We made it!!

Buona Sera!

Well, here we are – MADE IT to Italia! While that sounds awfully short, of course, it was nothing like that! To recap…We had the opera Mikado on Saturday night in Tucson – excellent production, by the way! So we weren’t able to get our usual REALLY early start on Sunday. Started for Southern California about 6:30 a.m. Decided to drive between Tucson and LAX this time, as we find the drive SO relaxing as opposed to getting on yet another airplane…(I know – how many people out there are shaking their heads and muttering: They’re CRAZY!) We had been invited to stay at Art & Anne Vaughan’s (truly WONDERFUL hosts!) but realized (fortunately, in time…) that our flight left LAX at 6 a.m. on Monday morning – which would have necessitated getting up REALLY early. So, got a great idea from Laura Torino, and found “sleep/park/fly” at the Airport Hilton. We were able to get a lovely room AND three weeks covered parking in their underground garage, for a very reasonable price – as well as free shuttle between the hotel and a/p! Got to the Vaughan’s about 2:00 and spent the afternoon catching up; SO good to see them! Anne made a great dinner – a wonderful soup with shrimp, ham and okra and spinach salad. Dessert was homemade pumpkin pie – as Anne figured we probably wouldn’t be finding any Thanksgiving kind of food here in Italy. Yum!! Made it to the hotel around 9:00, parked, checked in and collapsed; were asleep by 9:15. As I usually do when confronted with an early wake-up and a set alarm clock, I woke up every hour to hour-and-a-half throughout the night to see if it was “time” yet. Finally got up at 3:35, showered, dressed, and we were out of the hotel by 4:15. Shuttle worked great, and before 5 a.m. we were checked in, “securitied” and waiting at the gate! What a convenient and neat arrangement! (Note for future trips: Will definitely use this system again!)

Made the flight in two segments: LAX-Washington/Dulles and Dulles-Fiumacino (Rome). On both flights we were lucky enough to get bulk-head seats – YEA, NO ONE in our laps! (I definitely have “personal space” issues…) On the long-haul across the Atlantic, we were fortunate enough to have no one between us in the middle of a 2-3-2 arrangement. Very comfortable arrangement – as fortunately, it was about 40 seats short of a full flight. So…now we can talk about movies! (It seems that this is just about my only chance to see new movies – and now that I’m not traveling on business, I’ve gotten WAY behind in my movie watching!) This flight had THREE movies that I wanted to see!! First one was “Mamma Mia” – as we may be two of the only people in the Western Hemisphere who had NO idea of what it was about – even though we, like everyone else in the world, have seen the advertising posters! I REALLY enjoyed it – although I disagree with critics who say Meryl Streep can’t sing – she’s no professional, but not a bad voice at all! Pierce Brosnan on the other hand – really sounded and LOOKED like he was struggling! Rather painful…Oh well! Movie #2 was Journey to the Center of the Earth – which I watched three times … enjoyed it very much – and we didn’t even have 3-D glasses to take advantage of the special effects! Movie #3 was Kit Kitterage: An American Girl. (Whose real name, by the way, is Margaret…) OK; kind of cute; wouldn’t have paid for it, but then I’m not exactly their target audience, am I? (Although I should be, considering our account with AG..!)

Food on the flight was fine; I found that using my I-pod earphones made things MUCH more comfortable, and the flight was very smooth almost the entire way across! But as I say, as I cannot sleep on planes, just glad they kept recycling the movies.

Landed on time in Roma about 7:45 a.m. Clearing immigration and customs was a breeze – although once again, our bags felt like they were the last coming down (even though they weren’t), and we headed to the train station for the non-stop trip into Termini Station. Lovely sunny morning (I’d been seeing SO much rain the past several weeks; SO nice to see a sunny day!) Got to Termini, and I stayed with the luggage while R went to find the Tourist Information office and pick up our Roma Passes which we bought weeks ago on-line. (This is a fairly new program which allows for two free museum visits, reduced prices for other museums and concerts, AND a transport passes good for 3 days for all subway, bus and trains in central Rome.) R got the sealed packets (they come with maps, hints, etc.) and we found a taxi to La Residenza near the Via Veneto. It was only 10 a.m. but these lovely people had our room ready in 10 minutes. (YEA!)

Unpacked, R showered and we got ready for lunch – and opened the two sealed packets – and found that one of them was missing the transport pass! Good grief! The main reason for the passes!! So…our first stop was to bus BACK to the Tourist Info office at Termini – and yes, Gentle Readers, one of us DID ride without a ticket … you’ll have to figure out who was the Scofflaw! It took a few minutes, but we were able to get a new packet – which we opened THERE, and voila! a second transport pass!

By this time, I was literally dropping from fatigue, so we headed back to Barberini by Metro for lunch. Found a small café. R had a Greek salad with LOTS of oregano; I had a pizza margherita (cheese and sauce only!) – and it was SUPBERB! Even little corner-type places have their own pizza ovens, so this was thin, authentic, and just out of the wood-fired oven! I had a glass of Prosecco; R had a glass of local red – very good, although didn’t help me getting UP the steps on our way back to the hotel!

Collapsed into bed around 2 for a nap…about 2 hours worth. Up and a shower for me (finally!) and now we’re heading down to the lobby for their weekly reception!!! (We’ve stayed here before; they do a WONDERFUL open bar reception with lots of munchies!!) So, will report more later!!

Much love,
m

PS – A harpist was playing for the reception downstairs! Just beautiful! And, of all things, we met another couple whom we’d met a year ago May at the same hotel! How small a world is this? Went out for dinner – more details tomorrow – but we did manage to take a couple of shots of Roma at night!! Enjoy!!

m