Adventures in Roma and Nettuno Beach!

Well, we have been back in Rome for over a week now; a week that has been jam-packed with orientation, classes, and exploring! There is lots to tell, mostly about the many sights we've seen this week and the 25--count 'em! 25!--hours of intensive Italian class we have completed this week.

Italian is a beautiful language. But sitting in class for five hours of it everyday has been a bit draining. This is the only intensive week though, thank goodness, so our normal class schedule kicks in next week. :) Meanwhile, I'm starting to get the hang of it: Buon giorno, mi chiamo Lauren, e sono studentessa Americana! Come ti chiami e di dove sei?

 After classes this week we've done a lot of exploring around Rome, and one day was a mandatory "scavenger hunt" to force us to get used to using our bus/metro pass. That turned out to be quite a blessing, because we've now got the hang of getting around the city easily using the public transportation. This week we saw Saint John Lateran, the Pope's official bishopric-seat, and Santa Croce de Gerusalemme, where the relics of the Holy Cross are kept!

The ceiling of St. John Lateran.

 The relics of the True Cross, venerated in a special side chapel of Santa Croce. It was beautiful to be able to pray there before the wood of the Cross "on which hung our salvation."

A group of us also checked out The Pantheon. Brendan, front and center in this pic, is one of our history majors who was acting as our guide that day and who is honestly nearly as good as a professional tour guide; he really does know an astonishing amount about all these historical sites, including dates, names, and interesting events.





 The Pantheon:

Former pagan temple. . .

. . . Now it's a Catholic Church. 

We win.

The (very cold and wet) day we went to St. John Lateran, we also passed the Coliseum. Which I forgot to take a picture of. :-/ But I have a hunch we'll go back to it at some point.

Although I don't have a picture of the Coliseum, I do have a picture of Jordan looking at the Coliseum . . . hmm.

A lot of our free time is also taken up by locating, buying, preparing, and eating our own food, since there is no cafeteria here. It's actually quite nice to determine our own menu and be able to eat light or healthy as we please, and when we please. Because eggs are quite cheap here, all of us college kids are getting very creative with our egg dishes! Omelets, fried eggs, french toast, egg sandwiches, scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, eggs with tomatoes, eggs with salami, eggs with bread, eggs with nutella . . . and for that matter, anything with nutella! :) Fruit is also pretty inexpensive here. So with fruit and eggs and bread and cheese and tomatoes and coffee (and nutella, of course), we're actually eating pretty hearty most days.  With, of course, the occasional gelatto. :D

But before I go on, I thought I would share two miscellaneous adventures of this week that were quite unexpected.

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." --G. K. Chesterton.

 Misadventure number one: So, as most of you probably know, in a moment of sleep-deprived jet-lag, I stupidly left my glasses in the taxi we took from the airport to the hotel, so ever since I got here I have been walking around squinting at all the art and straining to read things in class. Yesterday, though, my new ones finally arrived from home, which made me very happy, as now I can see again! Not to mention, they're quite stylish. :)

But getting a hold of them wasn't exactly the least stressful thing I've done.

Three days ago, the front desk called me and told me something was there for me--turned out it was a fax from Fedex: two forms covered in my mom's handwriting and something that said "AirWay Bill" that basically repeated the same info. Confused, I asked the lady at the front desk for help; turns out, I should have done anything but that, because she knew even less about it than I did. She was a bit flighty and told me that because the paper said "200" I must owe customs 200 euro and they wouldn't give me my glasses unless I paid them that, and that I should have written "old, used personal items" on the postal form unless I wanted to pay a hefty fee.

 Cue my heart dropping to my shoes.

But of course, that was a mistake, thank heaven. I owed customs nothing; so after panicking for a few hours and frantically calling the Italian Fedex office, I discovered they just wanted me to tell them that yes, I was expecting a package.

Miscellaneous adventure number two:One morning this week before our 9 am Italian class on the other side of the Vatican, we went to the 7 AM Mass across the street. After Mass, while I was praying, a lady came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder; she looked familiar, but I couldn't immediately place her face. Then she politely asked if I was from Louisiana, and said she recognized me from Mass there; she correctly mentioned how many brothers she usually sees with me, and at what parish. Talk about a coincidence! Of course then I recognized who she was, one of a group of consecrated women I see sometimes at Mass--and admitted that yes, that was who I was! "I thought you looked familiar!" she cried. She explained she was on a pilgrimage with her family and was on her way to Assisi. I promised her she was in for a treat!

So, there's two notable adventures of this past week. :) Today was a special outing though: we took a train to nearby Nettuno Beach! St. Maria Goretti is buried in a (hideous modern) church there, and we visited her tomb.

 

She's beautiful, even if the shrine is not.

Chilling by the Mediterranean. :)



That's all for now, folks! Ciao!

xo Lauren