<Jo's coner of the world>

The week-end was great and full of walking (for a change..). Saturday we started off at the Vatican, and walked up a hill overlooking all of Rome, which was really nice. We could see most of the landmarks, even the Colosseo and the SanGiovanni Basilica close to where we live. We then went through Trastevere, an old area on the other side of the Tiber, which now became one of the "hot spots" for young people, with restaurants and bars. We even found an english bookshop, called the "Almost Corner Bookshop" and located some ten meters from the corner :) A real old-style bookshop, with books piled about anywhere you can think of, in no order whatsoever and just there for you to go and find that one book. I ended up buying two books, just couldn't resist, on the scale of temptations it's even higher than ice-cream, which says it all.
Sunday we set off at 9 to walk to the Via Appia Antica, where we went to visit the Catacombes. We arrived and there were already the buses of tourists unloading, and we thought we'd end up in a big group not hearing anything (because you can only visit with a guide), which we did. Almost. We rushed to the entrance where the guiding had already started for the english speaking group, about 20 people, and calling out for the start of the next tour was the french speaking guide. So we joined that one, saying that Mark did understand a bit (which he does, he is improving :)), and were in that mini-group with a french lady and two romanians, a 30 something woman with her mom. Who, it turned out, wasnt speaking much better than Mark, so the guide was speaking really slow with lots of hand movements, very nice of him, and very entertaining ;). After that we walked some more, and more, and got back dead tired, and earned ourselves a nice long nap in the afternoon :)
Monday, time to go work again, Mark did his first official tour of the Vatican museum as a guide, and I did as always some research. Today he finally went to the hospital for the dentist, at least now he knows its the right place and he did the administrative stuff, but although he arrive at 7:45 (the place opening at 7:30), he got ticket 101 and by 12, when they closed, there were still some 30 people in front of him waiting. Meaning he has to go back on Thursday, even earlier, to make sure he gets to see a dentist this time. Luckily, the pains have been much much better so it's all ok.
As for me, I joined in the afternoon a presentation on Money laundering (blanchiment d'argent) given for a group of Sri Lankan judges who are following a two weeks intensive course about commercial law here in Rome. It was really interesting as such, but those Sri Lankans (not young people, no, respectable judges mind you!) really behaved like kids. Worse than delegates at an AIESEC conference, arriving 1 hour late at the lunch break, always talking and laughing, just like they were on vacation. When you know how much it costs for these two weeks courses, if they had paid themselves they probably wouldnt take it so lightly. Anyway, so much for me thinking that they would be a model of seriousness and all, there were just the roll calls missing (for the non AIESEC people: the dances and shouts we do regularly to wake people up between two sessions).