To do as the Romans do

Well, we made it, safe and sound! We are securely tucked away in our little hostel room, it was a balmy 37-38 degrees Celsius today. I will let all of you determine how hot it actually was. I am afraid to as we barely survived the heat today. We have learned a new personal motto: never pass up the opportunity to refill your water bottles. To know what the temperature was today would dissuade us from ever leaving our room!

Tim, Duane and I had the great idea of staying up all night and forcing ourselves onto European time the night before we left instead of struggling through the adjustment once we got here. We were far kinder to poor Brandon, as he was allowed to get about 2 hours of sleep. :) We stayed up for a grand total of 27 hours before boarding our plane. Then, in anwhere from 30-45 minutes, all three of us crashed. The sleep was not good, as a variety of crying babies and children who just did not want to sleep (and who let their mothers know this wish at the top of their lungs) kept us awake and somewhat alert. I am not sure what it is, but I (Michelle) seem to be a magnet for children who do not like to fly. It happens every time. We did manage to sneek in around 4 hours of sleep before we hit the Da Vinci airport at 7:13 am. Air Canada is our new favorite carrier, as they had the hospitality part of flying down pat. . . didn't hurt that they were the cheapest tickets we could find either.

After checking into the hostel and stowing away our gear, we headed across the street for our first taste of Italian gelato. I had the strawberry and black cherry (oh so yummy!) and Tim sampled nearly all of the flavors and settled on Kiwi and Strawberry. So far today, amidst the sight seeing we have had gelato 3 times. And it is only 7:00 PM! Still tons of time to get in another scoop or two . . . or three!

We had friends tell us not to plan much on the first day, as it typically ends up a wash, since you are so jet lagged that it is hard to get anything touristy done. Well, I think as a by product of our odd method of assimilating into the new time zone, we are actually doing quite well. Despite the heat we managed to see the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the capital building (with a cool changing of the guards routine) the Pantheon, the Santa Maria Maggiore Basillica, the Piazza Navrona, the Castel Sant Angelo and the Trevi fountain. We drove by the worlds largest MacDonalds, but could not bring ourselves to go in on our first day in town. Tomorrows plan is to hit the Vatican, St Peters Basillica and the Vatican Museum, and maybe catch the Musee Borghese, which is supposed to be a great museum. We will see how much of this we get to.

Some interesting differences we have noted between the US and Italy:
1. In some public areas you must pay to use the toilette (Michelle found this out when she did not have any money to pay, and the kind gentleman let her slip out.)
2. Water is available throughout the city and is fed by aqueducts - if it was good enough for the 1st century, then it is good enough for us!
3. Pedestrians beware. Vespas do have the right of way and they have no problem riding on the sidewalks or the opposite side of the street if their path is crowded. Apparently there may be laws against this, but we watched them do this in front of the police. So these laws are more like "guidelines". We would love to see someone try to drive like this in California!

Well, off to the showers and prepare for dinner, or maybe a few more scoops of gelato! Ciao!


P.S. From Dad - Christina and Joshua, I Love and Miss you so much!!! Brandon and I are having a great time and have already seen a ton of historically cool things. Kiss and hug Joshua lots for me!
Love, Duane (Joshua that's dad or papa to you... not Uncle D)