Seminary and Scavi Tour

     This day-- Tuesday, not today Saturday the 29th-- was in interesting day. First thing was Mass said by Fr. Bergida at the North American College, Pontifical, seminary. Being a woman within the seminary walls was REALLY weird for the first hour, and felt dreadful. It felt like I was tresspassing in men-only territory, even though there were nuns who worked there. After Mass, Fr. gave us his special first blessing, which is a plenary indulgence, as he is still a brand new priest.

     It is not without reason that Fr. said to us "Welcome to Little America." The college is populated by seminarians and priests from the US, Canada, and a few other places in the English-speaking world. It was so nice to be able to read inscriptions, and to see the names of our states on the walls. The sports' room had various Steelers' merchandise and the TV room had Lazy Boys. It was almost like home. :)

View from the roof of the seminary, where we had cornetti (croissants)

     That afternoon was the Scavi Tour. Scavi = excavations. Under St. Peter's are the remains of an older basilica and an ancient Roman cemetery. It was kind of eerie, but also really cool to see the ancient burial chambers and to walk in the alleys of the cemetery. Some of the burial rooms are really well preserved, with the mosiacs on the floors still preserved. One room still has the ceiling intact. What is extremely interesting is that there is one area where Egyptians were buried: there is a painting of Horus or Ra holding an Ankh in his hand.

     At the end of the tour, we got to see some of St. Peter's bones, which was REALLY cool. They are directly underneath the Balduccino (the huge main altar surrounded by the four bronze pillars) of St. Peter's.

     Alas that pictures were not allowed. They are very particular about the preservation of this space: climate-controlled (meaning it's warm and moist and sickening and it smells) and everything. Here are some sites which have pictures:

http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Necropolis/TombC.htm
http://thecatholictraveler.com/expert/vatican-scavi-tour/
http://www.awesomestories.com/assets/vatican-necropolis-tomb-of-the-chariot

     I can, however, give you pictures of the side of St. Peter's. You are not allowed to go back here without special permission (such as seeing the Scavi, which must be booked months in advance), so it's really awesome that we got back here. It was so white and so clean, truly amazing.

Under the arch/big-window-thing is the guarded
gate which you pass whenever you exit St. Peter's Basilica.

     That night was a viewing of Gladiator up on the terrace. It was pretty awesome to be watching it in Rome, projected onto a wall. Well, it was awesome until I started really wanting to throw empty wine bottles at the projection of Commodus' FACE. Be that as it may... Oh, and then the computer died during the last five minutes of the movie. The last and most important battle! And I had never seen the movie before! It was torture! Thankfully, they got it up and running again and we were able to finish the movie.

     Thus concludes Tuesday, a week ago today, October the second of the Year of Our Lord two thousand twelve.