My Life: June 2005 Archives

Today we left for home. Talk about a grueling day. Got up around 5:30 (which was certainly better than 12:30 as we did to come to Rome), and didn't get home until 2am Rome time. On the flight back, the computer power connector on the seat worked this time, and I started to play my DVDs, only to have a flight attendant interrupt me and advise me that it was against their policy to play DVDs! Can you believe that! Especially odd given that they offer free movies which play on an individual screen at each seat. Figure that out for logic. So I brought five DVDs with me to play and only got a few minutes through one of them. (That's OK; I watched it during my layover.)

I forgot to convert 20 euros on my way back. Now I'm gonna have a tough time getting rid of them (my credit union doesn't deal in foreign currency). Oops! I have a friend who may buy them off of me.

Today is the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, which is a big deal here. Unfortunately it meant that the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel were closed, and I never got to see either, nor did I get a chance to buy a necklace that my stepmother had asked me to buy. I feel bad that I failed in buying it, but they have given us very little time to explore the Vatican. Today was the first time, too, that I was able to wander around St. Peter's Basilica. I was looking for the statue of St. Peter I hear so much about but that must be elsewhere. I'm a bit disappointed — actually quite disappointed — that the Vatican was not on the tour schedule. Fr. Peter assured me that there would be enough time to visit it, but there was not. Humph.

Oh! I got to see the Pope today. We went to the solemn liturgy of the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. I only got a blurry photo of him though (darn auto-focus) and he was about 20 ft away from me. I also had a nice photo of him at the altar — nice except that the auto-focus again picked the back of someone's head to focus on and left the subject completely out of focus. (Manual focus is useless as the screen is too small the see the kind of detail you need to see to determine if it is focused or not. Here is where an SLR would probably come in handy.)

Communion was weird. One side of our section of chairs — the inside &mdash had a barricade. The priest simply came up to the barricade from the other side and gave communion to all those at the barricade. If you were not seated next to the barricade, you simply elbowed your way toward the barricade and streeeeeeached out your hand for the Eucharist. Why can't they do this in a more organized fashion? I know — they're Italians.

Then we went to the Catacombs — specifically, the St. Sebastian catacombs. I was a bit disappointed for several reasons. First, no photography was allowed. Second, there were no bones and virtually no inscriptions to see. They had cleaned the bones out. It was as if someone took a graveyard, emptied it of all its bones, removed the headstones, and cleaned everything up, and then gave tours of empty, unlabeled graves. What's the point? I wanted to pray with the ancient martyrs. Sheesh.

We were supposed to go to St. Paul's Outside-the-walls where St. Paul's bones are buried. I opted not to go, in part because someone told me they saw the Vatican Gift Shop open (which I now believe was false), in part because I wanted to see St. Peter's, the Colosseum, and the Forum before I left. A couple of others bagged out of it too so we took a cab back. I got to do my wandering around St. Peter's, then I took a cab to the Forum and the Colosseum. The Colosseum, alas, was closed for entry by just about an hour. (Of course I could still look at the outside.)

Discovered that pepperoni pizza doesn't exist in Italy. The term "pepperoni" to them means some mixture of bell peppers. I was disappointed. They did have a pizza with some sort of sausage on it but the one I had wasn't too tasty.

Today we traveled the Amalfi coast (famous for its beauty) and saw the blood of St. Pantaleone in the Cathedral of Rolello. This blood, held in a monstrance-like reliquary, is normally opaque and dark brown, but on his Feast Day (27th of July), it turns translucent ruby red. Lamentably my attempts to get a photo of it were thwarted by the glass on one side (which just reflected my flash) and the grille on the other side (it's very hard to get the focus right when photographing through a grille since the auto-focus thinks you're photographing the grille). I did end up getting something, though. View image (The reliquary is a monstrance-like design which is half-filled with the blood. In the photo the arrow points to the blood in the lower half.)

We celebrated Mass at the tombs today. We were supposed to get the altar associated with Peter's bones but someone screwed up and we got the Hungarian chapel instead. I did get to see John Paul's grave (both of them, actually, I mean, both John Paul's). Also saw Peter's bones, though for some reason they are deeply recessed; they are in a wall, and then there is some sort of a hallway or open area, and then there is another wall with Plexiglas beyond which I was.

Saw my first squat-style toilet today. Wasn't expecting it in Europe. Maybe in Israel but I never saw one there. Fortunately ... well never mind.

We visited Pompeii today. Extremely well-preserved, including the bodies writhing in agony. They had frescoes and mosaics that were preserved, and ovens and bathhouses and swimming pools and fountains. Overall, pretty impressive.

I'm definitely getting ready to come home though. I'm tired of the food.

