New Year's London Edition

Returning to London on Christmas Eve, I elected to fight the crowds and to go downtown to watch the fireworks.  Since this was my first time ever in a big city for New Year's, I wanted to take advantage of the situation.  The crowds were crazy, and it was hard work just keeping the place we had settled on to stand and watch the fireworks.  Nevertheless, we had friendly neighbors and a good time.  The DJ kept the time going by fairly quickly, and the crowd was electric during the countdown and fireworks which were spectacular.  We also got to hear Big Ben strike midnight.  After the fireworks display, everyone joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne.  Auld Lang Syne is actually something that Brits know how to do as a part of their culture.  Everyone knows what do do when it is sung.  As I recall we also sang this song at the Christmas dinner we had here, and everyone did this same thing of crossing arms and then joining hands.  It's a beautiful tradition that doesn't really carry over, as far as I know, into America.  Americans have the song, but that's about it.  I'm not sure if this video will work, but rather than upload my own, here is the BBC footage of the event.

Rome Continued

One of the reasons I love Rome

So much for keeping up to date while in Rome.  My time there flew by.  I think Rome is my favorite city that I have visited so far.  This is perhaps partly because it is to ostensibly Catholic.  As I expressed before, you can't walk two blocks without running into a beautiful Church.  The great thing is that they still feel and function as churches, and haven't been completely reduced to tourist attractions.  They are great for praying in, and almost all reserve a chapel or two only specifically for that purpose, where photos are forbidden.  There are also nuns and priests walking the streets, and religion seems like a topic which is much closer to the top of people's minds.  I probably won't be able to keep straight all the churches I visited, but let me try to give a run down of the essential things I did in Rome.

On Wednesday, we saw the ancient, historical Roman attractions like the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Palatine.  These are basically the remains of Ancient Roman Civilization and are pretty neat.  Civilization had gotten pretty far and it was neat to think about life in Ancient Rome.  One of my favorite things there was the Arch of Titus, which has a relief showing the Romans carrying off spoils from the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  It's an interesting look at the 'other side' of the story of the Diaspora.

Relief on the Arch of Titus

Thursday, I went in the morning to visit St. Mary Major, striking number two of four from the checklist of Rome's major basilica's.  In the afternoon, we met up with friends, having cappuccino, gelato, and seeing the Trevi Fountain, Quattro Fontane, a Barberini Residence turned museum (look for the bees, the Barberini family symbols), and various churches including San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, and Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (praying at the tomb of Saint Stanislaus Kostka).

Colosseum

Friday saw the Vatican Museum, which is quite large and how you get to see the Sistine Chapel.  The Sistine Chapel was nice, but my favorite things at the museum were the fresco rooms done by Raphael, or perhaps my favorite, the Immaculate Conception Room painted by Francesco Podesti, commemorating the promulgation of that doctrine.  Imagine a room completely covered from wall to ceiling with glorious paintings arranged around a theme and you start to get the idea.  I guess that's kind of what the Sistine Chapel is, but, although smaller, I prefer the rooms.  At the Vatican Museum, there is also a large collection of medieval religious art, probably the best that I've see, although I still much prefer Renaissance and Baroque art.  In the afternoon, we picked up our tickets for the Midnight Mass the next day, and met in line behind us a guy from Seattle who, unfortunately, hadn't actually requested tickets for himself and his siblings.  We gave him our one extra ticket, and I hope he was able to find others for the rest of his family.  At any rate, he was nice to talk to and the Swiss guard gave him tickets to the papal audience on Wednesday as a sort of consolation prize, which he in turn gave to us.  And I got saluted by a Swiss guard, before he let me go back to the secret room where I picked up the tickets!  I think this was also the day (see how quickly memory fades) when we visited the churches of San Luigi dei Francesi and San Agostino.  San Luigi is best known for its Caravaggio paintings in the St. Matthew chapel.  The Inspiration of St. Matthew and (especially) the Call of St. Matthew were the most amazing paintings I have seen in my life (the third, the Death of St. Matthew is also good, but not quite like the others).  There was something so rich, so vivid, and so interesting about them that can't really be explained or captured by even a photograph.  The Church of San Agostino also had a Caravaggio, but the most notable thing for me there was the tomb of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine.

