Part two?

Ciao everyone, and welcome to part two.

I think I'm going to get this in, but understand if I get limited pictures, video, something along those lines. But yes, Saturday was beautiful and we went up to the Papal residency as a class. We took a charter bus from Piazza Repubblica, and we got on our way about 9 in the morning (after catching a bus home from that same stop just over 6 hours earlier).

We got on the bus and rolled out of Roma, which I always enjoy. Rome has very little in the way of nature, and when you get out of it, it's such a rewarding and calming feeling to see nature in play again. After about half an hour on the bus, we arrived, and Father Larrey gave us a brief rundown and we ascended this little staircase and came out into an open area, which is shown here. The papal residence is right behind me in this picture, which we'll get to in a minute or so.

It was an adorable little town, set on the volcanic lake Albano. I really could get used to living here, and after I ascended into the Castel Gandolfo, I am not the least surprised the Pope would like to have his summer digs here.

There were many guards around the doors, which we large in their own right, and a little portal opened in the center, revealing a Wizard-of-Oz style window which a guard asked who we were there to see, and Father Larrey responded "Padre Matteo."

Now, Padre Matteo is pretty much the most awesome guy ever. He's in his mid 70's, Italian through and through, and speaks pretty good second-hand English. He's an Astronomer, and has lived most of his life there at Castel Gandolfo, which has 5 telescopes set up for observing the stars. We actually came to visit this Castel because it was set up after the Galileo affair in the 17th century and the Vatican realized it'd probably be a good idea to see what Galileo was talking about, albeit a little too late to save much face.

Anyway, Father Matteo was adorable. He was very sweet and cracked incredibly corny yet hysterical jokes, and was so excited to show off his home to a bunch of Californian students and try and make them laugh and get the importance of the place across to us students who may not otherwise get it. He really is quite nice. He showed off all of his "toys" and such, his telescopes, and gave quite long speeches in his decent English, all the while telling us terrible jokes that I just enjoyed thoroughly. He pointed the telescope at the sun and held up a piece of wood, and it was literally 4 inches thick and it burned through almost immediately. It was pretty darn cool, I gotta say.

My internet has been so terrible the past few days and I'm really not sure if I'll get this all posted, but know that you should check out my pictures, which all are now online with the exception of just a few, at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/NoMomentWasted

I'm captioning them too, and they're making it on there very gradually, so let's hope the internet keeps up and I can keep blogging!

Anyway, that break aside, we just soaked in the views and enjoyed the lovely time with such a nice old man, filled with stories about how John Paul II (yes, the Pope) liked having people around all the time, and Benedict is more of a recluse, it's really interesting. For sure, it was excellent for the day.


Buy yes, just enjoy the view. It's quite the place, and yes, as the girls do say in the video, it's GORGEOUS hahaha.

We hung out in the town for a little while longer, just exploring and taking some pictures. There was a wedding in the nearby church that they hurled bags of rice as the bride and groom left which looked more painful than anything, but it was pretty cute to see them dash even more quickly into the car to speed away.

I like little Italian towns. Bracciano, Gandolfo, Saronno, they're all just so picaresque and beautiful, plus, the food always smells nice. But all good things come to an end, and I headed home to get some work done and to just relax. I napped and just relaxed, doing some studying, and later, Meg and Kelly arrived from Finland, bearing gifts of chocolate and good cheer, even though it was near midnight when they arrived. We went on a really nice walking tour of the city over to Gioletti's Gelato, aka the best ice cream in the world, and they were definitely in accordance with me and the general consensus on that front. Just excellent. It's really nice to see some more familiar faces, that's for sure.

We hopped the very last Metro back here, and they headed out and I got to sleep, and sleep I did. I slept in and got up, did some work and grocery shopping, and Meg and Kelly came over for dinner on Sunday. We wanted to watch Roma/Inter on TV, but it wasn't shown as it's on a cable network or something, but good thing we didn't: Roma lost 4-0.

Ouch.

I made my now famous Prosciutto and Cream Garlic Pasta, which was pretty nice, and we had some good wine and bread before they headed out for the evening, but not before a little Flight of the Conchords and the newest episode of the Office. Good times all around.

Yesterday, Monday, was just busy as all get out: studying, 6 hours of class, 2 hours of commuting, and eventually, sleep. Today is all about hoping the internet has been fixed for good, which maybe it has been, maybe it hasn't, but for now it's working and that's what counts. Remember to check out the picture site, as there are seriously over 500 pictures on there with most of them captioned, so seriously, if you want to see all of what I'm taking, that's the place to be.

Tomorrow I have two midterms, so I guess I should get back to studying for those . . . oh joy. But after tomorrow, the weekend is almost here again, and it just felt like the weekend ended. Funny how that works.

Until next time,

Ciao.