Modern Vespa

I spent four hours this afternoon doing karate, at the end of which I graded to brown belt first kyu. Next stop black!

I can barely type.

Well done Alice. 4 hours of it ? Wow, that can't have been easy.

Proud of you young lady.

Happy also because today we ran just under 11 miles in 1 hour 40 minutes.

Not bad for a pair of chancers eh ?

Bill X

Stopped in Chicago on the way home from Calif and The Big Party to see the Rascals perform (www.rascalsdream.com). What a wonderful time warp. One of the group is a school chum, so we got together before the show.

After a morning of retail therapy for Mrs Aviator tomorrow, we head back home.

nice one Alice

Al, you and Ardy look great - but there seems to be some of you missing?

I think the actual time for our run yesterday was a little under 1 hour 40 - we stopped for a few minutes at the turnaround point to do some stretching. most of the run was at a fairly steady pace, but i tend to speed up when there's someone behind us (can't bear being overtaken!) so there were a couple of pretty fast-paced bits - to make up for the slow crawl up the hill at the end

Bill described my running style as a sort of a glide/scuttle - not sure how i feel about that ...

1967. The Summer Of Love. I was 14 years old.

Listening to the The Young Rascals and 'Groovin' can still take me back to that moment in time. Cow bells and all.

Where have the years gone?

somerset

Congrats Alice! Woohoo
X

Burn one, it all comes back. Thanks AL, great memories resurrected!

I'm off to Rome and Paris next week. Any must see recommendations from the Skoks?

Obviously your tastes and interests will be your best guide... most of the classic Roman sites (colloseum trevi fountain, spanish steps, etc) are relatively close together and can be seen in a busy day or a relaxed coupe of days. Personally, I eat my way through the Jewish Ghetto when I'm there, but as I said at the outset your taste may vary.

If you want to get inside the Sistine chapel, best to book in advance and leave plentry of time. For an audience with the Pope, I'm told the wait is a bit longer.

Michaelangelo's Moses statue is in a little off the beaten track church (San Pietro, if memory serves) and totally woth the time to see it. By the way, the horns on the front of his head are the result of the mistranslation of the Hebrew word for rays of light (rays and horns are the same word in Hrebrew) that we're coming from his face. We're still living that one down...

Anyway, enjoy whatever you do.

Pantheon. Just amazing. Trevi = blech

Good points from Trepp. Coloseum, Trevi, Spanish steps all essentials. Agree with Doug that the Pantheon is a must see. We missed out on the Cistene Chapel as it wasn't open on the day we went, so good to do your homework on any major/busy sites. We did though happen to be in St Peters Square when the Pope gave a speech from his balcony, which was unforgettable. A walk over the St Angelo Bridge towards Castel Sant Angelo, up the Via Della Conciliazione to St Peters Square is beautiful. Piazza Navona is also beautiful, and though it splits opinion, the traffic filled Piazza Venezia and the Monumento Victor Emmanuel II (sometimes called the Wedding Cake) is well worth seeing in my view. I would have liked to have seen the Circus Maximus, if only to imagine the Ben Hur chariot race taking place there

Good luck, am sure you'll love it

A big thing for me was seeing the famous statue of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Museums

The Bocca della Verita is cool too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocca_della_Verit%C3%A0

But there's amazing, historic STUFF on every street corner. Just wander round and you won't be disappointed!

Where are you staying?

Very close to Termini station in Rome.

My top tips:

Forewarned - There is a set price from the airport to within the city walls. Fiumicino to City EUR30
Ciampino to City EUR48

You have to fight for this from the airport easier on the way home. It actually has the fare on a big sticker on the door of most licensed white cabs.

Get to the Vatican Museum well before the opening time of 09:00 (take a coffee and a cake) Pay the EUR16 each and then run (or jog) direct to Sistine Chapel. Ignore everything on the way. If you are lucky you'll get 20 to 30 mins on your own. Otherwise it is a cattle market of angry punters and angry guards! We had a great time! :D After the Sistine Chapel visit the Stanze de Rafaello and get out! You've had more than your EUR16 worth already. Enjoy the rest of the day!

If you want a coffee, who doesn't, pay at the little till near the door (tell them what you want "caffe e una pasta" coffee and a cake) take the receipt to the bar and queue like you queue in a pub on friday night, all elbows etc and present the ticket, point at the cake and your coffee will be done! You have paid for "banco" to stand at the bar. If you want sit inside don't pay at the door and wait for a waiter. You'll pay more for the service.

The Rick Steve guide book is a good buy. His walking tours are great. Take you off the beaten track. We did a walk of his around Trastevere and visited a tiny biscuit factory. Ask for a mixture of the little beauties! Yum!

For my money Trastevere and Testaccio are the best places to eat at night. For a great Pizza in a great atmosphere try
Dar Poeta Trastevere
Vicolo del bologna 45
00153 Roma
Tel. 06-58.80.516

I'll go along with the others on here, Colloseo is good value (same ticket as the Forum Romana. Buy the ticket the Forum and skip the queue at the Colloseo!. Piazza Navona will be interesting at night as I expect the Christmas market will be on!