Famous fresco of Plato and Aristotle in one
of the Raphael rooms of the Vatican Museum

Saturday was Christmas Eve and was mostly spend anticipating Midnight Mass.  We began standing in line around 6:00pm for the 10:00 'midnight' Mass, and they started letting people in around 8:30.  Although the event is ticketed, there are still more tickets than seat, but thanks to our early queuing efforts, we got seats.  We were probably 3/4 of the way back in the nave (which is still farther away from the altar than the back row of probably any church in the world), but perhaps a half dozen seats away from the aisle, so we got a relatively good view of the Pope Benedict during the processions.  During Mass we sat next to three Americans we met waiting in line.  Two were a Texas couple stationed in Germany, where the husband works as a lawyer for the Airforce.  He said he applied to Notre Dame for law school, but instead he met his wife at the school he eventually went to.  The other was a woman from New York who works for the advertising industry and was touring Italy.  Although none were Catholic, they still for whatever reason thought that the Vatican would be the best place to celebrate Christmas, and we were happy to answer their questions about Catholic things.  I'm really glad we all entered the line when we did, because meeting and sharing Christmas with them really helped to make it special.  I'm glad I know as much Latin as I do, because not only was most of the Mass in Latin, but the language next to it in the program to help people understand was Italian,.  Latin also helped me pick out bits of the Pope's Italian homily, although I read a translation the next day  As a bonus, the first reading from Isaiah was in English.

The nativity scene in St. Peter's Square

Christmas Day we went back to the Vatican for the Pope's noontime Urbi et Orbi address and blessing, where he says 'Merry Christmas' in dozens of different languages.  Groups from some countries were holding up their flags, although no American flag was to be seen.  The largest cheers seemed to come from the Spanish speakers, when the Pope said 'Feliz Navidad.'  This was no doubt augmented by the fact that we were right behind the Brazil contingent.  I know the Pope expressed concern over excessive glitter and commercialization of Christmas in his Christmas Eve homily, but I was amazed by how little the holiday was commercialized in Rome.  I didn't even realize it at first, but there were very few signs for Christmas sales, Christmas dinners and the like leading up to Christmas.  In comparison, London started rolling out the Christmas marketing before November.  On Christmas Day, a high percentage of places were closed and public transportation was severely limited, so most people can spend time with families.  I think the Italians understand how to do Christmas the right way.  One thing that is really important to the Italian celebration of Christmas is the nativity scene.  That makes sense, given that St. Francis is credited with creating the first one.  Almost every church we visited in the days following Christmas had one up, although some were much better than others.  Even the McDonald's in Assisi had one of sorts...

St. Stephen's day saw a visit to basilica three of four: St. Paul's Outside the Walls.  I really liked this church.  It had nice mosaic works, including roundels of all the Pope's.  Fortuitously, it also has a St. Stephen's chapel.  The afternoon consisted in a failed attempt to see the inside of the Pantheon, which was closed in the afternoon because St. Stephen's day is a national holiday.  It was another impressive structure that gave a flavor of ancient Roman life, this one preserved basically in its entirety.  I would see the inside on Friday.  Oddly, there were a couple of more modern, Italian nationalist monuments inside, including one to the ever popular Victor Emmanuel.  Inside was also the tomb of the artist Raphael, with the brilliant inscription ILLE HIC EST RAPHAEL TIMUIT QUO SOSPITE VINCI RERUM MAGNA PARENS ET MORIENTE MORI, which, not bothering to double check the translation myself, I am told means 'Here lies Raphael, by whom the mother of all things (Nature) feared to be overcome while he was living, and while he was dying, herself to die.'

Dusk in Assisi

Tuesday, we visited Assisi, the stomping ground of St. Francis.  Assisi is absolutely beautiful, with the main city situated on a hill.  I didn't realize Italy was so mountainous, and seeing Assisi helped me to understand the spirituality of the saint, who is known for his communion with nature.  We made the long walk further up the mountain to see Eremo delle Carceri, a hermitage where St. Francis would withdraw to pray and contemplate.  It was very peaceful in the cave of St. Francis and throughout the grounds, although there were too many tourists.  As a whole, I found Assisi to be a very peaceful place.  We also visited the Basilica of St. Francis, where the saint is buried, but only managed to see the outside of San Domiano.  We saw a number of the other churches there and got to watch the sun set behind the mountain across the valley.  The post-sunset sky was particularly amazing, like a vivid watercolor painting.   High above the watercolors and distant hills was a crescent moon and a solitary star (perhaps a planet?), while the dome of the Church of Santa Maria delgi Angeli was illuminated in the valley.

The Pope at the Wednesday audience

Wednesday was the Papal audience.  There isn't much to say about that, other than it was held indoors, the Pope addressed pilgrims in several different languages, and that we were seated directly in front of a large group of slightly obnoxious school girls, who did many different cheers while waiting and even during the audience.  The important thing is I got the Pope's Apostolic blessing.

Ostia Antica

Thursday we visited Ostia Antica, the ancient port city of Rome.  The city was largely abandoned after the Tiber changed course and was preserved when flooding caused the city to be buried.  The ruins were awesome, and gives you a great idea of what an ancient Roman town was like.  There are more ruins than you can really see in one day, and we got to see the city's capital building, amphitheatre, forums, baths, public toilets, temples (although these seemed to be the least well preserved), and a well-preserved thermopolium, which sold hot food and drink.  One of the paths we walked down had been labeled something like the 'street of the taverns' which I fancied was the nightclub district of Ostia.  It was amazing to think of all this as someone's everyday life, and I made me wonder all sorts of things about Roman culture.  How much did it cost to use the baths?  How did the baths even work?  Did vendors rent a spot in the forum?  What sorts of drinks did the thermopolium serve?  It was neat to see many similarities to our own civilization reflected in ancient Rome.  For lunch we went out for seafood near Ostia, which is a popular thing to eat near the coasts in Italy.  For dinner, we went out for pizza.

