Quattro e Cinque: "....yeah. I know."

"Yeah, because you totally look 

like you would shank someone." 

--to Erin being waved off 

by the security even though she made

 the metal detector go off on our way

 to mass at St. Peter's Basilica.

My first Sunday in Rome, March 27, was absolutely perfetto the way it was. I got to spend the entire day with Erin Murray, a wonderful young woman with whom I had prayed and conspired for the entirety of the preceding winter quarter at the Catholic Newman Center. I met up with her in Campo de' Fiori in the afternoon for lunch -- not without first involuntarily screaming and running towards each other, of course. Since she had already written about our day... I'm just going to cop out and leave a link to her blog post. And it should be refreshing to read about my day through someone else's voice, right? Haha, I'm making excuses for my laziness, I know.

One thing that I did want to talk about that Erin did not mention was how surreal everything had felt. For the entire time I had been abroad up to the point where we tightly embraced each other in the middle of the square, I thought that I was in an extended dream. Somehow, I had been careful enough so as to not wake myself up back into the world to which I belonged. But here was someone that I knew very well, in the flesh and in my arms! Unless... she's an extractor who's out to collect my secrets!!!

....anyway. During our lunch, after we finished catching up with each other, the both of us fell silent as we continued to munch on our paninis. My eyes slowly moved over the scene of people chatting in Italian, the cobblestone street beneath our feet, and the sunlight splashed onto the roman buildings and statues surrounding us. Erin caught me in the midst of my marveling and without having to say anything, she answered my thoughts by replying, "...yeah. I know." I caught Erin doing the same thing multiple times as well. So we spent that entire afternoon being in awe of where we were and finding comfort having each other. We were in Rome, after all. It was impossible to say that without smiling nor without exhaling a small breath of disbelief as well.

Monday turned out to be uneventful. Technically, it was the first day of my program, but all I did was move into my nine person apartment and the class had a 3 (or was it 4?) hour dinner together at Trattoria Moderna (yum! Close to the Campo and enthusiastically recommended) later in the evening. It also rained for a bit in the morning. That was the day that I started getting sick too. Huh, so a couple of things happened that day, but nothing that's worth going into detail. Oh, which reminds me. Never ride the bus without a validated ticket, by the way. It's always a terrible idea. Trust me.

-hd