Making jam

We are watching my little cousins for a few days, so I am taking the opportunity to pass of the joy of jam making to the younger generation, or rather, the younger half of my generation. We are currently suffering the "problem" of too many tomatoes at my house, so we are making lots of relish and tomato jam. With the little girls, though, I made jalapeno jam. The recipe calls it jelly, but it isn't jelly, it's jam.

They were such a joy to work with. They chopped everything themselves, without any complaining about how long it took. The only negative part was when J squirted herself in the eye with jalapeno juice, but I would cry too, and I'm not nine years old. I rinsed her out with the sprayer in the kitchen sink and she kept on going.

Here are a few pictures. Since neither girl is mine, I won't post pictures where you can really see their faces. If you know me in person, you can see the rest on my facebook page.

 They wanted to see the sugar soak up the vinegar, so they waited to stir until it was all absorbed.

 I had the idea that soaking a paper towel in milk would help J's eye. I don't think it did, but it did bring some amusement to an otherwise bad scenario.

This is our yield, minus the half-pint jar that C took home. We didn't sterilize enough jars, so we had to use a pint jar that didn't get used for relish.

Rome, Day 2

To catch up, I'm going to have to post a little more frequently. Don't expect this to continue!

 I think the Rome metro looks like a tapeworm. I'm sorry. It does.

 Pope Leo, founder of CUA, hanging out in St. John Lateran. Is there a reason he always looks like he's playing with an invisible yo-yo? I would like to know.

 So much gold! Why exactly we went to Mass at St. John on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul is not clear to me, but apparently it's a Holy Day of Obligation in Rome, so it's a good thing we went, even if we picked a strange church to do it in.

 On our way to another church, we saw this trail through the straw that a bunch of ants had made.

 This is Santa Cruce, I believe. It's hard for me to tell because I have no pictures from inside it.

 Kevin, reading the map. A common occurrence.

 I forget which church this is, but it is covered in mosaics so I automatically love it.

 St. Sophie, virgin and martyr! My self-adopted patron saint. Her relics are in a little church in Rome near St. Mary major.

 See that underground basement part? That's where the relics were kept. We couldn't find them, so we had to ask a Benedictine (in Italian!) who unlocked it for us and let us go down. Don't be worried by the lit candles. We didn't interrupt Mass; they were setting up for a baptism.

 Cardinal Wuerl's church was unfortunately shut.

St. Paul outside the Walls is my favorite church ever. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

 The pictures fail to do it justice, really. It's so large, and so gold, and so overwhelming.

 The Forum.

The Colosseum! Photo credit goes to a kind fellow tourist.

Wow, I got all of day two into one post! Let me tell you, it was an exhausting day. We saw tons of churches I didn't take pictures of and walked miles and miles.

Next up: Sunday!

So far behind! Rome, Day 1

On blogging, that is. In terms of schoolwork, the library books I ordered come in tomorrow and I am going to print out my online articles today, so I'm in good shape there. I hope. Due to IES program requirements, I have to turn in my paper five weeks early, so I can only hope that in two weeks I can get a paper up to the standards for a paper everyone else has seven weeks to write. But what can't be cured must be endured, and I am resigned to the (very real) possibility that I may well not get an A in this class.

I still haven't posted the Rome pictures, and I went to Berlin and those pictures aren't even sorted. So here, without further ado, is a substantial dump of Rome pictures. I think it will take several posts to get through them, so here is day 1.

We arrived on Friday at about 2, and went to go check into our hostel. I had been worried about it, because the internet reviews were not stellar, but let me tell you, it was great. For 20E/night, I have zero complaints.

 This is Kevin's favorite bridge in Rome. Perhaps he will be so kind as to remind me in the comments of what it is called.

 First view of the Vatican! We followed the advice of a CUA philosophy professor--if you come at St. Peter's from one stop farther than the tourists go, you get this amazing view as your first view.

 Roman pigeons love to do this. I don't know why.

 The day was so good from a weather perspective it was hard to get photos! The sky kept getting blown out.

 Us at the Vatican. For a tourist selfie, this turned out pretty well!

 It was St. Peter and Paul on the Saturday, so St. Peter got a lovely robe, and if you donated some money to Peter's Pence, they gave you a holy card! So I did, at basically every church we went into.

 Isn't it every Catholic girl's dream for her boyfriend to take her to Rome and then find a photo op with a Swiss guard?

 Because our minds cannot always be set on the eternal, I offer you this photo of a seagull eating a dead something. This is probably on of my top five favorite photos from this weekend. Analyze away, armchair psychiatrists! (I spelled that correctly on the first try. Exhibit A of why everyone should study ancient Greek.)

