Kerry and I are in London, we just flew in today from Rome. Last week we finished our jobs and packed up our room in Durham and flew to Rome on Saturday. We spent Sunday exploring the colleseum (and surrounding ruins), the center of Rome, the Vatican and basicly walked until we dropped. We loved it. We stayed in a friendly backpacker hostel called the Beehive. It was run by an american couple who are probably somewhat green at heart and have set up an organic cafe at their hostel which has awesome food.

Monday we headed for the Italian gliding mecca 'Rieti'. Getting to Rieti involved a few forms of transport for us. An underground train, a normal train, a bus ride, an hours walk and a car ride from someone who took pity on us and we were there!!! We got the typical gliding club response 'You should have been here last week, the weather was great!!'. We were informed that the weather for the following 2 days was not looking good as low cloud and thunderstorms had been predicted. Forever optimists we thought that the weather gods would look after us. After eating a feast at the local airfield restaurant that night, we were very happy but had trouble sleeping as we had eaten far too much. The italian waiter kept offering food so we kept nodding until it was too late. Ah, but it was good, so good.

Tuesday dawned cloudy and already showing signs of the predicted storms (as they told us it would). We explored the city of Rieti for most of the day and then relaxed for the afternoon after all of the walking. We headed to the same restaurant for dinner as it was nice and close within walking distance. We were a bit more diligent at saying 'no' to the copious amounts of food this time, so we left in a much more mobile state.

Wednesday looked slightly more promising, but the chief flying instructor informed me that the clouds would be too low to do any soaring, Thursday would be better. So we hopped on a train for a bit over an hour to go to a nearby university City called La Quila. The train ride to La Quila was amazing, it took us through all of the mountains that I had been so eagerly wanting to fly over. It seems that you have to try pretty hard to find a bad meal in Italy, because everywhere we went, the food was great. In La Quila we tried the italian tradition of buying pizza by weight. They have a stack of different pizzas and us being 'no parli italiano' just pointed to the slices we wanted and they they weigh it up and charge you accordingly. A very cheap way to eat!!

Thursday dawned the day i had been waiting for. Clear skies and excellent visibility. The chief flying instructor confirmed the weather was as good as i suspected, but informed me of a 'small problem'. The highest chief of the Italian Air Force was visiting the airfield that day at 2pm and we would not be allowed to fly before that. Best not to ask too many questions about why, because things are done the way they are done in Italy. Somewhat dissapointed i was still hopeful of getting in a few hours. At 2pm, my English speaking instructor turned up from Rome, and he could speak about as much English as i could Italian (perhaps a small exageration), so the flight was interesting. We flew for 2 hours and OMG, it was breathtaking. I mean i knew it would be impressive, but i was way off the mark. About 10kms off the end of the airfield is Mt Terminillo standing 6000ft. We had to work the face of some smaller mountains to gain some height which allowed us to get enough height to safely work Mt Terminillo. After getting to the top of Mt Terminillo in Thermals coming up the front of the mountain, we headed off towards the City of La Quila. We were mountain hopping along the way as there were no thermals over the flat land you really had to tuck in next to the rock faces, but the lift was just about always there and was quite strong. After getting a little bit low (its scary down low with nowhere to land!), we headed back to Mt Terminillo and then landed soon after. It was hard to wipe the smile from my face upon landing. I cannot even begin to describe how exhilarating it was.

My semi english speaking instructor drove us back to Rome last night where we got on a train to an area south of Rome, near the sea. We had med a bloke on the day we arrived in Rieti called Giovanni and he was an ex airline captain of Alitalia. He spoke excellent english and we hit it off. I ended up sorting out a few things on his computer for him and all of sudden he was inviting Kerry and I to spend the night with him and his family before we flew out from Rome. Not one to be impolite we jumped at the chance of spending a night with a local so Giovanni picked us up from the train station and took us to his house. It was awesome!! A 3 storey marble home filled with exotic trinckets he had picked up from all over the world as a pilot. His swedish wife cooked up a storm of Pasta and massive steaks, so we ate and drank the night away before having to get up to catch our flight early this morning. Since Giovanni worked out of Rome, his home was near the airport so he drove us there in style and we were left feeling extremely spoilt having been taken under the wing of someone so kind. The Italians really are kind!!

We fly out for Cairo tomorrow for an 11 day tour.

As the Italians would say, 'Ciao'.