Sam (the best boy in the world) and St Peter's (the largest Catholic Church in the world). Just two of the many beautiful sights in Rome... 

Jenna and Agustus. 

Hallway in the Vatican Museum #1. 

Hallway in the Vatican Museum #2. 

St Peter's Square, where the Pope sometimes holds outdoor mass. 

The beautiful alter inside St Peter's. 

Staying dry on a walk through a castle. 

Another view of St Peter's Basilica. Sorry, I couldn't help it! 

Beautiful Rome, good lookin' boy....and YES that's a real rainbow! 

The Coliseum, view 1. The gigantism of it takes your breath away at first sight. It did not disappoint! 

Outside the Coliseum, view 2. The whole place (inside and out) used to be covered by white marble which was later taken for use in other building projects.  

Inside the Coliseum. Here you see two of three levels and also the underground level where they kept the animals, supplies, and men used in the gladiator games. It's so hard to convey how huge it is but just look at how small the people seem!  

Inside the Roman Forum, which once housed the Roman Parliment and associated governmental activites.  

The Roman Forum from above. How great it would have been to see it in its glory days! 

The Fountain of Trevini, one of the most beautiful sites in Rome and one of our favorites. 

The Pantheon. A former pagan temple which was, like all the others, converted to a Catholic Church.  

Inside the Pantheon. It's a huge, beautiful structure whose design and construction still baffles modern-day engineers. Once again I wish the pics could convey how enormous it is! 

A moment of clear sky and a monument in the Piazza Novona. 

The Capitol Building, which houses the Italian's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and which was built upon the very hill where Rome was said to have been founded thousands of year ago. 

Sam stands near the tomb. Notice the beautiful warrior statue above the wreath. 

The Coliseum standing tall above Rome, as seen from the top of the Capitol Building. 

Remains of the Trojan Forum, at one time the center of all social, economic, and political activity in Rome.  

When in Rome...eat lots of pizza!

As promised, a short tale of our recent trip to Rome follows. The reason it’s short—by my standards anyway—is because I think in this case it’s best to let the pictures tell most of the story: there were so many magnificent treasures in this city and I do not think I can do them justice as well as Sam’s extraordinary photographs can!

We left for Rome on Thursday night and had a hell of a time finding our hotel—or should I say hostel—once we got there, despite the fact that the proprietor had posted “directions” on the hotel website. Directions to what, I still don’t know…I think it would have all been forgotten had we gotten there and been able to collapse onto a nice bed after a hard week at work and hours spent walking around looking for the place (well, at least one hour) dragging out suitcases and being paced by potential muggers, but alas we were not that lucky. The proprietor of the hotel was no where to be found, and the Romanian housekeeper whom we woke upon our arrival near midnight could not find our reservation, so she finally just decided to put us in a room with two twin beds and gave us keys to a bathroom (sans toilet paper or towels) down the hall. We had reserved a room with a double bed and private bath, but assumed we’d figure it out in the morning. So Sam resolutely pushed the two little beds together while I went down to the bathroom to wash my face with a bath mat. What the hell, we were in Rome!

We did finally get our room situation straightened out but were not impressed with "La Casa di Asa" over all as the housekeeper insisted on leaving the windows in our room open so that it was freezing (with no heat, of course) by the time we got back each night and they seemed to ration the toilet paper almost as fanatically as they did the towels. Case in point: The first morning we awoke, Sam and I enjoyed warm showers in our semi-public bathroom in an effort to thaw out from the night before, but the shower door was leaking water all over (it was like a flood, really) and so, to save the water from leaking in to the hall and the housekeeper having to clean it all up, we did The Right Thing and laid our towels on the floor to sop up the water. The next day when I approached the housekeeper for (gasp!) a second set of towels she shook her finger at me and lectured in a Romanian/Italian/English language all her own about the water on the floor, to which I of course responded that we had not done it on purpose. She did give us the second set of towels and I thought that might be the end of it, but sure enough when it was time to pay the bill for the room, we were told (in a note, via the housekeeper, from the proprietor) that we were being charged 24 Euros for “2 towels”. That's like 30 bucks. Don’t worry, Sam promptly took care of that—and I don’t mean he paid—and I felt secretly happy that I had slyly stolen the roll of toilet paper from our first bathroom and brought it to our new one, so that we had two almost-complete rolls for our four-day stay in Rome.

Also I should mention that it rained nearly the entire time we were there, was much colder than the forecast predicted, that the city transport system was not the easiest to navigate, and that I was sick with poopy-tummy the last two days we were there, but you know what? None of it mattered. We were honestly so overwhelmed by the beauty and history of the city that we didn’t let anything dampen our moods—ok, that was a bad choice of words…maybe I should say there was so much to see that I hardly noticed all the Italian designer's stores we were walking by (Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, etc) and didn't buy anything the entire time we were there. We took time to explore, snapped tons of pictures, ate great food and drank great wine, and generally just tried to soak it all in before falling into bed each night, exhausted. I guess some of the highlights were the delicious pizza we had for breakfast every day at the local place by our hotel and of course the sinfully delightful coffee and gelato (Italian ice cream) that we indulged in as much as possible. I don’t think I can begin to choose which places were the best to see, because they all were, but the Coliseum and the Pantheon jump out in my mind as being really knock-your-socks-off amazing. And of course being in the Sistine Chapel was kind of unreal, though it was much darker than I thought it would be. It was just crazy to walk through the ruins spread throughout the city and to realize that we were seeing and touching things that had been there since the time of Christ. Those early Romans were a truly amazing people and their legacy and spirit still live on in the ancient wonders they left behind.

I could go on forever but I promised not to, so I won’t. I really hope you enjoy the pics and that you make it to Rome for yourself someday if you haven’t already been. And don’t grow too attached to the dark hair, even though it looks adorable…I am already two boxes of hair dye closer to my traditional (but lovely) color and would say that I am currently a strawberry blonde (yuck). Anyway, we look forward to hearing from you soon. Take care 'til then!

Love and happiness,
Jenna & Sam