We headed back to the terminal and waited about an hour and were then allowed to board the plane... again. While waiting to board, I saw this man who looked so familiar... and I couldn't place where I had seen him before. Then he turned his head and I got his profile....... it was Ryan Phillipe. A few people walked up to him to "introduce themselves" and shake hands... but I didn't.
A long bumpy flight to Philadelphia... and when we landed we thought for sure we would have to run, OR have to rebook our flight. It was 6:15pm and the scheduled (delayed) departure was 7pm. By the time we walked from one side of the Philly airport to the international terminals... it was delayed until 8:30. Managed to find out a friend was stranded at the airport also but on the opposite side from us. Would have liked to have met up!
Finally boarded the plane headed for Rome, at 9:15 (originally should have been in the air at 6:45pm) and actually didn't take off until 10pm. Two Excedrin PM's and a yummy airplane dinner later, I was asleep. Tossing and turning in discomfort... but I slept. I had a bit of a headache when I awoke, but I awoke to the stewardess offering me coffee and annoucing we were 1 hour from landing... I killed about 6 or 7 hours of an 8 hour flight in a cramped sleep! I was so excited!
Landed and headed to the nearest airport bathroom for some freshening up and then through customs. Quick and easy! On to the currency exchange, then baggage claim. We landed in Rome at noon. It took like 1 hour to get out of the airport, then a 30 minute train ride to the main train station hub in Rome. Talk about busy! People were everywhere! Smoking, talking, running to trains, it was so chaotic, but so much fun to watch! We had our tickets validated for our Florence and Venice trips, so we can now rest easy and just board the train after New Years. We made our way on the Metro to our exit near Vatican City and walked to the Hotel 21. It is a small hotel, clean rooms, and cleaner bathrooms. I don't have that feeling of cooties crawling on my skin... so that's a plus!
Claudia showered and discovered the bathroom will flood when one takes a shower. So 5 towels, 1 cleaning lady, and concierge man later... a technician will be out tomorrow to fix it. Good. I managed a quick hot shower, then off to the streets of Rome for some food. We were both starving!
We walked along store windows full of shoes, clothes, tobacco, chocolate, gelato, pizza and pasta, more gelato, more shoes, and more clothes. Lots of hustle and bustle on the streets... but nothing we couldn't handle. We happened upon a small storefront of pizza and pasta, and stopped in and split a plate of pasta with tomatoes and prosciutto and a small margherita pizza with blue cheese. We rinsed it all down with a carafe of their house wine... Not too bad!
Then on to a small shop of cookies, canolli's, cream puffs and the like... We each indulged in a canolli and bought a small bag of biscotti for coffee in the morning. YUMMMM!!!
Then we walked towards the walls of Vatican City... and took a right. Had we made a left... we would have walked right to the entrance. Instead.... we went right and followed the walls ALLLLL THE WAY AROUND. A nice log walk, but it was cold and uphill. And we decided to indulge in gelato while it was in the 30's outside. Crazy... I think so. But when we finally made it to the Vatica, we got to see this....
That is the Vatican. It is amazing to see up close and personal! Then you could see that the Pope was in as his lights to his apartment were on...
It was cold standing amongst all that stone, but very majestic. There was a nativity scene in the middle of the square that was really neat and drew a bit of a crowd. We squeezed in and got a few photos... Those can be seen in the gallery.
Then what we thought was a long walk back, was quite short... until you realize that you are a bit underdressed for the weather and are getting extremely cold. But in no time, we were back at the hotel, in our warm room, and Claudia was snoring. She hit the pillow and was out like a light. I'm in a dark room, watching TV in italian, and writing my blog.
So day 1 was successful... more to come tomorrow! Stay tuned!
Good night all!
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