You may know this already, but Assisi is a town in the Umbria region that has had a resurgence of importance and popularity recently. Assisi was the home of St. Francis (Santa Francesco) of Assisi. (Go figure!) The new Pope took his name from St. Francis -- and he is the first Pope to go by Francesco. The name that a new pope takes is supposed to tell you something about the new pontiff's philosophy, and this has been true in spades for Papa Francesco. St. Francis was known for stressing the importance of poverty, mercy, humility, and joy. That is so far what Pope Francis is all about.
I will post some pics from Assisi and Spoleto later on. I have to run now to go see a musical production of Romeo e Giulietta.
For now, I'll leave you with this: there were some roadblocks yesterday. The trains did not cooperate at all. Every one we needed was late. This led to some extra time on the road -- which, to be honest, I did not mind at all. I am going to miss Paola, Valentina, and Xeno a ton; getting the extra time with them was a bonus!
In any event, Paola and I took advantage of the delays to do a little impromptu language lesson. Since so many of you have asked how my Italian is going, I thought I'd post a slice of our lesson here. This will give you an idea of the remarkable progress I've made.
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