Rejoice!

We are here! It is Thursday night in Milano and we are in our hotel and ready to get some rest. We had a smooth 9 hour flight from Atlanta but, of course, we struggled to get any sleep. And, I also struggled to obey Paul's instruction to "rejoice with those who rejoice" - when I saw those well-rested Business Class passengers just waking up in their plush reclining seats as we de-boarded the plane. But then I decided that must be one of the lessons for my "pilgrim training" so I decided not even make any sarcastic remarks.
We made it to the Central Train station from the airport, dropped our luggage at the hotel and had our first real Italian pizza. Then we navigated the Metro and went to see the castle - incredible! Then we became true tourists and took a sight-seeing tour bus that made stops at the main points of interest around the city. Our one disappointment was not getting to see DaVinci's Last Supper since the tickets had been sold out for today's date - even before we knew the dates of our trip. But, I had seen it during my summer mission trip here in 1973, and I suppose we need to leave one or two things to do when we come back some day.
One of the great blessings of this trip is that Susan and I are getting to travel with my brother, Jonathan, and his wife, Lea, and their daughter, Jessica. They converged on Atlanta from Huntsville and Dallas and we made the flight with them. They will be with us a week and, in a few days our daughter, Whitney, will join us for several days. We love traveling with them because they are all world travelers and - well, because we love them!
Tomorrow we will take the train from Milano to Cinque Terra. Thanks for riding along with us!