Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads and dad's to be out there.

This is a holiday I have ignored for years. Ahh.. Until this year!

When Rob & I first got married I took all holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries related to his family and put them into my address book- I happily added the remembrance of these days and the related activities to my to do list. Except, Father's Day. I told Rob that this would remain his holiday to deal with.

It was pretty nice to have a bye-holiday, you know? One that I didn't even have to think about.

When I was young my father was basically absent from my life (save 10 min phone calls on my birthday and Christmas and the three times I saw him in person from the time I was say 2 or 3 until age 15). My uncles and grandfather happily picked up the slack so I don't think I ever really thought much about it.

My dad remarried immediately after the divorce with my mom was final, which I believe was initiated right about my birth. He lived in another part of the country with his own family. I he wasn't around, but it never seemed like he was "missing."

I generally spent the summers with my grandparents and they like my mom were not my fathers biggest fans so no one ever felt the need to give him a call so I could talk to him or send a card. I remember everyone calling my grandfather for fathers day, but I don't think I ever really associated my own father with this holiday.

When I was 15 my mom decided it was payback time for Dad and she decided to pull me out of everything I had ever known in St. Louis and ship my ass to Galion, Ohio to live with my father, step-mother, half-brother & half-sister.

Long story short, it went pretty much like you'd expect and I was out the door right after graduation.

In retrospect, I learned a lot that I wouldn't have before from living with my father for that period of time. One, I was better off away from my mother. Two, my step-mother is a saint, I don't know how she put up with father. And three, I got to know my dad for the first time in my life.

What I learned is that while he has done some asshole things, he isn't intentionally an asshole. He just doesn't really give a shit about anyone other than himself. It's not malicious, it's the way he's wired. He sees the world differently than I (and a lot of other people) thought he should.

I am here because my mother wanted me. My (.5)brother & sister are here because their mother wanted them. End of story. He was involved when he had to be but there was no wanting to, I don't think those sub-routines were ever in his programming. Possibly a bit with my brother, but otherwise never the case. He saw us as our mothers responsibility end of story.

Technically, he was a father because he donated genetic material. He supported his other kids financially because they lived with him. He supported me financially because my mom went after his navy pensions and forced him to.

I think this is why I never associated him with Father's Day. It never felt fitting or applicable.

I have joked over the years about how I wish they made "Happy Baby's Daddy Day" cards or "Happy Sperm Donor's Day!" cards. I am sure I am not the only one who would have appreciated the additional greeting card options.

So it must have been the year after I graduated college that I realized that my dad wasn't just a heartless asshole, he just didn't see things the same way I did. He is just wired the way he is. Eventually this clicked. This is a hardwired thing, I am sure he was always this way. I can't help but wonder if my mother & step-mom realized it before they had kids or thought that "he'd come around." Knowingly having kids with someone who is just not wired to be a father, sees just irresponsible to me-poor planning at the very least. I know my step-mother knows what he is now, and I am sure it took her a lot of years too to figure it out.

I spent a good portion of my life not wanting kids as a direct result of my experiences with my own parents. I struggled (and still do when thinking about my son) with the idea of putting a child through that. It wasn't until after I had met Rob when it dawned on me I wanted to have children with him and I couldn't even imagine not having children with him.

It took me a long time too to figure out something incredibly important. If nothing else, my whole life with my father has taught me one of the most important lessons ever to be learned. Something I wish all women consciously knew and really thought about.

You don't get to pick your father, but you do get to pick the father of your children.

Choose wisely.

Birthing for Engineers

I recently changed baby doctors and the new practice was really hell bent on me taking a tour of the birthing center at the hospital I am scheduled to give birth in.

This does not sound like a good time to me. This sounds like more worthless baby-nazi driven bullshit. I mean it's not like you go take a tour of the surgical suites at a hospital you are scheduled for a bypass or colonoscopy in. So WTF?

Fine, fine, fine. I relented. So the husband and I got signed up for this past Monday.

We there and get told we have to watch a 30 min video on childbirth. I ask if it's mandatory and I can opt out. This was for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I have read and studied up on childbirth. I know what is supposed to happen, why, and a good deal about common things that go wrong. I do not need to see it in up close an personal, why? Cause it doesn't really matter, I'm signed up- I can't really back out now. So why expose myself to the visual trauma.

