Val and Pierre

We had our first visitors last month--Val and Pierre! Val's a friend of mine from Austin, and she met Pierre while traveling this summer in southeast Asia, or New Zealand, or Australia. Of course Pierre is not from any of those places. Go on...guess where he's from. Here they are in front of the French Embassy in Rome.
It was wonderful having them stay with us. It's nice to have familiar faces (and a familiar language) to hang out with. It's also nice to see your city through a fresh pair of eyes every once in a while. We did our best showing them around Rome. (My best is not very good. I still get lost in my neighborhood and never remember the names of very important monuments.) Jack does much better at this. I have to say, even without important details or correct names to accompany the sites, Rome does a pretty good job being impressive on its own.
Here are Val and Pierre in front of the Vittorio Emanuele II. This is an enormous monument right in the center of town. (That's it. That's all I've got for you.)
It's also nice to have visitors, because you get to be a tourist again. We don't really go by the Trevi Fountain very often. It's always crowded with tourists, crooks selling worthless junk, and Italian men lurking on foreign prey. The fountain itself, however, is lovely at night. Here are two pictures of Val and Nora when they went one afternoon.

And here's a pic I took of Val throwing a coin into the fountain at night. (You're supposed to throw a coin in to ensure that you return to Rome.)
And here's a picture of all of us (sans Jack--behind the camera) in the piazza by our house. The instructions were to "look goofy." Apparently Nora and Pierre felt that this was enough?

On special occasions, like having visitors from France, we let Nora drink beer. Very big beers...
...but this makes her crazy...

...and we have to take her home.

Val and me.