The Beginning of the End

Ciao friends

It has been quite the eventful week! A week that has led me to doing absolutely nothing today but watching movies, lying in bed and resting! Got to love Saturday's! 

To give an overview of the week: Tuesday I got an email that had my housing assignment for next semester at CUA. Best email ever. Glad I know I have somewhere to live. 

Wednesday, we went to the Papal Audience, in which I made eye contact with Pope Francis. I hope to never forget that moment! So blessed! 

Thursday: Dinner with President Garvey! This was absolutely amazing! Such a great dinner!

Friday: Class at the Roman Forum and Coliseum and Skype interview with my potential internship at 10pm. (It went great, and I was accepted!! What a great way to end the week!)

Here are a few photos from the week: 

Tomorrow I might be going to Florence for the day! 

This week I am off to Spain for Thanksgiving break! 

Dinner with Pres. Garvey was delicious. Complete Thanksgiving dinner all the way from mash potatoes, gravy, stuffing, peas, carrots, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie! Soooo good! I had a nice "Thanksgiving coma" after that! :)

I thought this was fascinating at the Roman Forum- the 6 holes in the stone was once used many many many years ago as a game board. This is what they would do with their time. Similar to Mancala!  I love Mancala! :)

Peace and Blessings! 

No pain, no gain.

Ciao friends!

Happy Monday! It is currently rainy and a little chilly here in Roma. I saw that it is gorgeous in San Diego... of course! And in DC... I think the heater is on and people are bundled up for the brutal winter! I can't say that I am looking to Round 2 of Polar Vortex!

Anyways, this weekend was super duper fun! On Saturday, 3 of us went up to the NAC for sports day. There were supposed to be 13 of us... none of them showed up. So it was 7 seminarians and 3 CUA students. We didn't mind at all! They are so great! It was like having spending time with 7 awesome older brothers...something I am very used to, so I loved it! :)

We played soccer and basketball, both of which I have not played since grade school. To sum the day up, I slipped about 6 times, hit my head twice, on those falls, head butted the soccer ball 3 times which I have always wanted to do, got hit in the upper thigh with a soccer ball from 5 feet away, and last but not least, got hit in the jaw by a basketball. Good news is that I am still alive. Oh and our team won at both sports, so it was all worth it. I couldn't move by the end of the day. Not kidding. my body hated me yesterday...it has every right to! Today I am feeling more alive and more mobile, thank God! Going up stairs and kneeling at Mass was brutal. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Then, on Sunday, I met up with one of my friends from high school I haven't seen since graduation. We had a great pasta lunch at my favorite restaurant, and then it started raining. So we sat at a cafe for a good hour and a half and had yummy cappuccino. That was an interesting experience. The waiter was hitting on us and wouldn't leave us alone. Creeper. So we left and played in the rain. Good choice! We had about and hour to kill before Mass with the seminarians, so we sat at Subway and chatted away. We got a water just so they wouldn't kick us out for not buying anything...haha
Mass was amazing, as always. Then we went to dinner with the seminarians at a pizzeria, which was so much fun! My face hurt from laughing so much! It was a really great time. Nothing quite like pizza, wine, seminarians and friends to spend the evening with! Then as always, we went to get Gelato, in the rain. Nothing stops us from getting gelato, nothing. Super good!
Great weekend, and it will be a great week! T-1 day(s) until Papal Audience, and T -2 days until President Garvey comes! T- 5 days until Florence! :)

Peace and Blessings! 

Anne

Week 11...The European adventure continues!

Ciao, friends!

I actually have a few free moments on my hands, and motivation is on my side! Therefore, I thought I update you on all my adventures currently and in the coming weeks. 

It has been a busy few weeks, but nonetheless very blessed! Last weekend, we went to Pompeii, Sorento, and Naples (I had authentic Napoleon pizza! It was pretty good!) This was a good weekend, but very tiring. We got back from Fall break the weekend prior, had 4 days in Rome, and then was off again for the weekend. Everyone was exhausted...but we still tried to enjoy it as much as we could. I am definitely happy that I hiked up Mt. Vesuvius with my roommate! Perfect weather, we were not expecting, a perfect view of the Bay of Naples... everything was perfect. Couldn't ask for more!!

This week has been mostly quiet and rainy.  One thing that has made me super happy is that the tourist season is pretty much over now, thankfully. This means that I don't have to fight the mass crowds and clueless people everywhere I go. Especially St. Peter's Square/Basilica. The line has shortened significantly, so now I am able to actually go inside St. Peter's Basilica everyday that I can/want. I have made it a point to at least go to St. Peter's Square every day, just to pray and reflect and take a break from the school work. So now, I go inside the Basilica and pray in the Adoration Chapel for a few minutes. It is the bet part of my day...I went this morning right after I woke up! So peaceful!

This weekend, we have off, in the sense that we have no school trips planned and we can do whatever we desire. Thank God! So the NAC has organized a Sports Day on Saturday and a Mass on Sunday for us. This should be lots of fun.