Pizza made by Italian hands

Friday was a day for finishing up what we could of seeing Rome.  We started by seeing the Gesu, a beautiful baroque church which is the mother church for the Jesuit Order and holds the tomb of St. Ignatius and the hand of St. Francis Xavier, the later of which is displayed prominently in a reliquary.  We went next to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, considered the only Gothic church in Rome, although even it had a number of Renaissance elements.  As I related earlier, we saw the inside of the Pantheon.  We finished by visiting the final major basilica, St. John Lateran, and buying cannoli afterwards from a nearby vendor.

Complementary Swiss Chocolate

3:45am Saturday saw us rising to get to the airport.  I mention the traveling only because I actually enjoyed it.  Swiss airlines was awesome.  The flight attendants were always smiling and seemed genuinely happy.  After flying budget airlines (and mind you this was the cheapest flight we could get) it was nice to actually get complementary food and drink, which actually tasted pretty good.  They also gave us Swiss chocolate, which tasted great, and since we had two legs of the flight, happened twice.  We got to see the sunrise from the air, although it was obscured by clouds.  Stopping over in Zurich, I actually got to see snow on the ground for the first time all season (save on the peaks of the mountains around Assisi), saw awesome mountains, and added Switzerland to my country count, and got a Zurich stamp in my passport because it was the point where I left the Schengen Area.

All told, it was a fantastic trip trip.

Urbs Aeterna

The neighborhood in Rome where I'm staying

 After a short layover in Brussels, I arrived yesterday in Rome, where I will spend most of my time during this Christmas holiday  After spending the morning gathering energies, I (and JD) set out for the city.  The main thing we did was visit St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.  St. Peter's is pretty much the most spectacular thing that human hands have ever created.  There is so much detail, it would be impossible for pictures, words, or even video to give you an idea of what it is like.  For this reason, I tried not to take many pictures, and to simply take in the magnificence.  The Pieta is there, and lived up to it's hype in every way.  The sculpture is so detailed, so life-like.  Despite the tourist presence, there are enough places in St. Peter's that are quieter and more prayerful.  It was nice to spend a good amount of time praying there, including at the tomb of Blessed John Paul II.  We also saw the Pope's massive Christmas tree in the expansive, wonderful St. Peter's square.

The Christmas tree in St. Peter's Square

Following St. Peter's was a walk around Rome, including to the Piazza Navona, with its fountains and Christmas vendors.  The city certainly has a different feel in comparison to the others I've visited this semester.  The architecture is, dare I say, Romanesque and you can't walk two minutes without running into a beautiful church, that would be well worth spending a long time in were it in any other city.  The climate too, is different from what I'm used to.  Whereas the flora on the British Isles looks really similar to the Midwestern United States, Rome looks much more...Mediterranean.  It's kind of how I expected Italy to look, except there it is in person.

For whatever reason, I feel a lot more comfortable not knowing Italian in Rome, then I did not knowing French even in Paris.  I suspect this is due to a combination of factors.  One is that English is the default tourist language here.  In France, I think they still fancy that French is widely enough spoken to suffice for many.  Generally there are more signs in English in Rome than there were in Paris, and, at least at St. Peter's, most staff members spoke in English, rather than Italian, to tourists.  The other reason I think feel more comfortable is that now I much more experience at navigating cities than when I was in France, and have the confidence that things will work out.

St. Peter's

Bridge over the Tiber

My goal is to keep little updates coming this week, so stay tuned.

Holidays and such

Thanksgiving happened, as you know, a few weeks ago.  This year was my first time being away from family and being outside of the United States.  Needless to say, Thanksgiving is not celebrated in the United Kingdom.  The shear ordinariness of the day was strange; classes carried on as usual and people went to work.  However, the people who know us here did go out of the way to make the day special.  There was a great outpouring of support, because they recognized how important the holiday is to us.  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, one of my teachers gave me (and my compatriots KS and JD) a pumpkin pie that he had baked himself when we went to his class.  I found that incredibly thoughtful.  I hadn't had pumpkin pie in a long time.  That night at the seminary, dinner was extra nice in acknowledgment of Thanksgiving.  During grace, the rector prayed for the American people.  The wine was brought out, and we had one of the best pumpkin pies I've ever had for dessert.  I also learned that pumpkin pie is quite rare here.  Many people did not recognize the dish, and still more had never tried it before.  I must say, it was appraised quite favorably.  On Thanksgiving Day itself, my compatriots and I joined the Notre Dame London program in the evening for their Thanksgiving meal.  Turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, and pie were all there, accompanying the wine which a priest gave us to bring.  The students cooked the meal themselves and did a great job.  I figure it was almost everyone's first time away from family for the holiday.  I felt it was fitting sign of my generation's coming of age.  We managed to keep the old traditions alive ourselves.  The future is going to be alright.  Although we couldn't be home for this holiday, it was great to spend it with other Americans and other Domers.

