city of dreams

I've never left the country, talked about this much, a Canadian-side Niagara Falls excursion aside, no one in my immediate family has travelled outside the country except the grandparents who fought in World War II and that was kind of different. But my partner in adventures small around Clevelandia floated the idea to me a month ago over late-night diner food since her mom works for a major airline and I'm loath to travel to foreign parts alone. We wanted to go somewhere warmer but not too hot, where there were old things to look at, and options of Israel and Greece were jettisoned due to political upheaval and the Amazon nixed due to getting extra shots and being muggy and buggy and neither of us terribly bilingual.

So long as that passport shows up in the mailbox we're good to go, and a post-Christmas reprieve from the inevitable ensuing intervention drama involving members with substance abuse issues means it might be nice to escape for awhile.

I want to do the Balkans or eastern Europe someday, but Rome is looking pretty damn exciting since there's plenty of cool old stuff there and it's walkable, as we enjoy the process of flaneur in our homeland. Reading reviews of places is like FirstWorldProblems on steroids, and it's overwhelming how much one can see as far as relics from a couple thousand years of history. Where to start, with palazzos and catacombs, cathedrals and museums. I keep thinking something will fall through, I'll believe this when I see it, but I'm kind of crazy excited right now.