Viva il Papa!!

St. Peters

Tuesday March 12, 2013 marked the start of the conclave to elect the new leader of the Catholic faith. I had the tremendous opportunity of being able to witness such an event. This even held such magnitude that it is even difficult to describe the feelings of not only me but of those around me for such a historic moment in history. Luckily, I was in Rome while this all took place!

Black smoke after the first round of elections

 I did not expect a decision to be made on the very first night, but nonetheless I was still in attendance. The very first vote results were announced at around 8 p.m. What happens is there are 115 cardinals and any of that 115 can be elected as the new pope after the death, or in this case retirement, of the previous pope takes place. Pope Benedict was the first pope in over 600 years to resign his papal position which also made for an interesting interim time for the cardinals to decide as to how to proceed in their elections of the new leader. Normally there is a 9 day mourning period after the death of the pope but because in this case that did not happen the conclave happened fairly quickly after the official resignation date.

Black smoke

As predicted the first election resulted in no conclusion as to who would be the next pope. St. Peter's square immediately dispersed as soon as the black smoke announcing no decision billowed into the air. The black smoke means no pope, while white smoke means that the cardinals have elected the new leader of the church.

Many people flock to the square to stand and wait for the elected leader, and to be the first people to witness such an amazing phenomena. Below are a couple of nuns that were huddled together trying to get a glimpse of a potential pope the first night of elections.

Pockets of nuns and priests gathered in the square

Waiting for the announcement!

The next night however yielded some far more interesting results. I got out of my class around 5:45 and I dropped some of my gear off at my apartment. I was contemplating whether or not I should try and make it to the election results that night and I figured that with my luck I better hustle on over to the Vatican because they would announce it and I would have missed it.

Door from which the pope comes out

The smoke was supposed to go up around 7 pm and I left at 6:30; the buses were so packed full that I decided I might as well walk. A walk for me to the Vatican is about 40 minutes. I pretty much sprinted my way over to St. Peter's to make it just in the nick of time. They began to close the gates to the square just as I began to arrive. The guards began not letting any more people in but I sprinted along the side of the columns and when there was no guard watching I hopped the fence (along with a couple of other people as well!). But there was no way I was not getting into the square after sprinting across half of the city of Rome!

Panorama of St. Peter's Square

WHITE SMOKE! NEW POPE!

After entering into the Square over the fence, I immediately saw the white smoke billowing out of the chimney. This sign was that Rome had a new a pope. There were at least 200,000 people in the square that night straining to hear the announcement of the new pope. There were cries and chants of joy. We had to wait about an hour before he was finally announced and came onto the balcony. After the hour and the many people that flocked to the square a cardinal rushed out and announced that the new pope was to be called Pope Francis and he was from Buenos Aries Argentina  The first pope from the Americas!

The pope is in white in the middle window, hard to see but he is there

The cardinals are in red on the side windows

Amsterdam: City of Canals, Bicycles, and Flowers

 The weekend of March 7 - 10 I had the pleasure of visiting my homeland of the Netherlands! Although my last name is French, I am mostly Dutch and it was pretty neat to be with people who were 1) taller than me; and 2) looked like me, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Some people even would speak to me in Dutch, most likely because I looked similar to them. Our flight took off around 9 pm and we arrived in Amsterdam around 11 pm. It was a quick flight, the length of which it would be to fly from Michigan to Florida. The weather here was significantly colder than Rome but it was significantly milder than Michigan.

Some beautiful building we ran across

 From the map we were given of the city I did not think we would be able to get so turned around, but to my surprise I thought it was more difficult to navigate around Amsterdam than Rome. Maybe this is because I've lived in Rome since January... I am not really sure. Every city in Europe is so unique that I am routinely surprised when I visit somewhere new. The defining feature for Amsterdam for me was all of the canals. The city itself is actually below sea level and water has to be continually pumped out so that the city is allowed to remain there - that is where the windmills come into play that Holland is so famous for!

This is a shopping center surprisingly

What we decided we had to do the first day was to see the Anne Frank House and to see the Van Gogh museum. Whilst on our way to both of these museums we ran across dozens upon dozens of canals and bicycles. EVERYONE, rides bikes here. In all of the Netherlands there are more bikes than there are people! Bikes are such an attractive way to get around in this country and the road system they have set up for it is phenomenal. For every road there is a bike path, and the cars know to watch out for bikers. The people walk on the sidewalks, bikers in the bike path, and cars on the roads. It was a pretty nifty system. The people were also super fast while on their bikes, they were like crazy people weaving in and out of crowds. I heard a figure about the bike to people ratio in the Netherlands while I was there; there are some 18 million bikes and some 16 million people! That is a ton of bikes!

