Ciao!

We're on the last day of our Roman-Spain tour. We're back in Rome for a couple more meals - I mean days, of course - and then we're back to the States tomorrow. Allowing for a couple days of jet-lag, I should be blogging again by mid-week.

It's been an amazing trip. Holy and awe-inspiring and God-haunted. And weird. I've been sick for the whole two weeks. In a handful of different ways, usually all at once. And we ran out of money once because of dysfunctional cash machines in backwoods Spain. And we were accosted by drunken gypsies in Leon. And then there was the hotel which lost our booking. And then, the airline that lost our luggage. Which still hasn't appeared.

I waited a lot. Waiting is my lot in life.

But mostly it has been wonderful.

We were in St. Peter's Square kind of accidentally this morning amidst the 350,000 religious movement folks celebrating Pentecost with the Pope. We just wanted to get our religious articles blessed, but then we were swallowed up in the crowd. In a flash, I got separated from my friends, and then spent the next three hours being jostled around by what seemd to be mostly European pilgrims...which, I admit, gave me a whole new, and not necessarily jolly sense of 'religious movements.'

I did have a few moments of, "Wow, the Church is amazingly big and universal!!" But more of the time I was marveling at the way Europeans can shove their way over, around and past anyone who happens to be standing where they want to go! At one point I was sure I was going to be trampled to death against a colonade between a group of Dutch folks and some Poles. Hopefully, before Christ returns, the Italian/Vatican authorities will figure out how to do crowd control at the Vatican.

I am eager to get back to the States. As I understand that there were millions and millions of evangelistic opportunities provided by Christians to the Da Vinci Code, I am giddy that maybe I won't even recognize the U.S. anymore. Maybe, the whole country has already been assumed into heaven!

(So, two weeks in Europe haven't completely redeemed the caustic wit... Which will be an immense relief to some of you, and a source of teeth-gnashing to others!)

Gotta run. There is time to eat a couple more artichokes surely...

Ciao!