A year ago: Rome/Assisi Day 3

March 7, 2011

Today we ate breakfast at 6:45am and then headed for the Colosseum where we started our 1st tour of Rome, focusing on the early Christian Rome.

Julie, Markita, and me in front of the Colosseum!

We got to see the ancient Rome dug up, roads Peter and Paul would have walked on, and the graves of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. After the tour, I tried to meet back up with Julie and Claire at the Colosseum, but their tour went longer than mine, so I had to head for the Vatican by Metro and foot on my own, which was actually much less scary than walking the streets of London at night with Claire!

Some ruins from Ancient Rome...

The pretty white tower with a chariot on top!

Outside the Colosseum: reenactments. Notice the picture is taken
from a very far distance... with good reason...

 Then, I got pizza, met Regina in the Vatican security line and bag check in, and we went on our Scavi tour in which we went under the Vatican and saw the Necropoli of pagans and very early Christians.

**If you are intending on doing the Scavi tour, do not read this part: we ended the tour by seeing the bones of St. Peter, the first Pope, which are directly under the main altar in St. Peter's Basilica. ** Continue reading

After the tour, we went to Soprani's for souvenirs and rushed to Mass at St. Paul Outside the Walls. It always takes you longer to get somewhere than you would imagine, so we arrived in the middle of the homily, but it was a beautiful church-- one of my favorites!

The inner dome of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

So, there's not many trees in Rome. But there's plenty of pillars!
Regina is demonstrating how we can be kind and loving to our neighborly pillars.

No, I am not made of stone, but don't I make a good statue?

A year ago: Rome/Assisi Day 2

March 6, 2011

Today we woke up early, ate breakfast, and took the Metro to our 7th European country-- the Vatican! It was soooo neat to walk in St. Peter's Square-- such a joyful moment to be in the Holy City! We first went up to the Cupula (it was only 5 Euros-- and no security line at 7:30AM!), climbing 551 stairs to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. First we were on the inside of the dome (which was just like the Kartause), walking around the main dome where the letters are 10 feet high, and then we climbed more stairs until we were walking on the roof, the height of the statues on top of the Basilica. Then, we climbed even more stairs (inside the dome, so it was a bit cramped inside) until we reached to top of the dome and we could overlook the city. It was a magnificent view of the city (and unfortunately, my camera deleted the pictures, so hopefully I can obtain some from a friend and post them on here).

Afterwards, we had just enough time to visit the Papal crypts, including that of Blessed John Paul II (after his beatification he was moved to the main Basilica). After Latin Mass in the Basilica (with many priests, bishops, and cardinals), we went outside for the Angelus with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9Be5VXu24&feature=plcp&context=C4273f30VDvjVQa1PpcFNg6BOQ4zWjnh9pmnJRE0GdZzkWUfsweFQ%3D

After doing a little shopping and eating, we headed back through security and the Basilica for a tour of it with the seminarians.

Then, went to try to find Tre Fontana-- the place where St. Paul was beheaded. The directions were not very good, and it took us an hour to find it when it should have only taken us 15 minutes! But, I got to use my French a couple times, and we ran into a Marian apparition place at a Franciscan convent before we found a friar who directed us in the right direction and we found it. We got to pray in front of the 3 fountains where St. Paul's head bounced and we might have seen his crypt.

The church where the 3 fountains are that took us forever to find!!!

Then we made our way back to the hotel, late for dinner, but they had mercy and fed us before we had a holy hour down the street with benediction.

A year ago: Rome/Assisi Day 1

March 5, 2011

Last night we left Gaming at 7pm, drove through the winding, twisting roads of the Alps, and headed toward Rome as we watched Count of Monte Cristo and Roman Holiday. We arrived at the hotel at 8am this morning. After quickly settling in our room, Claire, Julie, Alexis, Mary Kate, Hayley, and I went to Netunno, which is just an hour train ride outside the city. It was a really cute town on the Mediterranean. We got to the Basilica Nostra Signora Grazie e Sancta Maria Goretti just closed because of the afternoon siesta. So, we walked around on the beach and gathered some sea shells and had a photo shoot. Claire and Hayley rode on the Carousel and we stopped at a little souvenir shop. When the church opened again, we were able to go in and see St. Maria Goretti's incorrupt body. No photos were allowed to be taken inside, but she was beautiful and pictures would not do her justice.

Using Italian was much more similar to French than German, so I was very glad when I was able to use my minimal Italian to help us find the Basilica and buy a train ticket!

Julie, Claire, and I enjoying ourselves along the
Mediterranean in Netunno, Italy during our photo shoot!

A year ago: Gaming?

I actually don't know exactly what I did a year ago... It was either last weekend or this weekend that we had a two-day weekend so we stayed back and did homework. Wait-- I think we went to St. Polten and got our Eurrails activated. Yes. That's what we did. However, there's no pictures for that, nor did I write anything, so alas, all I believe I remember from this trip is that it took longer than what we were expecting, so we didn't get as much homework done as we wanted.

However, I will treat you with some random photos!

Let's begin with a nice picture-- this is of Our Lady Rosa Mystica and the Immaculate Heart of Mary behind it.  I would see this every time I walked up the stairs from 1st to 2nd floor. It's really neat since my household is Roses of the Immaculate Heart and our Big Sister household is Rosa Mystica!

This is what our door looked like. Claire's name tag looked empty without having a  felt oval for household, so we made her one for being a groupie. Take note-- she does not endorse this!

Claire collapsing in our room/her suitcase after returning from a long weekend's journey.

