Lots of Boats

When we were in Venice, we saw lots of boats! Here I am getting ready to ride the vaporetto on the first day.





This is a vaporetto. It is a big boat that you ride like you would on a bus. There are lots of stops on the Grand Canal where you can get on and off the vaporettos.


This is a water taxi.

A Post Office boat in front of the post office.

Police boat. We saw an ambulance boat too, but it was going too fast to get a photo of it.

Gondola Parking Lot

Gondola on small canal

Gondola on Grand Canal

Delivery Boat

Construction Boat






I only got to ride the white vaporetto boats. That was really fun.

-Grace

A Mass with the Pope

Ever been to church with the Pope? I have. We went to St. Peter's for church on Sunday. The Pope was there. I took three pictures of him. Only one of them turned out fine. In the other two I either got bumped or shook the camera.

See? What did I tell you?

You wouldn't believe how many people there were. People here, people there, people, people, everywhere. hundreds of people, thousands of people, millions and billions and trillions of people. (There weren't really that many, but it sure seemed like it.) The Mass was in multiple languages, mostly Italian and Latin. Fortunately, the 2nd reading was in English. I enjoyed the Mass even though I couldn't understand most of it, and it took a long time.
Don't you wish it were you?

-Paul

St. Mark's Square Floods!

Can you believe it? One of Venice's well-known piazzas flooded. Do you know why? The square is one of the lowest places to the water level. What happened was the water level rose during high tide.

The water bubbled up through holes in the piazza and flooded. It stayed there for a couple of hours and then slowly receded. There are three ways that cause flooding: a full moon, low pressure, and a certain kind of wind.

Fortunately, it was only three inches of water in the deepest parts. What a relief! Even better, the water was gone by noon. But, while I was in the piazza during the flood, I saw a store that was completely flooded. Also, there are several restaurants with outdoor seating in St. Mark's square. When it flooded, I saw a waiter serving customers in rubber boots! It was funny because it was a fancy restaurant. The waiter was dressed in a nice white suit, but was wearing green rubber boots. Plus, I heard that some hotels in Venice have a room full of nothing but different sized boots for their guests. Man, they really have to make a big deal about flooding, don't they?

-Paul

Laundry

Several of you have asked about how we do the laundry here in Rome. It is definitely different from what I do at home.
First of all, the washing machine is quite small. I can only put about 6-8 kid-sized pieces of clothing in at a time. The washing machine takes about an hour to run. When the wash is done, I either hang it outside or on the drying rack in the house. There is a dryer, but it uses a lot of energy, only dries a few pieces of clothing at a time (about 1/3 of the washer load), and we hear that it shrinks things. Since things dry fastest outside, I have to do a load of laundry in the morning, and then hang it outside only when I am sure it is not going to rain. Fortunately, the drying rack we have is large, so I can use that when it is raining or for the clothes I have to bring inside at night. Most clothing dries in a day on the rack. (Jeans and sweatshirts take much longer.)

How will I do laundry differently when I get back to South Bend? Well, I cannot wait to get back to my big washing machine, first of all. But, I think we will get a bigger drying rack for the basement and I will try to make a better effort to air dry clothing instead of always using the dryer.
-Terri

Guess Who's Coming For Dinner?

Guess who came for dinner tonight? That's right! Father Michael Wurtz! He is studying here in Rome and we were finally able to get together.

Dinner was not pasta, believe it or not! We had bruschetta with tomatoes and basil or with roasted peppers. That was our antipasto. For our "primi", we had potato soup. Very delicious, if I do say so myself! Fr. Wurtz brought a wonderful dessert - cannoli. Elizabeth has one on the tray in the photo. They had a chocolate shell with a delicious custard cream in the middle. Yum!

Today was a fantastic day! Thank you Fr. Wurtz!

-Terri

Papal Mass

Well, I heard that Father Michael Wurtz wanted to make an appearance on the blog. He will since he is coming to dinner tonight. But I think he figured that might not do it, so he gave us tickets to go to the Papal Mass this morning. It was the conclusion of the African Bishops Synod. I don't know if that was why there was such a long processional or if it is always like that, but WOW!

We got up at 6am and left the house about 7:20. We caught the 115 bus over to St. Peter's and then got in line. I think we were in line about 7:45. You can see that the Piazza in front of St. Peter's was nearly empty. The line to get in started over at the right side of the colonnade and wound all the way around to the other side. We were about in the middle of the line, straight in front of the Basilica. The line finally started moving about 8:20. We went through security and then into the Basilica. Fortunately, we got good seats. We were in the front third of the nave and there were only 2 people sitting between us and the aisle!

