Saturday, April 9th.....Rome

As we were checking out of the monastery, we ran into Mother Superior again. I told her that I was sorry that I could not remember my French and that I could only come up with Spanish words. She got quite excited and said that Italian and Spanish were so close and then started talking to me in Spanish with some Italian thrown in for good measure. Happily I understood the gist of the conversation and could throw in a few appropriate responses. She asked where we were going next and when we told her Roma, she was so excited. She says Rome is paradise. I guess we will find out soon as that is where we will be spending the next 6 nights.....

Our car trip back to Florence was a nightmare. We were so impressed with the road signs when we went into San Gimignano. What a great system these Italians have, we thought. NOT! So this town is only about 10 km from the main highway into Florence. Having experienced all the signs to San Gimignano we *knew* there had to be lots of signs to such a major city as Florence. But alas, no. There were NO signs. None. Zero. Zip. So let's stop at a gas station and ask directions.....right? Well, no one spoke any English but through gestures we got headed in the right direction. It sounded easy! It wasn't. Another gas station, another Italian only speaking place, more "easy" directions and this time, although the directions were not exactly what we thought, we made it to the freeway. What should have taken 10-15 minutes had taken 50 and now we were going to be late turning in the car and possibly even late for the train. Well, Anne was up to the challenge. Flying down the freeway, she went Italian on us, and got us to Florence in record time. We turned in the car and managed to make it to the train station before our train even had a platform assigned. All in a good day's work for Annie Andretti!!!

We are now in our apartment in Roma. It is a real apartment building with regular folks and we have been serenaded by piano lessons, treated to great views of laundry hanging out the windows of the court yard, and the sounds of people talking as they go about preparing their dinners. On one hand, the noise is a bit much, but on the other, it is real and that makes it a great experience. Since we will hardly be here except to sleep it should be fine.

One funny thing I should mention is that the apartment we rented was advertised as a queen bed and two singles. We were quite surprised to find out it had a third bedroom. Unfortunately, there were no sheets on this bed and when we went to inquire about sheets with our landlord upstairs, we were told the apartment was appropriately prepared to sleep 4 people. When we asked if we couldn't use the third bed since it was there, we were told she had no sheets and perhaps the cleaning ladies could bring some to us on Monday. So, I guess Anne and I are spooning tonight. Oh boy!

Well, one of the neighbors is now playing the accordion so I must go to enjoy the concert! Ciao!