We had Mass at St. Peter's today. No pope, though he was around for the Angelus blessing at Noon. Obviously a beautiful church. St. Peter's Square is smaller than I expected. I expressed this aloud and one tour member remonstrated with me, saying that it is bigger than it looks (I made this judgment based on peering in from outside), but I still think it looks small. I'm probably comparing it to a stadium, which is somewhat an apples-and-oranges comparison, as with a stadium, there are seats, and the seats don't fill the whole stadium. Anyway, I did not get a chanced to tour St. Peter's

No organized tour today. (The tour company is turning out to be a vast disappointment compared to the one in Israel.) One of our priests volunteered to take us on a tour himself, which he did. We were supposed to go to the Forum and the Colosseum, but we didn't have a chance. (I was a bit disappointed since that was what I was primarily interested in, but I can understand why he wanted to do the sacred sites.) We saw the tombs of St. Catharine of Genoa and St. Monica and a bunch of churches. Also saw the Bridge of the Angels, where Bernini adorned the bridge with statues of angels, each of which carries an instrument of the Passion. We also saw the restaurant where Alfredo sauce was invented. (I never tried going the restaurant though.)

Confessionals here are weird. Basically they consist of a box in which the priest sits and kneelers on three sides: two sides for anonymous confession, the front for face-to-face. And these are placed in the church. In other words, you are basically making your confession before God and everybody. Be thankful for the privacy you have in the states!

I got ripped off for the first time today. I bought ice cream — tartufi, special kind of killer chocolate ice cream &mdash which was 4 euros. I gave her a fifty. Now I have been told that sometimes they;l play games and shortchange you (literally), typically be slow-counting (they count the change very slowly hoping you'll assume they are done and take off), so I resolved that I would count my change carefully. Well I forgot to, and she shortchanged me by five euros. I was furious. C'est la vie. Lesson learned.

I'll tell you, Americans are everywhere here. I run into them several times a day. No wonder everyone knows English. I've heard someone comment that there are so many Americans here, they are thinking of making the hamburger an Italian dish.

[As of Thursday the 30th I am home; I'll post my log entries two a day on the days they happened until I exhaust them. --eje]

Today we flew to Rome, very early (12:30am). Fortunately I had been very concerned about getting enough sleep — I have a medical condition wherein very bad things will happen if I don't get enough sleep, and I was running behind — but I skipped dinner and this permitted me to get about six hours of sleep which is great under the circumstances. And I never really got hungry, even with the extremely continental breakfast they offered.

After arriving in Rome we took a whirlwind tour. We saw the Pantheon and the church where St. Philip Neri is buried. Unfortunately I killed my PDA by dropping it on the ground (it slipped off my waist). Will have to get it repaired which will be at least $100. Good think I won't need it for getting back (it's a GPS navigation system and I opted to fly back).

I owe you an ATM report. My friend John will be delighted to hear that my ATM card worked in the first ATM I tried. Of course this could have been coincidence :-) and without additional trials it would be hard to prove that there is extensive support, but it certainly suggests I ought not have been concerned.

I find my general devotion on this trip, like my devotion on the Via Dolorosa, has been pathetic. Rarely do I think to pray for my friends and family as I wanted. Daily prayer has been sporadic. I've been even forgetting to genuflect when entering churches. I suppose there is much to distract me and it is understandable that I would not be as singled-minded as I wish. I'll simply do what I can do and confess it to God with regret when I realize my lack of devotion.

Cars here are very interesting. It reminds me of Darwinian evolution (well, microevolution) because 95% of the cars are tiny. One of the tiniest — and most popular — cars is the Smart car. It's a funky-looking two-seater. I have a photo and will post it if I remember. This is definitely not a place for SUVs (not that anyone has any home projects to require them). Most cars are battle-scarred, too, with scrapes on the corners. Also extremely popular are scooters. I expect this is for two reasons: 1) they can park anywhere; and 2) they can (probably illegally) squeeze into small spaces on the road and are generally much more dexterous. What with the scooters and the tiny cars, you wonder how anyone carries anything.

I was surprised on two hotels to see floors numbered -1, 0, 1, 2, etc. (0 being the lobby). It warms my little engineer's heart to see such a logical numbering system.

I need to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow we fly to Rome at 5:30am (that means be at the airport at 2:30am). Why they didn't factor in some time to sleep, I'll never know ... When I get there, I don't know what my Internet access will be like.

We saw a bunch of desert sites today: The Judean Desert, Masada, Qumran, the Dead Sea, and En Gedi. We also saw Lazarus's Tomb.

Lazarus's tomb is another one of those Muslim-owned sites where they charge admission. It's got an entrance that goes into the ground, though the tomb rises above the entrance. I guess it's that the floor is below ground level, so you have to step down to get there. The whole thing seems to be well below ground level now; we had to descend a fair number of stairs to get to the "entrance".

