Ryan’s ordination

Mark’s older brother, Ryan, has been studying at the Vatican for 5 years to become a priest.  This past week he was ordained a deacon in the Vatican and we were able to go down to celebrate with him and then head to the Amalfi Coast with Mark’s parents and Ryan.

We drove the 6ish hours down to Rome on Wednesday and got there around 2pm.  Ryan was busy with stuff getting ready for the ordination, we hung out with Mark’s parents.  We decided to take the metro to the Spanish Steps and find something to eat around there.

We had a decent meal, although I will say, I’m kind of “Italian-fooded” out.  One of the major downfalls of Italy is that there is VERY little variety in the food here.  I suppose in bigger cities, like Rome, we could have found something other than Italian, but in general, you ONLY get Italian food in Italy.  And pretty much all of the restaurants in any given area serve basically the same thing.  It gets really old and I will not take the variety the States has to offer for granted ever again.

We learned in Vienna to take at least the single BOB stroller when we travel since umbrella strollers are terrible to push on streets like you see above.  And Europe has lots of those types of streets.  And both kids can fit in the single BOB if we put Ben in the seat and Abbie sits on the end so it works out well.  I’m trying to decide if we should take the single BOB to Ireland with us later this month.

Italians love babies, but in general, Europe is very non-baby friendly.  Many places don’t have high chairs, 98% of places don’t have changing tables.  So when Ben needed to be changed, the ledge in front of the Louis Vuitton store was the only place we saw to change him.  It worked out well.

The Spanish Steps at night.

So I was excited to see Ryan get ordained, but I was really nervous about trying to keep a 3 year old and a 10 month old quiet and still during the ceremony, which took place in the Vatican.  We found out the night before that the ceremony was supposed to take about 3 hours and I knew right then that it wasn’t going to be pretty.  And Mark and I were left in the dark to the fact that his parents were sitting in a different section than we were, so we didn’t find that out until we walked in the door of the Vatican and his parents went their separate way.  Not cool.  Abbie lasted about 3 minutes before she was tired of sitting there and it was basically a rare form of torture for me (and Mark) to try to keep the kids quiet and not disturb anyone.  So I didn’t really get to see much of the ordination at all.  About 2 minute chunks here and there.  I didn’t see him get ordained.  Bummer.

We sat right next to the choir, well that’s where our seats were anyway.  We spent most of the time standing behind the choir so we could take the kids out when they got fussy.  Did I mention that it was Ben’s nap time also?  He actually did fairly well considering that fact and waited until the ordination was over to completely lose it.

I guess one advantage to not sitting down much was that I got some decent photos.  Mark’s brother is the tallest one face us in these pictures, second from the left in the line of people.

I love this picture Mark took of Ben and me in the Vatican.  There was one ray of sunshine coming in one of the windows that was shining on us.

After about two hours of wandering around the Vatican out of earshot of the ceremony, Mark and I had had enough and decided to take the kids outside to let Abbie burn off some energy.  We found a park right outside where the ceremony was being held, but as soon as we got there (after I took this picture) a policeman came up and told us we couldn’t be there.  We asked if we could go out to the square and come back in in an hour when the ceremony would be over and he changed his mind and let us stay in the park.  Thank God.

We came back in just in time to get a few shots of the end of the ceremony and of Ryan walking out.

Abbie LOVES her uncle Ryan.  She talks about him a LOT and she was very excited to see him. 

And this is right about where Ben lost it.  He was pretty fussy during the reception, which is really unusual for Ben.  Usually he’s a pretty happy boy, but he was fussy since he’d gotten up early and missed his morning nap.  A few of Ryan’s fellow deacons made jokes about how they were enjoying the vow of celibacy they took.

Here’s my favorite picture of the day.

After the ordination we headed down to the Amalfi Coast, where we stayed in a villa near Sorrento that overlooked the coast line.  We went to Positano, Sorrento, Capri, through Amalfi and to Ravello.  I’ll get those blogs up as soon as I can!

Rome (day 5 and 6 and 7)

Saturday we headed to the Vatican to hear the Pope speak.  It was kind of neat, even though we’re not Catholic and I couldn’t understand a word he said, except for the sentence or two he said in English.  I was shocked at how old he was.  I guess I knew pope’s are old, but not THAT old.  It amazes me that they put someone that old in charge of a denomination that big, but I guess that’s why the Catholic religion doesn’t progress much.

Heading to the Vatican with the throngs of people.

Abbie’s highlight (okay, and maybe mine too) of this day was touching the horses.  She’s definitely my kid.  She LOVES horses.. and dogs and cats and anything else that’s furry.  Any time she’d see a horse, she’s start yelling “Horse! Horse!  Touch horse!  Touch horse!  Peas! (Please) Peas touch horse!”  And she could spot the things from like 3 blocks away.  Whenever possible, we’d detour so she could touch the horses and she loved it.  She was a little hesitant when we got up close, but she did touch them.

There’s the Pope.  Can you see him way on in the top floor, 2nd window from the right?

Next we headed to the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, which is one of four papal basilicas of Rome.  Ryan gave us a tour of it.  It’s interesting seeing these huge churches and Basilicas, but they seem so excessive and extravagant to me.

We also headed to St. Mary Major Basilica after that, but Abbie was super tired then and was melting down so Mark and I headed back to the apartment while everyone else stayed in toured the church.

On Sunday, we wanted to wander around so we split up from everyone else.  The bus was crazy crowded and I was glad we were wearing Abbie because she would have been trampled otherwise.

These are ruins that were by the tram stop we used most, and they’d turned them in to a cat sanctuary.  It was pretty neat and Abbie liked looking at the cats.

We first headed to the Church of the Capucchin Monks, but we couldn’t take pictures there.  It was neat though.  It’s chapels in a church that are decorated by the bones of over 6000 monks.  Kind of eerie, but fascinating too.  They took the skeletons apart and plastered the bones on the walls in elaborate decorations.  And there were some whole skeletons around too.

After that we headed to Trevi Fountain, which was packed, as usual.

Abbie had a wonderful time throwing coins in the fountain and playing in the water.

And she saw a horse on our way out so we had to stop and let her touch it.

We passed this obelisk, which tells the story of someone, but I can’t remember who.  Maybe Julius Caesar?

We passed the Pantheon, but didn’t go in since we’d been there before and there were too many people.

And we passed this fountain and had fun taking pictures by it.

And we passed Piazza Navona, where a carnival was being held, but we didn’t walk through the carnival.

On Monday, we all went on a Scavi Tour of the Vatican, except for Ryan, who was kind enough to watch Abbie for us since you had to be older than 15 to go on the tour.  It was pretty interesting.  Apparently there was a necropolis where the Vatican now stands and we got to go underneath the Vatican and see the excavations they’re doing.  We got to see the place that St. Peter was supposedly buried.

Afterwards, we took a quick run (quite literally since I was chasing Abbie) around the inside of the Vatican and then we came outside to wait for others.

We turned Abbie loose and let her run around the Vatican Square more and she had fun, as she usually does when she’s not confined.

After the Scavi tour and lunch, we split up from everyone else again and this is where the bus incident happened that I posted about before where they didn’t let us off the bus at our stop.  But it gave me a chance to take a few more pictures so that was good.

Here’s a few more pictures of the cat sanctuary.  See the cats sitting on those white rocks?

Overall our trip in Rome was fun, but I’m glad to be home.  Abbie is slowly getting back to her normal self and we’re getting settled into our normal routine, just in time for Mark to leave… Yay.