Auf Wiedershehen!

Weirdest feeling ever? Walking up the stairs to my room after finishing my last final this morning. Now that I have no more classes or exams I have two days to wrap up good ol' life in Austria.

Is this the place where I insert some sappy, reflective essay on the experience of a semester in Europe? That I can do. Contrary to some people’s belief, my heart is not permanently made of stone.

For starters, I can't believe how much I managed to write down here...and yet how much there is still to tell or can't be told for lack of words.

To say this semester was emotionally charged would be the truth. It wasn’t in that teenish angsty way but a…this-is-life sort of way. I have yet to live the rest of my life, but I think being here in Austria has put a lot of it what will happen in the future into perspective. No matter what happens, I will always have this time to look back on and draw from. Given the broad spectrum of experiences, these past four months will no doubt be the semester that keeps on giving.

My philosophy class alone has shown me victory and defeat, confusion and superactual understanding. There you go, I just used the word superactual in a sentence…It might be best to leave now after all. The rest of Europe has shown me everything from the horrors of Auschwitz and the misery of oppression in Poland…to the glory of Rome, the beauty of Italy, and the profound mercy of God. There have been ups and downs from missing trains to witnessing miracles…and many, many more.

And the food! Europeans know how to eat, I tell ya. The chocolate is to die for (Teej, I stand by my claim that you’re out of you mind, but I have Italian AND Austrian Nutella for you), the pasta is outta this world. Everything! Everything! The kebabs! The coffee! The wine! The cheese! (Yes, I’m still lactose intolerant, but I will say that brie here is better than it is in the states). Life is so good here!

I will miss a lot of things, maybe not the Mensa food or zimmels, but definitely the view I wake up to every morning:

..and military time! I’ve really become fond of military time.

And the community. The community at the Kartause has no equivalent. You walk around this ex-monastery and you can just feel the how much every person here craves to experience life…from jumping in the freezing creek across the street at midnight (in the snow no less), to spelunking in the mountains…to dance parties in Rome… and Philosophy what-the-heck-was-Dr. Harold-talking-about sessions in the tea kitchens over coffee. Really that’s just a taste, because the list goes on and on. Life does too. I know that every person here will walk with a special place in his heart for home sweet Gaming. I know I will.

I’d say Austria was a success. It’s bittersweet to leave, but in a few days it’ll be time. The rest of today, tomorrow and Wednesday will be spent cleaning and packing…actually no…most of it will be spent in the mountains. Most of procrastination for final studying was packing, so there’s really not much left to do. Thursday we have our closing mass at 00:01 followed by a bonfire…before we head to the airport where we must wave this glorious semester goodbye…or should I say Auf Wiedersehen!

Thanks to everyone who made this semester so incredible…and everyone who stuck with me on the blogosphere. You rock. See you soon!

God bless,
Mary

Apparently they were right.

Thanksgiving, Kartause Style

I can hardly appreciate in one day the blessings that I have received this past year, let alone this past semester. Getting to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Gaming with students and faculty that I’ve gotten to know so well and become so fond of was yet another blessing.

Thanksgiving run down:

Our town celebrated its Thanksgiving months ago, so we at the Kartause were alone in our 4^th-Thursday-of-November-Turkey-roast…so we got to go to class on Thursday morning, since everyone else in Austria does that.

Mid-day was the Thanksgiving mass. We borrowed from Austrian tradition and had an enormous harvest crown brought in holding a bunch of fruits and veggies that Father Brad blessed. After mass everyone was invited to take a blessed fruit or veggie...and I must say blessed apples taste better than regular ones. For some reason nobody wanted the tomatoes, so we had a salsa party in Father Brad's office while he tried to figure out how to play Amazing Grace on his electric guitar. That didn't sound so good.

No Thanksgiving is complete without football. With no TV in sight, a bunch of the guys headed out to the intramural fields and started a pickup game in the afternoon.

Come 1730, it was time for the feast. From the belly of the kitchen came a turkey flaming with sparklers, at the sight of which the entire Mensa broke out in song with The Star Spangled Banner.

Post-dinner was the ball. We all dressed up in Dirndles and Lederhosen and learned Austrian folk dances until the Schuhplattler guys came in and showed us all up.

I can safely say it was no Rhode Island Thanksgiving. We only have 11 more days here (ah!!), and I can't think of a better way to have started wrapping up the semester.

'Tis the Season...in Austria

Today, the kids I babysit here informed me that Krampus was going to come and get me if I didn’t let them have more Milka.

P.S. from Rome...

...the pope says hello.

While I'm at it, I would like to take this opportunity to personally congratulate every member of the Fall 2010 Franciscan Austria program on their astounding round of applause upon being announced at the Wednesday audience. We were the only group to yield a two handed wave from our lovely Pope Benedict XVI when the groups were called. Awww, yeahh.

Assisi!

I'm a fan. Actually, a major fan. Along with Mondsee, Assisi is in my top two favorite towns. Most of being there isn't so much what you see as what you experience. It's a place where you can just be if that makes any sense. Consequently there's not really much to write. I will say, though, that it is beautiful, quiet, scenic...

...and hey, even the trash cans are quite pleasant.