Next we went to Masada, passing through the Judean Desert as we went. The Judean Desert is the smallest in the world. I found it to be a fascinating-looking desert with peaks and valleys and water- and wind-carved formations. As for Masada, if you are racking your brains trying to think of where it's mentioned in the Bible, don't bother, because it isn't. It is the place where the Zealots had their last stand in 73 to 74 A.D. The Zealots believed that it was idolatry to become slaves of Rome and so they resisted Roman rule. So convicted they were of this that when the Romans gained the upper hand, their leader convinced them to kill themselves instead of subjecting themselves to Rome. Oddly, they chose ten men by lot to kill everyone else, and then chose one of those then to kill the other nine, such that only one person had to commit suicide. The Zealots had holed themselves up on a high plateau on which was built a palatial fortress by Herod the Great. (Herod was paranoid, and so he had the fortress built "just in case" he needed it. He never did.)

En Gedi is where David and Saul played cat-and-mouse, and David caught Saul in a cave relieving himself (but opted not to kill him, instead cutting the corner of his coat to prove that he could have). We saw several caves such as this in the area. We also saw a cool little beast called an ibex. It's the smallest mountain goat you'll ever see. It's about 18 inches high and has disproportionally-large horns. (Do a Google image search if you are curious.) This is appropriate as En Gedi means "spring of the mountain goat".

Qumran, of course, is where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. We saw the caves where the scrolls were hidden, and also ruins of the Essene community there.

And — the Dead Sea. The lowest spot on earth, about 1300 ft below sea level. I was able to go swimming in the Dead Sea (well not really swimming — you are just supposed to float). It was a hot day and I made the mistake of not leaving my shoes on for the trip from the locker room to the beach. I think I seared the soles of my feet! I'm pretty sure they started to burn, anyway. So I went in, and successfully floated. Unfortunately my sweat started to pool in my eyes as I lay down, which caused them to sting — but I was unable to do anything about it, as my hands were wet with water you dare not get in your eyes. So it was a bit uncomfortable as my eyes stung and I was barely able to open them and unable to do anything. This meant that my stay in the water was brief. But not before I tried pulling my legs up to see if I could bob vertically. Bad move. Like a buoyant object in the wrong position, it thrusted me horizontally — unfortunately, on my stomach, which is the wrong position to be in, as the other thing you aren't supposed to do is get any of it in your mouth. I flailed a bit as I tried unsuccessfully to regain control (violating the third rule, which is a corollary of the other two, don't splash, you'll get it in your eyes and in your mouth). Eventually I figured out the best thing to do was roll over on my back and float that way, then I could recover. Anyway, one thing that struck me was that the water looks totally ordinary. It's fairly clear, and fairly warm.

Oh, and I finally bought a pair of sunglasses.

And no, I haven't resolved the ATM question, as I've been living on dollars the whole trip.

I forgot to mention two interesting things that happened yesterday.

We also visited the Pool of Siloam. (In addition to that we visited the ruins of the two towers that fell in Luke 13:4.) We got there, took pictures, and then turned to leave. I said whoa, I want to go down and wash in the Pool of Siloam, like the blind man! One of the keepers of the site heard me and offered to let me in (it was closed). Our guide acquiesed and for a small sum I was able to wash in the Pool of Siloam! That was so neat!

The second incident is when we were walking through the tunnel adjacent to the Western Wall. For some reason the ground is interrupted by a glass window over a significant drop (which if I recall correctly was lighted). This not surprisingly startled me as the guy in front of me appeared to walk across thin air and as I saw the drop before me! A bit like a ride on the roller coaster ...

Today we visited some of the really good sites: The church of the Nativity, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Temple Mount and Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Chapel of the Ascension. We also visited Dominus Flevit (The Lord Wept, where ostensibly Jesus wept over Jerusalem), Shrine of Pater Noster (where Jesus taught his disciples how to pray), and Shepherd's Field (where there are caves used by shepherds, but I'm not gonna believe this is where the shepherds set foot).

The Garden of Gethsemane was very moving. It still has several olive trees in it. (Not hard though as there are literally olive trees all over the place.) To think that this is where Jesus made a very difficult "Yes" to save our souls — and where he shed tears of blood, and where he was arrested. Jesus's suffering, made present. I thanked him for doing the Father's will.

We had to show passports and pass through a rigorous Israeli checkpoint to get into Bethlehem. We saw the infamous wall, 24 feet high, and heard stories of farmers whose house was separated from their field by the wall. I've also heard of monasteries being divided in two by the wall. I don't understand why they can't respect property boundaries in building it.

