July 7, 2009

I thought this day would never arrive. It seems like we have been planning for this trip forever!!! Holly and I left for the airport a little earlier than we needed to so that we could go eat at our favorite Oklahoma City restaurant, Iguana Bar & Grill. For those of you that haven’t eaten there, it’s now on 9^th & Broadway downtown. I don’t get paid for the plug but it’s really good!!

Off to the airport—our flight was about 10 minutes late but we made very good use of our time by getting in one of those massage chairs where you could have had a full body massage by the time you kept putting coins in the slot. I’m sure people walking by us thought we were right out of the movie “When Harry Met Sally”. Need I say more?? After we arrived in Chicago, we only had about 45 minutes to kill. My plan was to find a Starbucks fill my empty bottle up with iced tea, and carry it on the plane. I’m not much of a soda drinker and I really enjoy iced tea. Wouldn’t you know it, not a Starbucks to be found!! At least in our Terminal that was. You can’t just buy iced tea anywhere. It’s like coffee, there’s a huge difference between good and bad coffee.

Well color me happy, as Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman. We get on our huge airplane headed to Rome and I’ve got an Italian man sitting right across the aisle from me. Did I mention he smelled absolutely wonderful?? For real, I thought about moving Holly to his seat and him to hers just so I could smell him! Only problem with that is that I’m married and we weren’t sure if that was him mom or his wife with him. Oh well—it made for some pretty funny conversation the whole trip.

Frankfurt—our first European stop. Wow—this airport has certainly changed from when I was last in it. It’s very modern and HUGE!! It’s like the airport in Amsterdam where there are actual stores inside of it. Very multi-cultural as well. The guards checking passports are a little intimidating though. We passed with flying colors except for the fact that I always get checked on a list because I was born in Bermuda and have a US Passport. Oh well, I made it through and on to Rome. We are sooooooo anxious to get off the airplanes. Our long flight didn’t leave us much leg room; no, let me rephrase that. It didn’t leave us with ANY legroom and we were miserable. Holly is almost 6 ft tall and I’m only 5’4” and even I didn’t have any room. So perhaps you can understand why we were so anxious to get off of the airplanes.

Ah Rome!!!!!!! The arrival we have been waiting for. We finally get off the airplane and my phone starts receiving text messages from Beth. Beth is my cousin (who is actually my husbands cousin, but I love her like she were mine). She landed an hour before we did as she was flying in from Seattle where she lives. Betsey, Beth’s best friend, didn’t make this trip and I’m really sad! Beth, Betsey and myself went to Costa Rica together the middle of May and had a blast. I’ll save that story for a different blog and pictures. Back to Rome---------

We are to have a driver from the Hotel meet us at the airport and take us to the Hotel for free. As you know, nothing is really free, but we were glad to see him standing there holding the sign just like he said he would. Poor thing; there we are 3 American women in Rome and all three of us have a thing for shoes so we have a separate bag just for them, and he starts to pull our luggage. We took pity on him and helped out. Well, I lived in Madrid, Spain a long time ago and the drivers were absolutely crazy even then. Italy is no different. The road might be made for 2-3 lanes and they make 4-6 lanes out of it and keep in mind, the lanes aren’t even in order. They just drive wherever they want and cars are coming at you from every direction. Now throw the mix of motor scooters in there and you’ve REALLY got a mess. I just had to not watch. I guess that’s what the Type A Personality does for you.

We make it safely to the hotel and get checked in. Our hotel is called the Atlante Star Hotel and is just a block or two from the Vatican. It’s a very quaint hotel and couldn’t be located in a more perfect spot. Everything is within walking distance except for the Roman Ruins. It’s probably best to take a taxi over there.

By the time we got situated in our room, we were all starving so walked just outside the hotel and down the street to a little Café and had a really good pizza. Very, very thin crust!! Wonderful! Little did we know it was a whole pizza when we ordered it. We each had ordered a different kind of pizza!! Oh well, when in Rome, do as they do. So, we ate! Our jetlagged bodies, minds and spirits were playing havoc with us. But we knew if we were to lie down we’d not wake back up or worse yet, wake up at 3:00AM Italy time. Nope, not going to allow that to happen. So, we loaded up our gear and headed off to the Castle of Angels, which was just down the street from the Hotel. We walked and walked and walked. First just trying to figure out how to get across the darn street!! Remember how I mentioned the “lanes of traffic” earlier? Well the lanes were growing by the second. We didn’t dare cross where there wasn’t a crosswalk. The views from the top were absolutely breathtaking. You could see St. Peter’s Basilica, the wall around the Vatican, and I think we counted 14 huge churches just in the area. We walked and walked and walked. We crossed the river to some little district where there were all sorts of interesting things. The most interesting I think (really not interesting, but funny) were the boxer shorts and aprons that depicted the male genitalia in FULL detail!! Believe me, nothing was left to the imagination. We wandered around there for several hours and decided that we were getting a little hungry. We stopped at a little Ristorante of which I can’t remember the name of now and sat outside for dinner. “Would you like wine” the waiter asked? And of course we replied-----

Beth had some kind of gnocchi with red sauce and Holly and I shared a lobster spaghetti. Absolutely wonderful. Two fully lobsters were laid out on top of the platter with the spaghetti and red sauce under it. That was the first time I have ever had lobster and spaghetti in the same sentence referring to a meal but I would definitely eat it again. When we only thought we were stuffed, the waiter wanted to bring us out three different desserts so we could share. How could we turn that down? We had a pannacotta with fresh strawberries, a chocolate torte with caramel, and some kind of frozen chocolate with chocolate ice cream in the center. Now to make matters even worse, they bring out three little glasses of Limoncello!!!! We’re in Italy baby—home of Limoncello!! Drink up.

After they got a crane to get us up from the table, we did a little more walking and looking. It was probably 9:30 or so by then. There was a cute little bar just down from our hotel and we were feeling pretty good (jetlag wise that is) so we stopped and ordered wine. Not a glass, but a bottle!! We sat outside and watched the people go by, visited, and drank our wine.

It’s time for bed—it’s been an incredibly long day and a half!! Back to the hotel it was for us. I don’t think it took long for any of us to fall asleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow as we’re going to the Roman Ruins, the Coliseum, and the Vatican!!

Good night from Day 1--- - - - - -