Home to Rome

Saturday we took the train home from Lamezia to Rome, with the train leaving at 10am and arriving in Rome just after 3pm. It was nice being so close to the station in Lamezia -- we walked out only about 15 minutes before the train departed.

 

The train was pretty full, but we only did a bit of visiting with people sitting next to us. It was sunny when we left and got more and more gray as we headed north. The views are very beautiful. We went alongside the ocean for the first while:

 

At Naples, a bunch of people got off and we had empty seats next to us for the last ninety minutes of the trip, which was comfortable. Along the way there was gorgeous green countryside, plus some snow-capped mountains in the distance. Italy is beautiful!

 

Once we got to Rome, we hopped on the Metro, and the wonderful Balzottis picked us up at Jonio, the stop nearest our apartment. We could have walked those final 15 minutes, but it was chilly and we were glad for the ride. Our car with its ZTL pass (the only one in the mission) was quite popular while we were gone. It got used by two couples to do some downtown runs, and when we got it back the gas tank was full. Nice -- everyone wins!

The Balzottis also brought us a big shopping bag full of Amazon packages and my new Dell laptop. It's great having full-time couriers in the mission office just to handle our packages; I'm sure they must have some other mission responsibilities as well, but nothing as important 😉. They are so fun to visit with, always full of laughs and great stories.

We went into our apartment for just a few minutes and immediately ran out to Lidl to buy food, since our cupboard was mostly bare of fresh stuff. This time it was mostly for us, since there's no Institute until Friday, but it still took two trips from the car to unload everything. After that we unpacked and had some dinner. Then we headed down to the Chinese store to pick up a couple of things. We were surprised to see a whole wall of fireworks there for New Year's eve. It will probably be a very noisy night!

 

We dropped off some of our favorite bread (buckwheat with walnuts) from Lidl at the Balzotti's place on our way home from the Chinese store. They had told us what their favorite bread was from Lidl (#26, btw -- yum), so we bought them some of ours (#34). At the store you pick out the bread you want, put it in a paper bag, and then go weigh it and get a printed sticker with the weight/price on it, which gets scanned at the cash register. You need to know the item number to print the correct sticker. So if you come to visit us, you now know what kind of bread to get at Lidl too 😊. We had a fun visit with the Balzottis, during which time I ran an internet speed test and found that they have fiber too! Now I'm feeling left out of the high-speed internet club and will hit the ISP stores with a purpose next week.

We then came home and started digging out from the things that piled up while on our trip. I finished my Sunday School lesson prep -- the final D&C lesson (on Zion) -- including printing a great article by Orson Scott Card to use in my lesson. It's one of my all-time favorites, but I didn't have time to translate it on paper and so will try it on-the-fly in class -- wish me luck!
  www.nauvoo.com/library/card-consec.html

The new laptop is very nice! It's a Dell Latitude 7370, only 2.5 pounds and almost as thin as my wife's XPS 13. Since it's last year's model, I assume that they were doing an end-of-the year inventory clearance, because I got it for well under 200 euros (it's normally 1200 euros here)! Either that or somebody at Dell typed in the wrong price, because the deal wasn't available for long. Having this extra computer will be very helpful to me in my self-appointed role as mission IT elf. I need to buy a few (inexpensive) accessories for it, including a slip cover. It has two USB-C ports for connections and charging, which means I need some adapters; I'm happy to get some practical experience with the latest USB standard.

It's very good to be home. For some reason we were pretty tired after a fairly easy day. We are looking forward to seeing our friends at church Sunday and having a day of rest.

