Mick again:

Today was very domestic really. We had invited our friend Nives over for lunch. She first came into our lives as my Italian teacher- found on Gumtree in Sydney, with regular lessons in a cafe in Burwood. She had not long arrived in Sydney after 6 years in Japan. Then, when Anne and I spent some time in Rome in 2011, we did a fortnight of lessons with her as she had established her own little language school here. We were looking forward to catching up.

As we mentioned yesterday, we had decided on an Aussie flavoured meal- burgers and pavlova. The fun we had with the pavlova ingredients and the whisk is now on record. Today we just needed some berries, some tomatoes and some fresh bread rolls. (We thought .. but more of that later!)

That being accomplished we set out to circumnavigate a whole country on foot. This we accomplished between morning tea and lunch. I speak, of course, of the Vatican. We are literally five minutes walk from the Vatican museums, so starting there, and with the walls of the Vatican on our right we quickly got to St Peter's Square (which is really an oval) and beyond. A nice constitutional on a 3 degree day, but our trusty black puffer jackets, which make us look like a pair of Goodyear blimps from the dark side, are both up to the task and very much in style here.

On the way back to the apartment we stopped in the local equivalent of a 2 dollar shop and bought a small Christmas tree, a small set of lights and a small set of baubles- note the emphasis on SMALL. For 20 Euro we were set for Santa!

Nives arrived as arranged. Remember how I said we thought we were all set with shopping? When I mentioned the menu she reminded us that she was a vegetarian. Now we are very accustomed to vegetarians- and now that I was prompted remembered the last time that we went to some trouble with a vego meal. So, in some embarrassment it was down the five floors, quick turn to the left, 5 doors down and into the local not so supermercato to buy veggie burgers- at which time normal service was restored.
The carefully prepared beef burgers were eaten by Mick alone who pronounced them delicious and Nives and I had a veg / chicken burger respectively. We then assembled our dessert- pavlova/ meringue topped by strawberries and then yogurt mixed with honey. We served them in three of our four wine glasses and drank our Prosecco from glass tumblers. Nives told us how she enjoyed her time in Japan and Australia and she hopes to return one day.

We arranged to meet her in Monti, an interesting area of Rome, on Friday at 4. After Nives left we did very little else apart from watch a great movie we downloaded onto the iPad called Their Finest Hour.