We left Thursday afternoon by charter bus which took a good four hours to drive to Rome. After checking in to our hotel we had the most amazing dinner at a restaurant called La Carbonara. Since this was one of the dinners provided by the school, they ordered all the courses for everyone and incredible wine as well! Our chaplain, Father Brian Pham, just happened to sit at our table for dinner and he gave us a personal tour of Rome. It was supposed to be a short 15 minute tour that ended up going for 2 hours! It was so much fun, because he was like our own private tour guide who told us about all the cool history facts of everywhere we went.
My camera didn’t always like the night lights, but this was our group!
My camera died the next day when we were at the Pantheon again so I only have this picture at night.
Fr. Brian also showed us a special room of the house that is only used to greet guests now. This is the room that St. Therese of Liseux stayed in when she came to Rome to ask the Pope to become a nun, because the convent she wanted to join said she was too young at 15. Because my middle name is Therese, after this St. Therese of Liseux, I think this made it so much more incredible to be in. There is a set of four chairs and a kneeler that are still in the room from when she stayed and I think I almost started crying when Fr. Brian told us that after we were already sitting.
I’m so happy and glad we went around Rome with Fr. Brian because I wasn’t able to see the Trevi Fountain again in the daylight. But it was still just as magical lit up at night!
Friday was filled with an official tour of Rome in small groups where we walked through the Roman ruins, the Colosseum, the Piazza Venezia and practically everywhere! It was incredibly surreal to see everything about Rome that was built sooooo many years ago and that a lot of it is still standing! I think my favorite was going through the Colosseum and seeing the remains of where people would sit and underneath the main floors where the cages were was so surreal! Unfortunately it kept raining off and on, but it didn't ruin things too much :)
For lunch we went to the Rome Hard Rock Café which I halfway wished we didn’t, because I don’t think any of us were exactly craving American food just yet. But hey, it was already paid for and was actually decent for a foreign country.
So one downfall for the weekend for me was that I got a sore throat Friday night, but some of my friends decided to stay at our hotel with me and sit on our balcony (we had four girls, so we got the best room!). This picture is from the next morning though, when the sun was finally out!
And I must say, the Sistine Chapel is an utterly amazing sight! I still can hardly believe that I was there! It was just so amazing to see the murals that Michelangelo painted. It was such a surreal feeling to sit in the chapel (that’s actually a lot larger than I was expecting) and look up at all the paintings and their incredible detail! It’s still so weird to say I was there! And ok, I’ll have to admit I snuck a picture at the ceiling just to prove I was there…
Sunday was our last day in Rome and to top it off we went back to the Vatican and got blessed by the Pope! For most of it, the Pope spoke in Italian to everyone but then he said a blessing over everyone in like five different languages! Obviously being the Pope he speaks many languages, but it was so odd to hear him address everyone in English!
So as you can see, it was quite the weekend! And in case you were wondering, I’m on the mends from getting sick. And next time, I’ll try to write everything sooner!
1 comment:
sounds like you're having a great time. I love reading about it and seeing all your pictures. does your camera still work or did it die for good?:\
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