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Listen to Author Judith Works talk about life in Rome and about her book "Coins in a Fountain"

Judith Works took a chance on a mid-life correction by moving from Portland, Oregon to Rome to work for the United Nations, first for the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and then after a three-year gap (which she minded) she returned to Rome to work for the UN World Food Programme. She received her law degree from Lewis & Clark Law School. She has traveled to over 100 countries for work and pleasure.

Pasta! Vino! Hill Towns! Coins in the Fountain will transport you to Italy where you can find out what its really like to live the expatriate life. It's all here in the story of a couple who said "NO!" to middle age boredom and made a dash from a small-town in Oregon to cosmopolitan Rome when the author went to work for the United Nations.  A brush with the Italian medical system, an auto accident with the military police, dealing with an excitable landlord and helping pick grapes all became part of their daily adventures. And of course there were many new friends like the countess with her butt-reducing machine and the count who served as a model for statues of naked horsemen.

In between actually working there were Italian weddings to attend, music to be heard, travel with the wine club and country weekends in Umbria where the Etruscans still seem to be lurking about. Taking up retirement unexpectedly the husband met strange vegetables in his valiant efforts to learn to cook Italian-style. In between he played golf on a course where the rough had unexploded bombs and crewed on a sailboat that came close to disaster on the way to Greece.

Part memoir, part travelogue to off-beat sites in Rome and elsewhere, you will be amused and intrigued with the stories of food, friends and adventures. You, too, will want to run away to join the Circus (the Circus Maximus, that is). And before you depart Rome, you will never forget to throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain to ensure a return to beautiful Rome and enchanting Italy.

Now retired near Seattle, she continues to travel in between writing and volunteering for arts, literary and scientific organizations.

Her website is www.coinsinthefountain.com
Her blog is http://aLittleLightExercise.blogspot.com

For more things to see in Rome and at the Vatican Visit:

http://www.cruisewithbruce.com/blog/2012/02/visit-rome-michaelgelos-masterpiece-vaticans-sistine-chapel/

http://www.cruisewithbruce.com/travel_to/Rome-Italy/Rome-Italy/

http://www.cruisewithbruce.com/travel_to/Vatican-City-Rome/Vatican-Citys-Museum/