Italy - Day 3 - Roma

Today was awesome! It started out with a nice breakfast with Fr. Kyle, Kelly and her mother (followed by Dan). Then at 9 we left for the Musei Vaticano - aka the Vatican Museums. The weather was rainy, and I could have cared less because we were walking around the Vatican and we would eventually see the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's Basilica. Walking through the museum I saw some absolutely amazing art like the Proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, the School of Athens and its theological counterpart, walking through several corridors with the beautiful paintings in the former Papal apartments.

Finally we arrived at the Sistine Chapel. Before the protestations of "No Photo" I took a quick picture while entering the famous (and absolutely beautiful) chapel. I was actually overwhelmed by the amount of art in the Sistine Chapel and the magnificence of Michaelangelo's work. Leaving the chapel we descended several flights of stairs to the front of Saint Peter's Basilica and entered San Pietro for the first time.

The basilica is immense! I was thrilled to see the Chair of Saint Peter with its CSC-inspired stained glass image of the Holy Spirit. (John informed me that the orange is because it's alabaster. Our guide Antonio - who was absolutely fantastic by the way, and made the Vatican tour exceptional - showed us the incorrupt body of Blessed Pope John XXIII. The basilica was all prepared for the Mass of the Epiphany tomorrow with the Pope. Antonio concluded the tour of the Vatican taking us to the Piazza San Pietro outside the basilica. He showed us the focus point of the ellipse made by those two walls which reach out like arms from the Vatican and are topped with saints. Standing in that spot the columns appeared as only one instead of the four rows.

After returning the tour radios, John, Matt, Josh, and I decided to skip lunch and go to the top of the dome. We went through security and got in the deceptively short line for the cupola - 5 euros to walk to the top. We climbed the stairs to the roof and up the dome. Getting to the roof gave us a beautiful view of the inside of Saint Peters from the top down. Then climbing up the dome, it was cool walking through slanted hallways and intensely small spirals. And the view at the top was gorgeous! It was the real panoramic tour of Rome! We stayed at the top for a while and marveled at the beauty of Rome. We headed down and bought a few things at a gift shop run by nuns that happens to be on the roof of St. Peters! It was adorable and I bought some post cards for the family that I mailed from the Vatican.

We met up with the group at 3 and bused to see the other Patriarchal Basilicas - the Papal Churches - which in addition to St. Peters includes St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major. All were amazing and I took a bazillion pictures. In St. John Lateran I had the opportunity to give my confession, heard by an amazing Gaelic priest Fr.
O'Keefe, who actually listed Gaelic as a language in which he could hear confessions. He was fantastic and gave me a wonderful penance.

After seeing all the Basilicas, we headed back to the hotel and Anna, Meghan, Darren, Dan, and I went back to the Borgo Pio and had dinner in a quaint cafe. After dinner we took a stroll along the Tiber River and saw the Castle Sant'Angelo, which was really neat. It was somewhat late so we came back to the hotel and had a drink with Fr. Kyle, Ann, and others. John and Curley joined us after their excursion to the Spanish Steps. That was fun and I went to bed way late - but tomorrow will be awesome! Mass of the Epiphany with the Pope himself! Btw - the cannoli outside St. John Lateran was absolutely to die for.

Italy - Day 2 - Roma

Today was a long day. After our layover in Paris there was a pleasant two-hour flight to Rome and I slept most of the way. (Thank God, cause it gave me the energy to make it through the rest of the day). Arriving in Rome we met our guide Ellen and began a panoramic tour of Rome. We visited the Colosseum, passed St. Mary Major Basilica, and walked from the Pantheon to the Trevi Fountain and Piazza Navona. It was exciting to see so much history - especially sites which I've studied extensively in high school and college courses.

After the afternoon tour we drove to our hotel, passing the Castle Sant'Angelo and turning a corner beheld a beautiful sight - Vatican City! After checking in Fr. Kyle, Anna, Dan, John, Matt, and I went to explore Saint Peter's Square and then Fr. Kyle, Anna, and I met up with the Gradowskis for dinner. We went on the other side of the wall (from the Vatican to Castle Sant'Angelo) to a street called the Borgo Pio where Fr. Kyle had heard there were good restaurants. We enjoyed a nice pasta meal with red wine and a gelato for only 10 euros. Then I came back and checked my email to let the folks know I was okay before heading to bed.

Italy - Day 1

The first leg of our journey was off to a good start. We had a splendid trans-Atlantic flight from Dulles to Paris. It was my first 777, which was awesome. The in-flight meal was great and they had some good movies. Julie/Julia was cute and made me want to cook. I didn't sleep much so lets hope for some on the next flight!

The Terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

ING Direct Electric Orange Checking Account!!

I'm so excited! I just opened an Electric Orange Checking Account with ING Direct! I am a huge fan of ING Direct's savings accounts because they are extremely easy to use and offer highly competitive interest rates (1.40 APY right now, which is paltry, but still great compared to brick-and-mortar banks). 

So now I am excited to be able to use ING's excellent online checking account to pay my bills and be the destination for my direct deposits. Thought I'd share my excitement with you, now I'm off to play with my new electronic checking toy...

Our New Garage

There is always a project going on under my family's roof. This summer's project involved tearing off the roof (or 'raising the roof', if you will) and constructing a leviathan second-story addition for my father's backyard garage/workshop.

I'd like to take credit for helping build this beautiful barn/garage, but most of my contributions were in moving the contents to storage, though I did help with construction the weekend we did masonry. (I do have an alibi - I had a summer internship Monday-Friday this summer).

The garage is almost finished and looks great:

My Herb Garden

To spice up my cooking at college this year, I've planted an herb garden with basil, dill, chives, and parsley:

It has become a bit of a jungle, but I've tamed it a bit since I took this picture!

I'm a fiend for pesto and quite a spaghetti lover for not being Italian, so I think I can find many uses for my overgrown herbs... any suggestions?

Rocket Boys/October Sky

In high school, I must have seen the movie October Sky at least once per year - three alone my freshman year! A typical teenager, I didn't see its significance or the overarching story it was trying to tell.

October Sky, the movie based on the bestselling memoir Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, chronicles the misadventures of some amateur rocket builders trying to use their brains instead of the typicall football brawn to escape from their coal mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia and pursue college educations.

Inspired by the Russian launch of Sputnik, the aspiring engineers founded the Big Creek Missile Agency, and Homer "Sonny" Hickam began a personal quest to join NASA scientists at Cape Canaveral and beat the Russians to the moon.

Earlier this summer, I read Rocket Boys, and I've just finished reading its sequel/equal The Coalwood Way. Apparently there's a third memoir by Mr. Hickam, but my local library doesn't have it, so I'll have to track it down myself.

Having read the books and re-watched the movie this summer, I am truly inspired by this tale of dedication and overcoming adversity to launch science-fair-winning rockets and ultimately attend college. As an aspiring engineer myself, I can often see parallels to my own life and it makes me think all engineers must be dreamers to do what we do. In The Coalwood Way, Homer tells us he was afraid to be labeled a "dreamer" because he figured himself pragmatic, not a do-nothing with his head in the clouds, so he opted for the label "rocket boy." I like to think I'm a rocket boy too.