Italy-Day 2 / Rome Day 1 (Thurs., 9/5/13)

We left San Diego Tuesday morning, Sept. 3, and arrived in Rome this morning (Thurs., Sept. 5) at 7:30 a.m. The Alitalia flight from New York was a half hour early. Our travel agency (Gate 1) had a man there to meet us and drive us to the hotel. That made it very nice and easy. There was a lot of traffic on the roads, but we arrived safely at the Grand Hotel Palatino in the heart of Rome.

Our room wouldn't be ready until 2 o'clock, so we had a lot of time to kill. We checked our luggage and set off walking around the town. Although the morning was relatively cool when we arrived, it was quickly heating up. We walked to the Colosseum and around the town to various other ruins and museums. We walked for about 4 hours until I couldn't walk anymore. My feet were in severe pain, my back started to hurt and my legs were getting wobbly. Too much!!!

We stopped for some gelato once and tried to get out of the sun by taking the shadier sides of the streets. This is exactly what I was afraid of. No sleep on the plane and no taking it easy on jet lag day. I was getting very stressed and we went back to the hotel. Our room was ready, so we went up and I took a shower to get rid of all the sweat and grime of the city. Then Dennis and I both crashed, me more than him. Eventually, he went out again "researching restaurants" for tonight.

While I rested in the hotel room, Dennis went out to research a place to eat dinner that wouldn't require much walking. He did a great job, finding a nice outdoor restaurant in back of the hotel. We had two kinds of pizza-Margherita and one with only tomato sauch and spices. We found out that the Margherita pizza was named after the Queen Consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. The tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil are supposed to represent the flag of Italy. Anyway, both pizzas were good.

After dinner we walked up the hill to a little bakery and ate some sweets. We walked a little more and then went back to the hotel for the night. Thus endith the first day in Rome.

Italy-Day 1 The New York Leg (Tues, 9/3/13)

We left San Diego Sept. 3, 2013, on a United commuter plane going to L.A. We had 37 minutes to make our connection to New York, but we made it, tripping along quickly through the long hallway from Terminal 7 to Terminal 8. Luckily, we didn't have to go through Security again because we were on the same airline.

I was impressed with the United airplane, even though we arrived at our seats only after going through the first and second class sections. First class looked really comfortable and second class looked good, too. When we arrived in the Economy section, we just sighed and accepted the inevitable.  But, after we settled in, we were happy to see we each had our own screen in the back of the seat in front of us, and movies were free. Two movies took us almost across the country. For the last hour and a half, I read my Kindle (a book called "Stumbling through Italy") and when I tired of that, I just stared at the map on the screen showing the relative position of our plane.

We arrived in New York at around 9 p.m. With the taxiing and waiting for everyone to disembark, plus the trip to the hotel, it was around 10 before we got settled in. In relative terms, though, it was only 7 in San Diego, so I managed to go to bed around the same time as normal.

This morning we got up around 8 am New York time, got dressed and went up one flight to our free continental breakfast. I was very conservative, having only coffee, Heart Smart cereal and yogurt. I am saving room for all the Italian food we will be eating soon.

When we returned to our room, I washed my hair. This is a very big ordeal. First I have to wash all that hair and put on a cream "masque" (or is it "mask"?) that has to stay on for 15-20 minutes. Then the mask gets rinsed off and a conditioner gets put on, but only for two minutes. Rinse again and then dry. Drying my hair takes forever, but if I don't do it, the waves and curl comes back. Can't have that. After drying, I have to appy a daily conditioner and then I'm done. Whew! I'm glad I did this here in New York. Now I think it'll last until I get back.

Our Alitalia flight doesn't leave until 5:25 pm but we have to check out by noon and we need to be in the lobby a half-hour befor the shuttle. This means I have to get ready to go NOW.