Arrived in Rome, Italy

We made it to Rome and on business class to boot thanks to a very nice United gate agent who processed our free upgrade even though the reservation was all messed up... ugh. We are here though and the city is beautiful!! We took the speedy train from the airport to the main train terminal in downtown Rome. Dave had cached maps on his tablet and convinced me that this and GPS would allow us to always know where we are and never get lost... well, guess what! We got lost trying to walk to our hotel from the train terminal. What should have been a 10 minute walk turned into a 45 minute walk in which we ended up grabbing a cab anyway because we could not figure out where we were. Needless to say, I now have a paper map that I will carry everywhere we go :)... The GPS just wasn't working because of all the tall buildings in Rome. We think it will be great though when we are driving through the countryside in both Italy and Greece. We were hot, sweaty and tired when we got to the hotel but who cares, we're in ROME!!

Since it was only 11 am our room was not ready yet so we left our bags with the front desk and headed back out on the town. We walked around for a bit downtown and then stopped and grabbed some lunch and drinks. I had an iced coffee that was AMAZING!! Starbucks is nothing compared to this coffee.... yuuummmmmmmyyyy!!! We then went to look at a nearby fountain and Basilica (church), which was amazing and did some window shopping. We found a city garden that we sat in for a bit along with other tourists and locals just out for a stroll and then headed back to the hotel to see if our room was ready.

We got checked in, Dave passed out right away for his siesta and me, of course, I updated Facebook to let everyone know that we arrived and then tried to take a siesta, which was not happening. The room is OK but nothing spectacular, which is what I expected since you get what you pay for and everyone knows how cheap I am. But it has AC (which is nice since it is 90 or so today) a bed, shower, etc. that are all clean and working so what more can you ask for! We are never going to be in the room but to sleep so why splurge! So I got up, took a MUCH needed shower and now here I am sitting on the breezy terrace in the lobby of the hotel, which is the only place where I have internet. The hotel we are staying in is above a church. For a bit I thought the lobby was just playing music but then I realized that the music is coming from the church. It is a Methodist church and they are singing hymns, in Italian of course, and it is beautiful!! It is starting to feel like I am in Italy!!!

Once Dave wakes up, we are going to get spruced up and go out for a nice dinner. We found what we think looked like a good Italian restaurant while we are walking around. That will conclude our evening and hopefully we will get a good night's sleep tonight and kick jet lag's behind. Considering I will have been up for like 36 hours or so, I should be able to get some sleep.

I am so happy to be here but it doesn't quite feel real yet... some pic's below.