I'm currently in Bari, Italy. From Siena I went to Assisi, which was GORGEOUS and I fell in love with. It's such a cute tiny little medieval town. I loved seeing the tombs of Sts. Clare and Francis, and seeing the clothes they wore. And I will always have a special place in my heart for the time I had strolling amongst the olive trees while watching the sun set over the Umbrian valley.
Then from Assisi I went to Foggia, and quickly realized there was nothing there I wanted to see. I tried to couch surf but my would-be host wrote me from the hospital to tell me his father was really sick. This made the second time my host had had family problems! I tried to surf in Siena but the same thing...she wrote me saying her family had serious problems. I started to think I might have a curse and hopped on the next bus to San Giovanni Rotundo, where Padre Pio lived and died.
I wandered around a bit before getting a hotel...luckily in SGR there are hundreds and hundreds of rooms...and even though my hotel was big I think I only saw about 5 other people staying there. It's a huge pilgrimage spot for Italians and I think increasingly for people from all over the world. There were still signs up from when the Pope visited there a few weeks ago.
It was amazing to see Padre Pio and also the museum of where he lived. I took lots of video I'm intending to edit so that you all can see too!
It was funny because when I was in Assisi thinking about St. Francis, I thought, 'why is there no one like this today?' And then the next day I realized that Saint Padre Pio IS today's St. Francis. The parallels between the two abound...starting with the fact that Padre Pio's given name was Francesco and extending to the fact that they both had the stigmata (I didn't think about when I was planning my trip that I would see three stigmatists in three days...kind of intense but also awesome). And even during his lifetime Padre Pio was a spiritual father to many people, and you can see a HUGE collection of letters that were written to him in the museum. And apparently he felt so responsable for his spiritual children that he said when he died, he would wait outside the gates of heaven until each one of his spiritual children were let inside.
From there I went to Bari, which is on the Adriatic coast. There's not a whole lot going on here, but I've enjoyed wandering around. And I had my funniest couch surfing experience to date last night.
A question I get asked a lot is 'isn't that risky?', in reference to traveling alone and especially couch surfing. But mostly just funny things happen, even in situations that could be potentially harmful.
Last night my host, an economist, picked me up from the bus station in a Mercedes. Upon arriving at his apartment we had a wonderful meal of freshly made local bread, locally made olive oil, fresh mozzarella and basil, tomatoes, prosciutto, and ricotta cheese. Also, some very good local wine, which I enjoyed too much of. While we were eating, he put on some Celine Dion, turned off the lights 'because they make the kitchen hot' and lit some candles. And he offered me champagne and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, but I didn't have time to enjoy them because of aforementioned red wine.
So we are standing on his balcony and he starts trying to romance me, but since I've had too much wine I instead start complaining about Obama buying General Motors and how much it pisses me off. Then he went into the kitchen and I realized that the room was spinning and it was probably not a good idea for me to continue being awake, so I promptly told him I was going to bed. But instead of going to sleep, I threw up my delicious dinner.
I think the whole thing was a little surprising for my host.
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