Day 2 - Rome

Today went much better than yesterday. Mainly because of the amount of sleep we got.

We started off with breakfast at the hotel. Then we made our way to the Forum. Very cool place. We saw the Temple of Julius Caesar. This is where his body was burned after his assassination. I'm glad that we had the Rick Steve's Italy book with us. It really helped out in identifying everything. It explained Vestal Virgins, Caligula's Palace, the Arch of Titus, and various other ruins in the area..

After the Forum, we made our way to the Colosseum. We paid extra for the english speaking tour guide because the line was way too long to wait in. Paying for the guide got us in right away. We stayed with the tour for about 30 minutes, got the info we wanted, and went out to explore the rest of the Colosseum by ourselves.

I was able to take quite a few pictures of the Colosseum as well as the Forum. I just wish I could show them too you. As soon as I get a faster connection (or even just free dialup), I'll post them then.

Upon leaving the Colosseum, we had lunch, then we made our way to the Trevi Fountain. There were probably more people there than at any of the other places we went. Lots of people.

We've gotten much more confident at crossing the streets of Rome. Apparently, you just start crossing. The cars and mopeds just stop if your in their way. If your not, they just keep on going. Its scary at first, but you get used to the feeling that you might get run over. By law, they have to stop. If they hit you, they loose their license. Not sure what you get if your hit though.

By now, we were getting pretty tired and decided to head back to the hotel for a break.

On our way back, we passed by the Pantheon and stopped for a few minutes to check out the inside.

In all, it was a pretty good day.

More from day 1.

It seems like everyone in Rome smokes. Even Jacob noticed this...

It sucks not having broadband internet...

Our hotel room is great, except for the shower. Amy just made a comment on why roman women have hairy legs. The shower is really small. (this still doesn't explain the underarms) You can't even bend over to wash below your knees. There is a bidet (a butt washer). I say remove that and make the shower bigger.

We visited St. Peter's Basilica, not St. Peter's.
We visited John Paul the II's tomb..

There was a great view of Rome from the top of Michelangelo's last work, the dome. Didn't know this, but, no building is allowed taller than the dome in Rome.

I figured out how to spell Andretti, (I think)....

We had the best dinner last night. It was at some place called the Rooster. Will probably visit again before we leave.

I never really liked red wine, but, I can't get enough of it here..

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Today, we are going to visit the Colosseum and the Forum. I'll take lots of pictures, but without high speed internet, I won't be able to upload any just yet.

Day 1 in Rome

Wow what a day and where should I start.

Today actually started off yesterday with our flight to Rome delayed for about 1 hour 20 minutes in Boston due to weather. We left Boston at 8pm.

After no sleep for me on the plane (Amy got about 3 hours), we landed in Rome at about 10 am local time.

Coming thru passport control took another 30 minutes. There were about 40 school kids and each one had to get their password stamped.

Then we were bombarded by "You need a Taxi?" We read and were told that it should be 45-50 euros. Everyone, when we asked, said that it would be between 75-80 euros. We knew to beware of the scammers but its hard to tell who is the honest taxi drivers and who were not. We eventually found a desk where we could get on a shuttle for 32 euros and only had to wait about 30 minutes or so.

The shuttle ride was a completely different story. The driver must of been related to Mario Andreddi (I know its misspelled). These drivers in Rome are crazy. I thought I was an aggressive driver. After going about 95 miles an hour on the highway (I know this because of my gps), the side roads were worse. Apparently, if you drive a moped or motorcycle, you can ignore all rules of the road. They would just weave in and out of traffic. And the driver of our shuttle acted like he didn't even see 'em.

We finally made it to our hotel. Amy took a shower and I decided to wait. We met up with her parents and Jacob at 1:30.

Our first stop was for lunch. We then took off for Vatican City and St. Peters. We climbed all the way up (320 steps) to the top of the dome and stayed up there admiring the view and taking pictures for about 30 minutes. We toured the inside of St. Peters (found Pope Clement). By then it was evening and was time for dinner and then to bed.

I'll try to write more tommorrow. Its late and I haven't had any sleep since Saturday night...

I should have some pictures posted soon. The internet is only dialup and will take a while to upload. Besides its .15 euro per minute to use the phone..

First Italian Phrase

Vorrei una birra grande

I'd like a large beer...

Thanks goto Nicole for this tip....

In Boston

We made it to Boston and to the Alatalia ticket counter without too much trouble.The Boston airport is kinda confusing. We had to leave the gate area and then take a bus to the International Terminal.Once in the international terminal, we had to find the Alatalia ticket counter to get our boarding pass. After that, we had to go back thru security to get to the international gate.Below is a test picture of the terminal. I wanted to test the procedure that I needed to do to get pictures uploaded to my web server.
Test Upload Link

Here are the steps that I have to go thru.1. Connect the camera and upload into iphoto.2. Run a program called Galerie. This program creates the webpage and thumnails. It uses the photos from iphoto.3. Then Galerie uploads to my ftp server the website.4. Lastly, I create links in my blog to individual pictures and the actual website with the pictures.The offline blogger program that i'm using is called ecto. I haven't yet figured out how to insert html code and have it look correctly in the blog once its posted. I'm sure that there is a way, I just haven't used it enought to find out the correct keystrokes.

I am currently writing this as we are in the air to Boston. Its about 1:30 now.

Our fight wasn't scheduled to leave until 2:30. But with the bad weather coming from Alabama, we thought it would be best that we try to change to an earlier flight. Our original flight only gave us about 1.5 hours to get from the delta terminal to the Al Atalia terminal in Boston. The bad weather moving into Atlanta would of surely caused us to be delayed in Atlanta and therefore late getting to our flight to Rome. As of right now, we have about 3 hours in Boston before the actual flight to Rome.

There was supposed to be a $25 charge to change flights, but the ticket agent let us change for free. We even got better seats than we had on the original flight. We are at the seats just behind first class were the emergency exits are. Lots of leg room. :)

Our trip dosen't begin until May 29th, but I thought I would post a few items about the trip as well as some other info.

I'm wanting to use this blog as a place to post what we have seen and where we have been. The sights, sounds and flavors of Italy. I'm sure that there will be some misspellings as well as some grammer issues with this blog so, "Damit Jim, I'm a systems engineer, not an english professor. "

We will be arriving in Rome on the 30th in the morning for 4 days of Rome. After that, a train ride to Florence for 4 days and finally another train ride to Venice. We will be staying in Venice for 4 days as well. Our last day in Italy will be spent back in Rome.

As of now, I really don't have any idea what I really want to see. Definately any old Roman Ruins and I guess a few churches (I'm sure we will see a lot of churches). Also I can't wait to see Brunelleschi's Dome in Florence.



Amy's dad i'm sure will have a complete list of where to go and what to see.

Here is a list of where we will be staying.

Hotel Inparione in Rome

Hotel Alessandra in Florence

Hotel Al Leon in Venice

They all look like great places to stay. I think one for sure has internet access. Not sure about the other two.