Second, this is a general population class. Which means it is going to be geared towards the dumbest person in the room and while I may not be a doctor, I find shit like that insulting and a waste of my time.

Both of these are the reasons I am not taking "birthing classes." (Tangent: women have been giving birth of thousands or millions of years depending on your school of thought. We know more than we ever have about it. What can I really get out of a birthing class that I can't learn through research on my own? I mean shit, this is basic biology not rocket science or mysticism).

The old battle-ax of a nurse was pushy about it and I was tired of arguing with her so we just went in.

The first 15 minutes of the video explained what the uterus, cervix, pelvis, placenta, etc. was and what they did.

Seriously. I am in the least pregnant chick in the room. Are you telling me that you people have gotten this far and don't know what a uterus is? Apparently so.

The second 15 minutes went through the stages of labor and your possible emotional state. Also fucking useless. Please, tell me people don't get to 7-8 months pregnant (most people in the class were) and haven't read a book about basic childbirth and the stages of labor.

As far as the emotional state? It's going to suck. I get that. It's going to be painful. I'm going to be pissed off and misrable like never before. Check. Then there's this concerned women's voice saying, "at this stage you may feel like you want to give up.." give up? What a fucking stupid thing to say. It's not like you are 15 hours into labor and you get to opt out pack up your shit and leave.

The whole fucking this was ridiculous and stupid. I probably didn't need the visual reminder to stick in my head either.

Husband had a great comment: "I wonder how much that had to pay that lady to film her completely naked as she gave birth.. she didn't even have like a shirt on or anything over her breasts."

This was amusing as hell to me! Seriously, I imagine after 15 hours of labor you are going to have to not have your pants on anyway and if there's already a camera pointed at your vag you aren't going to give have a shit if your tits are out and flopping.

The actual tour of the hospital (with the exception of getting to see a couple of brand new babies in the nursery) was also stupid. I can follow signs. It's not like I care what the room looks like when I am in labor.

I found out you can only have 3 people in the birthing room other than your support person. Only? Good God, what are you going to invite your book club?

There is Internet access in both the birthing room and post-pardom room. I guess that is useful knowledge.

We were broken down into small groups of 6 couples for the tours. I looked around the rest of my tour and realized we were the weird ones. All the rest of them (most were my age or older, and one chick was maybe 25ish) looked wide eyed and emotional.. clinging to their husbands and obviously exicted. I got the impression they were all looking at this as an emotional or spiritual thing. Rob & I are coming at this like biology. I was completely out of my element.

So here's what I have come up with. They need to have separate birthing classing and birthing tours for professionals. At least make them useful by filtering our the ridiculous bullshit.

Let's just assume everyone in the class has a basic knowledge of anatomy and biology. Don't waste my time with projected emotional response.

Or just hand me a hospital floor layout drawing and a process flow diagram of childbirth and we are good to go.

She's so excited! Little does Annie know we are headed to the vet!

DELAYED DEPARTURE

I am livid.

No. That's not true.

I am pissed and disappointed... and a little bit kicking myself for being so surprised.

This afternoon, about 10 min before I left for the day, I found out that my new job transfer date just got pushed back another 2 weeks. Instead of starting July 1, it's going to be July 20.

Another fucking month of this shit...

I kind of expected it, but since it has been over a week now since everything was locked down I was finally starting to be a little relieved in thinking that I was good to go. I expected the date to be delayed or there to be at least some kind of pissing contest about it right off the bat. I didn't expect it to take so long.

Apparently, it all went down yesterday and I am just now finding out.

Perfect. I know I am still going, but god damn I am sick of this shit and I was counting the hours til my exist.

It got delayed at a very high level apparently, someone realized how much shit I have going on and panicked that it was all going to fall to no one. So the scrambling has begun.

Come on, this was not a surprised to anyone but my boss (and I know it wasn't him who did this- this came from higher up and he wouldn't risk losing face anyway)... and now?

Damn it.

QUALITY OF LIFE

There are big changes afoot in the Fairy household- aside from the pending baby even.

On July 1, the husband and I are both starting new jobs and both of us are starting jobs outside of the respective personal professions we have both been in since college.

We are both staying within our current companies. The husband took a fantastic opportunity in global sourcing. He's working in a newly created small group with a ton of work that reaches all aspects of the business and each and every site world-wide. For someone who likes to learn/do something new and needs a challenge this is going to be perfect for him. Also, he's moving in the direction of managing people and this is going to give him an opportunity to do that.

