Pictures of Rome and the pope!!

Definitely take a look at these pictures: Roma Favorites

They highlight the best parts of these last couple weeks and show how close I was to shaking the pope's hand!!

Thanks for all the comments....it's refreshing to know that this blog has helped me share my experiences with you!

Buon Natale and Auguri!!

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes!!

With love,

Anne

Only 8 more days in Rome :(

Well, it's down to my final days in Rome. I am really going to miss everything about living here, but most of all the people. A few of my closest friends here are staying the year so I won't see them at Saint Mary's until next fall. The other people I'm going to miss are the seminaries, deacons, priests, and sisters that have worked with us throughout the semester. They led a group called "God Squad" that helped explain different parts of our faith. Last night was our last meeting, and all of us are so sad to leave them. They have taught us so much about our faith and God's great love for us, there is no way to thank them enough. Even though I have finals Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday, I have managed to get some fun in this week so far. Monday was a national holiday in Rome...Mary Smith's birthday of course! Haha it should have been for that, but it was really for the Immaculate Conception. There is a big ceremony where Pope Benedict blesses a wreath and then it is placed on a statue of Mary near the Spanish Steps. There were at least a thousand people in the area so we really couldn't see much, but at the last minute my friend lifted me up and I saw Pope Benedict XVI!! And then today we had tickets to the Papal Audience. He was really close today, and when they announced groups present from English-speaking countries, they announced Saint Mary's College! So we stood up and clapped and he waved to us. It gave me chills to have the pope looking at us and waving to us...it's one thing to see him at the Angelus blessing you, but to have something more personal was such a wonderful feeling. He blessed us and our families so know that you are taken care of by Pope Benedict. Since I have received a request from Mac to put up a picture, I have added this one of my friend Jillian and I outside of the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls. This is one of my favorite basilicas in Rome....it holds St. Paul's sarcophagus and the cross that spoke to St. Bridget. The courtyard outside was also beautiful, which is where we are. 

I leave for Austria on Dec. 19th and return on the 26th, but hopefully I will post before then!

Love you all,

Anne

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

I celebrated this afternoon Italian style, and it was awesome! Even though I miss my green beans and mashed potatoes, it was delicious. We are treated so well here....i

t was a sit down dinner with all of our professors, the director of the program, the deacons & priests who work with us, our tour guides, all of the girls, and

 more. Here's a brief summary of our menu: Saffron rice timbales, squash ravioli with spicy fresh tomato sauce, Roman turkey with chestnut stuffing, potatoes, peas, and apple cake. I have not been that full in a very long time, and that's a lot to say considering what we eat here every day. Another thing the Italians forget is that Americans take a nice nap after a huge meal like that. Instead of laying down, I had to walk to the top of the Esquiline Hill, the highest hill in Rome, for a tour with my art history class. We saw two beautiful churches, but everyone was ready to sit down. Later I took a really long nap to make up for it. 

It was a wonderful afternoon/evening, but I will definitely miss being at home for the holidays. I would love to be able to tell you this in person tomorrow, but I have to settle for this....

I sincerely thank you ALL for all of your support. I cannot put into words how much I appreciate how much God has blessed me with such amazing friends and family. I continuously ask myself why I get to have this amazing experience, and my only prayer is that I will be able to share what I have gained with you. Tomorrow, try and 

be aware of God's presence in every person. We really are made in God's image and the holidays is one of the best times to see that. Also, know that I will be praying for you and thanking God for giving me such wonderful people to help me be a better person. 

One more thing....

Can you do a favor for me?

Anyone who is going to see my parents tomorrow......give them the best hug you can. No side hug that Rita Kesterson would give you a hard time for! I owe them so much, and since I can't show them in person, I would love it if you helped me thank them for being such incredible parents. 

Mom and Dad--- THANK YOU. You are one of the best examples of true selfless love, and I hope I can give that back to you somehow.

I'm off to pack for England, and I leave in the morning!

