Roma Farewell

Today we are back in Roma with the Genungs. It is such a welcome break after the wierd manners of the Greeks. We went to Colloseo and had an inside tour which was amazing. We saw all the walls underneath the colloseum where all the animals were held for the gladiators to fight. It is our last day in Rome and possibly the last time in our lives in Rome. We are very nistalgic. We touch the walls and feel 2000 generations of people who have passed this way. Its very moving.

We have pesto pasta with the Genungs and Cristinas aunt and uncle lola and Jose. We drink greek wine from santorini. We tell lots of stories of Cristina flagging Taxis and talking back in defense of her situation. She is famous for this, of course! It is a beautiful evening. M and I look for a cuban cigar but it is closed, and instead have a glass of grappa and talk about being a lay person and still a good catholic! how is this done! When you are drinking grappa, it all seems clear enough!

Tomorrow we fly to London. Our last day in Europe. It has been a great , great vacation. We are ready to go home and see those we love~

That is another grea thing about seeing things far away, they give you perspective and value to those things close to you.


PDS

Beads

We spent a very peaceful day travelling from Santorini to Rome today. We started out the morning on the balcony of our hotel Villa Renos. Observing the last sights of the Chaldera eating a fabulous breakfast of sweet pastries in philllo, yogurt, fruit, cheese, tomatoes and salami.

I got in a whole another round of fights with Creepy rose guy after he wanted to charge another night of hotel charges....

We noticed funny things about Greeks, and here are a few.

1. It is just absolutely funny that Greek men use the Worry beads. These are beads that look like a rosary but actually they are beads that have no meaning. Just out of the blue you will hear beads clicking, and you look around the the average Greek guy has got a hand on these things and he's just swinging them around. It is truly the funniest thing I have seen in a while. No reason. Just fiddling with these beads. Guys in suits, guys smoking a cigarette at the bar, guys everywhere are swinging these worry beads. No women, just men. huh, go figure

2. No toilet paper can be flushed down the drain. Thepipes evidently are too small. Though it sounds gross, it is true. All bathrooms have liittle trash cans with lids that you must put the
tP in. hmmm.

3. The streets have cobblestone streets that are not cobblestones, but rocks that have painstainkingly been placed on their edge to make a street.

4. Wine vines are put down to the ground as baskets.

5. The word for yes, in Greek is "Ne".

Boutari

Today we hit the Boutari vineyard to see how they make the Santorini wine. They mostly make white. The ground here has a topsoil that is volcanic debris, or rock. It is very arid. They had a display of all the different layers of rocks and the top 3 feet are volcanic gravel, it almost looks like. There is very nearly no rain, and there is not enough water to irrigate.

All of the vines are wrapped around in a basket to preserve the humity that rises up from the sea.

My session in my cafe expiring. More tomorrow !

Good night!

Io

Today we woke up and headed upstairs to breakfast. Wow! How beautiful! A homemade breaksfast with fresh squeezed orange juice and jams made from apricots and figs from the owners fruit trees. I myself was not enjoying one bit of it because the more I thought about it, the more angry I was that these people were double charging me for having made two reservations when clearly we were only using one room and giving me the runaround. I wore dark glasses so I wouldn'thave to look at them. The young son gave me a rose, and said here is a rose for you since you haven't smiled since yesterday. I took the rose and laid it on the table and didn't smile. Thankyou. I left it on the table when I left. How about 600$ buddy, that would make me smile. You can take your rose and yadda yadda.

Anyhow, by the time we showered and spiffied up the room I walked past rose dude not looking at him or speaking to him on the way out. He pulled mom over and told her that he had refunded our other room. Thank you I told him and My world was indeed rosy again.

We headed south for the Ruins of Akrotiri which are 1000 BC dated, damn we keep getting older and older with these ruins. The island and cycladic architecture and countryside with the Agean sea views was simply as charming as they come. I was having an absolute ball driving the little smart cart up and down the rolling windy country sides. We see wineries and we see littel pottery places.

When we get to the ancient ruins, they are closed for the season for restoration so we walk down to a little snack shop. AND it is on the Aegean with little beach chairs at the edge of the water. We buy some orange juice and pull an umbrella up. We prop up our feet and listen to the waves lapping and take in the awesome sight of the coast. This is the life. Time stands still and you can hear yourself BREATHE!

