Wanderlust

I'm having wanderlust for European Adventures... and the soon to be Mrs. is having Wanderlust for Japanese adventures... I see a future with small bank accounts and lots of frequent flier miles...

My brother is in Europe right now: Get thee to his blog for highlights of The Most Excellent Adventure.

Pax

Some final pictures.

I havnt updated in a while. I'm now in Roma-Fumicino Airport waiting to check in, after I do that I will wait for my plane so I hope to upload a few pictures this afternoon.





Mitch





This is how close I was to the Pope, No zoom on this one.








Main Fountains at the Tivoli Gardens.








Me at the Tivoli Gardens.






View of St. Peters from the German Parish Cemetary inside the walls of the vatican.

Monument declaring what the German Cemetary is.



Emma, Matt and Sean yuking it up. We went to an opera concert one night and all us guys parted our hair and made jokes about our yachts like typical yuppies. Fun was had by all. Here Matt is telling a fantastic joke.



I will post more later. Mitch

The Pope

Saw the Pope on wednesday. Stood about 10 feet from him as he drove by! So cool. Then when all the pilgrimage groups were announced to Pope Benedict at the end of the audience they announced GU and whe cheered and he waved at us!!! Pictures later.

Sunday and Monday recap

So I went to a beautiful Latin High Mass at Ss. Trinitas dei Pellegrini, or Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims Parish. The Church was incredible. They had 6 foot tall candle sticks on the altar, with 8 foot candles. So that was impressive on its own. It was very nice though. Wandered around Rome in the afternoon just looking at stuff, it made for a good eveing.

Today we went to the Gesu Church, which is the Jesuits mother Church. It did not impress me very much. I though it looked over done, but half assed at the same time. I dunno it just did not impress me. I liked San Ignazio much better. San Ignazio or St. Ignatius is a much prettier church. It is the Church for the Roman College, the first Jesuit University. It is where St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Robert Bellermine are burried. It is very beautiful. Interestingly enough the dome over the center of the church is not a dome at all, it is a flat celing painted to look like a dome when you are in the back of the Church. Its actually a pretty cool effect. The reason they didnt build and actual dome was because of a lawsuit. One of the surrounding building owners sued because if the dome had gone up he would hardley ever had sun hit his building. It was one of the first cases of its kind in the world.

I would post pictures of these two Churches but the internet in my building is very low bandwidth and so it works on and off, right now I am getting a very weak signal.

Tonight we are going to the rooms of St. Ignatius for Mass in his bedroom which is now a chapel. Afterwards we are going to a fancy dinner which will be fun. Tomorrow night Italy plays France in the Euro Cup which will be alot of fun to go out and watch.

I posted more on my other blog for those who are interested.

Hey

So I wrote a big long post. Then my internet connection went down so I lost the post. Will write more later and post pictures. Until then, Im doing good. Write you after Mass tomorrow.

mitch

Thunder and Lightning...

right above the Borgo (neighborhood I'm in). Its cool.

Tuscany

Pics from Cortona will be up soon.

Mitch