Here is a photo I took during Mass. It is hard to see because I had to crop the photo, but right in the center in front of the altar is Pope Benedict XVI. Paul took a photo of him during the processional, but he got bumped by a security guard and the photo blurred. I will let him tell about that.

The Mass was neat. It was in several different languages and the second reading was in English. Since the Mass is the same everywhere, it wasn't too hard to figure out what was happening. Unfortunately, the Homily was in Italian and I didn't understand it. However, I can assure you that the Pope talks longer than both Father Michael and Father Brad!

Paul was able to get a good photo of the recessional. Impressive photo, huh? Paul and Elizabeth were able to stand right on the aisle and were probably only 3-4 feet from Pope Benedict XVI! (John says this is about as close as Notre Dame's offensive line ever gets to the end zone!)

After the Mass, Pope Benedict XVI went out to the steps in front of St. Peter's. There were thousands of people in the piazza who had watched the mass on huge closed-circuit televisions. He spoke to the crowd out there in eight different languages - Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, German, and Polish. Each language brought a cheer from a different part of the crowd. While he was speaking to the crowd, we had to wait inside. We could hear him speaking through the sound system. Afterward, he returned to the Basilica and then we were able to leave. The last photo is of the piazza . Thousands and thousands of people!

Thank you, Father Michael. We had an amazing time and it was definitely something we will never forget. Thanks, John, for agreeing to go! It wasn't so bad, was it?

-Terri

The Last Apprentice, Revenge of the Witch

I recommend the book, The Last Apprentice, Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney, particularly if you have read Harry Potter, fantasy, or science fiction. It is about a boy named Tom who is a seventh son of a seventh son. His father found him a job to work for a spook. A spook rids towns of witches, bogarts, or ghosts. Tom finishes his monthly trial, but with grave news. A daughter of a witch tricks Tom into feeding a powerful witch (most of her power had drained away) something that gave her enough strength to break free of her bones. This would allow her to move from her dead body to someone else's body and possess it! What will Tom do to destroy her?
-Paul

Superfudge

I read a book called Superfudge by Judy Blume. What is it about? It is about a boy named Peter and his little brother, Fudge. Fudge gets a myna bird named Uncle Feathers who knows how to say, "Bonjour Stupid!" and repeats everything you say or command him to say. I recommend it to everyone who likes to laugh because you'll laugh out loud when you read Superfudge by Judy Blume. Make sure you read this book!
-Elizabeth

Back From Vacation

We had a wonderful week of vacation up in Northern Italy. We visited Florence, Siena, Pisa, and Venice. Siena and Pisa were just day trips, but we spent 3 days in both Florence and Venice. In Florence we were able to see Michangelo's David, his famous painting of the Holy Family, and the tomb where he is buried. We also climbed to the top of the Duomo for amazing sights over the whole city! There were "must-sees" all over Florence and we really spent a lot of time in churches and museums.

Venice was completely different than anything I have ever seen before! We didn't go to any museums and only visited two churches. We really just walked around and rode the vaporetto boats through the Grand Canal. We took in the sights without actually "doing" anything. We rode so many boats that when I close my eyes, it still feels like I am on a boat swaying back and forth! I will get the photos downloaded and sorted and Paul, Elizabeth, and I will get going on the blog entries.

-Terri

Heading to Florence and Venice

Grandma and Grandpa Dundon have arrived in Rome so we are leaving Monday morning for a week-long vacation in Florence and Venice, Italy. We are hoping to make side trips to Siena and Pisa as well. So, no blog entries until sometime next week since we won't have internet access and are not taking our computer. We will be doing lots of research on Michaelangelo and hope to have lots of photos!

Tune in again next week!

Love, Terri, John, Paul, Elizabeth and Grace

Mrs. Vargo in Rome

Our Elm Road friend Mrs. Vargo is traveling again! This time she is in Rome with her husband and some friends. We met up near the Pantheon to take them to our favorite gelato place. After gelato we walked over to Piazza Navona to show them the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Great fun to see her!

-Terri

P.S. Don't tell her I told you, but I think she ate gelato for dinner!

Bioparco - The Roman Zoo

I don't think there are very many people who have been to Rome who can say they visited the Roman Zoo!

