Summing Up Rome

THE OBAMA FAMILY
A few evenings ago in Rome we were having a pleasant dinner and all of a sudden there was lots of activity in the street next to the restaurant where we were eating and a helicopter hovering above. We were eating outside and we were able to watch as Michelle Obama, Sasha and Malia stopped at Maccheroni Restaurant right across from La Nuova Capannina where we were eating! I am sorry I did not get a picture of them, it was just too fast. It was so exciting. Obama has been here in Rome for the G8 meetings and so the whole family is also here on vacation. After Michelle and the girls were done with their spaghetti they went on to get gelato at one of our favorite Gelateries. I will add a picture soon!

I also caught these pictures of a protest of the G8 meetings that was right below the apartment where we were staying. The G8 stands for Group of Eight and is an annual summit meeting of 8 countries that comes to certain agreements. The countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States.They make decisions on things that effect all of us like global warming and economics. Some people think that their decisions are important and other people think that there is no way to enforce what they decide. Because of this it is a very controversial group. There are always some protests of the meetings.


ROME SUMMARY
I want to sum up with some thoughts about Rome. If you ever go to Rome you should know that there is just too much to see and to do. You will have to choose a few things that you don’t want to miss and do those. One thing that we did that was helpful was to get a Roma pass. It gave us 3 days of free access to public transportation, two free museum visits and after that museums were half price for the rest of the three days. I think that you can also get these passes for more days. There are two places to stay that I wouldn’t normally think about, but that worked out well for us. First, we were able to rent an apartment that six of us could stay in (three bedrooms with two people each). There was a kitchen and a washing machine for doing laundry. Another possibility was one that another person in our group found and it was staying in a monastery. I guess there are monasteries all over the world that have rooms that you can rent out that are much cheaper than hotels. One disadvantage is that there is often a time that you have to be home before (for our friend it was 10 pm). Look online to compare prices: http://www.rentalinrome.com/ or http://www.monasterystays.com/

Next... Pompeii

Skyping with Vermont

I am still in Israel and I just finished talking with a group of teacher in Vermont who were taking a course on using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. It was amazing to be able to connect with them. It was short, but exciting. I hope it motivates these teachers to try something in the future. They had to guess where I was calling from, so I used these pictures to give them some clues. The bread and butter that is hard to see here has Hebrew writing.

There was one thing that I wish I had answered differently. Someone there asked about the reaction to Obama’s speech.

I was struck in Turkey at how interested in Obama many people we talked to were. I told them how in Turkey I talked to a guy from Zimbabwe who is studying in Oslo, Norway and was on the trip to learn about archaeology in Turkey. He was very positive and hopeful in his comments, In Turkey the comments were all really positive.

In Israel it is different though and I actually have not talked to any Israelis yet, so I cannot honestly answer the question, but now I will make that one thng to explore while I am here. My American archaeologist friends told me that many Israelis are worried about how the Obama foreign policy to Israel will work out. They do not like his middle name and are concerned that he is really Arab. There are also others who do like Obama. It is complicated, like everything.

The Skype conference was fun! I would do that again! Anyone else want to Skype? If so, just comment her or email me at janicef@jfriesen.net.