Love you all,

Anne

an update on my travels the last couple weeks and what's to come...

When I looked at my blog and realized I hadn't posted in a couple weeks, I couldn't believe it. Which is scary, because I'm sure I will be wondering where the time went after the next 5-6 weeks. Since I'm always short on time these days, I will just tell you about the most exciting parts of my past couple weeks. November 7-9 I was in Ireland with all of my roommates!! My roomie Maire's aunt and uncle live in Raheny, a small town right outside of Dublin, so we stayed with them. It was wonderful being able to stay with them, and they were firm believers Irish hospitality, so we were treated extremely well. On Friday, we went into Dublin, had some traditional Irish stew, then saw the main attractions including Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and of course the Guinness brewery. Saturday we did some shopping in Dublin then we went to the beach near Raheny and to the small town of Howth. I think Ireland is the only place that can still be beautiful when it is rainy, cold, and windy! This past weekend we had our last "Lectures and Tours" on Friday and Saturday around Rome. Friday we went to Palestrina and visited the museum and site of a huge ancient Roman temple, then after that we went to Tivoli and visited Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este. Hadrian's Villa was probably my favorite...it was huge and it was so fun to imagine how incredible it looked at its height. And today I went to the Vatican Museums and saw a whole collection of Egyptian and Roman statues from the villa, and it was really neat to be able to think of the exact area where they would have stood. Villa d'Este has these huge gardens that are filled with beautiful fountains. Saturday we went to Ostia Antica, the ancient port city of Rome. I had a really good tour guide, the archeology professor who happens to have his doctorate in the study of Ostia, so I definitely learned a lot. It was really neat to imagine that I was in the center of the place where goods from all around the world came into Rome. Saturday afternoon I went on a long walk around Rome with one of my roommates. This is my favorite way to see Rome....just heading out in a general direction and getting lost. We went to this park that has an incredible view of Rome and found some other neat places. Sunday I left at 6 am for Florence! It was really a perfect day. We didn't wait in line for the Academia to see the David, barely waited to get into the Uffizi Gallery, which holds the greatest collection of Italian paintings, then shopped on the famous bridge called the Ponte Vecchio. After that we went to this small town called Fiesole, which has the best view of Florence. It was breathtaking, and we made it right at sunset so it was a great end to the day. Now I leave for Frankfurt, Germany on Friday for the weekend!! The next week should be great because we have a Thanksgiving banquet at the hotel, then I am going with my roommate Jillian to stay with her relatives in England and maybe Scotland. It's all downhill from there: one free weekend staying in Rome, finals (on the wknd too! ), then the Christmas banquet to end the semester. After that, I am heading to Austria from December 20-26! Everything is planned by Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students who are currently studying in Austria. There are more details on that coming soon! 

Here's a link to some recent pictures: Ireland, Roma, Florence

Ciao!

PICTURES!!!

I have been trying to get my pictures up, and I have finally caught up!

Here are links to my albums:

Roma (1)

Roma (2)

Roma (3)

Cinque Terre & Pisa

Pompeii, Amalfi, & Paestum

Archaeological Museum of Naples, Cuma, Capodimonte Museum, and the coast of Naples

Capri

Sorry to overwhelm you with all of these at once! Enjoy! Time is flying here as usual....Our whole group was in southern Italy from Tuesday the 28th to Saturday the 2nd. I was able to spend time with my friends who are studying in Spain this semester because they were visiting Rome this weekend. This week I had a couple midterms, so that was a lot of my week, and now I have to pack because I fly out tomorrow morning for IRELAND!!! I'm soooo anxious and excited today has gone by so slowly! I'm off to another one of our wonderful dinners at our hotel. Ciao!

Sleep can't be that important...

