La Dolce Vita (Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life")

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If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~Vincent Van Gogh

Wait...I know. We are not in Amsterdam again just yet. We are still here enjoying ROME. We have already had a couple of great days here, especially with Naz and now we have just one more day to go before heading home. The tour to hadrian's villa and the Tivoli Villa d'Este fountains were a nice idea to spent the first part of a sunny day. After that Warren and I made our way around the city on foot....we found the The famous Trevi fountain and had a lovely pizza picnic there.

Unfortunately it is here that we first discovered the annoying people who get in your face to sell you stuff too. Flowers, toys, paper weights....besides the purse and umbrella guys, tonight they were even at the coliseum selling camera tripods. If you just happen to be without....there is somebody there to sell it to you. And then ofcourse there were the gypsies and pick pockets....I had been warned but wasn't sure just exactly to expect.

Anyway, we moved on to find Capital Hill, the ruins and the coliseum. By then it was time to make it back to the hotel and await Naz's arrival. When we met up we picked a restaurant but unfortunately we made a mistake not realizing that we were in the international district. It ended up being a chinese food night with ac/dc playing in the background. Oh well...our mistake.

Today we met up about 11am and headed straight for the Vatican. We took the subway system which saved alot of walking time. The vatican was not what I expected but still it was really very impressive. We enjoyed all the artwork but we never ran into the pope or not even a single nun. After that we were all STARVING so we found a nearby restaurant. Ofcourse a bit touristy and not the most authentic but pizza and gnocchi was okay.

We tried to tour the coliseum after that but it had closed so we made it onto a REALLY good exhibition of Van Gogh nearby. Well worth it to see in Rome. After we finished there the Coliseum, Capital Hill and the ruins were well lit. We had a really nice sunset and then a full moon....it was really perfect weather...like a warm summer night.

Tomorrow may be partly sunny, might rain a little so we will hit the pantheon and coliseum and finish up with some of the other attractions on a hop on hop off type of tour bus. I feel extremly fortunate to be here in Italy, Warren and I have had a really fun tour. We have done soooo much, it was a perfect taste of all the best Italy has to offer. I truelly have found the meaning of La Dolce Vita (Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life").

We leave for Seattle very early Sunday morning and will have a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam again. We may still try to make it to the Van Gogh museum before arriving home. Arrivedeci friends, Tami and Warren

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