First Full Day in Roma

Whew! We made it back to our room in one piece. What a crazy beautiful city Rome is. We only arrived last night to Hotel Jonico at 11:00p.m. Michael was a little more stressed than the rest of us after driving on the AutoStraude(tolled freeway) for most of the day. The speeds were between 90-100 mph and close quarters, not as close as in the city but we will get to that. We have a penthouse floor with 2 rooms, everything is quaint and close quarters but nice. They didn't have our reservation for the boys but the copy from the Internet did the trick. Right now Michael and Colt are enjoying a beer while watching the Euro Soccer 2004 tournament (the drinking age is either 14 or 16). Unfortunately Switzerland lost while we were in Switzerland, Italy is against Bulgaria 1-1 in the second half. I am the only female watching and it is great to see the emotion all the Italian men show when watching. We all slept in except Michael, but he reoriented himself which was neccessary! So this morining we attacted the public transporation system. By bus and subway we reached the Colloseum, the price of an all day ticket for any type of public transporation is approximately $5/person. The Colloseum was awesome! We were pulled into an English tour, which was very informative and put us at the head of the line. The architecture and ruins are all so overwhelming and beautiful. The Parthenon was also a highlight, built in 27 BC! We also saw the crypt of Raphael who was buried there in the 1500's. Walking down the narrow old streets was just like I imagined but only more beautiful. The sun shone all day and Beau did get tired of walking but as always we did a "forced death march" back. I know I have take way too many pictures which will not even express the magintude of what we have seen today but will remind us of how much we love this city. This is definately a return trip as well as Switzerland. I am going to go finish watching the soccer game, on to Vatican City tomorrow ...

In View of the Matterhorn

We made it to Zermatt today by train and I cannot type as the z and the y on the keyboard are switched! We can actually see the Matterhorn from our hostel room window, pretty cool. We are going to go hiking tomorrow. Most of the day today was driving from Montreux on Lake Geneva, through mountain passes and made it to Montana, Switzerland. The first stop today though was at Castle Chillon on Lake Geneva. It was larger than we thought from the outside and we did a self tour that took a couple of hours thru different builds of the castle ranging from the 11th through the 18th century. Colt is reminding me that time is a ticking and we are losing Francs as we speak. Enjoying ourselves completely and don't miss home yet!

Calgary Pitstop

We arrived here yesterday and are staying with Joyce, who is taking us to the airport tomorrow. We are leaving at 10:10 a.m. to Toronto with a layover of about 4.5 hrs. and then on to Zurich with an arrival time of 10:20 a.m. on Wed. June 16.

We followed some packing advice I found googling (http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/backpack.htm) and we (hopefully) will be the carry-on family. I got all of my stuff into my small daypack and my "weekend" suitcase so have stepped outside my normal packing box and am prett damn happy about it.

We enjoyed, as always, ginger fried beef for supper and shopped for miscellany travel items. Michael took us to Ikea and now I am in Ikea lust, love that store! What was supposed to be a lazy day in Calgary is now almost midnight but we did lounge around this morning and walked through peoples back yards, gotta love the big city in small doses.

Colt wants everyone to know that he drove us all the way from Arlee to Calgary, he was going to wimp out in Blairmore, AB at Fas Gas but Michael shamed him into continuing.