Bells in St. Peter's

Easter II

This morning my roommate Eric and I met up with our friends Allen and Amy to head all the way across Rome to attend a sunrise church service in the Piazza del Popolo. We stood on a terrace on the western end of the piazza, and had a magnificent view of the city. [Note: this is not my photo, I didn't bring my camera.] It was absolutely stunning. Of course all this was very early, we left our apartment at 6:00 (about the time y'all were going to bed in the CST), so there was nobody on the streets. We literally passed probably 3 people the whole way across Rome. There weren't many people at the service either, so it was just a fun small group. When the service was over we walked down the Spanish Steps (Note: my photo this time, but not from today), and to the church itself, where we had a small breakfast of coffee and pastries.

I was planning then of going to Santa Maria in Trestevere, where a group of other Auburn students were worshipping. However that didn't work out -- it would have taken much too long to get there -- so we decided to just go to the Vatican instead. Heh, "just" go to the Vatican. Saint Peter's Square was packed, and that piazza is huge, in case you didn't know. I don't know what the exact number of people present, but I know there were tens of thousands.

The service was wonderful, and the music absolutely amazing. Actually, I can't really describe it in words, so here's a video.



I'm not in the video exactly, but about 2/3 of the way through you can see a bunch of fools waving at the camera (they were really getting on my nerves), and I'm basically just beneath the camera. So that was my day. Happy Easter to all of you!

Easter

Hello everyone! I know it's bit early for you guys (and actually for me as well, it's only 11:30 pm), but I wanted to go ahead and wish y'all a great Easter! I have two events planned so far: a sunrise church service in the Piazza del Popolo, followed by a mass at 'our own' Santa Maria in Trestevere, which is just down the street from our apartments. This will be a great chance to break in my new suit as well. Hooray, this is gonna be fun!

Suit

Loro Piana.

I'll post with photos later.

Some Fun

I take lots of pictures, but I'm not the only one. Sometimes we get tired of photographing all this silly architecture and just want to have fun with our cameras. Case in point:













These were taken simultaneously. Oh good times.

Photo Galleries

I know that not everyone has Facebook so they haven't been able to follow all the photos I've been uploading on there. Here are the three galleries I have up so far, but you can only see them if you have an account with Facebook. If you don't have one and don't want to create one, you can leave a comment to this post and I can email you the album. There are quite a few of my best pictures on there, many more than I can put on here.

Gallery 1: Cermalus

Gallery 2: Palatium

Gallery 3: Velia

By the way, I'm naming them by the 7 hills of ancient Rome, so really the name has nothing to do with the pictures contained within.

Photos

I know, I know. So much for my flurry of posts. You know how it is.

Here are some pretty pictures from the places I've been.

Cervara, Italy. We spent the better part of the day walking around this beautiful city.

Pantheon. I stood beneath the oculus in the rain. Absolutely incredible experience.

A beautiful church in Pompeii. That's the city, not the ruins.

A building in the ruins of Pompeii.
These were actually pretty tough to witness.


Caparola.
Circular Stairwell in the Villa Farnese in Caparola.

Again.

Also, I have a bunch of pics up on Facebook, but I don't think all of you can get there. I'll see if I can post links to the galleries.