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And……America!!! After traveling so much, it’s so comforting to be back in our country, around people who understand us and whom we understand.

We got up early again, our trip down to the airport felt nostalgic since we had made it before on our journey from Ireland to France. Time seemed to go fast. And before we knew it, it was time to board our plane to Toronto! We were just as excited to go home as had been to leave.

Much to our surprise, our long flight to Toronto didn’t feel as long and dreary as we had anticipated. We kept ourselves occupied by reading, listening to music, and enjoying the food that Air Canada had to offer.

Once we arrived in Toronto, we breezed through customs and prepared for the last stretch taking us to Montreal.

At last! We arrived in Montreal and were very warmly greeted by Kathleen’s mom and her friend Kim. They were thrilled to hear our many adventurous stories and had a bunch of snacks for us to enjoy. From Montreal, we drove down to Vermont.

We can truly say that this trip has had a huge impact on us and on the way we see the world. There were many very difficult moments where we questioned why we were doing this in the first place, followed by many intensely exciting moments where we felt so privileged.

The trip was different that what we had expected it to be, there wasn’t exactly one moment or experience that completely changed us or transformed us; yet, our experience as a whole helped give us a more realistic outlook on life and taught us appreciation for different cultures as well as our own.

Thanks so much for sharing this journey with us! We wish you all the best in your own adventures in life.

Good Bye,

<3i&k

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What is in a name? What is in anything that makes it to be what it is? What is in a restaurant that makes it cute? Maybe a large chalk board behind the counter detailing the contents of its menu, or some artsy low sitting chairs that people are expected to eat like normal people at, or a wall of old and new books all in Spanish. If this is the case, then the place that we went to for lunch yesterday is definitely a cute restaurant.

We passed this place several times as we wandered the city the past few days, but we never actually made it inside. We thought that today being Sunday, it would be a good day to eat out. We chose this place mostly because of its looks, but were equally impressed by the atmosphere and the food.

Ivana ordered toast with an olive spread and tomato and cheese melted on top. Kathleen got a curry chicken sandwich. We both got bubbly water, which we were delighted to find came in a glass bottle which we held on to when the waitress came to clear our places.

Today, we are up early. On our way to Ireland, we needed to be at the airport by 8am. We ate our yogurt standing up in the hostel’s kitchen, then walked across the street to the metro.

As our time in Europe is coming to an end it is a very interesting sensation. We are sad to be leaving for sure but eagerly await our arrival in America. After seeing so many new things over the past almost 6 weeks we are aching for something familiar. We are however also very excited to have the opportunity to bring back many new things that we have learned to the United States, especially many of the new foods that we have tried!

iAdios!

❤ i&k

europost_24

Have you ever had a Churro in Spain? Churros in America, especially the ones at Costco are very large and smothered in cinnamon sugar. In Spain this is not the case. They are served plain and it is up to the person eating the churro to sprinkle white sugar only, over the top of the churro.  Yesterday we went to a restaurant that did something completely different with their churros. They served them with luscious, thick, hot chocolate, no sugar.

This hot chocolate was like a melted chocolate bar in a glass, and with the fresh warm crispy churro was a wonderful snack on a chillier than normal afternoon. Together, it was called Churros con chocolate. Yum!

Today, we went to the medieval city of Avila.  With churches and buildings that date back to the medieval times, as well as a large wall that stretches around almost the entire city, Avila reminded us much of Assisi.

Here we were able to walk the footsteps of St. Theresa of Avila, a doctor of the church, who along with St. John of the Cross reformed the Carmelite Order, which had become very social and worldly at the time. This was an especially important day trip for Ivana, whose mom is a third order Carmelite.

We went to the convent where St. Theresa had lived, Ivana was excited to be able to go inside and see many of the relics that St. Theresa had touched and used during her great life. Unfortunately, we had to hurry out to catch our train back to Madrid, but we were able to watch the Spanish country side roll by as the sun was setting; it was very beautiful.

When we got back, we made a pit stop at the grocery store and picked up some pasta, canned tomatoes, ham, some vegetables and cream cheese. With this bounty, we made a creamy tomato sauce that neither of us could get enough of. We also made sure to cook our pasta to al dente, being careful so that it wouldn’t get mushy. It’s so nice to be able to cook again, we missed it a lot after only eating sandwiches for the past few weeks!

Today was a great day! 🙂

❤ i&k

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In case we didn’t mention it before, Madrid is a party city, and our hostel does a very good job at reflecting that attitude in it’s various events that it offers. Although we tend to stay away from the crazy ‘wee hours of the night’ party sphere, we did decide to take advantage of the walking tour graciously offered by our hostel.

The walking tour was a great way to get to know the city a bit and learn some of Madrid’s history, including it’s not so exciting city symbol of a bear eating some fermented fruit from a tree. I, (Ivana), thought it was a cute bear actually, but our tour guide didn’t seem too enthused.

