We Made It

Well, I shut original attempt at blog down and am starting again on my sisters laptop in a little hallway outside our room in Florence where we have a window of WIFI.

Rome was exactly what everyone tells you.  You have to go there if you're in Italy.  But it was dirty, expensive, not that friendly and a little bit full of itself if that makes sense.  Love the double decker bus tour as a quick way to see all of the city and take little naps as needed, but you have to get out on foot to find good food that's not a tourist trap.  I have to say even with my limited geographical abilities getting from airport to the city to our hotel was not that difficult.  But after being at our front desk for the 100th time with question/problem etc we finally asked the guy why he seemed so grumpy (I was starting to take it a little personal).  He said they have never been this full in August and he wants to be on vacation.  I'm thinking "Dude, everyone else in your country is thankful for the business," but weirdly I didn't get that vibe.  And who gets to just say they are cash only, seriously, they took my $ and gave me 1/2 and then complain about VISA charges?  We called the Vatican Museum tour on their 5 euros extra to use the credit card machine and then suddenly it was broken.  Vatican City and the Sistine Chapel were awesome as were the coliseum and numerous fountains. 

We saw what we needed to see and are now in a much more beautiful place - Florence.

Took the train from Rome.  It was relatively easy and not crazy expensive (17 euros) but the express was cancelled and what should have been a 1/2 day trip took all day.  After setting up shop and heading out, we were really getting into the whole experience and quaintness of Florence.  Yep, you guessed it not me but my sister had her wallet stolen.  I swear I felt a little jynxed as I had read and heard so much about pick pocketers.  Lucky, she had spread out her stuff and isn't completely devastated, but what a pain.  Ridiculously hard to make a collect call from here.  They definitely have cut back on the expense of having international operators. 

Oh well, it is going to be a great day tomorrow.... watching Francine plank and "owl" may be the most entertaining when all is said and done.  Look at pic at bottom of page to figure out what that means.  I'll work on better pics of "owling".  Too funny.