Easter!

Well, what better place to be for Easter than Rome?! It was quite a holy week for me!

For Holy Thursday there is an Italian tradition of visiting churches. So, Holy Thursday we went to mass at school and then father paid for us to take cabs downtown to Via del Corso. This is the really famous shopping street, but it also apparently has a lot of churches on it :-). Odd... Anyways, so we went to 8 different churches! It was a really amazing experience, the coolest thing probably being that there were so many Italians doing the exact same thing! We really felt like we were apart of things. Plus, all the churches were set up for the evening with special chapels and candles. We ended around midnight and decided to head to Pizza Buffeto with about 10 of us, and of course Father Chandler! We kept him out pretty late and we went through 2 liters of wine!

Friday was a gorgeous day and the girls and solo guy Dave headed out to the beach! We are acutally only about an hour in from the coast, so after walking-bus-metro A- metro B- ostia train- more walking we eventually got there. The beach itself was a little neglected but the water was beautifully blue and the sun was hot! As always I got quite a few interesting tan lines, plus they had a McDonalds! Never thought I's see the day when McDonalds made me so happy. But I gotta say, McDonalds in foreign countries are a little more high class and in Italy they have pastries and caprese salad! But yeah, ice cream cones on the beach, not a bad way to go. I could have stayed laying out all day, but we had to get back for the Stations of the Cross. Talk about a crazy night! There was something like 100,000 people at the Colosseum that night with the pope to do the stations. They said each station in like 5 languages, and everyone had candles. It was crazy to see that many people and hear nothing but the stations and stories being read. Sooo moving, but one of the coolest things is that we were a little late, and we were standing on the hill in the back, all of these motorcycles and police cars came racing by on the road behind us and so we walked down to check it out, and it was the pope!! His car stopped right in front of us, and he was waving, but when we all came down he told the guy to pop the convertible top! It was craziness! We were all like, did that just really happen?

Saturday was a day off from holiness, so we went shopping and then out for some more pizza! I am not going to want carbs in my life ever again! Sunday was Easter. It was very odd not to be at home, and I gotta say a little part of me was still hoping that the Easter bunny would still find me, but no such luck. We had a lovely mass at Loyola and then we all headed down to St. Peter's Square for the blessing. It was completely insane how many people were there! But it was really fun to be a part of things, and I mean c'mon... the pope, easter sunday at the vatican! Pretty sweet! After the blessing Father took some of us out for pie and wine- great easter brunch. Then I took a really long nap and a group of us went out for a dinner at one of the nice places in Monte Mario.

All in all, not a bad way to spend the holiday! Now today is wed, so that means 1 more day of school!!!!! Then exams, then Greece, and back to the States on May 5!