ROMA days 77-84

As I end my semester abroad I just wanted to take the time to look back at all the wonderful memories I made, friends I found, and the place I called home for the past three months. It’s been a whirlwind adventure here in Europe and as today started I found myself thinking about how I could not believe it had already been three months. It doesn’t feel real to me. I still don’t feel like I should be done with another semester of college and I can’t believe that there are some friends that I have made that I will be saying goodbye to for forever. I have friends staying here for next semester and friends going back to school at Villanova. I have met some pretty amazing girls and I am proud to call them my friends. As the Christmas Banquet came to a close and I walked in front of the Pantheon for the last time it hit me. There is a chance that I may never be able to get back here, and if I do it will never be the same. I would never be back here with my Smicks or with my new friends from the V. Walking into Pascucci’s for the last time I couldn’t help it but to cry a little with some of my friends. If I do return I would never get a cappuccino or chocolato caldo from Salvatore because he is moving to London. I will never be able to just go for a walk with Caitlin over to Frigadarum for gelato. I will never be able to hang out with the amazing deacons and seminarians who led God Squad. The list goes on and on. And even as I write this I can’t help but to feel my heart sink with every word I write and feel the tears roll down my cheeks. I am so blessed to have been able to spend the past three months with some of the most amazing people on this earth. Even though there were some mishaps thrown in there every once and a while…missing my flight…cough, cough…we still made it through and I could not imagine an better group of people to do this with. This past semester was everything I was looking for and some and I cannot thank God enough for how he has blessed me. 

Ciao bella!!

ROMA days 70-76

Well as I am nearing the end of the semester and finals are right around the corner I felt like I had so much to do in the past few days. This past weekend my friend Cathy (the one that is studying abroad in Dijon, France) came to Rome for the weekend. So I spent the weekend showing he all the sights of Rome. We went to Trevi, the Spanish steps, the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, Via Del Corso, and even made it to the Audrey Hepburn exhibit in the Ara Pacis museum. Not to mention going to the Angelus said by the Pope on Sunday. She had so much fun here and it was great to see her. But that wasn’t the only Pope action I had this week. Yes folks I had the chance to see the pope again this week. Dr. Prebys got tickets for all students who wanted to go to the Papal audience this past Wednesday. I went with two of my roommates and some of our friends. This might be one of my favorite things I have done since I’ve been abroad. At the Angelus the English speaking priest announced all the people who were present at this audience and my school was announced! It was incredible. I took a video and I am willing to relive this moment with whoever wants to see it if you don’t mind how shaky it is because my hands were shaking so bad. After the audience Lindsey, Alex, and I ended up taking pictures with a member of the Swiss Guard and talked to him for a little bit. That is 3 things that I can officially check off my bucket list for life. And now that I am at the end of my semester I am currently sitting in my room taking a short break from studying for my 5 finals that start on Saturday and continue until Tuesday. But after Tuesday I am free for 2 days in Roma to live out to the fullest!!!!!!

ciao bella!!

