Trying it catch up on blogging...

Wow it has been a busy couple of weeks here. We're currently in Basel and I'm going to attempt to catch up on my blogs. Rome was most definitely the best weekend trip I could have imagined. We decided flying was the best option, since we had heard some stories about less than reliable Italian trains, and ended up flying with Air Berlin, which is my new favorite airline - too bad they don't fly in the US. They arranged everything we needed perfectly, such as seating our entire group on the plane together despite the fact that we had booked our tickets separately and making sure our luggage was placed in the plane last so it would be easier to transfer to our other plane during our layover. They even gave you a warm full size pretzel in flight and a piece of chocolate at the end of the flight.  After some internet research we found a website called monasterystays.com where you can stay at a functioning monastery or convent in Rome, so we decided to try it out. It was very reasonably priced and worth every penny. The nuns made us breakfast each morning with a specifically set table for each room (which was amusing for us because James had to sit at a separate table since he had to be in a separate room). We also got to bond with the nuns in a unique way when the shower in our bathroom overflowed on the first night and we spent about an hour mopping up the water that had flowed all the way out into the hallway. From the stories I had heard regarding Rome and theft, I was also relieved at how safe and secure I felt at the convent. We had a nightly curfew at 11pm, which was fine for us because we had no interest in partying all night, and the convent had a gate and door that you had to be buzzed into to get inside.  As for the city itself, we managed to pack a whirlwind tour into a less than 48 hour stay. We saw the Colosseum, the tomb of the unknown soldier, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and many other ruins. We spent about 6 hours in Vatican City (I could have spent a week there, but with such a limited amount of time, 6 hours was significant). As a Catholic, being able to go to the Vatican was an amazing experience. While we were there, a mass was being celebrated in the Basilica and I was able to have about 20 minutes of prayer in the adoration chapel. It was so peaceful and meaningful for me to have that opportunity. The Sistine Chapel was beautiful, but I wish there had been less people in the chapel at one time and that the people in there had obeyed the no photography and no talking rules, because it was rather disrespectful to see so many people breaking those simple rules.  We finished off a great weekend with a family style dinner at a small Italian restaurant off the beaten path where the waiters barely spoke English and got to experience what we thought was a stereotypical Italian waiter that kept walking away every time we asked him for something. It was frustrating and hilarious at the same time.  Another unique Roman experience was figuring out the traffic and bus system. The traffic there was crazy, with vespas weaving through it hardly following any traffic rules and pedestrians going across roads whenever they wanted - we were sure that someone was going to get hit, but no one ever did. The buses were hard to figure out and did not seem to have any predictable schedule, unlike the very reliable German transport systems. We even asked a shopkeeper and he said, "oh, yeah, the bus you need comes around every twenty minutes or so, usually." It was quite different from what we had been used to in Bonn.  All in all our weekend in Rome was exhausting but worth every penny. I will never be able to eat pizza, pasta, pesto, gnocchi, or gelato in America again without remembering the superiority of these dishes in Rome and I can finally say that I have been to the Vatican, which was one of the top five places in the world I wanted to see.