121.

today we had s.u.c.h. a hard time getting OUT of rome!

we dragged our luggage onto the bus and got to the car rental place.

natalie had to stand in line for 3 hrs waiting to get the car.

meanwhile nellie and i were accosted by and italian man who tried for 45 mins to tell us something very important that we could never understand.

also cori and i discovered that italians make you PAY to use a PUBLIC restroom!!!

what???

when we finally go the car it was teeny tiny!

so we wedged ourselves in with all our suitcases and set out.

but we had minimal directions and combined with the confusing, almost non-existent signage we went around in circles forever before we finally got out of the city.

and by the way the car's ac has only one setting.

FREEZING.

we had a little difficulty finding our place in tuscany and our car began to overheat on the way up the mountain.

but tuscany is absolutely GORGEOUS!

when we finally arrived we thought we had died and gone to heaven.

we are staying in a huge old stone house high in the tuscan hills.

the owner is so kind (he's a photographer for unicef).

we made a supper of pasta in the kitchen and ate it out on the patio looking down on the village lights below.