Roma days 59-69

This week we just had 3 days of classes. That was because the school gave us Thursday off for Thanksgiving even though it doesn’t happen in Italy. For lunch on Wednesday the hotel made us a Thanksgiving dinner. It was not what I expected at all, but it was a lot of fun. One of my professors told us it would be set up in Harry Potter dining hall style with the table of all of the Professors and administrators in the front and we sat at other tables in the dining room. I had a lot of fun but I really could have used some good old American Thanksgiving food. That night Alex and I got on a night train to PARIS! We were so excited! The train ride felt like it lasted forever. It was a night train so I mean it was going to be long but what ended up happening was the train was an hour and a half late. We were not happy about that. But when we finally got to Paris Alex and I set off on foot to try and find out first stop. After walking for a while with our backpacks we decided that taking the metro for the rest of the weekend would be a good choice. We finally made it to the Luxemburg gardens. They were so pretty. I love just being able to walk through gardens here in Europe but they will never compare to having trees everywhere back at home. After that we bought some metro tickets and took the metro as close as we could to our hotel and walked the rest of the way to our hotel. After we found the hotel, got checked in and paid for it we were off to the metro again to go to Notre Deme. The metro in Paris is really easy to navigate. Alex and I had no problem with it. We then walked around the Latin Quarter a little and I got my little sister’s Christmas present! I am so excited about it and I am sure she is going to love it! We then went and got dinner. I ended up getting an omelet and let me tell you. It was one of the best ones I have ever had. We each go a sweet crepe to go and decided to walk over to the Bastille because it was right between where we were and out hotel. I was a little disappointed because it was just a statue for it in the middle of a roundabout but hey at least I saw it. We then walked the rest of the way back to our hotel. Once we got in our room Alex and I immediately got our internet working. I told my family I would try and skype them on Thanksgiving so I wanted to make sure I got on in time to be able to do that. I was finally able to skype my family and it was so great to mot only be able to see just my parents, brothers and sister but also one of my aunts, some cousins, and one of my uncles. It was a lot of fun. My mom even made sure I got to be a part of the Thanksgiving toast said by my great uncle and I got the chance to see my cousin Kevin with his new wife! Although it did make me a little more homesick it just made me a lot more excited for seeing everyone this Christmas.  After I was done skyping Alex and I decided to watch a Christmas movie it might have been one of the best ideas we had had in a while. It was so much fun. On Friday we had a big day. We got up around 8:30 got ready and went to the metro. We took the metro to the big mall in Paris (sorry I don’t remember the name..) and did a little shopping. The best part was the enormous tree in the middle of the store. I might have been the biggest tree I had ever seen and I was covered in lights and lit up already. It was fantastic! After that we grabbed a quick lunch and headed off to the train station on the northern part of Paris. it was time for Alex’s Christmas present to me. She decided since we had both been to both Italy and France we needed a new country so she bought us tickets to go to Brussels Belgium! It was so exciting! So we took the train to Brussels and started off. We took the metro there and it once again was so easy. We headed to the center of town and saw everything we could. First we went to the comic strip museum. It was a lot more fun that I thought it would be. We actually spend like 2 hours there. Then we did a little shopping on the main shopping street. After that we went back to the city center and saw that it was all set up for Christmas! This made both me and Alex so happy because Rome is not ready for Christmas at all. There were lights everywhere and Christmas music playing. It was so great! Then we decided to see the main attraction in Brussels. There is a fountain that is called Mannakin Pis…I’m sure you can figure out what it does just by the name, but since it was such a big deal we decided to find it. It was like a scavenger hunt to find the stupid statue. We even stopped and asked some police, in our best French, where it was. Finally we made it to where it was supposed to be and it was so small. I mean after so many people made such a big deal about it you would think that it would be more than 12 inches tall. After that we decided to get some dinner and I’m sure you can guess what we got. Yes that is correct we had waffles! I missed breakfast food so much so this just made my mood even better. They were so good and actually pretty cheap for what we got. Then we decided to head back to the center of town. On our way back I think we made a wrong turn but it turned out for the better. We made it to where the palace was in Brussels and there was a gigantic Christmas tree with a huge nativity scene. There was also a light show going on. It was all so cool. We also found out after that that there was a Christmas market just down the street! We were in heaven and practically ran down the road to the market. It was so pretty. There were lights everywhere and people singing and selling ornaments. Ahh so good! After we finished in the Christmas market we decided to get a snack before we went to the train station to get on our train back to Paris. We got something that was born in Brussels once again and this was French fries. We saved them until we got to the train station to eat but they were really good. We then got on our train and made it back to our hotel safe and sound. When we got back to our room we went right to bed because tomorrow was another early morning. Saturday morning we got up at 8:30 again, got ready, jumped on the metro and went to the Louvre. At the Louvre we met our friend Cathy who is studying abroad in Dijon, France. It was so great seeing her. We hung out all day with her and that was just fantastic! We went through the Louvre and saw everything we wanted to see but since we had all been there before we didn’t spend more than 2 hours there. Then we walked through the Tuleries gardens. They were so pretty. I love gardens in Europe. After the gardens we got a quick lunch at a little café on the way to the Eiffel Tower. After lunch we headed to the next event of the day: the Eiffel Tower. Not only were we going up the Eiffel Tower but we were going all the way up to the summit! I had been up the Eiffel Tower before and that didn’t go very well so I was hoping it would go better this time. We were so excited. Alex had never been up the Eiffel Tower so she was a little nervous but she was still fine. Went all the way to the summit and saw all of Paris. it was so pretty and I absolutely loved it! Then we walked over to the Petit Palace. This was converted into a museum so that was pretty cool and the even better part was the fact that it was free to students. We were going to go to another museum but it was starting to get close to time for Cathy to get her train so we decided to walk her to the train station. The walk took a while but at least we knew that she made it to her train which was good. After we dropped her off Alex and I went to the grocery store to get some bread and cheese for dinner and some snacks for the train rides back to Rome all day Sunday. We then took the metro back to our hotel and just had a relaxing night in our room after we packed up all of our stuff. All day Sunday alex and I were on trains. Our first train went from Paris to Milan and that was from 7:40 until 2:50. Longest train of my life. Then we were supposed to get on another train that went from Milan to Rome at 4 but we going out that that train was canceled due to a train strike. So we ran and talked to some of the workers in the station. Since we had Eurail passes we could jump on the train that left at 3 for Rome. So we did and made it back to Rome at 6. It might have been one of the best weekends here. It was just so much fun to get out of Rome and to see Cathy! And now I only have 15 more days here before I am back home. I guess I’ll just have to make the most of it!

