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Published: February 7th 2008
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Ciao everyone! Whooo well I guess my subject line says it all: I have been one busy girl. After visiting the catacombs, I have done so much since the last blog I wrote!
My history class really is beneficial-the professor is a professional tour guide, who happened to be a professor at the UW in the past, so it works out perfectly, because everything we visit and she teaches us about, I already want to see anyway. Through her, our class went to the Church of St. Clemente-basically an 18th century church built on top of a 4th century church. The 4th century church was built on a house--everything was Christian and had to be kept secret because the Italians were pagans. The 18th century church of course is a more updated version of that 4th century church. What was neat was that we got to go under into the 4th century church and see the different frescoes portraying different fascinating stories that the Christians wanted to spread. One was simply about being kind, whereas another was about Pope St. Clemente's power, for he reconnected a child and mother. It really was interesting. Next to this 4th century Christian church
was the cult of the Mithreas, quite ironic. We have also made numerous visits to the Pantheon, built by Emperor Hadrian as a temple to all gods. Pan=All Theon=Gods. There is literally a hole in the roof to be closer to the gods and connect to them. There are drains in the church for when it rains, but our prof said that often the rain surpasses the church opening anyway. Raphael and I believe (King?) Emanuelle II are buried. Today we actually visited one of the seven hills of Italy and went to (supposedly, though many believe it to be wrong) the site where St. Peter was crucified upside down. There was a beautiful church, and the templed dome where St. Peter was crucified was pretty interesting because the architect wanted the dome to be in the middle of the a circular area, and instead a Spanish Art college was built around it!
In addition to seeing these amazing sites, I had the unbelievable honor of seeing the Pope speak! Every last Sunday of the month, one can enter the Sistine Chapel for free. My roomies and I thought "what the heck" so we headed toward the Vatican (it's
so fun to say that) and heard a bell go off a few times. With these loud sounds, we bolted for Vatican City. The Pope spoke in about 7-8 different languages for Sunday mass, and of course when he spoke in English, us crazy Americans screamed like morons and had a few Italians turn around and smile/laugh at us. It was like a sporting event, it was so crowded! It was unbelievable to see how many people from around the world were there listening to this one man speak, and observe the crowd holding up their country flag or posters, or just enjoying the ambiance of it all. I will never forget that experience. It's funny though-I could barely hear what the Pope said, but somehow he drew me in completely. It was a once in a lifetime event.
Of course, the big event that just occurred was my trip to Venice. This trip was full of many things: A gondola ride, a walk through the main church (St. Mark's), feeding the pigeons (I had about five on me at once!!), and yes, the festival of Carnival with an amazing dance show. As for the pigeons--let's just say it
was a battle for the food I bought in the Piazza! For 1 euro, one could buy a full bag of pigeon food, put it in your hand, and watch the action begin. I took some great photos, and the pigeons were battling it out on my arm. So many pigeons were on me, that other tourists started taking photos of me! 😊 When it came to the festival of Carnival, it was great fun--I bought a beautiful mask and dressed up and it was amazing to just enjoy the nightlife of everyone in their costume, going all out for this tradition--even little kids. The show at night can be described as a light show, with dancers dressed in silver doing acrobatic moves on a trampoline--sounds weird, and yes it was! Yet, it was all part of what Carnival is all about-wearing a costume/mask and having a great time. While the nightlife wasn't as active as I anticipated, I still enjoyed myself, and had a great gondola ride during the day. 😊
Today, I also did some traveling around Rome by myself. I went to about three churches, and yesterday I will never forget walking into a church by
myself, viewing the different tombs, and having a group of monks next to me...what made the experience better was having one of the monks hum to the song the church was playing! I was in a church, viewing a tomb...with monks! Ohh how I love Rome...haha! But really, I found that navigating my way through the city by myself was very enlightening. I am with people almost 24 hours a day in the program I am in, so it was nice to get away.
Through all this traveling in Rome, I have yet more to do in other countries/cities. This weekend I am going to Orvieto, a beautiful small town to do some hiking and explore caves. Directly from Orvieto, I am going to Florence! I will be making way to Auschwitz next weekend, and the tour is confirmed! After that I am going to Pisa and Naples/Capri (obviously in Italy) and then headed to Berlin, Paris, and Barcelona (and yes a trip to Euro Disney will be made!!) all with my friend Ellen. I met her in the program, and we clicked very easily! In the mix of Paris and Barcelona (which is during Spring Break) I'll be
making a trip back to Rome to visit my parents and perhaps travel to Milan or Naples again.
I can't even express in words how lucky I feel to be here. I know this is a true blessing and honor to travel the world at my age, and have this wonderful opportunity. A friend from high school/college told me I would come back with a feeling that I could not ever explain to anyone while being here, because of the culture and the things I have seen. I couldn't agree with him more.
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