Mamma Mia, This Trip is Finito

Don't cry because it's over, be joyful because it happened."
- Modern Proverb

After spending quality time with in-laws, Nadine and I decided to spend our remaining time solely in Roma exploring as much as we could in 5 days, and meeting up with Monseigneur Dan from Tulsa and Brother Dominic Sassi who I met in Peru as a volunteer.

We arrived from Cinque Terre into Roma with immediate plans to attend a Papal audience and meet one of the future successors to the Pope, Monseigneur Dan.

With the help of Brother Kevin, he set us up with tickets to the Papal audience with the explicit directions to ask for Eugenio at the newstand just outside of St. Peter's Square located on the right, not the one on the left not the one inside the square. It couldn't be Oregano or Giovanni either, it had to be Eugenio. So we strode up to the very friendly Eugenio standing among his magazines as he handed us an envelope with 2 tickets to the audience. I can say that I understood 33% of what the Pope said. The part in English, French, and Spanish, I understood pretty well. Can't say I understood as well the Polish and German.

While Nadine and I studied long and hard at the University of Tulsa, Msgr Dan was chaplain at the Newman Center and was directly responsible for aiding our interest in travelling by taking us to Guatemala and Europe on service and educational trips. His current position has him in Rome working for the North American College and 171 seminarians. And this is all within a stone's throw of St. Peter's. Not too bad of a locale. Being the ever busy person he is, he still made time to meet up with us for lunch and show us around the school, and the great views from the college.

Right to Left: Nadine, Baby, Msgr Dan (future Pope), Me, and St. Peter's

Compared to any other city so far, Rome without a doubt has the most history, sites, along with the combo of culture that has you running around in circles visiting them and then teases you with another dozen within a 5 block radius yet to discover.

My first time to Rome was back in 2000, and I saw what felt like hundreds of sites, but I still missed out on major ones like the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the insides of the Pantheon and the Coliseum, Galleria Borghese, and the Piazza di Popolo. So with 5 days to explore, these were on the top of my list as well as adequately walking around some classics, St. Peter's and Castel Sant'Angelo (made popular in one of Dan Brown's book).

Pantheon Ceiling

During these 5 days, all 2 and a half of us walked all over central Roma with the nagging feeling that we had to get to as much as possible since we were at the very end of our 9 month 5 day voyage around the world. I think we can safely say that we saw as much as possible in our alloted 5 days, unless of course we hadn't slept or stopped for all of Nadine's bathroom breaks, then we could have seen a little more.

We also more religious to visit in addition to all of the Roman sites and Msgr Dan. While living and volunteering in Chimbote, Peru, I had met Brother Dominic Sassi, and he mentioned that if I was ever in Rome where he lives, to come by and see him. So we did. We also stayed with him and all of the Brothers blocks away from the Vatican. Brother Kevin, an Australian with an odd accent of someone from England, Ireland, and a bit of Aussie thrown in, took it upon himself to show us the ropes of the area. He pointed us in the right direction. That right direction was towards the gelateria.

Final International State of the Belly

Just as our time quickly ended in Rome, we were on a train to Zurich, Switzerland to catch our final flight back to the great state of Texas. But before we could call it an end to our adventures, we had to have one more light adventure. As we sat by Lake Zurich with lunch from a local supermarket, Nadine ate her sandwich and I ate olives with something other than the pit in the middle. Before I realized what I had consumed, I had downed 7 large green olives with an entire clove of garlic inside. You can only imagine the smell that began to waft from my pores. Still not as bad as a New Mexican locked in a car in the heat of summer. The full effects of the garlic cloves weren't truly "smelt" until the next morning as we waited to check in our bags. The garlic had overpowered the minty freshness of my toothpaste and required immediate attention. I ran over to the newsstand and spent my remaining euros on gum to mask my garlic breath. In duty free, I showered in Hugo Boss cologne to defer people's attention from my mouth. Fortunately my bad breath didn't prevent us from boarding the plane and passing through immigration back in Dallas.

We are now in the United States of America. Nadine is in Omaha and I am in Odessa. We will spend Easter with our respective parents, before embarking on a grand tour of the Midwest with stops in San Angelo, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Tulsa, before heading north to Omaha. You should check to see if there are still ticket and seats available.

Within the week, we will post our best of enty with the best of everything from around the world.

This may be a short entry, but there are still a few left

Peace
JW