Woah, it's been way too long....

This is a good pictire of Father David.





Well, as you have noticed, I have not written for a long while! I'm very sorry, it's been finals around here, so it's been really busy. However, A LOT has happened! I'll start from the beginning...Well, I went to the Cardinal ceremony at St. Peter's Square about 3 weeks ago. Mom and dad told me there was a priest from Sioux City becoming a Cardinal, and that is a HUGE deal in the Catholic Church. So, I headed over to St. Peter's Square thinking I might see a few Sioux City people because they were supposed to be there. I went by myself, and just stood in the square and took photos of the giant screens they had up. The ceremony was held in the church. So, after about an hour and a half of watching the Pope talk, I spotted a tiny American flag in the distance within the crowd of people. I thought, “How odd of there to be the American Flag in Rome.” I guess it was odd to me because I hadn't seen it in about 3 months. So, I kept my eye on it because I knew there had to be some Sioux Citians around that area. The Pope started calling the names of the Cardinals, and each country would cheer for their own. It was pretty cool. So, after the ceremony was over, I made sure the man with the American flag walked by me, he was a priest from Texas. I stopped him and asked, “Where is the Sioux City crowd?” He told me they were all congregating at the American College and asked if I was going. I said no because I knew nothing about it, so he went on his way. Well, all this time he was still holding the flag high. It also had a Texas flag on the pole. So, I wanted to get some good pictures of the American Flag with St. Peter's behind it, so I followed him a bit. Then, there were these two ladies who started talking to him. I went up to him again and asked if the Sioux City people were in the church and he said yes. But THEN, he asked if I wanted a tour of the Order across the street and then head to the American College to meet up with the Sioux City crowd. Well, at first I was like....ughhh, I don't know. But, hey, he's a priest. So, Father David from Pasadena, Texas, two old ladies from Boston and Arizona, and me walked over to the Augustan Order, and got a mini tour. The Cardinal from Paris was staying there, and coming back soon, so we had to hurry. So, Father David thanked the little old ladies for seeing the place, and wished them well on their way. But he didn't wish me on my way. I was headed to the American College. So, Father David had to run inside the Augustan Order really quick to get this VERY special alcohol for the reception. I just stood outside in my blue jeans and waited for him, pondering how funny of a story this would be. So, he came back out, and asked me if I would carry the flag. I said ok…. as long as I don't get killed. He laughed. So, there we were. A priest carrying alcohol (400 Euro worth of alcohol, because Father David kept reminding me how much it was, and how it was worth more money than he ever had) and an American girl carrying a giant pole with an American flag attached to it, walking through St. Peter's Square to the American College. Well, I didn't make eye contact with anyone because I was scared. But, half way through, I carried the alcohol, and Father told me NOT to drop it. It was funny because he had no clue who I was, but he was letting me carry 400 Euro worth of this special alcohol. I thought that was funny, but the time we got to the College we were good pals. He said, 'good thing I have a pretty girl on my arm so I can get in.' Well, I guess you had to have tickets for this reception, and Father didn't have any, so I was convinced they weren’t going to let me in. And I was ok with that, I was just along for the ride. So, we get to the college, and Father is showing the alcohol to the American priests, and waving the flag so we can get in. No one questions us. So, Father tells me he is going to give me one bottle to give to the Sioux City crowd. But he says, 'Only give it to them after dinner, and just a little bit because people will want more.' So, I guess now I was going to a dinner. Woah! And in charge of the alcohol serving.....how did I get here! (The dinner ended up being on Tuesday, so I didn’t go). So, Father and I park it at a little table and get a glass of wine and munchies. He introduces me to a few important people, I say my hellos. I'm feeling pretty important. Father David was a priest in Mexico for 10 years, so he starts speaking Spanish to another man for a while. I smile cutely, like I kind of know what’s going on. So, Father keeps trying to find some Sioux City people for me. Now, keep in mind, I have no idea what Sioux City people will be at this reception, or if I will know any of them, but I think Father David thinks I know all of these people. Well, Father stops another priest from Sioux City and we start talking. This priest says, "Ohhhhh, you're the girl from Iowa State that went to (insert Catholic School here) and was trying to get tickets." I say....."No, sorry, not me." He says, "But Sister Catherine contacted me about you." I smile and say...."Sorry.....nope." Well, I guess some other girl from Iowa Sate who is in Rome was trying really hard to get tickets to the reception, and here I am just walking right in. Luck. So, the priest from Sioux City, semi-disappointed and wondering who I am, tells me the Sioux City people are down the hallway. This is my time to say goodbye to Father David. I hug him and say thanks for everything, and he just says, “No problem." I continue to walk down the hallway, knowing I probably wont see anyone I know, but then I recognize this couple. I walk up to the man and ask him if he is from Sioux City. He says yes, and I start to introduce myself. He says, "Oh! You're Brian's daughter! He just called us the other night saying you're in Rome!" What a relief, someone I knew! I, in a nutshell, told them how I got to the reception. Basically, I said I didn't really know how I got in, I just met a priest, and he picked me up. Funny. They looked a little astonished. So, we got a picture together, and laughed a bit. Then, I was on my way back home. What a story, huh? Well, later that night, the girls said they saw a sign that the Backstreet Boys were having a CD signing. I said, "What the hey, I'm going to see the Pope, and meet the Backstreet boys all in one day." And I did. We met them, and they signed our sheets of crumply paper. Haha. Well, sorry that story is so late. I'm headed to Paris at three thirty in the morning tomorrow, and still have to get a little bit of a project done. So, right now I'm at studio and a few kids are watching the Shawshank Redemption on the projection screen. Everyone is done with school. We had our reception a couple days ago and displayed all of our work. It was really nice. Today was a fun day. Tegan, Kim, and I dressed up in weird clothes and shot a music video all through Rome. Yes, we went to all the main sights and played 'Every little thing she does is magic' by the Police. I was the drummer and Kim and Tegan were the guitarists. We had people taking pictures of us. Picture us in the Pantheon rocking out because that's what we did. VERY FUNNY. So, Tegan is going to compile the footage over Spring Break and we will have a music video through Rome. Haha! Well, I will have TONS more photos after my trip to Paris, but I will probably upload them when I get home to Sioux City. I will be gone until Wednesday afternoon and then I leave for home early morning on Friday. I'm already packed. It's kinda sad. This was an amazing experience! Well, until after Paris….I’ll talk to you soon and have more photos. Ciao!

