Ten Day to Rome/Assisi - Part II

On Monday, we had another ridiculously early breakfast, than Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, in front of the Chair of St. Peter. 

In a way, it was awesome that we were having Mass there, but at the same time, it felt kinda…off. Like it didn’t quite fit. I got that feeling from most of the Mass’s we went to over the week, because, I dunno, those churches were built inspired by the Latin Mass, and so the Novus Ordo Mass felt a little awkward in them. Maybe it was some of the terribly ugly second altars built (seriously, WHY?!), but it did feel a bit unnatural.

After Mass, we went on a walking tour with Dr. Carreno, who is Columbian, and very jolly. From what I can recall, we saw Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Bridge of the Angels, St. Phillip Neri, Sancta Maria Sopra Minvera (where I saw some Asian tourists taking selfies of themselves with the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena right behind them…odd), the Pantheon (I remembered it bigger), the church where the original Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon is (this was my favorite church – it was smaller and felt like a homey parish church), the church of St. Clemente III, and some other places that I can’t remember.

We had some free time for lunch, after which Krista and I had a Scavi tour.

We thought we had to meet right outside of St. Peter’s, on the steps (like we did for the tour on Sunday), and because we were running late, we cut. 

Again.

Then we found out that we were supposed to meet at a different left colonnade (meaning we didn’t need to cut the line) and then chilled out there before the tour.

So the current St. Peter’s Basilica is built on top of Constantine’s St. Peter’s Basilica, which in turn, was built on top of a pagan cemetery (with some Christians). The Roman’s had this thing, where instead of completely demolishing buildings, they would just level them out, then build on top.

Some archeologists did some excavations about 50 years ago, looking for the bones of St. Peter (which they think they found), and also found the old pagan mausoleum, so the Scavi tour is basically a tour of that mausoleum.

We got to see the oldest “picture” of Jesus – three mosaics of Him, represented on a chariot of fire (replacing Apollo), as a shepherd, and then another mosaic which was partially destroyed. Those were actually really cool and my favorite part of the tour, but honestly, I was really distracted the entire time because I had to go to the bathroom.

When we finished, we/I made it a priority to get to a bathroom, then we wandered around (I don’t remember where) until dinner.

After dinner, there was an optional praise and worship thing with seminarians from the North American college of Seminarians (or something along the lines of that), but Krista and I both opted out of that. People told me later how awesome it was and how loud the drums were, and I just “smiled and waved.”

Tuesday, we had Mass at St. Cosmas and Damian in the Forum. 

St. Cosmas and Damian is the motherhouse of the Franciscan TOR’s, and has had Mass said every

day consecutively since the 4^th century (I think). It was a smaller church, but very interesting. It had some really old mosaics, then some side altars with varying styles. It was pretty interesting, and afterwards, one of the priests there showed us their reliquary, where they had a TON of relics stashed, including the arms of several saints.

There was more interesting history about the church, but I missed out on most of it, because I was out cold during the homily. This was a recurring theme throughout the pilgrimage – I don’t know why breakfast always had to be so dang early!

Afterwards, another tour of “Ancient Rome/Early Christian Church” – in my group, led by Dr. Carreno again, ending with the Coliseum. I don’t remember much, but we stopped at one church that supposedly holds the pillar Christ was scourged upon.

It was actually quite small, and if Christ was chained to it, He would have had to crouch down in a really humiliating primal position. It was pretty amazing.

In the same church, there was a large red stone on one portion of the mosaic floor that covered up the opening to a well, where way back, some noble Roman ladies had secretly buried the bones of martyrs.

After, we had lunch with Dr. Carreno, Sr. John Paul (who is ridiculously smiley, has a hilariously loud laugh, and makes the most ridiculously facial expressions) and then two other girls.

We sat in this park, which was previously some sort of palace for Nero – he burned down part of Rome just so he could build it. Lunch was short but relaxing – we had a little entertainment provided by this lady “walking” her small, super fluffy and super energetic dog.

The dog was absolutely nuts, pouncing all over the place, alternately scaring the flocks of pigeons and in turn, being scared by the flocks of pigeons.

After lunch, we parted ways, and again, we wandered around. Krista and I actually planned on going to the hotel early and napping before supper, because we were so dang tired, but we decided to stop at the Circus Massimus for a little bit, as it was one stop before our hotel.

