And this wraps up Italy

I'm going to cheat and blog about our last days in Italy in one shot - well, somewhat, 3 posts in one, that's allowed, right? - Otherwise it's just never going to happen. I was hoping Jamie would come through with at least one of them, she was going to (she still might for that matter - it's just been super busy), but I don't know about you, blogging is becoming less and less realistic time-frame wise, and for those who know what I mean, this will be something I'll be cutting out of my (non-existent) routine sometime soon, sooo...before it becomes too outdated, I'd better get these pics up and posted. ;)

Where were we? Oh right, we had that evening with Gabe and Crystal! (Where Gabe totally took the evening hands down - with his dancing skills, of course!)

We then ended up spending a day in Venice, roaming around, taking pictures, seeing the sights, melting (oh yes, but it was so nice to actually experience a normal summer with the normal type of heat that doesn't precede a downpour of rain), and just chilling. - It was great! We found a nice little store where we had some delicious "panini" made, had an interesting conversation with the owner who turned out to be a retired salesman who spoke a million and one languages (kind of), bought nice cold beer, and enjoyed it in one of the many "piazzas" in Venice. - It was quite perfect.

We then spent the night at a bed and breakfast right across the street from the airport (trust me, we were NOT going to repeat our sleepover adventure again) , had a good night's sleep, and were ready for the next stretch of our journey the next morning!

Drum roll please....

Getting to Rome and getting our luggage!

We had left our luggage with this old childhood buddy of mine, who, I must say, was so very gracious in doing us that favor (I can't imagine dragging our luggage around on that last trip), however he was not there the day we flew back in to Rome, so we found ourselves needing to figure out how to get from the airport, to his place, pick up our luggage, and then make our way to this Active Member couple's place - all by public, mind you, and with our suitcases. ;)

Things seemed to be going well enough, at first, but then we find out there's no bus going to that town we needed to get to. - Not for another 4 hours. There was a bus that took us to a town "close" (or so the people told us) but none that took us straight there. So we took that bus, only to find ourselves in a town, on a Sunday, and lo and behold, there are no buses (go figure) that take you to the other town on a Sunday. Yeah...that's when we realized we were just NOT going to get away from having yet another challenging adventure. (Hey, at least we were positive about it.) To add to it my phone ran out of credit, so we were trying to find a place to recharge it, but no places are open - we try to find a pay phone - none are working...this was getting soooo frustrating! The sweet AM couple we were going to stay with was so worried about us though, they kept calling us to make sure we were okay, telling us not to speak with strangers, or take rides from strangers or do anything at all with any strangers. :D - GBT! - They were genuinely concerned, I actually felt bad we were involving them in our traumatic experience.

Along comes another bus, so after talking to the bus driver he tells me he'll drop us off at a stop that another bus should pass by that takes us to that town, though he's not sure it passes on a Sunday (hmmm) but at least, he says, it's closer. So we get on the bus, get dropped off, and that's when I leave Jamie by the bus stop and run across the road to try to figure out where we are, what our options are, etc. - And along comes our angel! (I'm serious!) This man in a very nice car/jeep stops at the bus stop and asks Jamie what she's doing at a bus stop where a bus doesn't stop? She didn't understand, but he asks her where she's going and she says the name of the town, so he says he'll take us. In the meanwhile Jamie's yelling at me across the street, trying to get my attention (ahem), and when that works I get over and sure enough, the man offers to take us to where we need to go. - It was a total miracle. (Turns out he saw us girls looking rather lost, so though he doesn't usually pick people up he was concerned that we'd be ok, so was convicted to stop and help us. TYJ!) And get this, not only does this man search out the place we needed to go to get our luggage (yes, GPS rules!!), but when I talk with him and explain what our ultimate goal is (to get to the AM's house) he helps us load up our luggage and drives us to the door step of the AMs house. - It was a total god-send! It was also a real witness to the AMs too who were so worried, they kept calling their daughter (who had worked it out for us to stay with them as they lived closer to the airport) all worried, and she kept trying to reassure them that the Lord would take care of us, we'd be fine, etc. so when we told them about the guy, the father met him too as he came down to help us with our luggage, they were really impressed to see how the Lord truly came through and didn't let us down. - It was awesome!

So yes, that part of the adventure was actually quite encouraging - REALLY encouraging!

This is Jamie and I with the AM couple.

The last day was more relaxed (Thank God!) as we used it to tour Rome and the Vatican. Lara (of Danilo), Mary, and Sheryl met up with Jamie and I, and all 5 of us girls took on the marathon of seeing Rome in one day. Jamie and Mary hadn't been there before, so it was more a matter of trying to make best use of time, and man, did we walk a lot. - And I mean a LOT! Thankfully the other girls remembered to bring some sort of shirt to cover your shoulders, which is required to enter the Vatican, Jamie I didn't (ahem - we were actually told, don't know where my brains were), but Lara and I waited outside (as we'd both been to the Vatican already) and Sheryl took our two little tourist girls (Mary and Jamie) in. - So that was cool!

All in all it was fun though, had a good time, got to chat a lot, and it was literally a girls day out. ;)

Thankfully Danilo drove us back to the AM's place, my feet were killing me (even though we did find ourselves going around in circles not finding the house - ahem) but that ended our fun day, and the next morning we squished into the car with our huge suitcases and took off to this part of the world!

And that's the end of the Italy trip! I honestly don't think I have time to blog about our special Texas adventures, but needless to say our adventures did NOT end once we left Italy. We landed just in time for Hurricane Ike, decided to evacuate from Houston, bunked up in an apartment of a friend, the poor guy really endured a lot with 5 ladies and an extra guy in a small two room apartment, thankfully spending the night at the Blanco Home was without adventure, but getting in to Monterrey, having to help get a huge van and trailer out of mud and taking an overnight bus (with a jerk of a bus driver) just felt like the normal routine "adventure".

But I won't be getting into too many tales of that, I'm just glad to be home and as busy as things have been since we got back, there really is no place like home. ;)

I do miss Italy though...sigh!