When the tour was over, our guide gave a couple of suggestions of where to get some good Spanish lunch. She mentioned a place that she was heading to and a big part of the group actually ended up going there. It was a little pricey and we already had picked out a place the night before (which we had diligently found on trip advisor), but seeing that we had a personal recommendation from a local right before us and she would lead us there, we decided to join them. Much to our surprise and immense pleasure, when we arrived at the restaurant, we realized it was the same one we had picked the night before! The restaurant was called Rosi La Loca. The menu del dia was 11.50 euros and consisted of a smaller appetizer sort of dish, a main dish, a small glass of sangria, a drink of your choice, and coffee or dessert. The Spanish enjoy lunch as their bigger meal, followed by a siesta in the afternoon. We both ordered Paella as our smaller portion of the meal and chicken with lemon sauce and French fries. For dessert, Ivana had arroz con leche and Kathleen had some flan. It was a very good meal!!

We sat with three people from our walking tour group. We met Blaine and Caitlyn from Utah and Kathy from Vancouver, who is currently a teacher for primary school in London. We all hit it off almost immediately! It was so great to talk to fellow Americans and a Canadian. 🙂 We all shared our travel stories and experiences with each other. We hit it off so well with them that we ended up spending the rest of the day exploring the streets of Madrid with our newly found friends!

As for the restaurant, it was a very nice atmosphere and the service was great, not to mention the delicious food we enjoyed! Our waiter was a very sweet young man from Peru who made a very notable effort to communicate in English with us all and Ivana tried her best to translate here and there. Being our second day in Madrid, we really appreciated his welcoming kindness!

After lunch, as mentioned earlier, we walked around with Blaine, Caitlyn, and Kathy. We first went to visit the Palacio Real because we had been told they had free visiting hours between 4 & 6 p.m. However, because of some event or something, it was not open for visitors after all.

Next, we walked for a good while until we reached El Parque del Retiro, a beautiful park with a glass building called Chrystal Palace. After our lengthy walk, we decided to head back to our hostel to get some dinner and then some rest. We stopped off at the grocery store and bought a tortilla de patata con cebolla, which was like a potato patty the size of a plate, with onions in it. We then put a whole avocado on it, enjoyed with some cheese, and of course, a pear. 🙂 When we got back to our hostel to eat our dinner, we were happily surprised to find Kathy, Blaine, and Caitlyn there and so we enjoyed our dinner with them.

iAdiós!
❤ i&k

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Madrid!

Going to a new country is always so much fun, it’s amazing how different each country and city feels from the others. It’s like stepping into a whole new world.

We arrived here very late last night, and went straight to bed. Our hostel is right next door to the metro stop so we didn’t get lost even for a second trying to find it, quite a feat for us. 🙂

Our first day in Madrid was Ash Wednesday. Because we would be fasting, we didn’t plan anything too vigorous for the day. First, we went to mass at the Catedral de la Almudena.

The mass was beautiful and Ivana was able to understand the homily because she speaks Spanish like a rockstar. 😉 She filled Kathleen in after mass that the priest was saying that while it is important for us to seize every opportunity to grow in holiness during lent, e.g. make the little sacrifices that make us uncomfortable, take the time to pray more, focus on the season; it is also necessary to remember what we are preparing for, Easter, the moment of our redemption!

We walked around and sat in the sun in front of the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) which is right next door to the cathedral.

We then went back to our hostel to make some lunch. Not a baguette, you will be pleased to hear! Because this hostel has a full kitchen, we were able to prepare ravioli with cheese sauce and crusty cheese bread and a pear for lunch. It was so delicious and definitely a welcomed change from our previous meal choices.

After lunch, we went back outside. We explored further past the cathedral and the palace into more of the heart of the city. We passed a very cute cafe/restaurant where we hope to go for lunch one of our days here.

For dinner we had a yogurt. Soon afterwards we headed to bed, we were tired from walking around all day, but are excited to see what tomorrow will bring!

iAdiós!

❤ i&k

europost_21

Siena, today! We took a day trip to Siena, the town affiliated with St. Catherine of Siena, a very special saint who dedicated her life to Christ and His Church as a nun and received the grace of the stigmata. As we mentioned in a previous post, her body is in Rome, but her head is kept in Siena.The Church where St. Catherine’s head is kept, Basilica Cateriniana San Domenico, is very old and beautiful.

Siena itself reminded us a little of Assisi; it’s a very cute town with lots of shops, coffee bars, and gelato. We went to get some gelato at La Costarella. It was really good, Kathleen’s favorite, although Ivana still left her heart at Old Bridge.

