Whew! I'm back from a vacation to Rome. Got in last night from an 11 hour, multiple connection flight back. I have lots to tell you about, so I'll start with a small post and add more later.
We took a bus tour to Florence and saw Michaelangelo's David. It's a statue of David who slew Goliath. Funny... the things you learn on vacation. Michaelangelo didn't represent David as circumsised. It seems that he only used Catholics as models. An old lady in our tour pointed this out. She was all embarrased about it, but she did have a sharp eye.
Our tour guide in Florence was amazing. She went to Florence as a college student, met someone, and got married and stayed. She really made it a great experience. Her name is Cynthia Black and her number is (055) 641625. She says it's best to book ahead.
The bus tour also took us to Orvieto, It's little small town on a hill in the middle of wine and olive country. This is the kind of town you think about when you think, 'little Italian town'. We had a great little dinner at Ristorante Maurizio.
We toured the Colosseum and The Forum, where we got the true story of the vestal virgins, they had the life. No really. They did. Most of them didn't get burrried alive either.
They showed a movie at the Colosseum of how modern day fighting in sports resembles that which was going on in Rome years ago, I was wondering why Terry O'Reilly from the big bad Boston Bruins wasn't included. I'll have to write a letter. While on the tour it started raining so we had to seek shelter. Too bad it wasn't Roman times. Back then they'd close the retractable roof in case of bad weather, actually it was a velarium.
We went to Trastevere, a little quaint part of Rome, like Cambridge is to Boston. We saw a small little bakery where it looked like they made cookie for restuarants. We went in and a little old lady sold us a delicious assortment of cookies. She looked at us and asked, 'Boston', ha ha. We said yes and she told us her family was from Boston. Well, she didn't actually 'tell' us, she said, "Family, Boston, Disney", we got the idea. She started making hand motions like planes flying back and forth to and from Italy and Boston. I think she took non-stop flights. But I can't be sure because of the language differences.
I could have used this half baked post about how to communicate in foreign countries on the trip.
