Viva il Papa!

Another description of a day, and I know I just posted a pretty long one - but I wanted you to hear about the papal audience we went to!!

Wednesday was pretty exciting - we had classes canceled so that we could go to a Papal Audience. It was very very interesting - we left at about 7:15 - got there around 7:45. The doors opened to get in around 8:30 and then the audience didn't start until 10:30 (I was very happy I brought a book). There was a group (led by Kevin) that left at 5:30am to be the first in line - when we got there we were right behind them in line. They weren't to pleased, but we thought it was funny. Everyone thought that Benedict was going to walk down the aisle that separated the two sides so people were really crammed against the guard things for the aisle, and then he came out on the "stage" through a side door. If I was him I would think it would be kinda funny.

The audience itself was a bit confusing. They started off by doing the same reading in about 6 different languages and then Benedict basically gave a homily in Italian. I was a bit sad because I didn't know what he was talking about, but when we got back I just went on the Vatican's website and copied and pasted his homily thing into google translate (what an amazing tool) and read it in English. This week is Christian Unity week (I hope because that's what he talked about) so his speech was based off a passage from Ezekiel calling for unification. I was really glad I got to read it in English. After his speech they presented groups from different languages - however our group didn't get called. We were a bit upset - but that's alright. He blessed our religious items that we had and then we all chanted the Our Father in Latin, which was really surreal because I was very aware of all the different languages in the room but we were all able to join together for that. It was amazing. He then talked and shook hands with those people who were up front (I'm sure they were important in some way). There were even 4 bride-groom couples there who he blessed, the dresses were very pretty. I felt bad though because it was raining outside and they were walking on wet cobble stone in heels. Not my idea of fun.

We thought about staying in the city for lunch but it was raining and we didn't really want to walk around in the rain. I figure I have a bit of time here so I can pick the sunny days to go wander around ;) A group of friends and I are heading to Florence this weekend; we wanted our first trip to be in Italy. I'm very excited - taking a 4 hour train there and back, and staying in a hostel - a true college experience in Europe ;) (although we aren't quite sure how to get from the train station to the hostel just yet, I'm sure we will figure it out).

I'll be sure to give you a picture post when we return!!! I miss all of you!!!

Love,
Amelia