After our lovely snack, we went over to another cathedral, Duomo di Siena. We had to get a ticket to enter, although they were free, which was nice. The beauty of the cathedral did not disappoint! One might think that we would have become accustomed by now to so much beautiful architecture out here in Europe, but it never really gets old, and each church has it’s own individuality majesty of offer.

Because of the rain, our stay in Siena was rather short, but still memorable!

Ciao,
❤ i&k

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Florence, what to say about Florence…first I will mention its name. Florence is actually the English term for this city, the locals call it Firenze. This is very helpful to know for booking train tickets as no Italian website even with the English translation recognizes the term Florence.

Before coming here we didn’t really know that much about Florence, we intended to mostly use it as a home base from which we would go and visit the towns of Siena and Padua. Upon our arrival there we found, however, that the train to Padua was much more expensive than we had anticipated – about 100 euros round trip verses 40 euros round trip. Needless to say, we didn’t have this expense in our budget and found ourselves with an extra day to spend exploring Florence.

Our first day we took as a rest day. After so much traveling and early mornings in Rome, we took a much needed break from sight seeing; we worked on talks for our retreat in a few weeks, as well as caught up on a little sleep.

Then to town we went! Florence is very picturesque. We enjoyed the lovely autumn-like weather there. It was so nice to be able to shed some of our many layers.

As we were wondering the streets, we came across a large leather flee market. We greatly admired all of the handcrafted bags, belts, and other leather goods, all made locally and from local leather. We had to ward off an all to eager salesman; he offered to give us over fifty percent off the belts that we were looking at, but we were slightly wary of his ability to give us such a generous discount at the drop of the hat. We told him we would come back after looking around. On our way back, we tried to avoid him, but we saw him sitting in a cafe while on a break. We made eye contact. It was awkward.

We were also able to take a look inside the courtyard of the Church of San Lorenzo. There was an orange tree filled with yummy looking oranges.

We then ate some bread, cheese, salami and a pear for dinner. This has been our go-to meal for practically our entire trip. It has been a nice inexpensive way to feed ourselves. However the baguettes here aren’t nearly as fresh as in Rome and we’re thinking we may have to come up with some new food ideas for when we’re in Spain.

Ciao!

❤ i&k

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Yesterday, we went to the church of St. Paul Outside the Walls. This church is called “outside the walls” because it is outside the city near where Paul was executed, this was because no executions took place inside the city of the living. It is also the 4th papal church and is where St. Paul’s tomb is currently kept! Along the inside walls of the church, at the top, are pictures of all the popes, the spotlight being on Pope Francis, since he is the current pope. We also discovered, on our way out, that the pope had decreed that pilgrims who come to visit this church are blessed with a plenary indulgence, provided of course, that all the criteria for a plenary indulgence are met in addition to visiting the church. We definitely ceased this opportunity! What a magnificent church it is!

Today, we went to a general audience with Pope Francis!!! WHAT!!?! Words cannot express the utter joy and peace we felt! We got an early start, the audience was at 10:00 am, we were told by the Swiss guard to get to the square by 8 a.m. So, what did we do? We left at about 6 am, naturally. We wanted to be sure we would get good seats, to be as close to Pope Francis as possible. We were a little frightened by the stories we had heard of people being super pushy, and seeming like they had elbows made of knives when it came to being close to the pope!

After waiting in line for a good while, we were allowed into St. Peter’s Square, we hurried to find some seats. The seats we got were perfect! We were right up against the isle the Holy Father was to pass through! We literally could not have gotten better seats.

During our two hour wait, we met an older couple from Spain. It was so much fun to talk with them (in Spanish) and tell them that we too would be traveling to Spain soon! Making friends in Europe is so much fun, we’ve been meeting the coolest people!

Finally, it was time! The crowd pushed in. People were getting stepped on. Two young American girls right behind us apologized in advance for possibly falling on top of us. They were standing in front of a few nuns who are the pushiest of all when it comes to seeing the pope. We tried to make room for them to squeeze in with us so they would be close also.

It’s difficult to explain what we felt when Pope Francis drove by. We were right close to him! We couldn’t quite lean over to touch him, but we were close! We could feel his saintly presence and we were bursting with joy!

After he drove by and went up to the front, a passage from the bible was read in many different languages, then Pope Francis gave his address, which was also summarized in various languages, and then his papal blessing, which extended to us, the holy objects we had with us, and our families back at home. ❤

After the audience, we got some pasta for lunch and then, from the recommendations of our friends Nik and Reggie, went to Old Bridge for gelato! This gelato was absolutely amazing, gelato in general is really good, but wow – this was so good! Kathleen got a cone with pistachio & ricotta, blueberry, and yogurt & sweet candy. Ivana got a cup with pistachio & ricotta, chocolate with hazelnut (it had actually hazelnuts in it), and caramel. Yum!

Ciao!