Learned something about the Western Wall. I always thought it was one wall of the temple. It isn't. It's the retaining wall of the whole "complex", if you will, all the courtyards and so forth. (Although I suppose it depends on what you define as the "temple".) Guess you could look at it as the enclosure for the temple and environs. The Western Wall is considered holy because it's the wall that was closest to the temple.

There is a stone in the western wall, 42 feet in length and I think 200 ft deep, that is considered the second largest stone in the world. No word on what the largest is, maybe in the Pyramids.

The Chapel of Ascension is one of the few sites you have to pay admission for. The reason is that it is owned by Muslims! (The site is basically a spot on the Mount of Olives; we don't know for sure exactly where Jesus ascended into heaven.) I think the Sepphoris site we also had to pay admission for. The vast majority of the sites are free.

Our guide has been strongly discouraging us from buying anything from virtually anyone until we get to Bethlehem, where he said it is important to support the Bethlehem Christians (Christian emigration has been so bad the Holy See has been pressing Western governments to deny visas to Palestinian Christians). All week he's been telling us to "wait until we get to Bethlehem" and "Don't buy from so-and-so." As it turns out this meant waiting until we got this particular shop in Bethlehem. I am convinced he gets a kickback. Which kind of brings up a moral dilemma: Should I view this as necessarily a bad thing, or chalk it up to just the way they do business here? Do I buy his logic about buying from Bethlehem Christians, or do I conclude that is merely a deception in order to gain a kickback? Perhaps it doesn't make a difference, as he hasn't given us time to browse other gift shops.

The shop was also different in that they were much more resistent to bargaining. I guess I made the opposite error today, low-balling an item and the guy wouldn't even talk to me after I did that. Oh, well, live and learn.

Today was an exciting day. I felt profoundly moved for the first time. It was standing in the dungeon Jesus was held in inside Caiphas's house. Wow. Talk about the reality of what Jesus went through for us slamming you in the face. I read (out loud, to the group) Psalm 88:

Lord my God, I call for help by day;
I cry at night before you.
Let my prayer come into your presence.
O turn your ear to my cry.

For my soul is filled with evils;
my life is on the brink of the grave.
I am reckoned as one in the tomb;
I have reached the end of my strength,

Like one alone among the dead,
like the slain lying in their graves,
like those you remember no more,
cut off, as they are, from your hand.

You have laid me in the depths of the tomb,
in places that are dark, in the depths.
Your anger weighs down upon me;
I am drowned beneath your waves.

You have taken away my friends
and made me hateful in their sight.
Imprisoned, I cannot escape;
my eyes are sunken with grief.

I call to you, Lord, all the day long;
to your I stretch out my hands.
Will you work your wonders for the dead?
Will the shades stand and praise you?

Will your love be told in the grave
or your faithfulness among the dead?
Will your wonders be known in the dark
or your justice in the land of oblivion?

As for me, Lord, I call to you for help;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Lord, why do you reject me?
Why do you hide your face?

Wretched, close to death from my youth,
I have borne your trials; I am numb.
Your fury has swept down upon me;
your terrors have utterly destroyed me.

They surround me all the day like a flood,
they assail me all together.
Friend and neighbor you have taken away:
my one companion is darkness.

I also think this is the first place I've been to where where he had been was very specific: Not a city, not some expanse of mountaintop, but a room where he was in. It was incredible.

I also saw the Cenacle, where the Last Supper took place and Pentecost came. To think that the tongues of fire were here, and somewhere in this room the Holy Eucharist was instituted was tremendously moving.

Today we saw Mt. Tabor. That was cool, being up on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. I kept wondering where it might have occurred. They had a very pretty chapel there. The architect built three chapels: One for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Not sure how wise that was, but — there you go.

We saw Jericho, and some archeological excavations including what might in fact be part of the wall that the Israelites knocked down. (One excavation is 10,000 years old. The wall is around 1700 BC.) We saw the mountain where Jesus was tempted by Satan. We say a sycomore tree like the one Zaccheus mounted in Jericho. We say the Valley of the Shadow of Death and a lot of desert. This is where Elijah was fed in the wilderness by ravens. As I said we saw Caiphas's house, and the dungeons there. The church there is dedicated to Peter's repentance, since it is there that he heard the cock crow three times. We saw, briefly, Temple Mount. We saw David's tomb. And, we saw the Valley of Hinnom, or Ge'henna, which is of course Jesus's image of hell.

We're staying in something that is not quite a hotel but certainly looks and behaves like one: Notre Dame in Jerusalem. It's got icons on the walls and has a chapel. And, finally, WiFi Internet access! Hooray!

