March 7, 2018 - Missing the good old reliable US PO

March 07, 2018

Still cold and rainy here. The sun pokes out once in a while, but in a day or two, it will be nice! All through central Rome, there are these old Roman walls. New buildings are attached right to them, and traffic drives under them. They are huge and visible, everywhere. It's pretty cool.

As we might have said earlier, Hannah accidentally left her contacts at home in Utah. She wears a special kind of hard contact lens, that we would not be able to get, here in Italy. She wears them all night, and they re-shape her eye, so that she can take them out in the morning and have 20/20 vision most of the day, until evening. Then they revert back in shape and she has to put them in again for the next day. Soooo, with the generous help of friends and family, we had the lenses sent to Rome about 10 days ago (for no small fee), knowing there was great risk of never seeing those very expensive lenses again. We had them shipped to the office of MEDU, the organization that Mark is working with. And we crossed our fingers!

We had miraculously received some update texts on the package over the last few days, which led us to believe that it had actually arrived in Italy, then arrived in Rome, and then had been sent to the address! But, apparently no one was there to receive it. Mark finally went to a PO near the address, in an attempt to track it down. He was told that a carrier had it, would likely try to deliver it again today, and if no one was there, it would go back to the USA! So, he just went to the PO again this morning, and called me. He saw the package! He was within a foot of it and saw it with his own eyes! But they could not give it him. For reasons that he could not understand in translation, he can go back tomorrow, after 2:30, and pay more $, and then get it........maybe.

Poor Hannah, without good eyes for 2 weeks now! Her eye doctor gave her some soft disposable lenses to use in an emergency, of two different prescriptions. He could only guess at the prescription, because her eyes are constantly changing when not wearing the overnight lenses. It takes a while for them to completely revert back to their true prescription, but they have done so by now, and the soft lenses are not really worth using at this point because her eyesight is so bad. I have an extra pair of glasses that help a little more, but she can't wear those or she would get a headache (and look like an old lady, which might be the bigger issue!). So, she can hardly see, and has had the flu, so the last several days of cold rain and misery, have not been that great.

We did get out a bit, and went to 2 churches of interest. The one across the street from our apartment, la Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, is one of the 7 Pilgrim Churches of Rome. They are churches containing venerated relics that Pilgrims travel to see, and have done so since the 1500's, when this form of worship became popular. Inside we saw decorated glass cases, holding items said to be: a nail used in the Crucifixion, a chunk of The Cross, thorns from the crown, and a finger of one of the apostles. They also brought dirt from Jerusalem and scattered it under the floor before it was built, which is why this church has its name.

Just down the street a block, is la Archbasilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. It is the oldest public Catholic church in Rome, and the highest ranking of the 4 major papal basilicas here. It even outranks St. Peter's, which is over in the Vatican City, which is why it is an "arch"basilica. It was originally dedicated to Christ, but later, was co-dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, as well. It is really amazing, with the full length of the nave being decorated with huge wall niches filled with large, beautiful, marble statues of the Twelve Apostles. They are really stunning. Each is done by a different artist. There are many papal tombs here, as well. It is large and very ornate.