I'm desperate to live in Rome.

Just for a little while anyway.

I'd wake up early every morning. With the sun. Or maybe even before it. I'd sip coffee at the cafe around the corner. And I'd go to church every day. Be the good Catholic I've always known I could be. I'd study the architecture. And listen to opera. I'd eat gelato every afternoon. And pasta every evening. I'd never eat alone. Or with anyone I knew. Always strangers. I'd eat cookies all throughout the day. And drink wine. So much wine. Red, not white. I'd parade around the streets in sandals and barely-there-skirts. I'd chop all my hair off in the style of the latest Italian movie star. And play futbol in the streets with the young boys before their mothers called them home for dinner. The people of my piazza would soon recognize the cadence of my gait or the peel of my fire-engine-red vespa. And I'd write. All day long, I'd write. I'd kiss the Italian air with my words. And then I'd be loved. By my perfect Italian lover.

Please, oh please, won't someone give me a reason to go to Rome?

PS: we all know when it comes to travel guides it doesn't get better than Rick Steves...but man, oh man, can he write...this is his delightful, little article on my much dreamed of city