All good things must come to an end.

Its 5 pm on sunday night.
Im sitting on my bed in my apartment.
The sun is setting behind the vatican, which is three blocks south of me.
I can not believe i am leaving in less then 48 hours.
How is that possible? This semester has been unreal, no words can describe the expirence of living in Italy for 5 months.
Let me try my best by recapping the last 5 months with the highlights.
I lived in a small Italian town in the country side for 3 weeks, getting the feel of real italian lifestyle. No one spoke a word of english so our italian language skills grew immensly. I climbed the highest peak in the apennins.I went to the beach in the Adriatic sea. I have travelled all through out italy; milan, sienna, florence, venice, arezzo, perguia, como, tuscany. i have ridden on a gondola in the picturesque canals of venice. I have travelled through out europe. I have been to london, paris, dublin, galway, cork, prague. i returned to the land of my namesake. See the countryside of the country that i love. I went on a pub crawl in dublin. saw the cliffs of mohr. i saw buckingham palace, big ben, parliment, the eiffel tower, the louvre, the arc d'triumph.I climned Notre Dame. I ate crepes in paris, had fish and chips in london. had irish stew with a pint of guiness in ireland. I had the time of my life in Prague, eating goulash and pilsner. I have seen the pope, met him twice, kissed his ring on the second time. Ate lunch with a cardinal. have seen the coliseo, trevi fountain, spanish steps, and roman forum more times then he can count. I have lived in an apartment with 4 other people completely on our own. I have learned a language that is completely foreign to my own. Learned my way around a foreign city. Had some of the best times with friends i will never forget. I have made some great friends in every city i have visited, sadly some of which i will never see again.
From this trip i have learned alot about myself aswell. I can survive completely on my own. The world is a my oyster. I can travel completely on my own in a foreign land with nothing but a map and a backpack. I am open to all cultures. I am not afraid to try new things, even if that means eating cow stomach, or staying out all night for the hell of it.
I have learned that this life is too short to be spent wondering 'what if'. The world is too big not to explore. There are far too many things to see and do to waste your life with insignificant issues.We all need to learn to let loose, have fun, make mistakes, do things for the hell of it, stay out all night, go church,do what makes you happiest, love more, hate less, laugh more, cry less, be happy and less sad and never ever regret a single thing. This life is short and this trip has taught me to live my life the way it was meant to be lived.

So with my bittersweet departure early tuesday morning i will grab my bags and leave on a plane. A plane destined for the people i love most in this world. I am sad to leave and happy to go home, no words can describe the feeling.

Ciao Roma, thanks for being the time of my life.

-Matteo

live it up and drink it down.

i come home in 13 days. its unreal. im going to live it up the rest of the time i am here though. tomorrow is my last day of classes. finals next week. most of them are papers so it should be ok.

HAPPY 17th DREW DREW, I HOPE ITS A BLAST. WISH I COULD BE THERE!

baci,
Matteo

the countdown has begun....

so not much has happened since i last updated. on thursday morning we went on the Scavi tour. it is a tour of the neocropolis of the vatican, it is really cool. you go under the church then under the tombs of the popes to the orginial roman road and ruins. There are a whole bunch of tombs and crypts its really neat. I actually saw St. Peters bones, which are not in the big brown box under the alter like most people think. then on friday i went to the vatican museum and the vatican gardens. The museum was awesome, it is worth more money then anyother museum in the history of the world. there were masterpieces everywhere. botticelli, da vinici, raphael, micelangelo, carrivaggio. i liked it way more then the louvre which was overpowering.
After the museum we went to the sistine chapel which is breathtaking. to think that one man painted all of that. not laying on his back on a scaffolding either, standing straight up with nothing but candle light to light the way. We also saw the famous raphael, the school of athens. which is cool to stand right in front of a masterpiece which is in every art book ever.
After the tour we went to the vatican gardens, which is very exclusive, it takes 2 months in advance to book the tickets. these are the pope private gardens . there are statues and chapels everywhere. Some interesting facts about the gardens: there is a recreation of the grotto at Lourdes because one of the popes couldnt leave the walls of vatican city so they built him a similar one so he could see it, there is a family of parrots that live there, the pope has his own train station. i kid you not, there is a train station only for the pope in his backyard. Though it has only been used twice. the second time by john paul II at the peace confrence in assissi. It was really interesting to see the popes private gardens, even though it is winter but had we gone in the summer the flowers would have been out so even better i can guess.
On friday night we went out in Trastevere, it is this really cool bohemeian area lots of artsy people selling stuff at night. street music, hippies, hobos, harmony... it was a good time.
saturday i had a lazy day. i slept until 12, didnt do anything until 2 then went on a 4 and 1/2 mile run then came home. dont think im an overachieveing because let me tell you thats the first phyical activity i have done in almost 2 months. haha.
Saturday night we went to another AS Roma soccer game. which i cant believe im saying this... was actually scarier then the first one. at this game we got flairs shot into our section by the opposing team. normally quite scary but perfectly normal at an italian soccer game. a cop got lit on fire due to a misplaced flair. there were fights and nearly a riot. they had to bring in the cops with the sheilds and helmets. It was awesome! really good time!
Today, sunday, i got up early and put on a jacket and tie and went(45 mins away) to St. Maria Maggore to go to mass for the first sunday of advent. well the reason i went all the way there was because i was hoping to catch up with Cardinal Law again. Well i went and i was early and i caught him before mass started. I he was being escorted to change into his vestments and i walked over and called out "hey cardinal law, great to see you again, how are you?" he had a bit of a dazed look on his face so all i said were three little words "john mccarthys grandson" his face lit up " oh how are you? im so glad you came, please stay for mass" we talked only for a little bit then mass started.
after mass i looked for him but im sure he had a bunch to do. I walked home and ate lunch and hungout bymyself for a bit.
i came home to realize that i forgot my keys again, shocker!, well this happens just about every other day so i just hollerd up to my roomates to let me in like usual, but no one was home. so i walked around saint peters to kill time for a bit. finally then were home when i got back.
We decided to go to Castel St. Angelo because we had yet to and we had nothing to do. it was 5 euro which was really worth it. Castel St. Angelo- for those of you who are not familiar with rome- was the mosoleum built by emperor hadrian then later converted into a fort then a castle. it is right down the road from the vatican. the popes used it as a safehouse during the middle ages if they were being attacked. there is a secret tunnel under the road that connects the two. It gave us great views of the vatican and of rome.

it wa sa good weekend, not as eventful as most but good nonetheless.
God, did you just listen to that? how jaded am i? seeing the popes private gardens, the world famous museum, soccer game, and castel st. angelo is only a slow weekend. haha. i think thats the sign of a good semester.

well i come home in about 15 days.... cant wait, even though i love rome and europe. i miss the fam and my friends at johnny c.

peace and love.

baci,
matteo