We ended up spending a bit over two hours there, talking, watching this guy play with his adorable little brother (or his son?), and then stopping in Sancta Maria in Cosmedin, which didn’t strike me much as a church. It looked like it was made for Byzantine Mass, the way certain parts were sectioned off.

On Wednesday, we got up ridiculously early to get good seats for the papal audience. It was raining and pretty dreary. After waiting two hours outside the square, they opened up the gates, and that’s when people went a little crazy. It was like I wasn’t even moving of my own accord – the people from behind me were what moved me. Some other students apparently got elbowed by some crazy old Italian ladies, and were quite disconcerted with the entire thing. I actually didn’t mind/didn’t pay attention – I got separated from Krista, then put some headphones on and listened to Irish drinking music, which made all the hustle and bustle almost make sense. At least it made it less annoying. Plus, I didn’t get elbowed…that I know of.

Once we got into the square, the FUS students quickly grabbed some sections for the good seats (though a good section got confused and sectioned off the wrong seats).

There we waited in the drizzle for another two hours, listening to Argentinian music, until Pope Francis appeared, took about 20 minutes to make his rounds in the Popemobile (in which everyone went absolutely CRAZY whenever he got close to them) then he walked up to the stand, sat, and everyone calmed down.

The next two hours were spent reading the papal address and the Gospel reading for the day in at least six different languages.

After the English part, I basically dozed off for the rest of the audience.

After all the readings, everyone said the Our Father in Latin (whoaaa….it’s like, there was one language which made it possible for us to pray together, making it kind of…universal…hm, fancy that!), ending the audience.

Krista wasn’t feeling good, so she headed back off to the hotel, and I spent the rest of the day with Christine, Jessica, Mari and Chiara. 

Christine and Jessica are more soft spoken girls, who usually wear long skirts and generally quite calm people. Mari and Chiara are “louder”, super funny, and make the funniest faces at each other whenever they’re talking. It’s really quite entertaining just to watch their faces when they talk.

We walked around, and I forget most of the places we walked to, but I remember that we accidentally walked into a large market place with the annoying hawkers, where some of the girls picked up some things (like scarves). Then we still had some time to kill before Mass in the evening, but we couldn’t get into the Holy Stairs (real close to St. John Lateran, where Mass was to be offered) because it was having it’s siesta.

That’s actually something you have to keep account of in Italy, and Europe in general. A lot of churches and stores close down for a couple hours mid-afternoon for a siesta, which can be inconvenient if you’re a tourist, but if I was a resident, I would love it.

So we spent the next hour and a half in St. John Lateran – I think Chiara and Mari wandered around the church most of the time, but Jessica, Christine and I sat in a chapel blocked off for prayer.

Lest you think I spent that time well polishing my halo, I actually spent most of the time snoozing in preparation for Mass (I was able to stay awake for the homily!)

Then we did the Holy Stairs and then returned for Mass.

After Mass, dinner, then another Holy Hour in Santa Galla, with maybe one or two praise and worship songs, which was a lot nicer.

We left early (surprise.) the next morning for Assisi, where I spent the few hours on the bus in a blissful nap (except for one part where this guy sitting behind me had music BLASTING out of his earphones, and yet somehow, was managing to sleep amidst all the racket)

Vienna

Early Friday morning, we left for the university sponsored excursion to Vienna, and a lot of interesting things happened that would take FOREVER to write about, so I will refer you to Krista's blog for most of the first day.

After morning Mass, we were led on a tour - I won't be able to tell you very many interesting facts about Vienna though, since I couldn't hear most of what was being said. 

This was the big difference between Vienna and Salzburg for me - Salzburg is, in a way, more interesting for me since I know "a lot" about it, but Vienna was more...immersion (I guess you could call it)

Anyways, for the first bunch of pictures, refer to Krista's blog if you want to know the general overview.

Veronica and Monika

Taking a picture of someone taking a picture of someone taking a picture of someone taking a picture. There were lots of these. 

St. Stephan's!

It has a cool tiled roof.

The other tower - basically the builders got bored and tired of Gothic architecture by the time they came around to finishing this tower, so they just stuck a dome on top and called it a day. 

The Most Expensive Street in Vienna...I think.

We gave up trying to figure out what the tour guide was saying, and instead took some more statue selfies! 

