The final night in Rome.

Paul stylin in his hat from Lewis University.


Angelina from Brazil, Juan David from Columbia, Elia from Mexicao and Luly from Mexico.


Angelina and Sister Jane.

Shawn from Mahanttan and Ginny from St. Mary's of California.

Haifa, Joseph, Ed and Albert.


Maria, Jenny, Br. Jose and Alma.

Pamela from Lewis, Ann Margaret from the Phillipines, Helene from France, Richard from Lewis and Rebecca from SMC.
Marriane from Phillie, Joe from SMU, Madeliene from Phillie, Virginias friend, Virgina from SMC and Ron from the College of Santa Fe.
Sue from SMU: Haifa, Albert and Joseph from Bethlehem; Sr. Jane from Christ the Teacher and Paul from SMU.


Bob from the Phillipines.

Florence

John showing the Lasallian spirit by ingnoring the pregnant gypsy woman begging for mone.



The most beautiful restaurant on earth.

Various shots of the beauty of Florence.

Richard in search of Galileio's fingers.
Our crew still listening to the tour guide.

Florence is beautiful. These pictures only capture a glimpse of the city.

June 10, 2008

On Tuesday afternoon the groups worked on their projects. Here's the SMU crowd hard at work.

Sue hard at work.

Sr. Jane hard at work.

Joe hard at work.

Assisi

Today I was blessed to spend the day in Assisi. We left at 7:00 a.m. and took the train. It's difficult to explain Assisi. Yes it's beautiful, but it's much more than that. There is something almost palpable about the spirituality.

Joan, Sue and I visited three churches: The Basilica de Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Basilica de Santa Chiara and the Basilica of San Francesco. We took our time and soaked it all in. We could have gotten to more churches, but we decided to savor the ones we went to. In order to see them all we would have had to rush through.

Most of my pictures are city scenes. You can't take pictures in the churches. Which is a very good thing. The pictures really need no description. As with the city, they are best enjoyed in silence.

Assisi

June 6, 2008

Hello!

I've been so exhausted the last few nights that I've neglected my blogging. Things here are very busy. Between the actual sessions, the meetings to plan the sessions and the meetings to evaluate the sessions, I've been pretty ding dang busy.

We had a free afternoon today. I went to St. Peters with the SMU and Bethlehem University crowd. The people from those two Universities have forged a special bond. They go out together to tour the city every evening.

I had the same experience last year. I spent much time with Faudi and Michel from Bethlehem and came to think of them as close friends. I would have to ask Sue and Paul, but I sense they have the same type of friendship I experienced last year. As I watched everyone interact today I thought about the authenticity of their friendship. They joked, teased, and took care of each other. They shared stories about their lives, their children, gave each other advice and laughed a lot. They have developed a real sense of caring within this small community during the past six days. I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to spend the afternoon with them. It was one of the highlights of my week.

Below is a picture of Alfred, Haifa, Paul, Sue and Alfred at St. Peters Square. Alfred, Haifa and Joseph are all from Bethlehem University. Joe is missing from this picture. He seems to be missing for periods of time and then find the group. I would be panicking and they would say "Joe always finds us." They are quite used to it.





This is Maurillo for Mexico City enjoying the wonderful weather under a magnolia tree. This man is a tech wizzard, a theologian and an excellent singer who has just released a CD in Mexico. And he's an incredibly nice guy.

This is Sue at the view from the highest point in Rome.

Tonight's video. This is what happens when you have people locked up in sessions for hours on end. A couple of nights ago I went to the lounge to get a soda and found this strange tribal dance in progress. I should point out it included people from Philadelphia, Saint Mary's in California, Manhattan College and Mexico City. Crazy people.

Ciao!

June 3rd, 2008

I apologize for not posting yesterday. By the end of the day all I wanted was to go to bed. Unfortunately, I over slept this morning. I didn't even wake up until 9:00 a.m. I was scheduled to lead the prayer service at 8:30 a.m. Fortunately, Suzanne Wilcox stepped up and did my part.
After that sad beginning, today was a little off for me. Perhaps it was because it rained most of the day. Even the pictures I took are pretty fuzzy. But I'll post anyhow so you can see how I saw the day.

This is Brother John Cantwell from Austrailia. His presentation was titled: History and Current Reality: The Lasallian World 1680-2008. It included the most brilliant instructional use of powerpoint I've ever seen and provided an excellent historical analysis of the events surrounding the development of Lasallian education.


This is Br. Pedro Gil from Mexico. He presentation was: The Brothers of the Christian Schools 1680-2008. As the title indicates, he talked about the impact on the Brothers of various historical events and helped us understand how those events could be interpreted today.

This is Paul hard at work.

You will notice Sue to the left of this picture. She's in a group dialogue with Haifa Kuncar from Bethlehem University and Eric Welch from Christian Brothers University in Memphis.

In this photo is Ed Twoniak from Saint Mary's College in California, Robert Tang from DeLasalle College of St. Benilde in the Phillipines and Joe Dulak.

