Olympic Football at Wembley Stadium

Wembley before it was full of people

We were sitting way up on level 5

The stand opposite us

Great Britain v UAE

Leaving Wembley late at night

Last night we attended our very first Olympic event.  We saw two pool matches of football at Wembley Stadium.  They had a crowd of 88000 people there last night.

The first match was Senegal v Uraguay (2-0) and the secong was Great Britain v UAE (3-1).  The secong match was our favourite.  The football was fabulous.  The crowd for the second match was amazing and good spirited being their home team.  Finn felt like he was the only Uraguay supporter in the crowd during the first match.

On Saturday we visited the Natural History Museum and loved their dinosaur exhibition.  As well as bones and fossils it has moving dinosaurs, some of which really roar!  Very cool.

We'll have so much to tell you about when we get back - we'll bore you silly!!!

We have our Olympics Tickets!!!

We have now picked up our Olympics tickets.  They are good looking tickets plus we get a free Zone 1 to 9 travel card for each day that we have an event.  How good is that?  Our first event is two football pool matches at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. Not sure if we'll last the distance of 2 matches but we'll certainly give it a shot.

Keeping busy

Finn at the Imperial War Museum

We climbed 311 steps to the top of this monument remembering the great fire of London

Deborah with the great fire of London Olympic mascot: Wenlock

We found Paddington Bear at Paddington Station

On the London Eye

Finn writing his journal

We are having the most amazing time in London.  In the last two days we have visited the Imperial War Museum, climbed the monument to the great fire of London, spent time in Leicester Square, watched the Swiss clock chime in Leicestr Square, walked through Piccadilly Circus, visited NZ House, Seen fabulous buskers in Covent Garden, watched the Spectacular show of the Lion King, visited Baker Street in search of Sherlock Holmes, visited Paddington Station and found Paddington Bear and been on the London Eye.  Talk about packing it in!!!

Tonight we are going to watch the Olympics opening ceremony at home, where I'm sure that we will get the best view.  London is just buzzing today. All the newspapers are just full of the Olympics.

It's on at 9pm London time but 8am Saturday NZ time would be even better.  Hope you gt good coverage of it at home. 

Love to you all,
Deb & Finn

Science Museum

Launchpad: magnets & electricity

Launchpad: sound waves

Launchpad: splitting light rays

Google chrome lab: Drawing of Deborah

Google chrome lab: drawing of Finn

We spent the whole day today at the Science Museum.  We could easily spnd many more days there.  It has so much to see and do as well as interactive areas and displays.  We spend half the day in the Launch pad area.  It's a hands on section that is aimed at 8 to 13 year olds and it explores forces & motion, magnets & electricity, sound, light, materials and something else.  We also spent lots of time in the Google Chrome Lab which was all about experiments within the world wide web.  The two drawings in sand where done in there.  We used a computer to take our photos then it used software to turn our photos into lines and then a robot drew each of us in the sand.  You can log in remotely and try it your self too www.chromeweblab.com

We also saw an IMAX 3D deep sea movie while we were there.  It was just magical.  The screen is as tall as 4 double decker buses stacked on top of each other.  The 3 D was amazing.  We could literally touch the fish.

An awesome day and a museum that I can highly recommend.

Hawks: We're glad you got the postcard.  They must have been good games last weekend.  Go all out against the 3rd team.  You've got nothing to loose!!  LEt us know how you get on.

Adam:  Finn will whisper the answer in your ear

Nana:  Thanks for writing your comment out twice!

Mum and Aunty Suzy:  Thanks for your comments too.  Dundonald don't do the tea towels at the moment.  They have other fundraisers.  We're looking forward to Lion King tomorrow night :-)

Long Lunches

On Tuesday we had the most fabulous chilled out day.  A lovely group of ladies who I worked with at Dundonald School came around for lunch.  It was so lovely to see them again and chat and drink wine and chat some more.  Thank you Hilary J, Bridget, Cathy, Sharon, Karen, Nicola and Melissa for such a lovely afternoon.  Hilary L we thought of you.  We spent the whole afternoon chatting and drinking.  Having a chilled out day was just what we needed after busy busy days.

