What a fascinating couple of days. Friday, we had a big meeting regarding a project at the Monastery (details to come if it is approved.) The upshot of this is that three fellows came here from Italy - one Franciscan friar, one a magazine editor, and the most interesting fellow - a Jewish convert to the Faith, ordained a priest, he's an Oxford graduate and a college professor who has testified before the Israeli Parliament. Quite frankly, he reminded me of Henry Kissinger or Ben Franklin, although it might be best not to tell him that :) One end of the table would burst into Italian as our professor translated English to Italian or they talked among themselves. We're on the other end, whispering in English. The priest in charge of the Monastery is also completely bilingual. It was most interesting. Today, the two Italian gentlemen came to visit us in Baltimore sans translator - their English is certainly better than my non-existent Italian, but the whole communication deal was amusing. It is interesting that one doesn't chatter endlessly when you know the other people only understand about half of what you say :) We gave them crab cakes for lunch - they ate them, but didn't seem overwhelmingly impressed. Crab cakes really seem to be a Baltimore speciality - you have to be born here to really like them. But, we had wine with lunch - most Continental.

Something to hope for - that we get this project, and we get to go to Milan. You know, primary research :)