15 days to go

so here we are with almost two weeks left. 900 pounds of our crap stuffed into 12 boxes has been picked up by the shippers, and will be on its way to jersey in the coming days. we're planning on packing 6 large suitcases with the remainder of the stuff to bring with us.

i must have been high when i bought the airline tickets. we're leaving rome at 7am to paris. then paris at 1:15 to arrive in newark at 3:30. i was so concerned with the longer lay-over in paris (as all the other flights to paris had 40 minute lay-overs) that i didn't even notice the early leave from rome. a 7am flight means that we need to be at the airport at 5am. which means we need to leave our house at 4:30. which means we need to be awake before 4am!!!!! at the end of the day (when we reach our final destination) for us, it will be 9:30pm. but in new jersey they will just be done with lunch... we're in for it that day.

all we've been doing recently is killing time. lunches, giovanni's, dinners, giovanni's, repeat. today we had lunch with stephane, our (ex)swiss guard friend who is visiting rome for a month or so. it was nice to see him again, and talk about our plans for the future. we're planning a bbq on rich's terrace next week with stephen and clare... that will be fun. probably one of, if not the last bbq up there for us this year.

i have decided to make my own wine once we return to the states. i found these kits that don't cost too much - considered you get about 30 bottles in the end of it. cheap, good house wine is another thing i will miss about italy. italian wine in the states costs way too much, or it's terrible. i think it will be another fun adventure to make your wine. i also plan on trying limoncello and grappa... one at a time tho...

aubrey and i are enjoying ourselves talking about our new lives to come, back in america. talking about a new apartment, and decorating it, and just "starting over" again. talking about places we definitely don't want to go to, and places we must hit. how fun it will be to have our friends and family around, dinner parties, and what have you. all with luca! talking about coming back to europe, next year to visit a handful of the cities we never got to in the past 3 years.

my dad says life is a series of "starting overs". for us, it certianly seems that way. in the meantime, we're just finishing up our roman adventure, the last two weeks of it...