This is my photograph of a fig-leaf wearing statue just outside the Sistine Chapel. Is it just me or does this guy look like Jimmy Carter?

In the last couple of days, I’ve written a rather lengthy Italian travelogue for my siblings and other close, patient, indulgent friends. While it’s hard for me, as a writer who finds my every word precious, to do so, I’ve cut it not nearly enough and present here the highlights of our two-week journey.

My friend Lane and I stayed in Rome two days after we arrived. Saw all the things you’re supposed to see: the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s and a half dozen other impressive cathedrals and miscellaneous ruins. We also think we saw the pope and since we can neither conform or deny it was him, we’re saying it was indeed the man. St. Peter's square was clogged with people, apparently engaging in some sort of rally. Hundreds of people were sitting in folding chairs, some waving flags once in a while. We could faintly see several figures sitting in a row up front, and big screens were set up around the plaza so you could see who was speaking. Mostly, it was a guy in red robes, but briefly a guy in white who I thought had the sunken eyes and round head of Pope B. The guards, who were standing around doing nothing, had no interest in explaining to us what was going on and feigned not knowing English when we asked. Then they'd laugh when people like us walked away.

We also saw the Coliseum, where the Romans used to spend lazy Saturday afternoons watching lions eat criminals. Rather than an open area as some people imagine it, the center is a maze of high walls where they'd turn loose lions and other exotic animals and drop the criminals in for a game of cat and mouse.

From there, our hosts John and Stephanie went with us to a little hill town outside of Rome called Orvieto. This is in the Umbria region, one of the wine districts, although there are vineyards EVERYWHERE in Italy, on even the smallest patches of land. Orvieto has a massive duomo (Italian for cathedral). These places are unimaginable in detail and in the amount of time and effort it must have taken to build them. But frankly, after seeing four duomos in Rome, I was duomo'd out by the time we got to Orvieto. The town is small and cute, refreshing after the chaos of Rome.

Orvieto specializes in white wine and I actually found some here in our local mega liquor store. Since the writing on the bottle is in Italian, I bought a couple as souvenirs for my pet sitters and made out that I schlepped them all through Italy. They were most impressed and I felt only a little guilty.

Orvieto is where Lane broke her wrist, on the third day of our two-week trip, falling on a black marble step hidden in the shadows of a dark hotel hallway. She wanted to pretend it was OK, but Stephanie and I could see from the cock-eyed angle of her hand that something was seriously amiss.

So, off we went by cab to the Orvieto hospital! We were in and out in three hours, but as it turns out, not with the finest treatment. Italy has socialized medicine and in an apparent effort cut costs, they gave Lane no painkillers, only a local when they reset the bone. She came out with an enormous plaster cast and no sling. Instead, she used a scarf all through the trip and popped ibuprofen like candy. We also left with no bill whatsoever.

Yesterday, Lane went to the doctor who told her it was a severe break, hasn't been set quite right and will need to be reset with two screws and a pin that will stay for good. So, I guess you get what you pay for. I've asked Lane what she thinks of universal health care now, but she hasn't responded.

Anyway, Lane was damn impressive in that she did not let it slow her down. I helped her with things here and there, but she complained almost not at all and just powered on. Since they only sell ibuprofen in packs of 12 in Italy, we became familiar with all the "farmacias" in all the towns we visited and Lane can now say ibuprofen in perfect Italian.

Steph and John went back to Rome after Orvieto and Lane and I went on by train to Siena. As Siena was a disappointment, we’ll skip right on by it.

Thankfully, the best was next.

From Siena, we took a series of three trains in one day to Cinque Terre. This is a series of five small towns along the Ligurian Sea, which feeds into the Mediterranean. They call Cinque Terre the poor man's Italian Riviera. These towns are small and funky, with not houses so much as apartments built one on top of the other in narrow valleys. The buildings are pastel-colored pink, orange, yellow, blue and green, administered over by a town Supervisor of Good Taste. I swear this is true! I think his good taste could be questioned because while it's all cute, it looks random and unplanned and it could be argued the color scheme is questionable. In all five towns, these buildings appear to lean on one another like, as guide book writer Rick Steves says, "drunken sailors."

The train travels to these five towns through a series of tunnels. You pop out of one tunnel and suddenly, after seeing nothing but dry land for hours, the sea is lapping at cliffs out-of-sight underneath the railroad tracks. It's a happy shock.

