Back to the USA

I woke up around 6:00 a.m.  We finished cleaning the apartment and took out the trash.  We were a little nervous about leaving our keys in the apartment without our driver being there yet, but we did anyway.  The pre-hired driver from Rome Shuttle Limousine (highly recommended) arrived promptly at 7:00.  Our flight was scheduled to leave Rome at 9:50 and planned to be at the airport by 8:00.  Judging by the amount of time it took our driver to get us to the apartment, this was perfect.  However...our driver FLEW!  He was going 130 km/hr in the 80 km/hr speed zone...YIKES!  I was a little scared for my life, but happy that we were going to be early, not late!

Our arrival drive from the airport to the apartment took about 50 minutes.  This day, however, we made it to the airport in 20 minutes!!!!  It was amazing and frightening all at the same time.  We were checked in and eating breakfast in the terminal by 7:45 and boarded the plane at 9:20.  Right on time...well, maybe not.

Our plane got inspected by the Italian version of the FAA.  We sat on the plane for 2 hours!!  We were very lucky that our layover was pretty long in New York City, or else we would've missed our connection as several of our fellow passengers did.  Nonetheless, we were in the air and got lunch around 2:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. NYC time).  I had yummy cheese tortellini and Brett chose the Beef Stroganoff.  Around 2:00 p.m. NYC time, we had a snack of pizza (like we hadn't had ENOUGH already) and landed around 3:00 p.m.

We went through US Customs pretty quickly.  I was really distracted, however, by all of the refugee-looking people in the "Quarantine" area...yikes!  However, after passing through the Passport check, we were stopped by some American Airlines staff who asked if we needed to check our bags onto our domestic flight.  To which we replied, "No, we've been carrying these on."  So, we went on our merry way, only to be told by the AA staff at JFK airport that mine had to be checked because it was too big...blasphemy.  I pleaded with them, telling them that I had carried this suitcase onto an AA flight that morning, but they weren't having it.  So, I reluctantly got into line and checked the bag.  Then, we had to go through security again.  JFK airport security was by FAR the worst and least efficient that we encountered on our entire journey!!! 

Oh well, we finally made it through and waited another hour and a half before our plane took us back to good old DFW.  This flight was on time...but we taxied on the runway for about 2 hours.  I'm pretty sure we have the worst luck at picking flights!  Christine and David had parked our car in the garage earlier that day, so it was only a few dollars to get it out and head to their apartment for the night.  By this time, we had been awake for about 24 hours, which was perfect, because even though it was early morning in Italy, we were really tired and ready for a good night's rest.  It felt really good to be back in the US.  I love the English language!  lol...we had a marvelous vacation of a lifetime and loved every minute of it.  We were so blessed with safe flights, car rides, train rides, etc.  Hopefully, I can blog again in the near future...I think I caught the travel bug!!!  Arrivederci...until next time  ~Adrian~

Rome - Day 10

Our last full day in Rome...not a good feeling!  But, we wanted to make the most of it.  We had reservations for the Borghese Gallery at 11:00 and knew that it would be difficult to find (per Rick Steves and Mindi), so we slept in a little and headed out of the apartment around 10:00.  We stopped at the Spagna subway station and walked FAST through a huge, but beautiful, park to find the gallery.  We walked for almost 30 minutes as quickly as possible before finally finding our destination.  We were about 3 minutes late, but had read that they will sell your tickets to someone else if you no show, so we 

were very nervous about this.  However, we made it early enough and wandered through this impressive gallery.  No pictures were allowed inside, so we only have one shot of the outside of the building, but I have links here for a view at our favorites such as Apollo e Daphne, Il Ratto Di Proserpina , and Danae.  The Borghese Gallery was once the home to a very wealthy family, so it has a very "aristocratic" feel to it.  Marble floors, elaborate moldings and door frames as well as a beautiful garden and courtyard.  The building itself is almost as interesting as some of the work inside.

After our tour, we were hungry and headed toward the Spagna station (near the Spanish Steps).  But, before we could get there...another torrential downpour erupted and, although we had our rain jackets and trust umbrella, we still had to seek shelter under the roof of a carousel in the park.  Luckily, we were only stuck there about 5 minutes and headed for some more pizza.  This time, I had what American's call "pepperoni pizza" (in Italy, if you order pepperoni, you get banana peppers) and Brett had sausage & mushroom (fungi).  We then casually walked through the street and searched for some souvenirs.  We both picked out a shirt and the rain started picking up again, so we headed back to the apartment for a break.

Brett realized that his shirt was too big, so we headed back to the Spagna station for a trade out.  Surprisingly, this went pretty smoothly considering the workers did not speak English!  We found a woman on the street selling her original watercolors with different city scenes.  We purchased a painting that looks down on St. Peter's Square and the city from the top of the dome, so that was neat.  We were nervous about getting our painting wet, so we went back to the apartment to drop it off and headed back to St. Peter's Basilica for one last look.  The first time we toured, we did not get to listen to our Rick Steve's audio-guide.  We were just too tired to walk around anymore, so we decided to do this on our final day in Rome.

Around 5:00, they were having mass inside St. Peter's, so much of the church was blocked off, but we listened to the audio-guide and watched some of the procession of the mass, which was pretty interesting.  Then, a security guide made us take our earphones out, so we decided to leave a little early.  We didn't intend on being disrespectful, but security was much more tight on this day.

