Rome day 2

Slept in until 9:20=SLUG!!! Realized that I had problem with the computer adaptor I'd brought with me, so I set off to see what it would take to charge my less than 3 lb. Acer notebook. I'd seen a computer store in the neighborhood last night when I went out (VERY SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD!!), so I set off with my bag and some $, figuring that would work. Well, of course, it was closed for the August holidays. (Most places have no sign to give you a clue when they are open or closed!) So I walked down via Carini (the name of our geometry teacher!)until I came to a small bar that sells coffee and drinks; the signor there was working at his computer, so I hoped that he would a.)speak English, and b.) have a clue who could help me. He was helpful, and sent me off on the bus that stopped outside his door to Trastevere and via Marconi to find the store Jotto. Ah,that it was that easy....When I got off that bus, having inquired already MANY times, "Parla inglese?",I happened upon a girl (17yo)with her dad and younger brother. When I made my now ritual inquiry, her father sort of pushed her forward. She LOVES English, and they had me go with them. When I got off,her father even gave me a bus ticket, as I did not have one and no credit card to buy one on the bus.
Well, it took me several stops to get to the Jotto store, and ALAS they could not help me. As I was passing the Vodafone store, I was about to give up! But something in the window made me wonder if they might have some sort of an adaptor to help. So I went in. They had nothing, but he plugged in what I had, and I learned that I only needed one part of the adaptor,not both!!! DUH! So this was a two hour experience and visiting places I'd never been!:))I went over to the tobacco shop to buy bus tickets,and the only English speaking person there gave me an extra cookie!:)) (Okay, I also bought cookies to go with the bus tix!) I went to the Trastevere station to catch the bus back. Then I realized that I had left the other piece of the adaptor at the Vodafone store. I debated whether or not to return and opted to return only to find that,of course,he was closed until 4PM!
I returned (FINALLY) to the apt,only to realize that by now I getting really hungry. so I stopped at the pizza shop(pictured) up at the corner,where they sell pizza slices by the pound. I'd already been there yesterday!:)) I also wanted to find a grocery store. Of the two that Angela had mentioned, one has closed to change ownership,and the other was closed until 5, and I'd been there last night and saw only cheese and pasta...no milk and or cereal! So a 20 minute walk and three inquiries later I came to Simply Market, so at least there is some food here! GRANDE INSULATA for dinner!:))
Weather has been delighrful...warm,but not brutal yet as people had warned. I even had to close one of the doors to my room last night,as it seemed chilly!
Dayle and Mallory arrive tomorrow mid-day, so my adventures before they arrive will include a walk in the park and finding the special bakery two blocks away which Angela mentioned! CIAO

Rome Arrival

We landed about 7 AM after a most uneventful flight...(wouldn't complain using miles anyhow!) My seatmate-we were in the middle with the seat between us empty and we cheered about that!-was returning from a month-long trip with his wife and her two kids around the east coast from DC to Lake George, where they wanted to stay longer. They also LOVE to travel, as they had been all over the west coast two years ago. His businesscard reads Head Royal Garage, so he manages the Queen's travels in the Netherlands. He'd been in cargo transport for years before that.
Leaving the airport, I decided to take the 8 euro bus to Termini and then local bus #75to Carini Street with a 2 block walk to the very spacious three bedroom apartment I'll be in until August 28th. The floors and walls are marble and granite. Today there has been a delightful breeze! I did have trouble turing the water on, so that kept me busy trying to get info from Angela; I just didn't turn it hard enugh.The FOUR key entry system looked hard to operate and just amazingly complcated. However, I've been in and out twice, so I've go that down! There is bougainvillea everywhere and flowering quince, so the streets are very colorful. AND there is a geleteria right across the street which I have already visited!
And I will be adding some notes about my Newfoundland trip when I resolve why I can't charge my notebook.Arrivederci!:))

St. John's Tour Day One

Ivy's nephew, Keith,took us around-that included Ivy and his wife Carol Ann-St. John's, very picturesque....and delightful! We headed first to famous Signal Hill,where Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic signal on December 12,1901. We stopped at Johnson GeoCentre,"Earth's Geological Showcase" which was very interesting with displays about oil and gas(HUGE oil drilling activity in Hibernia 90 miles off the coast of Newfoundland) as well as Titanic exhibit about the catastrophe 350 miles off NFLD coast. (There were at least nine warnings of icebergs, yet they still ran into one!)
We went to Cape Spear,the eastern most point, and again very SCENIC! We visited other little fishing villages such as Cape Maddox and Bay Bulls. I learned that they had voted in Newfoundland whether or not to become part of the US...it was a very close and heavily disputed vote, but obviously they stayed a part of Canada.
Off to more local touring and then to Heart's Delight tomorrow!

