Day One and Two - Planes, trains and automobiles

Day one started out as all travel to Europe starts out - with two very long plane rides. Normally we would have nothing much to say about these plane rides except that they happened. But for the start of our trip we were surprised before we even left for the airport with a phone call from the airline letting us know that our plane (which was supposed to leave a 6:30am) would now be delayed and the best current estimate on a departure was at 7:00pm. Naturally a 12 hour delay was a little alarming so we left at 3:15am from Tim's sisters house to get to the airport. When we arrived and checked in, the airline informed us that the message was in relation to our second flight from Philidelphia, not our first flight from LAX. But, that message was now voided and our second flight was back on schedule. Whew! No one wants to start a long journey 12 hours later than planned! Both flights were relatively uneventful. Since Tim and Michelle haven't been to a movie in a while all of the options on the longer flight out of Philidelphia were new to them. It is so hard to go to sleep when there are good movies to watch! Sleep turned out to be more difficult to get since one of the widow side passengers wanted his window open during the whole flight. And that passenger was in our row, so the sun shone on us all. Needless to say we were all a bit sleep deprived as well as jet lagged. We took a taxi straight from the airport to our hotel which gave us a good view of what driving in Italy is like. If Americans think that tailgating is a problem in the US, it is a way of life in Italy! We are pretty sure it is on the Italian driving test. The closer you get to someones car at a high rate of speed without hitting them the higher your score on the test. Checking into the hotel was easy, it was near the hotel that Tim and Michelle stayed at for their first trip to Europe with Tim's brother Duane. Since the room would not be ready for 3 hours we began our sight seeing early. Normally this helps to work through the jet lag, but since none of us had much sleep on the plane at all, we were all exhausted. We decided that all good sightseeing trips in Rome begin with a good gelato. So what that it was 10:30 in the morning, we were on vacation! Refreshed from round 1 on gelato we hit the streets. In the morning we managed to work our way through St. Peter in Chains church, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, the Victor Emmanuel Monument (along with a ride to the top to see the view) and the Pantheon. Then we decided to stop for some lunch (i.e. gelato number 2 for a few of us) in time for our 5:00pm appointment at Michelle's favorite gallery, the Borghese gallery. We arrived 30 minutes early and decided to sit on the lawn for a while. Actually, we followed suit with the other Italians and layed out on the lawn. Within 5 minutes both Tim and Michelle were asleep, and with 10 minutes to go before our entrance time Brenda and Greg were waking us up to get going. Michelle had never fallen asleep on a public lawn before, but it was the best cat nap ever. The Borghese was fantastic, and Michelle was especially happy to see her favorite sculpture there, Bernini's Appolo and Daphne. It shows Appolo chasing Daphne as catching her as she is beginning to change into a laurel tree. It is hard to believe that the delicate leaves are made out of stone. While the restorers were cleaning it they discovered that when you tap on the leaves you hear tonal sounds. It is the perfect example of the soft human realism that can come from hard stone. After the Borghese we went back to the room to shower and take a quick nap. It was along the way there that we had our first encounter with the roman pick pockets on the metro. As a traveler you read about all of the schemes and scams they concoct to separate you from your money. One will squirt you with catsup, apologize profusely while the other one is picking your pocket. They will stage arguments or use other kinds of diversions to get you distracted while they take your money. So we were aware of how it could happen and what signs to watch out for. On the way home there was a full train (one big warning sign) with lots of people wanting to get on. There was also a group of people arguing on the platform loudly (diversion?). When the train came we squished our way in, watching our bags and each other's bags closely. As the doors were closing 3 young kids pushed their way in, shoving everyone forward. We hear a man who had a suitcase yelling in Italian and then the couple next to Tim start yelling at the kids saying "Oh no you don't" loudly and then pointing to the kids and saying "Thieves, there are thieves on our train right here, everyone look at them!". It seems one of the girls had her hand inside one of their bags and they were astute enough to catch her. The girl yelled at them, they yelled at her and the kids got off at the next stop. We also got off as it was our exit. As the train pulled away the kids joined their friends at the stop. One of them handed a wallet to a waiting friend who started going through it. So whatever their scam was, it worked on some unsuspecting person on the train. Thankfully, that person was not us. After a late siesta we regrouped for dinner. For our first night on our vacation we walked to a restaurant that Tim and Michelle went to last time they were in Rome called Osteria de Mario only to find that it was closed for the day. We were not sure if it was that they closed early or if they were closed all day (it was Sunday). So since it was closed we settled for a nearby place called Osteria de Spaghetti. The food and wine were excellent, and we ended up closing down the place around midnight. After finding our way back home we all dropped into bed. Tim stayed up a bit longer to scout out hotel rooms for Florence as we would be traveling there for day 3 of our trip. He was able to find a nice apartment for the 4 of us for the 3 days we will sleep there. It will be nice to have a bit more sleep and a bit more room than Rome was able to provide. The plan is to go to the Vatican museum and St. Peter's in the morning, then head to Florence in the early afternoon. Ciao for now!