards. (My friend Evan recently described a long post he wrote for his blog as "Caroline-length") ...and now, to work!

Success!

2009-09-21T09:46:00.000+02:00

Today we turned in our first studio project of the year. My group finished in plenty of time, and we didn't even have to pull an all nighter last night. In fact, because of an interesting labor law Italy passed last summer, we aren't even allowed to stay in studio all night. While we're listening to lectures, taking notes, reading, doing normal class things, we're considered students, but as soon as we pick up a pencil and sit at our drafting tables, we're considered to be "working". Workers have to be supervised at all times, so Notre Dame had to hire a security guard to hang around in the evenings and come check on us periodically. They didn't want to pay for him all night, every night, though, and so studio closes at 2 a.m. (Except the night before our final project we'll have extended hours and still get to do the traditional and practically required all-nighter--but until then, we get to enjoy mandatory sleep!) Our next project will be introduced on Wednesday, so tonight and tomorrow we'll take it easy and enjoy the calm between the storms.

I think St. Peter's has been the subject of most of my blog posts so far while I've been here, but I have to add another quick note--I went to mass there last Sunday! It was awesome. We ended up at a Latin mass. It was a good reminder that Latin is a universal Church language, because probably very few people there were fluent in Latin, but people from all different countries were all sort-of familiar with the responses and stumbling along. And the books they gave us to follow along definitely helped:-) I'm still mystified by the kneeling patterns during the Eucharist prayer, because everyone tends to do what they're used to, I think, and so I don't think I've been to a mass yet with everyone doing the same thing at the same time.

I haven't done any major sight-seeing lately, so I don't really have any exciting news or stories to report...but I'll leave you with this thought, which also happens to be the subject of my facebook status right now--that proves how monumental it is. Last night, I started using authentic Italian toothpaste. Even better, I'm pretty sure it's off-brand Italian toothpaste. It tastes kind of funny, but it makes me feel way more legit.

A Brief Life Update, or, a few thoughts on churches.

2009-09-17T10:06:00.000+02:00

Yesterday and today I got to go to daily mass at the church right by where we live, San Andrea della Valle. It turns out that they actually have mass every morning at 8, 9, 10, and 11, so I should be able to make it every day. Mass is obviously mostly the same, but it does have a few differences--language, for instance. Yesterday everything was in Italian. Today the priest celebrated the Novus Ordo, but in Latin except for the readings, which were Italian. My Italian is not quite good enough to understand the readings either day, unfortunately. Another difference is that there hasn't been a homily either day. I don't know if that's Itailian daily mass custom or if it's just been coincidence. I also can't figure out the standard liturgical posture yet, because it's been different each day. Yesterday we knelt after the Sanctus until just after the consecration, but today we didn't kneel til the epiclesis right before the consecration, and then stood again after the consecration. I wait for a cue from everybody else who's there, but perhaps they're doing the same thing until somebody finally takes initiative...I don't know. I'll have to wait for a larger sampling of days to know what the correct way is here.

Another thing that's struck me about the churches here is they sort of seem to lack a community within them. I've been to a lot of different churches in the U.S, mostly because of Totus Tuus and just parish hopping in St. Louis, and one of the things you notice first is that each church belongs to a parish. There's usually a marquee with announcements, and stacks of bulletins in the back, and things like that. In fact, these things are so ordinary and expected that I never thought about them til now. Here, though, there's none of that. There are churches literally all over (we're analyzing different piazzas for my studio class, and the one I'm working on has churches on 3 of the 4 sides) but when you walk in one of the first things you usually see is a map showing the different paintings and saints in the various side chapels. It's as if the main function of the church is a stop on a tourist trip, with masses offered frequently for whoever happens to be around and wants to drop in. Maybe I'm having the wrong reaction, and having 4 daily masses per day is a sign of the great faithfulness of the people in Rome in general. And maybe it's different here because Rome IS such a popular pilgrimage site, and in the smaller towns of Italy things have a parish dynamic more like in the U.S.