Ross does Italy.

Ross and I on the 6th floor terrace of our hotel. We had a great view! That is the duomo in the background, and the hills of Florence even farther away.

A beer and pizza for lunch.

In the Duomo in Florence.


Ross taking pictures in Sienna.


The gang walking around the tiny streets of Sienna.

In the square in Sienna.

The lighting was great in this photo. In the streets of Sienna.

On the famous bridge in Florence.

The Cat Sanctuary in Rome. Many, many cats.....Ross loved this place.

The Trevi Fountain.
Ross and I walking around the Roman Forum.

The Coliseum.

Smooch in the Coliseum.
More Coliseum.

Thanksgiving dinner!

Our table setting.


Eat up!
Turkey hands on the dinner table.

Well, the day finally came! Ross arrived in Rome on Friday morning to a rainy day. He was pretty jet-lagged, so we trekked to my apartment and vegged a bit. Later that night we walked around Rome, got groceries, and made dinner. The next morning, we headed to Florence on the 7:55 am train. Our hotel was very nice and in the center of Florence. We shopped and found Ross a pair of skinny 'Euro' jeans. Also, he bought a scarf. He looked very European after the shopping excursion. We had the BEST dinner at night. It was a tiny restaurant, and the price was very reasonable. I had this cheese ravioli dish, and Ross had Spaghetti Carbonarra. Very, VERY good! The next day we took an hour bus ride to Sienna. We sat in the front on a double-decker bus. It was almost like a roller coaster ride, looking down over the cars, riding through the hills. Sienna was a quaint little town. Small streets, and a great view over the countryside. We walked thorough the streets and stumbled upon a flea market. It was nice. We got on the train back to Rome the next day after a little more walking around in Florence. In Rome, we visited the Forum. I took my Rome book, reading of the little descriptions of what things were. The Forum is pretty big, so that took some time. We also went to a place of worship where hundreds of priests' bones line the walls making patterns. I thought Ross might like that. We dipped into a church where Bernini had some amazing sculptures. The next day we toured the Coliseum, and visited the Vatican. The Vatican Museum closed at 1 pm, so we were late to get in, but it was still nice to visit the area. Before I knew it, Ross was on his way back to the States. It was great to see him, and we had an amazing week. He made it home fine. That night, we had an incredible Thanksgiving. It felt very homey, even though none of us were at home. Everyone made their own dishes. They were things like.....Macaroni and Cheese, McDonalds, mashed potatoes, green beans, broccoli salad, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. It was great. We even played charades after. It was a good night. Well, that's a brief overview of what's been happening. Now, I have a lot of homework to do before I leave Rome (4 weeks). It's going by so quickly! Tomorrow I'm headed over to the Vatican to watch a local Sioux City priest become a Cardinal. I get to see the Pope! Talk to you soon, Ciao!

