Finishing up Italy: Rome and Venice

So Jacob has already told the highlight of our Rome trip (and probably the trip as a whole, if not the highlight of our whole lives), but there are a few more things that we did in Rome that are worth mentioning. We met Erin Kochivar (a friend from church who is studying at a seminary in Rome for those who don't know) on the same day that we had our audience with the Pope. He took us to a cool little park that had a fantastic view of Rome. We spent the next day exploring the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and the Colosseum. All together we really had a nice time in Rome. Below are some pictures of notable events.

Jacob thought this angel looked like it had a selfie-stick like the ones they were selling on the streets. I thought it was the sponge that was offered to Christ on the cross; close enough right?

The Trevi Fountain was under construction. Gar!!

Ceiling of the Pantheon, pretty cool.

Men in black.

Alter at St. Peters

Selfie in front of the Colosseum (not with a selfie-stick)

After Rome, we arrived in Venice. Venice is really a city like no other. According to the girl who lead us on a free tour around the city, it was actually a group of 118 muddy islands before the Romans came and decided to make a city there. There is so much water and so many narrow streets completely surrounded by tall old buildings. It was just a really cool place to be.

While in Venice we visited the Saint Mark's square (the main tourist stop), went to mass at the cathedral there, took some pictures, and Jacob got attacked by birds. Jacob was taking lots of pictures because there is a Pokemon movie that apparently uses Venice and Saint Mark's square in particular, as inspiration for its setting.

The ceiling in St. Mark's cathedral was completely gold, either paint of leaf, we couldn't tell.

We were walking through a large gathering of pigeons when a street seller shoved from little dried pasta bits into Jacob's hands. The birds surrounded him then. They started landing on his hand and arms. I was freaking out (they are like rats with wings, gross!), but managed to get a picture or two. They guy then asked for money, which we didn't give him because 1. we didn't ask for pasta to feed the birds, and 2. because we weren't going to pay him for letting vermin climb all over Jacob and possibly give him all kinds of nasty diseases. But the picture is kind of cool anyhow.

He kind of looks like St. Francis; "let the disease-ridden birds come to me"

Some other highlights from Venice included seeing the most beautiful book store in the world and climbing a staircase of books, visiting the old Jewish ghetto and taking a guided tour of some synagogues, and eating some of best pasta we've ever had.

This book shop keeps all of its books in boats and bathtubs so they don't have to close down their store when the city floods in the winter.

Staircase made of books which had been ruined in a past flood

Jacob had to wear a Yarmulke when we went into all the synagogues

Handmade pasta with bits of extremely tender and flavorful veal, need I say more?

We also spent a lot of time just wondering the city and taking pictures of so many beautiful things. Here are just a few.

The gondola's bow is actually packed with symbolism for Venice. For example, it's entire swerve-y shape is the same shape as Grand Canal.

We also will be taking home a Venetian mask as a souvenir. The guide on the free tour told us the story about why Venice is famous for masks and we really liked it. Many people think that the masks are famous because of the Carnival festival they have every year, but this is not the case. In fact Venice started the Carnival festivities because of the masks they had to begin with. In the medieval times members of the wealthy class and aristocracy were known by face and name like celebrities. Because of this, if they were seen doing anything socially questionable they would cause scandal. Someone from this upper class decided that he would just wear a mask, a black cape, and hat whenever he was doing something questionable so that no one would know who he was. This idea spread like wildfire among the aristocracy and soon everyone was wearing masks. Sometimes it would be because they were doing something that would have caused scandal, but sometimes they wore a mask just because they didn't want to be bothered. After years of this tradition of mask wearing, the city decided to start the festival of Carnival to celebrate social equality. When everyone is wearing a mask, everyone is equal. Under the mask and cape you could be a king or just a humble laborer. It was cause to treat everyone with respect.

Because of this cool story and the fact that the masks look really cool, we bought one to bring home. Sometimes it will hang on our wall and we will bring it down to wear for renaissance festivals and Halloween festivities. It's pretty darn cool.