Pulling into Vernazza was like stepping off into an enchanted land. The train plopped us down in the middle of the town's Main Street - actually its only street. Cute little shops line the pedestrian-only street. Laundry flies overhead from lines attached between buildings. The hills that cradle the town are terraced with vineyards.

The rains that had chased us across much of Italy had abated, and by the time we settled into our room, sunshine splashed across the hillsides. Lane wanted to rinse our some underwear - we had been unable to find a laundromat as we'd planned - and I wanted to hike. Before I left, Lane and I found a line in the bathroom hanging from the shower. It had a red plastic oval piece on the end. Since the Italians seem so enamored of clotheslines, we decided this must be an indoor clothesline, and figured out how to secure it such that Lane could hang some underthings on it.

I climbed up innumerable narrow stone steps on the first hitch of the trail from Vernazza to the third town, Corniglia. Because it was late, I didn't plan to go very far and maybe hiked 20 minutes before turning back. But it was a stunning 20 minutes. From the top of only the first section of steps, you could look back and see Vernazza spread out below, and ahead, the sea crashing into jagged cliffs. Cacti of various varieties clung to the sides of the trail. Lemon and olive trees lined it in others, the olive trees eventually easy to distinguish because of a growth pattern that leaves their limbs twisted and often horizontal.

I found a spot to sit on a rock wall and sat there taking in the scenery and thinking deep thoughts about my life. Where am I headed? Will this weird, stupidly well-paid job I have always be so unfulfilling? And what of Roger? Is this really what I want out of a relationship? Is there such a thing as a soul mate and if so, where is he; I'm 43 for God's sake! And finally, why are my pants soggy on this one side?

I stood up to see a clump of white, about the consistency of sour cream, on my right buttock. Unfortunately, I swiped at it with my hand and immediately recognized the greasy feel. Bird shit. And really big bird shit, likely from a seagull. Nice.

Meanwhile, far below in Vernazza, Lane was having her own bizarre encounter. Upon rinsing out her things, she hung them on the line. No sooner had she sat down to relax than came a frantic pounding on the door. Lane went to the door to find the hotel owner, a panicked expression on her face, asking, "Are you OK?!" When Lane said yes, the woman pushed her way in and said, "Can I see the bathroom?" Upon entering, she began flinging Lane's underwear from the line saying, "It's ringing the Interpol!" Lane watched in horror.

The problem, it seems, is that the string - which we later noticed was in EVERY hotel room in Italy - is an emergency cord in the event of a fall in the shower.

I discovered Italian hospitality when I got lost on the trail one day. Each section has an upper and lower trail and because of recent rain, the lower trail was closed between two of the towns. Not wanting to miss any of the hikes, I opted to do the upper trail. A couple of Californians (and Rick Steves readers) told me it was easy to find -- "Just followed the white arrows and red-and-white trail markers." I managed to get lost three times before I had really even left the first town.

After a frustrating hour or so, I emerged in a clearing next to a tiny utility shed of some sort. I saw a town of Manarola truck there and a guy working near the shed. He didn't see me and I trudged on past, following faded white arrows that marked an abandoned trail. Since I was now going away from the sea, I knew this couldn't be right and turned around. Admitting defeat and needing help, I surprised the town employee -- who again had not seen me coming. He spoke almost no English but managed to understand my destination and tell me to go back down, turn right and walk to the church.

I turned right on the same road I'd crossed some 45 minutes ago, following a fresh, white arrow. But then I saw a sign ahead for a town, one I'd never heard of. Never mind that there was a church there. Jane's logic said this couldn't be right, and I turned back around to retreat - a failure - to the train station.

A horn honked behind me. I scooted a little further onto the shoulder and did not look back. Suddenly, the town of Manarola truck pulled up next to me and there was my Italian friend, shaking a finger at me. He leaned across and opened the door of his truck. I got in wordlessly. "Is up here," he said, turning his truck around and taking me back to the church. He pulled into a parking spot. From there, I could see the trail sign. But by this point, he had no faith in me whatsoever. He turned off his truck, walked with me to the trailhead, put one hand on my shoulder, extended his other arm toward the trail and said, "Arrivederce," a rather formal Italian way of saying goodbye. Or in this case, "Goodbye you stupid American girl. I'd be surprised if you made it home alive."