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite.

Sorry if this shows too much, but this is my bed bug problem. I thought the polka dots on my underwear accentuated the bites on my butt. I'm an artist, right? Composition is my strong point, haha!

Halloween. I was Mother Mary, and a little afraid to walk out the front door with Rome being a center for Catholicism. It was received really well! I kept hearing, "Oh....MADONNA!"

Halloween with my roomies: Rosie the Riveter (Summer), a Bumblebee (Emily), and a Gypsy (Kayleen).

In front of the Duomo in Milan.

A picture I took while looking out of a window at a museum in Venice.

A woman asking for money while another woman is being attacked by pigeons.
In Venice, there were many rules. You couldn't eat sitting down, and here's a sign where is says you can't stand. Ironically enough, people are standing.

Me on the boat taxi.

Me on a bridge over the water in Venice.

The water rose, and completely flooded everything. It even went into stores, but I guess the shop owners are used to it.

A man walking in the square that used to be filled with people and pigeons.

Some people braved the water, but I wouldn't. The water is pretty nasty.

This is at our hostel in Venice. It was right on the water, and a huge cruise ship was going by at night.

Me in our hostel in Florence.

The girls in our hostel in Florence. We got dinner at the supermarket. Pretzels, nuts, chips, and beer. What a great dinner, huh?

On our hike in Florence. It was gorgeous!

Our tour guide. He was very charismatic and knowledgable.

Overlooking Florence.


Me and the hills of Florence.


The leaves changed colors creating a beautiful color palette for our hike.


The outside of the villa we toured. It was used in "A Room with a View" and "Tea with Mussolini."


A room inside of the villa.


I loved these lights, and the view outside is pretty.


Our lunch , oh so good!


After lunch cappuccino!

Some of the people we were on our hike with.