After a weekend in Cinque Terre, a group of five small towns on the coast of Italy, I am officially exhausted. We left on the midnight train on Friday, slept on the beach (more like a big rock) along the water until about 7 am then started our day. You hike along trails to get to each town, so you get some amazing views. (I took about 300 pictures total this weekend.) It was absolutely gorgeous! I really can't put it into words, much like everything else I have seen. The water was perfectly clear, and it was a nice break from the sweaters and scarves every day in Rome, and not to mention a break from the sirens and other noise from the city. On our way back to Rome on Sunday, we stopped in Pisa and took the typical picture "holding up" the leaning tower. It was acutally a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be! This weekend was definitely a learning experience with the traveling, but each train ride it gets easier. The most important thing you have to learn here is to go with the flow. You really can't travel with ease unless you learn this. Speaking of traveling, I'm off to southern Italy from Tuesday at 6 am to Saturday night. We will be staying in Naples and visiting Pompeii, Paestum, a couple archeological museums, and Capri the last day. Hopefully the weather holds out and we are able to enjoy the beach! Hopefully I will be able to catch some free time next week but who knows with the craziness here. I have two midterms next week and then I'm going to Dublin that weekend!! So, like the title of the post implies, who needs sleep when you live in Rome?
Love you all,
Anne

P.S. GO COLTS!! And Happy Halloween to my favorite little cousins!!! I will miss trick or treating with you guys! I better see some pictures of your costumes! Love you :)

Catching up...

Sorry I have been neglecting keeping you all updated! I have found that there is hardly any time to sit down and relax, let alone sleep for a significant amount of time. I will start by catching you up with last weekend (Oct. 11-12). On Saturday we had an early morning wake up call and the whole SMC group was on the bus by 7 am on our way to Tarquinia, a necropolis of the ancient Etruscans. After about an hour and half bus ride there, I was kind of annoyed to wake up to see a field of openings to go underground to the tombs. However, the tour turned out to be very interesting and exciting. You had to be observant and pick up on the patterns as we went to each tomb. It was actually fun to think of the meanings behind the scenes and structure of the tombs, whether it could be a depiction of the afterlife or a person's life. Then we went to a museum to examine the sarcophagi (coffins) and other artifacts of the Etruscans. I thought it was fascinating how they took aspects from Greek culture, but still managed to have very unique and defined techniques. As fascinating as all of this was, I can only take so much of tombs and pottery, so luckily we got a much needed break with pizza and a trip to the beach along the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was really refreshing and relaxing to just walk along the water and enjoy the beautiful weather. After this we headed to Ceveteri, another Etruscan necropolis. The tombs here were much different than the ones in Tarquinia. Here the style switched to a tumulus, which was often build more above ground. I really enjoyed these because you could explore and actually go into the tombs. It was kind of creepy sitting where the dead once laid, but it was definitely one of the cooler things I have done. 

We got back to Rome at about 5:30 in the evening, exhausted and dirty from the day, but in usual fashion of our lifestyle here, we were up and going not long after that. MTV was putting on a free concert in a piazza by the Colosseum (about a 15 minute walk). The concert consisted of an Italian band, John Legend, Italian rappers (which were horrible), and The Cure. When we first got there the crowd wasn't too huge, but it gradually built up. The Italian band and John Legend were pretty good, but The Cure brought out some weird people. It was the first and only time so far that I haven't felt completely safe here. By the time we left, the crowd was almost never-ending, but luckily we made it out safely. 

The next day, we went to Porta Portese, a huge local market on Sundays. There are rows of a large variety of tents, including clothes, jewelry, shoes, decorations, music, etc. I found some black skinny jeans, and was able to haggle the price down a little to 9 euro, and I found a silver watch for 3 euro. If you want to be in on some of the fashion in Italy, go for purple and boots. You can't go wrong with those two here. Also, you never go out in public without looking your best or at least presentable. It is a huge change from dragging myself out of bed and going straight to class at SMC, but I really kind of enjoy it now. It's nice not looking like you just woke up all the time. :) Hopefully I can keep this up when I get back!

Well that's a quick catch up for now, but I will be updating again tomorrow on this past weekend, including the Scavi Tour and other awesome adventures in Rome! Thanks for your patience with me!