Here Goes Nothing!

We're a few days in here and already the jet lag is gone, classes start tomorrow, I turned twenty and I'm all moved in! Blessed is an understatement. 

Something I learned about myself:

I wish I had something deep to share here, but the main things that keep popping in my head about what I have learned about myself are: passive-aggressiveness does work when fighting for room the airplane,  I can practice self-control (particularly in the form of not bursting into tears when the Pope went by), I am capable of walking a bajillion blocks on an empty stomach, and beer doesn’t taste as bad as it smells. I’m still so busy soaking in the grandeur that is this city, and I know it is only a matter of time until I am able to articulate better how much this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity means to me.

He was SO close and I kept my cool. I'm proud of myself.

The Best Thing That I Ate:

I’m not going to bore you with descriptions of the delicious bread that I ate (although, for the record I ate five pieces the night of my birthday. . .) When we all gathered for a group dinner the first night, we were treated with a delicious Italian meal. After a long 24 hours of travelling/settling in, this was amazing. Although I would have been happy with the wine, antipasta and delicious pasta, the desert sealed the deal for me. It mixed some of my favorite things: whipped cream, strawberries and nutella—all in a coffee flavored/waffle bowl. Heavenly.

Go ahead, take a bite. 

This was piece of bread #5. My face says it all. 

An Adventure I Went On:

Late night birthday walk to the Vatican! After a full and exhausting day complete with a wonderful group dinner and a rosary and blessing from Deacon Mario, Elise and I went on an impromptu walk to the Vatican. It’s clearly a blessed life when you can just decide to walk over to the Vatican on a whim . . .Anyways, I could think of nothing better than spending the last hours of my birthday in front of such a physical manifestation of God’s glory—St. Peter’s square was buzzing with people and the Vatican at night is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. We walked and talked and prayed the rosary—definitely a low key adventure, but a beautiful one nonetheless. 

I'll never get tired of this. 

Taking pictures of your hands is a lo more difficult than you may think. .  .

The Craziest/Most Interesting Thing That I Saw:

Communion lines. I know, original. But as someone who has been raised in a wonderful ‘well-lined’ parish and has spent the last year and a half at school accustomed to neatly moving lines up to the front of the Church to receive communion, the “blob” concept that is implemented here to move to the front of the Church has been completely foreign (haha, get it?) to me.  I can complain/joke about this, but I also recognize that it is an important opportunity to surrender my individual expectations about the way that I think things should be done. 

Obviously snapping a pic in the church was not an option,  so picture a mix of this:

and this: (P.S. Typing 'crowded lines' into google gives you an oddly large amount of pictures of Joe Jonas.)