Then, to be happy to go home. Thus, ended my 2004 voyage to Italy.

Before I left Rome -- I had the chance to visit the Vatican Gardens. Anyone can visit the Gardens -- you just have to make an appointment. In true Italian style, it took an hour and a half of busy signals, no answers, and a long time on hold to make the reservation.

The Gardens take up a full third of the 44 acres of Vatican City -- all behind what the public usually sees. This stunning expanse of green is just beyond St. Peter's Church and the Piazza San Pietro. You can see the Gardens out the windows of the Vatican Museums, as you are on your way to the Sistine Chapel.

Rome, like Manhattan, is noisy and chaotic much of the time. The buzz of the mopeds, the zip of the miniature cars, gli autobus. So, to find this oasis of calm and quiet in the center of such din is remarkable, indeed.

On a slightly overcast and chilly morning, with the sun just barely peeking out, we walked to the head of the three-block line of people waiting to get in to see the Sistine Chapel -- to get our tickets for the Garden. We knew already that it was going to be a special occasion.

I Giardini Vaticani are part high art garden, part let it go to seed. Along the garden paths, you see altars, memorials to dead Saints, gifts from nations. We saw the altar from Lourdes. We saw the building where Nobel scientists come every year to brief the Pope (who knew?). I even rang the bell on the highest point of the Vatican. The bell was a gift from the people of Rome in the Year 2000 -- the Jubilee. During the year of the Jubilee, the Catholic pilgrims get some kind of get-into-heaven-free pass. To think that a million people that day may have heard the tone of the bell that I rang.

The Garden was a little piece of paradise -- with its many vistas of St. Peter's Dome, as I have never seen it before. When the tour was over, we exited into the square, past the Swiss Guards -- where the public was waiting to see the Pope.

On one of my last nights in Rome, I had dinner with a group of my Italian friends. This meant that, for the most part, I needed to speak in Italian. Three of the dinner guests, in fact, were my former language teachers. It's one thing to point at a piece of cheese at a salumeria and say questo “this” quello “that.” But to discuss politics and international relationships? Talk about intimidating.

While in Italy, I immerse myself completely in the language. I studied Italian for two weeks at my usual language school in Rome. My class was small, headed by a wonderfully flamboyant and adorable man named Maurizio. It is so cool to be surrounded by people named Claudio. Fabio. Filippo. Chiara. Hippolita. How much more musical it sounds than Judy. Or, Cathy. Bill or Ed. But, I digress.

In the two weeks that I studied, there were eight students in my class: one (other) American, a Welsh man, and a woman from Jakarta. There was, fleetingly, an English pilot for British Air. And, an Italo-Americana woman who worked for NBC in Amsterdam many years ago. Rounding out the group was a Venezuelan named Jose. And, a Swiss man who I later discovered was a cop, or a Swiss Guard wannabe.

The rhythm of the day was this: after we reviewed our homework and had our pausa, we would talk among ourselves about whatever suited our fancy (the Pope, the War, vegetarianism, Michael Jackson). Or, we would pick a subject out of a list and engage in that discourse.

One day, the topic on the table was celebrities and right to privacy. Alfonse, the Swiss cop, always wrote his “dialogue” out before speaking. In pencil, of course, so his errors could be erased. He launched into this sentence that was about -- as best I could understand -- putting an herbal poultice on boils that break out on your arm. “Huh?” I said, in inglese. “Huh“ Maurizio exclaimed in italiano. How a dialogue about celebrities turned into boils, poultices and medicines, none of us ever discerned.

My favorite was the day we were talking about vegetarianism. Alfonse proclaimed to one and all at our little table, that when he walks his dog -- “il mio cane mangia sempre l'escremento di cavallo.” DO let me translate. “My dog always eats horse poop.” All righty now.