Great couple of days

We arrived back into London yesterday.  It was much easier driving in central London this time because this time I was familiar with the car, could work the integrate GPS system, and there may have been less traffic!  We even drove through Balham where we used to live, on our way to return the car.  I was able to point out to Finn where he was born too.  Very cool.

In the afternoon we used the hop on hop off bus to tour around a 2 and a bit hour loop of London.  We saw all the major sights including Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, St Paul's, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben (who we heard chime 1pm), the houses of Parliament, Marble Arch, Hyde Park, Speakers Corner....  I felt  a real buzz seeing all these places again and sharing the excitement of London with Finn.

We hopped off and had a closer look at Buckingham Palace, the Beef Eaters and Green Park, before heading back to Wimbledon where we are currently staying with my friend Hilary.

Today we caught a boat along the Thames River from Waterloo to The Tower of London where we spent around 3 hours.  We saw the crown jewels, walked along the walls, saw the ravens, went into the bloody tower, saw the block and axe used for chopping off heads, and immersed ourselves in history.

This afternoon we went in search of the Olympic flame which was passing through Wimbledom around 5pm but we just missed it :-(We even walked right to Wimbledon tennis where it was going to be at centre court at 5.29pm but we were there at 5.30pm and it was already inside!  Still we saw important people in mayoral type chains, and the car that was coming to collect the Olympic torch and take it to Wandsworth where it was headed next.

Tomorrow we will be catching up with my colleagues from Dundonald School where I used to work.  We're all going to gather together for lunch and a glass or two of wine.  The weathr forcast is for an outstanding day tomorrow too.  I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Love to you all,

Deborah and Finn

Some photos

At Walt Disnay Studios, Paris

Finn going through at Platform 9 and 3/4, Kings Cross Station, London

Harry Potter black cab tour, London

Stonehenge, England

Stonehenge, England

Bath, England

I saw this street in Wimbledon, London

A big THANK YOU to Hilary, who allowed me to use her home computer to load some pictures onto our blog. 

The Roman Baths

We visited the Roman Baths today and I was totally impressed. I last visited the Roman Baths around 12 years ago. I am very impressed with the improvements that they have made to the visitor experience since then. They have updated their displays and made them more user friendly (similar to Te Papa), they have interactive displays and they have used data projectors to display visuals of the people who would have been at the Baths in Roman times. We could follow a bunch of characters from different walks of life. They also provide everyone with an audio guide that even has a kids version. It really made the trip. I would highly recommend the Roman Baths to anyone visiting Bath. We saw another chalk horse today from the hop on hop off bus skyline tour. The horse was about 18 miles away and we could see it clearly! How cool is that. We were up in the hills surrounding Bath and we got great views back towards Bath which is situated in a valley. This afternoon we played mini golf just below the Royal Crescent and Finn had a play at the Royal Victoria Park children's playground. Was great to run around :-)

Exploring the Wiltshire countryside

Today we drove through the country side and saw two chalk horses on hillsides. The first one was the Alton Barnes White horse made in 1812, and the second one was the Cherhill White horse made in 1780. They look really impressive from a distance and up close they are huge. The eye of the Cherhill white horse is 4ft across! We also visited the Avebury Stone Circles. They are a world heritage site. Unfortunately many many years ago they built a village where the stone circles were and the put roads through the circles too. Now they are trying to preserve what is left of the Stone Circles. It was really interesting. For the next two nights we are staying in the town of Bath. It's the only place in Britain where there are hot springs. We arrived in time to do the hop on hop off bus tour around town. We passed Jane Austin's house and several other places where she stayed and wrote some of her books. We stopped at the Sally Lunn shop and had a Sally Lunn bun. It's the oldest shop in all of Bath. The Sally Lunn bun was quite different to what we call a Sally Lunn. It's a large, light bun which they toast lightly and then give a sweet or savory topping. Finn had nutella on his Sally Lunn. I had lemon curd and clotted cream. Yummy :-) We even had our first pub meal for supper (evening meal - dinner is what they have at lunch time). It was good food. Catch you later, Deb & Finn