Standing in two hemispheres at once

The Friday after, I crossed another item off of my total nerd bucket list.  Taking London's lovely public transport, I spent the day in Greenwich.  Greenwich (pronounced: Grenitch) is most famous for being the location of the Royal Observatory, and home of Greenwich Meantime Time.  As one fascinated with date-time standards, this was a fantastic day trip.  The prime meridian was defined by the location of the telescope there in the observatory, which was used to calculate Greenwich Mean Time based on the stars.  In the 19th century, the meridian was actually moved 6 meters East, because they got a new telescope.  In the courtyard, there is a line showing the meridian and alongside it are the longitudes of various cities worldwide.  I got to stand straddling the line, a foot in each hemisphere.  At noon, I went back and stood on the line, so I could see the sun directly in the Southern sky. (A pedantic point:  On mean solar time, the sun isn't necessarily directly in the South at noon, it was close enought for my puposes.  One should note the heights of my obsession: I waited until after Daylight Savings Time ended to make this trip.)  There was also an interesting museum on the 'longitude problem' there.  For accurate navigation (and especially for a powerful maritime nation like England), an accurate way of determining longitude at sea was needed.  In 1714, the British Government offered a precursor to the x-prize: £20,000 (over a million today) for solving the longitude problem.  The two main strategies were either extremely accurate charts of the stars or an accurate timepiece that would work at sea.  In 1772, John Harrison was awarded the remaining prize money for his fourth attempt at an accurate timekeeper.  In the museum, you can actually see all of Harrison's timekeepers.  Following the observatory visit, we also saw the, the Maritime Museum, and the Queen's House, which is houses a collection of mainly maritime paintings.  I didn't find too much that was noteworthy, although there was a room in the Maritime Museum that smelled exactly like the sea, and I don't know how they did it or if we were just imagining it.

The telescope which defined the meridian

December started with Wicked on Thursday. (Awesome, and a good deal on the best seats in the house day of thanks to being a student.)  Friday saw Oxford.  My compatriots an I met up with a priest we know studying there.  We got to go into the Bodleian Library, and he showed us around the older colleges of Oxford.  That evening he took us for a pint at the King's Arms and then to a really good Indian Restaurant.  Curry and the like are quite popular in England.  While I don't think I'll go out searching for Indian food, at least this experience showed me that if done well, it can actually taste good.  That evening we went to the anthropology museum, and saw some shrunken heads among other things.  The museum was interesting, but the most fascinating thing for me was that we had to wait in line to get in.  That's right: people were waiting in line to get into a museum which was at capacity on a Friday night.  Only in Oxford.  To be fair, it was part of a winter festival taking place all over the city.  It was nice to visit Oxford, and to see some of the haunts of the likes of Tolkien and Lewis.  However, despite having much of the same architecture, I think I liked Cambridge better.  Oxford has more of a city attached to it, so there is more non-awesome stuff mixed in with the awesome.

Christ's Church Cathedral, Oxford

On the seventh, we had the annual Christmas Party here at the seminary.  We sung carols, drank mulled wine, ate mince pies, and stood around a bonfire.  Everyone contributed a little to the entertainment that evening.  I think my favorites were the native African songs some of the African seminarians sung.  My compatriots and I sang 'Mele Kalikimaka' to bring a little flavor of America (although none of us are from Hawaii).  It was a great evening and another place where the sameness and difference of being in England came through.  It's the same celebration of Christmas, but some differences to the way that celebration is realized.

The Friday following, we crossed off London Bridge and the more famous Tower Bridge from our tourist list.  We also walked by the Tour of London (where Sts. Thomas Moore and John Fisher were executed) and stopped for a pint and the famous Anchor Pub.



Me on London Bridge with Tower Bridge in view

Now I've finally gotten to the point where I can talk in terms of last week.  This past Thursday was the Christmas Dinner here, the last meal all the students and staff here could have together before parting for Christmas break.  It was a traditional English Christmas dinner.  The most important thing to note food-wise was the famous Christmas Pudding.  It was basically a dried fruit lump, with lots of sugar mixed in and custard poured on top of it.  Among constituent fruits are figs, hence the term 'figgy pudding' in the Christmas carol.  It was really good.  As far as I can tell, this defines English Christmas about as much as pumpkin pie American Thanksgiving.  An essential part of the table setting was 'Chrismas crackers.'  They vaguely resemble a large sweet in a wrapper.  Inside is a small trinket.  One person pulls on each end to open them, and there is a thing inside which makes a 'pop' when you open the cracker.  In between the courses, there were musical selections by various parties.  My favorite were classic Christmas songs sung in the 'extra-ordinary form,' that is Latin (and one, Rudolph the Red-nosed Raindeer in Greek), by the priests on staff.  We also had a visit from Santa Clause, from whom I got English Teas.  At the social afterwards, people opened gifts from their Secret Santa.  All told it was a wonderful evening, a great atmosphere of community and celebration.

