Scorching the World

9/27  We both slept really well last night. The bed is very comfortable. Tom did wake up early, but since the bed is far away from the tv, he didn’t bother me at all. So nice. We went downstairs for the complementary breakfast, which they call an “American” buffet. The buffet wasn’t very typical of American breakfasts, at least not the breakfasts in our house, but there was everything you could want for breakfast and a lot more. I didn’t take any pictures because there were lots of people around. We had a tour scheduled for the Vatican this morning and had not taken the time to figure out transportation, so we went out front and had the hotel guy call us a taxi. We got to the meeting place in plenty of time and finally hooked up with the right tour group and started our tour. There were SO MANY PEOPLE there, joining tours, waiting in lines, and beggars and people selling water or scarves. So many people. We got into the Vatican museum and went from room to room, looki...

9/26   Our cruise ended and reluctantly we had to disembark in Civitavecchia, so we had breakfast, packed the last of our things and were ready early. We weren’t supposed to disembark until 8:30am, but we went ahead and left at 8am because we were supposed to be out of our room by then. So we went down to the exit doors and were happy they let us leave earlier than our appointed time. We got our suitcases, and found that our driver was already waiting to take us to Rome. This was the nicest Mercedes we have ever seen. They all have been very clean and the drivers very nice, but this one was IMPRESSIVE. The gps was about a 12” screen. There were blue lights along the sides and under the seats. The sides had a wood grain-looking black plastic, and so on. It was just beautiful. The built-in GPS was about 12" by 6"! There were blue accent lights on the front dash, along all doors and under the seats. So fancy! The trip tool almost an hour from port to Rome. When we ...

9/25/19           My birthday!  I am so proud of myself for living for 75 years. I can’t believe I’m so old and yet I know I did everything I could to make it happen. Tom totally spoiled me today. He agreed that I could do anything I wanted. First thing we had a tour scheduled, so we went early to breakfast and got our usual stuff – I had fruit and yogurt and Tom had spuds, eggs, and a few other yummy things.   Can you name this star-shaped fruit? It tastes a little like a cucumber. To go on the tour, we had to meet in a large room with others going on other tours. They would call out a group who would then take the “tender” – the shuttle boat – to the dock. They had to significantly change one of the tours because of inclement weather, but ours was fine and they "hoped" the rain wouldn't affect us.  That scared us some, so Tom decided to go back to our room and grab an umbrella, but first checked with the ...