Spinster Does Rome: 2011

Yes. I am in Rome. Yes. I've been here two weeks without a single blog post. I have a laundry list of reasons, but I won't bore you with them. The main reason is that I left my camera home. But thanks to Sue Hines, it is now here and getting a work out.

It's been a whirl wind two weeks. The first week was absorbed with doing advanced work. Meeting with the hotel, meeting with presenters, setting up the meeting room, setting up the lounge, setting up the chapel. All that with jet lag. Which means everything took twice as long as it should have.

The program began on Sunday night. The group is 50 people from 23 Universities in 8 countries. They are a very dynamic group.

Below are some pictures from the Papal audience. We were on the dais with the Pope. When we were introduced to him, our group gave a very loud cheer. He smiled and waved at us. And I think he actually chuckled a little bit. Maybe the idea of college professors being so loud made him laugh. In his remarks he mentioned our group by name. All in all a great audience.

In the past I've always had Joan take care of "the Ticket". This year, for what ever reason, I had possession of the ticket. So, I was the one who lead the group to the gates and handed it to the various officials. The closer you get to the "good seats" the more formal the officials get. This is the last official I had to present the ticket to before we were lead to our seats. When I handed him the ticket, he smiled broadly and with a beautiful Italian accent said "Welcome madame. We are most happy to have you here." My cold little heart went pitter patter. I like to think of him as my Vatican boy friend. In the future, Joan will have to pry the ticket out of my cold dead hands. There is no way I will pass up that opportunity again.

The weather was perfect. Partly cloudy, reasonably cool and breezy.

This is Sue Hines standing behind where we were seated.

The Vatican guard who was stationed behind our seats. He looked like he was 16.

Other pilgrims.

And there's the Pope.

People are always shocked by how small he is. He's really tiny.

On Thursday night the Latinos hosted the social. It was fun and the food was fabulous. They had gotten organized in advance and brought all kinds of ingredients from Mexico to make the food.

JBDL overseeing the preparations.

Sangria being made by members from Mexico, Spain and Brazil.

I was designated the official taster of the Sangria. It's a very important job. After each ingredient is added, you take a taste and decide if it's on the right track.

Eventually, it doesn't matter if it's on the right track or not.

On this day, I had dropped a drawer on my toe. At first I was sure I had broken it. The woman in the middle of this picture was my personal physician. She's a professor at the medical school at Lasalle Mexico City. She's a wonderful doctor!!!!