Elevator déjà vu

Tuesday morning we left early to pick up Sorella Evertsen at the mission home and take her and her luggage to the Termini train station. She finished her mission and had an 11:50am train home to Florence, where her (American) family has been living for ten years. I gave her the SD card with her memo files and wished her luck with that. Her three pieces of luggage were stuffed and extremely heavy -- the missionaries flying home have a 50lb (23kg) weight limit for their big suitcases, but the train has no such limit. Taking them down the stairs and getting them into the car was very difficult, but I think I managed to do so without throwing out my back. They barely fit! We made it to the station without incident. Dee walked into the station with her because she needed help managing the three suitcases, one of which had a broken-off handle. I just drove over to the Institute and Dee walked back after getting her up to security.

Our trash bins at home have not been emptied for several days and are overflowing. There is a strike coming up on Friday, but nothing yet. Our doorman Paolo just shrugs and says "This is Rome. What do you expect?" Hopefully they will come soon, as we kept a full bag of trash waiting inside.

Getting early to the Institute was nice. I was able to print out my lessons for the weekend, as well as all the docs required to renew my ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone) pass which allows us to drive downtown. I will go on Thursday to get that done. Last year was my first time and was a rather daunting task. Hopefully this time will be much easier.

We also had plenty of time to prepare for Taco Tuesday without rushing. A fair number of kids showed up, though we started with all guys. The ladies showed up later. Daniele from Ostia, fresh off his mission in Greece, was here for the first time. He has been online via Zoom for a few of my Institute lessons, and it was good to meet him in person. 

The full group, later on

The initial group

Fabrizio working on his family history on our new computer

They clean up afterwards--their own idea

Playing a game after lunch

The Institute was pretty full and busy all afternoon. Dee embroidered the 'G' on the remaining Ganziano ties. We are sending three home with Karen to be mailed to Provo, and one is going to Anziano Conatti in Brazil. After that, we have only four left of the original 20, so we have been busy giving them out. We think these four will last for the remainder of our time here. If not, we'll see if the shop downstairs could possibly match it.

Karen and Dave arrived on the train just before 8pm from a tour of Ravenna which they really enjoyed. That town is a real jewel, not well known and rarely crowded, but with awesome ancient mosaics and history. We were going to take them out to dinner, but they weren't terribly hungry, so we agreed to just drive home, where we finished off the chicken enchiladas left over from Sunday evening. They ran one final load of laundry while they started to organize for packing, and we left it to dry overnight on a rack in the living room with a fan on it.

As we were going home, there was a police blockade a block away which we were able to get around. Some Russian soccer fans in town for a big game were drunk and started jumping up and down on the very long escalator in the Repubblica stop around the corner. The mechanism broke and the stairs starting sliding down at a very fast clip, which left about 20 people seriously injured, one with a partially severed foot. The subway will just not stop there for a while until they can get it repaired. It was apparently a pretty terrifying moment in there.

Arriving at home, we had Karen and Dave go up the elevator alone with their luggage, since it would have been a very tight fit for all of us. Our elevators here are not very sophisticated: you can't push the button and have it remember to come to you. Instead you have to wait for the light to go out, indicating that it is no longer in use, and then you race to push the button so that you get the next turn. The light went out quickly, so I pushed the button down on the ground floor. Unbeknownst to us, Karen and Dave had delayed opening the door, so the elevator thought it was free. It came all the way back down with them still in it. So we sent them up again, all of us laughing hard.

At home we visited a bunch, hearing about their escapades in Florence, Venice, and Ravenna. They have been wonderful guests, and we will miss them. They gave me an envelope from my mom, with a copy of a letter my dad had written years ago. She is amazing, always providing copies of family history to all of her kids going back decades. My other siblings already got their copy, I assume, but when I opened the envelope it was completely empty. At first I was wondering if there was a message there, but then I realized she just messed up. We all got a good chuckle out of it, which is exactly what my dad would have enjoyed!

One fun thing I wanted to add is that when we were in Naples, I pointed out the red cornetti (horns) that are popular there to ward off the evil eye. Dave kept saying, "are you sure they aren't chili peppers?"