This is not the mask we bought, but it was this shape and mostly white (more traditional) with a little gold.

We are in Munich now and will be heading to Vienna next. Jacob will hopefully write a quick post about our adventures in those cities soon.

Ciao!
Jessie and Jacob

Pilgrims Meeting the Vicar of Christ (story first, then pictures)

Jessie and I were married on January 2nd of this year, 2015. We chose this date because we wanted to study abroad together. Our friend, Erin Kochivar, upon hearing of the fact that we would be in Europe as newly-weds, suggested that we look into getting tickets to a Wednesday Papal Audience in order to get a special blessing from His Holiness for our marriage. We loved the idea, and this newly-wed marriage blessing, the matrimonio benedizione, became the focus of our trip. We reserved the tickets early, got a copy of our marriage certificate, and packed special clothes in preparation for this udienza papale.

We picked up our tickets Tuesday evening from the Visitor's Office in the Pontifical North American College, and received a short overview of how the next day would work. Bring our tickets and our marriage certificate, and we would be ushered to the newly-wed section to listen to the Papal address. Most visitor's for the address had to sit or stand in St. Peter's Square, but as newly-weds Jessie and I were offered seating on the plaza near the main stage. Also, as the audience began at 10 with the Pope's ride through the square on his Pope-mobile, most visitor's were advised to arrive around 7 am, while Jessie and I were advised 9 am (though the earlier the better, of course), since our seats were reserved. We stayed in the office for a great talk on the structure of the readings in the Mass, which is a conversational dialogue between God and ourselves. Jessie and I couldn't have been more excited for the next day.

On a side note, Rome is crawling with peddlers. The majority of them are selling selfie-sticks (blech), and the vast majority of them don't understand the word "no." Let me warn you now, avoid eye contact, and above all avoid conversation with these peddlers. They are never interested in anything but money.

I tell you this because, on our way back to our airbnb apartment on Tuesday evening, a peddler came up to us and tried to give Jessie roses. She of course refused, but he insisted, claiming they were gifts. He then asked us how long we had been together. Once he had us in conversation, the game was over. He gave Jessie a total of six roses, and after a short conversation proceeded to beg for money to pay for the roses he had "gifted" to us. We gave him our last fiver, saving enough money to buy our metro tickets home. I know, I know, it was stupid. But we decided Jessie could bring the roses along to the audience in the morning so it wouldn't be a total loss.

Anyway, the next morning we woke up around 6:30. I got barely a wink of sleep for one reason or another the entire night, and so was dead-tired. We got up, got dressed and ready, prepared our breakfast, and finally left the apartment about 7:30. We were golden. When we arrived at the metro station, however, we realized that we still had no cash left to buy our biglietti (tickets), and cards were not accepted. So we had to take a detour to an atm, which ultimately cost us about 40-45 minutes. But we were still doing ok on time.

Or so we hoped. The metro station in Rome at 8-10 in the morning is an utter nightmare. We took a train to Termini station, the center-point, for a transfer to the train that would take us to the stop for the Vatican. The station was packed. There were so many people trying to cram into the trains that we had to miss two trains and catch the third before there was even room for us. And the train was totally packed with people. There was literally no room to move, and one or two people even had to get off to allow the doors to close. This whole state of chaos cost us much more time than we were comfortable with. We ultimately arrived at the Vatican at 9:30, just in the nick of time.

Or not. We got through security, and had no idea where to go. We were told at the orientation that we would be escorted to our seats, but the only officials around were the Italian police, and they wouldn't talk to us. The most we could get out of any of them was that the Pope was already out, it was too late to get a seat, and we needed to stay in the square. But it was supposed to start at 10, we thought? Nope, the Pope had come out early, and no one would talk to us about finding our place. Finally, as he began his address, we realized it was too late. We couldn't sit in our reserved seats, and we wouldn't receive the Pope's blessing for our marriage. To say we were devastated is a terrible understatement. We cried together for a few minutes, trying to resign ourselves to just enjoying the Pope's address from afar. We sat down on the steps.

