Easter at the Vatican

By special request, I present the Vatican, at Easter:

St. Peter's Basilica

Easter Sunday, crowd assembles

The feisty nun in the grey habit will soon be standing on her chair, waving her arms, yelling into her cell phone.  Also, note the television monitor below the statue, an odd juxtaposition.

Crowd gathers, looking around, music in the distance, what can it be?

Oh snap! It's the Vatican band, take a picture!

Naturally, the band didn't cause half so much ruckus as when this guy entered the scene:

It's the pope!  

This is the best picture I could get of Pope Benedict, it's from the papal address after mass, so he's up on his papal balcony.  I made have said this before, but the Filipina nuns took the prize (or would have, if there'd been a prize) for loudest response when the pope made gave his linguistic shout-outs (although the Germans and the Polish weren't far behind)

Mass was probably about an hour an a half and each reading and song was in a different language, they covered Latin, English, German, Spanish, and French...and a few others I believe

Yes, yes, so that was friday. Getting to the hotel was followed promptly by a lot of lounging around and then some television. The only english channels available are CNN, BBC world, and Bloomberg, so I'm currently well-versed in the state of the world. Among things I've learned, people consume more chocolate and beer when the economy tanks, the high-end market for online dating is unaffected by the ''wintry economic climate,'' Croatia is looking to boost its tourism, and Macedonia is an EU candidate that really wants to attract international business.

After TV, it was time for pizza. Since I arrived in Italy the only food I have eaten, apart from breakfast, has been pizza and gelato, it's just that good. Wait, no, broke the streak last night with some pasta and soup for dinner. And then I had a sandwich for lunch. But still, before that, we're talking like 4 pizzas in a row. My favorite has been this great place Stephanie took me to on Saturday for lunch, it was a thin crust pizza with mozzarella and arugula. Oh, and after lunch we had cappuccinos, but I don't think that's enough to technically break the pizza streak. I say cappuccinos, but Stephanie has since informed me that more than one cappuccino is called cappucci. Or something like that.

Stephanie has been studying in Rome for the year as part of Notre Dame's architecture program, so she makes an EXCELLENT tour guide. Saturday Isabel and I met her at the Colosseum and the three of us walked from there, past the Forum and the Wedding Cake, through Rome to the Notre Dame architecture studio. The great thing about Rome is, and this come from both me and Stephanie, is that you can just wander down the street, going about your business, there are buildings everywhere, you turn the corner and WHAM ancient ruin, some columns, and Caesar's favorite hangout. And for the most part, its a very walkable city with an extensive bus system. A few hours after the cappuccino, it was time for gelato, naturally, so we met up with some friends and took care of the gelato situation (the gelato situation being, I need to eat as much gelato as possible in Rome because it is wonderful). The rest of Saturday consisted of more wandering through Rome with Isabel, Marvin, and John. We tried to make it to the top of the Wedding Cake but we were foiled by a 7€ elevator. Instead we hung out, took pictures, and got a little lost on the inside of the monument (and I hear this is hard to do).

Sunday morning, I got up bright and early for Easter mass at the Vatican! I got tickets through Notre Dame because I guess somebody knows somebody who knows somebody, Catholic connections I suppose, but most of the ND study abroad students had the chance to sign up to go to mass at the Vatican, so all I had to do was show up and look for the big ND flag. We got great seats, I was about 7 rows from the front, and while the front of the seating was still a ways from the alter, I could see really well. My favorite moment from the experience was from before mass started. We had to hurry to get our seats and were constantly passed by fierce nuns who were eager to see the pope (I'd heard tales about this before, short story: don't even get between a nun and the pope). But we found a good place to sit and waited the hour and a half between getting our seats and the start of mass. Meanwhile, we were surrounded by people from all over the world trying to find their seats as well, excusing themselves as they pushed by in all different languages. About three rows ahead of us was a tough and sassy Italian nun (I use these adjectives with a positive connotation, mind you). She was probably around 70 and in full habit, looking around for a friend she was saving a seat for. In order to get a better view, she stood up on top of her seat and whipped out her cell phone to call her friend. Then, still atop her chair, she gives her friend directions over the phone, arms moving in every direction in a stereotypical Italian fashion.
Second favorite moment, after mass, the pope gave an address followed by a greeting in dozens of different languages. I was surrounded by Phillipina nuns, so when he got to Tagalog, they went crazy cheering, it was very charming.
Oh, and third favorite moment, there was a group of German nuns close by who were waving a large German flag for the pope and for the camera. They were very jaunty, I saw them joking together when they walked by later.
I love nuns. When I was 8 I wanted to be a nun. Granted, at 7 I wanted to have 100 children and at 9, I was looking at around 30.

Happy Easter!

I'm in Rome, waiting 'til dinner. Got here Friday.

I booked a hotel for Rome and looked up directions to get there. The first time I looked them up, the metro stop was 4km from the hotel. The second time I looked them up, the bus stop was 250m from the hotel. I didn't look them up a third time, but I thought I did and I was reasonably certain that the metro stop was 250m from the hotel. This was not the case.

It was a little rainy when Isabel and I left Madrid, but nothing worth delaying our flight. We got into Ciampino airport in Rome 5 minutes ahead of schedule. And this is where the adventure begins...

After stumbling our way through the two things I could remember in Italian: 'where' & 'thank you' we got to the 40 minute bus that would take us to the center of Rome. It was hot and humid, but it was the most comfortable and affordable way to get into the city at 4€. However, it was a lot more than a 40 minute ride after our bus driver got into an accident and had to try three times to pull to the side of the road because of the traffic. While we waited, the bus got hotter and the passengers got crankier, especially when it took us 20 minutes just to figure out what was going on. But eventually we were on our way only mildly irritated. We got the the metro and made it to our stop with very little trouble. However, once we got to the right metro stop, all bets were off because my google map wasn't nearly detailed enough. Thankfully I still knew the word for 'where' and Italian women seem to be pretty nice. I went into a cafe to ask directions from a women who corrected my pronunciation of Pineta Sachetti, the street I was looking for, but then gave me detailed directions from which I gleaned the general direction. It took a bit more wandering, but I made it to the right street where I asked a women who was walking her dog where Via San Lino Papa was, the street on which our hotel was located. She looked alarmed, mumbled, and walked away quickly. So I walked on farther. Following my lack of a map, Isabel and I walked a kilometer or two before finding Hotel Beethoven which flew, among other things, a UK flag. 'Surely they speak English,' I assured myself and dashed inside even though this was not my hotel. Luckily they did speak English, although not very well, but it was enough to get me in the right direction once again. Another kilometer and a half later I was sure I had walked too far. Tired, hot, and irritated by the crass Italian men driving by, I found another Italian women, and one more time, asked for directions. She spoke neither English nor French, but she was very nice and could tell I only understood her marginally. French is helpful in Italy because there are so many cognates, but her wild arm motions went a lot farther than anything else. She explained that I would need to walk further, but that the road would curve to the left, but I should take the road that curved to the right and this curving would take place in a large area with chairs...or something like that. Her directions were enough that after yet another kilometer, sweaty and tired with luggage and sore feet, we FINALLY made it to the misnamed Pineta Palace. It's a perfectly decent hotel, but unless you're an executive on the 7th floor staying in "7th Heaven," it's no palace.

Anyway, it's dinner time, so that's all for now.