Kaitlyn Peterson – Senior Civil Engineer

Today was a little bit of an earlier start, meeting at 8 AM, but we did not have class. Instead, we had the privilege to attend the Papal Audience. We got there and seated a bit earlier than the event started so some of us played 20 questions. An older nun sitting nearby must have been listening in on us and the questions we were asking and joined the game guessing that the thing was a sheep (this kind of made us all giggle). She was so close; it was a donkey! One thing that I noticed was that the auditorium that we were in was only about half filled which I expected to be packed. During the introduction of the event, us University of Saint Thomas students were recognized for attending along with a group of seminarians that were also there from St. Thomas which was cool. The majority of it was spoken in Italian by Pope Francis and then summaries of what was said was given in other languages including English. The Pope discussed the importance of Joseph. Some students brought items like rosaries to get blessed by Pope Francis. A couple of lucky students (Jack M. and Jack H.) got a nice selfie with Pope Francis.

Selfie featuring Jack² with Pope Francis

After the Papal Audience, the group reconvened, and we joined a guided tour of St. Peter’s Basilica. I think that I can speak for every one that has visited St. Peter’s Basilica more than once so far and each time it is still astounding how grand, detailed, and beautiful it is. I found that it was extremely beneficial to have a guide because so much information was received about the basilica that one can’t get from a self-guided tour. The basilica took over 120 years to construct and was passed between the hands of many architects. A fun fact that really stuck with me is that the Statue of Liberty can fit in the area of the basilica’s main dome.

The class in St. Peter’s Basilica

Some of us were curious about the University of Saint Thomas – Bernardi Campus in Rome so Dr. Besser set up a tour of it for us. It was a quick tour as it was a lot smaller than I had expected – mostly dorm style rooms for the visiting students and a few common areas. It was very pretty and there was access to the rooftop terrace which had a gorgeous view. On the campus, we found some lemon trees and ate some (VERY sour) lemons from them. After visiting the Bernardi Campus, we all went our own ways – most of us back to our apartments to nap and do homework and to prepare for our early start tomorrow to visit Florence tomorrow.

Gorgeous view from Bernardi Campus terrace – you can see St. Peter’s Basilica in the middle left of the picture!

Ciao!