ITALY, Rome

WHERE IS MAXIMUS?

We were in Rome for a very quick but very jam packed sight seeing 2 nights. We had an excellent private tour of some of the sights, given to us by "Gieuse", her name pronounced like "Juicy". We went to the Bascillia Santa Maria Maggiore, Roman Forum (panoramic view of ruins – awesome view from the top), Colosseum (kept thinking of the movie Gladiator!), Panteon, Paletine Hill & various old OLD OLD churches. All of what we saw was really amazing. We opted out of a last minute afternoon tour to the Vatican due to the overwhelming heat and because frankly, i don't think Justin and I could have bared another MINUTE with that ROMAN BREATH!!!! God love "Juicy" but man oh man. Inside i was cracking up while on the tour. I found myself standing 3 feet from a particular thing she would have been up close to pointing out to us and talking about and it wasn't until she moved away that i would smile nicely at her kind of giving this look like, ok you and your breath are out of the area, now i'm gonna make my move in to check out the fabulous million year old piece of art. hee hee, no i was very sly about it actually! THEN there's poor Justin. After we declined the afternoon tour, we're headed back home, just the two of us, and he looks at me and says "was THAT MY breath!!?" hahahaha! I said, oh my god NO. He told me the entire tour he was seriously running this sentence through his head "my god, is THAT ME?" And I found myself at times actually holding in my own breath, in attempts to not breath in, when she would talk - putting myself on the verge of passing out due to that damn Roman summer heat that was going on that day! Oh what a ball any security guard would have had while monitoring any of the many security screens if they had actually really paid attention to the three of us as Justin and i were constantly dodging any situation that would have put us within 18 inches of her yet doing it without having to sacrifice what the tour had to offer & ever so politely with the charming American smiles on our faces and our often swift sly moves. So, needless to say, we’ll save the Sistine Chapel for another visit to Rome, and perhaps another tour guide. hee hee. Really though, Juicy was a sweet sweet Italian lady, i almost wanted to tell the driver to take us to our place, tell them to hold on, while i skipped waiting around for the elevator & just bolted up the 5 flight of stairs, grab my travel Listerine, get back in the car and hand it to Juicy and in Italian miraculously say...."Qui provare questo." (Here, try this)

And besides of all that, we had seen enough for one day we felt anyway. So we wanted to go do some exploring on our own. We went to lunch at Santa Christina, a nice small hidden restaurant that was recommended by our tour driver. Then we headed back to the hotel for a much needed afternoon nap. Awoke just in time for dinner reservations at Tre Scaline in the Piazza Novona where the square was full of artists, musicians, african dudes trying to sell confiscated designer purses then grabbing all their illegal shit in one quick 2-second swoop and hauling ass through the square when a friend got word of the cops (we never saw the cops). This pretty much marked the end of our European Extravaganza….SO WE THOUGHT. But oh were we wrong. En route to Detroit, our layover flight the next afternoon dropped us off in Amsterdam for a fun, fun, FUN 24 hours!

Please click on the orange link below to view our PHOTO SLIDESHOW of additional pics from our ROME visit

www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=cce4pp5d.8mca7zxx&Uy=mdsjph&Ux=0&UV=20741258502_895934387605