Adventures in Spain: Is this real life?

The theme of my semester seems to be disbelief; "is this real life?" is a common thought that I have when I'm traveling, reflecting, or just walking around. For instance, I just went to Rome for four days and had an absolutely amazing time. Then I returned to Granada on Tuesday, went to class on Wednesday, and today I have one class and then it's the celebration for Día de la Cruz (Day of the Cross) this afternoon. Tomorrow morning we leave for Nerja, a coastal city in Spain, where we are staying for two days for (cough, cough) academic excursions. Where was I....oh yes. Rome!

We were able to fit a lot into four days in the city: pizza, pasta, gelato, the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Basilica, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and beautiful walks around town. The Vatican Museum is an immensely impressive collection of art that ranges from busts of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses to mummies to Rafael and Michaelangelo to Christian Modern Art. Supposedly, if you spend one minute in front of every piece in the museum you would be there for thirteen years! The last stop on the tour was the Sistine Chapel. It's beautiful, of course - an absolutely amazing work of art - but when you've just walked through hallways and rooms that are literally covered with frescos it's not exactly a surprise to see the chapel filled with art too. St. Peter's Basilica is definitely the most awesome church I have ever been in (and I've been in lots and lots of churches). It's magnificent. There are letters bordering the upper walls inside that say "TV ES PETRVS ET SVPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM. TIBI DABO CLAVES REGNI CAELORVM" ("...you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven..."). Each letter stands a full 2 meters tall, or 6'6". The Chapel of the Pieta just inside the narthex houses Michaelangelo's famous Pieta, a sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus after his death. I could go on and on about the awesomeness of the basilica...it's just so cool. When we were there on Saturday I tried really hard to figure out the mass schedule for Sunday. I asked several Italian guards who spoke broken English, and I got several different answers regarding timing. Then one of them mentioned that there was a special mass with the Pope at some point in the day, and based on a general consensus of my polling I derived the time of this mass: 9am. At this point I was on a mission. Another guard mentioned a ticket that I needed to have if I wanted to get in, and sent me outside to the "bronze doors" to ask about it. When I got outside I asked the post office (yes, there's a post office inside St. Peter's Square right outside the basilica) and they told me I had to go back inside to the "bronze doors" to get my free ticket, which meant waiting in line again to get back in. So I did. Then I asked at the infamous bronze doors and they told me there were no more tickets left. Ay caramba. But don't worry, the story is just getting started.

play-by-play action:
On Sunday morning I leave our hostel at 6:30am and arrive at St. Peter's Square at 7am, just in time to start lining up. At this point, based on the extremely clear information I had received the day before, I am thinking that there is mass a 8am. Since I don't have a ticket for the special mass at 9am (I think), I figure I would at least get in for the earlier mass and then maybe hang around outside afterwards. My friends told me the day before that I should look for ticket scalpers to try to get in. Not sure that works for church, but at least it was a thoughtful idea.
So, I'm standing in line and it's almost 8am. There's a large Italian family gathering in line right in front of me, and I see that they all have tickets. I ask one of the guys if he knows if there are any more tickets anywhere, and he replies "Family only." Based on his few others words of English, it becomes apparent to me that there will be priests being ordained during this mass and that his tickets are for the family of these to-be-priests. Which doesn't offer me any hopeful prospects. A little after 8am the line starts moving to go through the metal detectors and enter the church, and I still don't have a ticket.
I'm almost to the metal detectors when I turn to my left and see a little nun dressed in her habit standing there clutching a ticket. So I decide I have nothing to lose. I ask her about the ticket, but she doesn't appear to understand English or Spanish. Then she motions for me to stay still, turns around and signals to a friend located slightly farther back in the line. The friend (also a nun, I assume) doesn't say a word, but reaches into her bag, pulls out an extra ticket, and passes it up. This is my ticket. I say "Grazie, grazie" (thank you, thank you), pretty much the only Italian I know (and I'm not even sure this nun was Italian) and almost start to cry. They are letting people in without tickets, but they had to stand along the sides of the church where you can't see anything, behind walls that blocked off the center. But thanks to my new best friend I now have a ticket, so I get a complementary missalette and an excellent seat. I suppose ticket scalping for mass with the Pope works within the economy of God's love.
That is the story of how I got to go to mass with Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Anything else I talk about now will be overshadowed by the fact that I somehow went to mass with the Pope, so I'm just going to leave you with some pictures and say that my last trip outside of Spain for the semester was a phenomenal one. I can't believe this was real life!