Here we are enjoying another day at the water! We love the breeze that blows off the bay and the shade that is made by the turquoise and blue stripped umbrella between our deck chairs.

As we sit and read or nap, there are precious sounds that come from the water! Sounds of kids, who have apparently left all their cell phones at home and are playing ball in the water! The sounds of moms yelling “dont go any further out” as kids continue to jump and splash out further and further!

Just this morning as we opened the door to the street below our balcony, we heard a baby cry and a young mom trying “in Italian” to console the young girl.

In the evenings, as people stroll the Corso, musicians are playing guitars, violins, lariots or singing, we sit on benches along the boulevard and just people watch. It has been so amazing to just hear the sounds of their everyday life. Some are yelling to shop owners as they walk by! Others see a neighbor and stop to visit. We have seen women yelling down to the street below their home to familiar faces!

Today is one of those days when i sit and think about some of the things i will miss most about Italy, when we leave to go home in a few weeks! As i wrote in a previous post, of course we will miss the beauty of Italy, the simplistic lifestyle and of course the wonderful food, but the sounds which we have come to love will be one of the things I miss the most! And how can i leave the bell chimes? We have been so fortunate to stay in places that not only can we hear the bells, but watch them as well! That has blessed my socks off!

it is the sounds that make everyday life so interesting. That is one thing I hope to change when we move back to Dallas. It has always been so easy to drive in the garage from the ally, close the garage door and separate ourselves from the world! And…as some days we all need this alone time, it is going to be hard not to fall back in that routine! But as we settle into our new place, I hope that I remember just how alive we both felt as we watched and listened to the sounds of Italy and allow ourselves to slurp our spaghetti ever once in awhile or just go sit outside an ice cream parlor and listen to the sounds of Dallas. As we sat today in our chairs watching and listening to the families here, we began to talk to the couple next to us. They are from Plano, TX and are here with their twin girls! We began to converse about so many memories which we will take home. We have agreed that if we forget everything we have done or seen as we get older, may we never forget the sounds that have come to echo in our hearts! Tonight, Randy is treating us to go hear the 3 Tenors here at the opera house. It is the 3 Tenors of Italy who sing all the famous songs of Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Carreras! Sounds of music which will be forever a memory of our time here in Sorrento! From the men who jumped on the train hoping their music would bring them a few dollars to the opera stars this evening…..each will hold a special place in our hearts!

• Italy…a land of beauty, history and so much more! So thankful for the memories!

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Here we are in beautiful Sorrento. What a most gorgeous place of rest and calm. After spending a month in Rome, where we were truly able to immerse ourselves in the everyday life of a Roman, we are enjoying the tranquility of the water, the ability to walk in ally sized cobblestone paths without tour groups! Each little ally takes us deeper into the heart of Sorrento! The storefronts full of everything lemon. The bistros vie for your attention, each promising us a experience of homemade pasta,snd fresh fish, all with a wave of hand of invite and a broad smile. We had quite an experience two nights ago. As we strolled (yes we can stroll here, as the crowds are non existent at this point) in search of where to have dinner, Randy could tell his medication was nearing its time of effect! When this happens (for those of you who do not know us personally, he has Parkinsons) his balance gets off and until he gets meds into his system, it is hard for him to walk! As we stood there for me to dig out the meds from my purse, a man from one of the booths came out and brought out a chair for Randy. A lady from the store across the way also came over to help Randy sit down. Because they could see me handing over some medicine to Randy, the man (Bruno) went to get a cup of lemonade and the lady stayed with me until Bruno returned. I explained the situation and Bruno told Randy to sit there as long as he needed! Because the meds take about 15 min before they take effect, I stood there while a couple from UK walked by. They had known Bruno 20 years and come back every year to Sorrento. They began showing us pictures of an island they had toured the day before! By this time Randy is fine so we ask Bruno where we should have dinner! He said he would take us to one of his favorite places, no tourist he says! As we begin to walk, he grabs Randys arm and tells him to lean on him and walks us to the restaurant. He left his place of business to do this. No one else was in his store to take care of it. When we got to the restaurant, he introduced us to the owner and his wife who had just married last month. He told them to take good care of us….and that they did! Immediately they brought us a glass of champagne and an appetizer of a broccoli/polenta/parmesean cheese paste with bread. We were not charged for any of that. When we walked back by to thank him, he was so gracious. The following day as we walked down the same street, the lady who had come over to help us, waved us over to ask Randy how he was and told us she was very glad he looked much better! We are just so thankful for God faithfulness of putting sweet people in our paths!

