A few of my favorite things... so far.

My favorite Roman fountain so far. Not that I've seen that many yet.



















This mermaid is in that fountain. Notice that she has two fins, thus solving the literary "Mermaid Problem."



















And this guy is in the middle fighting an octopus! The fountain was meant for me!














The rooftops of Rome.














We were standing on the Ponte Vittorio when we saw this. ("Ponte" means "bridge.")



















This was on the "ponte" that we walked across.














The Vatican from a distance at night.














The Baptism of Christ.














The Vatican up close during the day.



Okay. A few days in Rome and things are still going well. “Molto bene,” as they say here. As you can see, everything is beautiful. Everywhere you turn, there’s beauty. Anna’s guide book has a quotation by Anatole Broyard that says, “Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.” And I believe that. There just aren’t words to describe how beautiful it is here.

We had a lovely outing a couple of nights ago. Anna found a place in her guide book that we went to. It was a rooftop terrace of a hotel near the Piazza Navona that serves light refreshments. We went there right at sunset and watched the sun go down on Rome. It was so surreal. Then we walked down the road and found a little restaurant to eat at. We all had different kinds of food and I even tried a fried pumpkin flower! It was sort of like fried okra, but it had some cheese in it too. I loved it. And the waiter there was totally in love with us and really funny and he invited all nine of us out to a club. We couldn’t go, of course, because we had rehearsal early the next morning. Some of the girls went out with him the next night, though.

And rehearsals are going extremely well! We’ve got the entire first act staged and we did two full run-throughs of it the other day. And now we have about half of the second act staged as well. So about 75% of the production is staged. I can’t believe how much progress we’ve made. And everyone in the cast is SO GOOD!!! I mean, there’s not one person who’s not wonderful. One of the guys who is singing Tamino got his music about a week and a half ago and already has it completely memorized.

So everything’s wonderful. I love you all!