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Viva Roma! My first trip out of Holland this year and my first real time back in Italy since 2000! It was incredible - full of laughs, good conversation, beautiful weather, an amazing city, amazing friends, and of course... the best food ever! I think the best and/or only way to really to explain the weekend is by way of photos (surprised anyone?)

Our first night Allison and I could barely hold a conversation we were so excited. If anyone would have heard us on the train from the airport they surely would have thought we were completely crazy (and they would probably be right, actually). Poor Filippo, had to deal with two crazy American girls in Rome... He rose to the occasion, as always! We dropped our bags at his amazingly located apartment in the center of the city (near Campo dei Fiori), went to one of our first incredible meals in Rome, and then out to go bar hopping...

The night ended up something like this... This photo was taken AFTER the Brazilian bar... enough said. Fun times.

Next morning, in a daze, we greeted Sergi and prepared for our first full day in Rome! After a much needed nap and lunch, we went for a personally guided tour of Filippo's neighborhood...

Then it was out for more amazing food, and great jazz in one of the coolest little jazz bars I've ever been to.

That gets us to Friday, I think... That morning Allison and I went on our long awaited Italian shopping-spree, while the boys collected another weekender, Leoni, from Switzerland. That afternoon... we have our first gelato!! Even after literally over a week of contemplation and discussion, it was hard to choose!

Then Sergi and I left the girls in the Piazza Novana with their newly procured bubble-gun and went for a walk, over to the Pope's castle and meandered through some of the smaller side streets. I couldn't help but marvel at how small and familiar Rome suddenly seemed... last time I was there it was big and scary. This time, it was just another city, and an easy one to manage at that.

That night: repeat. Beers at our favorite little bar on the Campo dei Fiori, another fabulous meal that left us all stuffed and hardly able to move... then onto the bars! We went back to the same neighborhood we'd explored Wednesday night. At some point, we decided to look for a place nearby to go dancing... a decision that ultimately led us into an hour or more of walking around Rome by night, asking random kids where there might be a club in the neighborhood, finding one at 3:30 that was already closed, and finally stumbling back to the apartment, tired, happy, and looking forward to the next day.

By Saturday the group is complete - at long last Sandra had arrived the night before, just in time to join us for the dinner and late night bar-crawl-turned-walking-tour-of-the-city. We started the day right, as tradition demands, with coffees and pastries at the nearest bar.

Stopped off at the market to buy a ridiculously expensive giant lemon with a 4 cm peel (which Sergi carried around for the rest of the day and which quickly became our Roma mascot)...

This lemon, by the way, has been sacrificed and candied, and now sits in a container in my freezer. Yummy.

Then on and up to the top of St. Peter's, listening to Filippo's insightful and completely unbiased comments about the Vatican and the Pope, and the wonders the Catholic Church is accomplishing in Italy.

That night: repeat. Amazing home-cooked meal of seafood pasta and greens, all groceries bought that morning in the Campo. By far the best meal of the weekend. Out again, for one last hurrah, to a super hip club in what looked like an old wine cellar somewhere on the other side of the city. At some point in the early hours of the morning, we wander out of the club hoping to cab or bus it back to the apartment. No such luck! Eventually one cab passes by, and half the group jumps in. Sandra, Sergi and I opt to pound the pavement, and many tired foot-steps home, after probably the best hour (I'm deluding myself into thinking we could not possibly have walked longer...) spent in Rome, we were home again!

And finally, Sunday, the last day of an unforgettable trip... too short of course, ended with a hectic and almost disastrous experience at the airport (still trying to find the humor in it), and then we were back in Holland. Greeted by inane signs above the toilet (see Title, above) and HAIL. No shit. Hail. After four days of sun and warmth, we knew we were home.

Sigh. Luckily, I only had three days until Hana arrived, and I was off again to Barcelona...

Thought for today: I need to find another word for amazing.