The morning after I arrived in Italy turned out to be beautiful.
View from the balcony of my B&B near Rome FCO.
And out for a walk. The hotel exterior and its premises.
Stepping outside.
And back in the hotel, checked out, and waiting for my ride to the airport.
And zipped to the airport.
Goodbye Italy and off to the Republic of Malta!
After a 12-hour flight from Seoul ICN, arrived in Rome FCO last night, was picked up at the airport, taken to my B&B near the airport, where I immediately had a big Italian dinner. The popular restaurant attached to the B&B was packed with locals, mostly big family groups, its being a Saturday night before a long weekend.
My starter
Piazza Margherita as my main.
This girl kept chasing the house(?) dog.
Interestingly enough, the very nice B&B does not serve breakfast and the option is the above breakfast basket for 3 Euros!
Because coming to Cannes is an annual event at which I see people I know (and meet new people as well) and where I have made close friends, I always have some gift giving rituals with certain people.
What I have been given so far:-
From my Italian friend.
It’s the round ball-like object that was the gift. I think very Italian. 😀
From my German friend. And he is opening the gift I gave him.
Something from his home city of Aalen and his current place of residence, Berlin.
A gift from my nice real estate agent to enjoy in the apartment. Came with another bottle of red.
Yes, that’s what I do every new year holiday season – I sort out photos, along with other sortable stuff such as receipts and shop cards, I have taken on trips. In the past, it was photos taken with a camera that used films so they had to be developed and printed and as soon as they were printed, I got into the mood for sorting them out and putting them in a photo album. These days since photos are taken on a digital camera, the number of photos can just grow and since you can view them as soon as taken, there is not so much urge or desire to sort them out (in my case anyway). However, I still prefer that I print my photos from the “major” vacations I do and put them in an album and continue to do this. The only problem, apart from cost, is that I am behind by a couple of years in getting all that done.
So this new year’s holidays, I was working on sorting out photos from my October 2009 trip to Prague, the Czech Republic which was followed by a half vacation/half work trip to Helsinki and Tampere, Finland.
The album opening page of the Prague trip.
I obviously have many food photos and restaurant receipts and cards. A page dedicated to Cafe Louvre in Prague.
The opening page of the Helsinki leg of the trip.
More Helsinki.
The Tampere leg which was a business trip for me. Yes, I was working!
2009 was the year I probably travelled the most compared to any other year. For my new year’s card (a Japanese tradition) for 2010, I did a photo summary of my trips during 2009.
Left to right, top row: Cannes, Rome, the Vatican, Oslo, Shanghai. Bottom row: Prague, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires.
From the above I’m missing the trip I did at the end of December, 2009 to Phonm Penh, Cambodia, as below.
@ an elementary school in the suburb of Phnom Penh run with Japanese funding.
And when I was done with that, I went to finish sorting out the photos I never finished sorting out from last new year’s holidays, meaning photos taken in 2008 that I was working on at new year’s 2010.
The opening page of my Turkey trip in August, 2008.
More Turkey - Istanbul.
It can get tedious if you work on it too hard for too long but it can be really fun trying to remember what you may have done or eaten or drunk on your trip.
It took me some time to look behind furniture and pick up the debris from the earthquake a week ago. I actually didn’t realize what had fallen and what was missing until I looked.
Something I bought in Florence.
Looked like this before on one of the speakers for my audio system. The bowl which I bought in Arita, Saga Prefecture managed to stay on the speaker.
My favorite figurine, Little My, fell from the kitchen window sill. I’m going to get her fixed.
This glass plate which I bought in Stockholm was on the speaker as well and had fallen on the wooden floor but surprisingly it survived. Yay.
A blog by Ayako Mathies 