A few minutes later our luck changed. A young woman walked over to us, crouched down, and introduced herself as a student at the university nearby. She had noticed that we had been crying, and told us that there was still a possibilita to see the Pope. We needed to find a Vatican officer to help us, as they understood the importance of the Papal blessing and would be more willing to help in the way the Italian police simply weren't. She also suggested we write a note to the Pope with our address attached. This we did. She didn't speak much English, but she renewed our hopes and our search began anew.

We asked a few more police officers, but couldn't find any Vatican officers close enough to contact. Just as we were about to lose hope again, God sent another help. A middle-aged Italian man, in a red shirt with a woven fedora hat, noticed that we were holding our marriage certificate and yet were not with the newly-weds. Though he didn't speak English, we were able to discern the same basic advice - we needed to get through the crowd and flag down a Vatican guard. We kept trying, and he disappeared. He reappeared a few minutes later with new information - we needed to go around to the other side of the Square. We thanked him profusely, and began our trek. By now, the address was over, and the translated summaries had been read. But we finally found what we were looking for.

There was an alley-way leading up to the plaza with two guards, one in the iconic Vatican guard dress we had been looking for. We showed him the certificate, and he let us through! There were about five more similar passageways we had to pass through, but we finally and miraculously made it to the newly-wed section of the Papal address.

Having just come back from the edge of depression, we were feeling pretty good. The Pope was now walking amongst the people, and we moved down the stairs to the edge of the plaza with some of the crowd, just behind a move-able fence. Then God sent His third helper to us, probably getting both amused and annoyed at our incompetence. A woman noticed we were dressed as newly-weds, and told us there was another place we needed to be to receive the blessing, which she knew because her daughter and son-in-law were doing the same. We had simply figured the address and blessings were over (it was almost all in Italian, so we didn't know), and had followed the rest of the crowd to the fence. We didn't noticed that the newly-weds had gone in a different direction, towards the center of the plaza behind the stage.

By the time we got back to where we were supposed to be, the other newly-weds had passed through, and the way was closed off. We showed our marriage certificate to the guards again, (there were three this time, none of whom were Vatican guards O.o). Two of them looked it over and discussed it. One pointed at the date (technically, couples needed to be wed within two months of the audience, but we had been given tickets and had gotten this far anyway). The other closed the way and walked toward the center of the plaza. We learned from the other guards that he had left to ask someone whether we could be let in. He walked back, and motioned us through, telling us to hurry.

We lined up with the other couples, we on the far right-hand side, and we waited. A few minutes passed, and there he was. His Holiness Pope Francis was slowly making his way along the side fences, greeting people, kissing babies, accepting gifts, and giving blessings. He moved along very slowly, despite his age and the Italian heat of midday, giving his full attention to everyone he came across. When he made it back to the center of the plaza, we realized that he wasn't going to give a general blessing to all the newly-weds. He was meeting each couple individually.

Our anticipation grew with each passing couple. Before we had even met him, we had been touched by this man's sincerity, his grace, and the way in which he seemed to truly care for the flock he shepherds. He finally came upon us. Jessie took his hand and kissed it. I took his hand and kissed his ring. He blessed us, and I told him that Jessie was pregnant. His face lit up. He asked when the baby was due. He looked down and began the blessing, but looked up again to ask what the baby's name was. We told him we didn't know yet, since we don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl. "Ah, depends, eh? On whether a man or woman?" "Yes, Father."

Jessie gave him the six flowers that had been forced upon us, wrapped in the note we had written and signed with our address just a little while earlier. Those flowers had given us so much grief. If we hadn't bought the flowers, we would have had money for the train, and we would have missed rush-hour, and we would have found the newly-wed section with ease. We would have sat through the Papal audience on a chair with a smile on our faces, rather than on the steps of St. Peter's Square with tears in our eyes. We also learned better to have faith. Faith that God is in control. As terribly incompetent as we were, God sent us as many helps along the way as we needed; God wanted us to have this blessing. And so we passed those flowers on as our gift to the Pope. The roses were not simply roses, but giving them to the Holy Father was like laying all our frustrations and all we had learned at the foot of the cross.

