HAI HUSSAIN! (shant let it go till it's dead and twitching no more. bloody hilarious, wot?!)
I'm sitting here thinking of something to write, but most of what went on in Rome is better left in Rome. Of course there was the less embarrassing stuff; the pleasant Kodak moments that no one really gives a crap about. Speaking of Kodak moments:

Cute Chinese Guy at photo shop, peering at Elest's photos: ...ummm, I won't be nosey (puts them back in the envelope)
Elest: Actually you guys already see everything you print don't you?
Cute Chinese Guy: Yeah, because we color correct them... (grins) ...so we... (grins bigger) ...well that means you get these perfect pictures... (grins huge) ...but I don't do all of that, I'm not qualified to...yet.
Elest, worried about the pajama pictures: I always wondered...do you get a lot of really... nasty...stuff?
Cute Chinese Guy: Yeah we do!... (grin is ginormous) ...errr but that would be telling.
Elest: Ugh! No, I don't want to know.
Cute Chinese Guy: No, you don't, coz they're just nasty.

Lo and behold though, By some curious turn of fate, all the pajama pictures came out blurry. And so our modesty, dignity and cool have been saved. For once.
In any case, what you certainly can't get Kodak moments of is...

• Stromboli trying to pull a fast one on us but failing miserably coz..."These Italians don't know that Asians don't part with their money that easily." (-Tas)
• Walking for miles to get to our hotel in a city we don't know with no subway working after midnight, no night service for our particular bus, and some freaky guy following..."start praying Ayatul-Kursi and walk fast. START PRAYING!" (-Tas)
• Tas being dirty the way married women shouldn't be, but Faaria being dirtier still, and the two together being too much for Shakila and Elest's lungs to endure.
• Italian food resuscitating your dead appetite. (We are still dreaming of that clam starter, and waking up in terrible fits of passion. The withdrawal symptoms persist.)
• Italian men not only being stylish, but keeping the romantic dream alive. This is in comparison to our part of the world of course, where chivalry's dead because women killed it, because English girls are so damn cheap, because. So maybe, it's the Italian women keeping the dream alive then...hmmm...worth pondering this.
• Sitting on the steps of an ice cream shop, watching street toy vendors shoot little glowing disks up into the night sky over a buzzing square, and just not talking.
  Silence.
  Faaria: "What are you thinking?"
  Elest: "What, now?"
  Faaria: "Yeah."
  Elest: "Well I was having some real deep thoughts, but then I got interrupted by those flying stuff, and thought how funny it would be if one fell on your head."
  Faaria: "Ha ha! Yeah I thought that too."
  Silence.
• Familiarity. and how it doesn't breed contempt.
• Striking up instant, close friendships with strangers who speak your language, where everyone else speaks in a strange tongue.
• Being without the things you take for granted, making life a little more interesting and meaningful.
• And drinking green tea out of coca cola cups in the hotel grounds, on a wet wall that's freezing your butt, and under some tree still dripping rainwater...giving you the chance to look at your life from this distance: you still feel lost, small, and helpless...but less alone.