Another day in Rome

So today we had mass in the catacombs. We were not actually underground, and they said that the Christians didn't actually hide in there (I still rather like to think that they did), but I felt as though my name were Apollonia and here I was, near the tombs of my friends and family who had been martyred for the faith. They were somehow just as present as I, and that we were somehow mystically joined ... and we were.

The sheer mystery that surrounds this place is awesome. Aside from that, all I could hear in my head was "the catacombs of Rome" by Respighi.

Rome is so amazing. I have seen people weep openly at mass, especially at the mass near St. Peter's tomb.

And still beauty and truth are everywhere. Part of our travels today brought my friend Matt and I to the Villa Borghese. The Villa Borghese is another place I had visited before, and thought I might be bored but thought Matt should see it anyway.

...Nope.

The entrance to the place filled me with every ounce of girlish excitement I've ever had, but caused by an intellectual delight. I find this to be a very strange combination, but no matter.

Looking again at the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful statues of Bernini, I found new things about them to which I would stood in awe. The mutual commentary traded between Matt and myself enhanced our experience of the art as we stood in each others shoes and looked with the other's eyes to see the art as completely as possible. I still don't think I'll ever be able to it drink in enough.

The villa itself was awesome. There was one place, just a big dusty ring that rather resembled a track. "Look," Matt said, "you should be able to have a chariot race there." The sense of history being somehow present, that the past dwells alongside the living. It would have surprised neither of us, I think, should such a thing actually happened. The relics of our ancestors remain, and we look upon the same objects as they, and visited the same places, walk the same streets, sometimes speak the same language. What is a few thousand years if we have a physical connection to them? When one leaves something behind -- say, a note -- for another person, the note is filled with that-personness. Like receiving a letter or a postcard from a friend or loved one, there is that sense that the person is somehow present in the letter. After all, they took the time to write it out, the letter is filled with their personality. It belongs distinctly to that friend, and no one else could have written a letter that way. You know them so well you can picture them writing it, and it's as if they're right next to you.

And so we walk by the Colosseum, through the Foro Romano... and so did the Romans. The only thing that separates us from them is thousands of years, which seems like nothing when standing in the presence of the remains of the past. The place is here, exactly here. There's nothing else like it in the world, and only the Romans could have built it. It's so very Roman, it's like they're still here.

It was for that ideal that I at one time wished to be an archaeologist.

After Matt and I passed through the Villa, I was going to take him down the Via Veneto since it was nice and a bit upscale, and also in hope of showing him the basement of a particular Cappucin church, which is constructed of monks and other persons who died during the plagues. A room of skulls, a room of clavicals and the image of the Son and the Father's arms crossed ... made from real arms. It's morbid and disgusting but really cool at the same time. They certainly don't do that in the states.

And now for some stupid notes and pictures:
Slowly but surely, I am getting around to taking pictures of the campus. Right now, I have some images of the capp bar (which I will not post) and of the ampitheater (which I will post). I took these pictures as I sat on the top step and surfed the net. I have never experienced wireless before, REAL wireless, and the coolest place to do it was in the ampitheatre. [G]

But pictures:

* The chapel, built by Pope Sylvester (I believe), where we had Sunday Mass, directly on top of the catacombs of Sts. Felix and Philip, sons of St. Felicity.
* Outside the catacombs.
* Matt in the Villa Borghese; a park on a Sunday afternoon where families would come and ride bikes. Lovely! Oh, not Matt... that's Matt. ;) j/k Matt
* Another picture inside the Villa.
* Me posing by a random fountain in the Villa.
* The Villa Borghese itself.
* On the Via Veneto is the Hard Rock Cafe, which has a stained-glass window of Elvis in front of the Arch of Constantine, of Jimi Hendrix in front of the Collosseum (one day I'll learn how to spell that), and of the BEATLES in front of Bernini's Apllo and Daphne! Here is me with said stained-glass window. ;)
* Me and the same three years ago.
* The cuteness of Via Veneto
* Every time I pass by this place, I have an urge to take a picture of it (which I usually do). I've never actually been up there, however.
* Matt challenged me to make Art out of a leaf. So I did.
* The piazza on campus in front of the dormitory.
* The University motto above the Ampitheatre.
* The Ampitheatre in late afternoon. look!!! We get wireless up here!! ... but not in the dorms?!
* My perch from the top of the ampitheatre on my computer 100% wire-free, bay-bee. Look, there's my foot and there's my desktop!

And that's all for now. Yes it's late, we had a lot of stupid Herodotus reading to do. Fortunately I've read the Agamemnon already. It's a good thing we have afternoon classes tomorrow.