Next up is Christmas in the Eternal City.

Mid-term Break

Derelict Cathedral at St. Andrew's

I would normally call this Fall Break, but I want to make this blog intelligible to our UK readers.  And since we're on the subject of language, let explain one phrase that has been the subject of personal confusion.  In America, if want a throw away phrase to pretend you are interested in someone's well being, you say 'How's it going?' or 'What's up?' or even 'How are you?' 
Not so the British, not so.  Here (meaning England) the appropriate phrase is 'Are you alright?'  For me, 'Are you alright?' is a serious inquiry into someone's health and well being.  It has the implication that the person addressed by the question does not look alright, and that something is probably wrong.  Perhaps their dog died, or they found out their best friend liked New Jersey or whatever.  But over here, people throw the phrase 'Are you alright?' around like it doesn't mean anything. And it doesn't.  I've kind of gotten used to it, but the first few times I was asked, I answered earnestly, apologized for looking haggard, and emphasized that I was just fine.  Even now, when asked the question I can't completely avoid the 'oh no, I must look aweful' instinct.  Old habits
die hard.  Except that for essays over here, it is proper to use single quotation marks, rather than double, when quoting another author.  At least that is the case at the school I am attending.  My brain was rewired in an instant, because single quote marks are easier to type.  So much for language conventions.

Edinburgh Castle

November 4, a Friday, saw the beginning of break and me on a nine hour bus ride to Edinburgh.  From there, I caught a shorter bus to St. Andrew's, where I would stay with friends at a friend's friend's residence.  The next day was spent seeing the golf course there (golf was invented at St. Andrew's), going dune running near the beach, walking around the ruins of a cathedral, and walking out onto the pier.  The sun set really early, and so a potluck dinner followed.  Then came a rousing game of golf (the card game, but very appropriate for St. Andrew's) in which I tied for first, winning by only one point, followed by a bonfire on the beach.  It wasn't much, but there was guitar playing, singing, good people, and fireworks.  It was to celebrate Guy Fawkes day/bonfire night/the fifth of November.

Sunday, was a trip back to Edinburgh.  We went on a walking tour of the city, seeing all sorts of things, like the statue of David Hume, the 'royal crier's tower' thing, where they announce the coronation of the new monarch, a cemetery where a dog called Greyfriars Bobby lived, the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, various views of the castle.  In Edinburgh, there is a really popular drink which I tasted called Irn-Bru (pronounced 'Iron Brew') that outsells every other soft drink.  It tastes like liquid bubble gum, is illegal in the United States, and apparently is an excellent cure for hangovers.  As a whole, Edinburgh is a really cool city, and the old part has a great historical feel to it.  After the tour, we climbed up this large hill just outside the city, to the peak, which is called Arthur's seat.  It offered a great view of the city and of the sea.  We watched the Sun set there (at 4:15!  On a mountain!).  We eventually found a Mass to go to in the evening, after one unsuccessful attempt which resulted in sung evening prayer and free biscuits (cookies).  Then we hung out in a cafe playing hearts, until it was late.  Then I departed for my hostel, and the other left for the airport to catch a morning flight.

Sunset on Arthur's Seat making the Irn-Bru glow even more

Monday, I walked towards the sea, first stopping at the hill which is sort of opposite Arthur's seat, on which the building with Edinburgh's time ball (dropping at 1:00pm) sits.  Then I walked down and along the coast, following the John Muir Way for the most part, but only getting as far as Prestonpans.  It was nice just to get close to nature, probably the most I had experienced since arriving in Europe.  My journey was necessarily cut short by the early sunset.  So I basically just took a city bus back to Edinburgh, read for a little bit, and called it an early night.

Tuesday, I spend the day touring Edinburgh Castle.  Among other things I saw there was the Scottish crown jewels, and chapel of St. Margret of Scotland, the oldest building of the castle.  It was also a great chance to catch up on my Scottish royal history.  I found my way to the museum (free admission!) which had a fun hands-on science area for kids and stayed there till close.  Then I fell asleep in the nearby library, reading a huge book of English grammar.

I finally found Mooreeffoc in the Edinburgh Museum!

