Okay now I'm caught up through to Easter Sunday, when I arose at the buttcrack of dawn (6:30am!) to get ready to go to Easter Mass at the Vatican, presided over by my new favorite guy ever, Il Papa...The Pope! :) We set out around 7:30 to stop for espresso and croissants at a little café across from our hostel, then joined the hordes of people waiting to get into St. Peter's Square. Think airport security, only more religious...
Once inside the square, Phil, Mike, Courtney and I proceeded to our seats, obtained courtesy of Notre Dame (our group had a block of tickets, yeeeah!). Almost as soon as we sat down it started obnoxiously on-and-off raining, drizzling, misting...call it what you will, but I left London to get away from it, not to sit through four hours of Mass and blessings in it. We soon figured out that all our umbrellas open at once in a row just meant we all got dripped on by each other...so Phil and I pioneered a very innovative system where his umbrella covered our heads and mine covered his knees...Mike and Courtney shared on my other side, and we all stayed moderately dry for the Mass.
Again, Mass felt more like a giant circus than a holy service, especially with crazy Asians with golf umbrellas standing on their chairs to snap pictures of the Pope. (I was guilty of mucho photo-taking too, but I didn't stand on my chair to do it. So there, Asia.) The square was absolutely filled with people, which was a really fantastic sight. Poetically, the rain stopped just in time for Communion, and it was a mad rush to get the Eucharist...I ended up being one of the last people in our group who did before they ran out. That's right, the Vatican ran out of Communion. So much for planning ahead?...
After Mass, the Pope did the "Urbis et Orbis," blessing the crowd in about 30 different languages and proclaiming that Christ has risen. It was a beautiful thing to witness, even though I couldn't understand his English at all in the crowd...everybody got really excited when they heard their language called, and Benedict was pretty impressive on his fancy balcony. All in all, my Easter Sunday experience made me glad to be Catholic, and was just overall really humbling/staggering/mindblowing. I felt so lucky to be there...celebrating the holiday that our religion is founded upon, in the center of that religion, under the eye of the leader of that religion. So amazing. :)
After Mass, some of the lovely Rome band girls offered to make Easter Brunch at their apartment, so we headed back there to dry off, warm up and have an Easter feast! The food was simple, delicious and filling, the company was wonderful, and the time to catch up was much appreciated. As weird as it was to spend an Easter away from my family, spending it with my band family was the next best thing, as cheesy as that sounds. Mike also taught us a really fun Italian card game called "scuppa." I kicked ass.
After brunch and a bit of cleanup, the Fabulous Foursome (Phil, Mike, Courtney and myself) headed to the Coliseum for a damp afternoon of gladiator-style fun! Pictures really don't do the sheer size of the Coliseum justice...mostly because you can't get the whole Coliseum IN a picture. It was really cool. I nerded out pretty hardcore over the exhibits of gladiatorial armor and weaponry with the guys, then we went out into the main amphitheater where we walked around a lot, took A LOT of touristy pictures, and may or may not have staged an epic gladiator battle, where Mike redeemed himself after his loss in the Circus Maximus. Then we also may or may not have climbed all over ruined statue pedestals. The Coliseum, in short, was a really good time had by all. :)
Post-Coliseum, we got Courtney's hostel situation sorted out and moved her into mine...because any hostel, no matter the price, is better than a sketchy night sleeping in an airport. Then we started having epic dinner adventures, trying to find a place to go that was a: open on Easter evening, b: reasonably priced, and c: not a total tourist trap. We succeeded on all counts, finally stumbling onto a cute little restaurant near the Campio di Fiori, a big bar district. Dinner was awesome because:
1. it was really, really good. I had seafood ravioli in pink sauce that was a revelation and the menfolk had really great lamb.
2. the wine was really, really good.
3. the waiter was really, really drunk. No, not kidding. Like really drunk. He poured the wine so haphazardly that I was afraid it would spill...and he DID spill our after-dinner grappa. And he kept hitting on Courtney. Hilariously so.
4. Grappa. Oh wow. He recommended the strongest version of this super-distilled after-dinner wine, calling it "grappa for the men...and power women," indicating me. Great. Now I'm a power-woman, and can drink like a man. Baha. Anyway, it was about as pleasant as drinking straight rubbing alcohol...not to mention you're supposed to get about a shot's worth and he gave us entire champagne flutes full. We lingered over our grappa for a VERY long time...and my sniffly, stuffy nose was completely cleared by the end of my drink. Bahaha. Such fun.
After a thoroughly excellent dinner full of laughter, drunkenness (on others' parts) and catching up, I had just been reaffirmed in the belief that I have the best friends in the world, and that I miss all my campus friends like nobody's business. Can't wait to see all of you this Senior Week. :D We were very full and very tired at this point so we wandered through Campio di Fiori for a little while then headed home, agreeing to rendezvous for our last day together at a decent hour of the morning...more sleep, MMM.
10 Morals of my Easter Sunday:
1. Always be prepared for the elements. That umbrella saved my LIFE.
2. If you want to be Pope, you better be fluent in a bunch of languages, and able to pretend to know a bunch more.
3. Asian tourists. Grrrrr.
4. Grappa is better used as cold medicine than as alcohol drunk for pleasure.
5. Gladiator fights and statue pictures are ALWAYS a good idea.
6. Brunch is an under-appreciated meal.
7. Drunk waiters are better than sober waiters.
8. ND can get whatever it wants.
9. The Coliseum is really really big. Huge, in fact.
10. I have the best friends ever.
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