ciao bella!

ROMA days 43-58

School in the past two weeks has been pretty boring. Just the same old classes all day and sometimes lectures on Tuesday nights for our lectures and tours class. There has been some excitement though in the past 2 weeks. First on Tuesday November 8^th the prime minister of Italy resigned. We then found out that next Tuesday that there was going to be a new prime minister maybe the next day. The Italians call him Super Mario. He is the exact opposite of the old prime minister. It turned out that he did become prime minister the next day. Well on Thursday that week there was a youth revolt. A huge youth riot walked down the street right in front of the hotel we are living in! It had a huge group of students and even a truck with speakers and people yelling about the new government and playing horrible 90’s music. It was really cool to be able to have a bird’s eye view of what was happening so to speak. The police completely shut down the street in front of the hotel so the students took over the whole street.  I went to Milan with Alex on Sunday and spent some money on clothes. It was really fun. We walked through the expensive stores and took pictures of them like tourist. Well that’s all the excitement for now!!

ciao bella!

ROMA days 32-42

Sorry I’m absolutely terrible at updating this blog but here’s the rundown with the highlights from the past 10 days.

Wednesday-Thursday: these were just normal class days. Nothing really special went on here to be honest. Just plain old classes.

Friday Alex and I we didn’t have class for the first Friday since we had been in Rome. Alex and I decided to take this as a chance to go to Verona and Bologna. Verona was so beautiful. We went to Juliet’s house and took turns taking our picture on Juliet’s balcony. It was so much fun. We stopped and got some pizza at a little café before we did some window shopping down the shopping street. We ended up taking an earlier train to Bologna that we expected so we got the chance to see a church there that has been unfinished for over 300 years! It was so cool. We also took this chance to see if we could find the University of Bologna. We ended up finding it and I was not really impressed with it to be honest. We had a nice sit down dinner off of the main piazza because Bologna is famous for their food. I had tortelloni and Alex had lasagna. They were both fantastic and the workers there were fantastic! It was all in all a fantastic day

Saturday we had a trip to Palastrina and Tivoli. This involves going to a museum that was a house and then getting some lunch to go before we had one of the highlights of my trip so far. You know the part in the Lizzie McGuire Movie where she goes to the gardens with Paolo well you guessed it WE WENT THERE! It was so fantastic! I felt like I was Lizzie and it was amazing. All of the girls were having a field day with it and I think even the 3 guys had fun there. After that we went to the sanctuary of Fortuna Premigeria. This had been transformed into a museum but there were still many of the main parts of the shrine present like a well. Professor DeSena told us that when you came to the shrine you would confront a priest with a question and in order to answer it they would lower a young boy into the well and when he was at the bottom he would grab a wood tablet with an answer on it. They would then bring the boy back up and the priest would answer the question according to what the tablet said. When the question was answered they would when send the boy back down the well to put the tablet back. He followed up telling us this with turning to one of the guys in my tour group and asked if he was ready to go down in the well. It had to be one of the funniest things I had ever seen. The professor did a fantastic job with making jokes with the group. He was fantastic.

