Rome, sweet Rome!

After more than 30 combined hours of travel, Jon and I made it to Rome. We woke (or Jon woke as I was just arriving) early Sunday morning to wander around the city, stroll through the plazas, marvel at the obelisks, and eat gelato for breakfast. Jon tried his best to read me tidbits from his guide book and tell me about the history of this place or the other; I did my best to pay attention while snapping photos and playing with the occasional passing puppy. In the afternoon, we joined two of Jon’s friends from Biogen (also headed to the luxury cruise) and 80,000 other folks for a Team Roma football match held in the 1960 Olympic stadium. The crowd was crazy – throwing orange and maroon smoke bombs – and their exuberance intoxicating (a fitting statement for the amount of alcohol consumed in a 90 minutes match). We could not help but get into the spirit as evidenced by our team apparel! After winning 2-1, we fled the rowdy crowd for the relative peace of the Vatican, drank a mediocre (but free) bottle of wine, ate pizza (with side salad! Hooray!), and called it a day. A great day!