Stanford Student Letters and Memoirs

Evening - Feb. 3rd

We are soon to leave for the opera - La Forza del Destino.

We had an outdoor tour of Renaissance and Baroque Rome this morning. Mostly architecture and some art. The guide was the best of the 3 who are all fine scholars. As we stopped before rather ordinary looking buildings which were actually palaces of old leading families, cardinals or Popes, he would point out architectural details which brought the building and the style to life for us. It was really vastly educational. Among the finest buildings were the Palazza Farnesi by Bramante. The classic work of perfect Renaissance architecture and the masterpiece from which most of our ideas of architectural form and balance are formed. Saw the old Roman Pantheon whose dome was the model which inspired Fermante's design of the dome of St. Peters.

At 11:15 we cut our tour short to catch a bus for St. Peters and the Papal audience. Our audience didn't turn out to be a private one as it had been for the second group last year. Instead we were ushered into a huge hall about 50 feet wide and several hundred feet long with an aisle down the center and standing room on each side. The crowd numbered between 2-3000 and several nationalities. We were fortunate to get a position only 2 or 3 people from the aisle so that when John went by he was only 6-8 feet away. The event was much different in spirit from what I had anticipated. Instead of kneeling in silence when the procession entered, the people clapped and cheered enthusiastically almost as we might do for Joe Dimaggio or some such figure in America. I understand that this is a change requested by John himself. With Pius XII, silent kneeling was expected. The procession was short but colorful. Swiss guards in bright blue and gold uniforms with Trojan-type helmets, And carrying medieval pikes came in front and rear with church officials - not cardinals but translators and assistants. The Pope was carried on an open chair stand supported by eight bearers dressed in colorful red uniforms of French court style. John seemed to set the tone of the occasion, happy, jolly, etc. He smiled at everyone as he passed and when he spoke, was vigorous and spoke quickly and enthusiastically with many gestures, quite informal in spirit. The translators then read similar messages in French, English, German and Spanish and he said a closing blessing and the procession went out. Total time perhaps 30-45 minutes and a very interesting experience.

Then we went to see St Peters itself. Its primary impression is size. It is, of course, the largest church in the world - 30 yards longer than St. Pauls of London which is second. Total length of main hall about 200 yards. It is also proportionally high, dominated at the crossing of the halls by the dome. The columns are of marble - about 20x12 feet each. Very diametric and contain niches for huge sculptured figures. The ceiling is decorated in gold and is quite bearable at that height whereas if it were lower, it would seem overornate. The whole inside is quite overwhelming as it was intended. It is more awesome than beautiful and one can only take it for a certain amount of time before it seems excessive and grandiose. The most disturbing thought when viewing such magnficence is how many empty stomachs it cost to pay for building it.

Later we splurged and rented a horse carriage for an hour's ride. Passed the Font of Trevi and Spanish steps, up to the beautiful Borghese Gardens for a view of the city and a ride through the Gardens. We got off there to view the city and watch the sunset. It went down exactly behind the dome of St. Peters and I hope I have a perfect picture of that.

We were all so tird and sleepy that we hardly enjoyed the opera afterward.

26. 1. 60

Dear Folks,

Another epistle from Deutschland, though this time with not much dramatic news of exotic weekend travels - for this time I stayed home. Went Friday into Stuttgart for a day of shopping and walking - mostly just unexciting necessities - cords, Kleenex, shoe polish, etc, and enough of this stationery to last until June I hope (I've used up the box I brought with me already!). Stopped off in Beutelsbach on the way back to buy a few postcards and to get a haircut (my first in 6 weeks!) and made it only 15 minutes late to dinner after losing the path in the dark and climbing straight straight up the side of the muddy hill.

Saturday morning was wash-day, very unexciting. Then after lunch I went with one of the girls from here down to Beutelsbach to visit a family which we met briefly one Sunday morning (3 weeks ago) after church. We just sort of dropped in and they made us warmly welcome, fed us cookies and berry juice, then later coffe and cakes, and gave us more cake to take with us as we reluctantly departed about 5:40 to go to dinner. We talked constantly, about mutual friends in earlier groups on the Burg, about the war, about all sorts of little things. This family, the Krauters, has a girl about 14, and a boy about 8, and is well acquainted and very hospitable toward Stanford students. I'm going back down this week to photograph young Fritz in a Stanford T shirt which a girl from Group II sent him for Christmas. And more visits will follow later, I imagine.

Sunday morning I went to church at the Evangelischekirche and then went with another girl to spend the day with another family, the Fabriz family. He is an engineer (Herr Krauter a book keeper) and they are fairly well off by Beutelsbach standards - a nice home, car, piano lessons for the kids (2 girls, 1 boy ranginf from about 8 - 14), etc. He sings in the church choir and the family is quite religious as are most German families I think, though many less so than the Fabriz family. We had a marvelous day - ate lunch (the big meal of the day here) and coffee together, sat around and talked and laughed a lot, watched the girls put on an impromptu puppet show which was remarkably polished and imaginative.

Oh, I have left out one big event - the Ball of Nations Saturday night. This is one of the big student dances of the year in Stuttgart and about 8 couples of us went from the Burg. And it was a Ball in the old sense - a really big splash, gay, gaudy, marvelous. They held it in the Liedenhalle - the main foor of the main concert hall had the seats removed and was mostly filled with tables (1/4 of space a dance floor, and also a beautiful rock garden with 15' tree and a bubbling water fountain, right in the middle of the concert hall!). Also the foyer was lined with tables, both upstairs and down, and the smaller concert hall was also transformed - 1/3 dance floor 2/3 tables. The attendance was huge - about 2000. There were 3 bands (all excellent music) playing simultaneously all evening (8 pm-4 am!) - one in each concert hall, one in the foyer. Also stage entertainment in the large hall each hour - mostly student talent. But even more dramatic than the ball itself were the European girls and their clothes. They dressed beautifully, dramatically, colorfully, with a real flare, and they all know how to carry themselves so that their clothes look good on them. There were dresses of every color, all gay and beautiful - we spent half our time watching them wander about. It was a gay evening and we surely hated to leave at 1 am to take a bus back to the Burg - the party was just half over by then.

Well, we leave this Saturday for our big trip to Rome, so my next letters will be more crammed with news. Stay in Rome until Thursday night, then back to Florence for Friday and Saturday (not as a group but on our own) and to Milan Sunday. One big surprise to me is that will will very probably have a 1/2 hour private audience with Pope John XXIII! And so much to see and do too. Next big letter from Italy!

My mostest love to you all, George

(Keep sending Tuck's letters - he isn't.)