Because I knew you...

..I have been changed for good.

I'm pretty sure I'm making this my last post, guys. It's been a pleasure writing to you all and hope someday to be reading about your experiences abroad. Cuz EVERYONE SHOULD STUDY ABROAD. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS FACT. Just putting it out there :)

Last couple weeks were filled to the brim with studying, writing papers, and preparing for presentations - all of it went amazingly well and I don't need to bore you with the details lol. We finished school stuffs Thursday (my last exam, Greek, finished around 4:30) and had all of Friday and Saturday to hang out, be sentimental, say our good-byes, and eat our last Roman meals. Thursday night all 15 kids from the dorms went to our favorite restaurant at Vito e Dina to share the most amazing bruschetta, carbonara, and house wine in Italy - the restaurant is super close to the Vatican metro stop at Ottaviano and I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who visits the area. Friday I spent babysitting for our professors (who themselves had a final faculty dinner) and generally napping/packing during the day. Saturday, I went to St. Peter's to do my own little good-bye and walked a bit around the area. That night was the final mass in the St. John's chapel followed by a group dinner at a beautiful high-class restaurant. We had a couple speeches, enjoyed amazing food, and got to say good-bye to everyone - and by "everyone" I mean all the students and program faculty, as well as the host families of those who did not stay in the dorm, the Italian teachers from Italiaidea, and the seminarians from the NAC who were with us all semester. The good-byes were a little painful but we assured each other that we would stay in touch and absolutely visit the other campuses (definitely getting to Loyola. I will find a way) next semester. That night was back to the dorm and packing before our early flights.   Rome, I am going to miss you. I am SUPER happy to be home, back to the world where everyone speaks English and no one shoves flowers for sale in my face, but I will definitely miss you :)

Thought I'd end this blog with a quick list of favorites. And yes this needs to be broken down into this many categories because if you asked what my favorite "thing" was about studying abroad, I will just stare at you. No one word answer to that question :)

Favorite 3 places within Rome: Ara Pacis (altar of Augustan peace), Roman Forum, Roof of the Castel Sant'Angelo (view of everything)
Favorite 2 experiences: The first time I walked into St. Peter's/the Vatican, and seeing the POPE!
Favorite trip with the program as a whole: Tuscany
Favorite place visited with the program outside Rome: Pompei
Favorite trip outside the program: Greece
Favorite place on that trip: Acropolis
Favorite food: Mozzarella cheese, from the Buffalo Farm
Favorite Italian restaurant: Vito e Dina
Favorite type of gelato: Fragola (strawberry) and Nutella, covered with dark chocolate (obtained from Frigidarium Gelateria, near Abbey Theatre by Piazza Navona)
Best wine: Chianti 
Favorite Church: Santa Maria Sopra Minerva
Favorite souvenir: Horse statue of glass from Murano
Favorite Picture taken:

Tuscan Sunset

Thanks for reading everyone!!

Churches Visited in Rome

Ciao Ragazzi!

I am now blogging from my ever-so-comfortable couch at my home in New York! The plane ride back was beautiful - managed to sleep about 6-7 hours out of the possible 10 in the air :)

I'll comment more thoroughly on my experiences the last few weeks in the next post, as well as put up a little list of "favorite stuff" done to close out this blog. For here, I just wanted to give you all the list of churches I visited in Rome (a list I've been keeping since August). Of course I was hoping this list was going to be MUCH longer, but honestly, I'm proud of the ones i got to. I was not in the Theology class this semester the whole goal of which was to visit and study churches (so none of these were visited by necessity), and also my original plan was to go to a different church every week but quickly discovered that most of my weekends aka Sundays were going to be spent in other Italian cities or countries. And I kept this to just Rome. So anyway, here's the list - hope a few sound interesting enough to google! They were all beautiful :)

1. St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican – *Papal Basilica

2. San Giovanni (St. John Lateran) – *Papal Basilica, Cathedral of Rome

3. Santa Maria Maggiore - *Papal Basilica

4. St. Paul’s Outside the Wall - *Papal Basilica

5. St. Sebastian, Via Appia – Catacombs of the early Christians

6. Santa Susanna

7. Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

8. Santa Maria in Vallicella, “Chiesa Nuova”

9. Centro San Lorenzo – World Youth Day Centre and Cross

10. Il Convento dei Cappuccini – Ossuary Crypt

11. Basilica dei SS. Ambrogio e Carlo

12. Basilica Parrocchia S. Giacomo in Augusta

13. Gesu e Maria al Corso

14. Santa Maria dei Miracoli

15. Basilica Parrocchiale S. Maria Del Popolo

16. San Luigi dei Francesi

17. Basilica San Eustachio

18. San Ignazio di Loyola

19. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, AWC portrait and body of St. Catherine

20. Santa Maria dei Martiri, Pantheon

21. San Spirito in Sassia, St. Dominic’s Orange Tree and earliest crucifixion depiction

22. Chiesa del Collegio Leoniano

23. Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Mouth of Truth

24. Trinita’ dei Monti, top of Spanish steps

25. Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

26. San Rocco All’Augusteo, by the Ara Pacis

27. Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, fragments of Jesus’ cross

28. Trinita dei Pellegrini

29. Basilica di San Clemente