Papal Audience and Weekend in Rome

On Wednesday classes were cancelled for the day in order for us to attend a papal audience!  I was very excited and expected it to be outside in St. Peter's Square with thousands of people.  It was actually in an indoor auditorium and there were probably only 500 people there, so I was pleasantly surprised by how small the setting was.  I had no idea what to expect from the actual audience.  Pope Benedict walked out and sat in a chair in the center of the stage.  Then priests read a reading from the Bible in about seven different languages.  Then the Pope read something that sounded like a very long speech.  I have no idea what he said because it was all in Italian.  Then a priest introduced the people of each different language and recognized the people that are associated with groups.  So in the English-speaking group, Loyola University was recognized and then we all stood up and the Pope raised his hand to bless us.  After all the people and groups of a language are introduced, the Pope blesses the people and their families/friends back home and any religious items they brought to bless.  I took a couple rosaries to be blessed.  The Pope does the blessings in the language of that group, but even though he was speaking English, it was very hard to understand with his accent.  I'm so glad I went though, I think I would describe it as a humbling experience.

An interesting thing happened at the papal audience that day.  I don't think it happens often because I told my Mom about it and she told me she saw it on the nightly news back home!  A little boy, maybe 5 years old, ran up to the Pope while he was sitting in his chair on stage.  Obviously there are numerous security guards and Swiss guards everywhere to ensure this doesn't happen, but the little boy just ran past them and I guess they figured he was harmless.  When he got up to the Pope, the little boy knelt in front of him and the Pope just put his hands on the boy's head and blessed him.  I think everyone was just shocked that the boy even made it all the way up there.  But he was so respectful, and when the Pope was finished blessing him, he was escorted off the stage and handed over to his father.  He had the cutest little grin on his face though, like he knew that he had just gotten away with something big.  I'm really glad I got to see that little encounter though, because I just feel like it shows that even though the Pope has a lot of very important things to do, he still takes the time to serve and interact with God's people, down to a random little boy.

   
This past weekend was my first weekend in Rome other than the first weekend over here, which was filled with orientation stuff.  So I was excited to have time to explore a little with my friends.  Unfortunately I got sick, because there's definitely something going around on campus, so I caught up on sleep more than explored, but that's ok.  My friend Laura and I went to an Irish pub to watch a rugby game being played in Rome.  Surprisingly, there are a lot of Irish pubs in Rome, I've already been to several.  It was a lot of fun though, people were all dressed up, some in very random costumes, to cheer for their teams.  Rugby isn't as big as calcio (soccer) in Italy, but it's still a lot more popular than in the US.  My friends and I also spent quite a bit of time wandering around looking for places to go at night.  After that failed, we finally started getting explicit directions to places, because a lot of time is already wasted just by using the buses here that we didn't want to waste any time being lost.  The buses seem to have the most erratic schedules and the normal routes close at midnight, so there are only a few night routes that will get us back to campus after midnight.  We have literally waited for a bus for 45 minutes before giving up and just taking a cab to get where we wanted to be.  There's also a metro system here, which is much more time efficient, but unfortunately it closes at 9pm almost every night for maintenance.  So we're slowly learning the ways of the public transportation system here, which has been an interesting but time consuming experience.

Here are some trips I've planned since the last time I filled you all in:
February 17-20  Barcelona: I'm meeting up with one of my best friends, Elizabeth, since she's studying in Spain this semester
April 8-10   Salzburg, Austria: this is where the Sound of Music was filmed, and everyone who's been there has told me it's a gorgeous place to visit
From March 17-26 my parents and Michael will be here!  We're going to go to Venice and Florence together and then I'll show them around Rome during my free time that week.  I'm so excited!

I'll be in Rome for most of this weekend.  My friends and I are going to try to plan a day trip somewhere, so hopefully I'll feel better and be able to explore more of Italy and Rome!  With all of my trips planned, I won't have another free weekend in Rome until April 15th, and I still have a lot I want to see in Rome so I better get busy this weekend!  I'll let you know what I find.  Thanks for reading!

Ciao,
Allison