Wednesday, I had time to see two paintings in the National Gallery, before catching a plane to Dublin, where KS, just in from Spain, met me in the airport.  We spend the afternoon seeing things in the city, like Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ's Church, and a temporary exhibit on W.B. Yeats at the national library.  On our tourist map we saw some kind of building named after Newman just south of one of the parks.  We thought that sounded like a Catholic place, and we were not disappointed.  We showed up during the one hour during the week that Eucharistic Adoration happens there, and joined the old Irish ladies in adoring Our Lord.  One interesting thing about Ireland, is that all the official (government) signs are written first in Irish, with English below or to the side.  No one speaks Irish, so this seems rather odd.  Every private enterprise has all their signs in English.  Using the Irish language is a good way of holding onto Irish culture, I suppose.  At any rate, it is neat that they do that.

The cliff walk from Greystones to Bray

Thursday began early with a bus ride to Greystones and walk along the cliffs over looking the sea to Bray.  It was a beautiful, scenic walk, after the sun had just risen.  There was, unfortunately, just enough rain to soak my feet for the rest of the day.  After a series of buses, we arrived at Kilmainham Gaol.  If you are at all interested in Irish history, this is a must see place if you visit Dublin.  The jail was used as a regular prison and was quite over crowded for much of its history.  However, following the Easter Rising in 1916, several individual fighting for a free Ireland was imprisoned and executed there.  Stories coming from the prison bolstered the movement for Irish independence.  On particularly moving story was that of Joseph Plunkett, who wed his wife Grace Gifford the night before he was executed for his part in the Easter Rising.  We saw the chapel where they were wed, Joseph Plunkett's cell, and the cell where Grace Gifford was imprisoned several years later.  The main part of the jail is a model of a Victorian era prison, and several films have been shot there.  Kilmainham also was the place where the hunger strikers were held during the Irish Civil war.  There is an interesting museum attached to the jail, which has artifacts from important figures of this era of Irish history.  Following Kilmainham, we went to the Guinness Storehouse.  There was a self guided tour, explaining the process of making Guinness, and other aspects related to the marketing and distribution of Guinness.  The tour ends with a 'free' pint on the top of the building, with a great view of Dublin.  Guinness really does taste better in Dublin.  Following this, was a pot luck at University College of Dublin (UCD) with Notre Dame students and a rematch game of hearts (see Sunday above).

Kilmainham Gaol

Friday started with a trek to Glasnevin Cemetery.  We didn't go into the museum or pay for a tour, but it is a massive cemetery and some key figures in Irish history (for example Michael Collins) are buried there.  We walked around for a while, only finding a few graves of important figures, and appropriately enough it was pouring rain.  We had planned to go on a walking tour of Dublin, but because of the rain decided not to.  Instead, we happened upon the inauguration ceremony of the new Irish president, Michael D. Higgins.  We couldn't see much, being kept out by the gates around Dublin Castle, but where actually right at the spot were the motorcade would come out.  We got our pictures with St. Patrick's and Christ's Church and even got closer to the Castle, before dragging soaking wet bodies back to UCD, where we changed clothes.  SM took us to see the O'Connel house for Notre Dame in Dublin and introduced us to some of the staff members, before heading over to St. Mary's pro-cathedral for Mass with its excellent choir.  After getting pizza for dinner (noteworthy because I had had pizza one other time since arriving in Europe), we went to an Irish pub to watch Ireland's soccer match against Estonia.  A qualifying game for the European championships, it was a rousing 4-0 win for the Irish.  It was altogether a fun environment to watch soccer in.

Blarney Castle

Saturday was spend almost entirely in traveling to and from Cork and nearby Blarney, home of a castle that you may have heard of.  The four hour bus ride to Cork was immediately followed by a trip to an extremely busy shopping area, where some fresh food was purchased for lunch.  Then the bus was caught to Blarney.  Blarney castle isn't particularly big, but it felt really accessible.  You explore many parts of the castle and feel a part of it.  Of course I kissed the Blarney stone, which you actually had a lean back quite a ways to reach.  I imagine it was quite dangerous in the days before they installed metal bars beneath the gap, installed hand grips, and stationed a professional there to help hold you.  After that, we went to the nice nature areas which surround the castle grounds.  There were kind of creepy things there, like a stone that looked like a witch, and a druid circle.  There is also a poison garden, meant to teach about poisonous plants.  There were actually poisonous plants there (for example Hemlock), and a few that were kind of weak cases, like tea because it has caffeine.  No longer present in the garden is Cannabis, which was confiscated by the Irish police until Blarney can get properly licensed.  The three hours there were sufficient, but they had to be.  We needed to begin our series of bus rides back to UCD, lest we miss the last one.  The next morning we caught the plane back to London.

Me kissing the Blarney Stone

Let me conclude with a few more general remarks.  Ireland was great.  The grass is literally greener there.  The people there were so nice.  Everyone we asked for directions or help was so friendly.  I also loved the fact that you could call 'soccer' soccer, yield signs said 'yield,' and people pronounced 'amen,' 'ey-men.'  It was just more like American than GB.  And they love American over in Ireland.  For example, our tourist maps commemorated the visit of Obama to Dublin, and had marked on the map the place where he gave a speech.  And I don't know if this counts as an example, but whenever Ireland scored a goal, one of the guys in the pub sang something about going to America.  That probably proves nothing.  But Ireland was still pretty awesome.