Sunday my roommate Caitlin and I spent some time together. We got up and got so lunch together then walked back to our room. The walk there and back was full of wonderful conversation about our lives in general. It was a great time to get to know her. After lunch we got to studying for out anthropology midterm hardcore. We were both so worried about it and we worked our tails off studying. We went to mass together that night and got some food to go on our way back to our room. I finished off the day with a wonderful skype date with my family. That is the highlight of my Sundays. I love the weekly skype dates I have with my family. We usually talk for around an hour and a half and I get the chance to talk to both of my parents, my sister Madeleine, and if I’m luck my brothers Jon and Thomas. That is always a great time.

Monday I had my anthropology midterm but before we get there I got my philosophy midterm back and I got an A- on it! I was so proud of myself. Well the anthro midterm wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I mean it was hard but I feel pretty confident about it right now. I also finished up and printed out my notes for my two presentations I had while I was going to be in Southern Italy. That night I went to a vigil mass for the Holy Day, All Saints Day, with my friend Jenni and we got some dinner after. This was followed by a much needed gelato date with my roommate Caitlin and Jenni to de-stress about the anthro midterm. It was a good time. When Caitlin and I got back to our room we packed with Alex and Lindsey for the next 5 days. These days were going to be spent in Southern Italy. Caitlin and I had a huge laugh attach and we went to bed. Waking up at 6 the next morning was going to be rough…

Tuesday we got up at 6 to start our journey to southern Italy. The main event for Tuesday was going to Pompeii, and my first of 2 presentations. Pompeii was amazing! I had always wanted to go there so I guess it was a plus that we got to go there. The only thing that made it better was the fact that we had my favorite professor for the tour: Dr. Hansen. She is amazing! I have never wanted to be so much like someone in my life. And I’m not the only one; everyone in the class feels the same. She is just so cool. She makes anything interesting whit her sayings. For example you could be looking at just a simple portical hallway (columned hallway with a roof) and all she has to do is call that portical “dead sexy” and it’s that much better. My presentation went really well and Dr. Hansen was really pleased with it. That made me feel really great about it. After seeing all of Pompeii we piled in the bus to go to Naples where our hotel was. We would not know our roommates there until we got there and they knew how many of each room there was. I ended up rooming with 2 girls, Allie and Grace, who I didn’t know really well but I was really excited. They were both really sweet. We got dinner with 3 other girls and it was a fantastic pizza! Then everyone who we got dinner with went back to our room to just talk for a while. It was a great chance to get to know some of the girls better. By the end of the night I felt like I knew Allie and Grace for years.

Wednesday we were supposed to go to the Naples Archaeological Museum but it turns out it was closed for the day. So we went on to what we were going to do in the afternoon. We drove about an hour and a half to Cuma which is where the Aneid takes place. I have never read it but the students in the mythology class did and some of then gave presentations about the story. This was ok. I wasn’t really into hearing about mythology because I don’t really like it but it was a cool place. We took tons of pictures when we got up to the top because the view was amazing. When we were done at Cuma we went back to Naples via the Santa Lucia waterfront and had our free afternoon we were going to have on Friday. That was fun. I went with some friends into an old castle right on the water’s edge. The best part of it was the face that it was free. I then went with some friends to find the way to the train station then back to our hotel. Why did we find the train station you may ask? Well that is because Grace had to take a train back to Rome because on Thursday morning she was going to fly from Rome back to the states for her brother’s wedding. She was a little stressed out about traveling by herself but I told her if I could do it she could do it. And I think that helped her some. Once we dropped her off at the train station we went to the fruit stand across the street and bought some fruit and then to the grocery store down the street from the hotel to get some bread and nutella. We then went back to our room and had a feast of bread, nutella, and grapes. It was so good. And not to mention how cheap it was. We then had another fantastic chat. These nightly chats were probably the highlights of my nights in Naples.

Thursday we had the most beautiful drive of my life. We drove the entire Amalfi coast with one stop for about an hour and a half for lunch. This drive was so beautiful. I’m pretty sure I took about a hundred pictures of it because of its beauty. It was amazing our bus made it through all of the twists and turns of the coast. After we drove the entire Amalfi coast we went to Paestum. Paestum was pretty cool. It had a lot of ruins from temples and houses and anything else you could think of. After we walked the ruins we went to the museum that was by the ruins. The museum wasn’t really interesting but it has some cool parts. After the museum we got back on the bus. When we got back to Naples it was time for dinner and Caitlin and I decided to go eith some other frineds to the pizza place where they filmed a scene from the movie Eat. Pray. Love. We were so excited and it was a lot of fun once we found it and in the same fashion as Julia Roberts we ate a whole pizza each. It was fantastic! After dinner we went back to the hotel and I got back to my room in time for our nightly chat.

