Journal 7

June 20, 2006
Day Seven, Tuesday
When we came back from dinner last night the entire hotel was without electricity!! At first glance we thought the place looked beautiful in the soft glow of the candle operas spread out on different tables, and smaller candles lining the pathways out the to pool area, and to the outer buildings. But when we got to our room, we discovered no electricity. That must have explained the four or five men digging in the middle of the street out in front of the hotel at midnight. So, we brought in the nearest burning candle from outside. We ended up having to open the door and set it just on the outside, because it was a large “bug-be-gone” kind of candle, and the smell was horrible. We needed the light because Stacey had to make a phone call and change Kevin’s tickets. Kevin was in a panic about getting everything done before leaving town to come visit us. He had called us just about the time we were walking past the Pantheon in the middle of downtown Rome and asked it we could call and change his tickets. So, by candle light Stacey managed to rearrange Kevin’s trip, and we called it a night...we thought. After blowing out the candle and shutting the door, we realized we had let out what little cool air there was in the room, and had let in all the mesquitoes! We have never been bothered by the pesky things on any other trip, but our first week here in Rome has been a little bothersome with the bloodsuckers. It seems we have had one or two in our room every night, and they just love to buzz in our ears and land on any surface that is not under the sheet. We both have woke up with little reminder bumps on our faces, or any other place that they could get to during the night. So, after our night of no electricity, which did come back on in the early morning, we were ready to get up and out of the room. After breakfast, Stacey did some work on the computer before taking off for Foligno. He will be staying late there today because of a 4:00 conference call. I sent some emails back home, which I found out later in the day didn’t go through. Apparently even thought the signal in our room says we have internet service, we actually do not. We need to be sitting in the hotel lobby, a hundred yards away, to actually use our internet, which by the way, costs $200.00 a month here in Italy!! The internet is not as easily accessible here, as in the states. The new room we will move to on Wednesday, will have internet IN the room! I then took my book and Ipod out to the pool to work on my tan. I didn’t see one mesquitoe. I guess they stayed back in the room. I actually spent a wonderful couple of hours sunbathing at my Italian Villa. I really didn’t want to leave the pool area, but I am trying hard not overdo the sun thing, especially after Janette has worked so hard on my face all winter. I will even pull the lounge chair up far enough under the canopy area, so that my face is in the shade. After a shower, I took my computer over to the lobby area to write and just get out of the room for a while. I had a great time people watching again. This hotel must be a great spot for the cruise people to home base from. There seems to bus loads of them coming in, and going out almost every day. It is close to the airport, has bus free bus service to downtown Rome, and is pretty reasonably priced, if you stay down in this part of the hotel. I really am beginning to feel a little guilty about talking about our room at this hotel. It isn’t quite as bad as I have been going on about. It does have it’s charm, and I have already had lots of great moments here, but it’s time to move on... I was still working in the lobby when Stacey came home. We decided to check out the little pizza place, just a minute up the rode, for dinner. It turned out to be pretty good, so I’m sure we will have dinner here when we feel the need for a pizza, and don’t want to go into Rome. There is a movie theater next to the pizzeria and we checked out the possibility of anything in English. Nope. As we were walking back to the parking lot, we noticed lots of locals coming in for either dinner or a movie, or maybe both. But probably not both. Somehow, I don’t think Italians do evenings like Americans. We rush around trying to do both dinner and a movie. Hurrying to get to a place so we won’t have to wait in line, upset if the waiter takes a little long getting our stuff to us. Rushing him to give us our check so we don’t miss the previews for the movie. Then rushing over to the movie theater, have someone pull the car right up next to the curb, so everyone can hop out to beat all the other people walking up to get in line, while the last person parks the car. Then when the driver comes to join the rest of the group in line, nobody makes eye contact with the other people in line because you know they are annoyed that someone just cut in front of them. But, if you plan well enough ahead, you go by the theater first and get your tickets before there is a line. Then go on to dinner. But then you have to make sure you eat somewhere fast so that you can have enough time allotted, on your second trip back to the theater, to get there earlier enough not to lose out on the good seats. Here, time is treat so differently. Tonight for example, I didn’t see anyone rushing around at dinner at the little pizzeria. I didn’t see anyone hurrying from their cars, up the walkway into the theater complex. We only noticed couples, and families strolling in. Many couples were either holding hands, or arm in arm.. Lots of families were piling out of their small cars, with their kids were all excited, like it was a special occasion. I didn’t notice anyone being dropped off early or by the curb. I did notice the evening attire, realizing that everyone walking in was either going to the small pizzaria, or to the movies. I noticed that most of the women were in dresses. Stacey, of course noticed the one women who was in shorts. Very short shorts. In fact, Stacey turned his head on that one and said, “Hmm, I guess hot pants might be coming back in style.” I just gave him THE LOOK. The look that says Yeah, Right!! We laughed and walked back to our car, holding hands all the way, which I notice we do more and more these days.

