Saluti da Roma.... We made it to Rome around 5 pm local time after issues with departure from Philadelphia and lost about 9 hours from our original arrival time to Rome. About an hour and a half was because of a delay in Philadelphia. Then, upon being in the air for probably 45 minutes, our plane (a big Airbus...) took a lightening strike. Everything was OK...we were OK, but the plane did lost some of its instrumentation. The first message was that we were going to circle back to land in Newark, NJ, then they opted to take us back into Philly. At that point, of course, we had too much fuel to land, so we circled for a while and were then met by all the emergency vehicles upon landing....just as a precaution. Lucky for us that was the outcome, because USAir would have never replaced a plane in Newark. We had to get a new plane, new crew, etc., and finally left Philly a little before 3:00 am EDT this morning.....makes for a long day. Katie and I just made it back to the hotel after finding a wonderful street cafe not far from our hotel. We took the long walk back to the hotel after a wonderful meal! We have a full day tomorrow and meet for a tour at 7:15 am and will see some Vatican sites, along with the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square and the Basilica among other sites. We've then opted into a group dinner following an additional walking tour tomorrow evening.

Goda il resto della fine settimana lunga. E noi di ciao saranno in tocco..... (Enjoy the rest of the long weekend. Take care and we'll be in touch....)