What we did on our summer vacation

This summer four of us made a 'grand tour' of Europe and the UK. I had a couple of invitations to visit friends across the Atlantic, and at a colleague's suggestion, Hannah and I took along two members of the Peters family and split hotel costs. It was a remarkably congenial arrangement. Robert Peters has spent several previous summers in European countries learning various languages, and this summer he was brushing up his Italian in Rome while looking into lodging accommodations for doctoral studies at the Augustinianum Institute next year; so, being sufficiently fluent in Italian, he served as our 'Cicerone,' or guide, while in Rome, ordering our meals in restaurants, etc. His sister, Theresa has studied Arabic and noticed when we arrived in Malta she understood many of the words in Maltese, since the language is largely a combination of Italian and Arabic. All-in-all, it was a terrific arrangement, and we couldn't have asked for better traveling companions. (Pictures of all of us are linked in the descriptions of our time in Rome and at Harlaxton Manor in the UK below.)