Italy Day 10 Home
I am writing this from the plane as it seems we are flying over the ocean. I apologize as the last 5 days of our trip were all done on our flights home. When we arrived in Venice and we took travel bags since we had to leave most of our luggage in the car on the mainland of the island. This was due to a decent length of travel from the garage to San Marco. In the mix of this, I forgot my computer, and from that point on time was very limited to write a blog, and catch up. I have at least been uploading the photos daily, but not much explanation. My hope as well is to go back and label many of the photos I took to share a bit more detail of all the things I saw and experienced. I never like to do things solely for myself, and my pilgrimages are meant to be shared with others, whether they are present, or in spirit. There were many locations I prayed for others depending on who and where I visited, and who I knew that had a dedication to that specific moment.
We finished our stay at the hotel with a nice Italian breakfast with all the typical fixings, meat, cheese, croissants, espresso and other standard items local to the Milan area. After breakfast we hopped in the car and headed to the airport where we would catch a flight to England and from there transfer to our final destination in Newark, NJ. This a bit worrisome considering some of the logistics, and at the moment I’m still a bit concerned as airlines do not make it easy to travel. We had only carry on bags which was our objective in mailing our belongings, but the first flight made us check our bags at the gates, and unlike traveling in the states where they give you the bag upon exiting the plane, we had to go to the baggage claim, which forced us outside the gates, and made us recheck everything including security. This of course ran up the cost of travels, as well as made it difficult for us to catch our connecting flight which we arrived to as they were boarding. I’m currently praying and hoping the liquids we bought at the duty free, which were now forced to put in a bag and checked do not break all over the holy cards I’ve worked very hard to produce, payed for out of my pocket, and run around to all to the shrines, are not ruined. As the English would say, this final leg was a bit dodgy (all thankfully worked out well).
In close it was an amazing experience, as leaving the country always helps me to remember and appreciate how good it is to be a citizen of the United States of America, many accuse one type of person or another as being privileged, but in reality as an American from the USA, we are all privileged. I am reminded of that whenever I pass through customs, where we passed through in the matter of moments with 1 passport, while others could spend minutes going through multiple questions and whatever else had them standing at the counter still. I will write more on this in my closing blog as I share my appreciation as well for the privilege of visiting such a beautiful country like Italy and connecting with my cultural roots as well as my religious roots, which holds the keys to the understanding of our Christian faith. Religion means to tie back and bind to a tradition of some sort. As Catholic Christians we lay claim as the only Church founded by Jesus Christ himself, the rest have come from man made divisions. Thankfully on this trip, I was able to see the religious roots and traditions of some of these people and places who carried on the truth and Tradition we know today and have maintained for nearly 2000 years, despite many broken men who tried to mislead us. It’s the beauty of the faith, man fails, God prevails. Always has, always will it’s what the Resurrection is all about. Man tried to destroy the Church (Jesus is the Church), and God the Father brought it back to life when all seem lost on Easter/Resurrection Sunday.
Michelangelo’s Pieta