i saw the pope!

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Well sort of. more or less. This morning, Sarah, Keri and I walked up to St. Peter's Square because we heard that the vatican museums are free on the last sunday of the month. BUT everyone else in the world has heard that too adn there were tons of people there. But we got up to the square and worked our way up as close as we could and we heard the pope talking and saw his face on the big screens. But i'm pretty sure that it was just a satellite feed from somewhere else. Its still cool though. Then we decided that we'd just wait to see the museums when we go for school and we walked to castel st. angelo and realized that the line for that was really super long too. So we just looked adn took a few pictures and came here to school for a min. Yesterday, we walked to the spanish steps in the afternoon to do some window shopping. It was such a nice day that i think the entire city was out walking around. We saw the trevi fountain which was even more crowded than the spanish steps.. but we did get a chance to go up to it and throw our coins in. So that was pretty neat. Friday though. .... ah friday. We got up early to go on a little bus ride up to Subiaco. The appenine mountains are soo pretty. and our bus driver was CRAZY. he was trying to navigate this ginormous bus through tiny streets of subiaco and we got stuck and caused a traffic jam and lots of people came outside to watch us get unstuck. we scraped a wall pretty bad. but we got out and he was frustrated and started taking the curves super fast and crazily and we looked up at him and he's on his cell phone!! jeez. but subiaco was really cool. we saw the grotto where st. benedict lived as a hermit. and the monastery is actually built into the side of a mountain so half the walls there are just solid rock. then we went a little ways back down the mountain to st. scolastica. they wouldnt let us take pictures there, but it was gorgous. lots of gardens and flowers. we had to take a guided tour through it even though i'm sure davide knew so much more than our tour guide lady. So after that, we drove up another mountain to Cervara. Ahhh. that place is so gorgeous. Its this little hilltop town that is so cute and picturesque, but the population is dying b/c everyone moves to the cities. We went to this restaurant called Ferrari or something. We all sat out on the balcony on the side of the mountain looking into the valleys below. and the meal was soooo good. our first course was a plate of homemade pasta with a porticini and black truffle sauce. it was so good i could have stopped there and been happy. then they brought out the veal and chicory and potato fries. i was so happy to be eating meat!!! and the chicory was sooo tasty. i've never had it before. it looked like spinach but the flavor was amazing. And the pitchers of wine kept coming out. For dessert we had a piece of tirimisu and then lemoncello. both were amazingly delicious. I think that was probably the best dining experience of my life. after lunch we climbed up to the top of the mountain and tricia was singing the sound of music! I am so glad that i went on that trip. it was completely worth it. Dr. Fredrick came to visit last week and he was with us on our trip there. Wednesday night he had a dinner party at his apartment, which was completely gorgeous. There had been a mix up with his apartment rentals and so the realtor gave him a deal on this one. It was so beautiful with 2 balconies. And again we had a lot of good food and good wine. i've had so much fun the past few days.

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