Wierd experience of the day:

At this point, we're down to the minutia of daily life, and I won't inflict the majority of that on your poor folks, so I'll just hit the high (low?) points.

Today, I started with visiting one of the holiest sites in Christendom, and finished out my day driving down "Prostitute Alley." Perhaps I'd better explain:

Becca and I took a tour this morning of the Scavi, the necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica. Pretty interesting from an archeological perspective, and from an artistic perspective as well... We got to see the earliest known surviving Christian ornamentation, in the form of mosaic tiles in a 2nd century crypt (which clearly demonstrated the connections to the Bible and Christianity while being thinly veiled as Pagan to satisfy the local customs - Christians were still being persecuted at this time).

After all of the majesty of St. Peter's, I don't know what I was expecting from the necropolis. There was a fairly well defined route that we followed to see all the allowed rooms, through a partially uncovered brick (almost) maze, and at one point toward the end of the tour, we entered the Clementine Chapel. As you can see from some of the pictures at that link, this chapel is incredibly ornate, and reminds you of the Basilica upstairs. While we were in this chapel, another tour group came out of a recessed door on one side of the chapel. We waited until the whole group had come out, then we were led in (by our guide) and found ourselves in a room with the remains of Saint Peter. I'd already used up my (already schetchy) supply of "I see dead people" references, and I decided that this would be an opportune time to hold my tongue. It was quite sobering to see the Holy Relics which anchor the entire Catholic empire.

Cori had a birthday party this afternoon at a friend's house. Said friend happens to live (on weekends, anyway) in (what used to be) a monastery about 1/2 hour north of town. Both my GPS and the directions provided by the party organizer led me down a specific road, about 15 miles long. Every 1/4 mile or so, the road was lined with prostitutes, singly, or in groups of two or three. Mind you, this was not a big busy street - this was a road that stretches through farmland north of town. I'm still not certain why that particular road was selected (or how the PRU marketing department increases traffic on that road)... you'll notice that I didn't give you the name of the road. I'm not expecting a check in the mail for my marketing efforts, and don't want to wake up next to a horse head in the morning just because I squealed on the internet.

That's it for now. Lemme know if you have any questions!