Italy, Switzerland, and How We Wound Up in Brooklyn

June 9

Find the pictures here.

The only television channel we could get in English while in Italy was CNN. And we watched it like it was going out of style….because it was in English. From watching CNN we learned that President Bush was going to be in Rome while we were in Rome. At the train station we began to learn what exactly that meant. We became concerned when we saw that two trains were already delayed for Rome, one of them over 2 hours. But our train was connecting through Rome and was only delayed 10 minutes. The fun really began in Rome.

The train station is attached to a mall and attached to the mall are the subway portals. We went into one subway entry and it was closed. Then we found another one and it too was closed. We started to put two and two together. We went outside and there were hundreds of police officers all in full riot gear. Our hotel was a mile and thought it really wasn’t that far (stupid marathons), so we decided to walk. This walk would have been very nice if we weren’t carrying 30 pounds on our backs, a ripped back full of souvenirs, and it wasn’t 85 degrees outside. We walked passed the Coliseum and the other ruins, but we were not happy campers. After what seemed like forever and countless outbursts and arguments, we found our hotel. And what a beautiful hotel it was.

Once checked in we HAD to take showers after our baths in our own sweat and rested a little. Then we walked around a little and before found a restaurant for dinner. We saw a beautiful park which had views all the way to the Vatican, and a rose garden. Both areas were being used and were excellent places for wedding pictures. For dinner I had lasagna and a steak and Dave had spicy pasta and a bean/ham concoction. We split a bottle of Pinot Grigio. As I have said before, the pace of dinner is quite slow in Italy, more like a feast than a meal. We saw two American families get up and leave because they were not patient enough for the service. Their loss. The dinner was fantastic.