Wow I'm falling behind so fast!
Sunday-
Early Sunday morning, me and 3 others woke up early (disturbing everybody else with the super squeaky bunk beds) got ready and headed to Easter mass at San Francesco. I had never been to mass before so it was a whole new experience for me. We walked in the church and it was absolutely packed with people. The the service started and everybody started singing and crossing themselves and we had absolutely no idea what to do. Once the actual sermon started I could kind of follow it because it's easy to figure out the word "Cristo" and "Gloria" "Alleluia", etc. There was standing room only and we ended up standing right behind this family with a little boy. He looked to be about 4-5 and he was the cutest darn kid I've ever seen. You could tell he was really bored because he kept trying to find stuff to do. At one point he ended up playing "I can't see you until I peep my head around my dad's leg and then I'm going to hide again as soon as you see me" game. It was so adorable. Then his dad picked him up and he leaned around his dad's neck and kept playing peek-a-boo. I love little kids. Then during the service there was communion and then one last song and it was over. I was very surprised because it was only about 45 minutes long. When we had first gotten to the church it was really rainy and overcast, but when we walked out of the church sunlight was just streaming down around Assisi. I looked up and the clouds had parted in a perfect circle just around Assisi but everywhere else there were clouds as far as the eye could see. It was totally cool. After that we all went and got lunch at a little restaurant and then wandered around Assisi, accidentally running into the rest of the group. They then went and got lunch because they hadn't eaten yet and we wandered some more around the town. We saw the building where San Francesco was born and we had pretty much covered the whole town within a couple hours. Then we caught back up with the rest of the group at Santa Chiara, saw the tomb of Santa Chiara and then wandered around the town some more. We ended up at the top of the town overlooking a gorgeous view of the surrounding area. Right next to the spot where we were was a little church called Santa Maria della Rosa. We went inside and instead of a church it was an art exhibition. The artist had created this statue of the Virgin Mary out of 33 different kinds of wood from all around the world to represent the unity of christianity and the age Christ was when he died. Depending on the direction you're looking at the statue it represents different parts of Mary's life, such as, the annunciation, being pregnant, carrying the baby Jesus, and holding her arms open to protect and love the world. On it's side it represents a dove. There was big giant version, supposed to represent Mary and her love and protection for the world and a little tiny one that can fit in the palm of your hand to represent Mary and her love and protection for you. It was a very modern statue, but very moving. I ended up buying the smallest version of it because it was just haunting me when I first left the church. After that we wandered a bit more around town before going and eating dinner at this restaurant near San Francesco that overlooks the entire valley. It was a little pricey but we got to sit out on the balcony and the food was absolutely amazing. I had handmade ravioli and chocolate mousse for dessert. It was the most delicious dinner. After that we walked the long walk back to our bunkhouse and stayed up late playing Mafia, drinking wine, and just in general being silly and ridiculous. Then we all went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment