More on Rome...

When we arrived we checked out the map that we got by email to get to the apartment we had rented. It looked simple enough, and we are metro veterans by now, so instead of a cab we took the metro to its last stop and started walking. After walking too far I started asking people for the street we were looking for, each one told us, "Next street." They kept pointing ahead in the direction we had been walking for too long. I finally gave up and called the number the very nice lady had given me and she was shocked we had missed the street, "Do you have the map?!" She took pity on us and sent her husband in his very tiny car to rescue us. It turns out the street we were looking for was more like an alley, the only sign was small, faded, and attached to a building facing the wrong way to be seen from the street we were walking on. I really should have expected that by now!
Our first night, we woke up at 3:00 AM to the most spectacular thunder and lightning ever! We sat out on our little deck for a while and watched. The rain cooled things off a little and our sightseeing at the Colosseum was very pleasant. For the first time I wasn't completely drenched in sweat by the end of the day.
And here's an observation on Italy...as I dodge the two-million kamikaze scooters ridden by the young and fashionable I think of their parents. How does and Italian parent allow their teenager to take off on one of those ridiculously fast, utterly unsafe, suicidal scooters in the most disorganized and chaotic traffic for the first time??? And, yes, I realize that this particular viewpoint on the subject of Italian scooter riding identifies me as OLD.