This morning was my consultation with one of the directors of the program to talk about my project. I happened to meet up with someone who was on her way over for her appointment. She wasn't quite sure where she needed to go either, so we walked together. It was very easy to find. I then walked back and met one of the other people. He told me how to get to a grocery store. I hadn't eaten any breakfast, so I just went to the bar and had a cafe americano. My consultation went fine; we had an interesting discussion. We walked back over to the Academy together. i hadn't signed up for lunch because I wanted to go on an adventure.

Jacob had described to me how to find the grocery store in the Trastevere area and pointed it out on the tiny map that's in the back of our welcome booklet. I did a little research online by looking at maps and satellite images. Then I set out with 50 euros burning a hole in my jeans. I managed to find the place where steps led down from one street level to the next, followed by another set of steps through the woods on the hillside. I came out where I expected. I then walked around the blocks for awhile until I finally figured out which street I was looking for and then saw the Todis discount grocery store. Discount probably means it's tiny. I managed to find some ground coffee, some milk, some soda, and some pastries to eat for breakfast along with a little jar of peanut butter. On the way back I saw a tiny restaurant. I managed to gesture enough to the woman to order a half of the small pizza with mushrooms. No tomato sauce, just cheese and mushrooms. At the store I couldn't find any real Coke, and nothing that was cold. This little place had a cold Coke Lite (I like that name better than Diet Coke). I got two of the half-liter bottles. That cost me 5 euros. I continued on my way back schlepping my food back up the stairs. I stopped half way up and sat on the stone wall and ate my pizza. The thought occurred to me. Here I am, big fat guy, hauling my bags of food up the hill. There's a bit of irony there. I managed to continuing hauling myself up the rest of the way. Sure enough, a woman came up behind me, so I had to speed it up a bit. It took a few blocks after that to recover. I don't think I even noticed passing the Fountain of Paul. Now I need to find where the kitchen area is and get my milk into a refrigerator.

The milk actually didn't make it to the refrigerator. I was so thirsty. I've only had water and wine for days, not counting the tiny cups of coffee .. and I'm not. This evening a bunch of our group decided they were going to go to the Trastavere area to have dinner together. There was no way I was going to walk back down there again -- and have to walk back up -- the same day. I had a nice dinner that featured lamb -- along with the bread, water and wine. A very holy meal. And a fantastic dessert. If only churches offered dessert after communion, maybe Quakers could be persuaded to participate.