Taormina

The first 48 hours were a blur.  It was impossible to sleep on the plane so when we arrived in Rome, we were exhausted.  And then we had a bus ride to the ship, check in, tour group meeting, muster meeting and dinner.  I was asleep by 8:30 but Clif still had work to do to get ready for worship.  Sunday morning he asked me to get him 2 large coffees but I got him an Americano with 2 extra shots.  It did the trick!

Worship was great.  Adam taught about Paul and we sang Oceans as our theme song!  We shared communion and then quickly prepared for our first excursion.  We went to the ancient city of Taormina.  There is no evidence that Paul ever stopped here, but he did stop in Syracuse on his way to Rome so he likely sailed by Taormina

at least.  There is an ancient Greek theater on the hillside that existed in Paul's day so he might have seen it.  We also had great views of Mount Etna with smoke wisps coming out.

It's hard being a part of a tour of 650 people.  We have 16 tour buses taking our group to each site, and we make everything super crowded.  You add in a lack of sleep and lots of walking, and we have a few cranky participants.  But mostly we're glad to be here.