While I was at mass today I had the thought that the churches here have more life in the actual structure of the church, and the beauty of the architecture and everything, but the churches in America have more life WITHIN the walls. I had a similar experience yesterday, too, when I went into another magnificent church for the first time and knelt down to pray, and the first thing that came to mind was the church in Limon, Colorado. It's one of my favorite churches. It's small and simple, probably built by the first people in the town, but it has its own share of beauty that comes from that simplicity. It's quite a contrast to all the churches here. I guess all of this points towards the question: are the people more important than the building, or is the building more important than the people? In Limon, the church is sacred mostly because the people make it so (and, of course, because the sacraments are celebrated there--does that sort of equal everything out and make the differences not matter?) and here, it's almost like walking into such a sacred space sanctifies the people. Which is better? I don't know. But as an architecture student who's hoping to someday maybe work in the field of sacred architecture, it's an important thing to think about. I don't know which way I prefer. Intellectually, I think I would pick the Rome way. I believe strongly that Catholicism in general shouldn't be watered down at all to cater to the people, but instead the people should rise to higher standards. That usually manifests itself in a strong preference for orthodoxy, especially in the liturgy, but applied here it seems to logically mean we should have overwhelming, ornate, beautiful churches. On the other hand, though, leaving intellectual ideas aside, I feel much more at peace in the smaller, simpler churches I've been in. They foster a sense of a more personal relationship with God. I also kind of associate them with humility, and the huge churches with magnanimity...but I know that's a sticky area to wander into because I don't think those have to be mutually exclusive, so I don't want to divide them in my head like that.

Well, I don't really have any conclusion for this, but I would love to hear more thoughts on this idea if anyone has any.

Also, you might be reading this blog because you want to know the things I've been up to, not just the thoughts I've had while doing it, so here's a little bit of that: classes started Monday! I have all architecture classes (I'm not going to take Italian after all), which means my work is alot of walking around the city and drawing and analyzing different parts of it. History is going to be especially good, I think, because the professor is a lady who just knows scads of it. We walk around and she tells us stories about most of the buildings we pass. In the one class we've had so far, we talked a lot about the founding of Rome and the Roman Forum, but about other random things too, and it was all really fascinating. For Urbanism we analyzed the Campidoglia, which is a really cool piazza designed by Michelangelo. For studio, we basically have one long project that will take the whole semester, but it's divided into 3 parts. At the end, we'll have a design for a few university buildings in a piazza by the Tiber, rebuilt where a few buildings were torn down in the 30s and never replaced. It's a project that could actually happen, too...the city wants to put something new there and we're working in conjunction with a Roman school somehow, and I think they might actually build one of our proposals. Anyway, we're starting with a short analysis of the existing piazzas in Rome so we can learn how they work, so we're working in groups and each group looks at one in particular and then we'll all look at what every group has done. It's interesting and not TOO stressful yet, and it's not a design project, which always makes it a little easier. But, speaking of which, I need to get to work...

Shake Down the (Roman) Thunder

2009-09-13T23:28:00.000+02:00

Last night, I had a crazy experience. Well, I guess I could say that everything I've done in the past 5 days (have I really only been here 5 days?) has been a crazy experience. But this particular one involved going to an Irish pub, in the middle of Rome, full of English speakers, to watch the ND v. Michigan game. Talk about a small world...who would have thought that was possible? It was an exciting game. The lead changed back and forth a few different times...I won't mention the very end, since Notre Dame fans don't need to be reminded, and it probably doesn't interest anyone else. (Total side note--the title of this post was obviously inspired by the experience of watching the game over here, but I thought it was clever because it also has the double effect of describing the weather we've had recently; it's stormed each afternoon the past two days). Anyway, it was really fun to watch the game, but it made me the most homesick I've been since getting here. While the Eucharist tends to make the distance across the ocean seem not very significant, this had the opposite effect: thinking about everyone at ND watching the game at the same time we were (except for us, the game started at 9:30 pm and lasted til well after midnight) made me feel very far away. Although, come to think of it, the mood on campus probably wasn't too great after that game anyway:-)

