End of the Semester.

Wow, so once I again I feel behind. Sorry about that. I have been super busy as you all might have guessed. Clark's visit was amazing. No problems or delays or anything with all of our flights, and we had great weather in all three countries. London and Paris were really awesome. We pretty much saw everything there is to see in both cities. We took a little day trip from London to Stonehenge, Oxford, and Windsor. The queen was at Windsor Castle when we went, but we didn't get to see her :(  Oxford was a nice little town where they filmed some of Harry Potter, so that was neat, and Stonehenge was just unbelievable. I have pictures of everything, and I am sorry I have not gotten any of them up. I have so ridiculously many. I think the total is nearing about 8000 for the year. So, my computer is hating me right now, and I don't have room left on my hard drive, so it's been impossible for me to work with them. I promise that you all can see as many as you want this summer, and I am in the process of making a book on iPhoto of my adventures here.  Other than that, in London we saw all the essentials, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, King's Cross and Platform 9 3/4, etc. etc. In Paris we got to go up the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Moulin Rouge, Versialles, etc.. He saw lots of things in Rome, and we ate tons of gelato and pasta! Overall his trip was great, and it was a nice break from school.

Now that he is gone I have been working hard on papers and preparing for finals. I had my first final yesterday, so now I have four more to go. I went to a Mass in memory of JP II's death yesterday, which was really nice. I am going to Palm Sunday Mass this coming Sunday, and I have tickets for all of the Holy Week activities next week, so it should be an awesome week. I am also going to Sorento and Sicily before Easter, and then I am headed to Ireland after Easter. I hope all is well at home.

Ciao for now!

Allie  

Another week in Rome...

Ciao! Nothing too out of the ordinary has happened since my last post, but I figured I would update you. A group of about 8-10 of us has been going to the Station Masses everyday. I have gotten to see so many churches that I did not even know existed. I am also getting to see new parts of Rome that I wouldn't normally wander in to. We get up at 6 a.m. every day and leave from the hotel. We either catch a bus or walk depending on the distance, and we usually just follow a group of guys with collars everyday if we get lost. It has been raining every day now, so that is kind of a bummer, not to mention one of my rain boots has a hole in it now from excessive use, so I have to patch that up or get some new ones because March is Rome's rainy month, which scares me because it rains all the time every month.

In other news, the program is leaving for Siena tomorrow, and we are spending the day there. It should be a lot of fun. St. Catherine is from there, and her head and finger are there, but her body is here in Rome. Also, I have a favor to ask anyone who reads this...my roommates and I are planning an event (Circus Maximus Games) for the program, and if any of you know of any fun activities that we could do please email me or post them on here. We were thinking of things like tug-of-war, three-legged races, relay races, egg and spoon game, things like that...so if you can think of anything else, all ideas would be appreciated. We are holding this event at Circus Maximus, the famous chariot racing track, and it is on the Ides of March! It should be awesome. We will be wearing togas and whatnot, so I will get some pictures up after the big day!

Ciao for now!

Allie

Milan/Venice

Hello all! Happy Ash Wednesday! This morning starts the beginning of LENT, my favorite season! I, along with eight other girls, got up this morning and met a few of the seminarians we know in the lobby of the hotel to go to the first Station Church. There is a Station Church for every single day of Lent, so my goal is to go to Mass at that church every morning that I am here in Rome. This morning we went to Saint Sabina, which houses the first image of the crucifixion in the entire world. It was pretty amazing. The Pope has celebrated Ash Wednesday at St. Sabina since like the 500s or something ridiculous like that, but we didn't go to the Pope's Mass. You have to have tickets for that. We went to the English Mass, which is at 7 a.m. every morning. The English speakers are the lucky ones who got the earliest slot for Mass.

Well, this past weekend I headed off to meet Steph in Milan like I told you in my last blog. Unbeknownst to me, there is not very much to do in Milan, but that's alright, because it was still a great trip. I didn't get to see the Last Supper, they were booked for two weeks straight. So, that was a little depressing. I did get to see the Duomo, which is the third largest in the world, behind St. Peter's and one other, it was amazing. Other than that, I just wandered around and hung out with Steph and her roommates. We went to Venice on Saturday for Carnevale! That was really great. We got there and took a boat ride down the Grand Canal and ended up in St. Mark's Square. All of the costumes were outrageous. Steph and I split off from the group and went mask hunting. We both found some pretty cool ones. If you want to check out my photo album from Carnevale click HERE! After we found masks, we took a gondola ride which was unbelievably awesome. The guy wouldn't sing when I asked him to  because he said he only sung at night...I think that was the only disappointing thing about Venice. Overall, it was a great weekend.

I am staying in Rome this weekend, going to hit up several more Station Churches while I am here. My roommates and I have the whole weekend planned out, so I will blog sometime next week about my adventures.

If anyone is coming over for Easter, or knows anyone that is coming for Easter or anytime around such as Good Friday, etc. let me know and I can request tickets for all the Papal events. It's nice having connections in Rome :) Hope all is well at home! Keep me updated with what's going on in everyone's lives!

