Sometimes stairs are difficult.

Sorry for the delay.  I have not had time to write recently and I need to do some major catching up.  I left off around Easter with Ryan accompanying a sick student back to the States.  Well....

Ryan made it back from the states in one piece and bearing lots of gifts, like velveta and rotel!  I survived the four straight days of duty with my sanity relatively intact and a VERY bruised bum with a large knot on my tail bone.  I fell down the marble stairs outside the Villa.  I could not sit properly for days. 
The students spent the week recuperating from Holy Week and getting ready for exams.  Many of them attended every Holy Week event they could, waiting in line for nine hours or more to get good seats.

We had a 3 day travel weekend following Easter but a good number of the students chose to stay here in Rome for the Beatification of John Paul II.  Since so many people were on campus we had a volleyball tournament.  I had a lot of fun, even though my team lost and Ryan's team ending up winning the whole thing.  (Grrrr, grumbling inwardly.)  On top of losing I got sunburned and now I look like this guy...

How I got burned on only the upper portion of my face I am not sure.  It was followed by lots of awkward peeling.

Friday night we went out to dinner in a nearby town called Rocca di Papa.  The restaurant was nice and the food was good but the best part was the unexpected entertainment.  During the course of our dinner, the chef and the waiter were trying to fix the front door which kept sticking when it closed making it impossible for any normal human being to open.  After several failed attempts to fix the door with a screwdriver and a knife the waiter went out front for a smoke, at which point the chef decided to take the entire lock off the door and shake, stab, jiggle, and curse at it some more.  He replaced the lock and the waiter attempted to open the door.  It would not budge.  The chef who was on the inside then grabbed the door handle, braced his foot against the door frame and began pulling with all his might while the waiter who was on the outside took running starts toward the door and jump kicked it over and over.  It was hysterical!  Not to mention that the top part of the door was glass.  Eventually the door flew open, we all cheered, paid our bill and went home.

A good friend of mine from high school, Katy, and her husband were in town for the Beatification and on Saturday we showed them campus and Castelli.  It was a blast and we loved seeing them again.  That night we headed into Rome for dinner and were engulfed in a sea of Polish people.  The streets were packed with people waving flags and singing.  It was pretty awesome.

Less awesome is the story following dinner.  Ryan and I had just finished an incredible meal over by the Pantheon and were trying to make our way back to Termini.  However with so many people in town the public transportation was a mess.  We decided to start walking and about half way to Termini we were passed by an almost empty bus.  We could see the next bus stop a good ways ahead, we looked at eachother and started running.  Now, you have to imagine me frantically running after a bus on cobblestones in high heels while dodging Poles.  It was impressive.  We made the bus right as it was about to pull away.  I was totally out of breath but very pleased with myself and I kept nudging Ryan saying things like, "Did you see that?  I ran for a bus, no big deal."  We got off at our stop (I was still making smug comments and ensuring that Ryan was sufficiently impressed) and started down the stairs into the metro.  Not two steps down, I slipped and proceeded to fall down the flight of stairs.  EMBARASSING!  And if you remember I had already fallen down a flight of stairs earlier in the week and my bum was still in imense amounts of pain which then shot to whole new levels.  Ryan found the whole thing hilarious (after he made sure I was ok).  I guess I got my lesson in humility for the week.