Roma!

Oh my, what a long day!! The flight across the Atlantic was good, rough at points but I believe I did sleep about an hour or so. We were on the runway for over an hour before we finally took off. Long wait and long night! We arrived about 8AM Rome time, which is midnight Colorado time. They say the trick is to stay awake until night to adjust to the time change, well that was miserable and thank goodness for a short nap a bit ago!

Sat next to an interesting lady on the flight, she is a neurophysicist, I believe it was. Neuro was at the beginning and physicist was in there too but there may have been more scientific words too. She was on her way to a meeting in Sardenia, she and her husband have traveled all over the world many times and she had quite interesting stories. She was upset with her husband because he had knee replacement surgery and felt he could not make the trip and she did not like that she was going to be alone on their 48th anniversary and she had to handle her own passport and all the paper work for travel. Poor thing!

While waiting at the airport for almost an hour for our luggage I started talking to a lady next to me. Turns out she is one of the teachers on the trip who is a teacher in Douglas County! Hundreds of people on our flight and I meet one of the people out of 2600 on our cruise who lives close by and taught where I taught for years. Small world? Then on the hotel shuttle into Rome I started talking to the people behind me and what do you know, they are from Littleton and their children went to school at the school I taught at my first year! Rome, Italy, that is where I am honestly, not in downtown Denver! One would never know that! That couple took a Windjammer cruise on the Amalfi coast.

Something I learned about Italy, no reason to hurry for an appointment, no one seems worried about being on time. The shuttle from my hotel to the other Hilton was 30 minutes late and no one said a thing, just acted like it was normal to have waited 45minutes when it should have been 15. A very handsome Italian man helped me find my way to the hotel shuttle from the airport. Last year Cesar and I gave up because we could not find it but now I know where it is! The Italian gentleman even used his cell to call the hotel to see when they would be there and they said about 5 minutes, so I looked at him and asked if that meant 20 minutes and he laughed and said probably, we were right! I do have to say that I am meeting much kinder people this trip than Cesar and I met last year here. Everyone has been kind and helpful so it is a pleasant surprise since I do ask a lot of questions!

After checking in I took our shuttle to the other Hilton and then took their free shuttle into Rome. Evidently that is no longer okay so the driver was not pleased with me on the way back when I did not have a card from their Hilton. We got to the drop off point in Rome and it was where I remembered being with Justin. I took off after inquiring which way the Trevi fountain was. I remembered it was a few blocks away but the directions people were giving me were for quite a long walk, almost 2 miles each way I was told. (keep in mind Rome is on hills!) Could not figure out that discrepency and I was sure I would find it a couple of blocks away. WELL, it is rare, but I was wrong! What I had forgotten is that my nephew and I had taken a bus to the Trevi stop and THEN walked a couple of blocks. AND so I can barely stand right now, but I did make it to the Trevi fountain, joined 3 delightful young people from Australia in our search so at least the long walk was pleasant, but the heat made it an even harder trip for me. When we arrived at the Trevi fountain it was packed and so hot and unfortunately I could not sit by it with gelato as I had planned. I was just happy to find a little cafe near there to have lunch. The spaghetti carbonara was not my favorite, but it was good. I ordered a coke, and nearly fell over when the bill came, 5 euros for a can of coke!! That would be about $6 I think. Oh well, how often does one get to eat at a sidewalk cafe at the Trevi Fountain. I then walked the 2 miles back in the heat to our meeting point. When we arrived at the hotel I went in and tried their gelato. I had cinnamon and it was delicious! So I did get gelato and pasta, just no pizza yet. The young man was so kind at the hotel that he would not even charge me for the gelato, I must have really looked pathetic after that walk in the heat!

Dinner tonight was after a short nap and I had an amazing pasta at my hotel. It is called Spaghetti Cacio & Pepe with Pears, and it was incredible! Evidently the chef here won a competition in Florence with this recipe and it will be served in 500 Hilton Garden Inns around the world and now it is being previewed here. Absolutely delicious! A real treat in Roma! Now I am off to bed and will be up in the morning to head back to the airport and get the shuttle to Civitavecchia for the cruise. I will be very glad to settle in for a while!

Ciao from Rome!