Cooking Class

We took a Roman cooking class yesterday. It was technically part of John's birthday present. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot. The best thing was the Roman artichokes, and we made our own pasta. I'm hoping to perfect a couple of these recipes before we leave.
Besides that, the bar downstairs has had live music the past couple of nights, and with the perfect weather we've had our windows open, so we pretty much get a free concert in our apartment. Last night was a really good blues singer.

Here are a few pictures from our class.

Paris

We spent my birthday weekend in Paris. It was cold and drizzly, but it's Paris, so who cares! We ate crepes and croissants and macaroons, and we got a museum pass so we could visit a lot more sites than we would have otherwise. We squeezed a lot in to 3 days and we could have done more if I hadn't been deathly ill on the last day.
Here are the pictures.

Inside Notre Dame

and at the top of it

and now in front of the Louvre

at the Arc de Triomphe

Versailles

Sainte Chapelle

Eiffel Tower

Montmatre had amazing views of the whole city, unfortunately I was deliriously feverish at this point and wasn't making things easy on John either, so we didn't get many good shots.

last weekend

On Saturday we went to the Appian Way, which is only about 30 minutes walk from our house. We had a picnic and went in some catacombs.

we had lots of company on our picnic

I really liked the sheep

Here John demonstrates how to use a Roman water fountain.

Then on Sunday we trekked out to Hadrian's Villa which took a couple of hours. It's near some hill towns.

Vatican

Hi guys,

We went to St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday before John got sick for his birthday. :(
The weather was brilliant and John even enjoyed a gelato while we walked around and enjoyed all the local street artists at Piazza Navona. It's birthday month here, so hopefully we will be having extra fun to share with you soon. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

I'm back in Rome and the weather is fantastic! I have put away my winter coat (hopefully for good) and it feels especially warm compared to Sweden. I had such a wonderful time in Sweden, though, visiting friends who are like extended family. We went to a museum in Denmark, explored Malmo and Lund, played games, had fika about every hour, and played with baby Aron. I even braved the Swedish winter on a bike! The Swedes have a saying "There's no bad weather, only bad clothes" (or something like that) and I found it to be true. I borrowed warm socks, gloves, and a coat from Anna and after 10 minutes biking we were sweaty, took off our hats and gloves, and the crisp air felt so refreshing.
It's March already, which means we only have a couple months left and we really haven't traveled at all around Italy yet - I guess we are just enjoying Rome so much!