Last night we stayed in, literally, the Best Hotel... though, I personally didn't think it quite lived up to its pretentious name. We then caught the bus out to the airport. We're now getting ready to fly back home, and boy, am I looking forward to it. I've come to appreciate several things on this trip: - scarves, I am rather proud to admit I am among the scarf-junkie hoarde- trains, an absolutely marvelous way to get around, I am now fully able to understan...

Yesterday, in the late morning we headed out to see the pope's Sunday address. When we arrived at the Vatican, the weather was gloomy, and while we were waiting, it started to rain lightly. When the pope finally arrived for his short address of the crowd, the light broke about a minute into his speech. We had been told that he would speak a minimum of three languages, but were very much impressed when he spoke a total of 8 - Latin, Italian, French, English, Ge...

For our day trip while we were in Rome, I and several others decided to go to Pompeii. We caught the train down to Naples, where we then had about an hour before the next train out to Pompeii. We decided to eat lunch, and the seven of us headed out from the train station to see if there was a nearby restaurant. About two and a half blocks later, we decided it wasn't worth braving the electronics selling hoard of sketchy street vendors, and camped out in the train...

We got into Rome on the afternoon of the 6th, arriving at our hotel - Texas Seven Hills, where they "got paintin's on the ceilin'." We spent the rest of the evening walking all over Rome - we caught a glimse of the Roman Forum, a museum designed by Richard Meier to house an altar, and the Spanish Steps. After we ate dinner, several of us walked past the Trevi Fountain and poked into San Carlito del Quattro Fontaine on our way back to the hotel. To get r...

Today was our group tour of the Vatican. We arrived at the City walls early in the morning, a line to get in already stretching several blocks. Thankfully, we already had reservations, and got to go in before everyone in line. (it was like having the fast pass at Disneyworld, passing by all of those people...) We walked through the various wings of the Vatican museums and their tremendous collections of art - statues, mosaics, paintings, tapestries, frescoes,...