Being with a bunch of Franciscans in the town of St. Francis has its privileges. Like, for example, getting to have mass in front of his tomb. That was pretty sweet. We also visited the San Damiano cross that spoke to him, and the Portiuncula that he rebuilt.


The Portiuncula is surrounded by a Basilica that houses basically the rest of Francis' life: the place where he died, the cave where he prayed, the rose bushes that he threw himself into when he was having lustful thoughts. Get this, to this day the bushes have no thorns.
Also there's a statue of him that is perpetually decked out in doves. Fo' real.





All in all it was a pretty saintly place.

Rome Is Where The Heart Is

Sometimes travelling with such good looking people in Italy is quite burdensome. Especially in the rain.

Indian street vendor: Bella bella bella! I have umbrella for you! Tree euro! Just tree!

Claire: I have one, thank you.

Indian street vendor: I have special price!

Claire: No.

Indian street vendor: You need an umbrella! Special price! Okay two euro!

Claire: No. I have one. Don’t you see it?

Indian street vendor: Your friend need umbrella!

Claire: She doesn’t. She has an umbrella, too.

Indian street vendor: She need two! I have special price! Just for you bella!

Indian guy proceeds to follow us down the street. We duck for safety into a metro station only to find four more umbrella men holding out their umbrellas to us, too.

…bella?

Anyway, after our little excursion to Loreto and the like, I couldn’t see how the trip couldn’t get any better. But it did.

Can I just say St. Peter’s Basilica is great? Serious understatement alert. It’s mind-blowing. It only took standing in St. Peter’s square to feel so incredibly small…like I was a negligible part of something incredible, which is, well, true, but at the same time I felt like I was home! Take that for a paradox.

Then I got a baby thrown at me and some guy pick-pocketed me.

Just kidding, that didn’t really happen. But had it happened, I would have been prepared. Thanks to warnings from previous Rome-goers about the baby-throwing diversion tactic utilized by Rome’s petty criminals, my friends and I prepared our defense strategy well before the trip. It may or may not have been inspired by Miss Congeniality.

But I digress once again. On to Rome!

Cognitive dissonance might be a good way of describing it…a city rich in ruins of the Roman Empire, the very foundations of Christendom, and…gelato shops, street vendors, and United Colors of Benetton. They all jumbled up together. Like the new Rome was built right around the old. Crazy.

Sunday morning before going into St. Peter’s, a few of us went up to the cupola to say morning prayer with the nuns. You could say it was both literally and spiritually ascetical. I mean, please, we were looking out at Rome while standing just over 150 meters above the bones of St. Peter. After prayer, I was privileged enough to be able to contemplate the plethora of gardens on Roman rooftops with my philosophy professor who, I am excited to admit, is ten times funnier on top of St. Peter’s than he is in class.

Afterward the cupola adventure we descended the 2-foot-wide, sideways, and claustrophobia-inducing stairwell to make it to mass inside….can I say that again? Mass inside St. Peter’s! In Latin! Contrary to whatever you may believe, Latin is not dead.

[Further proof: ATMs in Vatican City have a Latin option]

Being in St. Peter’s is, well, awesome. Just a word of advice? Take care not to get so totally overwhelmed when walking into St. Peter’s as to miss the Pieta, which is just inside to the right. I admit…I had to go back in because I completely missed it the first time I walked in. Anyway, no matter how long you’re there there’s always more to see and more to know. It was phenomenal to be surrounded by just endless holiness, history and symbolism…and humor.

Here we have the monument to Pope Gregory XIV. Pope for less than a year, Gregory XIV was rather unpopular for naming an inept family member as Secretary of State. The church so fondly remembers him with an empty niche set into the wall and a sarcophagus below bearing the inscription “Gregory XIIII.” The tombstone was supposedly recycled from a monument that had been rejected the year that commemorated his predecessor, Gregory XIII.

Well, I found it humorous anyway.

That…among many other quirky design stories made our tour not so much a monotonous explanation of every bishop dressed in white as it was a tangible journey through the history of the church. The early Christians were real people, too. Many thanks to the seminarians at the North American College who walked us through that history.

Sometime during the week we made it to Santa Scala, where we got to ascend the stairs that Jesus climbed to meet Pilate. Imagine a tiny little building just big enough to hold some stairs and a little chapel…mobbed by 170 Frannies trying to ascend the stairs on their knees. The security guard finally came out and had to tell everybody to hurry up because we were spending too long on each stair. The line out the door was getting to be incredibly long…and incredibly restless. Aside from that entertaining anecdote, being on those stairs, well, it makes you think about a lot of things.

Rome has a few other cool things too…you know, like the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Spanish steps, more relics than I can conceive at any given moment…and a church here and there…and there and there....Not to mention Swiss guards, Scavi Tours, the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (!) and much, much much much more.

Did I forget to mention the time we had mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the walls? Probably, but then again I forgot to mention a lot of things.

Have you been to Rome? I think you should go. Take me with you! I will go back!!

If on Monday evening someone’s pedometer read 37 miles since arriving in Rome, I can’t even imagine how much we had walked by Thursday morning when we made our bittersweet departure for Assisi…

Which, God willing, I will document at some point.

Peace and blessings,

Mary