I took this picture for the guys ;)

First part of lunch - a super yummy soup that we also had in Salzburg. Someone told me the name, but I forget, and I still don't know what those noodles were made out of! 

We were walking through a random private apartment thing when we saw this.

Now on to the palace grounds...

The palace gardens!

I told her to make an interesting pose.

Cool gardens I wanted to explore

Creeping on a random citizen

Creeping on the group

Ooolala! Even Google+ noticed and decided to automatically edit it as such

D'awwwww, young love!

Upper thingy in the gardens - I was the only one who walked up all the way

Vienna! The palace looks "small" from here, but it has around 3300 rooms!!

Krista saw her doppelganger at the palace!

Some weird street food composed of spicy-ish chicken stuff, rice, onions, tomatoes and chopped up lettuce.

So, the funny story behind my supper Friday night; the whole group was really hungry after walking around the palace grounds and so we walked to a street with a lot of food places, but no one could agree on where to eat. We eventually decided that each person should just go where they wanted, and then meet back at the designated area.
A couple people got some Chinese food, some had a sandwich already packed, and some went to the Spar. I got some chocolate milk at the Spar, but for my supper, I wanted to get "authentic" Viennese food, so of course, I went over to one of the street vendors and ordered some food. I don't remember what it was called (Humerbox or something) but it was interesting.

Anyways, after I paid for the Humerbox thing on one side, the guy told me to go to the other side for the food. I walked over to the other side and watched another, younger Turkish looking dude prepare the meal, and I ended up talking a bit with him.
Because it would be difficult to communicate all the little expressions and misunderstandings very well, I won't even try, and I'll just give you the story in short; he asked me my name, told me his, then asked me where I was from, then asked me if I had a boyfriend (when I told him "no", he gave me a big smile and two thumbs up), then asked me for my number (I don't know what the number of my temporary phone is yet, so I told him no, to which he frowned), then asked me something else which I couldn't understand, and by that time, he had already handed me my box, so I told him I had to go back to my friends and I split.
It was quite an interesting conversation - so basically the first person to ask me out on a date wasn't American and spoke hardly any English at all.
On another semi-related note, when the FUS crowd was taking the subway to the hostel Friday afternoon, I ended up briefly talking with an older man on the subway. Everyone was super crammed in the sub, and a minute or two before we got off, the man standing next to me made a comment to me.
I didn't understand it, so I just smiled, but then he said something in the form of a question. I looked at him confused, and then he repeated himself, and upon more confused looks, said a couple other things to explain the question.
I still didn't understand him, and by that time, he was getting really confused with my confusion, so I finally just said "American", to which he laughed a little and nodded. He said his English wasn't very good, and he said something else that I couldn't understand, because it was loud in the subway car, and, as he said, his English wasn't very good.
Right before our stop, he asked me nicely what my name was, so I told him, than asked for his name (Rami), then we all flooded out of the car and that was that.
Sorta.
I was laughing about it and telling Krista about it as we were coming up the escalator to the exit, when out of nowhere, I hear someone say "CLARE PREZZIA!!" and rush at me!
It was super surprising but SUPER funny - Kristin and I were in the middle of a big rush of people heading to the exit, just hugging each other. I'm still really confused at what happened since it happened so fast, but Kristin told me to get back with my group and ran off - I didn't see her in Vienna after that, but it was still hilarious. Apparently a lot of the FUS students walking by were really confused/amused - Krista overheard one guy saying "Are they playing or are they for real?!" (I don't really know what that means either)
So basically the first day was quite eventful.

Louise!

Now for the second day.
We went to Mass at a nice Gothic church - I like Gothic okay, but I mostly just like churches with really pretty windows (which this church didn't have).

Afterwards, I walked to St. Stephan's with Krista, David, Kakha, and Maria. We ran into one of the RD's, Scott, on the way, and he took us into a nice adoration chapel in St. Stephan's. I ended up asking him if I could tag along with him for the day, because David runs his "tours" at a super fast pace, which I wasn't up for. Also, the other LCI girls weren't with the group (they were meeting up with Iryna's cousin); Kakha doesn't know much English, Krista would end up talking to David most of the time, and Maria is super nice, but very chattery and I was too tired from the night before.