I tried my hand at bargaining today. I wanted to buy a plate that had the famous mosaic (which I saw earlier) of the loaves and fishes. We went around a couple of times, he wanted to sell me three places and I didn't think I could take three plates home as safely as I wanted. For two plates, the price he wanted was $24. I offered him $20, and after he did some calculations with his brow furrowed deeply in thought, he accepted it. I knew I hadn't won a big victory, but it seemed to be good for a start. Little did I know that later on I saw the same plates starting at $9 a piece. Ouch.

I'm starting to get really sick of just water. A lot is not always available here. I grab the iced tea when I can.

I had one guy (kitchen help) really impressed today that I "knew Arabic" when I thanked him in Arabic (shree kahn). Little did he know that that is about the only secular phrase I know, and I've been tossing it about with wild abandon. (The only other useful word I know is "abouna", father. I got to combine both of them the other day at the Synagogue Church, which a Byzantine Catholic priest opened specifically for us. Oh wait, I know salaam as well, peace.) The rest of the Arabic I know is all liturgical.

Well we have to get up early tomorrow, and it is late, and I am tired, so I'm going to close for now.

Today we saw a lot: we saw more of the Church of the Annunciation, we saw the site of Joseph's carpentry shop, the site of the synagogue where Jesus read from Isaiah, Nazareth's well (called Mary's Well), the Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus preached, the ruins of Capernaum include the house of St. Peter's mother-in-law (and the ruins of the church built on top of it), the Sea of Galilee including the cliff the demons drove the pigs off of, the Jordan River (we renewed our baptismal promises sprinkled with water from the Jordan), Tabgha where the multiplication of loaves and fishes took place, the town of Magdala, and the city of Tiberias. We also the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter, where Jesus appeared to Peter after the resurrection and instructed him to cast his net on the right, after which Peter caught a miraculous catch of fish. Later Jesus cooked breakfast for him and told him "Feed my sheep." We saw the rock where ostensibly Jesus stood on shore and called out to Peter, and where he later cooked him breakfast.

We got to go out on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, which was quite neat. This played a pretty important role in Jesus's ministry, of course. It's where Peter and the other fisherman-disciples did their fishing; it's where the demon-possessed pigs drowned themselves; it's where Jesus walked on water and where many of the storms that play a key role in Jesus's ministry take place.

I have to admit that some of this stuff sounds rather dubious to me. Did someone really keep track of where Jesus spoke to Peter? How did this get handed down, especially during the times the Holy Land was lost from Christian control for hundreds of years? I could probably buy that this is the synagogue of Nazareth, where we presume Jesus read from Isaiah, but some of the sites I wonder if they are not wishful thinking or blatant attempts at exploitation.

I also have to say that I'm not as enraptured as I expected, and in fact I'm feeling a bit blase about things in spite of myself. I'm certainly enjoying the trip, don't get be wrong, but I feel almost as if this stuff is familiar to me. I keep wanting to be awed but somehow missing it.

Today we spent the day mostly around Galilee. We saw the place in Cana where (tradition tells us) Jesus worked his first miracle. We went to Sepphoris where there was a Roman city inhabited primary by Jews. Lots of interesting mosaics (these weren't apparently the most devout Jews). We went to the Basilica of the Annunciation (right across from our hotel), and celebrated Mass there. We saw Mt. Tabor (eventually we'll visit it), Mt. Hermon, and Caesarea Philippi, where Peter made his confession of faith ("You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God"). As it turns out, the actual place this happened, which we visited, was a shrine to the god Pan. There were other pagan shrines in the area, and a monument to Caesar. Puts a new spin on the whole context of the thing. We saw the Sea of Galilee, and the Mount of Precipice, where the Nazoreans tried to throw Jesus off the mountain when he read the scroll and pointed out that the Gentiles are worthy of salvation.

By the way, did you know that goats, when they eat, will attempt to shred and destroy the bush they're eating when they are done with it, so that no other animal may eat it, and they will muddy the waters when they are done drinking, for the same purpose? Puts a new light on the idea of judging between the sheep and the goats.

I hope you will forgive me for back-dating these entries to the time they happened rather than the time I entered them, I think that will be more meaningful.

Today we arrived uneventfully in Tel Aviv. (I did discover on our departure from Rome that I forgot my sunglasses.) Oddly there was no customs to go through.

We then drove to Nazareth. On the way we saw Armaggedon. No, this was nothing mystical, as you recall, Armaggedon is a place, the valley of Mediggo. I saw a sign referring to Meggido and I asked if this was Armeggedon, and the guide said yes. Pretty wild, for the first day especially!

Nearly everyone we encounter speaks English. The guide strongly recommended us to not bother changing our money and conduct our transactions in dollars. However I think they tend either to round up the transaction or give you change in shekels.

