Griswolds in Rome and Tuscany

I did not think the typical Griswold occurences would follow us to Italy...I was wrong. The flight over was long, but they had several movies from which to choose. I originally planned on reading my Italian language book and being fluent in Italian by the time we arrived. I chose to sleep and watch three movies instead. I quickly learned that we would have benefitted greatly by me at least learning a few Italian phrases. However, if you gesture and point Italians will usually try to help you out.

The first day in Rome we visited the Vatican which included the Sistine Chapel, the Museum, and St. Peters Cathedral. All were amazing. I got in trouble a couple of times for taking pictures in forbidden places, but I would just play dumb (not much of a stretch) and they would let us be. I took a ton of pictures and ran out of batteries. When we got back to the hotel I plugged in the battery charger, but decided not to use the step down kit...in short I need to buy my mother a new batter charger. The flames and smoke that shot out of the wall socket did not damage anything else so I guess we were lucky.

Sunday morning we met our tour guide Ron who took us all over Rome. This was the best 85 Euro we could have spent. We walked the entire city, avoided lines, and he was able to explain everything we were seeing. We saw Palentine Hill, the Forum, the Colloseum, the Pantheon, several Cathedrals, Government buildings... We got back to the hotel at about 6 and then AJ and I walked across the Tiber to grab some wine, cheese, and walk back to the Colloseum and see it lit.

At 3am I woke up to a rumbling sound and then felt the entire building shaking. I immediately knew it was an earthquake, but Andrea (who takes about 10 minutes to get her bearings we she is sleeping) tried to tell me it was somone walking heavy. This was my first earthquake. It felt like the entire building was sitting on a water bed and then someone jumped on one side. It last a grand total of about 5 seconds. We thought that it must be a common occurrence because no one was talking about it in the morning. We did not hear anything about it until Cathy and Kelly called us in the afternoon to see if we survived. That call was followed by our families wondering the same thing.

On Monday we arrived in Florence, rented a car (Ford Focus) and drove to the Agriturismo in Siena. Siena is beautiful and we have thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality and scenery. We had dinner at the farm last night along with way too much wine.

This morning I got up at 5:30 and drove around trying to find the Arbia River. I did not find it, but it is probably for the best. I have my fishing license, but I have not paid for it yet. We have not decided what we are doing today, but we are just getting ready to eat breakfast and then we will head out again. In short, this has been our most amazing vacation yet. I cannot wait until we can show you pictures or at least post a few. After 3 days I have taken over 1000 pictures.

On a side note, if you realize there apostrophes in this post it is because I cannot find them on this darn Italian keyboard.