Birthday dinner at a neighborhood spot where everybody knows your name (Well, not ours.)

It's a good sign when you're the only English speakers in a little Italian restaurant, when the owner's parents come in to dine, when everyone seems to know everyone, when the owner's yellow lab roams the dining room, when the prosciutto is cut by hand from a cured leg sitting on a table by the door, when the buffalo mozzarella is bobbing in a giant bowl on a table. (No, some of this would not pass muster in the U.S.)

We had a memorable dinner our last night in Rome. It was good after an exhausting day in the Mediterranean--"Dad, let's swim out to see what's on the other side of that point. Dad, let's swim out to the white buoy and back. Dad, let's play paddle ball in the water. Dad, let's walk out to see if those guys are catching anything on the jetty."

More from Garrett when he gets set up in the countryside--Mark