But still, I'm starting to miss the little things. Like today, I had a strange desire to read a few books we have at home, and then remembered I won't have a chance to til May...and I miss home cooked food. We've been eating out for pretty much every meal. That will change next month for sure, when the kitchen is done being renovated and we can start cooking for ourselves. And I think tomorrow I'll go to the grocery store (the “di per di”--which literally translates to “of for of”; we can't quite figure out why it's called that) and scope out the sandwich fixings options. Peanut butter doesn't exist here, though, so I may end up with Nutella sandwiches every day:-) Just kidding. But I'll have to see what's around. (REVISION: peanut butter DOES exist, it's just really expensive. I decided to splurge on it, though. And, while standing there pondering which jar to get, I got hit on by a middle aged Italian man. Note to self: don't linger in the di per di!)

On a brighter note, classes start tomorrow! Here's my schedule:

Studio M, W, F 2:00p.m.-6:00p.m.
Watercolor T 9:00a.m.-12:00p.m.
Roman Architecture and Urbanism T 2:00p.m-5:00p.m.
Architectural History R 9:00a.m.-12:00p.m.
(hopefully)Intermediate Italian W, F morning sometime, this one's not for sure yet

I'm looking forward to getting into a routine. I haven't yet found a daily mass I can go to, but then, I haven't really tried...so I'll be glad when I get that figured out too. I feel like I've been on vacation here so far, and totally doing the tourist thing, but real living starts tomorrow. I'll have work to do and places to be, and I'll be learning all kinds of cool stuff...so it should be good.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

2009-09-11T12:33:00.000+02:00

I wrote a post before I left about “lasts”. Now, my life has been nothing but firsts for the past two days. My first dish of authentic Italian pasta, my first gelato cone, my first run, my first night in my new room, my first time seeing all the monuments...I've been to the Pantheon, because I live just a few blocks from it; the Trevi Fountain, which I really know nothing about since we didn't learn about it last year in Architectural History, but it's pretty cool; the Roman Forum, just a walk-by, though; and the Colosseum, but again, we didn't go in. I've also seen several churches that I know I recognize but just can't think of which one it is, and wish I actually remembered everything that I “learned” last year.

Oh, and, today was my first time in the Vatican! To me that seems to almost belong in a different category than everything else. All the other stuff is typical for getting settled into a new place and kind of touristy, but this...this was like coming home. I've always identified myself as a Roman Catholic, but it's easy to forget how closely that ties you to the physical place of Rome. But when you're here, you can tell that this is it, the center of the Church.

The hotel where we live is right by the Corso Vittore Emmanuele, which was basically built to run straight into St. Peters, so it's pretty easy to find from where we live, and only about a 20 minute walk (probably less if you walk fast). When we got close, though, we turned off of the Corso and onto a side street that would take us to St. Peter's from the side (clever). See, when the Basilica was built, the Corso didn't go all the way into the Square like it does today, there was another building in the way. Everyone had to come in from the side, and that's how it's meant to be approached. That way, you don't see it as you're walking up. You're going along a regular street with buildings on both sides, and up ahead you can see a dome. As you get closer you can see a colonnade at the end of the street. Then, the buildings on the sides end, and you pop out for a full view of the Square, and you can tell it's huge. You're a little off center, though, so you can't really see the Basilica very well through the columns. You walk around the columns to where they open up, and you're staring at the whole thing dead on for the first time. The massive amount of open space (rare in Rome), the obelisk (probably the last thing that St. Peter saw before he died), and the Basilica itself. It's breathtaking. One of the coolest parts is seeing all the statues of saints looking down from on top of the colonnade. Obviously it brings to mind the communion of saints that are always looking down on the present day Church and praying for her. I wish I knew more about iconography so I could identify all of them (or at least some).

