Allora!

Buonasera amici miei,

Hello from Rome.  Here I am fat and happy in our little hotel room, full of porchini mushrooms, veal, pasta, wine and gelato.  The food here is great, duh.  They serve salad without dressing--just oil, vinegar, salt and pepper on the table to use.  The portions are significantly smaller than the states (duh).  Every other shop is selling coffee and gelato and people smoke lots and lots of cigarettes.  There are also dudes on every corner at night hawking rave-style laser pointers and little LED helicopters you throw up in the air.

Today we visited the Coliseum, Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill with our knowledgeable, professorial, floppy-haired tour guide Erik.  I think I learned a lot.  We walked everywhere and saw everything.  I am not sure what tomorrow holds, but I have no doubt it will include a lot of cool old shit and good food.  The people here are fun.  The men are extremely well dressed and, did I mention?, everyone smokes!  First prize goes to the person who sees someone smoking while eating gelato.

I bought some seeds this evening, Costata Romanesco zucchini, Cuore di Bue tomato...and some other sexy looking vegetables (celery, eggplant, broccoli).  Those seed packages, man--they'll getcha with their pretty pictures.  Most likely I will gift them to my friend the aspiring vegetable farmer.

Alright this wino is exhausted.  Goodnight!