"Closed." This is the rainy season in Italy and many hotels are closed. So is everything else. Bathrooms? Chiuso. Restaurants? Chiuso. All of Italy is chiuso.

If you ask a question in Italian, you better be prepared for the answer in Italian. Fast Italian.

"Famous Beach" (as opposed to...?)
"Disabled Toilets" (poor things)
"Forbidden to throw any thing in toilet" (uh...)

On Capri, we see two mini-buses full of priests, presumably on a conference getaway. Some have unsnapped their collars, a sight I've never seen. Most are carrying slim black portfolio-style bags. "I wonder what they carry in those bags," my mother says. "Pictures of very young boys," I answer. I'm going to hell for that.

I think they need t-shirts: PRIEST PARTY! Catholic Clergy Tour 2003: (list of cities they're visiting). Like a concert t-shirt.

We ask Filippo how to convert Centigrade into Fahrenheit, assuming it's like pounds and kilos: 2.2 pounds = 1 kilo. It's not. Filippo starts off: "To convert Centigrade into Fahrenheit, you first multiply Centigrade degrees by nine." Okay. "Then divide the result by five. Then add thirty-two." We all start laughing, drowning the last of the explanation. The hell with it.

Rome is so alive. Rome's crowds are amiable; people carom off one another and no one seems to mind. The streets are full to the seams with pedestrians, SPCA representatives with kittens and puppies, musicians from eight to eighty, human statues, five types of bicycles including quadricycles, scooters, taxis, Minis, Smart cars, motorcycles, and a banana-yellow Ferrari even the locals pause to peruse. Live amplified music from the Piazza del Popoli, dogs of every size and breed, hansom cabs with healthy-looking horses, PACE flags hanging from windows. I love Rome.

As we arrive at Fiumicino Airport to return to the United States, we can't help but notice the number of guns surrounding us. The carabinieri, in blue, have rifles slung over their backs and pistols and knives strapped to their legs. They look like cops out of Tomb Raider. Above us, on the mezzanine-level balcony, soldiers with high-accuracy rifles and scopes and tripods watch the floor below.

I'm American; I'm not used to seeing so many guns. While I wait for my parents to show their passports to the ticket agent, I imagine someone opening fire on the waiting Americans and wonder what I would do. I'm grateful that I don't find out.

When we go through customs and immigration, we present a form declaring what we have and have not brought back from Italy. The form asks us to deny that we are in possession of a list of forbidden items. The items are grouped strangely, and one line reads disease agents, cell cultures, snails. Snails?

On our last day in Rome, we wander through the enormous Porta Portese flea market in Trastevere.

Everything is for sale here: clothes, Italian army jackets, leather jackets new and used, trinkets, religious icons, scarves in pashmina and silk, shoes, electronics, car accessories. The market is a crowded jumble of shouting voices, languages, scents of food and incense and tobacco, unlicensed vendors selling fake designer bags, three-card monte players, tourists, pickpockets, police, and a general sense of chaotic good nature.

One stall, selling CDs, is playing a varied selection of music through enormous speakers. As I come near, I hear the Verve's mellow "The Drugs Don't Work" and start singing along.

Then I hear another voice. I glance around and make eye contact with a woman my age. She's singing, too, and looking around for the voice she hears. We exchange smiles and a moment of unspoken communication, and then she disappears into the crowd.