Siamo Benedetti

giovedi, 26 maggio 2016

Wooooooowie!! Yesterday was a craaaaaazy day! Crazy awesome, but still crazy. We had our first day of classes, so that was interesting to say the least.  Each class is 2.5 hours, which is about 2 hours longer than I can sit still. Aaaaand there's 2 classes a day. Fortunately for us, there are lots of field trips, so classroom time will be to a minimum. In our 3.5 hour lunch break, we visited a park and then wandered around, looking for a fruit stand. Allison and I were getting quite frustrated when the traffic was so bad that we couldn't cross the road and had to continue in an undesired direction... but then we saw it:

Now, I don't know much Italian, but I've learned all the important words, like adorazione (adoration), massa (mass), and chiesa (church). Finding that adoration chapel was a small miracle. We were just talking about how overwhelming it was since nothing in Italy is the same as the US, and then BAM, Jesus brought us right to Him. We know where we will be spending most of our lunch breaks from now on!! God is good.

The beautiful adoration chapel

St. Mary's Queen of Peace church

Outside of church

After surviving another 2.5 hours of class, we immediately headed to Arcibasilica Papale di San Giovanni in Laterano (Archbasilica of St. John Lateran) for the Eucharistic Procession to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi. We made quite a few wrong turns, but we managed to arrive right at 7:00.  We were delighted to discover that the event began with mass, celebrated by our very own Papa Franceso, no big deal... Pope Francis then brought Jesus out, and He was escorted by a beautiful procession to Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (Basilica of Saint Mary Major). We were able to join the procession, which was just under a mile long- a crowded street a mile long, all to adore our Lord!! The entire thing filled us with awe. We love being Catholic. Siamo benedetti.

Papa spotting!!

Lots of people

Beginning the procession

JESUS! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!!!

Nearly a mile of Catholics

St. Mary Major

We couldn't believe we were able to be in Rome on Corpus Christi

On the way home, we took some more wrong turns and ran into the Colosseum, so that happened. We seem to have a habit of stumbling across all the famous sites by accident.

Well, I guess we found it

We were much too exhausted to blog last night, so we washed our filthy feet, were social with our roommates, and hit the hay. It was an incredibly blessed day.


venerdi, 27 maggio 2016

Today was much less eventful than yesterday, but we did some major adulting! We woke up exhausted and nearly fell asleep in our first class, then came back and did some much needed grocery shopping (adulting event #1). We then proceeded to stuff ourselves and do our homework. After our next class (during which we received the homework assignment of reading the Acts of the Apostles over the weekend), we learned how to use the public transportation (adulting #2).  That was extremely stressful and it took some failed bus ticket attempts and swallowed pride, but we somehow managed to make it to the bookstore and return our wrong textbook (adulting #3). We exchanged it for some fun souvenirs, including a Rome guide and a sassy book about nuns. On the way home, we finally got some gelato!!! It was very yummy. Apple cinnamon, Snickers, and caramel. Mmmm!

GELATO!

We actually returned to our apartment at a somewhat decent time and wrote this magnificent blog for your enjoyment! We miss all your beautiful faces. Stay tuned for our weekend adventures!
Love,
Kelsey and Allison