Stonehenge, Old Sarum and Salisbury

We had an easy drive out of London straight to Stonehenge. It is really special to be so close to such a mysterious and well known monument. It is amazing to think that they moved those massive stones all the way from Wales to here. Think how clever they must have been to move those stones and then to build a monument around the movement of the sun throughout a calendar year. From Stonehenge, we visited Old Sarum where there used to be a castle surrounded by twin circles of defenses. It's easy to imagine knights and soldiers here. We decided to stay in Salisbury overnight. Once we'd found a hotel, we went walking into the centre of town and visited Salisbury Cathedral and saw the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta is very special because it's the very first document in the world that deals with human rights. Salisbury Cathredral has the tallest spire in Britain. It's 123m high. Jacob- Glad you got the postcard. How's football going? Love Deborah and Finn

Harry Potter, Driving & Friends

Yesterday morning we had a black cab tour around some of the sites that they used for filming Harry Potter. We were the only ones, so we got the undivided attention of our guide. We saw platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross, Diagon Ally at Leadenhall Market, Gringotts Bank which is actually in Australia house, the Ministry of Magic, the Leaky cauldron which they filmed in several different locations in different movies and the millennium bridge that is destroyed in one of the later movies in a scene with deatheaters and a spot where they filmed the night bus squeezed in between two red double decker buses. It was a really good tour and the guide had a DVD with him that he would show us a scene from the movies in conjunction with the site where we were. Highly recommend it! In the afternoon I picked up a rental car from Victoria Coach Station (central London). Needless to say it was incredibly stressful driving, trying to go in the right direction and trying to be in the correct lane in 4 lane squares! All in an unfamiliar manual car! I was so pleased once I'd got to Fulham and recognized where I was and it was even better once we were over the river and traffic was no longer nose to nose. From here on driving should be much easier as we are heading south west towards Stonehenge. Last night we caught up with friends and children from Dundonald School where I used to teach. I was so impressed with the gorgeous 16 year olds who came to visit with me. I'd taught them as 5 year olds. Thank you Alice, Felicity, Ewan, Charlie, Phoebe for making the time to call in. It was so lovely to see their Mum's again too. Anne, Sue, Carol, Dee, Susan and Annabel- I just loved meeting you again. Special thanks to Annabel and David for hosting us all last night and for gathering everyone together. Diana, Scott, Emma and Nicole - we thought of you! Annabel and Anne had even found our old class photo! For the next few days we will be out of London, seeing what we find, staying where we please. We'll be in touch as we can. We are back in London from Sunday night. Love to you all, Deb & Finn

The Eurostar

This morning we had a very quick visit back to Disneyland Park as it doesn't open till 10am. It was very short really at around an hour, not enough to queue for anything but enough time to walk around and enjoy the spectacle and the excitement of people arriving for the first time. We've had such a great time at Disneyland. Thank you Linda for all your recommendations for visiting Disneyland Paris. Your suggestions were just right for us. We caught the train back into central Paris and changed trains to get up to Gare du Nord. We had another accordion player on one leg of the journey. The Eurostar train is such an easy way to travel between London and Paris. You only have to check in 30 minutes before traveling and you pass through immigration and customs just after the check in point. So we got a stamp in our passports for leaving France, walked 10 meters and got an arrival stamp for the UK even though we were still in France. It made it so simple when we arrived in London as basically you just hop off the train and leave the international section and head out into the main train station at St Pancras. The Eurostar travels at 300kilometres per hour and so it only took 2 hours and 15 minutes to travel between Paris and London. Much faster than flying if you include the traveling to the airport and 3 hour check in time! We had first class tickets and it was just bliss. We got a meal served at our seats, had lovely big comfy chairs and clean toilets. We'd highly recommend travelling first class on the Eurostar. We got to London at 4pm local time (just had to wind our watches back one hour) and caught a black cab to our hotel. We are staying in Euston tonight and we went walking after we'd checked in. Turned out we'd gone wandering along Tottenham Court Road and unbeknownst to me we'd turned around to walk back just before Oxford Street. I only found out when I bought the London A to Z! We stopped and had dinner at a Cafe Nero! Haven't been there for at least 8 years. It used to be my favourite coffee shop when we were living in London. It was good to have a latte as we know them in NZ - a cafe latte is quite different in Italy and France. It's great to be in a country I know and in an English speaking country again. I'm so looking forward to having the rest of this week exploring and travelling as we please. We have the Harry Potter tour in the morning and then I pick up the rental car after lunch. We are catching up with some families whose children I used to teach at Dundonald School in the early evening. Can't wait to see the girls all grown up! I taught them when they were just starting school and they are 16 years old now! Love to you all, Deb & Finn

