Ahh....i'm in italy! after an ordeal of getting over here sarah and i are in one piece. we left LA at 10am sunday and arrived in rome 5pm the next day....but man, it was hellish getting over here. so first we had to connect in montreal, and we didn't expect to go through customs, one thing, and 2nd, didn't know it'd take so damn long, we RAN through the airport back to pretty much where we had parked (we had to take a shuttle to customs) because we had 5 mins to board before the plane left, only to wait another hour because they said "check in is slow so we're gonna wait for the 40 or so more ppl who need to check in" ARGH! we could have walked! its' because those ppl were stuck at customs like we were!!! so we were 1.5 hours late arriving to london as a result and had to take a bus to the other airport to catch our connecting flight to rome, and we BARELY made that plane too only to wait some more after checking in our bags and running to the gate. so that sucked. finally we arrived in rome and called laura and booked a hostel for 2 nights...apparently we got a really good deal, 20 euro apiece and private (just us two) and our "Private shower" which is just in the corner of the room...a little ghetto! but laura said she's paying 22 euro for a shared room down the street tonihgt. hehehehehe. i wanted to stay up that night to get rid of the jet lag but i conked out at 8pm for 2 hours and woke up wide awake 2.5 hours later...as did sarah. so we spent the next couple of hours talking before turning in to start the day early.

today we went to the colosseum, roman forum, palatine hill, fountain of the 4 rivers at Piazza Nuvono, Pantheon, trevi fountain, spanish steps, saw the tiber river, and walked a lot through the city to get to these places. it's so amazing that these things existed so long ago and they're still standing. we got a free guided tour of the forum because some company was doing promotions for their other tours, which was cool. the palatine hill is huge. it goes on forever and there's so much in there. circus maximus, which we saw from the hill, was unimpressive. we then walked to the trevi fountain, which was crowded, but i took pics and thew a coin in there.

i love my new camera, my new precious...i've taken videos, lots of pictures, stich assist photos to make panoramic pics, and some on my black n white disposables. i hope i have enough space for the rest of the trip. i'd hate to delete things. we met up with laura tonight and tried planning the most immediate portions of the trip, planning the rest later, but it's pretty exciting, lots of traveling though...i hope iiii'm up for it.