The Little Things

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!