Catanzaro

Friday we had a nice outing to Catanzaro, a provincial capital just over half an hour from Lamezia. It is a beautiful city, built in several segments separated by hills and ravines. We left here just after 9am and headed over, going first to the Military Museum (MUSMI) there. It was really quite fascinating, with a huge collection of military clothing and apparati from various eras: Napoleonic, Italian unification (Risorgimento, around 1860+), WWI, and WWII. Many of the uniforms were original, and built for small men. They also had some figurines with amazing detail, and a few battle scenes with hundreds of small soldiers. They also had a display of WWI political cartoons, which Dee loved looking at. My wife and I both really enjoyed it. Here are some photos, just to give you a flavor:

Waterloo detail

Look at the meticulous work on this figure!

Poster for political cartoon display, called "At the Strike of a Pencil"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Youth indoctrination group WWII

Guillotine from 1860s

 

There was also an amazing nativity scene in a building next door. It was the size of a huge room, with sound effects (including baby Jesus crying), running water, lights, and moving characters, all running in a cycle of about two minutes. There was a star that went across the sky, and at one point the lights came on and various workmen in the scene started moving and plying their trades. Amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that, we met the two Catanzaro Anziani (Hansen and Cooney)  at a pizzeria they chose, down near the beach. Catanzaro goes from high hills (where it was windy and cold) down to the beach (where it was sunny and fairly warm), with breathtaking views on the drive down. We had a nice lunch together and gave them some pastries to take home and enjoy.

After lunch we headed over to a nearby mall, where my wife found some boots. It has been chilly and she has only flats, so her feet were freezing. She got a lovely pair of low boots that are very comfortable and warm. In our business, comfort trumps looks every time, but I think she found a winner on both counts today.

 

While my wife was checking out, the clerk asked if she had a store (Bata) loyalty card which would entitle her to a 30% discount on the boots, and she responded no. The clerk then replied, "I'll give you the discount anyway, because you (plural) have always been nice to others." He seemed to be referring to the missionaries, so they have done a good job setting an example in the area. We were touched to hear what a good impression they have made. She was delighted to get the discount too!

We then drove through rain and dark clouds to the Lamezia airport, where we dropped off the rental car and took the bus back to our hotel. No dinner tonight, just some bread and cheese, after a big lunch. Dee went out to the costume jewelry place across the street (I'm blessed with a wife who doesn't like expensive things!), run by an immigrant from India who has a very fun personality. She bought two beautiful necklaces that she really likes:

 

I got word today that my new Dell laptop arrived at the mission office, so we'll pick it up from the Balzottis when we arrive home Saturday afternoon. It will be nice to be home, but our trip has been wonderful. It was great to see Sergio and fun to show some TLC to a few dedicated missionaries. It seems that every few days I hear from somebody at home who mentions that they are reading this blog, which means so much to us. We know it will be a good memory of our mission life for us, and we're so happy to share our experiences with you, too.

Visits to Grimaldi and Cosenza

Thursday was a wonderful day. Just after 8:30am we walked from the hotel up to the train station to take a bus to the nearby Lamezia airport, where we would pick up our rental car. It was windy and chilly. We didn't have to wait long, and the bus ride took only five minutes. There was no line at the Budget counter, so we were in and out in just a few minutes. I paid for the full insurance package, since we don't have any personal car insurance here (the church maintains it on our car). Usually we get the insurance anyway on foreign trips, as it saved our bacon once when we got into an accident in Cosenza -- not our fault -- with a car rented from the same airport. They gave us a Toyota Yaris hybrid, the exact same model we have in Rome. I specifically asked for an automatic transmission, which is quite uncommon in Italy; we know how to drive a stick, but there are too many other things to pay attention to while driving here.

Budget also gave us a plastic box with snow chains. The weather showed a small chance of snow, particularly since we were headed up to about 2000 feet altitude in Grimaldi. Fortunately, though it was rainy and windy and cold much of the day, there was no snow. The drive to Grimaldi is about 45 minutes and has spectacular views, first of the ocean and then of the mountains. We've been there enough over the years (8 times together) that we mostly know the way, but Google Maps on our phone is still indispensable. Dee is awesome as a co-pilot, which must be a spiritual gift as missionaries because she never did that very well at home!

