Ciao!

Casey and I embarked on a whirlwind adventure to New York and Rome a few weeks ago. We got a late night flight to New York on Wednesday the 25th and arrived just in time to see the crowds for the Thanksgiving parade, but no actual parade. We ran across the city to make a ferry to Liberty and Ellis island. Casey had a little fun with Lady Liberty.
We then boarded another night time flight to Rome. We arrived there early on Friday. Unfortunately the first few hours of our time in Rome were spent asleep in our hotel room on our twin beds . . . very romantic!

After waking and a confusing episode at the bank trying to change our money we made our way to the Colosseum. Imagine our surprise when we walk out of the train station to this: Luckily we had bought our tickets online already so we skipped to the front of the line. We didn't take a tour however we hovered around other tour groups and listened to them. The Collosseum is old, big, rocky and cool. I saw a sparkle in Casey's eyes as he stared at the Colosseum floor. Only he knows what he was thinking but I'm pretty sure he was imagining fighting in that once great arena. We wandered around finding great works of art like Michelangelo's Moses until it was dark. The next morning we traveled to the Vatican. The Catholic Church has been busy collecting incredible sculptures. There were hallways after hallways of cramped artwork. The Sistine Chapel was great except for the man yelling "NO PICTURES! NO PHOTO!" So with Casey as my shield I snapped away at the most famous ceiling in the world. SHH! Don't tell the pope! The real highlight of the trip came when we entered St. Peter's Basilica. The best word is AWEsome! The only real drawback was that they were closing for some reason so the guards followed us around telling us to walk faster and to stop taking so many pictures. We would run ahead of the guards, take pictures and then hurry up ahead of them again. Per Gram's request we made our way to the Spanish Steps . . . of course a little kiss was necessary. Very tame compared to the couple in front of us. We followed the sound of water to the Trevi fountain. WHY do we not build these marvelous things here in America? We threw three coins in the fountain to guarantee our return trip.We found a tiny little restaurant and had some lasagna and spaghetti. The lasagna was probably the best lasagna I've ever had.
We found the Pantheon and took an interesting picture of us and its HOLE-Y ceiling.
Sunday morning we took a bus to the Appian highway and strolled along the oldest road in the world. Along the way we found a few stray cats. This one we affectionately named "Meow" sollini.
Later that evening we found the Bocca de la Verita. There was a long line so we didn't really get to "ask" it a question. We rounded off our trip with pizza and calzones at the foot of the Colosseum.
We flew home the next morning. I'll miss Rome and the beautiful history it has. I won't however miss our hotel shower.