The houses are all so close together

So many bikes

 Our first stop was the Anne Frank house. This was something that I had to see while in Amsterdam because of all of the history involved with it being so tremendous. We were apparently not supposed to take pictures while in the museum (but I only took a few). There was at the request of Otto Frank, Anne's father, no furniture left in the house to remind visitors about what had happened. But fortunately they had a couple scale models built so that visitors were able to see what it was truly like for the families to live there during the war period.

The famous patch 

Going up the steep steps

A look down some hidden stairs

The bookcase that hid the entrance way

 It was amazing how much space there was for the families who lived in hiding. It definitely did not look like the house was that big from the outside seeing as most of the houses were so squished together and cramped. Also there were black shades over all of the windows in the Secret Annex that were to show how dark it truly was during the day for Anne and her family.

 We got lost in our attempt to find the Van Gogh museum... but the good thing is I got to take a lot of amazing pictures of the city in our trek to find it! The city was beautiful and nice to walk around in, especially because it did not rain the Friday we were there.

Me and Amsterdam

The graffiti is so pretty here

The bikes were so cool

 This is the famous Amsterdam sign that reads... "I am Amsterdam". It was located pretty far south in the city I was surprised we stumbled upon it the way we did since we were not given directions to it at all. But it was a must have photo, one that you can't leave Amsterdam without!

Sitting on the sign

 After finally finding the Van Gogh museum we wandered around there for a bit. It was cool to see some of his famous paintings. Some of them were fantastic and I would hang them in my house, while others were sketches and nothing too impressive. But overall it was something very interesting to behold. The area and mind of this famous painter.

 Of course it wouldn't be Holland without the wooden shoes! They were everywhere and just adorable. These had flower bulbs inside them to plant, I did not get any because I didn't want my bulb to die before it came back to America with me.

 There was also a giant flower market in the middle of the city with an abundance of tulips and other types of flowers. It smelled so good around there that I wanted to take the flowers to Rome with me!

 Feeling hungry after walking around 10 miles we stopped by a pancake place to eat. Seeing these beauties was the most amazing feeling. Rome does not have anything close to pancakes or other breakfast foods so I devoured these. They had butter and powder sugar on them and I added some thicker form of syrup. They were delicious and I was able to taste a bit of home again for breakfast instead of just some cereal like normal. The two pictures below are the bathroom signs in the pancake house, they just looked so cute and so very Dutch!

 After returning to where we were staying and taking a quick nap we went out for dinner with my work friend from Michigan State. She suggested this place called De Klos, which is a place known for their ribs. The food was absolutely amazing, I have never had ribs and potatoes that good before. I also left so full and I split my portion with my roommates as well!

The next day I met up with my friends Danielle and Yvette from Amersfoort, Netherlands! I haven't seen them in 5 years and I immediately recognized them when I saw them on the street. It was so amazing to see them again! This time in their home country! They took us to get coffee and then we went to the Amsterdam Dungeons. The dungeons were almost like a haunted house of sorts where you were taken through the scary yet true past of Amsterdam and the Netherlands, which included witchcraft and such. After this we got some lunch and decided to go to the Gassan Diamond museum.

Map of the world's diamonds

This was a free tour but the jewelry was expensive

The people who craft these work with such precision and such tiny objects

 The Matsers next took us to see one of the still working windmills, which was a must see in Holland since that is one of the things they are famous for! It was cool to see, and it was a fantastic design. These windmills lifted and still do lift water that has risen up in the lowlands where Amsterdam and its surrounding areas sit now. Technically the city should be under water, and it would be if not for these windmills.

Climbing the windmill!

 After seeing the windmill, we went back to Danielle and Yvette's house to see their parents and brother again. I felt so welcome there and they were so happy to see me. It was wonderful to see them as well. They had prepared for us a traditional Dutch meal to eat for dinner that night. We had Dutch cheese and things similar to pigs in a blanket but different with all kinds of nuts for our appetizer. Then we sat down at the table and had a variety plate of fish from small shrimp, to salmon, to eel! I normally am not a fan of fish but these were delicious! Next the main course was traditional Dutch potatoes, chicken, salad and veggies. After this we had a cinnamon bread with ice cream. And after dinner we sat and talked for a while about life and how we were and had coffee and chocolate Easter eggs. They also gave each of us a goodie bag with a picture in a frame, chocolate, a mug, Dutch clogs and a windmill with a card and hand written notes on it. They also showed me a video from summer of 2008 when we first met. It was adorable and I couldn't ask for better friends. After a fantastic and fun filled evening we took the train back to Amsterdam where we woke up at 4 am to catch the train to the airport for our flight that left at 7 am. It was such a great weekend and something I will never forget! One of my favorite places so far, and the people made it all the better!

These are some amazing Dutch cookies that Yvette had and that were served on the plane. The stewardess gave me about 8 of them...