Pasqua

Holidays are always hard away from home.

They're even harder when you're almost 5000 miles from home.

Contemplative. Though I suppose that's a good word choice for this Easter. Or any Easter, but this one has a decidedly different feel to it than any other I've celebrated.

Mass at the Vatican was an incredible experience. Indulgence aside, it was something I knew I had to do. How can one not be in Rome for Easter and not go? The rest of my program is off on spring break (I leave for lovely Londontown on Tuesday) but I wanted to stay in town, even if that means going slightly stir crazy in my apartment. I've gotten a lot of writing done, which has been nice, but it's been weird being alone all the time. A J.D. Salinger I am not.

But back to Mass. We arrived at Saint Peters around 7 am, grabbed a cappuccino to go and stood until they let us into the square at 8:30. After a mildly mad dash to the front of the square we found ourselves in the 9th row, near the center asile. The front steps were covered with flowers and though the sky was dismally grey, we all watched what seemed like an endless stream of priests and Swiss Guard set up. Benedict himself arrived after a large marching band around 10:30.

It's odd, maybe because I attended Catholic School for so long, but I have a hard time seeing the Pope as a prominent figure in modern politics. I think I've been desensitized to him, PJPII's picture was always hanging in every classroom at JIS, less so at De, but still, I think of him as this weird spiritual leader, a very abstract concept.

So when he rode in on his little cart/car thingy and the entire square thundered with applause I was, I suppose confused isn't the right word. It was unsettling. I guess the Protestants were right when they talk about Catholics paying allegiance to a foreign prince. But if I dwell on it too much I get uncomfortable. So I won't.

Mass itself was mostly in Latin so at least we were all pretty confused together. And my confused I mean I was in my element, spitting off that Agnus Dei in a way that would have made even Brother David proud. It was beautiful.

After Mass Benedict went up to the balcony at the front of Saint Peters to address the crowd. He began in Italian and then went through pretty much every language know to man (which, admittedly, was really cool) giving his Easter blessing. AND THEN HE ADDRESSED THE CROWD IN ESPERANTO. It was a wtf/this is so cool moment. Because there are like 2000 native Esperanto speakers WORLD-WIDE people. It's basically pointless now but they included it. Which is weird because Catholics aren't that inclusive as a bunch.

 7 am (crooked) flowered main stairs

 The crowd

Benedict giving his blessing

It was well worth everything that was involved. Even for the guilt inducing 25 year old nuns (who you just cannot say no to) who actually hand you the tickets at the office you pick them up at. My mother finds that whole story funny enough to tell I think the entire state of Minnesota, so I'm sure when I return to to the great white north in less than a month (eek!) I will often have to laugh when people point to the nearest closet and say "Why don't you go in there and have a nice good confession with a preist from home, then come back when you're done and I'll give you the tickets."

Anyway, I got an indulgence out of the whole thing. I didn't even have to pay for it. I guess that whole counter-reformation thing actually did some good.

Sicilia - Mafia intensive weekend

Sicily was amazing. I still can't even wrap my head around what we got to do on this trip, sorry in advanced if this post is a little scattered but so many things happened in a very short amount of time it all runs together.

The focus of the trip was studying the effects of the Mafia in Sicily. Only a tab broad. We met with community leaders who are fighting against the mafia extortion tax in Palermo, people who work on mafia confiscated lands who are using the land for good now, we went to Corleone (of Godfather fame) to visit a museum dedicated to honoring those public officials and citizens who were killed in the mafia wars of the 80s and 90s. We had a delicious lunch at a farm house outside of Corleone, ate amazing cannoli and gelato.

Sicily is also just so beautiful. It's so hard to think about all the evil that comes out of such a beautiful place. The land is pristine and picturesque and there are these horrible people living and making decisions about smuggling drugs or making people pay extortion fees or killing other people in the same place.

I can't even really write about it. So much happened and we learned so much that I can't even fully write about how I felt there. It was too much all at once of important information and all this stimulation and my brain is fried.

Run it run it

I'm currently lying in bed, which is where I spend most of my time in my apartment, after opening all of my apartment's windows and listening to an accordion on Marconi play Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Life is pretty prefect.

Time here, I swear, goes faster than anywhere else. Gravity feels the same, but it must be lighter (woooo physics!) because I literally do not know where the past few weeks have gone.

The fam was in lovely Italy for 9 day two weeks ago. It was amazing. Daniel and I ran all over Rome and he translated everything for me and we all ate amazing food. Then we headed down to Sorrento/Napoli to see Pompeii.

I'm pretty fond of history, studying it has always felt very similar to how I love to study Literature, the analytics, though concrete as opposed to pure abstraction, can be viewed in similar ways and I've always liked it well enough. Tedious at time, but I can't complain.

Seeing Pompeii, completely frozen in time was something I could never have even imagined. I've seen pictures, read about the city but nothing compares to actually seeing this bustling town. I somehow don't think of Rome as ever being like Pompeii, even being down in the Forum you can't escape the noise from cars; there is still a vibrant city just across the road. Pompeii is this tiny little microcosm of what life was once life. Preserved in perfect detail, down to the frescos on the walls and the fish bones in the ground.

When I walk around Rome I don't think, and perhaps this is ignorance on my part, "Wow, someone actually was living in the structure 2000 years ago." Though I am constantly surrounded by Ancient Rome it's still abstract somehow, I can push that fact from my mind and just see the living Rome of today.

Pompeii is the polar opposite. It's life, interrupted.

This past weekend I went adventuring in Belgium where I ate far too many Frites and Wafels and in general had a lovely time. Next up is Sicily with my program before London for the Royal Wedding. Anddddddd I have some pretty fabulous people coming to visit the next two weeks. Kelsey arrives tomorrow, Sarah is in town next week, Matt was here all last week and into this one, it's all, in general, pretty rad.