Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 NASB
After a tour of the Coliseum, we started walking through Rome. All the tourists must get very tiresome for the locals – think NYC, Paris, London, or Beijing. I recommended my husband go inside the Pantheon while I relived a thirty-year-old memory of touching the stones of the Pantheon at dusk. He missed seeing the hole in the ceiling and all he heard was “please be silent” in multiple languages.
We walked through restaurant-lined squares, saw intriguing gelato shops. Someone was singing “Money” with an electric guitar and an open guitar case in front of him for donations. I love the weirdness of large cities and foreign culture. It seems perfectly normal to the locals and can totally changes the tourist’s paradigm of the world.
Our hotel had a large bus prearranged for its guests at the Bridge Umberto at 6:00 pm. The bus arrived early at 5:45 pm. Early. Amazing. Early.
My husband was taking pictures of the river across a busy Rome street away from the bus. There is that moment of panic when cell phones don’t work, your Italian is really bad, and you do not have a ticket for something you very much want to ride or do.
It will be all right. It will work out in the end. Breathe. Pray.
We got the last two seats on the bus. He got his picture of the Tiber River.
Only one day in Roma.
When have you revisited a favorite place and it was so different? How do you handle the stress of travel? How do you handle language deficiencies? What do you remember at the end of the day?