I am moving from QA Validation to Process Engineering. I couldn't be happier. I will be involved in current manufacturing operations and in the technology transfer to new products from R&D to commercial manufacturing. This is the stuff that I just love. I have been involved in it through my current role over the years a little bit, but now I am going to the other side to drive it.

In the last few years, I realized my current capacity was starting to slowly rot my soul. It's a really tough and thankless job, you have no option other than being the asshole and it sucks. The longer you do it, the better you are, but it never ever gets easier. It's always a battle.

Being in quality means your are target and you are going to have to fight for every little thing. Some people think you are pushing for something because you are an asshole and you just want it that way. Some people recognize that what you are doing it something that is driven by quality. And to most people, it doesn't matter they will do anything and everything to make it difficult for you. People love to try to bully people in my position... this shit doesn't work with me, but what it does do is piss me off and make me more jaded. There's nothing left for me to learn and hasn't been for years.. and at this particular facility there are no opportunities for me other than to keep shoveling the shit I have been shoveling (even my director recognizes that).

For years now I have been explaining basic concepts to people too stupid to grasp them. Everything I do is to 1) make the product safe/safer, and 2) try to prevent the company from ended up in a nasty position with the FDA.

My signature has always carried the weight of quality. I can't sign bullshit, I can't sign omissions or truth spinning, I can't sign incomplete or half assed work. Because if I do, it's me who has to explain it to the FDA, not the other people who signed it and not the person to did/wrote the shit.

I have been continuously surprised by the lack of personal professionalism over the years. That whole throw shit to the wall and see what sticks and the put your name on it thing absolutely mystifies me. As does the generation of documents that make no sense and look like they were formatted by a drunk monkey.. I mean come on.

So since my first day on the job out of school, I have done this work, and my signature has carried the burden of quality. As of July 1, for the first time in my professional life, it will no longer.

I am so freaking happy, I can barely explain it. Let someone else take the burden. I am going to have the opportunity to develop more in the technological/engineering and problem solving direction without it!

It's going to be a different way of thinking, a different end goal, and I am going to have a lot to learn.. I cannot wait. I don't want to manage people, I want to solve tech problems, make things work, and make big projects happen. This is perfect for me.

Not only that, the person I will report to in this position is someone I have worked with for consistently for a couple years now who is seriously in my top three favorite people in the facility. It's been a while since I got to work for someone I actually like. Bonus, the director of the new department I am also a big fan of- take care of his people, brilliant, and makes decisions/makes things happen (you would think this was baseline, but trust me there it is not).

I have also talked a little about in the past how odd the politics are at this facility. At lot of discussions that should be low level are generally high level. It's usually pretty ridiculous and can be absolutely maddening until you have your numbing. Once you figure out the ins and outs it can be very useful or depending on the director, constantly frustrating.

When I put in for this job, I told my boss and my director. I told my boss because he's going to find out and anything I can do to make him be less of an asshole is worth it to me in the long run. I told my director because I genuinely like her as a person and I didn't want to catch her off guard or put her in a position where she felt betrayed.

It sounds like when things started happening with this job it all happened between the directors (even I was in the dark about most of it) and this has been going on since like early April when it opened. When it all settled out and the offer was about to be given that all that went through the directors too. I didn't know the position was mine until my director pulled me in last week to tell me and ask me if there was anything she could do to convince me to stay (very nice gesture, but even she admits the department has nothing to offer me).

Even the start date had been negotiated between the directors. Honestly, I was floored- it was about 3 weeks. I absolutely thought I would need to stay around and finish up some of the really big projects I am working on- within my department, I have no backup.

It took me a minute when all this was going on to realize that my boss had no idea. It was all happening over his head! There are reasons for this I am sure, but from my point of view it was hilarious.. and it put me in a really sweet position.

It just so happened he decided to be an asshole to me again on Wednesday afternoon.. just for kicks I am sure and treat me like his fucking monkey again (he does this to everyone who works for him- he's a new manager, moved up to manager about 3 months before I was hired to work for him and a horrible manager. The company recognizes it but does nothing. He has very seasoned people working for him which is the only reason I think no one has taken a swing at him yet).

