Second Day

I am sitting her right now with a glass of white wine, because you know the saying "do as the Romans do" It is 12:45am (Rome time) and 6:45pm (Burlington time)I am just taking in the entire day. I don't know if I am going to be able to keep up with this city. There are so many sites to see, it is truly amazing. As I look back at our few days here and realize that this country is over 3000 years old. America is only over 25o years old. The history here is mind boggling. Our itineray today was to see the Ruins and the colleseum.

We woke up this morning at 6:00am (Rome time) and went for a walk looking for a small italian bakery also called (pasticceria). However, Rome is a city that is full of tourists, so all the restaurants, bakery's, are like small convenience stores. We stopped at a small bakery, off the beaten path, had a cup of cappiccino and a roll with frosting on. MMMM Magnifico. Walked around the city for a while until our tour guide came to pick us up. This is the same tour guide from last night, her name is Georginna. Above find a picture of her, Michael, John Carlo (our driver) and of course the bartender, who is standing right next to Michael. Anyway she picked us up at 9:30am and preceded to tell us she drank too much.....Hmmmm we felt fine. I guess I don't understand why all the people we go out with, seem to always have a hang over the next day? It is so wierd. P.S. Christi, you need to e-mail me an explain to me how to post more than one picture!

So back to our day......We first visited the City of Rome Ruins. I expected to see a bunch of stones in a large field. Wow was I wrong. It is amazing. As soon as I learn how to post more than one picture, I will totally share them with you....Hint....Christi......I.....Need.....your.....help..... then it was to the colleseum. We spent four hours with Georginna and it went so fast. Mikey, if she was younger I would so hook you guys up! Her knowledge of history is truly amazing and when she talks about it, her excitement about Rome is infectious. The lines for the colleseum and the Ruins were so long, however, she knows so many of the guards that we did not have to wait in line. Otherwise, it would of been at least a two to three hour wait, just to pass through the gates.

We were dropped off at our hotel at approximately 2:00pm (rome time) and we just had to take a nap. At 4:00 we were awoken by a protest being done by college students who are upset because the government wants to make the colleges private (which means they would have to pay to go to school)....Yes, it is free in Italy to attend college. Actually, the government pays for health insurance and college. This protest was huge, we watched it through our hotel room for about a hour, then we decided we wanted to walk the city alone.

We walked to the spanish steps. One one of the many amazing places to vist and which is the place that I thought for sure Michael was going to punch someone. What happened was: Michael and I decided to sit on the steps and I was trying to take a picture of both of us together. This man approached us and gave me a dozen roses and said that he would take our picture. He took our picture, took back the dozen rozes and gave me 5 of them. Michael pulled out some money to give him a tip and he wanted 10 euro's. FYI our dollar is worth 65 cents in Italy. Michael only had a bill for 20 euro's and the guy was going to walk away with it. Michael proceeded to say 'NO" I need some change, but the man was arguing with him. Michael grabbed his hand and told him if he didn't give us change that we would call the Police. The guy gave Michael his money back and also took back the flowers.

We then walked until 6:30pm and on our way home wanted to stop for some Gilato, which is just like ice cream. By that time, we were out of Euro's so we just assumed that our dollar would be suffice. We ordered our Gilato and tried to pay with American money and the store said that they would not take our dollar......How sad is that, that our economy is so bad that foreign countrys want nothing to do with our dollar. It was humbling to say the least. We didn't have any Euro's, so we had to walk out the door without our gilato. I was bummed, I wanted Gilato!!!

We came back to our hotel, had a few glasses of wine on the roof of our hotel. P.S. Mikey thanks for the wine recommendations, the bartender said it was a good choice.... and now back in our room. What a night, what a day.

As Michael and I sat on the roof of our hotel and talked, we realized, how blessed we have been these past years. I keep thinking about when I worked at St. Mary's Rectory and a man came in to make arrangements for his wifes funeral and he said to me: "Are you married?" I said "Yes" he said "Enjoy your life now" "Don't wait until you retire....I waited until I retired and thought that my wife and I would travel and spend so many wonderful days together, and now I retired a few months back, and I am now making funeral arrangements for her."

This has stuck in my head for so many years, and I am so glad that we committed to follow our dream to visit Europe. It is now 1:30am, and I must go to sleep. Another long day tomorrow awaits us. I hope all is well with everyone, and thank you for the wonderful followers and the posts. I am glad that you are enjoying our story.

Chao

Our first stop was the Ruins. I can not explain, just look at the attached photos: