It's over. But the good times never end.

As you can see, I am back home in Charlotte (and John McCain won New Hampshire again).

Last night I said my third goodbye to the Pantheon, my second goodbye to Piazza Navona, then I went to Da Baffetto for a Baffetto pizza. I ate my meal with Marcello, an Italian. Ironically enough, I had my longest conversation in Italian the last night of my trip. It was great. Then I walked to St. Peters and said my second long goodbye to the Vatican (you may notice I am terrible at goodbyes), rode the metro over to Piazza di Spagna and walked up the Spanish Steps for a final time, then walked to the hostel to sleep. I did not sleep well. I was probably excited to go home, I suppose.

I woke up this morning at 5:20, half an hour before the alarm. I lugged my bags to Termini, and made an earlier train to FCO than I planned. I was the first one on my flight to check in, and I ended up switching to a window seat I wanted. Also, I was able to get some Tazza D'Oro coffee for my mom, something I forgot to do yesterday, because there is a Tazza D'Oro store in the airport! Lucky me. The flight was painless, and customs and the re-check in at Dulles only took half an hour, so I made my connection. Lucky me. I also managed to not see any newspapers, so it was a bit of a surprise when I watched the DVRed national championship game, even though I did see a guy in an LSU jacket at the airport. Boring game, though.

I may post more, grander thoughts on the purpose and lessons from the trip, if I decide to get introspective, although I really have not spent too much time thinking about that, for better or for worse. Even if that never happens, and I'm way too tired for that right now because I only slept half an hour on the plane after 5 hours last night (and the 6 hour time difference), I will be posting pictures, so the blog is not done yet.

Here is the first set of pictures. Batches will come probably one every few days for a week.