Happy and content to have spent time with the sun and the black sand beach and the 5 little kittens who lay down with us, we head back to find one of the wineries and when they might have a tour tomorrow. We stop in a pottery shop and have a looky look. In 15 minutes we our back in Fira, our town so we pass it up and head north to Io. It is much higher up on the cliff... whoa... some pretty hairy driving here. There are hairpin clifs with no side guardrails and crazy locals whizzing by and Large Buses? How the hell do they stay on the road? This town has more of the cliff stucco buildings, but is slightly less touristy. Our guidebook says to keep going around back down the cliff to the bottom of the mountain and the marina. There are supposed to be divine and fresh off the boat seafood restaurants there. We pull down to the base of the mountain and eat at Dimitris. It is a little wharf/dock overlooking the little sea fishing boats and there are charcoal stoves that fish and octopus and such are all grilling on. We watch the sunset with some hummus and batter fried tomatoes. We watch the cruise ships pull out of harbor and back out to see. We look up the cliff and see all the little stucco houses twinkling down at us. This is truly one of the most quant spots imaginable to watch the sunset. The red snapper comes out, we share a fish. Heads on or off? Oh, well off please. This fish is amazingly delicious with the smoked grill and herbs.... couldn't get any fresher... there is folk greek music in the background... Feels dreamlike truly... we wonder if we will beleive this all really happened when we get back home!

Ciao friends,,

PDS

PSS Sorry Roo for no pictures. There are no cables for us to upload our gorgeous pictures. Oh there are like hundreds of small little churches with blue dome tops here. Evidently they are teeny tiny and only open once a year when the saint they are named after has a saint day. they only open one day a year. So Cute and Quant. Anyways, we have lots of pictures! Will try to upload some more when back in Rome on Friday with Ms computer!!! We miss you guys!
Ma and PDS

Santorini

We flew into Santorini this afternoon. It's only a half an hour flight! You fly out of Athens and you stay low to the ground so you can see allthe little islands on the way. This takes 10 hours if you take the Ferry, and costs the same as the ferry! No thanks, I'll fly! We hung out in the Athens airport for 2 hours drinking capacinno and purusuing Greek Books because we nearly missed our flight out of Rome on Aegean Airlines due to it taking an hour and a half to check in. We checked in at Athens in 5 minutes. Go figure, you never know the way these things are gonna go.

This morning as we packed in our rooms the wind was whipping outside. Not a soul outside below the balconies in the 5-Star. Mom goes out to retrieve her unmentionables from the balcony that are drying from some laundering and she is missing half of her items. She looks over the balcony? Little pieces of black and pink fabric? No? She searches to the left and the right. She turns around, They're gone! We can't imagine where they went to. Out into the Sarconic Gulf? Mom has made her offering to the Greek Gods in her own way. Tee Hee.


We get into the airport and go to rent a car. We ask if they have the little 2 seater smart cars because mom has been admiring those all over Rome and Athens. Let me check the freindly car lady asks. Usually its more. She has us slated for a Ford Fiesta on the paperwork. Bluck!! She comes back, YES WE HAVE for you, no extra charge! Hee hee. She says, I show you how it works. We have room amazingly in the back for our luggage and our carryons. Its semiautomatic she states. Hmmm.... little shifter but no clutch. You just keep shifting up and up and up to 4th gear. Sometimes it locks, the smart car. It means it is confused. You just turn off and turn on again. You be in N gear and you put foot on brake. It work. You drive to Messyna you take right to Fira. Zoom zoom, we head out of dodge. Its fun to drive the smart car.

We get to Thira and the roads are smalllll and on a very big hill. You drive up a road it dead ends you you have no where toturn around. A Greek just sits in his car and watches me to do a 30 point turnaround to go back down. We find a little parking lot and we are SO glad we're in a smart car because it fits into little little space no other car could fit in. Also, the semi automatic means you don't roll when on a 45 degree incline that is on a very high cliff.

We walk into Fira. There is a little foot path that is on the edge of the Volcanic crater, the Chaldera. We go the edge of the wall, and peer down... there is all these little adobe whitewash buildings down the entire cliff. It looks like a little dollhouse. The view is everything you see in a postcard and more. The cliffs are red and black where the volcano errupted here 1,400 years ago. The Aegean Sea is below you with blue blue waters and 3 little island bits that are left over from the volcanic smashup. It is one of themost beautiful places inall of Europe the guide books tell you and we can't agree more.

