"Wait, have we gone 5 blocks without seeing a Church?"

So Rome and London differ just a bit as far as Catholicism goes.  Rome is covered with massive Churches on just about every other block.  These are no small, little community Churches, but buildings as large as the Basilica at Notre Dame or Holy Name Cathedral.  A group of us went on a little Saints tour of Churches with our Campus Ministry guy in Europe and saw beautiful Church after beautiful Church.  I also saw the hand of St. Francis Xavier and the grave of St. Ignatius of Loyola along with where St. Ignatius founded the Jesuits.  And then comes St. Peter's Basilica, the largest Church in the world.  It is almost impossible to describe the sheer size of the Church.  We started the morning with a tour of the Vatican Museums. We saw the graves of dozens of Popes, including John Paul II and St. Peter and the famous Pieta of Michelangelo.  The Vatican Museum tour itself was pretty impressive, with the miles of hallways of art culminating in the Sistine Chapel.  It is as beautiful and impressive as everyone says.  The ceiling, all frescos, is so large, but the painting of the Last Judgment I found even more amazing.  After the tour, there were a nice select few of us that Andrew knew that went out for some free pizza.  As I'm walking and talking with Maeve and Meg, I run into Flannery, who I haven't seen in over a year.  We talk about life abroad, how I coached the Pangborn football team last year, how everyone in the Fisher/Pangborn group was doing, etc.  So as I was catching up with the Toledo people, we managed to get separated from the rest of the group down one of the small Roman streets/alleys.  Good job us.  Luckily I had Andrew's phone number, and after a bit of wandering, we eventually found the group sitting outside in the sun ready for some pizza.  

We got to do all of this on Holy Saturday before our Easter Vigil mass at the North American College Seminary in Rome.  It was just a few of us ND kids that were in Rome (over 120 ND students from the study abroad programs were there this weekend) at the mass with an ND grad who was just ordained last year.  It was a nice, small Vigil mass, and we didn't have to wait in line for 5 hours like at St. Peter's.. Plus it was in English.  I was asked to read, and while I held out hope I would get Dad's infamous "Chariots and Charioteers" reading from Exodus, I instead got the 7th and last reading from Ezekiel.  Not completely identical to my father I guess.  The seminarians and priests were kind enough to make some pizza for us and have us over for a bit in their lounge before we headed back to hit the hay.

Easter Sunday was another early wake-up call to be down at St. Peter's at 8 am for the 1030 am mass.  We had tickets so we knew we were getting seats, but this way, once they opened the gates and put us through the metal detectors, we were able to get a few rows in the front left for ND kids.  However, as we were just getting there, I was hit nicely on the left shoulder blade by some bird droppings.  Nothing I could about it at this point, so I sat through Easter Mass with the Pope in a shirt and tie with a nice little spot on my back.  And, our hostel was locked out for cleaning from 11-3, so I didn't have a chance to go back and change all day.  Hopefully not too many people noticed.  We enjoyed the nice service, mainly in Italian and Latin with Pope Benedict XVI.  The weather was a bit chillier than Saturday (70's and sunny) but we avoided any serious rain.  Mass with the Pope is just an experience itself, especially with the thousands and thousands of other people there.  After the blessing, it was off for some lunch with Will before the classical Roman stuff.  We looked pretty awesome walking the streets of Rome, especially the Ruins area, in a shirt and tie.  Sunday was filled with the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Spanish Steps, and Trevi Fountain.  All amazing in their own ways, mainly due to the grandeur of the architecture in all of them.  The Colosseum was just a really interesting place to be inside, to understand how large it was.  The Roman Forum consisted of tons and tons of discovered ruins where the Senate used to be, including a former palace for the Emperor.  Those should all be at the end of the pictures... And I took a lot of pictures.  

Finished off the evening with dinner at the ND Architecture building (Archi majors have to study 1 year in Rome, their 3rd year out of 5) and then a stop for more Gelato. This famous gelato place offered the Gigantuan, the largest cone and amount of Gelato I've ever seen.  Three ND'ers made the attempt, yet only one passed with flying colors.  The other two could not handle that much sugar.  But the gelato is so so good there, along with the pizza.  Though, I do admit, the pizza was a bit too thin, made me just crave even more some good old Chicago pizza.

The trip was a blast though, definitely a great experience I'll never forget.  Pictures will hopefully be up soon, though there are quite a lot.  I liked the Basilica I have to admit.