So Scott and I did a holy hour, then I wandered around the church for a little bit while he went to confession. When he finished, we walked to a little cafe next to a church he really liked, and had some streduel. He got apple strudel - I know no apple strudel can beat Grandma Prezzia's, so I got "curd" strudel (tastes like cream cheese) and it was pretty tasty. Scott was really nice and paid for us both.

After we finished eating, we went to the church - I don't have the little card that I picked up from it, so I don't actually know what church is was. It was really pretty though, and there is a Servant of God resting there. I don't remember his name either, but when the Soviets were occupying Vienna, he went on the Marizell pilgrimage (more on that next week) and apparently had a vision. Mary told him to pray the Rosary a lot, and so he got the Rosary Crusade started. Some time (and TONS of Rosaries prayed) later, the Soviets left Vienna, and this is attributed to the Rosary Crusade he started.

Anyways, after that, Scott told me that he was meeting up with the other RD, Sarah, and Professor McNamara, to go to some Viennese food/flea market thing. 

Vienna is apparently some big shopping place for neighboring countries, and has a TON of stores, so the faculty peeps decided  to meet at some store called McNeals. 

And there, I spent a good hour and a half of my time in Vienna.

It was a blast.

I mean, honestly, one of my favorite things in the world is watching 30-something-year-olds try on really nice clothes. I just love it.

But for reals, aside from being very boring, it wasn't too bad - I just pulled out my homework once I realized that Scott and Professor McNamara were going to be shopping for a while. 

Finally, we left, and strolled leisurely along one of Vienna's "most expensive" streets, till we got to the market. 

The market was actually pretty interesting - I would have liked to pick up some of the cool spice/wine things for Mom and Dad, except I didn't know what most of the things were, plus I only had about two euro in cash.

I got this really tasty bread that was wrapped in bacon with cheese toasted on top - it was SO good, even though it didn't look terribly appetizing at first. 

We got through the food section and briefly browsed through the flea market section - beside not having anything really interesting, everything was SUPER overpriced, so we ditched it and started walking back to the meeting place, eventually meeting up with my history teacher, Dr. Hass. 

I kinda felt weird walking around with the faculty, but it was interesting enough (outside of the men's clothing store)

Scott is a really cool guy, but super A.D.D - it was only at the end of the day, when I was discussing the Latin Mass with Dr. Hass that he really focused and seemed interested. I don't quite understand Scott, but it was nice of him to put up with me and let me tag along. 

Professor McNamara was really nice, but honestly, I was a bit disappointed that he didn't know many Irish songs. He's really smart, so I felt pretty dumb talking to him, though he wasn't trying to make me feel dumb. 

I talked to Sarah for a while too, and she actually knows some St. Greg's guys, as she graduated from Ave Maria. She liked them, and thought the video of the guys juggling in our basement was cool.

Though he was with our group the shortest amount of time, I actually had the most fun with Dr. Hass. He's very opinionated, blunt, and kinda awkward, but funny if you're in the mood for his humor. 

We started off by talking about how he got into history, made our way to his previous job at Ave Maria, then I asked him if he knew about the St. Greg's guys too. He'd had a decent amount in his class, and his opinion of them was that he thought they were really smart and interesting, but too close-minded about his class. He taught Western Civilization, and apparently the students he had didn't like him spending much time on non-Church related history. However, he still really liked his students - his favorite St. Greg's student was a Daniel Schiller (?) and that guy's sister was one of his favorite students ever. He also went to Jeremy Gay's wedding...? 

Anyways, that was fun talking about that, but it got more interesting when we started talking about the Latin Mass - apparently one of the few times he went left a "bitter taste" in his mouth, because while the music was phenomenal (one of his favorite Mass's), he didn't like how the priest didn't inflect the Latin properly and thought the rubrics were too stiff. I thought this was interesting coming from a history professor that specializes in medieval history. 

It was when we were talking about this that Scott perked up a bit and started talking too. He really likes the Latin Mass, but also really likes a reverent Novus Ordo Mass, and told me that I should talk to Dr. Cassidy (my Christian Marriage teacher), since he really loves the Latin Mass. Now I'm excited to talk to Dr. Cassidy and see if I can get a ride with him to a Latin Mass sometime this semester.

Day Six

Today was a really tiring but fun day.

