Weekend Adventures

I had quite an eventful weekend this week- between a scavenger hunt in Rome, a wine tasting, Sunday Mass at St. Peters, and SEEING THE POPE!!!!!!!!

On Saturday morning we left in the morning for Rome for a scavenger hunt.  Instead of taking us in on buses, however, they made us take public transportation in, so that we could practice for going in on our own.  They had RAs stationed at all the bus/metro stops we needed to get on and off at to help direct us.  Its kinda a complicated process to get into Rome proper on the public transportation from our campus.  First, we have to catch a Cotral bus outside of our campus, but those only come through around every half hour to forty five minutes.  After about a thirty minute ride on that bus, depending on the traffic, we get off at the Anagnina terminal, which is on the outskirts of Rome.  From there, we have to get on the metro, which takes us into the heart of Rome.  Its about a 30-minute ride on the metro to St. Peter's, which is where we met for the scavenger hunt.

For the scavenger hunt, they broke us up into teams and gave everyone a sign that had to be in the pictures and then a list of over 80 things to take pictures of.  We didn't have to take pictures of everything, just as many as we could.  More than half of the group had to be in each picture.  The things you had to find ranged from the expected, such as some obelisks, churches, and the Pantheon; to the funny, such as smart cars and people playing chess in a Piazza; to the slightly embarrassing, such as people kissing.  We had four hours to take as many pictures as we could, and the things were scattered all over Rome.  It was pretty fun, although sometimes stressful and frustrating since multiple people in my group, including myself, were all trying to lead at the same time and not always in unison.  However, it made for good practice in working with group dynamics!  My group ended up doing pretty well- all the pictures have not been turned in and results have not been announced, but we got 30 something pictures, which is more than what I have heard from most of the other teams.

After we traveled back to campus that evening, we had a traditional Italian dinner and wine tasting.  Since its legal for all of us to drink in Italy, our school decided to teach us all how to drink the right way and like the Europeans.  The wine tasting was actually led by our school chaplain, who also works at the Vatican.  He told us alot about what wine tastes good with what food, how to aerate our wine before drinking it, and other fancy wine things that I will probably not remember or normally do.  They had us try four different kinds of wine, and served us lots of cheese, sausage, pork, roasted vegetables, bread, and lasagna.  It was all really delicious!

On Sunday morning my friend Becky and I decided to travel into Rome to go to Mass at St. Peter's (not said by the pope), followed by the Angelus and an address and blessing by the Pope in St. Peter's Square.  When we got out to the bus stop we ran into a bunch of other UD students so we all traveled out and went to Mass together.  The Mass was one of the most beautiful Masses I have ever been to and I don't think I have ever seen that many priests at one Mass before!  The one thing I did not like though, is that Italian people don't care much for the orderly communion lines that we have in America.  They all try and push and shove their way up to Communion and back to their seat through whichever aisle seems fastest to them, even if they are going against the flow in an aisle that is only big enough for single file.  Although, I have been told that pushing is a very popular method of getting where you want to go in crowded parts of Rome.

After Mass we all went outside to St. Peter's Square, which was about half full, but that half was pretty packed.  We had a pretty good view of the Pope's window, which he came out of at noon, to pray the Angelus and then give a blessing.  He also gave a brief remark in English, among several other languages.  It was really exciting to see him appear at the window and hear him talk to us, even though he was so far away that he mostly just looked like a little white blob in the window!  We were able to make out when he stuck his hands out towards the crowd and did what some of my friends dubbed the 'Pope fingers.'

Once he disappeared back inside his window, our group went off to find lunch, and ended up eating in a little pizzeria.  I had some cheese pizza and some prosciutto pizza.  It was really good, but very different from America pizza.  The crust is very thin, like a cracker, and its pretty light on sauce as well.  After eating, Becky and I branched off from the rest of the group and went back to school to do homework.

Today I had more classes and did homework.  We also had the first of our Monday Night Meetings, required meetings every Monday night to go over important points for the week.  While not terribly exciting, and although rather long, it wasn't too bad.