Our final destination was, of course, Venice. Venice had captured my heart completely during my first visit there in 2000. We had spent a day-and-a-half there, a span of time that had seemed criminal. Eight years later, Venice surprised me as I imagined an old lover would, someone you'd anticipated running into again for years and whom you found was different somehow, no longer charming. He’d acquired a spare tire and had gone from selling high-end real estate to cars. Decent cars. Even new cars. But cars just the same.

I felt that sad surprise throughout most of our stay, most notably but for late on our first night, when we sat with a handful of other people at St. Mark's square. From across the plaza, an orchestra played. Lights glowed from the elegant old buildings that framed the square. We stared in awe at St. Mark's Cathedral, the only Italian church that truly moved me. Described as Byzantine architecture, it is elaborate, vaguely Eastern with mosaics of gold and jewel tones.

While our three days in Cinque Terre seemed long - though not long enough - and leisurely, the three days in Venice felt short and hectic and at the end of the day, Lane and I found ourselves asking, "Just what did we do today?" At Rick Steves' suggestion, we tried to get lost on the back streets of Venice, where we could get a taste of real Venetian culture. But all Venice alleys lead to St. Mark's. Purposefully winding our way down alleys that seemed further and further removed from the rat race, we'd suddenly round a corner and find ourselves staring at the same jewelry display we'd seen half an hour before. In these failed expeditions, we found McDonald's and the Disney store. Car salesman, like I said.

Venice did her best to seduce us. On our last night, we stepped onto a water taxi and simply stayed on, destination unknown. Under a full moon, we rode into Venice's little known industrial section and back out, most likely buzzing past those back streets we'd failed earlier to find. We felt like witnesses to a secret Venice. But all water roads lead to St. Mark's, too, and after an hour of tooling around Venetian canals, the ride ended in the massive cathedral’s moonlit shadow.

Unable to find any nightlife in post-9 p.m. Venice, we spent our last night there in our hotel room, drinking Limoncello and watching “Shrek 2” in Italian.

Back to Rome. The American Academy felt like home, John and Stephanie like family. They welcomed us back and took us to dinner at a family-owned restaurant in which the wine came in bottles without label or cork. Locally fermented to be sure.

Monday morning, we loaded our bags into a taxi bound for the Rome airport. Including layovers, 19 hours of travel lay ahead of us and, to boot, the entertainment system in the airplane was out of order. It didn't matter, though. My Arizona seatmate had a daughter Robby's age. She, along with half the women on the plane, wore an Italian scarf. Five of them were packed in my suitcase. We exchanged notes about our trips - where we went, what we ate and drank, what was best and worst, where Rick Steves went wrong.

After two weeks without the words "Hillary" and "Obama," we stepped off the plane in Philadelphia to the excited patter of newscasters gearing up for the Pennsylvania primary. I heard "Democratic battlefield," "super delegate" and "multi-million-dollar campaigning" all in one breath. We waited out our layover in the airport bar in the company of 16-ounce pilsner glasses of dark beer and Philly cheese-steak sandwiches. "Bad Moon Rising" blasted from the bar's stereo system. Italians love American music like they love their beer – light. Classic rock sounded astonishingly sweet.

We were home. And to my surprise, I was thrilled.

Less than 60 minutes later ...

No sooner had we seated ourselves for dinner, than Morley Safer made a beeline for our table and the one seat still available there. I avoided my friends' eyes; we were all fighting back laughter.

Sadly, this is as good as the tale gets.

Morley was a perfect gentleman, a bit of a mumbler but an overall fabulous conversationalist. And a snappy dresser to boot, attired in a royal blue dress shirt, suit jacket with what I can only assume was a silk kerchief peeking out of its breast pocket.

My friend Lane, sitting closest to him, asked him several questions, which he answered without hesitation and in detail. Friends Stephanie and John struck up an immediate and lively conversation. The other woman at our table, another invited guest at the academy, also interjected several pithy comments. He made eye contact with each of them, giving them what appeared to be his full attention.

Me? The one dying to make an impression, the one who threatened to be outrageous ... I sat there like a bump on a log, unable to think of a single thing to say - captivating or otherwise. I tried drinking more wine, and quickly, but this did not provide my hoped-for inspiration.

In short, I suppose I owe Morley a blog apology. My attempted Safer smear campaign has been halted in its tracks like a punched stopwatch. Morley is once again simply the television news correspondent with the everyman face and the voice warm as a flannel shirt who was a weekly guest in my childhood home.