Wednesday was just it for me. I already knew I was going to sign the offer, I'd already seen it. I knew he didn't know about it. That was just the final push I needed to drop the bomb on him. So 5 min later, I sighed the offer and dropped the: "I thought you would like to know I accepted that process engineer position. (Then because I absolutely knew what his response would be, I added:) My start date is July 1."

Blink. Blink. Once he pulled his shit together, he said: "Well. Typically, the hiring manager and the current manager will get together and decide on a start date, so that may not be the case."

To which I responded, "I am pretty sure all that was worked out previously between the directors, that is where the July 1 date came from. But if that doesn't work for you, I am sure you can feed back with them and maybe they can work something out."

And left. It was as beautiful.

I couldn't have asked for a better exit. The director had her reasons I am sure, but the end result was a parting gift to me.

In the meantime, he's got a shit ton of my work he just inherited (I doubt they will be able to back fill me anytime soon just based on current company policies). Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

It's nice when your hard work finally comes back around to you.

The new chapter begins July 1.

VACATION LEVELS

Every time I come to the OBX, I am surprised at how much stuff there is to do here. Golf, putt-putt golf, arcades, wildlife areas, fishing, charter boats, aerial tours, places to do pottery, shopping outlets, the Wright Brothers monuments, sand dunes, wind surfing, blah blah blah.

I drive by these things and they're busy, people apparently love to do this kinda stuff. OBX is a weekly vacation destination.. I guess people who come down here like to have a variety of things to do. This shit doesn't even register with me.

Why? There's a beach right there?

That shit interests me none. I can do all that crap at home.

I think it hit me this afternoon. I just don't vacation like that. I am just not wired that way. I vacation in one of two modes only:

Balls to the walls, crazy busy all over the place see and do everything, up at dawn out the door ASAP out running around all day back to the hotel long enough to shower and sleep and start again tomorrow (Germany, Rome, Four Corners, etc)

or

I go to the beach. To lay on the beach- that's it. Get up, eat, roll out to the beach. Spend the day there and then head back in to shower take a nap and head out for some seafood. I am up early and in bed early.. once the sun goes down there's the food necessity and then there's nothing I am interested in other than possibly reading and then sleeping.

I vacation at either a setting of 10 or a setting of 0. I have no mid-range settings.

Whatever. If someone wants to come down to the beach with us and head out to fire some pottery or play some putt putt, have at it.

Rob loves to do stuff on vacation. When the baby comes and needs to be entertained- they will be perfect together. Rob gets bored sitting on the beach.

You know where I will be.

WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT

Sometimes we all need a little reminder why we play the game and why we work so hard at it.

I play mostly because I want a roof over my head, food to eat, and health insurance. I have this same basic obligation to the husband.

I play hard because I want more than this. I want nice things and I want opportunities to go new places and see new things. We all need to get away once in a while.

Sitting here at the beach house reminds me of this. I worked to get here and I worked hard to get this. This is why I work my ass off at everything I do. Maybe I am a sucker, but I really do believe anything worth having is worth working hard for.

This is why I don't tell people at work always what is really the case. This is why I clean up the messes and this is why I haven't told my boss point blank what a fucking asshole he is in front of the other people who need to hear it.

I have a glass container full of sand and shells from my beach house sitting on my desk at work. It serves as a daily reminder to me since I don't get to see/use the beach house as much as I wish I could. It's simple but effective.

This is the only week we will be out here this year. When we listed the house for rentals, we blocked out this week because my cousin & his family we were going to be in Nags Head and we thought it would be a great excuse to come down. The plan was to just come down on any weekends that the house wasn't rented. The house has been rented every week starting the 1st week in April through the last week of October. (Fingers crossed that somebody cancels!)

I'm due the 1st week of November, so I think it's safe to say- we won't be back this year and when we do make it back, we'll have the baby in tow.

We couldn't have picked a better stretch of time to be down here. The weather is fantastic and its not super crowded (it's not considered the actual high season yet). This is absolutely fantastic.

This is what life is about.. at least for me.

Sitting out at the beach

(Pregnant) Lessons Learned

This pregnancy has most definitely been a learning experience for me, everyday I learn something new and every other day the variables change on me. My body seems to be changing it's requirements frequently. About the time I get figured out what I need to do, it changes again.

I used to require an afternoon nap. Now, I can't nap but require a minimum of 9-10 hours of sleep per night.