Our guide is awesome. He is an Orthodox Christian with flawless English who knows four and a half languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, English, and rusty French. I was surprised he knows Aramaic; Aramaic speakers as I understand it are few and far between. He obviously knows his bible which is great. Fr. Stravinskas calls him the best guide he's run across, ever.

Heard the call of the muezzin for the first time. An interesting experience. Loudspeakers from every direction start chanting something that must surely be unintelligible. At least where I was, it didn't seem to affect anyone on the street.

I have arrived safely in Rome. It was odd; I wasn't really inclined to sleep, and especially now that I'm here in the broad daylight even though it is almost 3am, I am not particularly tired. I had planned to sleep the whole trip but it did not happen.

One disappointment was that the power outlet on the seat — for which I bought a very expensive adaptor — did not work, dashing my dreams of watching a DVD during the flight. sigh Such is life I guess.

Boarding soon!

I got on a standby flight and made it to Newark early. Doing a calculation, I would have made it on the later (2:50) flight but with just five minutes to spare. Of course, all I got to do on my $7.95 WiFi ticket was do a blog entry and look at one or two more webpages.

Now I am sitting at the ticket counter where we are supposed to meet and where there are no chairs. I thought there were some outlets here but they seem to be in severe disrepair — they are loose within the box. Providing sufficient outlets for laptop users is definitely something airports need to improve on.

I just put one of the little icon buttons RC gave me. I think it has an icon of St. Peter. Maybe this will identify me to members of the pilgrimage before Fr. Stravinskas makes it here.

Well, off to read email and perhaps search for a power outlet I feel comfortable using ...

... more or less. They cancelled my flight to Newark, leaving me with very little time to make my flight there. (My Alitalia flight departs at 5:30; I'm supposed to check in 2 hours early, which makes 3:30, but I need time to switch terminals and get my baggage. In fact I had originally been on the next flight arriving at 3:15, but switched it to this one since I felt I needed the extra time.) My new flight arrives at 2:50, which is still cutting it close, but better than 3:15. Right now I am waiting for them to cought up my bag, since they switched from American Eagle to Continental.

Anyway I ended up going to be early last night, having got nearly everything ready. It's worked well in terms of preparation, and surprisingly, after all that worry, my bag is under 20 kg!

So far I haven't forgotten anything. :-)

I think at this point the biggest thing I have left to do is load some caches for geocaching. My best friend Caleb, who is a big geocacher, sent me a bunch of sites, and is twisting my arm to do some caching while I'm over there. I love to geocache but I'm unsure what kind of opportunity I'll have to do it over there. Traipsing around well-armed territory by myself is not exactly my idea of a vacation. :-) Ok so let's suppose I only do it in Rome (since apparently there are not many caches in Israel). This would be more feasible, as I know that I'll have more free time in Rome than elsewhere. Still ... I can't help but think that if one is spending time in a city he has never been in as old as Rome, with as much to see and do ... finding a cache seems like the last way I'd like to spend my time. However (and I haven't reviewed the sites yet), if they are related to historical events or locations, it could be a cool way to go sightseeing. So I'm going to load them in. I'll have to think of some things to bring with me to swap. I'm not sure how exciting American stuff will seem to them! Too bad I don't have any opossum teeth or claws (I have a bear claw and a beaver tooth). Which makes me wonder ... whether opossums seem as exotic to Europeans as koalas, kangaroos, and Tasmanian devils seem to us. Somehow I don't think so.

This is starting to sound like a soap opera. Friend #1 has remained steadfast in his position, against Friend #2's prejudicial statements against ATMs abroad, and has issued a challenge. He's willing to bet (figuratively speaking) that I will be able to easily find an ATM that works with my primitive card. So we shall see, and I'll report back.

I talked to a customer service rep, though, and my credit card doesn't have a cash advance fee, so I should be able to use that. The interest rate is low, and with access to the Internet I can pay it off immediately, so that may be adequate.

Meanwhile I've ordered a VISA check card.

Bad news on the ATM front, I'm afraid.

I talked to another friend about using my ATM card overseas. He's actually been to Italy and uses the same credit union I do. He cheerfully reported that everything worked fine, and in the process mentioned that he was using his VISA check card. See, normally when one gets an ATM card at my credit union, one gets a VISA check card (debit card) that can be used like a credit card. However, if you don't have a checking account, they don't allow it. Unfortunately, I had an issue a few years ago where because I didn't use my checking account one month they closed it, cancelled my check card, and sent me a simple ATM card instead. (Ok it was more than a month that I didn't use it but not by much.) Consequently I don't have a VISA check card. My friend expressed the opinion — I got the impression this was based on first-hand knowledge — that the ATM networks used by the ordinary ATM card don't extend over there, and it's the VISA network that makes the ATM cards most everyone else in my credit union has work. So the woman who told me my ATM card worked overseas probably assumed I had a VISA check card.