Friday was our big museum day. We started off by going to the Naples Archaeological Museum where I gave my second presentation. It went a lot better than I thought it would but I’m not completely sure how well it went. After we finished in the museum we had about 2 and a half hours of free time. This made me and a few other girls mad. We had packed a lunch and it was on the bus which we couldn’t get on the bus to get our food so we sat in the museum for some of it and walked down the street for a while before we just sat on the steps outside of the museum and waited to get on the bus. After that we went to the next museum. This was the Capodimonte Museum. This was a house that was converted into a museum. It was really pretty cool. It had a ton of paintings in it and when you got onto the first floor it had some of the rooms still set up how they would have been back when there were people still living in the house. After we finished there we went back to our hotel and I had another fantastic dinner on bread and nutella and fruit with some of the girls. We then had the longest chat we had had all week. It was such a fantastic time. I love the life chats I had with these girls because it makes me feel so much closer to them. It was just a great time and way better that being on the sketchy streets of Naples.

Saturday we were supposed to go to Capri but when we got to the port we found out that there was a huge storm on the way to Naples and they were not allowing any boats out of the port for the entire day. I was a little bummed that we weren’t going to get to go to Capri but on the other hand we got to go back to Rome right then. We got back to Rome by 10:30 and spent the entire day in out room back at Rome. It was a great time to relax before the next week. Now time to work on my paper that’s due on Thursday and to study for my Art History misterm on Wednesday. 

Ciao bella!!

ROMA days 24-31

Sorry it’s been a while since my last update!

Tuesday-Friday: Nothing really special happened this school week, just plain old classes and wondering the streets of Rome. The only significant thing that happened this week was the horrible thunder storms we got on Thursday. Thursday Caitlin and I have an 8 AM class with our 9:30 Italian class right after. Well when we were getting ready for class we knew that it was raining but we didn’t think it was too bad. Not true! We walked out of the building and were immediately soaked through our rain jackets. Caitlin’s umbrella didn’t even make it to the corner to cross the street. The worst part was the fact that we had to sit in our soaking wet clothes for the next 4 hours of class. It was horrible and I think that is why I now have a cold. It was not a fun morning. The weather was a complete damper on my mood for that day. There is just something about getting completely soaked that just makes a person upset.

Saturday: on Saturday we went to Tarquinia and Civervelteri. I thought this was going to be a very boring day going to tombs and just hearing what I studied in both my anthro and art history classes again but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Although we had to get a horrible wakeup call from the hotel at 6AM it was an all in all good day. We found out on the bus ride over that we were going to stop at a beach for an hour and a half in the middle of the day so we were all pretty excited about that. Well we went to Tarquinia first. It was only about an hour and a half bus ride there so that wasn’t too bad. When we got there and split up into our groups for the tour I found out that we had out amazing anthro professor for the tour! It made the tour even better just because she adds in her random “Dead sexy” quotes. It was fantastic! We went into as many of the open tombs as we could. After the tombs we got on a bus to a museum in the city center and even that wasn’t too bad which is a great improvement from our last museum we went to. After the museum we had 20 minutes to get some lunch and be back at the bus to go to the beach! We were so excited! It had warmed up a lot by the time we got there so that was another good thing about it. W=once we got there we were like kids in a candy store! We went crazy taking off our shoes, rolling up our jeans, walking the beach, getting in the water. You name it we did it. I took so many pictures with friends and of friends. It was just a blast! For sure the best part of the weekend. We were at the beach for about an hour and a half and by the time we had to leave we were not ready for the next tour. It took us about 45 minutes to get to Civervelteri. There we changed our tour leader to the art history professor so I thought it wouldn’t be as good. As it turned out that tour was pretty fun. One of girls in my group actually said that she felt like Indiana Jones when we were going in the tombs. They were gross, creepy, and cool all at the same time. We had to climb all over the place. It was a really fun trip in general. 2 of the girls in my group decided to lay down where they would have put bodies to decay and took a picture there pretending to be dead. It was hilarious! After we got back to the hotel and everyone was so exhausted from the day. I wanted to go to scholars to watch some of the ND vs USC game but that didn’t start until around 1:30 AM so that didn’t happen. We just had a relaxing night in and hung out with some friends.

