The pope, for real this time

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So last sunday was the papal mass!! it was an amazing experience. not only was this an opportunity to go to receive mass from the pope, but it was a cannonization mass where he cannonized 5 saints. how cool is that? so anyway that morning we all got up super early to get ready and go. The mass itself started at like 9:30 or 10:00 but we had to get there at about 7 in order to get into the gates and get seats. We all meet at teh bridge before the sun was even up and walk into St. Peter's Square. There are people EVERYWHERE. they all have flags and there's bands playing and huge groups of nuns and monks wearing ballcaps and bandanas and the groups of people are singing their natinal anthems and chanting stuff. its another world at one of these things. so we go to the back of an insanely long line htat extends all the way around the arms of the piazza and just hang back and wait until the gates open. But we're standing in line with a bunch of Chileans. one of the saints being cannonized was from Chile, so they all had their flags and were chanting "Chi Chi Chi, Le Le Le, Viva Chile!!" So we started doing it with them to fit in. Finally the lines start moving and we get into the actual piazza and its insane in there. old ladies and nuns are pushing and elbowing past you and everyone is running for seats so we start running for our seats. we got some really awesome seats though. right in the middle, sort of near the front. and the weather turned out to be really nice. It was foggy at first then it cleared up and got sunny thankfully. but it was so foggy at first that we couldnt even see the dome of hte church. there were so many people there it was unbelievable. I stood on my chair to look back at the people, and they completely filled the piazza and all the way back through the street behind it. I cant even imagine what it was like during the conclave. But we ended up sitting in another huge group of Chileans. That was fun. They're fun people. I never imagned i'd ever go to a mass so enormous. It was just like a regular mass, just all in italian/latin/greek. They told the lives of all the saints and they gave us a book with the english translation of their lives. They also actually gave communion to the entire crowd. A million priests came out to the crowd giving out the bread as htey passed by everyone. I just assumed that they wouldnt be able to organize communion for everyone, but it worked pretty well. The music was so beautiful. there was a boys choir, and i'm not used to catholic churches having a good choir. that was nice. The whole atmosphere was really celebratory. it felt like being at a big football game instead of church. and afterwards we stayed around for the angelus and the pope said part o it in english which was a nice change, to be able to understand something that morning. That whole morning was so surreal. i'm so glad i had the chance to go. Thank you James Melnick!!
Monday was my birthday, and i am so homesick. i got emails from everyone back in arkansas and i got really sad. that night we got some chinese food from the place near us and came back for cake and wine, then we went out for drinks at Primo. so nothing too wild. sorry to disappoint. We're trying to plan our trips to Venice and Munich this week. i'll be glad once that is out of the way. i hate planning. and i'm so excited that i'll have a camera again in a week!! its so hard going back to 35mm from digital. i'm not taking any pictures now b/c i dont have the instant gratifcation anymore. The weather here has really cleared up and the past few days have been sunny and in the 70s. Really nice change. i hope it will stick around.

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