Journal 6

June 19, 2006
Day Six, Monday
Breakfast back in the dining room and I smiled when I saw that not only did Mario and Tony finish the plant stand, they had built two. We ran into Antonio in the lobby on the way back to the room and I introduced Stacey. Antonio, was very nice and informed us of the final figure his manager had decided on, for our long term stay. It was $20 more than what we were hoping for and it was in Euro, which means even more, but I think Stacey had his mind made up that we were going to move to the room with “our” views. He was off the Naples again and I was working around the house. I had planned to sunbath, but it was cloudy, so I spent the day reading, writing, and when I got tired of that, I pugged a movie into my computer. I tried to make myself cozy on the cushion-less back wicker couch, by bringing out a couple of pillows from the bed and my red blanket that I carried over on the plane with me. I moved our other piece of furniture around, the other wicker chair, so I could stretch out and kinda lay down. I was really uncomfortable but I pretended I wasn’t and just watched the movie anyway. I shifted back and forth several times when ever one part of my body would fall asleep or have a dent in my skin from the wicker edge. After the movie, I had a great idea. I opened our back doors and moved our livingroom chair out onto the patio. I moved one of our two wooden chairs out onto the patio, and pretended it was my ottoman. I plugged in some great music, brought out my water, sat down and said to myself, “Now this isn’t so bad.” I closed my eyes and tried to tilt my head back and take in the moment, but the back of the wicker chair was too short and it hurt my neck. So I wiggled down into the chair more and that worked for my neck, but within a minute my back was hurting. I sat up and looked around and realized that the sun had come out, I was at the back of the building and had no breeze, and it was hotter than blue blazes! I was going back inside. I moved our living room furniture back inside and shut the door. All the cool air had escaped when I had the doors opened for my five minute patio stay, and it was hotter than blue blazes inside now_ With the weak air conditioner, it was going to takes hours to cool down, so I got me camera and went for a short walk around outside to practice some things I had learned earlier when watching my Nikon CD. Stacey came home just as I was loading my newly taken pictures onto the computer. He asked why it was so hot in the room and I told him, “I didn’t have a clue?” He said, “We really do need to move out of this place!” I cleverly thought, I couldn’t have accidently set that up any better if I tried. He said, “Let’s get out of here and go into Rome for dinner.” It didn’t take me but a minute to touch up my makeup, grab my camera and purse, and we took off to catch the hotel bus into Rome. On a previous trip, Stacey had eaten at a place close to the Pantheon that he said was really good. He had just read an article in a magazine located in our hotel room that it rated the resturaunt as the number one pick by some New York food critic. After getting off the bus, we walked into the direction he knew we needed to go. I love the fact that I can now recognize a large section of Rome and get to most places. But it was reassuring to know that Stacey knew exactly where he was going and all I had to do was hold his hand and let him drag me so I could sight see along the way. Just five minutes into the walk, we rounded a corner and we were walking through the piazza where the Pantheon is located. Like a kid at Christmas, I couldn’t take me eyes off the historical site the entire walk across the piazza! I realized that by the time we walked out the other side of the piazza, my eyes had never left the Pantheon and my neck was completely turned to the back. When we found Stacey’s place, Guido, the guy at the door, asked us if we made reservations. Stacey looked at me and said, “Did you call earlier today?” I looked at him and said, “No, sweetie, you said you were going to make the reservations.” In any case, Guido, didn’t speak any English and didn’t get our joke. He just looked at us and said 10:00 o’clock! It was 7:00! Ok, we had six months to come back to check this place out, no need to wait three hours. The number two place mentioned in the article was over by the Vatican, and also sounded good. Stacey had never eaten there, so it would be a new place for both of us. We could make it in a brisk 30 minute walk. But we would be all sweaty, so we took a taxi. This restaurant was a great find1 It sat just off to the side of the Vatican, in a residential neighborhood. There were still plenty of shops and eateries around, but it was a slower paced neighborhood. I saw a nun watering her flowers at the edge of her rooftop garden a block away. It was a good sign. They seated us outside, and I instantly made a connection with our waiter, who reminded me of my Uncle Willy. I could have stopped at the anti pasta appetizers and been totally satisfied. The fried zucchini blossoms, fried artichoke heart with the stem still on, and the two other things on the plate were amazing! I then ordered my favorite, Ala Carbanara, and Stacey ordered something that looked more like typical spaghetti. We didn’t even care that we were passing plates back and forth and sharing the food like a couple of out-of-towners. For dessert, we let the waiter surprise us, and he brought out a bowel full of baby strawberries in this ice cream stuff that was deliziosous! To make the evening even more enjoyable, we met the couple next to us who were from San Francesco. They were here on a two week vacation. At the end of dinner Stacey told them that someday we wanted to go to the Napa Valley and check out the wine in California. They looked at each, handed us a business card and said they had a second home in Napa Valley and to be sure and call them before we came so they could help us with the trip! Wow! How lucky was that?! After our Lemonchello, we were off the bus stop. We were a little early so I took about fifteen minutes to practice and play around with some new buttons on the camera. Night shots in downtown Rome! What a place to learn!!!