The school organizes a day outing to Salzburg, so we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get on the buses in time. I slept quite well on the bus, and I'll be able to sleep in (finally!) tomorrow, so no biggie.
We got to Salzburg, where the weather was gloomy and rainy for the entire day. We had Mass at the Franciscan Church, and it was celebrated by the auxiliary bishop of Salzburg, who is the uncle of Gaming director's wife.
That Mass would have been a good example of an argument for the Mass in Latin and with fixed rubrics, because this Mass was a prime example of people not knowing what to do because of language/culture confusions. I'm just sayin'.

After Mass, we got divied up into groups of 40, and though I tried hard to get in Mr. Pipps group since he's really funny and doesn't have a foreign accent, Krista and I ended up in the group led by the Gaming director (Mr. Wolter)'s wife.

That actually was pretty interesting; Mrs. Wolter showed us two churches, a cemetery, and the garden that the people run through in the Sound of Music.
Mrs. Wolter gave us some background info of Salzburg - salz means salt, which was a super snazzy (read: profitable) export back in the day, and burg means city.

A lot of Salzburg's history has to do with this dude; I missed the first part of this story so I'm missing pieces (story of every story I've heard in Europe so far), but apparently he loved Italy and hated Austria, but was made bishop and prince of Salzburg. He was forced (I think?) to become a cleric, but he did his darndest not to act like it. He made a piazza in Salzbug (several, I think), one with a fountain supposed to rival a famous fountain in Italy that I can't remember the name of.
He had a mistress, made a palace for her, and had fifteen children with her. He also had his own private palace.
He didn't like the original cathedral that was built in 774, so when the people came running to him one day telling him that the church was burning down, he said "Let it burn." Some people even believe that he started the fire.
Anyways, he built a SUPER nice church in it's place, and that church has a couple really cool things about it. First, it looks awesome.

Secondly, it was the first church to try to incorporate "surround sound"; Mozart had four organs installed at the corners of these pillars, and the organists would have someone nod to them when it was time to play, so they could all play in synchronization.
Thirdly, there are a bunch of bishops skulls with miters on them in the church (sorry, I forgot to take pictures), so when Mrs. Wolter's uncle was being made bishop, apparently her little brother started to cry, because he made the connection between becoming a bishop and dying. The auxiliary bishop has received a lot of death threats, because he's apparently one of the most outspoken European bishops against abortion.
Fourthly, a funny story concerning that stinker archbishop mentioned above; when he built the church, he placed two angels holding a golden crown near the top of the front of the church, to signify his princeship. The people of Salzburg then built a statue of Mary in the piazza/square outside of the church, placing it so that if you stood in the correct spot, it would appear the angels are crowning the Mary statue. Pretty clever, if I do say so myself.
Finally, the church was accidentally bombed by Americans during WWII (they missed the train station by twelve kilometers), but the general that made the mistake raised enough funds for the rebuilding of the church, and wow, they did a pretty good job!

The other church we visited was also very pretty, but I loved the cathedral most, so if I have time to upload pictures of the second church later, I will, but no promises.

Anyways, back to the story of the archbishop prince. He was eventually put in prison, but not because of his immoral behavior - nope, it was because he was taxing Salzburg's salt exports too much! While he was in prison, he had a conversion, and then wrote a beautiful letter to all future priests of Salzburg to offer Mass for his soul. Mrs. Wolter mentioned they had that letter in a particular church, but I didn't get to see it.

It was cool how Mrs. Wolter explained the animosity of Europeans towards the Church (the faith is struggling big time here) by showing how they had to see a ton of filthy stuff like the bishop-prince happen, and they didn't always know about the redemptive part (if there was ever one)

Mrs. Wolter led us through a super old cemetery - there's a bunch of cool facts about it, but here are just two.

1. The makers of the Sound of Music were inspired by it - they recreated the cemetery, and used it in the scene where the Von Trapp family is hiding behind the graves. At the actual graveyard though, there wasn't any space behind the tombs.
2. Also, even though the cemetery is very old (7th century, I think), there aren't many people buried there that died before the 20th century. The reason being, the families/friends of every person buried there have to pay rent for the grave - once they stop paying rent, the remains get sent to some church outside of Salzburg. One (if not the only) exception to this rule is the American general that accidentally bombed the Cathedral, but then rebuilt it. The city of Salzburg made him and honorary citizen, and promised to pay rent for him so that his remains could always remain there (see what I did there? ;)) 

After the cemetery visit, we walked to the Mirabel gardens, where the kids and Maria run through in the Sound of Music. They were really pretty, but I kinda felt bad for the gardens, because there were signs everywhere for tourists so it didn't look quite as pretty. 