I used to feel hungry, then I didn't feel hungry, just generally shitty and that was when my body needed food. Now, I feel hungry again.

Headaches used to mean I needed some sleep or water. Now it means I need sugar. Who knows what that will mean tomorrow.

I completely underestimated the physical activity that was going to be required for our trip to Rome, but now I am in much better shape than when I left. When we left I was having a tough time with out 2.5 mi dog walk, now.. it's nothing, hills and all. I expect to get back into the gym and back on the treadmill this next week (until my body changes the rules again).

I have been making up my guidelines based on lessons learned. Here's what I learned from Rome.

#1) Under no circumstances, should I ever get on another flight that is more than 3 hours when I am pregnant (say after 8 weeks). I am not really even showing yet, but it doesn't matter, my body simply doesn't bend the way it used to. You think airplane seats are uncomfortable as hell now? Try pregnant.

#2) Additionally, during anytime that I am pregnant I need to make sure that I do not spend more than 3 days away from somewhere there is a not a Bojangles. This limits me to the southeast and that's just fine. I wanted a fucking Bojangles egg & cheese biscuit so badly towards the end of our trip to Rome bloodshed became a very real possibility.

#3) I cannot leave the house without a minimum of 3 granola/cereal bars. It's just not safe for anyone.

#4) Never again will I go somewhere that doesn't believe in public bathrooms. Not that I am a big fan, but when you have to go, anywhere I don't have to squat behind a dumpster will do. A quick way to really ruin a day is to spend any amount of time walking around tired, hungry, and having to pee.

I figure I better start writing this shit down- so if we decided to go for two one day, I can refer back to these and save myself and those around me a lot of unpleasantness... I will probably just post these as I go along just for the entertainment value.

Rome in Review

Well I am back, unpacked, my pictures have been downloaded and posted, and I am just now finally getting over my jet lag.

What a trip. A good vacation is one where when it is time to go home, you are actually ready to go home. This was that kind of trip.

The husband, trooper that he is, spent 9 days in Rome with no baggage. Fucking Delta determined that our 75% full plane out of RDU was 150 lbs overweight (we were already an hour late too), so they decided to yank 3 bags out of the hold. In their INFINITE wisdom, they chose 3 bags all going to Rome and connecting to a different fucking airline.

Poor planning assholes.

We were delayed again out of JFK, got to Rome about 3 hours late. Waiting for bags to hit the carousel for at least another hour only to find out that Rob's bag was not on that flight (or the other two people from Raleigh, who didn't get their bags because they were on the same Delta flight out of RDU.

According to Alitalia, the bags were in Paris. Fine whatever. They were supposed to bring them to us. Cliff notes: Rob had to buy a cell phone to call them at least 40 times and we still never got the bag until we got back to the Rome airport to come home.

One thing about the Italians I gotta say, not planners. Going through security/passport checks in Rome coming home made the TSA look like a well throughout well educated security force with military precision.

I am sure they have laws in Rome, however, they are not what you and I would normally call laws, they were more like suggestions.

I got the impression that the Romans give very little thought to the preservation of their ancient past. I imagine this has to do with the fact that they are surrounded by it and there is so much of it, maybe its something that gets taken for granted. They did not adequately protect the artifacts/sculptures/ruins/etc. In the museums, there was personnel stationed in every room. I never once saw any of them get off their asses to tell people to STOP TOUCHING THE FUCKING 3 THOUSAND YEAR OLD STATUE or to STOP TAKING FLASH PICTURES IN THE CISTINE CHAPEL! DID YOU FUCKERS NOT LISTEN OR SEE ALL THE FREAKING SIGNS??

I actually saw museum personnel sitting in a room of thousands year old scuplures inside a building that was hundreds of years old in the middle of a musem, eating. It was horrifying.

There are signs everywhere in the tombs of the popes in the Vatican, no pictures, yet there's a hoard of 15 people standing behind a velvet rope at John Paul II's tomb, right behind a guard flashing pictures!

The museums/ruins gave no information about what you were looking at. There were never enough audio tours and no handouts (not even in Italian, thinks weren't even labeled in the museums or the ruins in the Roman Forums) I had a book of Roman archaeology I carried around and Rob carried a tour book of Rome and between those we had lots of information, but without them, we would have been shit out of luck.

Even in the Vatican! It was just heartbreaking. I had to control myself from slapping or yelling at people.

