I am home, I am home!!! I am SO thrilled to be back in the States, yes, even in the little city of Pittsburgh. Last night I was supposed to go home to my house in Greenfield, but I am still at my parents' house because by the time my dad got home to take me home, I had slipped into an I-have-been-awake-for-24-hours coma. And there's just no waking up from that, I found out. But I am getting ahead of myself.
On Sunday, as I mentioned before, I attended the Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI in Zagreb. There were about 400,000 people there! His homily was phenomenal, and he preached in Italian (with a translator translating into Croatian) so I could even understand about 60% of what he was saying without a translator! Father also translated from Italian to English for us, since he studied in Italy and took many of his classes in Italian. Here is a link to the full homily in English: http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=32762
We had great seats, too. The Mass was said at the Hipodrom, which is just a wide open field, and the sun was very hot, but we had lovely seats on our picnic blankets (actually, they were just plastic ponchos haha) under some trees in the back of the field, with a clear view straight to the altar under the white canopy at the front. We were even close to the path where the Pope-mobile drove by before Mass, with Papa blessing the crowds! I got a couple of really good pictures of our Holy Father; I was only about 10 feet from him at the closest.
When we got home, I took a nap straight away, since we had to wake up super early to get to the Hipodrom by 8am for Mass at 10am. Then after dinner our guide took us on a walking tour of part of Zagreb, which is truly an astonishingly beautiful city. I think I took more pictures that night than on the rest of the trip put together!! It was a lovely way to end the trip, because even earlier Monday morning we left our hotel for the airport, after which I spent roughly 18 hours traveling from Zagreb to Frankfurt to Detroit to Pittsburgh. Blech. I've officially decided that I dislike flying. Super uncomfortable. I'll take a road trip any day. Though I guess it's not really possible to road trip across the Atlantic. And driving takes longer. But at least in a car or a train you can see the sights as you drive by and there's none of that swoopy feeling in your stomach when you take off or land. And in a car you can listen to your own music and, if someone else is driving, take a nap, or talk (ok, or sing) as loud as you want without disturbing the other passengers. And then there's yummy car food to be considered, and the possibility of stopping to run off the excess energy that builds up from sitting still and eating for hours on end. And picnics! Road trips usually mean picnics, too! Except when you take a bus. I HATE tour buses. They smell funny and you can't open the windows and why in Jehovah's name is there itchy carpet on all the seats???
Ok, so I'm not entirely sure how I got on this topic...
What matters is that I am home, and in 14 days I will be moving into my new little NY dorm at AMDA. eep!
No comments:
Post a Comment