There's still a small spark of hope. We'll stay here the night before our plane departs later this month. I don't expect any more potentially emotional encounters with Morley. Instead, I'm keeping my fingers firmly crossed in the wild hope that Parker Stevenson has an unpublicized artistic streak.

It is now 10 days until we return. The clock, once again, is ticking.

Thing about the 60 Minutes clock. Now don't just think about it, hear it. Got it? Is it ticking through your brain? I know, it's sort of annying. But just for the duration of this post, keep it in your mental background.

This was the sound I heard every Sunday night in the living room of my childhood. It was not, for me, a pleasant sound. At around 5:30 every Sunday evening, my sister and I began arguing with, cajoling, and always in the end begging my father that we watch The Hardy Boys instead of 60 Minutes. Parker Stevenson was my first crush, Sean Cassidy my sister's. We wanted to watch the boys strut their sleuthing skills, not listen to Morley Safer drone about current events, or to Andy Rooney rant bitterly in a manner that my parents found inexplicaby amusing. Sometimes we won. Most of the time, we did not. The sound of the stopwatch ticking meant it was too late; my father had asserted his will.

Yesterday, I had lunch in Rome with with my nemisis -- older and smaller than I'd expected, but unquestionably Morley. I expect to share dinner with him this evening.

Morley fancies himself a painter. He, along with I'm guesstimating 20 to 30 other people, resides temporarily at the American Academy in Rome. He is among a select group of artists, architects and other intellects chosen to live and work here. We suspect Morley's celebrity may have played a role in his selection. But since I have not, and likely will never, see Morley's work, a suspicion it remains.

One of the architects in residence at the academy for six months is married to my dear friend, Stephanie, with whom I worked for years at the Summit Daily. It is here, on the first leg of a two-week journey through Italy, that my friend Lane -- a two-decades past fellow journalist -- and I are staying.

It is enough to be surrounded by people of stunning and varied intellect. Morley is an unexpected perk.

The bummer is that Morley does not seem particularly nice. Yesterday, Stephanie snared the three of us seats in the academy dining room at Morley's table. The sight of his face didn't strike me as particularly strange. We had already spent countless hours together. Sixty minutes at a time.

I felt not the thrill of being so close to a celebrity, only the urgent sense that I must engage him in conversation, that I simply had to make an indelible impression on one of the world's most well-known journalists.

But upon Stephanie's introduction, I deduced that Morley was completely unimpressed with our journalistic backgrounds and, by extension, with us. In fact, I believe he disguised a yawn with a skill that can only come from years of learned, on-camera behavior.

So I tried the approach that's virtually guaranteed to garner the attention of any human: I asked him about himself.

"What do you paint with?"

Perhaps I should have been more specific. "Watercolor or oils, Morley, which is it?" After all, don't we journalists want specifics? Yet somehow, I thnk Morley got my question and chose an answer that might have been intended as merely humorous. Or might not have.

He shrugged, smiled crookedly. I had seen that expression on that very face hundreds of times over the course of my life.

"Colors," he said.

His answer gave me a second's pause, but I did not give up. Sometimes doors open by mere slits before they are flung wide.

"What are your subjects?"

"Primarily landscapes," he said.

And that was the end of our conversation. Three words.

Morley turned to a fellow painter also seated at our table and the two shared notes throughout the rest of the meal.

But now, Morley is under my skin. In my mind, our conversation has only just begun, the opportunity for us to bond not yet lost.

Yes, yes, the Coliseum was fascinating, the Sistine Chapel a marvel, the fact that we saw Pope Benedict an amazing coincidence.

But I still want Morley to notice me.

Only now, it's become a malicious mission.

Lane, Stephanie and I start our stop watches whenever his name comes up in conversation. Thumbs crooked over hands grasping invisible stopwatches, we "tick-tick-tick-tick-tick" our way through the academy's hallways and down Rome's cobblestoned streets. We dare one another to begin ticking in Morley's auditory range. Certainly, no one has had the gall to do this before, have they? But certainly, Morley would find it as funny as we do ... wouldn't he?

Perhaps tonight, we shall find out. Tonight, we will eat our first evening meal in the academy dining room. Lunches are dry. Dinners are not. Wine is free. It will flow along with conversation, loosen tongues as well as inhibitions.

The invisible stopwatch, I fear, will begin twitching in my hand. You're on vacation in a foreign land, I may tell myself. Be free, be outrageous, become a story academy students will pass along for decades. And most of all, ensure that Morley finds you absolutely unforgettable.

Ciao!