Disneyland Paris

We have had the most awesome 3 days at Disneyland. We spent today at the Walt Disney Studios Park. We got to be extras in the movie Armegeddon, met Stitch, spun around on a cars ride, travelled on a flying carpet, watched several different shows in different studios. Our favourite today would have to have been a stunt cars show where they were filming scenes with multiple bad guys in black cars and one good guy in a red car. Just amazing the coordination that goes into filming a stunt scene. The choreography is so clever. We even saw Lightning McQueen looking for an enemy spy car with a secret weapon. Thankfully Lightning saved the day. The stars and cars parade this evening had all the cartoon Disney Movie characters. Very cool. After 3 days we still haven't done everything there is to do at both of the Disney Parks. We'll only get a short time at the park tomorrow morning as we need to head back into central Paris to catch the EuroStar to London. I pick up a rental car on Wednesday and we head out of London with no fixed itinery for a few days. Oh, and we have our Harry Potter tour on Wednesday morning too. Really looking forward to that! Au revoir, Deb & Finn

We met Mickey Mouse!

The last two days at Disney have been so much fun! We still have two more days and we still won't have done everything. There are two Disney Parks here, Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park. There is so much to see and do and buy in each park. Today we meet Mickey Mouse personally! We got to see him, just the two of us and a photographer and a minder. (After queuing for an hour!) Super cool. Of course we bought the photos after! We have done all kinds of rides from easy peasey to super scary. The Big Thunder Mountain Roller Coaster was the scarest for Finn and probably the only roller coaster in the parks that I'll get him on. Today we had a massive thunder storm go over us and we got soaked to the bone despite wearing our coats. Thank goodness we bought them with us though - we've needed them every day in France. Tonight we went to Buffalo Bill's Wild West dinner and show and Finn Loved it. He was so engrossed in it that he hardly ate much of his dinner. It was very good though. He was so impressed with the real animals and real cowboys and real indians. We stayed at Disney until closing last night as they put on a Disney dreams show projected on the Sleeping Beauty Castle and it included fireworks. It was fabulous. We saw two Disney parades during the evening. One at 7pm which had all the Disney characters and another at 10.15pm which was called fantillusion, and was all lit up. Finn loved the first one best and I loved the lights of the second one. As it was Bastille day yesterday we got to see some extra special things. The air force did a fly over Paris (before we'd left for Disney) and it was loud and went on and on! The planes were flying in all kinds of different formations with different types of planes in some waves and all the same types of planes in other waves. Then last night at Disney they had an extra fireworks display just for Bastille day at 11.30pm with only red white and blue fireworks. How cool was that? They also had a huge parade along the Champs Élysées including the president, that we saw them setting up for but didn't go to that as it was the same time as our train out to Disney. Thanks for all your comments. Suzy: the metro is the train system. The free wifi is well used. It amazed me the first time I saw people talking on their phones under ground as well as checking their emails etc. didn't realize 4.5 million people use it every day though! Mum: yes we've seen plenty of armed police in both Rome and Paris and I'm sure we'll see them in London too. Very strong presence. Especially in Rome. It seemed that one day the army was responsible for patrolling the city of Rome, one day the Navy and the police every day. Grandma B: It's simply amazing to be traveling through some of Europe. It's a real joy seeing the cities fresh through Finn's eyes and we are doing some things I've done before and some new things. Coach Matt: heads up Hawkes. It's a new week and we've just got to give the best we can. Go the vindaloos. Diana and Emma: Finn would have bought so much in the Disney shops but I have to keep reminding him that he can only buy what he can carry. He bought a Mickey Mouse t-shirt today and it's his plan to wear it so he doesn't have to carry it. Not sure of his logic there as he'll still have to carry all his other t-shirts. Whaea Danielle, Mr Williams and Rooms 7 & 8: have a great first week back at school. Mrs McMahon and Room 3: Disneyland is so much fun. I can't wait to tell you all about it when I get back. Dad & Judy: thanks for your message Megan: keep learning your French words. It's really helpful if you can say a few words when you visit France. Nana: we are feeling a bit tired. Today we slept till 9.30am but that was because it was after midnight by the time we got back to the hotel last night. Love Deb & Finn

