day 1-monday in rome. part 2.

oh, the vatican. we arrived and, with the handy-dandy piece of paper stating we had reserved a guided tour, walked directly in. they screened our bags and all, but we had dressed appropriately and weren't carrying contraband, so we were allow in.

we got our little earbuds and transmitter thingy and waited for the tour to start. the first part involved an electronic board that was probably 2.5 x 4 ft and a touch screen. she talked about the layout of the vatican, some important art, the scenes depicted on the sistene chapel's ceiling and it restoration , etc. she also told us what to expect, instructed us to keep an eye out for her orange-ish umbrella, and off we went.

it turns out she left out some key points, though...

1. this place is CROWDED as all get out. as in, independently of one another we all thought about the likelihood of being trampled in the event of a fire. there were all sorts of bottlenecks that impeded our process. which brings us to...

2. your guide will pretty much walk the whole time. this means if you pause, for even ten seconds, to tie your shoe or take a picture, you will be behind. and you will miss a lot of stuff trying to catch up (albeit stuff you would've flown by anyway). also those lovely earbud things? yep, they stop working after a very short distance from the guide. like 120 ft or something. so when you get caught up in the bottleneck and lag behind, you stop being able to hear all the details that you paid good money to hear...

even with these drawbacks, the tour was still pretty amazing. EVERYTHING is beautiful or historic or really, really old or has some significance. or more than one of those things. I loved all of the ceilings and the geometry and the old pieces of furniture.

we eventually did catch up and then stuck to our guide like glue, sometimes walking in front of her just to be absolutely sure we didn't lose her again. and then we had a little snack in the cafe, and were able to get our change entirely in coins without any exasperated sighing on the cashier's end. yay, coins!

next up was the sistene chapel. there were warnings all over the place--NO talking, NO photographs. and we entered the room to a dull roar of various languages and flashes firing off. it was frustrating and definitely took away from the experience. the guards shushed people a few times, but they didn't listen.

we stayed for a few minutes, checked out the walls and the ceiling, noted the scenes depicted and moved on. and then, since we were tired, disoriented and jet lagged, we sat for a bit. Carrie wrote some postcards and mailed them, and then we left the vatican.

we walked around looking for a place to purchase some cell phones--which we found quite quickly. there are stores called "Wind" that have bright orange print and that will sell you pre-paid phones. We paid ~$100 for our phone with the €15 of minutes, which was a little more than we wanted, but it allowed us to speak to our family and to one another, which was especially important since we would be spending a little time apart. also, since it took until the next morning for the phones to actually work, our timing turned out to be impeccable. :)

then, the rain arrived. it was no joke. but we found a place to buy an umbrella (for €3 I believe), Carrie got gelato #1 and we decided to get a cab back to our hotel.

another thing we learned: ask the cab driver how much it will be to take you to your hotel. fortunately Courtney cleverly snagged a business card from the front desk so I just handed it to him and said "quanto costa?" He said "venticinque." More than twice what we paid to get there. I said "no grazie" and asked the next person, who spoke some English and said €10-12. sweet!

we freshened up, took a mini-siesta (like 40 minutes) and decided it was high time for dinner! we walked for ~15 minutes to reach the hotel's suggested location--which was closed. we learned another important thing there (though it confused us then)--the big blue bow on the front of a door apparently means they aren't open. At first we thought maybe it meant a baby boy had been born! but nope!

So we walked. And walked. And walked. And found nada for food, other than a sandwich shop that was very picked over and didn't have wine. And then (cue heavenly "aaaah!") we found a cute little place right next to our hotel. It's called Tiepolo!

We ate outside and immediately decided appetizers were in order. And a liter of wine. And we got the most amazing caprese any of us had ever had. EVER. We liked it so much we ordered a second one at the end of the meal (which sadly never arrived) and it was the reason that Carrie spent the whole rest of the trip in search for its equal. nom.nom.nom. The mozzarella was made in-house and had the most incredible flavor. And the olive oil was SO good. And the tomatoes were perfectly ripe. Holy moly! The rest of the dinner was delish, too! And we were so close to our hotel! Turns out that others thought highly of this place too, see?

Once we finished up we tried to get gelato, but the place was closed. But (after a little confusion) the guys at the bar next door actually re-opened their shop for us! We enjoyed our gelato, had a glass of wine in the hotel lobby while a nice guy fixed Derek and Courtney's air conditioner, and off to beddy-bye we went.  What a lovely end to day 1!

here's some pictures from our day!

day 1--monday in rome. part one.

we arrived in Rome! upon looking out our windows we saw it--fields full of hay bales. not exactly what we expected. but we were HERE! and in ROME!

we waited in line for the nice customs people to glance at our passports and stamp them, collected our bags and were ready to make our way to the hotel. oh, yeah, and I took time to change out of my yoga pants and into a skirt. y'know, because that clearly made me WAY more presentable after my lengthy plane ride.

we'd heard tell that you could purchase phones at the airport. we passed a kiosk offering to sell them to us for like 120 euro. which is OBSCENE. we passed on those. we did hit up the ATM, though, which was a mini-adventure in itself, as only half of the words made sense to us. (the phrases were a bit weirdly worded)

but we had money and were ready to go. next question: bus? train? cab? hmm...after some wandering and unnecessary dragging around of our bags, we decided on bus. this seemed the least expensive and the most likely to get us to the general vicinity of our hotel. it was 8 euro a piece (the same cost as the train/metro, but we'd committed when we discovered this--and we figured we didn't have to deal with our luggage).

thing we learned: you want COINS. the nice money-taking people are NOT pleased when you hand them 50 euro for a 32 euro purchase. and they are even less amused when you have no coins. you would think that since we were a) clearly americans and b) clearly at the airport, this would be run of the mill. but we made a note and moved on.