Do it all on foot and soak up the ambience. If you do use public transport, bus or tube, make sure you validate the ticket as soon as you get on. (little punch machine on the bus, at the gate on the tube. If you don't punch the ticket you are fare dodging. No excuse even for a dumb tourist!

Don't try to do everything. You WILL go back!

I don't know when you leave but Roma are at home on the 25th of Nov. A great experience, and not too expensive if you sit in the Curva, make sure you are with the home fans!

Enjoy. Jealous :mrgreen:

^^^ What he said - he knows his Roman onions

Waytago Alice, well done Remind me never to get into your bad books...

If anyone's thinking of changing their mobile phone or wondering if they're getting the best deal or getting ripped off, I can recommend http://www.billmonitor.com/ for a quick and free way to check and potentially save £££s. Its Ofcom approved and uses some whizz Oxford boffin maths to work out your savings and the best alternative contract across the entire current market.

You need to have a contract phone and have registered on your providers web site. You put this ID info into the Bill Monitor page (giving permission for it to use the ID to analyse your call history) and a half hour later you'll be emailed your analysis. You visit the site from the email link and can work out what you want to do from there on. Free, no catch, no obligation. It told me I could save over £500 a year, and while I might not match that if I go for a 4G phone for my next handset, I should be able to save about 30% on my annual costs at the least. I could never have worked that out faster by schlepping through all the web sites, provider tariffs and deals etc. Happeh

I know that Christmas is just around the corner because the pretentious adverts for toiletries have started playing on TV.

If I buy some of them they will make me more attractive won't they ?

What arse.

Bill X

If you buy a scent called Silver mountain water by Creed, it will.
Oh. It will.
Need a small mortgage for a bottle though
My favourite smell ever.

I think I'd rather just smell if I'm honest.

Smell.

Bill X

Minty fresh

Minty

There was a flurry of posts when Doug bagged his bike test recently, with a few people keen to do the full test or auto conversion. Camrider are running a winter promo 2-for-1 deal which effectively halves the cost if you buddy up with another rider and share the same test route. I might be interested if anyone wants to buddy...
http://www.camrider.com/Camrider-2-for-1-offer-2013-bp212018.html

Just imagine your other half trying their luck with the great smell of Trebor's

Trebors.

Bill X

That's a great offer! I probably wouldn't want to do the test in Bedford, though. And the CBT part would be pointless. Maybe they'd negotiate on similar terms for a conversion course?

And thanks! *bows*

Mmm, they might. They have centres in Hendon and Harlow too. They might even do a triple?! (Kitty needs it I think). Seriously, your brown belt is no mean feat. Its easy to say oh well done but I know that its hours of training and effort to get it. You did really well. Having got this far, Black is certainly in reach

i'd be interested if it wasn't so far away i've got an IAM Skills for Life course in my immediate future though. it starts in january - i can see it being lots of fun doing machine control and motorway runs in horrible winter weather.

in other news: THE VESPA BACKPACKS HAVE ARRIVED!!! almost certainly opened and repacked, but everything was there, they were undamaged, and there were no extra charges to pay. Result!

Cottage cupcake my way in the oven...
Topped with thinly sliced spuds instead of mash for a change
Cold weather grub all the way.

Oh fecking cupcake bollocks lol
P-I-E!!!

Cottage p.i.e... Is that the same as what we call shepherds p.i.e.? Ground meat topped with mashed potatoes?

One is beef, the other is lamb... clue is in the word shepherd

And loads of people still get it wrong.

Some don't smother it in tomato ketchup either! Most odd.

Cottage Cupcake......hilarious.

Speaking of getting food wrong, my sister in Calif announced that she would take us for a "Chinese Fix" when we got there. There is no Chinese restaurant on our island, so our need for a Chinese Fix is legendary.

She took us all the way down to Monterey for lunch at a "fabulous Chinese restaurant". Had to hold my remarks when she pulled up to a major chain restaurant that serves what I would call blended Asian resembling food. It's good, but in no way "Chinese". One would think that the absence of anyone showing even a hint of Asian, no less Chinese, ancestry on the premises would be a hint. We smiled, ate and thanked her for taking us there.

While in Chicago, on the way home, we took a taxi to a great place in the Irving Park area, recommended by our hotel's staff, and got the real thing, and it was great.

That would be P F Changs then? Living in the bay area, you'd think Geraldine would know better! Pleasant Hill had quite a nice little chinese just across the freeway, where Gay Ann and I ate on the last evening....

I also had some marvellous sushi in a little local place on my last night down in the south of the bay area. Hand made and absolutely fantastic!

But heh - that Lasagne al Forno was the best, huh?

Merchant bashing violates the posting guidelines, so I will withhold the name.

Yes, the lasagna was the culinary high point.

I had Brussels sprouts with my
P- I- E
And pickled shallots
I think I may be demoted to the spare room tonight

No not moving back to New England. Just a trip to the camp in Maine to inspect the new roof and do some screening on the porch. I can see though that the reference to "shipper" would make it sound like that though. It was actually for genie in ref. to a shipment for her and Alice. And happily that seems to have had a happy ending. Happy happy.

That's not what I think of when I hear 'shipper', but maybe I read too much fanfic...

Vintage Fair