Ciao for now!

Allie

Milan

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that I am in Milan right now. I made it in earlier today. Right now I am at Steph's apartment. Tomorrow I am going to tour the city while she is in class, and then hang out with her once she gets done. On Saturday we are headed to Venice for Carnevale! We come back late Saturday night, and on Sunday I will get to see more of Milan until I have to head to the airport.

Hope all is well at home, if you are reading this and you didn't know, Carly got an interview for the Lilly, and she has it tonight, so keep her in your prayers!

Ciao for now!

Allie

Budapest

Hey everyone! I just got back from Budapest early early yesterday morning, so I thought I would tell you a little about it.  We left Thursday evening after dinner and landed in Budapest around 11:45 p.m. We grabbed a cab that took us to our hostel.  When the cab pulled up to a dark corner on some random street in Budapest we all got a little worried. He backed up and stopped and told us we were there. We looked around and saw some buildings and stores but nothing that looked like a hostel. He insisted we were in the right place, but we just kind of sat there until he got out and walked us to the right door. He rang the call button, and they buzzed us up. We opened the huge wooden door and it closed behind and we were engulfed in darkness. There were no lights anywhere to be found, so we were kind of frozen in place for a minute or so until we started shuffling forward as a little connected group. We found a creepy spiral staircase and made our way up to the first floor where the sign on the outside said it was located. All of the sudden a long shadow crept across the floor in front of us and a scary looking man appeared and asked us if we were staying at the Goat Hostel. We were, so we followed him and finally made it inside, and it turned out to be a really nice like cozy place. The beds were actually super comfortable and they had internet access and TV and free breakfast, so if anyone is going to Budapest sometime in the future I definitely recommend the Goat Hostel! :)

We got up early the next morning and Steve, a new guy that was working, got us a map and circled everything we should see while we were there. We set out and started site-seeing and went in the extra opposite direction we should have been going to find the market. We ended up seeing a couple cool churches and other things before we found ourselves back on the street where the hostel was. We had gone in a complete circle! We headed in the direction we should have been going in the first place and found the market. It was a pretty cool place, and we all bought some paprika, which Hungary is famous for. We headed off across the Danube river next. There was so much to see in Budapest. We walked miles upon miles all around. We saw St. Stephen's Basilica where St. Stephen's right hand is kept, Parliament, the Fishermen's Bastion, the Chain Bridge, Buda Castle, lots of other churches, and all kinds of stores. We had a nice dinner for Tara's 21st birthday and then got lost going back to the hostel. We eventually found our way and went to bed at a decent hour so that we could have a good part of our last day to see things.

The next day we walked to Hero's Square and found another castle that was having some sort of festival thing. There were food vendors and tons of little booths and even an ice-skating rink. We continued around the festival and got some cotton candy and huge soft pretzels.  We had to make our way back to the hostel to catch a cab back to the airport for our evening flight.  We got the airport and found out that our flight got delayed FOUR hours. So, we had almost six hours to hang out at the airport since we had gotten there a couple hours before our flight was supposed to take off. Finally, at 11:30 we were able to board the plane and fly back to Rome! 

Countdown to Budapest!

Our plan for Budapest departs in nine hours! Frannie, Christina, Tara, and I are really EXCITED! It should be a lot of fun. Not much going on today. I was done with class at 9:30 this morning, and then I went and did laundry. That is always a joy. We went to Campo de'Fiori to look for Roma apparel. We are going to a football (soccer) game on Sunday! It's Roma versus Genoa which should be a pretty great game! Roma is ranked 6th right now, and Genoa is 4th, so we are a little afraid to cheer because apparently games can get a little rowdy. It should be a lot of fun though.

Not much went on this week, another week of classes done. Midterms are quickly approaching, so I will be getting ready for those shortly. I am planning a trip to Milan soon to visit Stephanie Flora. She just got there a few days ago and is settled into her apartment. Hope all is well back at home.

Ciao for now!

Allie  

Update

Hey everyone! Hope everyone is faring well in the massive amounts of snow. I am kind of jealous. It did not snow at all when I was home! It has been raining nonstop pretty much since I got here. That's all right though. Luckily we had a nice day Saturday, and my roommates and I went on a day trip to Orvieto. I went there last semester, but they had never been. It was really nice...we saw the Duomo, St. Patrick's Well, and lots of little shops.  Everyone in Italy is having sales right now. It's still from Christmas and whatnot. A lot of them end this week and next week, so a ton of the girls have been shopping. 

This weekend I think we might head to Perugia. They are famous for chocolate and have a chocolate factory and everything, so that should be fun. Hopefully it quits raining long enough to enjoy some days in Rome.  

We had a lecture last night. That was pretty boring because I heard the same one last semester, but oh well. Tomorrow I get to go to an opera with my Music Appreciation class. That is pretty exciting. I think that might be about it for this week.  I hope that is all well.

Ciao for now!

Allie