This blog is about our first day in Rome. After a delightful breakfast and help from the very nice front desk man, Giuseppe Loria at the Hotel Golden who helped me set up my lap top to activate the internet (so I could type my blog), I went shopping to look for a pair of nice shoes. I only now have jogging shoes which are comfortable but not fashionable. It was about 11 am and it is Sunday. As I mentioned this section of town had very fashionable stores and some of the stores were way out of my price range. However there was one shoe store that had exactly what I wanted and a nice man fitted me. I bought the shoes that cost 69 euros which I did not feel was too expensive for what I got. I then went to a little deli and had some delicious suppa as they call it. It was a vegetable soup and very tasty. It was getting close to to 230 and I returned to the Hotel. The hotel had been very accomodating in allowing us to store our suitcases. As Glenda had not arrived Giuseppe Loria helped me set up the internet again and I read my email until Glenda got there. Giuseppe is one of the sons who is an owner of this family run hotel. When Glenda arrived he got our suitcases from the anti room of our suite. He called us a cab and was so helpful. We took a picture of him with our camera and hopefully in the future when I insert the pictures you will see this delightful picture of this very nice man. It was a great pleasure staying at the Hotel Golden. We happened to come here to the Hotel Golden as Glenda had stayed here two years ago for 5 days and loved it.
I talked to Giuseppe about that question I had about the separation of Sicily and Italy. He said that many sicillians are very proud and sometimes consider themselves different than other Italians. But Giuseppe said that there is no difference between the two regions and they all share the same polical views and are basically the same.
The cab took us strait to the Albani Hotel and we got our key. Just as we got our key I saw Dona and Charlotte who are coming on the tour with us. It was good to see them and I went to their room to have cheese and crackers. They had been out walking and went to a art museum that morning.
The tour group was to meet at 430 but some how mutt and jeff got the time wrong and thanks to Char who called us to tell us we would have missed the meeting. The group leader seems very nice and has a good sense of humor. She talked about the whole trip and what our responsibilities were to make the trip go smooth. We then went off to dinner to a wonderful restaurant. The restaurant was called mino and the food and entertainment was wonderful. There was two pasta courses, along with a meat dish, brusetta with mellon and thin ham slice salad and dessert.
The entertainment was wonderful with a two men singing Italian songs and playing a flute and guitar. Another man came along and kissed each woman and gave her a rose. There was plenty of wine, soda, coffee. beer available. It was a very merry group. At our table was two couples. Josey and Jesse from New Jersey and John and Felicity from Austrailia. Char and Dona and Glenda and me. It was a lot of fun. And now I am getting ready for bed.
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