Before Pope Francis moved on to the final couple, he asked us to pray for him. What a humble man! He spoke softly and gently. And he spoke earnestly. We told him that we would of course pray for him, and asked that he do the same for us, to which he smiled. And then he moved on.

Pray for His Holiness Pope Francis, the Vicar of Christ, the Visible Head of Christ's Church on Earth, and the Successor to St. Peter. We pray for his continued health and strength. We pray for his wisdom and inspiration, that he be filled with the Holy Spirit to guide the Catholic Church throughout the world. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen!

The pope goes by in the Pope Mobile

The best I could do from afar

The view from the newlywed section

Jessie and the Roses

Afterwards

St. Peter's Basilica

Blessing the Baby

We're walking away in the background - this couple gave the Pope a new zucchetto and the Pope's face is pretty great. =)

Our day in Naples

Yesterday we spent the day in Naples Italy. We had planned on spending two days there, but there was a weird 24 hours layover in London attached to our flight. I had never thought that we would have such a long layover so didn't really check before buying the tickets. I saw that we left Glasgow at 3, had a layover in London and got into Naples at 8. We didn't even think to look at the dates and see if they were different. =P

So we spent one day that we had originally planned for Naples doing nothing in the London airport. When we finally got to Naples, we had to make a 4-hour trek, including an unintentionally free bus ride, to our Airbnb accommodation in the neighboring town of Portici. We tried to make the best of the next day, which would be all we would have here. 

The morning wasn't looking too good. We didn't realize that it would be Sunday until we woke up and so were kind of stressing about finding a church. We didn't get wifi information from our hosts before going to bed and so we couldn't look it up. Lucky for us there are Catholic churches on every corner here in Italy so once we saw one with the procession waiting outside we just followed the priest in and joined.

 

After mass we looked for something to eat. Many shops were selling pastries right outside on the streets. We stopped at one, pointed out a puffy doughnut looking thing, held up two fingers and gave them our money. The people were trying to tell us what they were, but didn't speak English. When we started eating however, we were pleasantly surprised to find they were filled with ricotta cheese. They were pretty darn delicious. 

Jacob is so happy

We didn't have a map or internet so we started walking in the direction that we thought Mount Vesuvius would be with every intention of climbing it. Once we got a map from a nice man at a news stand, however, we saw just how far it was and decided to abandon that quest and start the quest for the beach. This was a more difficult quest to accomplish than we realized. It took us about an hour and a half or two hours of walking before we finally found someplace. This was an hour and a half of being tormented by the constant sight of water just to our right but no road to lead us there. We were left in such despair that we nearly turned back right before we found it. I am very glad we didn't turn back though. A little time on the beach was just what we needed to get our day back on track.

A sand castle we made, then destroyed, of course =)

Jacob playing in the sand

Me buried 

sitting on a rock trying to keep my feet relatively clean before putting them in shoes.

Feeling revived after a successful and fun few hours playing in the black sand (probably black from volcanic ash, we decided), we got some lunch, looked at the map and the time and decided that we had enough time to at least get closer to the famous volcano that completely buried the ancient city of Pompeii. It turned out to be a really big hill so we didn't get as far as we would have liked, but we did get some closer pictures and once nice picture of the city below. We walked for quite a while to get these pictures so enjoy.

 

We really like Portici. The town was not for tourists at all. No one spoke English, which was scary but cool at the same time. We felt like we were getting an authentic Italian experience. And we are very proud of the fact that we survived. =)

small stereotypical Italian street

We got into Rome today. We spent a stressful day walking and being lost, but we are now where we are supposed to be, have internet, a bed, and food in our bellies (McDonald's twice today, but desperate times right? nothing but pizza and pasta for the rest of our time in Italy). The rest of our time here in Rome looks very promising. We are excited to experience it and then tell you about it after. We are here until Saturday so come back around then to find out what else we get up to. =)

From Italia with love,

Jessie and Jacob