After such a sweet experience that evening, last evening found me in a, well, let me begin! For two nights there have been about 100 Ferraris in town. They are parked up Corao Italia where our apartment is located. So we enjoy the cool evenings of walking and looking at all the expensive cars that Randy dreams about! Well, last night we were walking home after dinner when I remembered that we needed to stop and buy Cokes and Bottles of tea! I told Randy he could just keep looking at the cars and dreaming and i would go into the little wine shop for our drinks. The money I had in my purse allowed me to buy 2 teas/2 cokes. The guy ask me if i needed a bag, but thrifty me, not wanting to pay for an extra bag told him i would just use the bag that i had with me. It was a little bag which held a linen shirt i had just bought after dinner on our way back home. All 4 drinks fit and I’m all set to go home when all of a sudden the handle on the bag tore and the drinks scattered! Of course you know where they landed! They rolled under the $500,000 car that was parked right there. Randy is off looking so there i am crawling under the car to retrieve my drinks. As I’m trying to stretch my arm to grab one of them before it rolls further under, I realize I’m on my stomach with my legs sticking out from under this elegant car. I hear a lady say “Mame, can you reach it or do you need me to help?” As i rolled myself out from the car, it was then I realized that i had to use the car for support to be able to stand up! These cars were not to be touched! But thank goodness, i escaped arrest and quickly walked to our door as Randy walks up and says,” where were you? I’ve been looking for you! I pointed to the car and said,”you really dont want to know”

Today we are in lounge chairs out by the water! Ferry boats cruise by taking folks to Capri as we conjure up the nerve to walk down the steps to the beautiful clear water. Yes, the time here will allow us to rest up for heading back to Rome to welcome some of our kids. Maybe Sorrento is one of those places God created to give us just a little glimpse of what Heaven might be like!

As Guido and I continue our time here in Italy (has been two months already) we have been so fortunate to live in the communities where life goes on as normal! Because of this privilege, we have noticed several things that just makes us wonder! We have a saying in our house “well, that will be a vinegar question” when we get to Heaven! We say that because we happened to notice many moons ago that when you look at the ingredients in the back of a vinegar bottle it says, and i quote, “vinegar”! Nothing more! So we still dont ever know what vinegar really is! So we know that one day when we sit at the banquet table in Heaven, we will hopefully get that question answered. But for now, we have gathered up more vinegar questions from Italy.

1. Why do eggs have to be refrigerated in USA but here they are just stacked on a shelf in the grocery store! Not refrigerated at all! Do the chickens here have built in fridges?

2. How do the dogs and cats here seem to live long and very happy lives eating dog and cat food from the grocery store and not have a Pets Mart anywhere around? How do they live without doggie day cares and salons?

3. Do the Chinese folks here not know about chop sticks? We have been in 3 Chinese restaurants and have never seen one chop stick yet!

4. Apparently, Italians do not understand that bread and butter go together! Have never seen a bit of butter in any restaurant yet. Just lots of olive oil! We have also never seen any bottle of salad dressing other than olive oil in stores or restaurants! Do they really live w/o blue cheese dressing on a wedge salad?

5. There are no donut shops in Italy. What do policemen eat while on stakeouts?

6. There are no Starbucks! How do they go through the winter with no pumpkin spice lattes or Chi Tea extra hot, no whip, no water, sugar free?

7. We have never seen one fire truck yet! Or any fire stations! Do they not have fires and if not, where do all the little first graders go for field trips?

8. No matter the age or size of person, we have noticed that everytime (which is all the time) we see a huge pizza pie ordered, the person eats the entire pie! ALWAYS! Is it bad luck if you dont? So maybe thats why we have so much trouble finding buses and bus stations. I simply cannot eat the whole thing!

