Bye Bye Italy

Dec 5 - Sunday


Today we realized a whole new meaning to "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors and see all the people" or "where are all the people" depending on how you do it.  This child's rhyme along with the appropriate finger game seemed so appropriate as we went by so many large churches with their doors open and in most cases very few people attending the church.  It also reminded us of how we missed the services at Sandhills back home and longed for the fellowship with friends.

This is our last full day in Italy and as we drove to Rome to catch our flight early tomorrow morning we realized how fortunate we were to see Italy, meet some of the great people in the country and simply have the opportunity to spend over 2 weeks almost exclusively with my closest friend.  After 33 years plus it was a special time with my beautiful, special friend.  Enough mushy stuff or I'll loose all the guys.


Tomorrow we are off to Ankara, Turkey to visit with our friends Wayne and Pam Elliot.  We have known Wayne and Pam and have spent some special times with them in the past and look forward to being with them for the next period of time to work aside them, encourage them (hopefully) be encouraged by them and generally just have some good times together.  This is also our first time in Turkey.


Over the last couple of weeks in Italy, we have tried to blog almost every day.  Over the next period of time we will be visiting and spending time with friends and do not anticipate having as much time to blog.  Our goal during this time would be to blog a couple times a week.

We are now at the Hilton Garden Inn (thanks to my HIlton Gold status from traveling so much) in Fumincino next to the Rome airport.  We have had such beautiful views from our rooms over the last 2 weeks we thought we would share this one also.  Just an example of all good things coming to an end.  We are definitely glad for this hotel  that is so close to the airport so that we won't have to get up even earlier to make it to our early flight.  AS it is we will leave the hotel at 4:30 AM.