New Towns, New Experiences

This weekend was full of so many new experiences! 

I finally got to try zucchini flowers and traveled to a few towns outside of Rome!

Friday I went to Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence. 

It was such a beautiful place that had casual signs up like this...

(That is asking the patron saint of their town, St. Sebastian, to protect it)

and casual views like this...

and a casual basilica...

and of course the Pope's summer residence which is also extremely casual.

It's unfortunate that Pope Francis will have to spend part of his summer here. 

So Castel Gandolfo is a city on top of a volcano and the lake pictured above is a volcanic lake. 

We drove up Monte Cavo and were able to have a better visual of this. Very cool.

On Saturday I decided to go out of Rome to Orvieto, which was about an hour away by train. 

Orvieto is up on a hill so I had to take a little tram up to the top of the hill and this was the view. 

Orvieto became well known because in Bolsena, Italy, a priest was having doubts about the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. While he was saying mass, the Eucharist turned into an actual piece of flesh and stained the corporal (the white cloth) and the altar.

Luckily for this priest, the pope was residing in Orvieto at the time and he ran the 10 miles between the towns to show the pope what had happened.

To this day, the town of Orvieto has kept the corporal and it is on display in one of the chapels in one of the most beautiful churches! 

(this is their baptismal font... step it up All Saints)

So here is the chapel. Unfortunately, during the Lenten season they keep the doors closed, but that just gives me an excuse to come back later.

Another cool thing about Orvieto is they have this well called St. Patrick's Well and it was built from 1527-1537. It was built with two spiral staircases in a double helix so that when the donkeys went down to get water, they wouldn't encounter donkeys going back up. 

On Sunday I was able to visit Father Vincent from back in D-town!! He was a priest at All Saints.

This is where he goes to school.

And this is where he invited me to have mass with 24 other priests and a consecrated woman (yes, I was the only lay person). 

If you ever get the chance to go to mass with basically only priests, do it. It's so cool. I learned two things from that mass and spending some time with them:

1. It was like a giant Catholic fraternity house.

2. They don't hold anything back when giving homilies to their fellow priest friends. Since most are getting their PhD's, I heard words during that homily that I never knew existed. 

Afterwards, we went to the Trevi Fountain! It was only a street away from his house. Unfortunately it is under construction, but it still is breathtaking.

He took me around his neighborhood a bit more and we were able to catch up which was awesome!

That's all I've got for now! I have to meet one of the leaders of my program at the Vatican for a guided tour! More updates to come!

Ciao my friends!