As if it wasn't bad enough that I missed morning prayer. I missed evening prayer as well. Joan and I went to the CIL lounge after we straightened up the meeting room for a cappacino. We had a wonderful discussion, but lost track of time. Before we noticed, it was well after 7:00 p.m and not only had we missed prayer, we were late to dinner.

However, the majority of the participants did the same thing. Of the 48 of us, only 7 showed for dinner. Someone today asked if anyone would like to go out for pizza tonight. I guess the answer was a big Yes.

It was nice to have a rather quiet evening. I did some laundry (again), talked to Stanley and organized some paperwork.

If you are reading the blog, please comment from time to time. I'd like to hear from wisdom from the home front!

June 1, 2008

Today the program officially started today. Everyone arrived safe and sound.

For those of you wondering about Sue McGovern, she did very well and arrived in great form! She and Paul got here about 2:00 this afternoon. We made a cultural trip to the grocery store where Sue got her first lesson in the Roman aversion to large bills. Joe Dulak arrived much earlier, but I didn't see him until tonight. Sr. Jane, Sue, Paul and Joe had dinner at the same table tonight with folks from other US univerisities.

The day went well until we arrived at dinner. Somehow the front desk told the kitchen that we had cancelled dinner. Panic set in. Joan and I were trying to figure out if we had enough Euros between us to buy dinner at McDonalds. Fortunately, the kitchen was able to scramble and made a wonderful dinner. I'm not sure how they did it, but they did an unbelieveable job!

I took a number of photos during dinner and some earlier in the day.

This is Jenny and Maria from Mexico.


This is Jenny and Maria with Maurilio from Mexico city, Fr. Alejandro, and Angelina from Brazil. The man in the background is the mystery man. He's been here all week. He sits alone, never talks to anyone. Tonight we decided that he is a body guard for someone. Popular opinion is that it's me since I'm the one who always sees him when I'm out and about in the city.


This is the social room.

This is our dining room.
This is Suzanne Wilcox posing in front of our mess.
This is Joan Laderous from Mexico City. She provides me with daily doses of sanity and plenty of laughs.
I love this t-shirt.

Here's the tour I took of the computer lab last night.

That is it for tonight. This is a lively group. I must go to bed because it appears I will need my rest!

May 29, 2008

Hello Friends,

I don't have any pictures to post today. I was too busy working on some last minute details. I had to meet with the hotel manager and the kitchen manager. Some more handouts needed to be made. I met with the head translator (Br. Michael French) to get a final rate for translation services. While that doesn't seem like much, it pretty much kept me busy all day.

I'm grateful that Joan Landeros has arrived. She and I went out for a beer late this afternoon to compare notes. Even though she had very bad jet lag and kept randomly sliping back and forth between English and Spanish, it was fun to hang out for a bit at the little bar down the street.

Two more people arrived today. One from Manhattan College and one from the College of SantaFe. Tomorrow we should have about 10 more arrive. So I will be busy playing hostess.

After dinner Joan, John and I took them out for gelato. I had chocolate/orange and lavendar. That's a good combination for those of you who are planning your next gelato experience. Tomorrow I'm going to try the ginger/cinnamon. That sounds wonderful.

Although the program doesn't officially start until Sunday, it now feels like we're getting in to it. The best part is the interesting people who will be here. On the roster we have 3 from Palestine, 3 from the Phillipines, 1 from France, 3 from Spain, 1 from Haiti, 9 from Mexico, 1 from Brazil, 1 from Kenya and 19 from the US. I'm really looking forward to getting to know everyone. It should be a fun two weeks.

I promise I will take some photos tomorrow. Now it is time for this pilgrim to go to bed.

May 29th...again.

Hello all!

I see I mis-dated yesterday's post. Can I still blame it on jet lag?

Today was a fairly quiet day. Suzanne became ill and spent most of the day resting. John took her to the doctor this afternoon. It rained most of the day, so I spent most of my time reading. Late this afternoon when the rain had stopped I ventured out to take some photos.


This is a picture of the basement. This is were the magic happens. The book store is here as well as some other somewhat unknown but very important spots.

Like the speak easies! Each language group has their own little speak easy in the basement. This is the one for the English speakers.
This is the one for the French speakers. Notice that fire extinguisher. Apparently things get pretty hot in this little watering hole.


This is the magnolia. If you recall, a couple of days ago I put a photo of its bud in the blog. These flowers are incredibly beautiful!

This is the hall that my room is in. I'm staying in the "religous house" as the hotel folks call it. It's actually the Generalate guest rooms.

This is the front gate of the Generalate. Notice the two gate houses on either side.

The father and son grounds keepers live in the gate houses. The son has raised an entire family in this gate house. I'm pretty sure this house is smaller than my office.

Tonight's video will not be posted. In the middle of making it a large tree branch fell and almost hit me. In reviewing the video, it became apparent that I said a word that is not family friendly. So I've decided to not put the video here. However, if you want to see my brush with death and my response there will be a viewing at a later date.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. It's our last day before large groups of participants begin to arrive. The program doesn't officially start until Sunday, but a number of people come in the day before. That means tomorrow is our last day to do any prep work.

I do intend to get out tomorrow for a gelato. Seriously. I've only had one since I've been here!

Till Tomorrow...