Day 3 (Assisi)

Our last day in Assisi was yesterday, and it was fascinating. St. Clare and St. Francis (of course) are the Saints of the area. It's such an blessing to have the opportunity to walk through the town, pray and the Churches, and try to experience the day-to-day lives that they both had. As a Christian, we are called to imitate Christ, right? But obviously, walking on water, healing the sick, scourging, and crucification sometimes just isn't something that we can relate to. A great way to become more Christ-like is to study the Saints, and it's awesome to have the opportunity to walk the steps of the saints, and try to imagine how real and difficult their lives were, and how their eyes were always focused on Christ.
Again, we had a great day. Lot of walking (and 'yes' I whined) :-). We did have one mix-up. It's a long story, but basically 3 of our rooms (Jared/Bryan/Patrick, Carrie/Me, and April/Elyse/KatieL) were asked to switch to a different part of the hotel, for the sake of another group that really wanted to keep their group closer together. being the super pilgrims we are, of course we said 'yes'. The hotel agreed to move our luggage while we were out. Well, when we got back last night, there was luggage in our new rooms, just not ours! Of course this was concerned, and after about an hour or so of room searching, and totting different luggage around, we all found our own stuff, and all is well.
We also had quite a bit of freetime. So, many of our pilgrim spent time searching through Churches, buying souveniours, and eating gilattos (Italian ice cream). I haven't heard many stories about their adventures yet, but maybe I'll do some asking around today.
Today (Day 4) we leave our hotel at 8am (our time) and head to Rome. Yea!!! It's about a 3 hours ride, and I'm not sure exactly what we have in store for us, but I'm REALLY excited (and Fr. Ben is too), actually I'm sure we all are. Please continue your prayers for us, and they really do help. Again, I do know that we group is spending A LOT of time our their knees.
One last note, I haven't mentioned much about her yet, but our tour guide, Cecilia (from Virginia) is AWESOME, better than we could of expected. Very Catholic, very nice, and very small (smaller than Katie L. small). ;-) It's nice to hear her stories about her family (family of 14) and she loves hearing our stories of faith. Carrie and Fr. Ben has decided that we are going to adopt her (free babysitting!!!), as well as a super nice seminarian, Christopher (from Texas), from another group in our hotel. They both seem ok with the idea too. Yea!!! :-)
That is all for now. I wish there was some more drama or funny stories to share, but honestly, they trip is going flawlessly, and better than expected. Now, since we are moving to Rome today, I have no idea of the internet options. Just trust that I am making my best effort to keep you updated. Thank you and God Bless!!!!

~BW