Sand and Mad Dashes

At the beach it turned out that the wind strongly surpassed the sun on our weather radars. Fr. said he only sees the beach like this in December – big waves, strong wind, and mostly deserted. We sat out on the black sand and soaked up the heat like lizards. Part of the group began a very skewed game of volleyball (the wind played too) while a few others went for coffee or a walk. On our way home we stopped for gelato and met one of Fr. Maher’s friend. To tell the truth, we spent more time interacting with his friend’s baby than the Italian-speaking friend, but we enjoyed it all the same. Sunday we set out early to see Europe’s largest flea market at Porto Portese (sp?). Everything from old typewriters to trendy leather jackets lined what seemed endless and maze-like streets. Fr. says he gets all his Christmas presents here. I picked up a tang top for cheap, I’ll probably go back soon since I lost a blazer on the train. It was fun to look around, but the crowd made movement rather slow and we gathered together a bit late. Thus we arrived back at the Vatican just as the Pope’s Sunday benediction began. We sprinted from the bus stop to get into the piazza to see Francis. The place was packed- Fr said he’s only seen numbers like that for Easter. We almost couldn’t get far enough in to see the Pope. His speeches and benedictions are unscripted – making everyone under him very jumpy. He called for prayer for the conversion of the Mafia and came down hard on them, as the Church just beatified a priest martyred by them. He spoke all in Italian, and I picked up a bit, but Fr. Maher gave us the gist and told us it was very spicy. Fr. also told us that Francis refuses to speak anything but Spanish and Italian, and won’t sing. This first Jesuit Pope and his definite character have become incredibly popular thus far. Sunday night I went with Richard and Katherine, two other students, for mass in St. Peter’s. The line, during tourist times, took an hour and 5 minutes to get through. 7 am is definitely the time to go. Mass in Italian was beautiful even if I couldn’t understand most of it. The acoustics aren’t so good from a technical point of view, but I kinda like the echoes. Fr. said that the piazza used to be so bad that you could never understand anything the Pope said because of the echo; they’ve delayed some of the audio so the sound has time to travel to the other side of the enormous square and avoid the delay now. Richard gleefully secured permission to play the organ sometime.