Italy

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

Even short people are allowed to be nuns in Italy

Greetings all from Bella Italia, home of the best food in the world. Our travels in the last week have carried us across three continents and the same amount of countries as we now seat here in Cinque Terre.

Our time in South Africa passed by in a flash compared to our 5 month stint in Asia, but in order to end our time, we had to leave. We thus began a lengthy 28 hour travel marathon. Instead of bussing it up to Joburg from Cape Town, we paid the money to save 26 hours of being on a bus in exchange for 2 hours on a plane. Great deal. The next flight was the nicest one we've had on the trip, an United Emirate plane to Dubai stock full of free drinks, video games, and all the music you could want, and this all includes leg room.

We touched down in Dubai as the onset of fatigue from a sleepless night playing Tetris crept up. I sleptwalk onto our next plane headed for Milan and slept a solid 2 hours on the 6 hour flight, a rarity. With one last flight, we were in Roma . . . but only long enough to catch a train on to Florence where we were set to meet up with Nadine's mom, Clare, and sister, Susie.

We walked across Florence feeling dead to the world, but still with a bounce in our step. Italy is an easy place to navigate compared to our last 6 months of travel. This is with public transportation leaving on time and clean 2,000 year old surroundings. When we found the hotel, we were amazed how nice our room was looking over the Arno River, but that was nothing compared to Nadine seeing her mom and sister and them seeing Nadine's every growing belly. From that point on, it was chat, chat, chat, chat, and chat.

How many Peppers does it take to climb Il Duomo?

Over the next couple of days, all four of us made the rounds at the major sites, the Duomo, Michelangelo's David at the Galleria dell'Accademia, the Ponte Vecchio, but it was spent among the constant happy chatter of Nadine, Clare, and Susie.

Ponte Vecchio. You can find at least 5 gelaterias here

From the fine views of Florence, we traveled onto to some even finer views in the region in Pisa with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, excellent calzone in Lucca, and the region where 5 small villages perched on rocky picteresque outcrops make a national park, Cinque Terre.

Obligatory photo by each tourist, hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Doesn't seem to work that well though

Among the activities to do in Cinque Terre is the popular intercity hike. That was the activity of choice among 3 Bissonnette girls, and being outnumbered, that is what one White boy had to do. We jumped on the path and began our hike. We walked from Vernazza to the small village of Corniglia with the ocean waves crashing below us. Along the way, we stopped for an excellent lunch of meat and cheese sandwiches, then we continued to Manarola by train, because of a rock slide, and finally to Riomaggiore. It was some easy hiking with great views, definitely worth 3 Bissonnette girls dragging me along.

Great views along the way

We stayed in the town of Vernazza, and home to one of the best Italian restaurants in the world, La Sandro. After a packed house left us literally out in the cold Saturday night, we made reservations for Sunday night. We returned promptly at 7 that next day to begin a feast. We all indulged in a perfect meal of pasta, ravioli, penne, and house red wine. Every bite was followed with a healthy "mmmmm" and "can I have a bite of yours?" We left satisfied. If you ever think about going to La Sandro in the near future, let me know, I will meet you there for dinner.

Good morning Manarola

That leads us to our next topic, a very important one for that matter. In life and in all our travels, we have come across some great food. Mexican. Tex-Mex. Indian. Thai. Vietnamese. But they all come in for a distant second to Italian food. As Nadine said, "All meals are either good or great." It's amazing what Italians are able to do with a tomatoe, pasta, olive, a few spices, and tahdah, perfection. And to top off the perfect dinner, you can pick one of the 10 gelaterias on every street serving creamy Italian ice cream, gelato. Now if you love food, this is the place to come to indulge and then walk it all off. Back home, you find all types of restaurants. Here, you only find restaurants serving Italian food. What does that tell ya?

Ok, time to finish this blog entry as I slip off into food comotose.

Question of the week: Every week in the blog entry I make a joke about New Mexico, New Mexicans, or a set of twins from New Mexico, but not this week. What is your best joke about New Mexico, New Mexicans, or a set of twins from New Mexico? Best one received in the next three days will receive the last postcard from outside the U.S.

JW

Taking you back to Hogsback, South Africa. This is what happens when you set the camera for video rather than photo and everyone sits and smiles.