the ride was hot and a little nauseating. the streets are small and windy to/from the airport, the drivers are NUTS, the traffic was bad and we were all tired and hungry and out of sorts. and experiencing some culture shock for sure. we drove around and passed the vatican, and they came to the "city center." we made a last minute decision and stopped there, which was a good thing, since we later learned that the termini stop was both farther from our hotel AND far-ish from where we were.

we unloaded and attempted to hail a cab. our garmin wasn't working even with its italy maps, and we had no idea where to go. hailing a cab was unsuccessful. multiple times. until one cabby started gesturing wildly behind him. and then, aha!

thing(s) we learned: in areas were cabs are commonly needed there are cab kiosks of sorts. you just get in the queue and load into the cab when it's your turn. there's very little flagging them down, apparently.

also, cabs will charge you out the wazoo. a charge for extra passengers is customary. and I know they charge for luggage in NYC, but one extra euro a bag and per person adds up! but a 12 euro cab ride sure beat the heck out of all that walking in the sun.

and then, we arrived at this blissful place: Hotel Villa Glori. We liked this one for sure. The location was a little off-the-beaten-path, but we were kind of grateful for that in the long run. We took the world's smallest elevator (seriously, it held ONE of us and our suitcase--just barely) to our rooms. We were on the 2nd floor, and Courtney and Derek were on the 3rd I think. We later learned our rooms were a little different, but very similar all in all. And they had a wall-mounted flat screen TV. We did not.

next on our list: LUNCH. there's a faboo little pizza place across the street from this hotel. pizzeria vignola. it was here we learned a few other important things...

for one: ask how big a dish is. pizzas were 6 euro a piece so we assumed they were individual-size. um, NO. we looked ridiculous with our huge pizzas. we could have had two TOTAL. and maybe would've wanted an appetizer or something.

for two: be specific. derek, trying to embrace the language, said "vino!" um, yeah. courtney and I were super worried they'd be bringing us a bottle of the most expensive thing in the house. fortunately the nice man brought us a bottle of the house red wine and even then, allowed us to just drink what we wanted and they'd pour glasses of the rest. and matt got a beer. next time, we need to say un bicchiere vino rosso della casa, per favore. turns out that phrase was never used. (un bottigilia. or un litro was more like it.)

 during our lovely Italian lunch we also saw a tree being chopped down. a guy in a cherry-picker crane thing, totally not strapped in at all, was just going to town. cars almost got hit, people were right below him while he was working, but somehow, no one was harmed in the demolishing of the tree. they cut it down to the ground, we saw when we returned!

 

 then we had the restaurant call us a cab and headed to our next stop: the vatican!

(I'm trying not to make these super long posts, so pardon the piecemeal accounts!)

and so it begins...

the fabulous four: Courtney, Derek, Carrie and Matt left Raleigh-Durham for Rome, by way of Atlanta, early on a Sunday afternoon.

We had all packed. And unpacked. And repacked. And organized and thought and decided. And with our suitcases and carry-ons in tow, we arrived separately at the airport, Derek and Courtney first.

Things Matt and Carrie learned: arrive even earlier than you ever would think you need to. Sometimes you spend 25 minutes waiting at the ticket counter while the nice Delt@ lady tries to verify your return flight. Who cares if you might miss your actual flight due to early boarding?! At least you can make it back from Italy--well, if you actually make it onto the flight to get there...


Things Courtney and Derek learned: if you are pulled aside to do the "pat down" at the airport, make sure the person stamps your ticket. This time it was a very official christmas tree stamp that needed. If you don't have said stamp they'll refuse you entrance onto the plane and make you go back and get a stamp before you can board.

Fortunately, we all successfully made it on the plane to Atlanta. We joked the whole time about how our flight was like "Christmas Eve" because it wasn't quite the whole actually-in-another-country thing, but was the precursor to it :) Derek and Carrie had never been to Europe, though Courtney and Matt had, so I'd guess they were even more like kids on Christmas Eve!

We arrived in Atlanta, figured out where to go next, and then we hit up Sweetwater's airport restaurant for our last bit of American food and for some good ol' Georgia Brown and Sweetwater Blue brews. MMM. We figured this would help us feel like it was "night" like it was in Italy, and maybe ease some of the anxiety about the loooong flight ahead of us.

Our fancy fare: nachos and a hotdog. We also had sandwiches. :)

 

There was a plus side to Matt and Carrie's crazy check-in process--their return flight was now different, and better than before because it only had one connections. So Courtney and Derek switched to be on the same return flight, and then we all boarded the plane. We were kind of pumped for them to be checking our PASSPORTS! Excuse the disheveledness of our appearance--it was late/early, we were slightly tipsy and it had already been a looooong day.

There's a funny thing about international flights: they don't force you to feel as though you're in another time zone. We ate our dinner at like 8pm Eastern time. Which is like 2am Italy time. Why didn't they feed us right when we hopped on? No idea. But they didn't. So Carrie caught a little nap while everyone else watched movies on the fun mini-screens in front of us. And then we ate. And for airline food it was actually quite good--both the chicken and the pasta. Hot, yummy and with bread and veggies and a salad? Not too shabby, not too shabby at all. ps: sorry for the grainy photo. I was trying not to bother my neighbors with a flash!

Though we do want to know: what the heck is that red cup for?

Oh and? The free beer on the flight was pretty nice, too!

Then came the sleeping. And the waking up over France (and seeing it out the window and pointing and saying, "Holy cow, that's FRANCE!"), and a little more sleeping.

And then we landed. And that was the beginning of Monday, which we'll cover next!