Celebrating 50 yrs and 5yrs FREE

We made it to Rome...yahoo!! Flights were looking rough and we were worried, but what a relief it was to get those boarding cards!!! Unfortunately we were not together, I got a Business Elite seat and Susan got Economy Comfort...but we were headed to Italy!!! We were celebrating my 50th birthday and Susan's 5yr breast cancer free....both happened in October!! This was going to be a great trip. Just after we took off I saw a rainbow....that was my sign, all was well....we would be ok and have an awesome trip.

We both had our dinners and tried to get some sleep. Susan did better than I did....maybe I was just excited. I watched Something Borrowed....and still didn't get much sleep. The flight went very well and we both agreed the 9.5hrs went by quicker than we figured. Finally it was time to land in Rome...it was a gorgeous day...temps were around 77. Denny had reserved our room for us once we knew for sure we were on the flt. Our luggage came quickly and out the door we went to find the hotel shuttle....of course ours was the LAST pick up spot.....but that was ok. We were in Itay.....and ready for our Soriano excursion.

We got to the hotel and after proving, thanks to the email Denny sent me, that our rate was 170 Euro's, not the 255 euros they tried to charge, we were checked in and ready to go tour Rome. We also called our Soriano hosts and let them know we had arrived and set a new pick-up sched for Saturday....ok.....let's go see Rome.

We took the shuttle back to the airport and then went across the street to the train station. We didn't have a clue what train, where to go, or anything about tickets. Well....they are fairly "english" friendly so signs and nice people guided us. Soon we were on the train headed to the center of Rome...a 35min ride....wow. At this point I was sinking a bit....so I napped a little. We were trying to not think about how long we'd been up, we just wanted to get immediately on Rome time, and for 2 old ladies we were hanging pretty good. We noticed how many of the homes all look adobe like....even the new construction. And they are really far behind in technology....I have never seen so many antennas on the top of buildings....I'm guessing if they had FIOS or maybe even cable they would flip. They also have HUGE bandwidth issues.

Ok...so we are at the other end of this train ride and once again, have no idea which way to go to get to the city. OK..so we start asking around and we found a tourist info desk...yahoo. So we wanted to go to Fontana di Trevi.....ok, we were told to take bus 175. So off we go to buy a ticket and find the bus stop....check...check. We made that happen fairly easily. By this time we've been up a really long time, opted to stay in our flying clothes and have traveled by car/plane/shuttle/train/bus....boats are about all we've missed so far and maybe we'll even do that!! So we start walking....we find Trevi Fountain....wow there were lots of folks there. It was really neat...and not like I remember.

Now, as luck would have it, I spotted one of many gelato shops close by....had to have it. I got caramel and chocolate...Susan had melon and pistachio....I won, mine was better....but she is more adventuresome!!! My thought on that is, life is too uncertain DON'T MESS WITH DESSERT.....you can't go wrong with chocolate.

Next we were off to find the Pantheon....we found it. Actually to us it was not a huge deal....but we got that one checked off. Now we thought we headed for the Spanish Steps...(P.ZZA Spagna), However, we eneded up walking a bit the wrong way so we got to see the memorial to the first King of Italy.....pretty cool...bonus. Getting lost has it's benefits!!!

Now we were headed for the Spanish steps.....made it...that was cool. The street that leads to the steps is lined with many high end stores.....very nice.

Brooke you would be in heaven, every other store is awesome shoes. We sat on the steps for a while and just absorbed the culture...as the saying goes...when in Rome!!!

We were getting rather hungry so we were off to pick from the many sidewalk cafe's. We made our selection and got very lucky. Susan had a panini and I had a pasta dish with a white sauce and ham....yum. And for you Sally we had our first, of many, tirimasu's. It was huge, we were very glad we were splitting one.

Time to head to the hotel....back on the bus, back to the train station then the shuttle to the hotel. Was a long ride but we got it done and were back around 830p. When we got back to the room right off we couldn't figure out the lights. How the heck did u get them on??? OK....time to ask, luckily a cleaning lady was down the hall....she showed me that we had to put our room key in a slot beside the door just as you come in....WOW, would have NEVER gotten that one. OK, we had lights. This was probably our first of many electrical and light adventures. We'd been up a looooong time, but we HAD to both have showers and we decided to do a little laundry while we could....so our night got a bit late, but we were really ready for tomorrow. We were in Rome, the hard travel day was over and we had good beds. Can't wait to see Soriano!!!

Good night from Rome.......