La Tour Eiffel

This morning we caught the Metro around to La Tour Eiffel. On the way we had an accordion player for part of the journey. Very cool. At times the metro was crowded, other times we got seats - such as easy way to get around. We climbed up the Sud leg of La Tour Eiffel. To get to the 2nd floor it was 704 steps. We also caught the lift right to the very top (324m). The view was spectacular. It started to rain while we were at the very t but luckily Finn had borrowed an umbrella from the hotel, so we were good as gold! We even had some lunch while we were up there at one of the cafe on the second floor. Super cool! I think it was a favourite for both of us. We then caught the metro to the other side of the city to see Sacre-Coeur. We caught the funiculaire up to Sacre-Coeur just for fun. We could easily have walked up the steps! We looked back across the city towards the Eiffel Tower. This would have to be my favourite day in Paris. Tomorrow we will catch the RER around to Euro Disney and begin the stuff Finn has been hanging out for. It's so great to read your comments and to know that you are following us on our blog. It makes Home seem closer. To those of you going back to school on Monday, we wish you a great start to term 3. Love to you all, Deb & Finn

Louvre

It's around 17-18C today and showers on and off.  A good day for visiting the Louvre.  We caught the Metro to the closest stop and spent most of the morning trying to find our way through the maze of rooms and buildings that make up the Louvre.

We saw the Mona Lisa (along with all the crowds) and got close enough to take a photo.  Saw the Venus de Milo and saw other significant paintings.  Finn liked the foundations of the original Louvre down on level -1.  We walked through some of the Egyptian rooms but for some reason Finn found them really spooky.  So we didn't stay in that wing for long.

We had lunch in a cafe inside the Louvre.  So maybe we didn't get ripped off yesterday.  Finn's coke was E4.50 and a coffee cost E5.50.  Needless to say I didn't buy a coffee this time.  Both drinks were cheaper at the restaurnat we went to last night.

I hadn't realised how much the cost would vary between European Union Countries.  I'd just assumed that things would be a similar price here as in Rome.

This afternoon we were going to go to the Tour Eiffel but it was pouring so we did a loop on the hop on hop off bus instead.  We are hoping for better weather in the morning and we'll try to go to the Eiffel Tower then.

Hope you have been enjoying the school holidays. 

To my Titahi Bay friends, have an awesome day with Mary tomorrow.  I'll be thinking of you :-)

Adam- Spiderman comics sound good.  Keep them.  From Finn

Paris

Last night we caught a high speed train from Rome to Milan. We travelled first class and had lovely big seats. It was a very easy journey of around 3 and a half hours. We had to wait about 40 minutes at Milan before we could board the sleeper train to Paris. Again we were supposedly traveling first class but our two berth cabin was pretty basic and the shared toilet was terrible. The train finally got away just before midnight and Finn had stayed up until then. As soon as he train was underway, they unlocked the toilets by which time there was quite a queue. So Finn did very well as it was about 12.15am by the time he was in bed. He slept solid through to 8am, so a great sleep for him. Sleeping on the train there was a gentle rocking motion (not dissimilar to when we went on our cruise last year) except for the clickity clack of the train moving. I got about 5 hours sleep, so I'm looking forward to a good sleep tonight. We got into Paris at 9.30am, walked to our hotel (about 10 mins), left our bags and went and found the hop on hop off bus. We spent a few hours checking out a couple of different routes - there are four different routes through Paris with our hop on hop off company. We were struck by the difference in temperature. It was just 15c when we arrived and had been raining. It felt really cold after the heat of Rome. It warmed up to 19c later in the day. Had lunch in a cafe by Notre Dame. Got absolutely fleeced! They charged us E21.50 for 2 sandwiches, a coffee and a coke. Apparently my cappuccino was E6.50! I questioned that as I'd been paying E2 in Rome. So was my NZ$13 coffee nice - not really. The moral of the story is don't eat at a cafe right next to Notre Dame! Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the Louvre. Will see how it pans out though. Love Deb and Finn Coach Matt - good one for getting the goal. Dad told me about your goal too. I saw a soccer shop in Rome. We passed a football field on out hop on hop off bus in Paris today. Say hi to the team from me

