Off to Rome again!

Christ the Lord is Risen! Alleluia!!

Well, Easter around the Kartause was fantabulous. (Emily and I went to Vienna on Sunday for Mass at St. Stephan's; I also hiked Book Mountain and went to the waterfall.) However, you're going to have to pardon me yet again from not posting. Easter Monday I was running down a hill behind the Kartause in my dirndle, fell, and broke my finger. And I'm in a cast. Fortunately, it was only my left pinkie finger, so I can still take my exams, but typing with one hand takes a bit of time.

So, this week consists of:
JPII's Beatification on Sunday
X-rays on Monday after we return from Rome
Exams Teusday and Wednesday
Packing when not studying or praying
Flying home on Friday!

Hopefully I'll find some time to take my time typing posts and to post pictures and/or a transcriber to help me type more quickly.

[Update as of May 5: The xrays look good and everything is improving, but I will be in this cast for 4-6 weeks.]

One day (or, rather, a couple hours) in a new country-- Slovakia

Unfortunately, I'm a little behind with my other posts-- Lourdes will get updated as soon as I can (finals will be starting in less than a week) and I will get a post up about Mariazell as well. Hopefully while I'm at home I will be able to post pictures from these wonderful adventures.

April 21, 2011

Julie and I are staying in Gaming for Easter break, but we decided to take a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia on Thursday since there wasn’t much going on here then. And I have now been to all the countries of my ancestry!

Me at the train station in Bratislava.

We left at 4:30 am with Claire, Jeff, Katie, and Regina who were flying out of Bratislava to Ireland (however, we didn’t know that we would be on different trains once we got to Vienna because we were going to different train stations). The only problem we encountered on the way there was that we got off at the wrong “Wien” stop. But there was a train going to the same place five minutes later and we had a 20 minute layover, so it wasn’t a problem. But we didn’t have as much time to buy our supplement ticket for our Eurrail (Slovakia doesn’t take Eurrail), so we just bought the full-price ticket, which wasn’t too expensive anyway.

We found a Tube station sign in Bratislava!

Once we arrived in Bratislava, we didn’t know which bus to take to get to the city centre, so we bought our ticket back to Austria, which turns out was only 26 cents since we only had to get to the Austrian border to use our Eurrail. Then we were looking at bus schedules and finally figured out how to get there after asking the lady at the desk who spoke English. (We don’t know any Slovak—at least when we went to Prague, I at least knew how to say ‘No’ and learned how to say ‘English’ in Czech.)

The Castle in the background. 

Unfortunately, once we figured out the right bus, we got on it, but going the wrong direction. But it was easy enough—just hop off and cross the street, and get on the bus going the other way. We were really, really surprised at the small amount of people that we saw—this is the capital of Bratislava, so we were expecting it to be pretty large. But, it was really tiny.

When we reached our destination, we found a Capuchin Church and they were singing Praise and Worship in side, but we weren’t able to go inside. Down the street a little bit was another Catholic Church, but again, we couldn’t go in. However, we were able to peek through the windows on the doors.

Julie and me outside a church wherein they were
singing praise and worship in English.
Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out
how to get in.

Then we walked up to the Bratislava Castle which had a tremendous view of the city (the only disadvantage of visiting castles is that they are all on top of hills, and you have to walk up the hills). In front of it was a statue of St. George.

Me and the statue of  I think it's St. George. There's
probably a legend about it, too. I think he might have
turned his head at a crucial moment.

Then we went to the Cathedral. As we arrived, we saw tons of priests, nuns, and a bishop exiting the church. We talked to one of the Missionaries of Charity who was stationed in Bratislava and she said that it was the Chrism Mass. It was a gorgeous Gothic style church, and had beautiful side altars.

Priests exiting the Cathedral. Notice the
castle in the background!

The tall building with scaffolding I believe is the cathedral.

St. Michael's gate

After that, we did some shopping and saw St. Michael’s gate. Then we went back to our bus stop and to the train station. We ate lunch outside and then boarded the train for Wien. Our one train was a bit late, so we ran to the next platform, and made it. And we also met up with Hannah, and later several other FUS students who had also done day trips.

At the Grotto with Bernadette: Lourdes

(NOTE: My battery is really low right now, so I'll post as much as I can before it runs out and then update the post later.)

April 1-10

On Thursday afternoon after my Theology of the Church class, we left Gaming for Paris via bus, train, and overnight train. Friday morning, we arrived safe and sound in Paris. We were there only for the day, so we saw the major sights: Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre (Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo as well as French Romantic Movement pieces), ate crepes and bread, went to the Miraculous Medal Shrine for Mass and saw Sts. Louise de Merillac and Catherine Laboure, saw St. Vincent de Paul up close in a really nice little church ; and we stayed the night with the sisters at the Sacre Coeur Basilica which was absolutely gorgeous!!

The next morning we went to Lourdes and arrived there in the afternoon.