Next week will be an awesome week, for tow main reasons. President Garvey from CUA will be coming to our school to have dinner with us, as a Thanksgiving dinner. Us CUA students have known about this for about 6 weeks, and every week, at least one person says, "I can't wait for Pres. Garvey to come!" We are so excited! He is an awesome person, an amazing school President, and like a second father to all us at CUA. We are blessed to have him. And we will be going to a Papal Audience on Wednesday Nov. 19th, and they have requested that our schools be announced by Pope Francis!!! Whohoo!!! :)

After that, we are go on our last optional school trip to Florence.  I am going for free because I won a scavenger hunt at the beginning of the semester! Whohoo!

After this, a friend and I are off to Spain for 4 days, for Thanksgiving break!
And after that, we have a 4 days weekend so a few friends and I will be going to Venice for a day trip, and I plan to go back to Assisi for one of those days. Whohoo!!!
Finally, by then, it will be time to start packing to come home and studying for finals. Can't exactly say whohoo to this one quite yet!

Please keep me in your prayers for my remaining weeks left in Roma!
Peace and Blessings! (To give you a laugh... my hair erupted at the volcano.... hehe)

Mount Vesuvius!

Ciao! Here is the view I promised! Oh you should have seen my face when I walked out onto my balcony this morning...my jaw was down to the floor! 

Wow, what an incredible day!! We hiked to the top of Mount Vesuvius today! One of the most dangerous volcanos in the world, may I add! I accepted the dangerous adventure without a hesitiation in my body! That's what growing up with 4 brothers does to you... You learn to do the super cool things that are a little risky and have the best time doing it. Thanks, bros!

The hike up was... well... challenging but we did it! I am happy now though because I am pretty sure I burned off all the carbs I had this week, after having only meat for the 10 days of break and barely any carbs! My body didn't like the adjustment. 

Here is the view from the top overlooking the Bay of Naples! It was breathtaking!

I would say I would love to live here, but this whole active volcano situation is a bit of a problamo.... What a pity.

On our way down the mountian, we saw all our friends and they looked at us and said, "please tell us we are almost there, our legs are burning!" Yeah... they had a ways to go... Hey if we did it, they could too! Ha! :)

After we made it down the mountian, we went to Herculaneum, a town that was covered by the massive eruption, and was partially excavated just like Pompeii but better preserved. It was amazing! It was really aweome because we learned about villas and insulas- the "houses" they lived in- we saw some of them, and were able to identify each room we leaned about and where things would have been! It was really intriguing to me to see all of this in person opposed to just in a book! ( here is a Insula). I'll spare you the history lesson about the awesomeness about these buildings. I never thought I would love architecture so much! 

Anyways! We are now off to a theater to see a show. Don't know of what, but I'lll know by the next post! I heard it was something around the lines of traditional music. We shall see! 

Peace and Blessings! 

Pompeii and Sorento

Ciao friends from Pompeii- Sorento! 

So, this week was more busy that I was expecting, so I didn't get to my last post on Lourdes and Paris from Fall break. I hope to get to it next week- just trust me for now when I say it was an amazing time. 

To keep updated for now, I have unpacked to repack! I am now in Sorento, Italy for the weekend. The whole gang is here (CUA/Loyola)- so there are a lot of people around! We went to Pompeii this afternoon for a tour, which was great and very interesting to learn about. We got pizza first, which was amazing! I heard it would be!

It has been thunder storming all week so it was a little wet, but not too bad! (Stepped in a few puddles, of course...) 

At the beginning of the tour, we made a friend- his name is Bubba and he is 15 years old. He accompanied us throughout our entire tour, not once leaving our sides.  

Yep! He is a dog!!! I have to admit, he needs to lay off the kibble for a while...he is bigger than my dog by a good 15-20 pounds! But so affectionate and lovable! We were giving commands in Italian to him--Andiamo, Bubba! He would slowly get up and trot along and wait for us when we stopped. He was the leader of the group, not the tour guide. They know who's boss in Pompeii. So dang cute. I haven't had contact with a dog for 2 1/2 months, so you can just imagine my joy... Day was made in so many ways! Thanks Bubba!

( I'm pointing to Mt. Vesuvius!)

Back on the bus we go on our way to Sorento... Within 5 minutes of being on the bus it was dead silent. Everyone was lights out! Makes sense as we had a long week and got up at 6 this morning. Yikes!

We got to Sorento faster than expected and our leader says, "Ragazzi, we are here Everyone in a very confused state of mind looks around at eachother and then outside. Though it was dark, jaws dropped. The view. Wow. And we were right outside of our hotel. Then we all get off the bus to find out that CUA ( rather, our tuition) has taken us to a 4 star hotel, overlooking Sorento and the coast. We get up to our rooms, and open the window not expecting anything, only to find a balcony and an even more jaw dropping view (we are 3 stories up now). Within 30 seconds, I heard the line about 6 times, "oh....my....gosh.... Is this my life right now!?" Here is the view we saw ( a much better pic will come tomorrow, I promise. It will be so great to see what this view is in daylight! 