So, what to do on our last evening in Rome???  Get gelato, of course :)  Before dinner, of course :)  So, Brett chose a mousse called Cream Panna Cotta and I chose Mousse Caffe.  I'm not really

sure what Brett's was supposed to taste like, but it tasted like HEAVEN to me!  I was a little jealous...my coffee flavored gelato really let me down.  I guess I'll stick to Cappuccino Chunky Chocolate at Braum's instead.  We headed back to the apartment and Brett started wrapping our picture in some cardboard for the long trip and I did some laundry and started packing.

After a couple of hours, we headed out for dinner.  What did we eat on our last night in Rome? CHINESE FOOD!!!  lol, we really wanted to stick around the neighborhood of the apartment and we were honestly a little tired of pizzas and calzones, so we found a great Chinese restaurant.  I found it funny that the waitress spoke only Chinese and Italian - it makes sense, but it was strange for us.  Luckily, the menu was in English as well, so we did a lot of pointing.  We had some yummy fried rice with chicken and shrimp and Brett ordered a sizzling plate of prawns that were delicious (after

we cut the heads off of them).  I enjoyed a cappuccino before we headed back to the apartment for our final night.  We were bummed, but excited to get back to the US and start sharing our stories with everyone. 

Rome - Day 9

Rain, rain, go away!!!  We planned on using Tuesday to tour Pompeii.  However, all that was in the forecast was rain, rain and more rain.  Monday night I frantically posted on tripadvisor.com in desperation asking fellow travelers if they thought the rain would ruin our day.  I was thinking about the outdoor excavation site, mud, cobblestone, no shelter from the rain, etc.  The majority of them though I was crazy for considering ditching Pompeii, but one person and Rick Steves suggested an alternative - Ostia Antica.  As I started researching the site, I realized that it would be very similar to Pompeii without the EXPENSIVE train ticket (over $150 US per person).  Ostia Antica is connected to Rome's subway system, so it was only 2 euros each for us to reach it!  Pompeii was destroyed by a volcano, but Ostia Antica was one of the very first ports cities in Italy.  It was basically just abandoned thousands of years ago and no one has lived there since.  It is one of the best perspectives of what Roman life might have been like around 150 A.D.

Sounded good.  And we knew that if the rain started to pour, we were just a short walk from the subway and could be back to the apartment in a matter of minutes.  So, we left our place around 10:00 and boarded a 10:45 train to the site.  We paid 6.50 euros per person to enter.  This was the only "tourist" attraction we visited where we could be completely on our own, roaming through fallen buildings and rummaging wherever our hearts desired.  We saw the city's Necropolis (cemetery), Warehouses, Baths, the town square, and the Theater.  Although most of the buildings were crumbling, you can see in the pictures that the foundations remain intact and you can really get a good feel for the layout of this once thriving city.  We really enjoyed roaming around town on our own.  We stopped in the cafe for some lunch and a break from the light sprinkle.  We purchased some items from the gift shop before heading back to Rome.  Here are our favorite shots from the day in Ostia Antica:

Brett takes pride in finding statues with "sweet beards."  This is one such statue:

Statue still standing at Ostia Antica, headless as usual:

The is the Necropolis or cemetery - the arches are where they kept urns of ashes

Weaving through the old walls of homes that once stood here:

The theater:

Another view of the theater:

This is what remains of what we would consider an apartment complex:

This is the mosaic floor of a public bath:

Here we are in the cemetery...aww:

Around 2:00, we were back in Rome and decided to stop at the Colosseo train station in order to visit St. Peter-In-Chains Church (which opened at 3:00).  We stopped in a nice little shop for gelato.  Brett got "After Eight" which is basically mint chocolate chip (his favorite US ice cream flavor) and I tried out the chocolate.  Once again, it was really good!  We were not disappointed.  While we ate the ice cream we sat down for a perfect view of the Colosseum.  I read about St. Peter-In-Chains Church in my Rick Steves' guidebook (of course) and thought it would be intresting to see the Peter's chains from which an angel of he Lord set him free as told in Acts, chapter 12.  Here are some pics of the church and chains:

The church was small, but impressive.  The chains were a highlight, but we spent most of our time looking at the Tomb of Pope Julius II.  It was a monstrous sculpture started, but never completed, by Michaelangelo (he was called off the job by another Pope to pursue a little project called the Sistine Chapel). In the middle of the tomb is an intense sculpture of Moses, seen below:

After this, we headed back toward the apartment, but Brett wanted to find an Italian bike jersey from a local bike store.  I had researched the internet for what he thought was a bike shop.  However, after 30-45 minutes of roaming around Rome, we found a bike rental store...and it was closed.  Of course, we weren't happy and our dogs were really barking, but we prevailed and continued on to the apartment.  We took a nap and then decided to venture out to find some dinner (in the rain).

We just roamed around the neighborhood and found a restaurant called Ristorante Jolly.  They had a buffet that looked really nice, but we didn't recognize any of the food, so we decided to order off the menu.  We were kind of intimidated since we hadn't sat down in an actual restaurant.  Our waiter could tell that we are American, but didn't know much English.  We did a lot of pointing to the menu :)  although, I did get to use SOME of the Italian words I worked so hard on memorizing!  We got a bottle of the house white wine for 7 euros, I had the house Ravioli stuffed with cheese and Brett had a calzone (little did he know there was going to be eggs inside...lol).  Our meal went pretty smoothly and the waitstaff was very friendly.  I did get the chance to say "Il conto, per favore."  Meaning, "the check, please."  The waiter understood me!  I felt great!!!!  After dinner, we walked back to the apartment and watched some TV before going to bed.  Tomorrow is our last full day in Rome and we want to make the best of it!