I took a few pictures of these outside views, and then we went inside. The inside is absolutely gorgeous. Gigantic, beautiful, majestic, glorious, awesome in the truest sense of the word—it inspires incredible awe. It's colorful, because of all the different kinds of marble used, and very, very ornate, but it doesn't seem over the top or “too much” whatsoever. It's obvious from the moment you walk in that all of this is done for a reason; to give glory to God. We offer Him our best works, most precious materials, and all our skill and craftsmanship. There are little side chapels all along the length of it, and there are so many they seem to go on forever. The first one has the original Pieta. A few have the remains of saints (mostly Popes). There's also an area on each side that's roped off and reserved for prayer. One side has perpetual adoration with the Eucharist exposed in a monstrance and the other has the Eucharist reserved in a tabernacle. I went in to the one with the monstrance. Praying in front of Jesus there, in St. Peter's, was probably one of the most momentous occasions of my life so far. If you told me a prayer intention before I left, know that I prayed specifically for it (and you) during that time. And if you've thought of any more, or if I forgot to ask you then please please let me know. There's probably a pretty good chance that I'll be back there sometime soon:-)

Anyway, I had a few other thoughts while I was praying. First, I was reflecting on all the beauty and majesty around me and I remembered a line that I think I must have read in a book sometime recently...I can't remember exactly who wrote it but I would guess either George Wiegel or G.K. Chesterton. I also can't remember the exact words of the quote, but the idea is that we need to practice for the beauty of Heaven by being exposed to beauty on earth. It's something that we have to become accustomed to; it's too much to be thrown into all at once. And by golly, I'm pretty sure I was exposed to some Heavenly beauty today. Secondly, I felt the universality of the Church. I miss people back in the States, naturally, but I felt so close to all of you while I was praying. It was like the distance all went away, or at least didn't matter anymore. I was right beside you in this thing called the Church, right along with all the people who have gone before or will come after us. I haven't been to mass yet here in Rome, but I'm anxiously anticipating the next time I get to go and experience that communion even more deeply. We walked around and saw pretty much everything on the inside of the Basilica, but I purposefully didn't take any pictures. My first time there I didn't just want to be another tourist. And somehow it felt like taking pictures would make me an outsider...I wanted to be an insider, a Catholic coming home. I wanted to soak it all in and really experience it. And, I figure I'll have plenty of time to go back and get those pictures (because I will want to at some point...).

After that, we went down and saw the tombs of several Popes, including John Paul II's. Another incredible experience. I remembered watching his funeral on TV, and seeing the people crammed into St. Peter's Square, and then the procession at the end where they carried his body to the tomb...which happened to be right where I was standing (actually, kneeling) at the time. Oh man. I have already been blessed so much.

Ahem. Well, as you can probably tell from the length of my description, St. Peter's has been my favorite part so far. I think it's going to be pretty hard to top.

Oh, and school stuff is going well too...we had a little bit of orientation today and we'll finish the orientating process tomorrow. Then we have the weekend to keep seeing the sights, and classes start on Monday. Buona notte!

When in Rome...

2009-09-10T00:31:00.000+02:00

When I logged into Blogspot just now to jot down a quick update, it had switched itself to Italian. Now, however, it's back to English...strange. Anyway, as you can probably guess from that, sono a Roma! We got in this morning, though it feels like alot longer ago that that. The flight was...long. But, it had some perks--we got served two meals. Two! Plus pretzels and drinks! AND there were movies! I also slept for a large part of it. When we got to Rome it was about 8:30 am local time, but my watch was still on South Bend time and so said 2:30. That was pretty surreal. We've spent the day moving in and getting things set up--internet and phone service, filling out paperwork to apply for "permission to stay permits", etc. Our rooms are nice, but small. I have less space to put stuff than last year, and if you're familiar with that set-up you'll know that that's pretty incredible. I'm already remembering bits of Italian. For instance, I successfully told the desk clerk my room number in Italiano in order to get my key, and even added a "per favore" at the end. Well, even though jet lag is telling me it's early evening, I should go to sleep...I'll try to post again soon, and maybe include some pictures!