I'll try to upload my non-iPhone pictures later

We spent about ten minutes there, then walked Stiegskeller for lunch provided by the university. It was a super big room (dang, I should've taken a picture...) and dinner was very delicious and fun. The other groups had already arrived, so Krista, Maria (an LCI student I was talking with) and I had to squeeze ourselves into the middle of an already full table. 

We had soup first (mostly broth, with some sort of potato shavings/noodles), then the main course, which was chicken, some vegetables, and really yummy dumpling noodle like things. I talked with Maria most of the time - she's from Slovakia, and she's very funny and extraverted. We talked about weird American things, weird European things, and funny words. 

After dinner, everyone had free time, so we joined the other LCI students to spend our last six hours in Salzburg. 

So far, I really like the LCI students. They're more mature (the youngest is 19, and the oldest is at least 26), more open and helping them with their English is super fun/ny. We also had two FUS girls, Jessica and Christine in our group, and they're both super sweet. They're the ones that sing the pretty music at Mass (though Jessica was going a little crazy with the organ at Mass today - I think she was just really excited/nervous to be playing in such an old, cool church)

One of the students, David (a Hungarian), has been in Salzburg before, so he was our "guide" (I use the term very loosely - he didn't know exactly where he was leading us most of the time). He led us up and up and up a side of the mountain - tiring, but it was fun to talk to the girls. David was also pretty goofy and reminded me of David. He also reminded me of an Indian tour guide, the way he would say things like "Come this way!" and "We are in the city now!"

Maria is the most fluent with English, and also very opinionated - if she didn't like the path we were taking, she would let us know (most of the time I agreed with her.) It was nice talking to her, since she's also been in the states, and it's easy to understand her. She REALLY doesn't like the idea of selfies, and that was super funny.

Maria and I

Iryna is the next best at English after Maria and David, and I think she's the oldest. She's been super sweet and friendly since I met her, and was constantly asking me if I wanted to go anywhere in particular. She asked me about Thanksgiving dinner a couple days ago, and thought it was such an amazing thing that Americans do.

Then there is Monika and Veronica - they're both very shy and not very good at English, but they are super sweet and once you get them talking, they get very excited. Veronica asked me to sing the national anthem for them (and I sung it too, Dad!), and then they both sang their anthems - it was super sweet and awesome. We also discussed the happy birthday song, and their versions of it - apparently they just sing happy birthday in English when it's someones birthday. They thought the monkey version of the song was super funny, but they didn't quite get the humor in the St. Greg's doom and sadness birthday song. ;)

We basically ambled around the city for the six hours - my feet are tired now, but it was the most fun I've had in Austria so far.

Selfy with Mozart! And a random family in the background!

With about an hour and a half to go, Maria, Krista, Jessica, Christine and I accidentally broke off from the other LCI students. We spent the remaining time trying to find a place to eat - all the promising market stalls from the morning had closed, which was a big bummer, because the entire free time I was talking about obtaining a chocolate covered pastry (twisted like a pretzel - it looked AMAZING) so that never ended up happening.
Most stores in Austria (and I think general Europe) close around dinner time, so we had some problems trying to find somewhere to eat. The McDonald's was too expensive (can you believe it?), but we found a cheaper Burger King, got some shakes (yes, I know, that's kinda pathetic, but like I said, the market stalls were closed!), and sat there for awhile figuring out how to get back to the meeting place.

It was kinda funny, because everyone, including Maria, was freaking out a little bit about it and wanted to give us a ton of time to walk a little ways to the place. I wasn't too worried, since I actually had a pretty good idea of where to go, but I didn't want them to count on me in case I messed up, so I just relaxed while they planned. I think I'll be more comfortable giving a little directions next time we're out - I just didn't want to make that leap of faith in myself on the first outing.

After chilling at Burger King for awhile, we left to get to the buses, and right next door, we found a little bakery that was just closing, but had some cheap and super yummy looking food. I got these donut ball things - Maria said they were sweet cheese ball things, but I don't think so, because I didn't taste any cheese. It was still very good though.

