We saw a lot of familiar faces on all three flights, recognized some of them, and tried to match some of the others with the list of names of the participants on the trip. There are about one hundred people, both clients and employees, on the trip with KOB-TV. The timing on our flights was about as good as possible for a trip to the continent of Europe. We didn't have to leave Albuquerque until just after noon yesterday and had two 1½ hour layovers: first in...

Outside our apartment on the way to the Metro stop, we pass by a long string of advertising signs. The signs are different every time we pass by. It seems that one candidate will cover a long stretch of the signs with a series of identical paper posters, only to have them shredded or covered over with another candidate's signs before the day is over. The signs we see in the mornings as we are going out for the day are different than the ones we see in the evening...

Trying to see as many places as we can while we are here, we made stops at the Trevi Fountain, the Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Capitoline Museum, the Victor Emmanuel monument, and Trajan's Column, but we started the morning with a tour of the Borghese Gallery. Following advice from the guidebooks we read, we went upstairs to the Pinacoteca first while most of the visitors were on the first floor. After touring there, we went down to th...

We returned to Rome on an afternoon train from Pisa. We did find our seats in first class this time, only to find someone else sitting in one of them. She got up willingly and moved on when she could tell we were looking at the seats. On this train, our seats were in a compartment for six. Two of the others in there were young women who never stopped talking for the entire 3 hour trip back to Rome. Usually the chatter of other people on a plane or train is just b...