We're done

August 9, 2009

I had just told my mom after the Bergamo adventure (yet to be written) that I thought that maybe I had reached a point in my life where I didn't need to be having adventures all of the time. Maybe it was time to just be a grown up, and do good things without having to have good stories all the time.

Well, today reaffirmed that. Not much time to write, but we just got off the train from Florence to Rome to find that our money, credit cards, and passports were missing. Yep. Gone. We both thought of the gypsies who had blocked our way just as we were trying to get off and wouldn't let us pass. My mom ran back to the train compartment while I watched our bags. The guys in our compartment said they hadn't seen it and tried to help her look. She came back out pretty frustrated. Then she went back to check again.

I was praying about as hard as I have in a while and thinking through the next steps--we were going to have to figure out where the embassy was and get there on the five euros we happened to have. We would have to get a new passport so we could get on the plane, cancel all of our credit cards, and have my dad wire us some money.

I was prepared for both my mom and I to be so frustrated we would soon be crying, when I glimpsed her through the crowd with our pouch of money and passports! Just as she was coming off the train, she saw a woman walking with our American dollars, passports, and cards holding the bag. She was looking at her hands in confusion. My mom went up and took it from her and said, "Thank you! Thank you!"

All that was missing was the 80 euros we had grabbed from a bankomat the night before. Apparently whoever took the money didn't want to deal with passports or exchanging dollars. We were so grateful to get everything back, but still a little shook up from it all.

Did we mention we lost mom's ring at the hotel? We're hoping to hear back from them soon. We had Amy call her and explain we had left it and would be sending an email with our address in Utah.

I can say for certain that I really am done with these types of adventures for a while. We know we'll enjoy Rome, but home is sounding really good right about now...

Love, the a-bit-sick-of-wandering Mormon