And Our Hearts Forever Love Thee, Notre Dame

2009-09-06T22:37:00.000+02:00

I'm at Notre Dame right now! I came up for the game yesterday, (we won, 35-0, against Nevada), and I'll be staying here til Tuesday. It's a little strange to be on campus without actually going to classes and doing homework and all that. It doesn't really feel like home right now, more like I'm just visiting. And it doesn't help that I can't swipe into my dorm, I don't get meals in the dining hall, and I don't have any flex points...and today I was sitting out on the quad and I felt like everybody who walked by could tell that I wasn't a real student. Maybe that's being a little overdramatic, but it IS weird:-) I don't really mind the not having work to do part, though. On Friday night I walked by the architecture building and saw a bunch of the current sophomores working on their projects. Normally, I'm on the inside of that situation, not outside looking in. It's quite a different perspective. I wanted to say, "it's Friday night! You should be out having fun!"...but that's what everybody is usually saying to me, and at those times I know that it's just not possible.

It's been great this weekend to be able to invest fully in the social aspects of college. And I've been able to visit some of my favorite places and do typical Notre Dame things--I've been to a football game, a candlelight dinner, reckers, I visited the grotto, I walked in the basilica but still need to go to mass there, and I combined a couple of my usual running routes this morning. Tonight I'll go to Vespers and Walsh mass, tomorrow I'll go to a 5:15 basilica mass, I've seen pretty much everyone I want to at least once, with plans to see a few more people tomorrow hopefully...I'm trying to soak in enough experiences to last me a year.

I do like it here. Alot of faithful Catholics have pretty much totally renounced the place and don't want anything to do with it, but I can't do that. I see all the good that's here too. It's beautiful. I know it's not perfect and there are alot of things that need to be changed, from big level things in the attitude of the administration, to small level things that happen on campus every weekend. But I take great comfort in the fact that it's still called "Notre Dame". I know Mary is watching over everything here. I think people sometimes forget what Notre Dame means when they're just talking about the school. I've been guilty of that as well...but every time we name it, we're claiming her as our mother and asking for her intercession. I trust that intercession completely. So Mary, Queen of Heaven, Notre Dame, pray for us!

Root, root, root for the Cardinals

2009-09-04T08:03:00.000+02:00

Last Tuesday was my last night in St. Louis (yesterday and today I went on a mini road trip to visit friends at various colleges west on I-70, and tomorrow I'll be heading up to ND, and then on Tuesday--a Roma!). My family sent me off in style--first, we went to Steak n Shake for some good all-American food. In retrospect, I probably should have gotten the American melt, but instead I went with a Frisco melt, my usual. And an oreo shake, because it's pretty much required. Anyway, here's us outside afterwards! (If I can figure out how to get pictures on here...)

From left: Mom, half of Laura, Caroline, Matt, Dad, and Steve

Caroline, Matt, Mom, Dad, all of Laura, Steve

Yay! After a few failed attempts, I did it! :-) Next, Steve and I went to the Cardinals game against the Brewers. It was awesome. We got there a little late, because dinner went long, but we saw all the good parts. When we arrived, they were down 3-0. As we were walking into our section, though, Pujols hit a homer! Then they promptly scored 2 more runs and tied it up. In the 5th (or 6th perhaps, I can't quite remember), the Brewers pulled ahead again 4-3, but in the bottom of the inning the Cards scored a run on a Molina base hit (after they had intentionally walked the guy in front of him), so it was tied again. In the bottom of the 7th, the Cards had a runner on 2nd, then Pujols was intentionally walked, then Holliday came up...and hit a homer on the first pitch. Intentional walks just didn't work out so well for the Brewers that night. The final score was 7-6, because the Cardinals decided to let it get a little interesting in the 9th, maybe too much so, as the go ahead run was at the plate. Luckily, he struck out to end it. It was an all-around great game--great hitting, great fielding, great baserunning...but then again, nothing too special for the Cards this season. They've been totally dominating lately. It's too bad that I won't be around to celebrate when they win the World Series...

The view from our seats...the Arch is back there somewhere

Steve and I after the game

It was a good "bon voyage" night, as my mom called it.