Traffic laws are like suggestions in Rome. Pedestrians do not have the right of way. They probably will stop, but just keep that in mind.

There are fresh water fountains all over Rome, but not a single freaking public bathroom. Not one. (Interestingly enough, 2200 years ago there was a large public latrine in the Roman Forum, but nothing now.)

We found our that nothing opens or happens as specified, except closing time- which happens always on time and sometimes early. It depends on what they feel like. If a monument is scheduled to stop allowing entrance at 6pm, don't be shocked when you get there at 5pm and they have already closed.

There are shit-tons of fountains, sculptures, bus stops in Rome- and no fucking benches. And you cannot sit down at the Vatican on the steps of St. Peters Basilica after you have spent 6 hours in the Vatican either.

There are buses, but the schedule is also like a said, a suggestion.. so do keep that in mind.

We walked our asses off. We were up and out the door a half hour after getting up and didn't get back until less than an hour from being asleep. I greatly underestimated how hard all the walking and standing was going to be on my poor body.

We saw it all. We say the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Coliseum, the Forums, Palatine Hill, Trajan's Column, Trajan's Markets, The Vatican (museums, basillica, Sistine Chapel, tombs of the popes, papal apartments), Catacombs, Alter of Peace, Churches, Augustus Mausoleum, ruins of the Temple of the Deified Hadrian, St. Sebastian Catacombs, the Capitoline Museum, a dozen piazzas, the Spanish steps, the Etruscan tombs at Cervetri... I can't even remember anymore.

It was wonderful.

We've seen a lot of churches in Europe over these last two trips. The churches there make our cathedrals here look like shacks. I have to say, after seeing St. Peters... all other church just pale. It was an overwhelming and jaw dropping experience.

The Romans were interesting. I thought they were obnoxious and rude (not that Americans, especially tourist Americans in Europe aren't obnoxious and rude- but in comparison the the Romans and the Italian tourists, the Americans seemed to pale). Constantly yelling into cell phones or yelling at each other (I think this is the typical Roman conversation).. and the typical rules for being just generally polite in public that apply here in the states and seemed to apply in Germany & Switzerland did not apply in Rome.

I think the Germans fit my mentality better than the Romans for sure. Plus they seem to have organization/laws etc. Rome seemed like chaos in comparison.

One thing I gotta say, the Romans love shoes. Shoe stores everywhere! Like Baptist Churches in the Bible Belt! It was very common to see a Roman women trotting down the cobble stone streets in 4 inch stilettos or be riding a motorcycle/scooter in them. Right on ladies.

The food I think was my greatest disappointment. In Germany, the food was spectacular everywhere! Gas stations, tourist traps, the train stations, every resteraunt! Fantastic. I expected the same in Rome and I was wrong.

The food in the pizzerias and trattorias in or near tourist areas was horrible. The food outside of those areas in the pizzerias and trattorias was fine. Not good, not horrible. But not any better than what you would find in the states.

We went to really nice places in the evenings for dinner- and that's where the really good food was. The spagetti carbonara there- Divine! Not at all how we see it here. I tried everything and found most everything at these places to be really fantastic. My favorite find was in the Jewish Ghetto area, a local special is twice fried artichokes. They were the best thing I had, I am going to have to learn to make them at home.

Another interesting thing about Roman food- there are no other options. I saw a handful of McDonalds but that was it. Everything is a pizzerias or a trattorias- that's it. Your only option is Italian food in all of Central Rome. I never once saw a German place, or a Chineese place, Thai, nothing. In Germany/Switzerland, there was lot and lots of different foods.

Breakfast in Rome is what almost drove me over the edge. Romans eat a pastry and have a cup of espresso standing at the counter and they call that breakfast. At any place open for breakfast your options are pastry or sandwich (sandwiches are always prosciutto and cheese / cheese, tomato & basil / or ham and cheese- that's it). A fucking croissant and coffee for breakfast was just not going to do it for me especially with the amount or walking and climbing we were doing daily. I ended up eating 2-3 pastries or a sandwich. After about 6 days, I would have shanked somebody for some fried eggs or a fucking biscuit.

I am glad we went, I had a wonderful time, but I did not fall in love with Rome. I have now seen all there was to see, so I don't see me ever going back. (Germany, yes! Rome, no).

I went for the history and that was fantastic and now, I am just happy to be back home.