Always Look On the Bright Side of Life (do doo, do doo do doo de doo)

The final day of my great adventure was spent frolicking around the Borghese Gardens in Rome, Italy. Sarah, Morgan, Brad, Mel, Nate-aniel Spiderman, Maureen, Gustavo, and I spent the morning going from different outdoor markets to the grocery store, where we gathered appropriate picnic materials. Somehow, after more than an hour of this, we still ended up with mostly wine and only a bit of bread, cheese, fruit, and chocolate. This combination led to a very silly rowboat race in the Borghese pond, which Sarah and I would have won (we Bookers are serious about winning, and even had "code" words for the race), had Nate-aniel Spiderman and Morgan not sabatoged us. We still managed a respectable second behind Brad and Mel, an unlikely team who quietly took the lead by making the rather mature decision not to partake in the splashing fight at the beginning of the race.

The afternoon was concluded with a peek into the Borghese museum, where we gazed in wonder at Bernini's depiction of Apollo and Daphne and then spent an hour trying to find a painting that, in fact, was not in that particular museum. After a long walk back to the apartment by way of the Spanish Steps and Rome's most expensive and glamorous street of shops, we ate at a pizza restaurant known for its ambiance and had a quiet night of packing and farewells.

Traveling home today I feel I am at a happy medium of having loved my adventure but being ready to return HOME. My life is still up in the air, of course, and I haven't solved even one of my problems, much less gotten a job, but I do steadfastly believe that I've gotten some perspective and that this has been a perfect and necessary journey. My only real regret has been staying awake to watch the crappy in-flight movies rather than catching a few desperately needed moments of sleep every once in a while.

So this ends my Great Escape blog, as all of you reading it will now be able to communicate with me in the normal (and marginably more desireable) fashion. I hope I have balanced out the faux-philosophy and romantic bullshitting with lively play-by-plays of my adventures and that I have kept you interested enough to want to see the hundreds of pictures I strained my camera's memory card with. For now, thanks and au revoir, goodbye, and ciao!