I actually do have a VISA check card for my brokerage account. Well — I did at some point, or something, for, you see, I've misplaced it. :-( I never used it because I was too cheap to pay the ATM fees it had, and always used my credit union ATM card, so I took it out of my wallet. I have a particular place where I was accustomed to putting out-of-circulation bank cards but it's not there. I tore my place apart looking for it to no avail. What a frustration!

And you know, if I had discovered my credit union ATM card didn't work 24 hours ago, or if I had thought to order another brokerage card as a backup 24 hours ago, I could have had something FedExed to me. But now — it's too late.

What's the big deal you say? Why is ATM access so important over, say, travelers checks? Well as it turns out, the exchange rate you get via ATM is much more favorable than the one you get at the counter, plus there is the issue of being able to withdraw just the money you need anywhere you need it instead of finding an open bank and exchanging large sums you may just have to exchange back at a substantial loss.

Sigh.

Well here is a consolation: At least I found out now when I have enough time to get some more traveler's checks.

This whole discovery has literally quenched my appetite, and I haven't had dinner yet. I suppose I shall have to force myself to eat.

I'm wondering now what happens if I put a credit balance on my credit card and do a cash advance. I'll have to ask if there is a cash advance fee.

Arrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!! I wonder if the neighbors heard me scream.

I suppose I should put this in perspective (something I don't always do): I have money. (Money is good.) The only consequence is some inconvenience and extra expense. In the scheme of things it's not a big deal. Life moves on! Life moves on, Eric; life moves on ... repeat after me ...

Well my trip to Israel and Rome is coming up quickly — I leave Friday, for two weeks. I'm well engaged in the process of preparing for my first visit overseas. It's going pretty well; I'm neither rushed nor dragging my heels. But I am hearing all these stories about pickpockets and scam artists in Rome — ugh. I feel like easy pickings. The fact that I am limited in my luggage makes things worse as I'll probably look all the more like a tourist. I've learned some interesting things, though — for example, pickpockets will often create some sort of a diversion, whether it is bumping into you or spilling mustard on you or making a commotion to distract you so they can pick your pocket. Time to be on my toes.

The good news is my suitcase meets the necessary size limits. Whether my stuff will fit into it is another question. Another question, too, is the weight limit. Interesting, Alitalia has a weight limit of 20 kg, except for USA, Canada, and Brazil, where the limit is 64 kg. That's a big difference! 20 kgs — what kind of limit is that, anyway? Our tour operators say that the limit is 70 lbs, so I guess I'll go with that. I hope it's safe.

I'm trying to determine whether my ATM card is certain to work over there. The credit union I belong to assures me that it will, but given some perhaps obsolete experiences I've had with ATM cards, I am a bit apprehensive that a card from a rinky dink credit union will work at many ATMs over in Italy. I talked to a friend of mine about it, and I am a bit more reassured now.

I got a larger flash card for my camera before my trip over there. I had a 64 MB card, but I lost it sigh. I was going to buy one at Best Buy as it was too late to mail order. Still, I looked on Amazon to see what the street prices were, and they had a 128 MB one for $25. Very cool. So I get to Best Buy and do you know how much they wanted for it? $60! Indignant, I looked up the phone number for Staples in my PDA, and called them for a quote. They were around $5 cheaper. Not enough. Then I remembered I had a friend who had the same camera, called him, and by the next day, I had a borrowed 128 MB card (which is fine; if I decide I really need to replace the 64 MB one I'll order from Amazon).

What I have left to do is either get my watch fixed or get a battery for another one I have, get a prescription, get some change for a tip for the people mowing my lawn, and have my rabbit boarded.

I caught an organization feeding my email address to spammers.

A few years ago I installed mail software on my system with a special feature. (I run my own mail server, something most individuals cannot do.) The feature causes the mail software to ignore anything in an email username (the part before the @ sign) beyond a plus sign (or period), for example, eje+passion@ewanco.com. This means that I can add a plus sign and anything I want to an email address and it will still get delivered to me. What good is this? Well, it means that I can generate an infinite number of email addresses, give a different email address to each organization or company I do business with, and track how they use the email addresses.

In this particular case, when I signed up for tickets to The Passion of the Christ, I gave them the address eje+passion@ewanco.com. Today I received a church-related spam (which started, "Hello Eric, You are receiving this email from the Center for Church Communication because you have done business with us in the past or have expressed an interest to do so in the future") with that email address associated with it. Consequently, I knew who betrayed my email address.

For the most part, companies have been remarkably honest about how they use my email address. I've been doing this over a year, maybe longer, and until today only one tracked email address was misused, and that was clearly some sort of theft or abuse.