9. No one has screens on doors or windows yet we have never seen a bug fly in. Maybe flies and mosquitoes are not allowed to cross the ocean from America. Guess their little wings cant fly that far!

10. How do ladies in Italy cook casseroles without Campbells soups of Jello pudding? What would u take to family reunions or church dinners with these two items?

11. We have not seen any church here that has a disco ball, music director that plays guitar or praise team! How do they sing?

These are our vinegar questions we have ready! Since we have 4 more weeks left, we hope some of our questions might be answered but if not, we sure hope that we can come back next year to see if we can find out some of the answers!

It has been swirling around in my head for several days of how to write and describe what I am thinking! As our time here in Rome continues, there is so much that I want to write about but so much of it is feelings rather than experiences!

Maybe if I begin with a few comparisons it will help! Rome is not Florence! When we arrived in Florence, my heart was just so full of seeing all the beauty of the bridges, the art, the hills over looking the city itself! The small winding allys they call streets were magical to me! It felt like we were in a place separated from the real world that nothing could penetrate! Beautiful views from every restaurant we stopped. Gelateria after Gelateria where beautiful mounds of colored gelato called our names! We would ride buses around just in awe of gorgeous duomos and museums of the most amazing art and sculptures! The countryside where we ventured just brought into focus more of the magical country of Italy! Hilltop towns where we walked through, feeling like we were in a fantasy world! Yes that was Florence!

Then the train brought us to Rome! We felt excited to be in the Eternal City! All Roads lead to Rome….but as i looked around, all i wanted was to be on a road back to Florence! We began to get out with the crowds of people to see all the places that people come to Rome to see….the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, the Alter of the Fatherland, the Colosseum, Vatican and of course the Sistene Chapel! As we had been in Rome some years back, none of these places were new to us but was so nice to see again. As the days went by we began to get comfortable with the buses and metro! Now we were beginning to venture out to new neighborhoods that we had read about!

As one week turned into two, we were becoming more and more familiar with the grand city of Rome! We spent an afternoon on bus number #916, riding it full circle! It took almost 3 hours. We became concerned as the bus left our familiar area and headed out to a part of town that was way out of our part of town. When the bus came to a station and just stopped, i walked to the front of the bus and showed him on our map the station that we hoped the bus would return to. He nodded that it would. After about 15 min he turns the bus key on and off we go. 31 stops later, the bus driver , opens his door to the drivers seat, steps out in the aisle and motions to Randy and I that in one more stop we will be home! All the bus passengers just look at us and wonder why he did that. Of all the buses we have been in the last 7 weeks, that was the sweetest gesture! It was then that i began to think about Rome and the wonderful feelings that have been so difficult to write about! A few nights ago, as we walked to a restaurant a few blocks away, I had told Randy that I wished I could just turn the video on as we walked to capture the things i have come to love about Rome! Because every neighborhood has everything that they need, it seems that some of the folks just stay in their neighborhood and never venture out to far. As we walk down the street we see some of the same ones every evening. There is a man who sits downstairs with a precious beagle and talks to everyone who walks by. The doorman or our apartment bldg stands and greets us, using the little amount of English he knows. He had helped direct us to different metro stations and told us about different buses.

The grocery store (there are two within a block) now know us and smile and greet us as they carry on conversations with the others in line. Everyone knows the others that are in the stores. Ladies tie up their precious dogs outside the store while they shop and no one takes them. The store has bowls of water out for the pets. We sit outside across the street to have a afternoon coffee (well i have tea) and a pastry. People walk by and stop and talk to the people they know. We noticed that when we were there a couple days ago, that 6 or 7 tables outside just enjoying the afternoon, there was not one person on their phones. They were talking to each other.

As ladies hang out their weekly laundry, they converse with each other from their respective balconies! It has been such an eye opener to me of how precious people truly are. I just hung out laundry listening to the church bells ringing. Each day of walking to stores/restaurants has given us interaction with people that maybe dont speak our language nor do we speak theirs, but it is so easy to see their hears because of their actions! No matter the place, it is the people who make our journeys worthwhile!