Journal 5

Sunday, June 18, 2006
Day Five
Today is Sunday and we return to Rome. Stacey, thinking the back roads wouldn’t be crowed decided to take the scenic route. Thirty minutes into the trip we realized that everyone must have decided to take the scenic route also, because it was stop and go, and bumper to bumper traffic.. I took a Dramamine and laid the seat back. Stacey thought I spent the next two hours sleeping, but I was really listening to the Italian radio station, trying to give myself a mini Italian emersion lesson. My eyes were closed most of the time, but I did spent a time peeking up at the tall pine trees that I could see lining both sides of the road. I knew we were on the section of road that is called the Apian Way, which is one of the oldest highways in the world. The Romans built it thousands of years ago. In some sections the modern highways are actually built over portions of the original road, and hundreds of trees still line both sides for miles. We were told that the Romans planted the trees along the roads to help shade their armies when they marched them into battle. I will have to remember to tell that to my students. Just before we arrived back at the hotel, we stopped at a little store and picked up some fruit, bread, and a few other items to eat in our room for dinner. I cleaned house when I got back, which consisted of arranging the fruit and bread in the middle of the little table, and putting the suitcase back up against the wall. We decided to walk up the road later on in the evening instead of getting back on the treadmills. It was nice to get outside. A wedding party was pulling into the parking lot when we got back. Weddings are a big deal in Italy. You won’t find cans being dragged behind the get-a-way car, but you will see several cars with white bows attached to the hood or antennas. The Italian men look even sharper in these suits compared to their everyday work suits. Young boys wear a suit or their best linen. Young girls are always in dresses, and the women, now that’s another story. I think I can spot an Italian woman in any crowd because of their cloths. They are much more interesting to look at then the American woman. But even more so at a wedding_ No respectable Italian woman would show up in anything other than a designer shoe, designer handbag, lots of jewelry, and a very classy dress.. They are not afraid to sparkle or wear something that shows off their figures, no matter what shape they may be in at the time. Back in the room, Stacey received Father Day phone calls from the boys back home. Matt and Kendall painted a nice picture for us when they said they were sitting on the back porch drinking their morning coffee watching the dogs take sun baths. Later, as I was looking out my window at the hedge and getting ready for bed, I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks. I did not have a glass of Lemonchello today_ RATS___