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Rome Diary III

Sunday March 5, 2017
Mostly Cloudy 54°F/12°C in Roma, Lazio, Italy 00143
Cloudy 58°F/14°C in Cedar Park, Texas 78613
Buongiorno amici miei!
The app on my IPhone informs me that check-in for my flight to Rome is now only one day

away. Months have dwindled to weeks, then to days and now – scant hours before the spell of La fontana di Trevi takes hold and it’s Buon viaggio! By Wednesday morning it will be Benvenuti a Roma! I must admit, at this point, that I haven’t worked so hard to get ready to go someplace since I uprooted my long life in California and moved to Texas a little more than a year ago. It’s been almost two years since my last trip to Italy, in August 2015. That’s a big month in Rome, for American tourists who don’t know how hot it gets there, and why all the regular Romans get the heck out of town. This trip I will see La primavera in the Eternal City. (Hmmm! I wonder if I’ll catch a glimpse of Il Papa Francesco at the new McDonald’s in Vatican City).
Yesterday, I took a Skype call on my IPad. It was my son Michael calling from Rome. He appeared on my screen in his kitchen preparing dinner for himself and Laura. I’m trying my hand at making Sushi, Pop! It’s a challenge. And so, I grabbed another cup of my own caffé americano, and settled in for one of our regular video calls. He wanted to check and make sure that I was on schedule in my preparations for the trip. Like a NASA space launch, my boy. We’re T-minus 48 hours, and counting! By the time we ended our call an hour later, he was showing me his handiwork, the most attractive platter of sushi this side of Mama Fu’s. Apparently, Junior has moved beyond his normal Roman culinary specialty, Texas chili, using Mexican seasonings and other ingredients sent to Rome by his father from ethnic food stores in East Los Angeles. Caramba!
     It’s a gross understatement to say that I am really looking forward to my journey. I love to travel – anywhere. And, if I were to visit every place on my bucket list, I would be on the road for the next century. But that’s not going to happen to a septuagenarian like myself. So, I’ll just accept the travel horizons I’m dealt. Italy is a great place. Every time I visit Rome, I understand more about why my son moved there. Long ago I put Rome on my list of my favorite cities like New York and San Francisco. This is also the first time I’m traveling from Texas to Rome. That means an eight-hour flight across the Atlantic instead of 11 or 12 from LAX or SFO. The trip back will be longer – ten hours from Rome to New York because of the west to easterly Jetstream winds. But, I am two time zones and 1400 miles closer these days since I moved to Texas.
    I will be posting my travels in my Rome Diary 3. My blogging career began back in 2013 with a few random postings on my new Facebook page. That led to a whole new interest for this old newsguy, writing.  Not only did my travel musings become a blog which led to producing my own website, but I eventually authored a book, LST 920: Charlie Botula’s Long, Slow Target! It’s about my dad’s navy adventures during World War 2, published by Amazon Books. So, Facebook begat Rome Diary, Rome Diary 2 and now I’ve got my laptop packed in anticipation of Diario di Roma Tre! Since my first trip, I’ve visited Pompeii and many of the legendary historical sites in Rome itself. Michael has taken me to Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance and he and Laura have taken me to Venice, a city that I instantly fell madly in love with.
   So then, my passport has been renewed, my Euros are tucked in my wallet and I’m hours away from getting my boarding pass. I’ll keep you posted on this Pilgrim’s Progress!
Ciao,
MikeBo

[Mike Botula is the author of the wannabe best-seller LST 920: Charlie Botula’s Long, Slow Target!  (Amazon Books)  MikeBo’s Blog is a wholly owned subsidiary of his web site www.mikebotula.com , and is linked to Facebook,  Twitter and Google Plus!]

©Mike Botula 2017