Rome.  How I love the fact that we could accompany Jem on one of his work junkets,  I mean, trips. After the three hour flight from Riga we arrived past midnight, and I found myself all sweaty in the heat of Rome, looking into the red eyes of my overtired (and still very excited) kids, thankful that we lived "nearby", and hadn't just made the 24-odd hour flight to Europe from Oz.   While Jem sat in meetings for the most of four days, we tramped around the city, followed our noses, ate mountains of gelati, marvelled at lots of art works, walked many kilometres, almost caught a few pigeons, and generally had a great time.  I love travelling with the boys - they are good company and hardened travellers, as long as you do things at their pace and there is a gelati incentive after every 2 or 3 hours of classical art.  Tiss loved it so much that he was in tears on the last night, thinking he would never eat at "our" pizza shop again.  I consoled him that after pitching 3 coins over his shoulder into the Trevi fountain, a return to Rome was definitely on the cards.   Mikus has developed at an amazing pace over the last few days, insisted on carrying his bag himself EVERYWHERE, and has not uttered a sentence of "baby talk" while we have been away.  So hopefully Rome has cured him of that habit.  As for me, it was an inspiring break.  Next time I visit I want to do it without the "just built a house and live in Eastern Europe with matching wages" conditions ... mmm.... walking past the leather shops all I could do was instruct the boys (and myself) to breathe in DEEPLY and savour the smell of new leather handbags.  Anyhow, without any further ado, here's a small selection of travel snaps.  If you fall asleep looking at other people's travel photos, then save yourself the trouble and go to bed.  Now!





The Rome metro is disappointing for the metro connoisseur.  It is, for want of a better word, scummy.  No design, no decoration, no pride in appearance, no elaborate network of far-reaching tunnels. Only thing it's got going for it is the simple, oh so simple ticketing, with electronic cards that beep and open plexiglass gates.  Now THEY were a bit of fun combined with kids and a dumb mum who didn't know what was going on.