 There is a specific spot in the square, and if you stand there, all the columns line up. For those of you who are thinking, "Wait, did they not before?", I offer you the next shot:

 This is what I saw when I turned around to look at the other side. Apparently they don't usually appear to line up. I would make a terrible detective--I'm so unobservant!

 The bridge, again, from the other side. Or maybe it was a different bridge. Kevin?

 The Pantheon.

Apparently every other tourist in the world wound up at the Trevi fountain at night. I don't like crowds, so I took a picture from the side, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Next installement will be either the pictures from Saturday or half of the pictures from Saturday. We did a lot of stuff. (Note: I have asked Kevin to comment and fill in my blanks, but obviously other readers are free to do the same, or to straight up correct me if I got something wrong.)

June Bible Verse Photo Challenge

I am squeaking in just under the wire here, because I forgot that the link-up was this weekend, so I went and scheduled a trip to Rome. I didn't have time to take a special picture, so here is a preview of my Rome photos. Given that there are over 500 to sort through, the rest may be a while in coming.

This month's verse is: "It is you who light my lamp; the LORD, my God, lights up my darkness." Psalm 18:28

So, bright, and religious? Hmm. With this weekend's weather, that wasn't so hard! And as a bonus, you get three photos.

Irritatingly, the photo that best fits the quote is not a good photo. This flame has been burning since...2005? I think. Pope Benedict lit it. Since it is kept behind glass, so no silly toddlers or immature atheists can blow it out, I didn't get a very good photo of it. So here are two more photos, which are sort of lacking in the darkness quotient, but still (I think) worth posting.

 This first photo, of course, is St. Peter's in the Vatican. Obviously a must-see for a Catholic visiting Rome. I have to admit, though, that I found it a rather stressful place, because there are sooooo many crowds. Not only were we there on the weekend of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, we were there on the weekend where entrance to the Vatican museums are free. And the weather was beautiful. And we went to the Angelus with Pope Francis. So there were vast quantities of people, and that is not my favorite thing.

This is my favorite thing! St. Paul Outside the Walls is my new favorite church ever. It has passed the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC in my eyes. I have no idea why it was so impressive, but when I walked in I started crying. If I hadn't already been a Catholic I would have converted then and there, I think.

More photos to come!

If you want to add your photo, go to Flowers Round the Cross and add your link--I haven't given you much warning, but at the time of this post you have nearly nine hours. So, ready, set, go!

Prepping and packing

...because I can't think of anything better to do the week after three days in the hospital than take a 5am train to a city full of food you can't eat, can you? Seriously, though, I am so excited. I am going to get to see the pope, and get him to bless my rosary! (And some other stuff, but those are presents, so shhhh.) I'm solving the food problem by bringing nuts and hard-boiled eggs with me, and on Sunday night I'll probably scrap the gluten-free diet for the evening so I can eat pasta carbonara.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity, since all my friends are leaving. We went out to dinner several times, which left rather more of a hole in my pocket than I thought it would, and we spent an evening at a carnival. As my friend Alex said, "On a scale of one to Mexico, how safe do you think this is?"

There were several typical carnival rides, but there were no rules about how to behave on them. So people were standing up on the swing boats. On the swing merry-go-round, you will notice that my friends are facing me in several pictures. This is because they twisted up their chains before the ride started, and then shoved and pushed each other to make sure they kept spinning for the whole ride.

It was a good evening, or rather set of evenings, and a fun week. After I get back from Rome, though, it will be nice to relax a little bit.

Oldtimerlinie!

Ok, now I'm all caught up. Or I will be, once I'm done this post.

This is what we did last Saturday: rode ancient streetcars. Once a month during the summer, the old streetcars get pulled out of storage and driven around, and you can ride them for free.

 This one is from 1959, I believe.

 Some nice old ladies offered to take our picture getting on. I put the camera back on auto for them, and the sky is all blown out. Yay.

 Wood paneling inside! How classy.

 The ride was free, but you could buy a souvenir ticket for 2E, so we did.

 Standing in the rain, waiting to switch to the other old streetcar.

 This one is from 1929.

 10 DM if you ride without a ticket!

 The handles to hold onto are made of wood, and those strings are leather cords, to pull to signal the train to stop.

 Here's the front of the 1929 train.

 Waiting in the rain again.

 I love old signs. But I can't imagine the uproar if a streetcar today had seats reserved for "severely damaged" people!