Day trip to Rome

Let's start by saying there should never be a DAY trip to Rome. You can't really see anything in Rome in a day... It will take days. Good thing we'll be spending the better part of a week there in November... Planning is a must. If you just decide to "go for it" or "wing it" you'll end up frustrating yourself...

We took a tour bus that you could hop on, hop off. It takes you by all the major sites (Coliseum, Pantheon, St Peters, the capital building...) It served its purpose. For instance, we can spend one entire day walking around the coliseum and the surrounding sites (probably just a few blocks worth of area). The area around the capital building could be another day. The capital is beautiful and there is what I think were ancient market areas behind it.

Long and short, Rome is amazing. It could be my (Randy) favorite place yet. OVER 2000 years of existance and history... Ruins, archeological sites, churches, the Vatican, museums, and it is laid out very nice (not crammed in like Florence). Clean too. We were excited to have the Retrosi's coming out in November to begin with, but now getting just a small taste of what we will be able to see...

Carey and I started our Italian class today also. Not your typical foreign language class. The instructor speaks Italian most of the time with a few key english words placed so you can follow some. Conversational from the start. I haven't done the homework yet but I did sit down with the Rosetta Stone and I will say just the one class made the Rosetta Stone make more sense. For instance verb conjugation (sono,e', siete, siamo...). All the same verb; I am, you are, we are, they are (don't quote me on the translation yet...). A long way to go!