{"id":4449,"date":"2006-02-21T13:28:42","date_gmt":"2006-02-21T13:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/countdown-1.html"},"modified":"2006-02-21T13:28:42","modified_gmt":"2006-02-21T13:28:42","slug":"countdown-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/countdown-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Countdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The good news from today is that I finally took the time to research our plane – it’s supposed to be an Airbus A330, which has individual audio\/video monitors<\/a> at every seat. <\/p>\n

Do you KNOW how much tension that instantly relieves? I haven’t been too concerned about the trip over, because it’s overnight, and both Joseph and the baby are good sleepers, even sitting up in cars. Katie falls asleep the instant she sits on a plane. It was the trip back – beginning at 11:15 Rome time (supposedly) and ending around 7pm Eastern…I’ve just been thinking, whatarewegoingtodowith them, whatarewegoingtodowiththem<\/em>….well, the baby will still be an issue, but Joseph has my full permission to be mesmerized in front of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em>, repeatedly. (They supposedly have a few television channels as well, including Nick, etc.)<\/p>\n

Phew.<\/p>\n

Planning continues apace, although loosely. We have a few things scheduled, and I have a list in my head of things I don’t want to leave Rome without seeing, but given the fact that there is so much, not all of it could ever be seen, ever, and given that the weather is so off-and-on – between weather.com<\/a>, reports from Zadok<\/a> and the webcam from St. Peter’s Square live on my computer during (their) daylight hours<\/a>, I’m seeing and hearing of off-and-on light rain,  we will definitely have to be flexible.<\/p>\n

And what about that all-important element of the Italian journey…FOOD? One could go mad sorting through restaurant recommendations. I have a few from you all, a list from a bishop who spent many years in Rome, although I’m sure most of his recommendations are above our pay grade and maybe not so suited for the toddler set, and I’ve bookmarked a few discussion threads for printing out: here,<\/a> here<\/a>, here,<\/a> here<\/a> and here<\/a>. I’m thinking we’ll be eating lunches out, and most evening "meals" such as they will be, in the apartment (which is near St. Peter’s – two blocks, I’m told, from Ratzinger’s old digs.). There is no way we can do the late leisurely Roman dinner with our crew – well, at least 2\/5 of our crew.<\/p>\n

But again, food is something I’ve decided not to overplan, to waste any time searching for a particular restaurant I saw mentioned. Every day that we’re there, we’re going to be spending some time with someone we know  – either touring, or meeting – and I’m thinking that asking for their recommendations will be the best way to find a good cheap place, especially since, to my knowledge, none of the people we’ll be seeing are secretly rich.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good news from today is that I finally took the time to research our plane – it’s supposed to be an Airbus A330, which has individual audio\/video monitors at every seat. Do you KNOW how much tension that instantly relieves? 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}