so we went to see the pope last saturday
ok so actually im going to start with friday. because in chronology that comes first
see what ive learned since being here?
im so proud
so yes friday
jaya sprinted out of bed to the sound of the buzzer ringing nextdoor. which was her laptop being delivered so it was happy. and then she wantd to go back to sleep./ but it didnt happen so we got up and she squeed. alot. and was adorable. and then most of the day was spent at campus setting her computer up and me sending her music. lots and lots of music. actually were still doing that right this moment. hehe. and then we went home and made dinner. then we went to good and thats always nice
then we were walking back from good and tristan and jen went home and jaya and i were walking towards pza.d. Santa maria in trastevere and i sent jaya home and she had much needed alone time with her computer and guitar and stuffs. so i went to the piazza and chilled with bank and simona for a couple hours. went to this really good (and cheap!) chinese restaurant. amazing steamed shrimp dumplings. yum
got home one-ish and we passed out
theeeen
Saturday!
got up and went to the vatican area for shopping. mission:international store
we got happiness
salsa (herdez! so happy) the salsa here in italy is like sweet bbq sauce. totally weird and unsatisfying
maple syrup- vermont! woo!
bisquick!- were going to have a pancake party
oatmeal- because its awesome
tea- yay!
black beans- yum
brownie mix- were making those tonight
mustard - because that way we can make egg salad. yay!
and mayo is next on the list. we already have soy sauce
freaking awesome. bloody italy and not having regular food on the shelves. ;p
so yeah walked home. ate lunch then got dressed and hoofed it back up to the vatican for our "university student mass"
ok so we werent exactly sure what this mass was going to be. JCU barely advertised it and when i asked they said oh its a special "lent service"
aight. classic catholic guilt? where better to get it than from the pope-man himself?
so we show up and who do we run into in the metal detector line? why the centro kids, meaning Mel from BU! Brett was already inside..which is hilarious
of all the times to meet up on accident..at the vatican at a mass wehre tehre are like 7000 someodd people. awesome no? weve been trying to meet up the whole time weve been here and things havent worked out but this was fun.
so we sit with mel and co. and gillian, one of the girls in my class, sits in front of us. so then we were like..alot of us.
yeah so on each seat we got a candle and a glow in the dark rosary. thank you PopeMan!
anyway so the actual point of this mass wasnt really a lent service. it was a service for university students in Europe and Asia. we were surrounded by nuns and priests from all over the world. and some college kids. but the idea is that it was a looooong service. fully rosary and then stations of the cross as well as a regular mass thrown in. for those of you that dont have reference...we left right after the rosary..thats 5 our fathers and 50 hail marys with stuff like songs and other response stuff inbetween...that alone was nearly 2 hours. add in the stations of the cross and youve got something like a 4 hour mass. yikes
so the cool thing was that the service was being done in parts simultaneously in a bunhc of countries all over the world, in order to join the college kids togetehr. so we had video feet from Portugal,China, the Phillipines, India, Albania, Pakistan, bologna, Manchester, Poland..and a few other places. so the different parts of the 5 mysteries was done in each of the countries, with testimonials by students from each city the service was being done in. the idea really was to join the university students in a religious community. quite cool actually.
parts of the whole service kind of felt like a soccer match (i nearly wrote football..since thats what it really is but yes ok..) as people kept waving their flags where we were and breaking into Emperor Popatine's own personal soccer chant that goes as such
"Ben-e-dic-to!" *clapclap clapclap clap*
rinse repeat until they shut up.
its kind of awesome.
so we left after Il Papa gave his address. in a few different languages, but mostly italian. apparently he was cracking jokes, but as they were in italian we didnt understand a damn thing. it sucks when you miss out on jokes, but pope jokes? even worse. boo. but yes. hes very german. and he still looks like Emperor Palpatine.
so we left. and met up with jen and tim and his girlfriend kate and went to the chinese restaurant id gone to with bank and simona the night before. still cheap and still awesomely good. yay for that. then i opted to go home and stretch for a bit and then go back to the piazza and chill with bank and simona again, while the rest of the kids, meaning jen and jaya went home and watched a movie. i watched banks show and chatted with him about how to improve it. chatted with adrian a bunch, hes so great. did some good shows too. there are new performers in the piazza, acrobats, which was kinda cool since i know how to do some of the stuff they were doing. dont like them very much though. very very scripted show and here ive noticed that people really like more interactive shows. oh well.
so yeah. life here doesnt suck
so sunday we slept til we woke up..at noon. we got in at 230ish. so not bad. we were going to go with bank to this thai meet up in EUR (outside the city) but he was going at noon so we didnt. they have a thai potluck in the park in EUR on the first sunday of every month. so well go next month for sure. instead we came here to camupus and have been here for some hours now. going to leave soon and go to the book store. and then make dinner...eggplant parmigiana woo!..and then go to good and get some studying done
so this week was fairly uneventful. just went to class. i took my last midterm and rocked it this morning. then in celebration jaya and i went to largo argentina and bought bleach..and bleached my mohawk. so im an awesome shade of...awesome.
my next post? will be a spring break update. so pictures of vangogh house and anne franks house and sarah and the tulane girls and shanna and yeah..im so excited to see friends.
ciao!
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