Salve, amici

This trip started out as just...a trip, but soon, because it's a small, small Catholic world, the meetings and greetings just started rolling.

First and biggest props and thanks go to Charley Collins of Vatican Radio. I told Charley I was coming about six weeks ago, and he not only set up an interview with me, (actually three, the first of which is now linked on their page, bottom right), but guided us a bit around, gave tips, and arranged a wonderful lunch.

We'd said that we'd try to get together for an interview that first Saturday afternoon when, presumably, the crew might be resting a bit. I was supposed to call Charley. Which was complicated, since we didn't have a cel and the apartment manager just shook his head when I gingerly asked if I could use the apartment phone to make local calls. "Emergency only"

So, after our first venture through St. Peter's, and return back, as everyone collapsed into bed, violating the first traveler's rule of "Stay up the first day no matter what" (16-month olds don't understand such rules, just as they do not understand the rule, "Go to sleep when it is dark." And with 4-year olds...if everyone is to stay sane...yeah, you can nap.), I set out to try to make my call. I'd seen a pay phone nearby, so of course it took me twenty minutes to find it, and then buy a phone card from a newstand vendor which I could not, for the life of me, get to work. It was around one, I was supposed to call him around 3. I gave up, and went back to the apartment. I made a fatal mistake....and woke up at 4. At a loss of what to do, I looked helplessly at Michael who threw me the dreaded Rick Steves book (dreaded because all the "serious" travel boards I've been studying despise him) and said, "He tells you how to use the phone card." And indeed he does. Tear off the little corner...got it. It worked, I breathlessly apologized to Charley, who said it was okay, that his office was just meters from our apartment, and that if I just stood outside, he'd walk over and get me - we had plenty of time.

Which he did - much to my disappointment, Vatican Radio offices are not tucked away in some secret corner of the Vatican. They're not even behind the Vatican walls, but rather east of the place, closer to Castel Sant'Angelo than the Vatican. Too bad. No behind-the-scenes tour for me. Well, that's not fair, since I did get my behind-the-scenes Vatican Radio tour, less than a week before the Pope did. Sadly, no one gave me an IPod, and the studio we taped in was a leetle bit smaller than this. But fun! Taped three short interviews - on DVC, Mary Magdalene, and Loyola Classics.

Afterward, Charley offered to meet us, once we'd all arisen from sleep and he'd finished his own broadcast, and escort us across the river to the Piazza Navona area, and point out some of his favorite restaurants. This all happened, and was a very nice way to get the feel of that part of the city, beginning on the Ponte Sant'Angelo, lined with the Bernini-designed statues of the angels holding the instruments of Christ's passion. We ate at one of Charley's recommended restaurants where we first introduced to the initially puzzling and at first hearing rather rude question of "Gas or no gas?"

(Water, that is. The children's reaction to the former quickly taught us to always ask for the latter.)

On Tuesday, Charley organized a most wonderful lunch for us in Trastevere. I was quite honored by the company - Charley, Fr. David Jaeger, an expert on the Holy Land, and a quite jovial luncheon companion, Father Kevin Lixey, head of the Vatican's Office for Sport in the Pontifical Council for the Laity, (that link takes to you an interview of Father Lixey conducted by Charley Collins), Edward Pentin, correspondent for the NCR(egister), the Catholic Herald, several other places, and an artist as well, Kishore Jayabalan of the Acton Institute, (and don't forget the Acton Institute has a blog) ,  Art historian Elizabeth Lev, whose work many of you know from her regular contributions to Zenit, and Fr. John Wauck, an Opus Dei priest who teaches at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome, has an EWTN series and also has a great blog on Opus Dei and DVC right now.  Pretty sharp group, eh? No wonder lunch went three hours...Rome may be full of miracles, but the biggest miracle that day was that the restaurant was still standing after my little boys had to stay there for three hours!

So, many thanks to Charley Collins for welcoming us to Rome and introducing us to so many wonderful folks...and for ordering my lunch for me when I was just too confused by the menu and distracted by my children to take care of such a simple task myself!