Finally, one of the take home lessons from this trip was that you can be anywhere in the world, but as long as you are with good people, things are going to be alright.  I haven't talked much about other people in the post, but some of the best moments of the week were simply talking and being with good friends.  Another lesson is that people are the best source of information.  Even in the age of Google, asking another person is often the best way to get an answer.  That's why human teachers haven't gone out of style yet.  Other people were quite helpful as I tried to navigate around all these unfamiliar places or to figure out what was going on.

October in England

The astute reader (if there are any left) will notice that it has been ages since I've written anything. So there is my attempt to fill in the gap between my last writing and midterm break.

The night of Thursday October 6, I saw the River Thames for the first time at night, visited the ND London flats, listened to a street performer (he played some James Taylor, among other things), stood on a bridge and felt a strong cool wind rush over my face. Friday, autumn was out in full force, as I have written elsewhere.

West Gate in Canterbury

Saturday, the seminary had a day of recollection at the Camelite convent at Ware, in Hertfordshire.  It was absolutely wonderful.  The cloister and the surrounding area was a place of peace, the sort of peace that I found extremely hard to find living in a big city.  I guess this was the first time I had really left London (save to go to an amusement park) since my arrival.  I’ve since gotten more used to city life, and don’t feel so claustrophobic. But the point is that I had found a place of peace, which I had been looking for.  The sisters there were absolutely fantastic.  We heard a few wonderful talks on the spirituality of St. Terese, one given by a priest from the seminary and two given by the sisters.  The speakers really understood what her little way is all about and their words were exactly what I needed at the time.  The sisters there have such a beautiful vocation, praying for priests and seminarians, particularly those studying at Allen Hall.  I think this spiritual connection helped explain why I felt so at home there.

Friday, October 14 found me (and my Americans friends) on a trip to Canterbury.  For the sheer joy of it I downloaded the prologue of the Canterbury Tales onto my iPod and listened to most of it, following along with a written Modern English translation on the train ride there.  Canterbury is a small, peaceful town and the weather this day cooperated beautifully.  We played around on a derelict castle, saw the Eastbridge Hospital, where poor pilgrims could stay, saw the arch on the West end of town where pilgrims would have come through, and took a nap in the graveyard which surrounds St. Martin’s parish church, the oldest Christian church in England.  St. Martin’s was a gift of King Ethelbert to his Christian bride.  Ethelbert was later converted by St. Augustine of Canterbury, becoming the first Christian king in what is today England.  Afterwards, we went to evensong and Canterbury Cathedral (the only way we didn't have to pay), and caught a glimpse of the spot where St. Thomas Beckett was martyred.  A brief walk around the grounds followed and then came the train ride back to London.

On Sunday, I went to St. Patrick's parish in Soho for the first time, where I've since been volunteering in various capacities.  They have a beautiful baroque-looking interior with a marble floor, all of which was recently refurbished.  St. Patrick's is quite a dynamic parish, and for some reason there are a bunch of American (and a least one Canadian) students who attend Mass there.  It has been fun to meet up with fellow North Americans.  Tuesday I would return to help with Open House, which is a soup kitchen like hospitality in the evenings for the homeless.

The Les Mis theatre in London's West End

On Thursday evening, I went to see my first musical ever.  I had been in the orchestra pit for a few musicals, but this was my first time seeing the real deal in a real theatre.  And what a first one it was.  Alfie Boe starred as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.  It was a magnificent performance, beautiful, wonderful, you had to be there.

The following day, saw us on the train up to Cambridge, where we met up with a priest-friend from back home who is starting PhD work at Cambridge.  This was perhaps my favorite trip yet.  Cambridge was founded in 1209 (back when students learned in Latin and before the letter J was invented), and it still has the air of a medieval educational institution.  There are so many Gothic buildings, and one could palpably imagine what it would have been like to be a student there so many years ago.  I think this was helped by the fact that tradition runs rampant there.   It blows Notre Dame completely out of the water.  Trinity College, where our Fr. friend is studying, has the motto of semper eadem, Latin for 'always the same' and a faculty member of the college has said 'some change is good, but no change is better.'  Only fellows can walk on the grass of the quads.  At the college dinner we went to, everyone was wearing their academic gowns, dinner began with the striking of a gong and the praying of grace in Latin.  There were three rows of tables for students, put together end to end (or perhaps just really, really long) and a raised area with tables where professors and similarly important people sat.  After arriving and having Mass and lunch at the Catholic chaplaincy, we when punting on the river Cam, which runs behind all of the colleges.  My Boy Scouting skills came in handy, when I took my turn 'driving' the punt.  Most of the colleges have their own bridge over this river, and it was great just to float past the back yard of all the colleges.  We saw the great court of Trinity and the clock there.  On matriculation day, all the new students try to run around the court before the clock strikes 12 (if you've ever seen the movie Chariots of Fire you will recall this).  I think only three people have ever done it successfully.  We visited the College library, which was designed by Christopher Wren (the same guy who designed St. Paul's).  Among articles preserved there are autographs from Wittgenstein and the original Winnie the Pooh book. (A. A. Milne and Christopher Robin both went to Trinity).  We went to even song and the beautiful college chapel, which has statues of some famous Trinity graduates in the antechamber, including Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon.  Before dinner, we stopped at the Eagle, the pub where Watson and Crick discussed their theories which led to the discovery of DNA, and had a pint of the pub's DNA brew.  This was followed by a multi-course dinner.  Cambrige was really cool, but perhaps the nicest thing was spending it with someone who we already knew and who really understood what our live was like back home.