We see the rooftop terrace of our hotel with a little wooden sign, Villa Renos. There it is! We hop down the stairs that is a little cobblestone path that winds and weaves all the way down the cliff to the sea where the cruise ship people take their ferrys back and forth from their cruise ship. Donkeys go up and down the path to bring people from the cruise ships. Also there is a cable wire with cars that you can take.

We check in and we have double reserved and double paid. Is there anything to be done I ask? We will see he says. We head down to our rooms that lead out onto a balcony that overlooks the cliffs of the Chaldera. You suck in your breath at the view. The rooms are partly built into the cliff of rock. The bathrooms are compeltely inside the rock so that they are solid and you get in lots of light from the French Doors. These square and rounded top stucco buildings are called Cycladic architecture that all these Greek Islands that are in the middle of the Aegean in the shape of a circle are called. It feels very simple, and quaint and homey.

We head to dinner around the footpath and down the cliff a ways at Selena. Here we have one of the best dinners of all times, seriosly, with local grown herbs and local tomatoes and local capers and caper leaves. Mine is sea bass wrapped in a crepe with capers and caper leaves and fresh herbs. Momma's is lamb chop in the most delightful tenderness and herbs. Appetizer is sea urchins which kind of taste like clams and a grilled artichoke heart on top of a sauce of white fava beans that is delicious. We wash it down with local Santorini wine. MMMM.

We wax slightly silly from the wine and talk about mom's honeymoon across the country to report to Dad's post in California for Graduate studies and about how they only had a sleeping bag in the apartment when they first arrived, because they had no furniture. We think about this because the other diners in front of us look like they are on their honeymoon. We drift back to the little Cycladic villa along the rock cobblestones....... Lovely evening....

Acropoli!

We headed into Athens bright and early this morning. Caught the 9AM hotel shuttle into Syntagma square. That sure was easy, and not to mention free. No tickets or maps or routes to calculate. I was sort of let down, because I had my heart set on figuring out the local bus route #114 by myself, and then posting the directions on Tripadvisor.com- Alas, my competitiveness will have to wait for another opportune moment.



We met a lovely Indian Family from Dubai who had spent some time in states and had very American and excellent English. They were also headed for the Catholic Cathedral downtown as we were. So the father and I headed to the front of the little group and compared our maps and the routes we had carved out with each other like two fellow sailors navigating our way through troubled waters and comparing the routes the other had calculated. We found each other up to par, as we continued to sail side by side each clutching their own map like some ancient family jewel.

Alas, land ho! We found our Cathedral! All aboard! Mass was just lovely, and although half finished, we simply stayed on for the next viewing and stayed for the first half. The choir was heavenly, it was equivalent to a chorale performance. For some reason I was unusually tickeled that the Kyrie Eleison, which I have sung all of my life, was actually Greek and the Greeks were singing it.

We were experts on the Athens metro now, and Mom was in charge of Metro operations, since she was so good at getting the tickets for us and hopping on the Acropolis route.

Tickets in hand, we started up the rock. Rain started drizzling a bit and we were sure it would downpour on us at any moment, so we scurried on up to make sure we could get in a dry view.

Sigh. I really don^t have words for making to the top of the rock and seeing the parthenon for the first time, knowing that this building is 2,500 years old. It is just draw droppingly beautiful. And as you get higher and higher up the rock you can see all of the city of Athens all around you, and strangely, though this is a large tourist area, it is very peaceful. Almost everyone has somewhat of a reverent nature up here. You almost can^t help it. The rock transports you up so that you feel as if you are being picked up into Athena^s hand and then this monumentally large and ancient building peers at you. Not far off to the left is the Temple of Athena, Nike, which i never knew nike meant victory. Celebrating vicotorious Athena. it struck me as joyful, with the corner cutout for 6 or so busts of Athena just on the corner looking triumphant. Truly amazing, considering we have no building in the us that is older than 200 years old. essentially.

We meandered down and poked around the Temple of Zeuss, but since its only from 142AD we weren^t really that impressed with it. plus its roman. hee hee.

We came back to our hotel and partook in a sandwhich and a beer in front of our gorgeous Sardonic Gulf view. i checked out the spa downstairs and momma took a siesta and now we are just kicking it in the 5 star, since the winds have kicked up to a frenzy and we are not that hungry from our large snack. We have CNN in ten languges in our hotel room, and we watched a little Al - Jazeera just because we are cosmopolitan now that we are in Europe. We`re checking out the weather in all of the EU. It started snowing in Moscow, and The World Rugy Semifinals are on at 1900 GMT between Argentina and South Africa´. hee hee.

