Daily Revelations in Rome

Happy Monday everybody. First off, a big thank you and shout out to you, my readers. I'm over 1000 views on this little project, and I really appreciate the love, support, and continued readers. As always, thank you to my parents and brother, who probably make up 500 of those views, but it's still a big accomplishment for me and I'm pretty thrilled. Cheers to many more views!

Rather uneventful day today (meaning I didn't meet the Pope), but it's still Rome, so there's adventures to be had. An update on last night. I had stayed up till 4 am on Saturday to watch the soccer match (when in Rome) and so I gave myself a day of R and R on Sunday. I woke up around 11, and knew I needed to get to mass during the day. I haven't had an English mass since I left the States, so I wanted to try to get to an English mass, but I really didn't want to walk the 1.5 miles to get to the train station and connect to the rest of Rome. I went on masstimes.org, which has been fairly accurate to date, and it said there was an English mass at 11 pm a mile from my house. In case the time wasn't scary enough, this mile was also through the woods, on a road, but one that turned out to not be lit and barely have a sidewalk. Let's just say I'm an idiot, I admit it, I try to be a good Catholic, but I don't always make the wisest decisions. I cross checked masstimes.org against the Catholic directory, which also said there was a mass at 11 pm, and I took off to walk to church. Fun fact: I used to be scared of the dark, mostly because my imagination is dangerous, and the only thing boosting my confidence is the fact that I'm 6'3 and could handle myself in a fight. About half way through the woods, I started to get jumpy. Cars were flying by, so I was fairly confident a random band of gypsies wouldn't jump out and mug me (it could happen!), but I was still somewhat concerned about a creature taking a go at me, but I was hopeful the cars would keep anything larger than a wild dog away.

I made it through the woods and found the church, only to have the Italians inside laugh at me. Instead of taking the walk back through the woods, I decide to search for other transportation.  I happened to find a Marriot, but not before running into a guy wearing a Notre Dame hat. I inquired at the reasoning behind this, and he said that while he wasn't an alum, he does work for the Men's Basketball Team who are looking for connections for their visit to the Rome in August. I said I would speak to some people at the Vatican and see what happens. If I hadn't made the choice to come to mass in a strange circumstance, I wouldn't have met this fellow. We'll see what comes of it, but I don't believe in coincidence and things have a funny way of working out, especially if God has a hand in it, which I'm learning he does more and more. I wound up getting a taxi from the Marriot, back to the room and went to sleep after talking to one of my friends from school.

Today was good, and I took some photos of the view from our office. The next three are from one of the explorations I went on this afternoon. There was, just recently, a walking and bike path opened near where I live. I walked to one end, near the Vatican, yesterday and thought I might see if I could find the other end today. I walked for an hour and covered some good ground (photos from the walk) but I decided to quit at 5 and walk back to my apartment, without having reached the end. More exploration is needed and I might take the bike out and see if I can't get further. I suppose I could always use the internet and check it, but I need the exercise and this world seems to shrink and lose some of its mystery everyday. I like to act as if I'm exploring new territory, even if it is just a well kept bike path winding North of Rome.

I came back from the walk and went to the grocery store. I'll leave you with two observations from Italy. There are more, but I'm off to go read a book. The first strange thing about Italy is that they start buildings on the 0 floor. Ergo, on the elevator at my apartment I hit 0 for the ground floor and -1 for the basement. The second is at the grocery stores they charge for carts. People put one euro in the machine to unlock the cart, which they then receive back when they return the cart to its stall. This is brilliant, would save all of us a lot of hassle at Hannaford, and should definitely be considered in the states. Never will be, but you would all think differently if you're the guy pushing 8 carts through the snow in the middle of winter. Loved the supermarket, but when the jerk in the truck leaves his cart at the other end of the parking lot,  best believe I'm wishing we charged for cart usage. We'll see what tomorrow holds.