Finally.

Well, at long last, here I am again - except that now I'm officially a "we." After a whirlwind wedding, honeymoon, and student-visa-getting, Kevin and I have landed safely here in Rome, found a lovely place to live in the seaside town of Santa Marinella (roughly an hour north of Rome by train), and are mostly settled into classes at the Angelicum.

Pretty much as soon as we moved into the apartment, I got sick - fever and indigestion, mostly - but I am all better now, and very much enjoying my health. Kevin was wonderful through it and took very good care of me.

Life is good. We each only have classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so we have to suffer through a four-day weekend every week. Lest, however, you get the impression that all is fun and games, getting up at 5:15 and getting home at 9pm on two of those three days (at least for Kevin) should make you think again.

It's been good to be back in Rome, now that we have somewhere to live and Internet. We're still waiting on a washing machine (missing part and then our landlady's mother in the hospital), but we've been managing . . .

The "winter" rains have started here, it seems, and it got pretty cold last week, but temperatures are back up to the 60's (F), which I'll take even with precipitation.

As far as immediate news goes, Henry and Roz, friends from Michigan, are in town, and we're meeting them for dinner this evening. We'll be heading over to La Zucca Gialla (map), or "The Yellow Squash." Kevin made a reservation for us yesterday - we'll see how far that gets us . . . Aside from it being the eve of All Saints' tonight, it's a restaurant that I was told about and didn't get to go to last year - we tried once, only to find it closed. As shocking as it might seem, I've only had two restaurant meals in Rome that I was impressed enough with to want again - and one of those was a hamburger from Hard Rock Café. I'm hoping I'll run into something memorable tonight.

In the meantime, a blessed vigil and feast of All Saints to you!