Egypt comes to Rome

Well today we had another 5 hours of scripture classes and it was wonderful, the time literally flew by.  The professor was very engaging and his methodology was wonderful, good stuff.  There are some odd phrases in scripture that he explained to us and some ancient Jewish euphemisms for, ah......reproduction.  And I thought the Romans were racy!

Speaking of things flying by...during our 90 minutes riposare (rest) following pranzo I was sitting at my desk reading with the window open.  Windows here have no screens and they are quite large.  I heard what sounded like a bird entering the room.  We have gulls and other large scavenger birds around and you know they are curious.  Well I look around and I don't see any birds.  I go back to reading when I hear the fluttering of wings again like a small bird only this time the sound is coming from the floor to the left of me.  I look down and this is what I see.... about the size of a US quarter...not a bird but a scarab beetle, like the ones you see in broaches from Egypt.

These unusual trees found in Rome are called Pino Umbrello, Pine Umbrella trees.  Pliny the Younger describing the smoke rising from Mount Vesuvius in 79AD wrote, "nubem vidimus, mira magnitudine, in forma simillima pinui."  "We saw a cloud of remarkable size, very similar in shape to a pine tree."  They are quite striking and the best thing about them is that seen from the city you always know where the Janiculum is!

They line the road on our property leading past the seminary to our house, uphill!

After prayers I met Erin, Ralph and the boys for a Cena again.  They insisted we go to eat right around the corner from their hotel, they were beat from marching with the general of the 7th Legion of Rome, yours truly.  They asked me if I worked with Moses...dragging the Israelites around the desert for 40 years!  LOL

On my way back I snapped this picture of one of the two fountains in the Piazza St. Pietro.  When I was here 25 years ago you could go thorough the piazza at any time but it now closes around 10pm.  In fact, one night when we had too much holy water, on our way home one of my fellow classmates kept saying how much he loved Bernini's fountain ad nauseum.   As we passed it, not the one in the photo below but it's twin on the other side, we all grabbed him and hurled him into the fountain!!  Today you can see there is a fence around it, no doubt to keep seminarians from throwing each other into the fountains.

To Paraphrase the Gospel of Luke, 'A shepherd keeping watch over his flocks by night'.  St. Peter in the Piazza.  There was a little group of pilgrims sitting in a circle not far from here singing and praying by candle light.

We take a short cut to the Basilica which saves us a few steps but we have to go through a bus terminal Pope John Paul II built into the Hill for the Great Jubilee Year 2000.  In past times Popes built great monuments but now they build transportation hubs, this on is called "Queen of Heaven" bus terminal.  Poor Blessed Mother but she probably wished there was one near Nazareth, it would have been easier getting to Bethlehem on a bus rather than a donkey!

Here is a shot of one of the steep ramps with a people mover on either side.  They don't work at night.

Laundry took sometime getting used to...in Italian, here are our clothes washers, they take forever to was clothes almost two hours.

Here are the dyers, also in Italian, they have 3 lint filters - all in different locations and no venting so you have to empty the water chamber.

Washing machine instructions.

Here is our ironing grotto.  The irons are on 220 volt, I have noticed some melted clothing on the face plates.  Hmmm, some folks are buying new clothes I guess.

This is the door to the laundry crypt.  A really neat door, it is curved like the wall in the spiral staircase that leads to it.  Very good craftmanship.