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How to have a timely departure from FCO: 1) Book a 6am flight on British Airways 2) Have a pre-arranged taxi driver pick you up at 3:55 am.  While you are casually standing outside your apartment building, trying to not look like a lunatic or a modestly-dressed streetwalker with luggage to the bemused bakery workers loading…

On the way back. I’ll leave for Atlanta in about three hours, and then be there around 4:30, I think, then picked up by Chris, who will drive us home to Birmingham. I have a great deal to say, but it won’t be organized or chronological. Because that really doesn’t matter.

Today was…what…Crypto Balbi. Then to S. Susanna. (Please be proud that I have figured out the bus system enough so that I can take the bus from one place to another like this. There are many things I’ve not figured out, but I’m finally getting the hang of this issue). Then, with no particular purpose,…

Here’s what I saw, all within the space of 30 seconds today: -A woman pulling down her toddler’s tights, and holding her sort of seated over the edge of a curb. So she could. You know. -A woman wielding a squeegee and a bucket, at a corner, waiting for traffic. Not aggressive like the notorious…

How to get a bunch of Americans to start tearing up, immediately? Start playing America the Beautiful as your closing song at a Thanksgiving day Mass at an American-centered parish in a foreign country. Even if it’s Italy, and even if it’s a beautiful Roman day outside. Halfway through the first verse, I looked around,…

Okay, so I found J23. I was just looking in the wrong corner. (by the way, the easiest way to find him is early morning, when all the side altars are being used for Mass. Believe me, this is the best time to see St. Peter’s. Takes two seconds to get through security, no one…

Bus #44, to be specific  – the bus that runs by my apartment from Piazza Venezia, and thereby saved me a lot of walking today. This morning I set out again in my busy Roman neighborhood, and this time, everything was in full swing.  Bakeries, butchers, bars (in Italy that doesn’t mean what it does…

Hello again from Rome. Day one was very, very full – as in I left my apartment at 8 or so and didn’t return until 11:30. But a very good day! David was not working until late afternoon, so it was my day to drag him around to sites he hadn’t yet seen in his…

Got there in plenty of time for the next flight. Gatwick has an odd system – well at least BA did. They don’t post gates until about 30 minutes before a plane takes off. So there’s always a crowd of people around the board, waiting, waiting, waiting. No wine on this flight. But it did…

When I cooked up this little layover side trip, I had hoped to have time to run down and wave to the English Channel. But no, I didn’t get down there soon enough, I was pressed for time afterwards, and besides before Mass…it was cold! Afterwards, it was markedly more pleasant, despite a scattering of…
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