Thoughts turning toward home!

This is turning out to be a long week, as Loretta and I are both eager to be back home. Perhaps our time here was just a little long. But the weather has been very nice the last day or so. Tuesday I did my last (12th) spiritual retreat, spending much of the day outdoors. That was a hot windy day, so not as pleasant as I had hoped, but still a good day.
I've been continuing to attend the daily Holy Week liturgies in the local churches, except I missed yesterday. I alternate between the Monastery Church just up the road from the Academy, and the village church down in Kolymbari. Sometimes I am able to follow the service pretty well, and sometimes I seem to be hopelessly lost. With nearly the whole population being Greek Orthodox and therefore knowing what is going on, you typically don't receive a lot of help in being oriented to what is happening in the church. They simply haven't had any experience in that context in knowing how to be helpful, though the Greeks tend in general to be very hospitable people. I expect the tempo of church activity will pick up with this being Maundy Thursday and tomorrow Good Friday. Then there is typically a midnight liturgy on Saturday night leading into Easter Sunday morning. So we will keep you posted on that.
Yesterday we rented a car for the day for a final time so we could make a final shopping trip in Chania, the nearby city. In the afternoon we drove onto a large peninsula, the Akrotiri, where the regional airport is, and saw some old monasteries. We also visited a Center for the Preservation of Cretan Flora and Fauna, a park with many native plants identified. That was a place I had wanted to see, and I was impressed with how well it was done.
Loretta and I are eager to be home, as I said. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, and we are eager to get into a regular routine and work at planting our garden and doing things at home. We hope Spring has finally come to South Dakota!
Roy