Arrival and re-entry

Made it to Rome this morning with some delays due to the extra security measures at Dulles airport in Washington DC. We were 45 minutes late, and it took an hour for the luggage to arrive at the pickup point, but processing through immigration went very smoothly.

Two students, Wim Collin and Fabiano Gheller, met me at the exit of customs and drove me back to the university.


This time I have been given a room in what is called the rettorato -- the wing where the provinical offices are located. My room is a guest room and rather small with no bookshelves. However, it is a quiet area and there is a laundry room, which makes things easier for me. After a quick clean-up, I went to pay my respects to directors and provincials, department chairs and deans and made it to pranzo at 13.10 in good shape.

Giorgio Zevini, dean of the Theology School, and Jesùs Manuel Garcia, director of the Insitute of Spiritual Theology, have decided to give me an office on the first floor of the theology building. This will make it easier for me with a workspace of my own. Last year I only could work out of my bedroom and had limited telephone and internet access. By tomorrow I should be given a key and will be able to move in with all my books and such.

Once the problem of an office was solved, I fought off sleep for the rest of the afternoon. This I did by dedicating my time to preparing my classes for tomorrow (three are scheduled). I have a PowerPoint and syllabus ready for my class on Francis de Sales, which takes place at second period tomorrow. My plan is to complete the syllabus for the second course tomorrow morning, as I'm to those taking the monograph on Salesian Spirituality in the afternoon between 15.00 and 16.35. Nearly the same people are taking both courses.

So I am hitting the road running, as it were.