Stay Gold

2009-08-31T07:02:00.000+02:00

When I get ready for big (or even not-so-big) life transitions, I always go through a period where I think about all the "lasts"--like, the last time I'll teach this Totus Tuus class, the last time I'll run this particular route, the last time I'll eat in the dining hall, etc. Today was the last time I'll participate in a Sunday afternoon family activity for quite awhile, and also the last night shift I'll work at DQ. For our activity, we went to a park and played frisbee and walked around. As family activities go, that one's fairly common, especially when the weather's this nice (except it almost felt a little chilly at times--very strange for August in St. Louis). So the activity wasn't anything special, but I savored it because I know I won't get to do it again for a long time. When things are finite, it adds an importance to each instance. I'd say it added to my enjoyment of being with my family today to know that I won't be next week at this time. It seems kind of paradoxical, then, to think about how this finite-ness is a result of the Fall. We were created for eternity. We weren't created for goodbyes (sometimes I think that's what makes them so hard) and we weren't really created for things to end. But now, we tend to take things for granted if we have them all the time, and sometimes only recognize their goodness when they're drawing to a close or even gone. So in Heaven, I'm pretty sure we'll fully appreciate each and every moment, even though we have an infinite amount of them. And I guess it's a good reminder not to take things for granted here either...and that reminds me of a Robert Frost poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Nature's first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
but only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
so Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day,
nothing gold can stay.

I had to memorize this in 8th grade, because it's featured in the book The Outsiders, which we were reading. And in the book, one of the characters then tells another to "stay gold"--to stay young and fresh and alive. I love that.

Maybe this is an example of God redeeming our broken human nature and working through our weakness...and as I think about my "lasts" over the next few days, hopefully it will remind me of His enduring love that's the same yesterday, today, and forever...and that's pretty golden:-)

First Things

2009-08-29T06:37:00.000+02:00

I'm feeling under a lot of pressure right now. This is the FIRST post of my brand new blog. And the first post has to be exciting, witty, eloquent, profound, and basically set a general standard of awesome-ness. I don't know where to start.

I could start by explaining why I created this blog--a fairly typical reason. I'm studying abroad this year, and so I'll suddenly have a lot of interesting things to write about, that some people may enjoy reading about.

I could set out some goals for my blog, or talk about the direction it will take. That would be hard though, because to be honest I'm not really sure. It could just be a sort of travel log. It could get a little more philosophic or reflective at times, because I tend to often be that way...most likely it will be a combination of both that I'll figure out as I go, and if you, dear reader, care to keep checking up on it you'll find out too.

I could explain where the title came from...it's borrowed out of context from a quote by St. Augustine (fitting, as yesterday was his feast day!) He was talking about God; I'm thinking kind of of a few different things. First, the city of Rome, where I'll be living all year--apparently there are a lot of good-looking buildings around there that were built quite a long time ago. We're going to be studying them. We wouldn't bother doing that if they didn't have some sort of relevance for us today. They weren't just beautiful, strong, and functional way back when they were built. They are enduring, and so their beauty is lasting and ever new in that sense, but also new because we're looking at them with fresh eyes and drawing lessons from them that can be applied to contemporary situations. And I'm also thinking of the Church in general. So rich in Tradition, which I imagine will be more evident in Rome than anywhere else in the whole world. A Church that has stayed strong for 2000 years. And yet, even though the Church doesn't change, the people in the Church do. She is constantly being renewed, generation after generation, and especially right now as the youth of the JPII generation are bringing in their energy and passion. I'm thinking of the New Evangelization--"not new in content, but new in methods, ardor, and expression". I can't wait to be in Rome, in the center of all this, in the Heart of the Church.

I guess I'll leave you with those thoughts for now. The second post should be a bit easier to write, as the "first post" pressure will be off. (I feel this pressure when I start a new journal too. It's so hard to know what to write on the first page...anything completely blank and completely fresh has so much potential. And from these infinite possibilities of the first words to write, or the first line to make in a drawing, picking one place to start is difficult. I usually avoid that in my journals by leaving the first page empty...psychologically, it's easier for me to start writing on the second page than the first). Here though, I decided to face my fears and actually compose a first post, rather than just giving it a title and leaving it blank:-)

Ciao!