#349199 - Gary Thomas rechecked his ticket and after making sure everything was in order, he kissed his wife and daughter good by and boarded the airliner for his non stop flight to Rome! He would be gone for two whole weeks covering the first round of the World Cup soccer matches in Europe, and while he was looking forward to revisiting the Continent as they called it, he was surely going to miss his family back in the states!!! The flight was pretty uneventful, and between reading a new novel he had picked up at the airport and sleeping, the twelve hour trip slipped by quickly! Once on the ground in Rome, he passed through customs and took a taxi to his hotel where he flopped down in bed and went fast asleep!!! The matches weren’t set to begin for several days, and while there were press conferences and press gatherings to meet the players and coaches, for the next few days he was pretty much on his own, and since he had never been to Italy before he was determined to see as many of the sights