....a three hour tour....

yesterday was a fun trip to rome!! me, michelle, and bonnie took off for the train station at 6am and ended up in the beautiful city by 8:30. after getting ripped off by a cab driver, we explored vatican city for a while.

luckily, michelle's dad has major connections, and we were able to take advantage of them. we got in touch with one of their drivers from the hilton, and we got a professional tour. after watching the pope for a little bit, we saw all of rome in 3 HOURS!! we just piled in the benz and he drove us around town, let us take photos as we wanted, explained all the ruins, and got us into the colloseum through the "back door". within 3 hours we saw was most people see in a week. pretty sweet!!

after getting lost in the subway system of rome........ we laughed our way to the train station, and arrived safely at home last night.

overall, rome was a good experience, but i'm still quite fond of florence. it felt nice to get back last night and think "we're home". rome is much larger, but it's crazy because we just walk around the city and all of the sudden it's like "wow, there's an ancient ruin next to that store". it was a nice day trip to say the least.

oh yeah, and did i mention that we got picked up by these 2 really hot guards at the vatican?

the dynamics of our household have changed some. we now have a guy from spain, a guy from france, and a guy from poland who took the place of the 5 mexicans. they enjoy discussing politics at the dinner table, and usually just complain about bush and how they could run our country so much better. trust me, many debates have come out of these "conversations". our U.N. count has risen to 8 countries..... not including the 2 additional countries that are living with our host family's daughters.

oh, and just for clarification..... my host mom's name is pronounced tee-tee. :)

i love you all, and keep the emails coming....... i love hearing about home!