We feel very awed by this day and full in our souls. We keep pinching ourselves, we can^t beleive we^re in Greece. We can^t beleive we^ve seen so much of Western culture in a week!

Athens

I was sick today. I think i^ve caught the little bug spread around by our little friend in Santa Marinella. Ah well... So got a gallon of orange juice from a little side vendor. I slept all morning and felt a bit better when I got up. Good enough to attempt the tram into Athens from Glyfada.

The day is simply divine. The view from our hotel is simply divine. The doors open all the way up so that your whole hotel room is open to the Sarconic Gulf. It is so heart achingly beautiful that it looks fake. There are sailboats. They look fake. We drink in the view. Its like a painting. We want to remember it. We try to take a picture in our minds. We watch all the people eating below our balcony. There goes a guy paragliding from the dock of our hotel. Its so relaxing who would want to get up? I drink about 10 glasses of orange juice, take an excedrin and a fizzy drink of Airborne vitamins for travelling health. I think I can venture forth.

We ask the front door dudes at this 5 Star Hotel how to take bus 114. They tell us to go down to the old guard gate. Huh... Some things are definitely lost in the Greek to American translation. They are not sure what time the bus comes or if you have to have a ticket before you get on the bus. {I read that you do}. So we shrug and take a taxi to the Tram Station in Glyfada. But it is one hour he tells us I take you in taxi for 25 Euros. No, we want to take the Tram because its only 1 Euro.

We hop on Tram 5 to Syntagma square and figure out where the Bus Tickets are. Well, really we ask someone because mom likes to ask people stuff. Its faster. I tell her I like reading stuff to figure it out. We shrug. The Tram Lady tells us we can^t by from her we have to by from the Bus Lady. Where^s That mom asks. Around the corner. We buy a couple of bus tickets. Where^s the metro we ask the bus lady. Across the street. We figure out how to buy those ones and scoot ourselves with all of our three kinds of tickets into the Metro and head to acropoli.

The evening is just beautiful, warm, cool breeze. We stroll down the street and there are lutes and accordian players serenading us on the road. We touch the old stones from the base of the Acropolis and admiring the night view of the parthenon all lit up from below.

We make reservations for Dinner at Daphnes in half an hour and stoll through the Plaka looking at jewely in the shops. The streets are so quant, with little rambling alleys and beautiful big wooden doors. There are balconies everywhere and little flowers hanging from the balconies. All the shops sell greek beads, and vases with greek images on them. Quite quant. Quite! There are all kinds of people from everywhere. Every culture every language we hear swirling around us.

Dinner is in a beautiful outdoor cafe. We have a funny moment where we help ourselves to the wine left from the last diner at our table. Our waiter comes over and starts ýelling at us. NO! That is not the wine left over! That is the wine for everyone! Well it tasted terrible, and they probably didn^t like it and thats why there was half a bottle left. Mom orders greens. We don^t have greens, mr. mean waiter says. We have cold greens. Are they good mom asks? Greens is greens. He barks. Fine! Mom barks back. Well, the greens sucked of course, but my salad of artichockes with stewed carrots and potatoes with dill and lemon sauce was tasty tast. Mom had moussaka? I Think? She loved it. It was light and moussey and light. The courtyard is so lovely and the evening is perfect despite mr mean greens.

We have a slight mishap getting on the wrong tram to the wrong direction before we get back off and figure we better figure out where we are going before we just hop on any train. We wait for the next one, the right one. There are ALL sorts of Greek Teenagers heading out to party on Saturday night on this train, and they are worth the hour long ride to watch them. Everyone wears black. And the HAIR! The hair is the funniest thing of all. It has to be teasted to hell in the crown for the girls, so that it is standing straight up like Marie Antoinette movie, but the bangs are slicked down over the forehead. And the men are just all slicked and gelled up in every direction so that everyone has LArge, large hair. Like at least 4 inches high. But of course they act like the teenagers in rome and teenagers everywhere all giggly and hyper, especally the boys. They have to stand close and they have to be touching each other and hitting each other at all times. They get off at a stop that mom mentions has a sign that announces {Athens number 1 Dance Spot} Ahhhhhhh.... We decide to stay on.

