The Felder's European Vacation: Rome

There's nothing like waking up at 1:20 a.m. to the obnoxious and extremely loud sound of a fire alarm!!!!! I think my heart was pounding about 200 bpm as I jumped out of bed and rushed around in the dark trying to find my shoes...I walked out into the hallway and a man who was casually walking back to his room made no mention of an emergency, so I went back inside and phoned the front desk. They said it was an accident...whew! However, it took me about 30 minutes to get my adrenaline level back down to sleeping level...I don't think Brett even got out of bed. We had an apology letter from the hotel manager slipped under our door when we woke as well as our check-out information...nice service in the executive suite!! We headed up to the Executive Lounge for breakfast and to check the Sweet 16 scores again before meeting our pre-booked driver at the hotel lobby at 9:20. He was 10 minutes early and we were ready to go.

We arrived at Heathrow around 10:30 for our 12:35 flight to Rome. We quickly printed our British Airways boarding passes and exchanged our remaining pounds for Euros. After going through security, we settled in to some comfy seats and listened to our iPods while waiting to board the plane. We were planning on carrying on our luggage, but as we were boarding, they said that our flight was full and we would have to check it...very disappointing. Also, I forgot to check us in online (we were not able to do this on international American Airlines flights), so we didn't even get to sit together. However, the people we sat next to were very nice and friendly. By the Way...British Airways is the bomb!!! They serve booze, beer and wine for free and we also got a small free meal on a 3 hour flight...very nice :)

We landed about 45 minutes late b/c we sat on the plane for a while before leaving London. Mark, our driver we pre-booked at www.romeshuttlelimousine.com was waiting for us. We had to get our bags off the baggage claim carousel and headed to the apartment. Mark was a really cool 30-something Italian man who spoke English well and listened to American 80s music in the car. He wore a bomber jacket and some sweet aviator sunglasses...he was really cool :) We arrived at the apartment about one hour later and Mark said "Arrivederci." We were standing outside of the building and pushed the button for apt #16 as instructed, but there was no answer. I hadn't emailed the apartment owner since we arrived in Europe, but I had checked my email several times and hadn't heard anything from him. By now, it was getting slightly dark outside and I immediately started having visions of having trouble reaching him and having to find a hotel at 9:00 p.m. in an unfamiliar city where everyone but us speaks Italian...YIKES. Determined that this would not happen, I walked across the street to a small cafe and had my first encounter with an Italian who speaks NO English...

It was very intimidating, but I was confident that I had learned just enough Italian to ask to borrow his telephone. I said "Parla Inglese?" (Do you speak English?). He looked at me with a puzzled look and waved his hand side-to-side as if to say "so-so" or "a little." I attempted to ask him if I could borrow his "telephono" and he corrected me "telephone." lol...oops, I guess I was channeling 9th grade Spanish on that one :) He either didn't have one or didn't want the American girl to use his phone, so I showed him the email from Mauro, the apartment owner and he crossed the street to help Brett and I. I really didn't expect him to do this, but I was thankful. However, he proceeded to press all of the apartment buttons and ask the residents if they had a "Bed and Breakfast." I'm sure they were thinking there was a loon out there. I actually knew what apartment I needed, but he just took over. About 5 minutes, Mauro comes walking across the street and immediately notices who we are. The friendly Cafe owner returned to his shop and I think I told him "Gracie" (thank you) 5 times.

Mauro was very nice and spoke very good English. He had been watching the flight times and noticed that we had left London a little later than expected. He said he didn't think we would be there just yet. But, he showed us the ropes of the apartment: light-switches, keys, window covers, etc. and then took off...we were officially on our own in a Roman apartment...now what?

We rested for a minute and then went down the street to the supermarket and got some necessary items for the week: ham, cheese, Coke, mustard, bread, mild, cereal, HOt Pockets, cookies and Chicken Cordon Bleu. It was very tricky to ensure that we were getting what we wanted. I had to pull out the English-Italian translator a couple of times just to double check on some things. All-in-all, it went well and ended up saving us some money eating at the apartment. We headed home and made some dinner and watched the BBC (only English on the TV). I did some laundry in the washing machine and ran the dishwasher before briefly updating the blog and turning in for some sleep...here are some pics of the apartment:

front entrance