Sunday, September 26, 2010

Team Name: PS aka Pope Stalkers

For those who might be concerned because you have not heard from me in awhile, I am still alive. So is Emily, we have yet to kill each other. For those wondering why I am writing every word, it is because I can not find the apostrophe key on this Italian keyboard.

I am sitting at a fancy hotel that we checked into, (it was surprisingly cheap, although the airport shuttle does not run on Sundays or at 5 am), taking advantage of their free computer usage, wearing complimentary slippers on my feet.


Funny moments with Nicole and Emily: it took us probably three minutes to figure out how the heck to get into our room. We were given a card. No problem, you just slide it in the top or side or whatever and you are in, right? Wrong! You are supposed to simply touch the card to the pad. Go figure. Then we got in the room, put our stuff down and what not and next thing we know the lights go out. Not only that we are locked in our room!


I stumbled my way in pitch black toward Emily who was at the door to hand off the key card. Turns out you have to put the card in a slot on the inside to keep the electricity on. Ooops....

Other than this charming hotel in the industrial district, we have seen much of Italy from train/bus windows and actually stopped in Rome, and the Cinque Terre area.

Rome: we were there for two nights, basically a day and a half. We met up with our friend Trinity at 1 and she showed us around the city and suggested good, inexpensive places to eat.

Before that Emily and I wandered around and saw a few sights on our own. The most noteworthy was we went to the Vatican and guess what, WE SAW THE POPE AGAIN!!! He was addressing the crowds talking about his trip to England. Ah life....


It was also at the Vatican that I discovered I was carrying an illegal weapon and had my knife confiscated.

Then we went down to the Cinque Terre region where we stayed for three nights, two and a half days or so. I do not have time to tell you all about those adventures, so I will just mention the highlights.

We stayed in an AWESOME bed and breakfast, in a small village tucked away in one of the hills. Think the 5 Cities without all the tourists. It was amazing. One day we went to actual Cinque Terre, and the other day we just spent exploring where we were.

To get to Cinque Terra we hiked 4 km to a Lerici where we caught a water taxi/boat to the first of the 5 Towns. We did not get to the last town because it was raining, getting late, and we still had to figure out the buses to get back/knew there was a good chance we would be walking again. And since parts of the road did not have good shoulders let alone sidewalks, we decided to do it in the day light.

Tomorrow we fly out to Porto Portugal to begin the hiking part of our pilgrimage. I can pretty much guarantee I will not be anywhere near a computer for the next 10 days. So if you miss us, just reread this and it will be like we never left.

Oh yeah, and always wise Em, reminded me that if you wanna pray for us as we hike through who knows where, that would probably be good. Actually we know yall are already praying from the way things have worked out so far. Mary, keep it up.

If you want a specific request, we still need a place to stay for one night in London after the Camino. Preferably near the airport.

Remember to
Have fun and......DONT DIE!!!

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