Yes, we have loved the art, the beauty of the ruins, the churches and of course the food! But the hardest thing we leave behind is the way of life here! So simple, yet so sincere! We have fallen in love with Rome, but the reasons are so varied, it will just need to be written in my heart because it is not possible to put into words!

Today began with great expectations of finding our way back to Rome Bapt Church. We had moved to a different part of Rome last weekend and had not yet learned how to get to church via bus/metro. But this week, we were ready and had our bus route all written out with a map of how to walk to church once we got off the bus! So off we went feeling so sure of our day. We would go to church, walk back to Spanish Steps, have lunch someplace new and head home where we would rest a while then head out to go to mass at 5 at St Peters Basilica. After all we are in Rome and we have to at least try to see the Pope!

Well, bus #881 was just a few min late in getting to our bus stop but we were proud as peacocks because we have learned that happens so we had given ourselves plenty of time for late buses. No problem…we get bus #92 and hop off after 9 stops and proceed to walk over to bus stop #2 where our little bus app tells us to jump on bus #881 We look at the bus stop name and its not what is on our little bus map. Randy says he bets that the bus stop that is on the street across the way must be the bus stop we need, so off we go walking across two streets to hopefully catch bus #881! We made it across and open our app to see when it is scheduled to come. It says one hour! We dont have an hour! We only have 30 min before church starts. So we look at each other and say “lets walk back over to the other bus stop and see if any of those schedules say they will get us close to any of the bus stations we are familiar with”! So we go walking across the street back to where the bus let us off! After looking at all 4 bus routes at this stop we decide that if we take bus #916 it will get us close. So we wait and wait and wait. Apparently if had just been there when we had walked across the street. So 30 min later we take our “tired of standing feet” onto bus 916. We ride to a bus stop we are familiar with and get off thinking we are close to the church. We get off and “refresh” our location on our Italian google phone only to find out we are still 2 miles from church. It is now 11 and we have missed church so we start walking. We now are hot, tired and hungry. We walk by a church when Randy says “lets at least go inside, and can sit and cool off all the while get to experience an Italian mass! So we proceed to walk in. Words cannot describe the beauty of this neighborhood church. We were both just in awe of what we saw. For Some reason i thought of Susie Hawkins and the class she had taught us of women in centuries past that was used of God for His purpose. The paintings in this church were just truly beautiful, Some of women, others of Jesus and saints! Maybe women that were significant in the Catholic church but the gold was breathtaking.

As we sat there for a few minutes before the Priest closed the service i could not help but notice the reverence of the congregation. The wonderful pipe organ music was so elegant and melodious! Had not heard music like that in so long! Also how everyone was dressed. There were no bare shoulders, no shorts, no short dresses! The men and young boys were dressed in suits. Out of maybe 300-400 people i was the only one in capris. Ladies wore dresses or pant suits. Some wore hats and gloves but everyone was dressed so lovely and smart that it made me once again stop and think about America and how lax we have become in teaching our kids honor and respect for God and His church. Yes i know that our religions do not agree in so many ways theologically, but i loved the reverence that was in that church today. Many children were there but not one ran around the church. The families hugged other families. They stood around and visited with others and the feeling of closeness was felt!

We walked out talking about how good it was to just sit in quiet reverence and pray and realized that God was honored there today. Maybe not in the same way we were expecting but we knew we had been in the house of God. We left with a sense of wondering if maybe, we tend to forget sometimes in our modern churches that we have focused so much on grace and forgiveness, that we have forgotten to also practice reverence for God and worship Him in Holiness and respect.

The pictures you see here are of this beautiful neighborhood church which is not even listed in churches you should see when in Rome. So you can imagine if this one is not listed what the ones listed will look like!

Apparently The Lord felt like we needed a little pick me up after getting so frustrated today at the bus schedules that we just could not make work today so he gave us this:

We found Old El Paso chips, flour tortillas, old El Paso salsa and refried beans. God is good all the time! All the time God is Good!

Catholic churches and chips! We thank God for the big and the small blessings!