❤ i&k

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Assisi looks like it came out of a movie. A small little town built on the top of a hill, it is probably one of the most picturesque places that we have visited yet. We took a day trip there today.

Our first stop was lunch, we were both starving. We went to I Monici, a restaurant that Matthew had recommended to us. We had to go half-way up the stone staircase next to the building to get inside. They were just opening so we had the place almost entirely to ourselves. For lunch we split a pizza, the I Monici; it had tomato sauce and mozzarella on a thin pizza crust that was baked until the cheese was melty and delicious. Then the chef put dollops of ricotta cheese which had been mixed with sautéed spinach on top. It was a delightful mix of warm pizza and fresh tasting ricotta cheese, definitely one of our favorite eats by far in Italy.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the town, there were so many winding paths and staircases, it was amazing that we didn’t get terribly lost… although it was so small, getting lost may not have actually been possible. The first place we went to was the Basilica of St. Francis, this church actually has two churches on top of each other as well as St. Francis’s tomb underneath. This multi-layer church is possible because it was build into the side of the hill. The main basilica is breathtaking, each side chapel is filled with prominent Franciscan saints as well as one special one to Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

The tomb of St. Francis was very peaceful. We were able to sit for a while and pray for all of our intentions. All of St. Francis’s companions are buried in the tomb as well. As we were leaving, several nuns came in to pray, they were so cute in their habits. 🙂

Next, we went to the church that was St. Francis’s home. It was quite small especially compared to his basilica, but we were able to see the small hole where his father had imprisoned him, because Francis was giving away his things and his father thought he had lost his mind. Neither one of us could have fit in there even semi-comfortably, so we couldn’t imagine how Francis, a grown man, fit in there.

The last church that we visited was the Basilica of St. Clare. This church was also quite large, but it had a small beautiful side chapel where the blessed sacrament was kept. It was nice to escape there from the whirlwind of tourists and tours that were happening within the church at the same time. Down in the crypt were the bones of St. Clare, they are kept behind a statue of St. Clare in her death. The back side of the statue, however is hollow and her actual bones are exposed, but only able to be viewed by the Poor Clare Sisters. In the crypt there were also many second class relics from St. Clare and St. Francis, their original garments as well as many pieces of clothing that St. Clare made for St. Francis after he received the stigmata.

We finished the day by climbing to the top of the hill that Assisi was built on to the fortress called Rocca Maggiore, that is at the top. There was an amazing view, and it was a great place to sit down and rest after a full day of walking around.

We got stuck on the train again on the way home and that was hard, but what a lovely day to remember our time in Italy by.

Ciao!

❤ i&k

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Yesterday was another day filled with many blessings! We got to visit the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, and the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Santa Maria Maggiore is believed to have the actual manger which Jesus was lain in when he was an infant. San Giovanni in Laterano is the church where the Holy Father presides as the bishop of Rome. Santa Maria and San Giovanni are two of the four papal churches in Rome.

San Giovanni

Santa Maria

Santa Croce

We were also able to climb the Santa Scala. This staircase is believed to be the actual stairs which Jesus ascended on his way to Pontius Pilot. They are covered with wood now, but you can still put your hands through and touch the original marble. These stairs can only be ascended on your knees – it really helped get us in the Lenten mindset!

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme is believed to carry parts of the real cross that Christ died upon! It was such a blessing to be able to visit the beautiful churches and feel so close to God.

Today, it is Sunday! For Mass, we joined Kathleen’s friend, Matthew, at the NAC (North American College) for Mass. It was absolutely beautiful! As would be expected, it was filled with seminarians and priests. We appreciated attending Mass in English and it seemed like we were transported to Heaven for a bit! The reverence in which the Mass was prayed and the absolutely amazingly gorgeous music really helped us pray and remind us of why we were here in the first place.

The view from the top of the NAC

Traveling really takes a lot of energy and sometimes it is really easy to get discouraged and frustrated. All that is needed sometimes is for us to refocus on God, which an event like a beautiful Mass or a majestic church can do for us. It is then that we are reminded of God’s breathtaking beauty and how much we desire Him and hope to grow closer to Him through this trip.

After Mass, we went to St. Peter’s square to pray the angelus with Pope Francis! This was another absolutely beautiful experience. Although the Holy Father was very far above us and we could not see him so very well, it was amazing to be able to pray with him there. We could feel his fatherly love and holiness pouring down upon us. It was an experience that is difficult to explain, but all we can say is that our Holy Pontiff is a vey holy man!

After the angelus, we enjoyed a rustic pie – it’s a pizza dish that has a top crust on it, forming a pizza pie, hence the name. 😉 It was delicious! Kathleen ordered one with prosciutto and cheese in it, and Ivana ordered one with tomato and mozzarella.

Well, that’s it for now!

Ciao,
❤ i&k