We did just that last week! The Roman Zoo is really just like the zoos in the United States. Lots of animals and neat things to see. One of our favorite exhibits was the monkeys. There is a photo of the mother monkey and the baby monkey. They were really funny and quite cute.
There was an extensive playground at this zoo and we spent about a half an hour running and playing. I love the photo of all four kids on the teeter-totter. We got some cute pics of everyone on the jungle gym too.

The first photo here is of Grace riding the bus with her Uncle Garett. She was having so much fun that I just had to snap a photo. Elizabeth took the picture of the four adults. Uncle Garett, Aunt Shelly, (John's sister), Marilyn/Grandma-sota (John's mom), and me. The photo after that was really funny. In order to take the picture, Grace is standing on Elizabeth's shoulders and Ryan is sitting on Paul.

-Terri

Lots of Fun with our Cousin

My nephew, Ryan, has been visiting us here in Rome for the last two weeks. (That is why we have been a little behind on the blog entries. Sorry!) We had lots of fun with Ryan. In this first photo, we are in Pompeii. That is an ancient piece of something that all the kids are sitting on.




The second photo is in our apartment. All the kids had fun doing art projects and building forts to play in. In this photo they are making mosaics using stones that they picked up from a nearby park - Villa Sciara. The next two photos were also taken at Villa Sciara. That is Uncle Garett playing soccer with Grace. The last photo was taken in Piazza Sopra Minerva which is near the Pantheon.

Thank you to Marilyn, Shelly, Garett, and Ryan who came and treated us to such fun times! See you in Paris at Thanksgiving!

-The Mellors

Graffiti

In a few of our previous blogs, we have mentioned about how things are not very clean around here. Another example of "cleanliness" is the graffiti - which is everywhere! The first photo is of the sidewalk and gate in front of our apartment. Some of you may be thinking that this is a terrible area where we must be living! This is not so. It is a beautiful area with very nice apartments. But, no place is left uncovered. I think that if the graffiti were to be cleaned off, someone would come add more graffiti!


This photo is taken in the piazza down the hill from our home. I took this picture on a Sunday when all the stores were closed. Can you see the archways with the gray "doors"? This is actually a nice little grocery store that sells fantastic bread and cheese. However, when the store is closed, they close the regular glass doors to the store and lock them. Then they pull down this metal garage door in the opening and lock that too. You can see that the doors and walls are covered with graffiti.
-Terri

The Tempietto

Here is truly a beautiful little chapel. It is called the Tempietto and sits within a courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio.

This chapel is very tiny. Look at Paul and Elizabeth in the photo for a comparison. It is perfectly round and you could probably only fit about a dozen people comfortably inside it. In fact, it is the same size as just the lantern on the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica and it could fit through the oculus in the roof of the Pantheon!



For those of you studying Catholicism, the Tempietto was built to mark the spot where St. Peter was crucified. You can see the carving on the altar that shows the crucifixion in the second photo. Now many of you are thinking, "Wait a minute! I thought that is why they built St. Peter's Basilica!" You are correct! There was some confusion when they translated the information about St. Peter's crucifixion. By the time they discovered their mistake, the Tempietto was already done.

The third photo shows the intricated patterns in the mosaic floor as well as the grate that lets light into the grotto below the chapel. It is a beautiful place!

-Terri

Eight-Year-Old Mummy

We visited the National Museum in Rome last week. Here was one of the interesting exhibits.

Apparently when the Romans were excavating in order to build the Termini Train Station here in Rome, they came upon many ruins and a burial ground. They discovered this mummy, which they believe was an eight-year-old child. She was in a very decorated sarcophagus. I will have to do some more research on this because I have never heard of mummification in this area of the world!

-Terri

What Time is it in Abu Dhabi?

There is only one person who will understand this question:

Does anybody know what time it is in Abu Dhabi?

-Terri

Plaster Bodies in Pompeii

As you know from previous blog entries, we visited Pompeii, where the whole city was covered by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Everyone in the city was killed.

There are a few places in the city where you can see plaster models of the people who were killed in the eruption. As the archeologists were uncovering the city, they came across voids in the ash. These voids were where bodies had been. The bodies had decomposed, but the space was still there. The archeologists filled the voids with plaster and let it dry. Once the casts were dry, the archeologists were able to chip away all the ash and were left with the plaster cast of the person who had been killed. You can see some of these images here.

The plaster figures are neat to see, but also very sad. Many of them are covering their faces or have their arms up as if they were trying to protect themselves from the ash and lava. It makes you realize how scary and tragic the event must have been.

-Terri