I loved St. Peter's Basilica. But pictures are worth 1000 words, so here's the best of my pics from St. Peter's.
And here's a video I recorded while standing on one of the foci of the ellipse of St. Peter's Square. All the chairs were set up for the Wednesday audience (we were there on Tuesday), and John and I had to hop the fence to get to the focus, at which point all the columns on one side of the square line up.
After traversing Europe, I am back in the wide open spaces of South Dakota! After a hectic finals week combined with moving out of our flats in London, the trip across the Atlantic was long.
Many of us did not sleep the night before we left, having to finish packing, clean our flats, eat leftover food, and be ready to leave by 5:45am. After spending about 5 hours in Heathrow, our flight left at noon-ish and followed the sun on a 9-hour flight, thus arriving in Chicago at 3pm local time, exhausted.
I picked up a connection to Sioux Falls without much hassle. My baggage, however, decided to hook up with a hot pink tote from Atlanta and spent the night in O'Hare, only to stumble through the door this morning, shamefacedly averting my gaze. I am happy to report, however, that after a preliminary physical, it didn't appear to have contracted any diseases or suffered any physical damage from its wild night away from home.
All is well in South Dakota and I'm having a good time relaxing and spending time with the siblings. I will be catching up on posting pictures and blogging about some of my trips during the second half of the semester. Here's hoping a happy holidays to all!
I attended a retreat this weekend on the Isle of Wight, which is a 4-hour bus + ferry ride from central London. We stayed at a retreat house in the middle of the island, situated in 'Paradise Valley.' The place was quaint, and the bathrooms, kitchen, and scenery reminded me of Brazil. Gently rolling peaceful green hills were a welcome respite from London's regular rectangular tyranny. Although it rained quite a bit, we were still able to explore the nearby areas during the brief spells of sunlight. We walked to a nearby castle and took a trip to 'The Needles,' a geological formation off the tip of the western end of the island. It was incredibly windy at the outcropping, and we all got soaked on the walk back to the bus, but we also saw a glassblower at work making vases and basked in the warmth of the hot glass, which ameliorated the situation somewhat.
Anyway, this next coming week entails lots of work for me as classes are wrapping up before finals. Pretty soon I'll be home in South Dakota, and we're all feeling the pressure to see more of London as our days here draw to an end.
