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Page 18 text:
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FRIBOURG A strange tense excitement filled our hearts as the HMS MAURETANIA bellowed forth her final plaintive whistle of farewell to America. Pressed against the deck railing, we anxiously scanned the bleak horizon for one last loving look at the majestic lady who guards our home port. This was it — that long-awaited day when we were to set out on the high seas for our junior year abroad. The six and a half days that followed were wondrous ones, filled with tangy salt spray and fresh ocean winds. How young and gay were our hearts as we hustled down the gang plank in Cork, Ireland! We jogged in pony carts through the streets of Cork, vigorously kissed the Blarney Stone, and danced the Irish jig in Killarney. Shakespeare emerged from the text-book and became a living, breathing man when we visited his shrine at Stratford-on-Avon. A grim realization of the futility of war came to us as we gazed on the bomb ruins of London. A day of gliding in a touring boat through the canals of old Amsterdam was brought to a boisterous finish as we clomped around our hotel rooms in our newly- purchased wooden shoes. It was in Brussels that we stammered out our first feeble phrases in French a ramericaine. In Bruges, Belgium, we marvelled, saucer-eyed, at the deftly-flying fingers of the lace-makers. Suddenly we realized with a start that our first month of travel was over and that the next stop was home, the Villa des Fougeres, in Fribourg, Switzerland. For us, Fribourg will ever hold a wealth of warm and joyful memories. Nestled in the rolling hills between the Alps and the Jura mountains, it embraces the old and the new in a fantastic pattern. Strolling along the modern boulevard of Perolles, one can see on the surrounding hills the three remaining towers of the medieval town walls; to- day little girls in bobby socks playfully sprinkle one another with water at the same public fountain where mothers did the family laundry four hundred years ago! Centrally located in town, the Villa is, from the outside, a storybook Swiss chalet. But one need only open the front door a wee crack, and it is immediately evident that here lies a bit of the U.S.A. Somewhere a ping-pong ball bounces ceaselessly, the tempting aroma of hamburgers frying fills the air (thanks to Sister Paulina, O.P., the Villa's culinary genius), and Bing Crosby croons in the distance. There is Sister George, the Villa Mom, watching carefully and lovingly over her brood of noisy chicks, and chiding them, with a twinkle in her eye, when she hears English in her maison fran- caise. Sister Cinthia, Sister Marie Michele, Sister Annora, and Mademoiselle Bessaud are all there, each adding in her own individual way to the charm and gaiety which is Fougeres. All classes are held in French, both at the Villa and at the University, and more than several days passed before that magic door swung open and we began to compre- hend. The University, where most of us attended some classes, is startling with its modern architectural lines. It was here that we became acquainted with students from more than fifteen different nations, and learned that international peace and friendship could be more than a naive, idealistic dream.
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Page 19 text:
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December twenty-eighth found us chugging up through the snow-covered Alps in a little mountain train on our way to Wengen for a week of winter sports. Bursting with vim and vigor, we held up traffic on the ski trails, tea-danced in our dainty ski boots, and welcomed the New Year at a formal ball. March brought the mid-semester vacation, and in a frenzy of excitement we set off for a month's trip in sunny Italy. Venice, with its graceful gondolas and its basilica of San Marco, still floats through our day dreams. Our lovely rooms at the Dominican Villa Schifanoia in Florence were a luxurious haven after days of sight-seeing in this city of art treasures. Early one morning in Assisi, we made a pilgrimage on foot to the hermitage of St. Francis; Mass that morning was particularly moving in the humble rock chapel that he had built. No one could have prepared us sufficiently for the splendor of St. Peter's in Rome. As Our Holy Father smiled and gathered us all in with his majestic, but humble blessing, we realized that this moment alone would have made our year full and complete. The days of the second semester, highlighted by a memorable trip to Oberam- mergau, Germany, to witness the Passion Play, slipped from our grasp. With a strange mingling of sadness at leaving Fribourg and joy at the prospect of the next month of travel which was to terminate in New York, we packed our suitcases for the last time. Final farewells are never easy to say, but our hearts were filled with gratitude to those who had given us our golden year in Fribourg. We breathed deeply of the charm of old Spain in the lovely classical city of Barcelona, and again in the bustling capital, Madrid. Several days spent in the simple town of Lourdes brought new life to our faith as we knelt at the grotto of Our Lady and witnessed the beautiful blessing of the sick in the piazza before the basilica. Our final twelve days in Paris were the cherry on the sundae. During those happy days rhe Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the cathedral of Notre Dame, the Arch of Triumph be- came cherished friends. On delightful late-summer afternoons we strolled through the lovely Luxembourg Gardens, window-shopped along the fabulous Rue de la Paix, and wandered through the winding, atmospheric streets of the Latin Quarter. Excitement ran high as we boarded the train for Cherbourg, where the QUEEN ELIZABETH was waiting to carry us home at last! It was an extraordinary sensation, that commotion in our hearts. We felt our- selves strangely suspended between two loves. But on the final morning of our voyage, we were filled with a wonderful reassuring peace as our straining eyes first caught sight of a wondrous Greek figure, her torch held high in welcome, silhouetted against a gray-blue sky.
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