Day 16

5:10 am--my alarm goes off. Luckily, I had gone to bed a little bit earlier than usual, but it was still a very, very early time to wake up at.

So, we struggled through getting ready, and then a little after 6 Katie, Gina, and I set off for the Vatican. St. John's had tickets to the Papal Audience waiting for us at the security desk, so we didn't have to wait in that line when we got there. However, we did have to wait to enter St. Peter's Square for quite a while. It must've been almost 8 at that point.

Once we were finally let in, we scrambled through security and then rushed to the seats. We knew it didn't necessarily matter how far up we were, but rather how close to the middle aisle we were. And since we knew this, we waited with some other people for the second section to be opened up (much to the dismay of all the guards).

Speaking of guards, there were Carabinieri (Italian military police), Vatican police, and, everyone's favorite, Swiss guards. This was no joke!

Me with a Swiss guard

The whole experience was just truly amazing. So many different people from so many different countries speaking so many different languages...and yet they all just ABSOLUTELY ADORE Pope Francis (as do I). Kids were chanting his name and some song before he even made his entrance, and they obviously only got louder when he made his rounds about the square.

I can't even describe how exciting it was to see the POPE! There he was, all in white, in his cute little white pope mobile, just smiling and waving and kissing babies and whatnot. At one point, he was less than ten feet away from me! But the guards prevented me from getting any good pictures of that. Honestly, though, the experience itself was definitely rewarding enough.

Everything that was said was said in several languages. I want to say they were: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Polish, German, and Arabic. St. John's (along with many other schools and churches) got a special shout-out from the English speaker! But at that point we were already trying to see where Pope Francis was going around the square, so we barely even realized it was being said.

Pope Francis spoke to us about the importance of family (in Italian and Spanish...and then I kind of zoned out during the English speaker's summary...oops). It was very cool to hear him speak, even though I didn't know what he was saying. I did hear him mention the Stati Uniti di America (or whatever) and cheered for that, though!

***I feel like my tone is a little too cynical for the post right now, but this is only because I'm exhausted, had nearly 5 hours of class today, and just spent the past hour trying to book my flight into Baton Rouge for Will's wedding in December. Please excuse me if you think I sound like I didn't fully appreciate the papal audience because I PROMISE I did.

So everything about it was totally amazing. I loved singing the Our Father (Pater Noster) in Latin, even though I despise the Church's pronunciation of the language. (What are these "ch" and "v" sounds?!?) And lastly, we got to see allllll the cardinals up on the steps with the pope. Wish I had been able to identify Cardinal DiNardo!

Following the audience, we headed back to campus and grabbed some lunch before class. In my City of Rome class, we watched an Italian film called "Caravaggio" about--you guessed it--Caravaggio. It was interesting, but actually extremely graphic (many public execution scenes) and seriously lacking in score.

Of course, I would pick that movie any day over the lecture we had in Theology. Far too much economics right now--I am not a fan. Although, some of it I do remember from AP Eco in high school, so that's helpful. Unfortunately, most of those bits didn't make it onto today's quiz, though. It was kind of a complete disaster, actually. BUT, I thought my last quiz was pretty bad, too, and found out I made a 90 on it, so maybe there's some hope.

Katie and I had dinner at a pizzeria that was SUPPOSED to accept our meal tickets, but apparently only takes them at lunch. (Which makes no sense. This country is so ridiculous at times. ...But I love it). At least the pizza was good, though! I got mushrooms on mine this time, which definitely hit the spot.

I complained about booking flights earlier in this post. It turns out I have been granted permission to leave my study abroad program a week early so that I can attend my brother's wedding AND not have to go back to Paris afterward. I will now be flying from Paris to Baton Rouge via Atlanta, so you already know I'll be having Chick-fil-a as soon as I get through customs at ATL.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I am very, very ready for bed tonight.