I consider this a minor violation though. My philosophy is that if someone does their homework and believes in good faith that I may have a specific interest in a topic, that's no different from what happens in the snail mail world. For example, I usually toss my Christian spam, but at least someone knows that I'm a Christian. What I really loathe is people who indiscriminately spam everyone with whatever product they have in the hope that they will randomly hit someone who is interested. That is a waste of my time.

By the way, if you get exercised about spam and want to do something about it, there is a service called SpamCop that will report your spam for you to administrators who can shut down the account. I use this service for any spam I receive that is not reasonably targeted to me. You can use the service for free, though they accept donations and I recommend doing so if you find the service useful.

I won't report the Center for Church Communication to SpamCop but I am annoyed that the folks at The Passion are sharing my email address — especially given how much money they made off the movie, it's not like they need to make ends meet. I'm also upset that CCC lied in the email about where they got my address!

Do you have any pet peeves about how charities conduct their fundraising? I sure do.

I read something about Catholic World Mission and about how they just received millions of dollars worth of donations of medical supplies that they need funds to ship. It sounded worthy and urgent (and it is), so I decided to give a donation under one condition: that I not have to provide my address, or at least that they not put my name on their address list. Why? Because once this happens, it tends to become a long-term committment, as you stay on their mailing list perpetually, which means the the burden of either reading their mail or feeling bad about throwing it away unread. You see what was intended as a one-time donation get eaten up over the course of years by the cost of mailings and premiums and gimmicks and what have you that they employ. I am already overextended in terms of my long-term committments to charities, and so the last thing I want to do right now is make a long-term committment to another charity.

So what do I see on the donation form? A required address and no option to stay off the mailing list.

I suppose I can sit down and write a check, cross out the address and put in warnings not to use it, and mail it in. That's a lot of effort though.

Another pet peeve is charities that send you unsolicited premiums (address labels, trinkets, even money, and so forth) to try to rope you into giving. Sometimes I expect it is pure manipulation: this person will feel guilty if they don't give money after we've sent them a valuable premium. Often this is in the form of "Here's ten cents, we desperately need it back, here's a stamped envelope". I have been known to tear off the ten cents, put it in the envelope, and send it back. Stamped envelopes are another form of this. Now I realize that some people donate in the form of stamps, and they have to do something with them — one charity I used to give to was in the habit of sending me envelopes covered with various denominations, including one and three cent stamps. But I always feel manipulated when I get these. I hate to waste a perfectly good stamp, but sometimes I get these things more frequently than I really want to give. So they build up. Once I even took a bunch of them from an especially egregious offender and mailed them back using one of the envelopes.

I used to cut the stamps out and glue them to mail I had to send. But the triple-layer of envelope, excised envelope, and stamp was a bit much, plus it just eventually wasn't worth the effort of cutting and keeping track and pasting, so I decided that I'd contribute toward the post office's deficit and keep stamp prices down by discarding the stamps (which I suppose is what I less anal-retentive person would do anyway, but at least I had now justified it to myself).

Sometimes I love the little gimmicks they have. There's Covenant House, and the little candle I'm supposed to send back every year for their vigil. I love candles so I just remove it for my own use. I got a nice plastic vial once that I was supposed to send back to be filled with Lourdes water. I filled it with my own blessed water and gave it to a friend. I love the little stickers with urgent or self-important messages you're supposed to take off and put somewhere on the envelope. As if they don't already know what's on the sticker. It makes you think about the sad state of human psychology that this stuff works.

What I would like to see is options, when giving, to 1) not be put on the mailing list; 2) not be sent premiums (keep your address labels). I actually fantasize about writing non-profit mailing list management software that would provide these features (although with other features that would make life easier for the non-profit, like bar-coded response cards). In fact — I know this is a pipe dream — I'd like to give donors web access to their account, where they can select the options they want, such as:

• Take (and keep) me off the mailing list, even if you rent it from someone;
  
• Only contact me 6-8 times a year instead of weekly;
  
• Save your money: don't send premiums;
  
• Don't insult my intelligence with gimmicks (ok, good luck on this one);
  
• This is my age, please don't waste money sending me estate planning and annunity material or stuff targeting old credulous women;
  
• This is my gender, please don't send me effeminate address labels or greeting cards;
  
• What is my giving history;
  
• What do I owe on my pledge.
  

Really, though, we are on the same team. I want to help the charity spend as little money as possible, and when I get hordes of inappropriate mailings, I'm inspired to think of a better way. I suspect, though, that many of my good ideas would be dismissed by non-profit consultants, who probably argue that even people who claim they don't want certain things respond to them more than they'd like to admit.

What are your pet peeves about charities? Leave a comment.