Sunday: Today it was back to the world of studying. I sykped my dad in the morning (In Indiana) because the internet was really bad in our hotel and was most likely going to go out before the night cams so I wouldn’t be able to skype my mom and brothers. I ended up going with Alex to this chicken fast food place that was kind of like a KFC to get some lunch. Then we came back to do some studying before mass at 8:00 PM in our SMC chapel. After mass Caitlin and I went out for gelato then went back to the room. I had enough internet to be able to skype chat my mom but that was it. It wasn’t as good as hearing my family’s voices but it was better than nothing.

Monday and Tuesday: Today was just plain old school. Midterms are all in the next couple of weeks depending on the class so a lot of review was happening. I had a religious studies quiz/test on Tuesday and it had to be the easiest religion test I had ever taken! Tonight I’m studying for my philo midterm that is tomorrow. That is not going to be a fun test but I don’t think it is going to be too bad, mostly because im sure the professor will not want to grade them. Well that’s all for now! Maybe I’ll get better at this whole updating my blog thing!!

ciao bella!! 

ROMA days 20-23

Friday I had an Italian test. I really don’t know how it went but it’s in the past and there is nothing I can do about it now. The highlight of my Friday was spent in my room. What was I doing you may ask. Well first on Caitlin’s Itunes the song What Dreams Are Made Of from the Lizzie McGuire Movie came on and we had a mini dance party to it. Then I decided to see if I could watch it on youtube. It turns out that you can watch it in 9 minute segments. Finding this out made my life! Caitlin and I watched it and the whole time we pointed out the things that were wrong about Italy in it. It was so funny! The rest of Friday was just a religious studies class and getting ready to go to Venice on Saturday.

On Saturday Alex and I got up early to get to the train station for our 7:45 train. We got word on Friday that there were going to be some form of riots in Rome on Saturday starting at 9 at the train station and going into the afternoon so we were glad that we left way before they started. I love Venice. When we got there the first thing we decided to do was make sure we had tickets to get back to Rome. Once we had the tickets we were free to wonder where ever we wanted. We first got something to eat for lunch and yes I’m sure you guessed what we got: pizza. The pizza was easy and quick and not to mention how good it was! Every place in Italy has different pizza and it’s all so good! After we got the pizza we wondered around the islands of Venice. Every way you look there is another view of something different. It was all so beautiful! We went to a gallery, found a free museum that showed some of Vivaldi’s instruments he taught to his students, the Doge’s Palace, piazza de San Marco, and even the church Vivaldi taught students at when he was a priest. It was so much fun. We went into so many mask shops. You wouldn’t even believe how many are there! I wanted to get a mask but I got one the last time I was there and how many do you really need in your life, right? We wondered all of the islands and did not get lost once. We got our train back and when we got back to the hotel we checked out email to find emails from family asking if we were alright because of the riots. We even saw CNN news reports online about it! It was crazy. We sent word to our families that we were alright and that it was all done before we got back to Rome.

On Sunday it was a really relaxing day. We woke up and got some food, and yes we did end up caving in and got not only American food but McDonalds. It was so nice to have American food, as bad as that sounds and it was even cheaper that other food would have cost us. We went back to our room and just had some down time to put up pictures and just relax before I went to mass with some other friends. I went to mass at the same church I went to last week. After mass this week I decided to look at some of the chapels around the main part of the church. I almost died when I saw that one of the chapels had the remains of St. Catherine of Siena for hundreds of years after she died. I was named after her because that was the church my family used to go to when they lived in Illinois. When I got back after dinner I told my mom on skype and she freaked out as much as me. I ended up skyping with my family for about an hour and a half. It was great! After that I just relaxed and got ready for my school week.

Today was just a typical Monday. The only difference was that Professor Checca is here for the week with his wife! I love Checca! He saved me when I ended up missing the bus to Assisi. He sat in on 3 of my classes today and that made them even better. The only other thing that happened today was the start of this thing called God squad. It’s something that was started here by our RA Miss McHugh made for us to get together and just talk about our religion with some deacons and seminarians. There were about a dozen of us girls there and it was a lot of fun tonight. We also found out that since they are studying at the Vatican they might be able to get us a tour of both the Vatican and the crypts for either free or a reduced price. I am so excited about this! Well that’s all for tonight!

ciao bella!