Cafes, and Catacombs, and Caves, Oh My!

+JMJ+
Where have I been the past two days?  Not out of the country (Italy, that is), not doing anything (unusually) extraordinarily exciting.  I've been sleeping.  With a full eight hours of sleep two nights in a row, there hasn't been much time for blogging, but I am recharged and ready for holy week!  Let's go!

But first, let me catch you up.  Oh my goodness, I just checked my last post and I've got four days to cover.  Here we go.

Wednesday
Wednesday was a day of classes and studying.  I spent the morning in class and studying.  After lunch, I walked around our neighborhood and discovered a church that has adoration practically all day long!  That was exciting.  Then, I had class again in the evening, dinner, and I don't remember anything after that.  I have a lot of end-of-the-semester papers and projects coming up that were assigned Wednesday.

Thursday
On Thursday, we had class at the church St. Agnes Outside the Walls.  The church was built over St. Agnes' tomb.  Agnes was a young girl, 12 or 13 years old, when she was martyred for her Christian faith.  Because of this, St. Agnes Outside the Walls has always been a church that young people like to come to.    We walked from this church to Santa Costanza, one of the few (if not the only), round churches in Rome.  It's round because it was built as a mausoleum for the daughter of the emperor Constantine, who wanted to be buried near the tomb of St. Agnes.  This church is surrounded by a lot of ruins of the original basilica.  The ruins now have grass growing in them and are open on top; they've been converted into a park.  When we were there, there were little kids running around and playing in the ruins.  The contrast between the 1700 year old ruins and the little kids climbing on top of them that day was striking and beautiful.

After our class in the morning, two of my classmates and I met with our theology professor.  We went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant with him.  It was really random, but fun!  It was so nice that he was willing, to take that time out of his day to talk with us, listen, answer questions, and eat Chinese.

After lunch, we walked from the Chinese restaurant up Via Garibaldi (near Piazza Garibaldi).  This is one of the spots in Rome that you can look out from and see the whole city!  My companions and I sat on the ledge for a while, sometimes talking, sometimes just looking our in silence and awe.  The weather was perfect and the scene was beautiful!  I had a letter to mail that I had forgotten about, so after we had gazed our fill, two of us traipsed back down the Via Garibaldi to St. Peter's Square so I could buy a stamp and mail my letter.  Done!

We wandered around the St. Peter's area for a while.  We ended up finding a grocery store we had been looking for for about a month.  We also found a beautiful Gothic style Dominican church.  We went in and stumbled upon what we came to conclude must be a second wedding.  The church was set up for a wedding, but there weren't many people attending, there were no kids, the couple looked older, and the bride was wearing a sparkly blue-green formal gown, not a wedding dress.  Still, it was exciting!

I came back to the villa, had dinner, and was in bed by 10pm.

Friday
I had every intention of getting up to go to the station Mass in the morning, but I slept right through my alarm.  Instead, I had a leisurely breakfast then headed down to the cafe down the hill and around the corner for some coffee and studying!  It was a most lovely morning.

After lunch, a big group of us had planned on going to Castel Gandolfo, where the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, is staying right now.  However,  a wrench was thrown into our plans: there was a public transportation strike on Friday.  Now, this does not mean that none of the busses run at all.  It means that random busses will run at random times and you can't count on anything.  Having already made the plans for the trip, we decided to attempt it anyway.  We got as far as the metro (one bus ride), only to find out that the metro was included in the strike: it wasn't running.  Castel Gandolfo would have to wait for another day.

Instead, a group went to a small park nearby, while another group of us (myself included) ventured off to find the Spanish Steps, even with the strike going on.  Sure enough, we did make it to the Spanish Steps, but not without taking an irregular rout and doing a little extra walking.  Still, it was great!  We went to the John Keats memorial house, right next to the Spanish Steps, walked to Piazza del Popolo, walked through Villa Borghese, then hopped on a bus back to the villa.  This was also unreliable, but we did make it back eventually.

After dinner, I was so tired the only thing I could do was curl up in a ball on my bed; this is how I went to sleep that night.

Saturday
Time for today!  I DID wake up in time for the station Mass today, even without an alarm clock.  The Lord knew I could handle it after I'd slept so much.  The station Mass this morning was at a church built on the site where St. John the Evangelist's attempted martyrdom is said to have taken place.  In other words, this church was built on the spot where they tried to fry St. John in a boiling pot of oil, but they could not hurt him; he didn't die, by the grace of God!

After Mass, a group of about eight of us took a bus to Subiaco.  Subiaco is the town near the cave where St. Benedict spent three years of his life away from the world in prayer.  We hiked up the path the the monastery that is now built over/around the cave where St. Benedict stayed.  When we got there, a wedding was going on in the chapel.  Best wedding-crashing opportunity ever.  It was great.  Because the wedding was going on, the regular chapel was closed to tourists, but the monks had opened a part of the monastery that was usually closed.  Awesome!  And we still got to see the regular sanctuary after the wedding ended.  It was a win win situation.  At the monastery, we saw the oldest known painting of St. Francis, that was probably painted while St. Francis was still alive.  We also saw the exact spot where St. Benedict lived in his cave and prayed.  There were beautiful frescos on the walls everywhere and the outside of the grounds were beautiful as well.  Until I have time to add pictures, this link will give you some pictures and more info about the place (I think, to be honest, I haven't read it).

Upon returning to the villa (Subiaco is about a half an hour on the metro and an hour on the bus), I was exhausted.  BUT I knew I had a lot of work to do, so I decided to break out my hammock and read for the hour before dinner.  That was a great decision.  While I was reading in my hammock, a fox (I think it was the same one) approached me three times and I had to shoo it away every time!  It was weird.

After dinner and some fun social time in the common room, I am exhausted and ready for bed!  I have to get up early again tomorrow to go to Palm Sunday Mass with Pope Francis.  More on that tomorrow.  Until then, ciao!!!

(also, I will do my best to add pictures soon)