The Vatican.

Rome to Munich to London...

It's almost 1am in London. We flew out of Rome this evening and had a brief layover in Munich before landing in the UK. We skipped dinner so I'm posting a first round of photos from Italy while I eat room service before getting a few hours of sleep before our LAST work day before coming home! I told Dan tonight that I think I hit my limit, I am more than ready to come home...

{catching up: germany}

a preview of my visit to The Vatican...

when in rome...

Today was a very good day. We arrived in Rome yesterday with enough time for a late dinner of pasta and a walk around the area where our hotel is. Today we left the hotel around 7:30 in the morning and just arrived back at midnight. We spent the morning and afternoon visiting consumer homes in Italy (our driver was absolutely crazy, but more about that later) with a break for lunch in what our local translators described as the most authentic part of Rome. It is where the true Romans live and to be considered a true Roman your family must have lived there for a minimum of 7 generations. After our last consumer visit, we had our driver drop us off in the middle of the city where we took off exploring, walking literally from one side of the city to the other, taking in as much as possible. We covered a LOT of ground and ended the evening by meeting up with some of our Rome P&G colleagues as "Gusto Pizzeria" which is known to be the most authentic pizza in Rome. We then followed dinner with espresso (one of my favorite Italian traditions) and then re-visited a few places to see them lit up at night. I have a lot of photos to catch up on sharing, including more from Germany, but it's nearly 2:00am and I still have work to finish before getting a few hours of sleep before meetings in the morning. Here are a few in the meantime from Rome today. Rome is absolutely worth the loss of sleep. 

checking in from frankfurt

Yesterday was busy in Frankfurt- we spent the morning and afternoon driving both inside and outside the city, going into a variety of consumers' homes to learn about how families live in Germany in order to help us gain insights to market the new product we are working on. We toured their homes, talked about their lives and met their families. As always when we do this type of work we met some very interesting characters and also some very traditional families who always make me realize how very similar people are no matter where they live when you are able to look past the language and cultural differences. 

We had a lengthy break for lunch and so our driver took us to a beautiful village in the country which is supposed to be one of the oldest in the country. I took -of course- many photos which I will post a little later when I have time. When we were walking down one of the streets we passed an "Engel Apotheke" which means "Engel Pharmacy." And when I said "Engel" they laughed at me and scolded me for "American'izing" the pronunciation.

We are in meetings all morning and then catching a flight to Rome this afternoon.... 

day one: frankfurt, germany

My colleagues- Jeanne, Miguel, Megan- and I flew through the night from Cincinnati to DC to Frankfurt, arriving at 11am local time (5am Cincinnati time) this morning. We spent the day exploring Frankfurt with umbrellas in tow as it rained on and off all day. We were pleasantly surprised to find a festival a few blocks away from our hotel which meant great music and food, but also that the city's shops stayed open much later today than normal. Typically in Europe most stores are closed on Sundays and those that are open close very early. 

I had to force myself to sleep last night on the plan. I always get get overly excited in business class with the endless movies and all-you-can eat and drink everything, but I forced myself to go to sleep at some point while flying over the Atlantic and caught around 4 hours of sleep. That lack of sleep is definitely catching up with me. I'm going to try to get a quick work-out in then get to bed so I'm refreshed when our work begins early tomorrow morning. 

I would do anything to have my babies snuggling in bed with me tonight, but have convinced myself that they are having too much fun at home with Daddy to even think about me.