Arrival in St. John's, Newfoundland

FINALLY!!! My 6:30 flight from Boston was most uneventful; with not even two hours sleep, I slept easily on the plane and met Ivy at the busy Toronto airport.We boarde the fligh bound for NFLD, but were told maybe two hours into that we needed to stop inHalifax, as there was a computer problem tht needed to be fixed. Our interesting "seat mate" was a life-long citizen of Lima, Ohio, and a very nervous flyer, a serious "clutching the arms of the seat as we descended" type. We talked about this, as we landed, and the fact that her son was also on the plane added greatly to her stress. Clearly we landed with no problems; a special Air Cananda plane picked us up to take us to a gray and slightly overcast St. John's.
Ivy's nephew Keith met us, and we followed him to his lovely five year old home up on the hill to get an interesting view of all of the city.
His wife Carolyn had made a delicious dinner of cod and shrimp au gratin with mandarin orange salad and mixed rice. Dessert was a wonderful blueberry cobbler with biscuits that reminded me of shortcake. Carolyn has promised moose sausage for breakfast. (Shea sked how I felt about moose, and I first thought she meant mousse!) They caught up on the various folks that they know, as well as the things they had been doing, as Ivy had not seen them for three or four years.Keith hasw offered to give us a tour of the city, which will be very interesting, as I know zip about St.John's. I'm now going on next to no sleep, so I'm crashing. We're one and a half hours ahead of the east coast.

Now There Are Four Days.....

Bags are pretty much packed, but I still will need to throw in some things Monday night. The last minute details are being ticked off-mail held, the RIGHT shoes finally in hand or on foot, (for those of you who know what a return queen I am!), various medical issues addressed, etc. Actually the matter of the CORRECT shoes was really critical with all the walking I am planning on doing.
This morning my trainer suggested that Marathon Sports in Wellesley, as she found them to be very good. So this afternoon I did. The woman who fitted me, and I mean fitted me-like the "old" days-really paid attention; she looked at how I walked without shoes, she asked me questions about my health (re: knees, hips,etc.) So now I am wearing them at home and think they could very well be "keepers"! They have good support and are comfortable.
Several weeks ago Melissa said she wanted to get me a Kindle for my birthday and Mother's Day. Shortly thereafter we were at Target, and we saw that the price was reduced from $299 to $259. I really wasn't convinced that I wanted one, although I could understand how much space it would save. I really like "holding a book", as well as underlining it! So she bought it for me knowing that I might return it because I didn't like it. The clerk had told us they have very good return po,icy at that store. (I won't be returning things on my trip! Well, maybe not....) I started using it and really liked it. However, I learned that amazon.com had dropped the price to $189, and that was too big a drop for me NOT to return it. I went back to Target, and I told the woman at Customer Service, that I'd buy it for $189; there was nothing wrong with it. "Oh, no, we can't do that!" So I returned it(with my one downloaded book) and went to Electronics to see that Target was now selling Kindles for $189 also.
Ok...back to Customer Servce I went; "I want to buy that Kindle I just returned," I said. "Oh, no, we can't do that!" I asked to speak to the manager, who came out and said the same thing, "We can't sell it to you for that price; we have to sell it to you for $132!"
Thanks, Melissa!:))
Well, I had to digress to share that....
I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have in Newfoundland, so I don't know how often I'll be blogging. But you know that I'll fill you in on my trip "Down Home" when I had the next opportunity!!!

Still counting....

Wow! Three weeks from next Tuesday I will be off to Newfoundland with Ivy. Car rentals by now are IMPOSSIBLE to get, but I rented a car a long time ago, so we will be all set. Because there are so few cars there, it will cost us over $850 for two weeks. I forget how many miles or km we get, but at least we will have a way to see the spectacular countryside! We will be staying at Robin's (Ivy's daughter) house in Heart's Delight in the Avalon Region most of the time. Robin and her husband Jerry will arrive shortly before I leave,and then we'll head to a near-by B&B. From what I hear and read, there will be plenty to see and do!
The next part of my journey will start on August 4th, two days after I return from NFLD. I'm planning on having my suitcase for that trip all packed before I leave for NFLD to simplify things. We have signed up for two half day walking tours in Rome of the Vatican and the Ancient Rome sites like the Colisseum, etc. We will also take a 13 hour tour of Pompeii, Positano, and the Amalfi Coast in an eight person van to see these popular sites without the hassle of driving in the Italian countryside!

Now it is 7 weeks to go........

A friend asked me, "What are you going to do when you get there?" And I know that lots of people wonder what I'll do because I will be travelling solo most of the time....
"I'll go to the grocery store and check out my new digs and who knows what else I might do to get oriented!" I replied. Or maybe I'll go to the beach or meet my new neighbors or_________! Well, I will let you know! I will be doing the kinds of things that you usually do when you first go on vacation-unpack, explore, etc. Once I am settled in, I will be reading guidebooks and planning my daily excursions. And now that I have learned about couch surfing, I will see if there are any folks I might meet up with!
About my "friends" at Ryanair....It turns out that while the confirmation codes are seven digits, I only needed to use the first six digits to access my flights on their websites. So while I was getting very frustrated, because I had paid for these flights and couldn't pull them up, I finally figured it out!
Perhaps I mentioned that I had signed up for Spanish and Italian at the Newton Adult Ed. I dropped out of "Italian for Travellers", because all the teacher did was go over Italian menus and tell the class of 4(then 3) about how to get from the Rome Airport into the city. Spanish has been more productive, and, in fact, I'm going to take soem private lessons from the teacher Soledad Phelan, since we don't get to the past or future tenses.
Seven weeks from today I'll be off to St. John's, or as Peter(and thousand of others) call it, "down home"! There are a few details still to be pulled together, but they will all come together! I've just finalized my reental cars. AutoEurope based in Portland, ME, seems to have the best prices and matches AAA, AARP, etc. prices.
Ciao!