Everything went so smoothly and quickly that we arrived almost an hour earlier than we expected. So we drove over to the neighboring town, Malito, for a few minutes to see the town and the church where Sergio served for 55+ years as the village priest, then still arrived at Sergio's place by 10:30am. He is in his 80s and has not been well recently, with a major operation last month, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Fortunately, he seems to be in pretty good shape both physically and mentally, better than we expected. He has now been officially retired as a priest, which is difficult for him: he loved the work and was so loved by his parishioners. However, the formal mandatory retirement age is 75, so his bishop gave him an extra five years.

 

Sergio's home is very large, particularly by Italian standards, so it's very expensive to heat. On his limited pension, he just burns wood in the living room. He has a really neat heat circulating system that kicks in when the temperature in the fireplace gets hot enough, then sending some heat to a couple of other rooms.

 

It was chilly in there the whole time, though the sun did come out now and then. He has a large and lovely nativity scene (presepio in Italian), including running water!

His dining room still has our Udall family legacy plaque with "The Lord Will Provide" hanging on the wall. We gave it to him in 2007.

We had a nice time visiting with him, catching up on family and other things. He is a man of devout faith, as well as being smart and funny.

Franca, his part-time cook/housekeeper, showed up around noon to cook for us all. I am a huge Franca fan -- she always whips up amazing food in short order.

 

 

At one point, she had all four burners on the stove going, each cooking a different thing that required attention. My wife was very impressed. And what a meal: appetizers, pasta, meat and potatoes, then fruit and desserts. No dinner for me after all that!

 

My wife was particularly excited, because several of the desserts are specialties from Calabria that her grandmother Adelina Gagliardi Martorano used to make (scaliddi and turdilli). She hopes that Sergio's sister Sina will share the recipes.

In Grimaldi, the little bar near Sergio's house is now closed down. The owner decided it wasn't worth all the work, since she could work at the hospital instead. Her son didn't want to take it on, either. This really changed Sergio's life, since that had been his spot for visiting with friends. 

If we get some time off in the summer -- the Institute will probably close for part of August along with the rest of Italy -- and if Sergio is fully recovered, we hope to come down and stay with him, when it's warm in "our" suite at his place.

After about four hours of good visiting, it was time to say goodbye.
By then it was cold and raining. We headed northeast to Cosenza, where we met with Anziani Bellucci and Ruiz at the branch chapel. We visited there a little bit, then walked over to a local pastry shop which has been in business for over 55 years. It seems to be a family affair, and one of the men there has worked at the store from the very beginning! Here's a photo of him with the missionaries:

The workers there seemed to know the missionaries in general, and a flyer for the free English classes at the church was posted on the wall. They were very friendly and were quite taken with my wife -- not sure they have seen many sister missionaries. My wife is a fan of Italian pastry, so she picked out an assortment for us to try. We also treated the Anziani to some nice hot chocolate. They are delightful young men, and my wife offered to help Anziano Bellucci with his Italian family history, and the offer was very gladly received. She got right on it after we got back to the hotel and found some original documents already!

Full and happy in the rain, we got back into our car, parked on a main street near the LDS chapel. In the minute or two between getting in, setting up Google Maps, and starting to back out, somebody double parked directly behind us! Double parking is a normal occurrence here in general. All you have to do is honk, and whoever is blocking your way is supposed to be listening and will come right out and move. Sure enough, it only took a few seconds. The other interesting/frustrating thing about Cosenza in particular is that it is known for changing the direction of some one-way streets every so often, maybe once or twice a year. Of course, that wreaks havoc with the GPS, which several times told us to turn the wrong way into a one-way street. So we had to wing it a few times to try to get to our destination. At one point, we drove down a one-way street with traffic arrows still painted on the pavement going the wrong direction!

Our drive home was about an hour through the rain, almost all on the freeway. We found a good parking spot right by the hotel -- a minor miracle. It was a perfect day of wonderful visiting and memory making.