When in Rome...

Hi Friends,
well we got to Rome after some bumps but we're none the worse for wear and have had a faboulous time in Rome. This is our last night here and we've had such a good time even though our stay in Rome was a bit shortened. Thank you for all your prayers about our train it really helped. We were able to get a train from Paris to Nice and then stayed in Nice a couple of hours...we hit the beach for a break from all our running around and enjoyed the beautiful blue water and the scenery...
we fell asleep on the beach and woke up a little late...we walked up a main avenue to a restaurant and ordered some food but then realized we didn't have time...so we just drank the wine and put the bread in our backpack and paid for waht we had and cancelled our order...then we had to do an "amazing race" sprint to the train...when we finally got on we were in a first class compartment with these french people going to their yacht and we were all sweaty from running and with bags hanging from all our limbs...it was a great frist impression...
As it turns out the french people were super nice and we had some good laughs with them and practiced our French. They got off at Genoa and then we had some new travelling companions from Milan.
However, it was here that our train trouble continued.
The train had some "technical" trouble...which is the lingua franca for no one knows what the heck is wrong...and the train came to a complete stop and the enigine turned off.We were there for at least 1.5 hours until they decided to go back to Genoa and attach a new engine to the train and take us to Milan. At this point we had miseed our connnection in MILan to Rome so we were kinda sad....we would have to catch the last train to Rome which was a regional train and would get us there at 6 00 when we were supposed to be there at 2330. At any rate we got to Milan and got onthe train that we didnàt have reservations for. We found an empty car and fell asleep on seat which looked like they,d been there since the Second World War. We were so tried so our sleep was qutie proufound...so profound infact that we missed the announcement to Rome and woke up in Cascerta...near Naples...3 hours from Rome. We jumped off the train in a Frenzy and went to talk to someone from the train station. A super nice lady helped us get back onto the train to Rome and we finally arrived here at 10 00. We hit the city right away and saw all the sites of ancient rome...then we updated it a bit and watche dth world cup final with 2 million italians in the circo massimo...(look it up on wikipedia)..we did as the romans and got some pizza to go, some gelato and of course a giant flag...
we sang the songs, scream and jumped at all the appropraite times and had a great time...
we felt a little like traitors since a couple of days before we had marched up the champs elysees with france flags in flight and shouting French cheers as France eliminated Portugal...but when in Rome do as the Romans do...right?

We're off to Pisa and Venice tomorrow and hopefully we'll write ou from there...this is the last week of our little tour so we're on our last battery life...Laurie will be home before u know it...and i'll be practicing my german...

keep praying!
we love u!
danie and laurie