Holiday Inn Rome-East

... out here. As ready as i am to head back to the states... I'm going to miss it out here. Its different in so many ways... yet i felt comfortable here from day 1. Maybe its just me getting older or something i don't know. I've had a lot of fun out here. Now its time to finish up the rest of my work and just enjoy the last few days. Hopefully Romolo's last paper wont be too tough...I've been so happy with the way ...

Started off the morning with a tour of the Vatican with Argiletum Tours. Got to the link up point 45 minutes early because the metro system here is easier to use than the one in Paris. It is kind of dirty outside the Vatican. The Carabineri police are outside as guards and thier uniforms are pretty sharp. Police seem to be everywhere in Rome! My tour met outside but stop 49 in front of the Vatican museum entrance. We first went through the museum ...

... with what I did after breakfast. We boarded the bus at 8:00 and rain was gently coming down - enough to make it cool outside, but not enough for me to grab an umbrella (I'm waterproof). We met our guide for Rome (Gabriella) and she gave us these weird headset things that made me feel like an FBI agent. Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain. It is such a beautiful fountain. The white marble sculptures ...

... whom I miss so much, and who I know miss me as well. I feel loved and needed from across the oceans and it heightens my feelings of guilt and fear about coming home. It's funny...I knew this experience would be life changing. But I didn't really know what it would do to my insides, to the core of my being. Maybe I have just been too sheltered and had things come too easily...even though I've never felt this to be the case. There are many moments lately when ...

... there was no baggage line assigned to our flight....it was very weird. The Canadian girls, another couple from the flight, and us all stared blankly at the television monitor for about 15 minutes wondering where our bags were...with no luck. One of the carts finally started moving, but these were definitely not our bags. I finally decided to walk all the way down to try and get some help at the AlItalia desk. The girl at the desk looked at me like I was retarded and ...

... Oh it's great being married to a chef!! A sound sleep on top of the mountain was had by all...we love this temperature of 13 degrees. Day 215 - Saturday 29th September - Sass Fee and Zermatt Today we spent the morning exploring Sass Fee which is a car free Alpine Ski Resort and is surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains. It was very pretty and there were lots of little electronic taxis and buses zipping around transporting people to their hotels. We were going to catch a cable ...

... day ...

... we will be waiting at the airport for them with a big bottle of Chianti. Took a tour bus of the city today (one of those hop on and offers). I highly recommend those for any city you are going to... most of them (this one included), let you get on and off, you see most of the main sights, and then you can go back later and spend more ...

... prepare for the unexpected even on your wedding night. You never know when your wedding night will be spent with your father in law in the middle of a train station switching out train tickets and figureing out train schedules. For your guests it might mean a wacky trip in the middle of the night with standing for hours on an overcrowded train. The Juricas Crazy Train ride http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ...

... go out at an unfashionable morning hour in the cold for a gondola ride. The ride is seductive. Moving through the silent back alleys, looking up at the bridges, we feel as if we are moving through the past. Few people are around, adding to the atmosphere. Our gondolier describes a few sights, then is mercifully silent and, thankfully, does NOT sing, which would have made it seem too much like a Disneyland ride. After our ride, we stroll back through the fish market, busy ...