Punting on the river in Cambridge

Halloween isn't celebrated passionately in London, as is recognized as something of an American thing.  I didn't do anything for Halloween, but Halloween weekend some friends came in from Dublin, so I met up with them and had a pint after Mass and evening prayer as Westminster Cathedral.  Somehow or another we ended up walking by St. Paul's Cathedral later that night where the occupy London folks are camped out.  Some of them were dressed up in costumes and dancing to loud music.  Many of the were wearing those Guy Fawkes masks from V for Vendetta. Then on Saturday night, the seminary here had a big feast to celebrate the feast of the Douai Martyrs, who died for the faith in England when the Church of Enland was in control and it was illegal to be a Catholic Priest.  The seminary itself, after many relocations, can be traced back the one which the martyrs studied at.  So it was a big deal, and there was a very nice dinner.


That is basically the highlights through half-term break, which I will talk about next.

The Linguistic Turn

As someone who is perpetually interested in language and how it works, living in London has been a delight.  I would like to share a couple of word or usages that I find particularly delightful.  I'm not going to bother describing to you distinctions that everyone basically knows about, like trousers v. pants, lift v. elevator, or biscuits v. cookies (although I did have a difficult time describing what biscuits and gravy is). 

First, on a general, pronunciation point, I find most people easy to understand unless they are from somewhere on the British Isles other than England.  It was pretty easy to get used to and I quickly moved into a stage of recognizing individual voices.  However, there does seem to be much greater variety in the accents here, even within England, and I suppose one could, with experience, much more accurately pinpoint the geographical origin of a speaker than one could in America..  It was a weird and almost self-conscious experience to hear an American speak from a position of authority here, as when Cardinal Levada visited the seminary.  Apparently, there is a resistance to using educational (particularly cathechetical) materials from America, whether written (because the spelling is incorrect) or audio-visual ("it sounds like he's chewing bubble gum while he speaks").  People would be much more receptive to material from anywhere on the British Isles, or even from Australia.  I am told, however, that the younger generations are much more receptive to American things because of all the American pop-culture they consume.  The main time I become aware of my accent is during common prayer, when we are all saying things in unison, but my pronunciation is different.  Words I always notice are 'God,' 'Lord,' and 'hearts.'  Previously, I would typically pronounce the word 'amen' 'ey-men,' but now I am a full-fledged 'ah-men' speaker, which is how everyone says it here.  So enough with pronunciations, and on to words.  These words or phrases are all used rather commonly here.  I think I heard them all within the first couple of days:

British word: dodgy  American equivalent: sketchy or shady  Usage in a sentence: Soho used to be a quite dodgy area of town; it still is in some ways.

British word: nick  American equivalent: steal, typically used of small or intangible things  Usage in a sentence: I'll nick my mum's year-long pass, so we can get into Buckingham palace without paying.

British word: quid  American equivalent: buck or bucks, but said in reference to British Pound Sterling rather than the US Dollar  Usage in a sentence: It's only ten quid for a student Oyster card.

Phrase in question: You're very welcome.  British conversation:  'This is my home.  Come in.  You're very welcome'  'Thank you'  American conversation: 'This is my home.  Come in.'  'Thank you'  'You're very welcome.'  (In America, 'you're welcome' is used mainly in response to a 'thank you' and occasionally as an invitation.  In Britain, it is used where Americans might simply say 'welcome' and much more frequently as an invitation.)

Question: How did you find it?  British answer: It was great.  I really enjoyed it.  American answer: I looked it up on Google maps beforehand.

British word: rubbish  American equivalent: literally, garbage, but is often used to mean nonsense or awful  Usage in a sentence: I'm rubbish at playing football.

British phrase: first floor  American equivalent: second floor  Usage in a sentence: Don't give him a room on the first floor.  He can't walk up and down stairs.

British word: right  American equivalent: left  Usage in a sentence: Traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road.