Most of our first week in Rome was spent walking to the Vodaphone shop in Via Corso to try to get the two internet pens to work!! One for me and one for the children to stay in contact their friends -being teenagers, facebook had become very important. If anything is remotely difficult in Australia then the same is enormously difficult in Italy in another language. Lucky we were returning

Working with Italians everyday and visiting them every year for twenty years, they never cease to make me laugh with their ways and sayings. The Italian language is very beautiful and their proverbs and idioms when translated are so very funny. One of my favourite is when someone is cranky or angry you say that ‘ He has a fly up his nose”!! “Gli è saltata la mosca al naso, si è arrabbiato”! The Italian way is very different from English, Australian and American culture......

My daughter asked me the other day why I have such a Passion for Italy and I responded "I have loved it from the moment I first set foot in Roma over twenty years ago." How can you explain why you love. You just do. You love when things and people make you feel good about yourself or when they set your spirit free. My spirit is set free in Italy for some reason. In Italy it soars.

The Vatican encompassing the Basilica di San Pietro and the Museo Vaticano, takes a whole morning to see. I always seem to go into shock when I walk into St. Peter’s basilica as the majesty of the place is so overwhelming and the artistry – genius!! I have such a sense of awe there that I cannot speak.