A close call

Our plans for today changed.  In fact we had a close call.  we had tickets to go to Zoomarine which is 45minutes outside of Rome.  They run a free shuttle bus there and back.  It goes in time for the park opening and returns when the park closes.  The person who sold us the tickets said the bus left the park at 5pm which would have given us enough time to catch the 7.15pm train.  I was chatting with the man at our hotel reception and he said no, the shuttle bus doesn't leave the park until 7pm when it closes.  We would have totally missed our train.  He even called Zoomarine to double check for us.  Luckily the ticket seller refunded our tickets.

Instead today we have explored Castel Sant'Angelo.  Finn had read up about it andnknew that the steps were so shallow so that horses could get inside.  Plus he was looking for the passage that links the Vatican City with the better defended Castel Sant'Angelo.  The cannons and cannon balls were of interest to him too.

This afternoon we used our Archeobus ticket to go back along the Appian Way and visit the catacombs of San Callisto.  Finn held my hand tightly all the way through.  It was blissfully cool underground.  We saw many many tombs but no bones.  They have movd the bones to a special area after the catacombs were ransacked many centuries ago.

In a couple of hours we'll catch the train to Paris.  Wonder if we'll be able to sleep on the train?

Nana - hope it's not too cold in Dnnevirke today.  Mum just looked up the temperatre here and it's 36C.
I'm drinking lots of water from the Roman nosoni.  The water comes from the aquaduct.  From Finn

Dad - I'm hot.  From Finn

Cost of gelato $$$$

As we were walking along today, Finn added up the cost of all the gelato that we have purchased over the last week.  2 gelatos a day each, times 7 = 28 gelato.  At 2 Euro each that's 56 Euro.  So approximately NZ$112. 

Today we have visited the Spanish Steps and been hounded by men trying to give me red roses on the steps :-)

We also caught the Archeobus through the Appia Antica Park.  I couldn't convince Finn to visit any of the catacombes along the way though - disappointing.

Tomorrow we will be checking out of our hotel, leaving our luggage there, and heading to Zoomarine for the day (from 9am-6pm).  As I understand it, it is a park like marine land in Napier and it also has swimming pools for people.  I want to keep Finn busy on our last day as we can't have an afternoon chill out time at our hotel.

Around 7pm we catch a train to Milan and at midnight we change trains to get to Paris.  On the second train we have a sleeper ticket.  We get into Paris early, around 9am from memory. 

So we won't have the chance to write a post tomorrow and you'll have to wait until I find an internet point in Paris to hear from us next.

Hope all is good with you all and that it's not too cold at the mo.
Love to you all,

Deb & Finn

Pompeii

We had a great trip to Naples and Pompeii yesterday.  We had a guided tour around the central city of Naples and saw the most important buildings and public squares. It was interesting because they have used the lava and volcanic rock to build a lot of their buildings with some marble in between.

Pompeii was just fascinating.  Again it was great to have a guided tour as we saw the most significant parts without getting lost!  Finn was fascinated by the dead bodies in the positions they died in trying to protect themselves from the ash and stones from the eruption.  Finn also remembered a lot of information from when we visited the Pompeii exhibition at Te Papa a couple of years ago (cos he went to that twice - once with me and once for Kiri's birthday). 

Houses go a long way up the volcano and it is easy to see why Pompeii was totally destroyed.  Apparantly 22000 people used to live there.  They used lead pipes to get water into their city.  Some people died of lead poisoning.  The eruption took them by surprise but about 20000 people got away from Pompeii down the coast, so they think around 2000 lives were lost.

