Perugia, then halfway across the world

The day after visiting the winery, Liz and I hung out at the villa. We had been vacationing our butts off for quite a few days in a row, and wanted to take advantage of our awesome accommodations and relax a bit. Looking for some nice, light reading, I started War and Peace on my Nook while sitting next to the pool. It's the third time I've tried to tackle it, but the first time I've gotten past the first 100 pages, so I think I might finally finish it.

That night, we went out to a small, local restaurant. They didn't speak much English, so the reservation was made under "Delfino" because I had the name that required the least translation.

Riservato Sig. Delfino

The following day, Wednesday, we had to catch a train from Perugia back to Rome. Our flight from Rome to San Francisco was scheduled for early Thursday morning. So Dorothy, Larry, and Marianne drove us into Perugia, and we spent the day exploring before catching the train.

Perugia is another hilltop town

Like most of the other towns we visited,
there were many narrow, steep streets

And after that, we got on the train, headed to Rome, and flew to San Francisco with no delays or other snafus!

Haha, just kidding. If you read about our trip TO Italy, you know that could never happen to us. In the grand scheme of things, it was an uneventful trip, but there was, of course, a token delay or two.

Our train to Rome left on time, but at some point stopped and sat on the tracks for over an hour. We have no idea why. I also discovered that I left my Nook in the villa, so I had nothing to keep me busy while we waited.

My "I left my Nook behind, and our train is delayed" face

We compounded the delay by getting off at the wrong station in Rome, and having to wait another hour for the next train. We spent most of that time wringing our hands and trying to translate scrolling announcements in Italian on LED boards to make sure another train was actually going to come and take us to the correct place.

Eventually we did make it to the correct station, and walked from there to our AirBnB. For anyone who doesn't know AirBnB - it's a website that allows people to post rooms or houses for rent. You can usually find very affordable accommodations if you are willing to stay in someone else's house.

We ended up finding a room for 35 euros/night, which was less than the cost of even a cheap hostel in Rome. The room was great and our host was nice... but of course there was a catch at that price. The building was only a 15 minute walk from the central train station in Rome, but was in a pretty sketchy area. We were nervous walking to and from the building, but made it without any trouble.

This is not one of the touristy areas of Rome

The building was very old, and had a cool caged elevator shaft

My "I hope our elevator doesn't plunge to the basement" face

Why don't we have cool house keys like this?

 We got up at 4:45 am the next morning to catch the first train out to the airport.

Rome Termini station, deserted at 5am

My "I'm tired of sitting on trains" face

We caught the train without any problem, and then caught both of our flights without any problems. Neither of us really slept, and we both watched 4 awful movies in a row on the 11 hour flight from London to San Francisco, but we made it on time for once! From there, we headed to a friend's house in Potrero Hills, got a quick dinner, and barely managed to stay awake until 9pm pacific time.

Italy was great, but we didn't spend nearly enough time there. Guess we'll just have to go back someday. Now we're in San Francisco for a little more than 3 weeks. Our plans here are to go to 2 weddings, catch up with lots of friends, try to get in shape, and take care of the few small remaining details before we head off to New Zealand on October 21. It's almost close enough now to seem real, but not quite.