…about Roma. I took the second deep breath of the past five days (the first being buying the tickets) and reserved an apartment. 2 bedroom in the Vatican area, much cheaper than you could ever get a hotel of comparable size or location. We briefly toyed with a convent stay but decided that for nine days and with two little ones, we needed a place to crash that had some room. Anna wrote to recommend the guest house run by the Brigittines here, and Jimmy Mac spoke highly of the convent of some Irish Dominicans, and of course Rome is just full of such places. But as I said, if it were just me and Michael, or even me and Katie, that would be a great option, but given the length of the stay, I just thought an apartment would be better.

Not that the search was easy. There are just a lot of choices, and after one mishap – an agency gave me a fantastic price on a couple of very nice apartments, but then when I booked, came back and said, "Oh, no, no! I gave you the wrong price!" And the right price was 400 Euros more…yeah, big whoops there. I still hae a couple of weeks to cancel the current booking without a penalty in case any last minute deals pop up, but for now, I think I’m okay, unless Zadok lets me know that the neighborhood is actually a disaster…

And what shall we do? Well, I have not only all the various Rome-based bloggers and journos to help me out, but my dad and Hilary, who, as you recall, spent a month in Rome last spring and are returning this April and May. I have my list, but the "must-sees" are actually not that numerous at this point because I realize there is so much to see and that our mobility will be limited to some extent, so I don’t want to overplan. I’ve sent in a reservation request for the Scavi Tour (the tour of the excavations under St. Peter’s – described here by someone who recently took it) which we have to do twice- the little ones can’t go, so Katie and I will go and then, at another time, Michael will go. So there’s not a lot of definite planning that can go on until we get those times.

My interests are, of course, primarily in religious history, and the older the better. I’m sort of interested in huge and baroque, but what I’m most keen on seeing are the traces of really early Christianity up through the early Middle Ages. San Clemente is high on the list, as is…well, how can I get started!!!

I’m actually most concerned about food. We are not in a position, nor do we have any interest in leisurely, expensive 3-hour dinners. That’s why we have an apartment. Bread, cheese, paninis, pizza, etc. But I do want lots of authentic, good, reasonable food, and don’t want to find myself  in a position where I can’t tell the tourist traps from the places that the locals appreciate, so that’s where the Romanistas among you folks will really be a help..

And don’t get me started on my two-month hunt for decent airfare. MIssed a GREAT price on tix about 6 weeks ago, missed it, but came through at only about fifty bucks more than that last week – flying from Cincinnati to Philadelphia to Rome. Yes, it’s USAir, and yes, I hear that flight is a cattle train, but…I don’t care. I operate on about 4 hours of sleep anyway, and both of us are quite adept at sleeping with a baby on top of us, and Joseph can sleep anywhere…so, price wins, once again!