Well we have been traveling for about 5 weeks now. We have been doing the usual London and Paris sights with hundreds other incredible experiences in between. We have been so busy doing all of this, plus the fact that what we have done hasn't exactly been off the beaten track, and so haven't bothered to take the time to jump online and let you know on this blog thing. But the time has come to start writing about our trip as things have changed as of yesterday...

We are in Rome. We have been driving a little Fiat around northern Italy for about 2 weeks. We've had the best time with our very good friends Ruth and Eric who are from the school in Hong Kong that I worked at and who have been sharing the Italian part of our trip with us.

... Yesterday we were leaving Rome and were on our way to the Amalfi coast. We stopped at some catacombs to have a look at the underground graves of the first 6 popes which date back to 140 AD. We got back to the car and I unlocked it. Ruth said, "This isn't our car because our bags aren't in there". I replied, "Yeah cheapo Fiat keys have just opened someone elses car" , "...oh crap" .

They had got in by shoving something in the drivers door key hole and had taken all our bags. So we went down to the police station and did what we had to do as we went through all the souvenirs, clothes, precious jewelry, special photos that have all gone. We went through our personal processes of moments of sadness, anger etc.

One of Esther's friends Jess and her fiancé Dario helped us out by giving us some clothes and pizza. And now instead of our fully equipped ultra traveling backpacks we now have the 'Marlboro Bag'. Blessed with our new bag and few t-shirts we will buy some essentials today. We have vowed to continue our trip and return home with our new bag triumphant.

I have also vowed to now keep who ever reads this up to date with our new adventures with the Marlboro Bag.