Now for a couple really random ones:

Meet Johnny the Printer. He traveled all the way from Southern California to join us on our trip to  Austria. Sadly, he was not able to travel anywhere outside the room, but he guarded our room with great courage so we knew we could leave it safely unattended as we sojourned. Take note of his hands and the love note he is holding. After being squeezed into a suitcase with many souvenirs and clothes, Johnny made it safely back to the United States where he now resides with Clairisita.

Yes. This is random. This is a banana Claire brought back from the Mensa. It has no significance other than its randomness.

A year ago: Poland

Last year, I figured out that I can survive on 4 hours of sleep! But, I'm sure if I tried doing that now, it wouldn't work very well...

Last year, I also did all the write-ups for Poland, so here are the links, and I will post pictures below.

Poland, Day 1: Czestochowa and Auschwitz
Poland, Day 2: Krakow and Divine Mercy
Poland, Day 3: Krakow, Nowa Huta, and Wadowice

Me and Julie in front of the Cathedral in Krakow.

Legend says that these are the bones of the dragon
that used to guard the cathedral.

Matki Bozej Bolsenej (Our Lady of Sorrows) in the
adoration chapel of the Franciscan church in Krakow.

The Mothership which brings Souls to Heaven!
More commonly known as the Shrine of Divine Mercy.

Alexis, Hayley, Mary Kate, Sr. Joan Paule, Claire, Julie, me, Sr. Carrie Ann,
Josh, and Dorothy at Padre's, an Italian and Indian restaurant in Poland.
The food was absolutely delicious!! (see below)

Julie and I split this chicken and pasta dish and... 

...the ice cream covered with chocolate powder. I think it's
because of Clairethat we have these pictures...

This is one of my favorite pictures from Poland. Julie and I are
standing in the field across from our hotel where
Blessed Pope John Paul II met the 3 million people when
he came back to visit his home country as Pope.

In Nowa Huta, we did Praise and Worship at the steel cross
that the steel workers fought to keep standing.

The church in Nowa Huta that was built to
model Noah's ark (three floors).

Blessed Pope John Paul II's report card.

Blessed Pope John Paul II's skis and boat oar.

Blessed Pope John Paul II's vestments from when he was
Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, and parish priest.

Me in front of the parish church in Wadowice where JPII
received his first sacraments and heard the call to the priesthood.

Pope Cake! I'm not sure what it's really called, but when JPII
came back to visit Poland, he said that this was his favorite
kind of cake, so it's called Pope cake now! It is quite delicious,
but I wouldn't have minded splitting it with someone-- it was sweet!

A year ago: Skiing in the Alps and Prague

A year ago, I was caught up on my blogging! On Friday we went skiing in the Austrian Alps, then on Saturday, we did a day trip in Prague. Here are the links for those trips:
Prague, Czech Republic
Austrian Alps Skiing

I really don't know how we did this-- we went skiing and were all sore from that and then hopped on a bus at 5am to go to the Czech Republic! It's pretty insane...

Alas, last time (as my brother pointed out), I did not post any pictures, so therefore I will post pictures on this post.

Me, Markita, and Tim after our adventure of skiing/snowboarding in the Austrian Alps.

You can't see us very well, but this is Claire, Markita, and Julie by the river in Prague, and the little tower on top of the hill is the Fake Eiffel Tower. I never intended to get a picture with it (because it is much better to see the real one...), but I did, so, oh, well!

Markita and me overlooking the city of Prague. Eastern Europe is so beautiful!

Julie and Markita "with" one of the castle guards after the changing of the guard. When Kita stands on the curb, it makes her look taller!

Me and Claire having fun taking pictures by the Vlatava River  in Prague.

It is safe to walk here-- this is what their 'person-crossing-the-street' signs look like. They're pretty cute because the people are wearing traditional garb! [I hope to make a post of all the different ones.]

A year ago: London

 London was our first trip on our own, which meant that it was a complete adventure! I think I covered the main stories in my post last year:
http://outsidethekartause.blogspot.com/2011/02/london.html

No first trip on your own would be complete without missing a bus or two. However, our morning did not begin with us missing the 5:50am bus, but me almost missing the fire alarm! There was an alarm (I thought for someone to wake up) going off at 3:15am and I was praying that someone would turn it off when Julie said to me and Claire, "you guys, I think that's the fire alarm" to which Claire and I groaned and asked, "why are they giving us a drill now?!?!" So we waited outside for 10 minutes during which the fire trucks came. It turns out that some cables were smoking, but it was safe enough that we could go back inside. Thank goodness!

So then we go to bed again, wake up at 5am for the 5:50 am bus which took us to the train station where we picked up our Vorteils cards, ran up to the platform, and missed the train by 10 seconds. And that was just the beginning. We also got on a train late, the wrong one, and had to run to our gate at the airport! Thank goodness we didn't have EU/UK passports, so we had the short lines for passport control!

What a fun time we had! It was great being in an English speaking country (so we could ask for directions-- really helpful when you don't have a city map!), but we found that we missed the Kartause. There's no place like home-away-from-home!

Regina, Julie, me, and Kita checking out the landmark red telephone booth!
I  think this is my favorite picture from the whole trip.

I'm a groundling at the Globe Theatre! Now, where is Shakespeare?

Kita, Claire, and Julie at the Pub in London where we enjoyed Fish 'n' Chips.
That is, after we enjoyed hot chocolate... and ketchup...

Me, Regina, and Julie "feed the birds" on the steps of St. Paul's for tuppence a bag.