Allora

So, this is the last post of the semester. I have so much to say. But I think I'll let the air take my thoughts. I need to reflect on these amazing four months. I will see most of you soon. I'm leaving early tomorrow morning (Sunday for me, Saturday night for you) and arriving in Philly at about 6:30pm on Sunday. Thank you for the prayers and for keeping up with my time here through these blog posts. Ciao ragazzi.

Sufjan

Today, one of our professors, Bruce Herman, who spent the last month here with us showed us a video he made with small clips of moments he had with us students around the monastery and Orvieto. He had a variety of great music playing along with it. When Sufjan Stevens' "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" came on, one of my favorite moments of this entire trip began. Let me remind you of the first week here, I wrote about playing my guitar under an olive tree in Assisi. I played that song. Bruce didn't know about that. This song started my time in Italy and ended it. Not only was that moving to me, but in that dark room as we watched the video projected on the wall, my peers began singing along and harmonizing with Sufjan. Our voices filled the room.

Passeggiata

Today, I went on a walk through Orvieto with Julia. We found some places we haven't seen yet, and realized that finding new places now doesn't mean much cause we'll be leaving in four days. At one point, we sat down on a bench on the main street and talked about things like babies, adoption, and abortion. During the abortion part of the talk, a man walked by us with a stroller. I turned my head to see a huge-eyed baby with the widest smile laughing directly at me and Julia. It was supernatural. We couldn't help our eyes from tearing up. Things like that are either unexplainable, or simply God.

Da Bolsena a Orvieto

On Saturday night into Sunday morning, I walked with some friends and Italian strangers from Lake Bolsena to Orvieto. We walked from 12am to 5:45am through fields and over mountains under the biggest, most star-filled sky I've ever seen. It's an annual tradition, a pilgrimage in light of the Italian holiday Corpus Domini. It's in remembrance of Saint Dominic. It's exactly one week before the celebration of Corpus Christi, which is a celebration of Christ's body broken for us. Apparently it will be a huge parade all weekend, a beautiful event to end our semester here.

This past week my friends and I started a new thing that we call "slumbo jumbo." Julia has had a single all semester, and the room next to hers has extra mattresses and blankets... so, we drag extra pillows and mattresses to her room and have slumber parties. We had slumbo jumbos four nights in a row, not counting the overnight hike. Last night, I slept next to my friend Karen. She sleep talks a little bit. Last night she said, "No, no thank you. Oh." I wonder what she was dreaming about.