Then we all went to the bar to relax and then to a really really really good dinner! So spoiled with all this amazing food! But the we all got up and knew we had way too much food and just wanted to go to sleep! Haha! Good meal!

We walked into town and a group of us went down to the water, which put my heart at home as the waves were crashing on the rocks and it was just so peaceful. I could have stayed there all night! 

Time for bed now as it's 12:40am- my roommate and I are off to climb Mt. Vesuvius at 8am- still an active volcano!!! What can I say, I like to live dangerously- it runs in my blood :) Bucket list item is about to be checked off! So excited! 

Peace and Blessings! 

The Royal Lands

Ciao!

So let's begin with the journey from Dublin to Wales and finally to London. Now this was quite the exhausting adventure! We got on our "cruise ship" to go to Wales and once to there, they informed us that we were about 10 minutes late and that the connecting train we were supposed to be on was waiting for us for only a few more minutes, as they already had been waiting for that 10 minutes. So we all got off the bus at the terminal and starting running. Let me just say that this was a struggle, but a successful struggle to my surprise! Picture this if you can: I ran across the terminal to my train with 3 bags on my shoulders, in wedges, and made it onto the train out of breath, with 30 seconds to spare. No kidding, I hadn't even put all my bags down and train was already moving. Pheww! That was a close one! If I only knew what was to come....Here is a pic of what I looked like after that run..shocked, exhausted, and utterly confused as to what just happened in the past 5 minutes! 

Now, that not the end of it... we are happily cruising along on this train, and the conductor keeps saying, "thankfully we have made up 5 minutes... then 10 minutes of the time we had lost due to the boat being late". I kid you not- the next 5 minutes were actually quite hilarious- The train broke. We sat there thinking that we were just waiting for another train to move out of our way, because that happens often. Nope. Our train decided to break down. The conductor comes on the intercom in a quite sad tone and says, "Unfortunately, this train is having technical difficulties, so we are going to have to terminate this train service at the sext stop". I am thinking to myself, "of course this would happen..as I laugh it off".  So much for the gained time we got back.... that what's probably killed the train... they pushed it to its max and broke the dang train. And the award goes to...

Thankfully we got on another train (that was already full, so we were packed sardines) and got to London. What an eventful adventure! We get to our Hostel, and the first thing we do after checking in is get more locks for our stuff, as we didn't want the nightmare of Dublin to happen again. We were in a room of 14 girls from all over the world. Pretty cool. No stuff was stolen in our time there, thank God!

Time for the day activities part: I'll try to keep it short. We went to Warner Bros. Studio for a tour on the makings of Harry Potter. That was awesome!! Childhood relieved for the day! 

Then the next day, we went sightseeing the whole day, seeing practically every major sight in a matter of 6 hours-including: Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, The Crown Jewels (my absolute favorite part!), London Bridge, The Globe Theatre, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and much more.... We were pretty impressed with ourselves and how we did it all in one day! Then later that night, we went to see the musical "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". That was a fun show, as well as a good way to end out time in London. London reminded us a lot of NYC. The city life, the people... everything. We felt like we were in the US, just with a way cooler accent.

Here are some pics from this 3 day trip in London: 

This bag of chips definitely lived up to the "Hand cooked with care"...they were delicious!

Oh, and it's Christmas time in London already...No Thanksgiving for them! Still too early in my opinion!  

The NFL had a game while we were in London. That was pretty cool! I saw many Americans and all the jerseys... for a second i thought I was in the US! The flags were a nice touch to the London experience. 

 Yet again, home was brought to my mind when I saw giant nutcracker. My mom collects nutcrackers, so needless to say-- Mom, this Nutcracker made me think of you instantly... Cant wait to see ours up in the Living room when I get home!

 The waiter one of the restaurants wrote this on the check........ We did end up having a lovely night :)

 at sunset, we were at Buckingham Palace and walked through the gardens. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day! I love the season of Fall.

Next up: Lourdes, France! My favorite part of the whole trip. Stay tuned! 

Peace and Blessings!

    

Irish Love (Photos)

Hi Friends!

Once again, it is good to be reconnected! I have returned from my 10 day Fall break, which was absolutely amazing! I know I haven't posted in a while, forgive me. I have been having too much fun (and I didn't have the best access to the internet while away). That's ok though-what matters is that I had the time of my life and am continuing to do so! :)
So there is a lot that happened in the last several days, so I am going to break up the posts-- be ready for about 5 of them in the coming days. Hopefully I will be able to get you caught up by Thursday-- as Friday I leave for Naples and won't have Internet for the weekend! So lets continue...

To give you the promised photos from Dublin, here are a some: (Dublin was a fun time- Guinness Storehouse, sightseeing and eating)

I had a steak for the first time in 2 months... It was a Guinness marinated Rib-Eye. Delicious!!

The tour of the Guinness storehouse was amazing! Then we got a free pint at the end!
Later in the night we walked around and stopped to listen to live Irish music! Super cool! Fun time in Dublin! Next post: London!

Peace and Blessings!