We make it to Glyfada and are ready to use our bus tickets, but alas, our spot does not have the number 114 bus. There evidently seem to be 3 Glyfada stops and the one we got off does not have 114 bus. However, we have managed 2 out of 3 means of public transportation in a town where we know not a soul and can^t read the language so we are MIGHTY proud of ourselves.

We have a celebretory glass of juice and hit the sack! What a beautiful night.

Athens, Greece

We travelled from Rome to Athens today. We arrived at our hotel to be greeted to the most BEAUTIFUL view of the Sarconic Ocean. The view out of our beautiful hotel is drop dead gorgeous little cove with sailboatsin the distance. We promptly fell asleep and took a nap. i seem to be fighting off the cold from the little boy in Santa marinella. We ate dinner at a lovely local greek restaurant in Glyfada. We were so glad that the menu was half in english,otherwise we would have had to point at something in Greek! The greek, so far, seem like lovely people. We went to eat at 10pm and were amazed everyone was up and eating and drinking a beer and just relaxing the evening away and enjoying.ahhhh. Beautiful!
Good night dear ones,

pds

Piazza Navona

Today we hit The Colloseum and The Forum. It is always so humbling to see an entire empire that was one of the greatest in history lying around in fallen column and crumbled pieces of beatiful architecture and frieze.

All is ashes, or some such Ecclesiasticus wrote... oh yes, vanity, vanity.. all is vanity

We hit the Trevi fountain to make a wish... THROW the coin over the back of the shoulder to do it properly! Then we hit the mecca of Rome... GELATO! Picolo Fragula... Lucious!


We tooted down past the Pantheon.... Mom's comment was, "I'll never say that a building in Charleston is old again." Since the Pantheon was created in 125 AD. Quite a few years ago. Staggering that this civilation made these things with no cranes or modern methods of construction....

Finally, we alight upon Piazza Navona... Bernini has a few fountains here, people everywhere! Artists on the square. We stop to have a glass of Rossi and some bruscetta and mozarella.. Ymmy! Roma sweet Roma.... Bellisimo! Tomorrow M starts the first day of his class at the Biblicum for his Licentiente in Sacred Scripture and we hit the tracks at 6:30AM YAWN for Athens!

Don't know if I"ll find any internet connection in Greece, but I shall look for a cafe! Buene Notte my dear friends. You are in our hearts!

Ciao,

PDS

St. Peters Square

Today was Vatican Day -

We hopped aboard the train headed to Roma San Pietro Stazione. What a difference it makes when the train has a little screen that tells you what stop you are at rather than trying to look out the window and catch a glimpse of the little thing as you whiz by...

Anyhoo, we arrived and are meandering our way around Berninis marble columns of the arms that welcome you to St. Peters Square. We stop dead center looking the front of St. Peters Basilica head on.. we are trying to figure out why guards are not letting anyone into the Square... we are wondering if it is the Wednesday weekly audience that the pope gives. After all, it is Wednesday at 12:30. When, Lo and behold a little white blob seems to be at the front door of the basilica, and lo the little white blob is in the popemobile motorizing our way. Wow! Benedecto is in the house! and he's out and about.! I personally, am a little choked up. We didn't really thing we were going to see the papa! We didn't even know he was in town. His little vehicle doesn't make it our way, it turns to the right and heads out the street to disappear behind the Basilica. We see the little white hand up and waving up a storm. I can only imagine his little cute grin on his face. Our hearts are full. What a special little gift we received! We couldn't have timed that one if we tried. The pope himself has come out to welcome us to Vatican City! We smile at each other and continue to meander over to the Vatican Museum.

We are nearly there when we notice that the line to the Museum appears to be wrapped around three blocks. Oh, no, I think. We are never going to get in there today. We'll have to come back tomorrow. Its not quite all the way sunk in that this is the end of the line for the day. The Sistine chapel is the one thing mom wanted to see while on her vacation! Ah la la...