So many things to talk about. Ok, so a couple of weekends ago we took our northern trip to Milan, Venice, and Florence. I had such a good time! Milan was great, especially for the shopping. It was less expensive than in Rome, and definitely of good quality. I did some shopping. From Milan, we went to Venice. Hmmmm. Let me go into Venice here. When we first got into Venice, we were sitting on the stairs in front of the train station when two police officers asked for our all of our Passports. They individually called in each of our passport numbers to see if we were ok. It was a little scary, but everything checked out ok. But, Venice is very touristy. Kind of like Disneyworld on water. It was something to see. A lot of things are very expensive. It rained most of the time we were there. However, a very cool thing happened. It is high tide season, and Venice flooded. You can tell it's going to flood because these men start putting up these walkways. In the morning we went to this museum, and by the time we got out everything was flooded! The walkways only have two-way traffic, so it was a little congested to get around. You could buy giant yellow plastic boots, which people did, but we used the walkways. Some storeowners put up shields so the water couldn't get in, but some just let it flow in. At night, we started to get REALLY hungry, but we didn't want to spend that much money. So, picture a group of girls, starving, walking from place to place searching for cheap food. Not the best situation. Finally we saw the word 'buffet.' So we thought, ok, like a buffet in America. We grabbed the plate at the beginning of the line. Everything looked great! "Sure I'll take that. Why not, I'll have that." So, it ended up being a little surprise party at the cash register. Let's just say we got dooped. But, it turned into a funny experience, and we laughed about it and made fun of our pretty crappy meal (for the price we spent) the whole time we were eating it. We headed back to the hostel, and I opened up our door to the '15 bed female dorm' to find some girl sleeping in my bed. That was fun. The next day, we took a 45-minute bus taxi to the island of Morano. This is pretty much the capital of glass blowing. We walked around for a while; all while it was raining pretty hard. Most of us did some gift shopping. Finally, we were getting hungry and decided to head back to the hostel, where we proceeded to get a 2-foot wide pizza. If you have ever seen Ninja Turtles, it looked just like that kind of pizza. Glorious. The next day, we were off to Florence! Oh my, Florence was such a breath of fresh air. I loved the atmosphere of the city. Very artsy and hip. When we first got to our hostel in Florence, we were greeted by a man who didn't speak a word of English. It was pretty funny because he kept picking on me, and poking fun. His son finally got there, and his son spoke English, but the father kept joking how I should marry his son. Then, the man would say, "Oh Meg-gan!" and pinch my cheeks. We went to the grocery store around the corner, and got some food. The internet was free at the hostel, which was really nice. That night, we just walked around Florence a bit and met some non-creepy Italian guys. They were really nice, and we could joke with them really easily. The next day we packed up, and headed to the hiking wine tour. We met at this building. For starters, we thought we missed the tour because NO ONE was there. Then, we found out it was daylight savings time, and that we were early. Ha! But there was a problem because we had all of our luggage with us, and needed to keep it somewhere while we went on our tour. A woman who worked there actually did a us a HUGE favor and let us store it there, and we called her after the tour to let us in the room to get our luggage out. Well, our tour guide, named Stephano, was so cool! We hopped on a bus to the hills on outer Florence. We hiked up and up. Stephano said we were in the "Beverly Hills" of Florence. The houses were really nice. The view was even better. Stephano knew SO much, and he was a great guide. We walked through the woods, and saw the rock were the sculptors would take the stone for carving. The rock was really dug into. It was pretty cool because we had 7 girls on the tour, with two other couples. One couple was from London, and the other from Minneapolis. The woman from Minneapolis just got a children's book published, so that was exciting to talk about. We kept hiking, overlooking vineyards and olive trees. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We then finally reached our destination. A villa. We toured it, and the villa actually makes their own wine and olive oil. The villa, now, is rented out for parties, but it still has a very rich history. It was really funny because Stephano would look at something, like a piano in the villa and he would say......"Oh my goodness......this is very special......THIS is the VERY piano...........that was in the movie "Tea with Mussolini." HAHA! You expected him to say something like Michelangelo used this piano, but he got so excited about the villa being in movies. And he talked about Cher a lot, I wonder why? (He used his hands a lot, dad. I think you would understand, haha.) Stephano was such a cool guy. When we ate our lunch after the villa tour, he made sure he toasted all of our glasses individually, and you had to look into his eyes and say "Salute" (pronounced Sal-u-tey). If you didn't look into his eyes, you had to toast him again. He made sure everyone got everything to eat, and had wine. And as Stephano would state matter-of-factly, "If it doesn't say 'Extra Virgin Olive Oil', don't buy it, because it's not the best." Basically, I loved the wine tour. It was so beautiful and fun. So, after the wine tour we were back on a train to Rome. The train, that was supposed to take 3 hours, took 6 hours. Then, when we got off the train, and my suitcase handle broke. So, I couldn't pull it. Well, I put the suitcase on my head like I was carrying a pail of water. I got a lot of weird looks, but I made it home in one piece. Well, it's just more projects in Rome for class. My newest news is that I have bed bugs, as you can see by the photos. I contacted someone, and I am getting a new mattress. I got pretty grossed out reading about bed bugs on Wikipedia. I always thought, "Don't let the bed bugs bite," was just an expression. I guess I was wrong. Ross comes next Friday! How exciting! We are actually headed back to Florence for the weekend. It should be really fun. We are going to go see Michelangelo's 'David' and take a day trip to Sienna. A funny thing happened today. I was walking by a bunch of bums, and there was a wallet sitting in the road. I turned to my friend Emily, and commented on the wallet. I looked at the bums, and they were eyeing me to see what I'd do. I realized they were playing a trick, I laughed and waved my finger at them saying, "Ha ha ha!" They laughed too. It was pretty funny, and very ironic. Well, this is probably the longest I've ever written. I have some time now because I am between projects right now. I want to say Congratulations to Maggie on being female athlete of the year for the GPAC. You are amazing, and I am so proud of you! Also, hello to grandmas and grandpas! And, thanks for the e-mail Bruce! Hello to the rest of the family, and to everyone else who reads this. To mom's exercise group: run hard and stay fit. I don't understand the women here. All they do is eat gelato and sandwiches, but they are rail thin. Weird. Oh yeah, and if you ever visit here, don't wear a shirt that says, "I love George W. Bush." No one would ever see you again. On that note, talk to you soon! Ciao!