Four Airports and a Happy Ending

We left Jerusalem at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport (between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv) at 2 a.m.  The airport had been distinctly unbusy the day we entered the country.  However, at 2 a.m. Sunday it was a beehive of activity.  The only reason I can think of is that every flight from Ben-Gurion is international; if you tried to fly from, say, Tel Aviv to Haifa it would take you two minutes.  It took us an hour-and-a-half to get through check-in and security.  Then it was onto the plane for the four hour flight to . . . Amersterdam!  There it was like Portland, cool and cloudy.  Then we changed planes and flew to . . . London!  Heathrow is huge.  It took us 15 minutes in a van to get from terminal 4 to terminal 5.  Then we got on our next flight and landed in . . . Rome, at last, at about 4:30 p.m.  Check my last entry for a partial explanation of this strange itinerary.  Anyway, we are in Rome now.

At the airport we got on a commuter train.  Good transportation but no air conditioning in our car.  A real cooker.  It took about half an hour to get from the airport to Termini (the big--and I mean big--train station in downtown Rome).  From there it was a 15-minute walk to our very nice hotel.  Later we walked up the street and ate at a sidewalk restaurant.  We sat next to a woman and her high-school age son.  They were from Manchester, England.  A pleasant time of food and conversation.  Then we went back to the hotel, and having pulled an all-nighter the night before, crashed into an oblivion of sleep.

Let me explain that a good deal of the entry will be about food.  That's because Italy (so I'm told and so I've experienced thus far) is gastronomically advanced.  You know how in your hotel or motel the complimentary breakfast is usually dry cereal, milk, doughnuts and coffee?  Well, this was slightly better than that.  There were scrambled and boiled eggs, cereal, croissants, beautiful hard rolls, three kinds of pastry (all hand-made in the hotel's own bakery), yogurt, orange and pineapple juice, fresh fruit and capucchino.  Among other things, I ate four pieces of pastry.  Thus fueled we spent the whole day sight-seeing and ate no lunch except for a gelato (an Italian ice cream-sherbet concoction that is wonderfully delicious and refreshing).

Of course, Rome is different from Jerusalem.  For one thing, it's a big city, whereas Jerusalem is small.  We spent most of the day at or around the old Roman Forum, which for centuries was the political and emotional center of the world.  The sheer number of ancient ruins is staggering, although nothing in the "ruins" category can compare to Israel.  But the Forum is also surrounded by many beautiful buildings from the mid-1800s, many painted or washed in warm colors (sienna, yellow, etc.).  It is simply a stunning visual atmosphere.  Besides that, it's jammed with people, cars, scooters and the sound of peeping horns.  You step off the sidewalk and you are fair game for any vehicle that might careen around the corner.  It was a good day of walking around.  We could tell that all the hiking we did in Israel had prepared us for this new challenge.

Later in the afternoon we took the subway (very clean and fast) over to a neighborhood not far from the Vatican.  It's mostly large apartment buildings, seven or so stories high.  We arranged with our friends, the Ledfords, to rent a spacious suite in this area for the next few days.  We're on the fourth story overlooking a busy street.  The neighborhood is not as picturesque as where we were earlier.  But it's Rome and there was a good restaurant for dinner and a beautiful bakery where we bought pastry aftterwards.

It's the kind of place you dream about visiting.  But we were reminded of the role Christians have played in its long history.  This afternoon we wandered past Mammertine Prison, where Peter and Paul were incarcerated.  The gospel advanced with great difficulty.  It's nice (and a great privilege!) to take such a wonderful trip.  But there is still work to do.  You may not believe it, but I'm looking forward to resuming ministry come September.  In the meantime, there is Rome tomorrow and Wednesday, then two days in Florence.  Then more of Rome!