When out of no where, appears a little nymph who asks us, Do you speak English? Yes we blink back at it. (Was it the stupid looks on our faces that gave us away as Americans?) Would you like to bypass all these lines? We have a group tour in English that is just starting up now and the Guide is very knowledgeable and from South Aftica. We blink two times at her and can't seem to form any thoughts in response to this. Finally, I offer, well How much does it cost? Oh sorry, she says its 25 Euros each for the tour and 13 Euros for the standard fare to get into the Vatican museum. Sure I say, damn thats a steal to make a dream happen. We start following her around the crowds, one block, two blocks, she is getting farther and farther ahead of us... My mind starts kicking in now, Is she going to take our money and just run away with it? Are we really super dumb tourists? We get to the head of the line. Suddenly an Italian guard comes over and starts yelling at her in Italian. He is none to pleased. She is yelling back at him and gesturing to us and using the word Bano. She is yelling at him that the guide just went inside and we just missed him. Oh, shit. I think. We are cutting in line. She has no credentials. This is a complete rip off. Grazie I say to the guard. NO GRAZIE !!!!! NO! NO GRAZIE !!! He yells back at me. Oh my, what a pent up little fellow. He runs over to more guards and starts pointing at us an our nymph.. We slip inside before they make it over to us. The Security guards welcome the little nymph, and pull us out of line to quickly pass through security. I start to relax a bit. O.K., the guards inside recognize her perhaps this is somewhat legitimate.

She takes us to our Guide, Grant. Like Cary Grant the nymph beams. There are about 8 other Americans hovering about. He asks us our surname. Which one is that? Erika? I offer. Surname he says, oh Swinburne. He marks down EMILY ,2 next to our name. Ah, the nymph is named Emily. Some names are marked JAMES or JOHN. This is quite the underground Vatican Smuggling ring. "You are welcome to use the restroom, we'll wait for you" Cary Grant offers. We pay Cary Grant, then Mom and I slip out to the 10 minute line. Half way through we look at each other and mutter he is not going to be there when we get back from the restroom is he? Probably not she says. We laugh at ourselves. Amazingly, when we get back up, Cary Grant is still there, and the little nymph has managed to bring another dozen people smuggled through the line while we were in the restroom.

We start our travels. Cary Grant turned about to be the most amazing and knowledgeable guide. He delivered a 30 minute lecture on the Sistine Chapel, the life of Michaelangelo, etc out in the garden where they have pictures of the sistine chapel for group tours to look at. You are not allowed to talk or take pictures in the sistine chapel, so we must discuss it here. He guided us all through the treasures of the museum, which was a 2 hour tour. We had no idea there were so many statues and paintings from antiquity in the museum. Evidently, it was closed to the public and was a private museum and chapel only for the pope until Musollini who created Vatican City made it a stipulation that the public must gain access to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel as part of his negotians with the church in giving them their own country. Something Musolinni did right!

I was completely blown away by the Sistine Chapel. Oh my goodness, it is just as moving as the DAVID in Florence. The 4 year effort he put into this when he was not even a painter, but a sculptor was just extremely moving. It is so amazing how he noticed that the first 3 panels he painted were too small, once the scaffolding was moved away and he made them bigger and bigger moving outwards to the end. I spent 7 heavly minutes with my head bent as far backwards as possible. Mom and I held hands so we wouldn't get separated from each other in the crowd that is standing room only and ushered into the chapel. She would pull me along every minute or so to see the next of the 12 panels in the middle. Lovely!

Then,. one of our favorite parts was leaving the Sistine chapel through the back door, which only Museum guides are allowed to access. It leads down a back stairwell to the steps of St. Peters Basilica. Cary Grant told us that at the conclave after the election of the new pope, the new pope exists that exit and walks down the very steps that we are on to go to the balcony above the entrance of the Basilica tot meet the world. The pope goes to the right to the balcony and we went to the left to exit. Simply amazing .!

We came home to yet another very special treat. A home mass by MACS v ery dear friend Fr. Kim Schreck. He was just ordainened 103 days ago and this was his first home mass in Italy. How special to have this in the home! What a perfect way finish off a spiritual day. Starting with the Pope and ending with one of the churches newest fathers! We were soo so so blessed. He gave us a blessing on our pilgrimage and our visit! Following mass, M opened a bottle of wine and we toasted life and ate a delicious Pasta meal that MAC had prepared. Life is good!! So Good!

Salut!

Santa Marinella, Bella

Today we spent in Santa Marinella. We went for drinks on the sea, the Mediterranean with some of MACs American Friends, Jeff and Shiela who have been in Rome for 5 years, he is getting a Theology Degree. Their Friend John who reminds me of Joe Languell with his robust theatrically bent who is studying Philosophy and just spent a year in Poland studying the language to better understand JPIIs documents, and another couple who just came. It was just so lovely along this sleeply little Italian Village drinking Itialian beer and participating in a gathering of friends with their children to toast in the coming semester and talk about life.

