Nothing too Remarkable

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as the title of this entry should tell you, I haven't been up to a whole lot lately. I think I'm getting use to Rome, and so stuff that might have been exciting to me a month ago now just seems common place.

I did go and see the Pope. that's worth writing about. laura has this priest friend who scored us tickets to a papal mass. and this wasn't just any papal mass, oh no. it was a canonization mass, which means i saw five dead guys get turned into saints. pretty exciting. one of the saints was from chile, so pretty much half the population of chile was hanging out with us there at st. peter's square. and they were very pumped up about all this pope business. they made up cheers and yelled them at the top of their lungs and sang songs. they were a fun bunch of people. the mass was mainly in latin and italian or some other foreign language, so i don't really know what was going on most of the time. i stood up when everybody stood up, i sat down when everybody else sat down, and i listened to the pope. i've decided i like this pope. he seems like a nice guy.

we went and looked at relics one day. i saw an identical replecation of the shroud of turin. i think all that is very fake. the picture of "Jesus" is way too detailed for it to be genuine, in my opinion. i saw the holy stairs, which are historically suppose to be some stairs that Jesus walked on. I saw some pieces of wood that are suppose to be from the holy cross, and i saw some nails that were suppose to have been driven into Jesus' hands. I do not know how real these things are, but I don't think it matters to much. Such things did exist, and whether they are preserved in museums these days is irrelevant.

laura turned 20, and me and keri threw her a party. it was wonderful. we went to our favorite chinese restaurant and bought a crap load of fun. chinese food here is really good and way way way way way way cheaper than italian food. you can get a really good, big meal (appetizer, soup, main course, extra rice, and drink) for ten euros or less. i tell you what, thats quite a deal. and we bought sparkling wine and a delicious chocolate rum cake, which we did not share with anyone outside of our group and thus we each had a whole lot of cake. oh, and we went to this nice bar place that had a free buffet during happy hour. i was waaaaaaay more interested in the free food than in my drink, and i wouldn't have even bothered to get a drink if there had been another way to get stuff from the buffet.

lots of people are gone on trips this weekend, but dr. quinn threw a movie night party for the few of us still in town. it was a good time. he put out lots of ham and salami and cheese and wine and chocolate, and i brought some grapes and deviled eggs, and all this turned out to be quite a scrumptious spread. we watched the unusual suspects, which i had enver seen before and which i now love, and we watched red dragon.

so as you can see, nothing too exciting has been going on lately. this monday i may take a day excursion to orvieto, a little town in tuscany that makes some good wine. otherwise, you guys will have to wait awhile before anything spectacular happens, but next month you will get to hear about venice, germany, and austria, and the month after that you'll hear about the netherlands. so just hold your horses guys. i'll become more amusing some day.

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Photos

frisky young miss
mrs. glass, now don't yell at laura about this picture b/c i don't want to be yelled at by her.

our large pieces of cake
i called these mercedes benz cuts, b/c we divided the cake into three equal pieces, like a mercedes symbol

keri got hit in the head with a cork
it was really freakin' funny.

Comments

[Kim]

I MISS SARAH LABAUVE
The Italian people have kept you much too long. My life is dull and humorless without you. But, I guess I can last a couple more months, only on account of you having so many more cool things to do. Tuscany, Venice, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands...that's going to be awesome. Well, I'm headed out to go to a UBC service project. Geez, you think I would have learned by now. At least this time the word mystery is in no way involved. I love you!

[sarah]

=]
that shroud looks like there's a chubby china man in it and not jesus! ._. maybe i'm just looking at it wrong tho. and i don't really believe the whole "this is saint so and so's left toenail" thing. i think it's more to do with blind faith than anything when it comes to remnants of saints and stuff. :3

[Megan]

When I went to the Vatican when I was 14, I took all these pictures of some priest because I thought he was the Pope. I was sorely mistaken.

[devon]

well this used to be cool
What I had to tell you was cool before I read your blog. It's fun to tell your friend who is in another country enjoying life there, seeing the pope and people being saint-ified that you went to 2 wicked awesome shows the weekend of the 21st. (Last weekend?) But I did. I went to a show last friday night, and then I went to yet ANOTHER on Saturday night. Saturday nights entertainment was free by the way, which made it even better, so I bought shirts and stickers and heard number one gun, who I liked more than the main band, spoken. That is kinda weird that I liked both of the warm up bands better than the main act. But they were kinda different styles, and the main act was pretty good, and now I can say that I have seen spoken.

[eric]

indeed
yes. sarah. You saw the pope. Saints. I am in old main, just got advised by a charming woman. She was nice. Well, I guess I gotta go. F-Town misses you.

[Chris]

I MISS SARAH TOO
I agree with Kim, the italian people have kept you way too long. I can't wait for you to get back as selfish as that sounds. But anyway, have fun and keep taking pictures, like that's a real problem, i really enjoy them. much love