The layout of their houses is interesting and definitely done to make the most of the weather here. The layout of the city was also on a very logical grid of streets.

It was a long day for us and we slept in this morning.  Right now we are at the laundromat doing our washing and using the very handy internet point while we wash and dry!  What a good idea.

Megan - Finn says his highlight is the gelato and the Colosseum.  I like so many things myself, it's hard to single some out.  I love the food, the fountains, and ancient Rome.  My favourite buildings are the Colosseum, and the Pantheon.  I also loved visiting Vatican City.
Mum - it's such a bustling city and we are certainly seeing a lot of it.

Thanks to all of you who are checking out our blog.  It's really cool for us to read your comments.

Love Deb & Finn

Hot Hot Hot

To give you an idea of how hot it is here, last night the temperature at 7.30pm was 32c.  We watched the weather on the news and it said we'd had 38c during the day.  Of course, everyone knows in the central city it's always a few degees hotter than what the weather man said!  So it must be at least 40c.

Today we have done the full round of the hop on hop off bus tour.  I wonder if you'd ever get used to the splendor of ancient Rome.  It's amazing really.  We've seen buildings built on buildings built on buildings and still used today.  How cool is that.

Today we went to the mouth of truth at the church S. Maria in Cosmedin.  You put your hand in it's mouth and if you tell lies it will bite your hand off.  Luckily we both still have hands to write our adventures with!

We also went to the Capitoline Museums and saw famous sculptures and bits of temples and the like.

Tomorrow we are fulfilling my dream of visiting Pompeii.  It's a 14 hour tour because of the travel time to Naples and beyond from Rome - so we won't have a post on the blog tomorrow.  Look for our adventures the next day.  We're really appreciating your comments. We read them each time we log in.

Caio,
Deb and Finn


PS we are trying to find a way of putting on some photos.  It's not obvious when everything is written in italian and at an internet cafe.  Will keep trying though.

Words to describe Rome

Hot, smokers everywhere, homeless people, illegal sellers, angry sounding people, crazy drivers, tooting horns, motorbikes, gelato, pasta, pizza, piazza, old stuff, more old stuff, loads of tourists everywhere....

From Finn

Here in Italy it is soooooooo hot!!!!!! I've been eating lots of gelato.  Mum dragged me around the Vatican Museums today and I saw lots of old stuff and paintings by famous people I don't know about yet.
At least I got another gelato on the way home.

Adam - Asterix is so cool.  Hope you are enjoying it.
Matthew- was it hot in Italy when you came?
Liz - I'll eat a dessert especially for you tonight
Aunty Suzy - flavours include chocolate, melon, lemon, vanilla, berry, strawberry, coffee - just about any fruit from here you can get as gelato.  Yummy!

Thanks for all your comments

Thanks for all your comments.  That was a different location for an earthquake.  We have been eating plenty of gelato!!!  Beautiful food too - just Finn hasn't been able to manage a whole plate full yet!!!  Too many tomatoes he says.

We have visited the colloseum today and wandered around the Roman forum, Palentine Hill and that area.
It is so hot.  Finn had melted well before 10.30am!!!!

This afternoon we toured around Rome on a hop on hop off bus.  Our ticket is valid for 48 hours so we will hop off at places tomorrow.

We are in Rome!

After an incredibly long journey are have finally arrived in Rome.  Our journey time was around 40 hours, including flying time and waiting times.  Finn was a trouper and handled the long haul flight really well.  Me - less well.  Still this is a dream trip and worth it!

Rome is incredibly hot and everyone here speaks Italian.  The Italian way is very evident.  Finn and I went out for a stroll while we were waiting for check in time at the hotel.  It's going to take a couple of days to find our bearings.

We've booked a walking tour for tomorrow night, and the hop on hop off bus for tomorrow.
Plus we've bought a Rome pass for getting into museums and using the metro.  Our Pompeii tour is on Saturday.

We have internet access in our hotel, so that makes it really easy for us to make posts this week.

Caio,
Deb & Finn

1 more sleep

We are off on our exciting adventure first thing in the morning.

We are packed and ready to go.  I'm hoping we can sleep with all the excitement!
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