Then we came back to MACs and went up to the rooftop to watch the sunset over the mediteranean. We are just so amazed to be here in this sleeply l ittle villa. Then it was out for dinner and we had a seafood extravaganza!!! Mussels, clams, octopus and someother things we don't don't what they were but they were marinated in oil and garlic and herbs straight out of the sea and were multo bene. M and I smoked some stogeys on the lovely evening stroll back and finished them out on the terrrace. We decided that we need to have a reunion over the summer when they next visit and invite all of our slacker friends who have moved from Dallas. Yes! the Zinks, Enders, Shanks, Katie Orth, because I can't remember how to spell her crazy last name, Fishers, Reagans et al!

All in all, the perfect way that you want to spend a vacation, lazy days with good food and great company where you feel totally relaxed and can talk about good times and feel among friends and can freely speak your mind on any topic great or trivial!

Tomorrow we venture back out on the trains to go to Roma and the Vatican!

Ciao my friends,

PDS

Full Circle, Roma my sweet city

Well Friends,

I am back in Roma again! Almost 2 years to the dot! My dear friends MAC have moved an hour outside the city and now rest on the sea. I have yet to see this. I will see it in the morning, once I get over my little bout of insomnia here. Haven't quite adjusted to the time change. C is pregnant again! So funny, She was about this far along last time I visited. Matt and I have broken in a bottle of wine to get the visit started on the right foot. And then some whiskey? Poor C is stuck being sober with us once again.

We spent most of the day travelling, my momma and I, and it was amazingly peaceful and relaxing to be journeying on our own in a country with wich we cannot speak to anyone or read the language. We are damn tired of lugging our luggage on metros, thats for sure. Has anyone noticed that there are stairs and stairs and stairs on European metro stations?. We started the metro/luggage/stair dance in London this morning and ended it in Rome. Most of the day was spent travelling. Anyways we were so proud of ourselves for traveling and finding our way 1 hour outside of Rome on trains with some signs in different languages, strange city, etc. Power to the women!

We both woke up at 4am last night and decided to have a nice little chat. I went out for some cold water in the hallway and momma broke out the cheese and wheat thins she carted from Dallas. I am amazed, because she keeps pulling more and more food articles out of her purse. Its like the magic rabbit out of the purse. We turned on the lights and got all of our sleeplessnes out of our system, then turned out the lights and went back to bed. hee hee.

Rome is much warmer than London and we had quite the pleasant little evening on the Train platform waiting in Trastevere to catch the Citivecchia train out to Santa Marinella. Slight breeze, just watching all the beautiful Italians end their work days and prepare to head home. Mom had some granola bars and carrots for us to snack on, naturally. The Genungs live one cute little street away from the Train Station. So quaint. Feels full circle to be back in Rome with the Genungs again!

Gays and Protests, Livin in London

momma and I are doing well! We made it into London and are enjoying ourselves thouroughly. Tonight we watched a gay cabaret through the window on our way to the jazz club in SOHO, shortly after attending a gay and lesbian Catholic mass accidently. We only found out after we came outside the church, and folks were gathered outside to protest. A very sweet lesbian woman invited us for chocolate bisquits, but we declined in favor of a Pub instead.

We came out of the metro on Trafalgar square yesterday, where our hotel is, to immediately witness a protest against the dictatorship in Burma. Welcome to London! Everyone was wearing Red Headbands as a sign. Today there were Palestinian protestors against all current leaders. Democracy in progress... We also saw Renoir and Monet in the National Gallery. It was inspiring and beautiful. We took a 2 hour tour and saw the parliament building which is impressive and the London Tower which is like 1,000 years old. Cool stuff. We ate fish and chips tonight for dinner and I had a smokingly good beer.

We are just loving listening to all the cool British accents around us. We are giggling that elevators are called lifts and Exit signs all say "Way out". Our biggest impression, is that it doesn't feel like you are in such a strange country or culture. England feels like home. Its amazing that really our culture in US so so linked from this one. Its really fun just soaking in all the fun little Britishness that is quant little pubs, lots of flowers everywhere in the city and such. I am amazed that almost every young woman is wearing knee high boots. Either tucked into slim jeans or with tights and a miniskirt. Just interesting tis all... Tomorrow we are off for Rome