We made our way to the buses (it was super easy), then got bussed back to Gaming, and here I am! This is definitely the most fun I've had, so I'm really hoping Krista and I can do more things with the LCI students, and branch out from there. (hahahahahhahahahaha, who am I kidding?!)

Anyways, I'll (hopefully) upload more pictures later.

Day One

This is the first official full day at the school! I missed breakfast this morning, because of my phone's alarm clock. The phone hadn't set it's clock to Austria time, so I set the clock for 1 a.m., to get up at 7 a.m. in time for a shower and then breakfast. However, I had difficulty sleeping last night (hashbrowns: jetlagprobs), as did Krista, so about six in the morning, we were both up and tried to figure out my Google voice number thingy. Somehow, during the fixing of that, my phone set the time correctly to Vienna time, but didn't adjust the alarm.

So I was woken up by Krista knocking at the door about half hour before we had to leave, and as a result, missed breakfast. For the tour we went through later that day, I spent most of my time counting down the minutes till lunch.

We took about an hour drive to the monastery of Melk, which was cool. We had Mass in their super Baroque church first thing, and that was nice (no guitars! yay!), but again, my nose was super drippy and distracting. Also, they had a new alter in the middle of the church, which was, well, kinda lame. I mean, they had such an awesome high alter! Why not use it?

Special rooms where royalty would sit during Mass - I wonder what they did for communion?

The architecture was amazing, and then we got a guided tour through a couple parts of the monastery, half of which was through these rooms specially set up for tours. These special rooms were all mainly lit by colored lighting, so they called different rooms "the Green room" and "the Blue room" and basically the lighting was really weird and strange, so that was funky.

Anywho, they did have a lot of cool artifacts, like a really cool expensive Crucifix and a travel breviary; they also had a bunch of sacred vessels on display, which I thought was kinda dumb. Like, I know they're super expensive and ancient and whatnot, but they were made for the Mass, so I just think they should be used for that and not just put on display. It was kinda sad.

This is the view from the monastery into the valley below (the river is the Danube, which is not blue)

The monastery also had a really cool library, but we weren't allowed to take pictures, so you'll have to look it up. We walked through a room called "the Marble Room" because, you guessed it, there was lots of marble! It was a really pretty room, and used by royalty (particularly Empress Maria Theresa) for dining. The room had a cool grating on the floor and some windows so that while everyone was eating, they could hear the musicians playing (below? I blanked out on that part)

Special windows!

Special grating! 

Notice the weird foot sculpture booklet - this was in the tourist shop)

After we finished the tour, we had to wait awhile for the rest of the groups to finish their tour, and then we got a nice lunch (at last!!) at a restaurant connected to the monastery. First we had a really yummy soup with weird little puffy balls in it, then a meal consisting of super tender pork, sauerkraut, and a weird sausage looking thing that Krista and I decided tasted like breaded potatoes smooched together. We're still not sure what it was, but it tasted okay. Then we got a yummy apricot cheesecake (the country around Melk is known for it's huge apricots) and headed back to campus!

Krista and I spent the remaining time we had before dinner and the next two orientation meetings began by cleaning up the room a bit, and walking down to the local grocery store (which our Austrian driver of the previous day called a mall, to the astonishment to a couple girls)

The store is about a five or ten minute walk, which is super nice. I got some cleaning stuff, and also, snacks! Right now I'm eating a super yummy Milka bar. Also, I got a little carton of chocolate milk; the chocolate flavoring was excellent, but the milk itself was rather weak. I plan on making a series of blog posts, ranking all the chocolate milk encounter.

At dinner, Krista and I walked in, got our food, and sat at the only table unoccupied. We started talking about being terrible at talking to people (I'm excusing myself until I'm finished with this drippy nose/cough thing) when a friend of me and Krista walked over with two of her friends, and we finished off the meal with them! It was a bit awkward, but actually pretty nice.
Then we had to rush to the orientation meetings, which last about two and a half hours. The second half of the meeting was mostly about alcohol, which would've been extremely boring for me since I don't share the same excitement as most of the students about finally being able to drink!!!! omg!!!, but the speaker, Mr. Pipp, was super funny.

We just got out of that, and now I'm going to finish that Dickens book, eat more chocolate and go to sleep. Hopefully my head won't get mad at me for trying to sleep at the "wrong" time again tonight.