Why Hello Rome. Nice to meet you too.

Yes. This is the coolest thing I've ever done. After the disaster that was Jacksonville, I had the most amazing God moment ever. I'm boarding the plane to Rome in Atlanta, a little nervous because I was flying solo internationally. (It was bound to happen at some point, might as well have been now). I was supposed to wait for the rest of the group to fly in 2 hours after me in the Rome airport. Kinda intimidating. No hablo italian. No hablo espanol either... just sayin'.

Doesn't matter. None of it mattered. I was seated next to the only other person on the trip to fly Delta. Seriously. Out of 200+ people on this flight, I'm seated next to the only person I could have known. God is so good. So very very good. And not only that, he's stinking cool (Tyler, and God). (I was also nervous about the potentially lame people on this trip! Fret not! Tyler is cool and we've bonded.)

The flight was good. I watched the Invention of Lying. Which was not so good. Do not even waste that dollar at RedBox to rent it. The 3 funny parts do not make up for the rest of the long, drawn out, boring movie. Weird side note-- my hands and feet were SO swollen after the flight. They've gone down a lot, I mean, they're no longer cankles, but still slightly large. Maybe I should wear pants today. Oh-- another thing-- if I'm having trouble deciding what to wear-- me thinks I packed too much. Over.board.

Once we got to our facilities, settled in, awkwardly ordered a slice of pizza from a hole-in-the-wall down the street, power napped, and had an orientation to St Johns, we took a walking tour...

Castel Sant'Angelo
Pont Sant'Angelo with the Bernini angels that are really stunning. Too bad they're just copies, the real ones have been moved indoor to a church down the street. I guess that's understandable...
Piazza Navona, where we ate the most delicious dinner ever. Caffe Bernini. I just hope I won't eat like that all the time... definitely would have problems with carrying around an Italian food baby.
On our walk home...
St Peters at dusk. Pretty rockin', huh? I thought so too.

More pictures on facebook. Check it.

My morning run this AM was... interesting. It was a solo adventure to the Borghese gardens... which is a lot like Central Park. Kinda confusing if you don't know your way around. I wasn't really looking to get lost either, so I kept it a short 30 minute run.

Trail run.
Goethe. German philosopher who wrote on color theory. And apparently loved Italy, who also loved him back.
Now that's just purdy.

More to come soon.