Days 1, 2 & 3: Rome & Sorrento

While we were in Italy I wrote emails to my family and a few journal entries when we didn't have internet access.  I'm posting them on the blog, to give you an idea of how our trip went.  Pictures to follow!

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Buon giorno!  I don't think you'd like it very much if I called you right now - it's 1 am there.  We finally got our email up and running.  We couldn't access it at the first hotel.  This one you had to pay for it - which is fine - but our converter didn't have three prongs (only two).  We ended up fitting the adapter on 2 prongs and the third prong is loose.  But it works fine!  So now we're up and running and back in communication mode!  How is everything there?  Tutti bene?

We're definitely roughing it this trip!  Ryan and I have officially gotten lost in a foreign county about three times.  In three days.  And these backpacks are both awful and wonderful - they are thirty pounds of utter hell, but they are awesome with all the stairs and trains.  Rome was nice - although it's so loud and not too clean.  With the plane rides and all, we were up for about 31 hours straight before going to bed.  To say I was exhausted was an understatement.  We made ourselves stay up and go out to dinner/walk around when we got there, since it was light evening.  Oh, it took us about 4 hours (no lie) to get from the airport to our hotel.  I felt like the village idiot.  The Rome Termini (main train station) is the main hub and is completely confusing when you are running off 24 hours of no sleep.  After we showered at the hotel, we set out to find the ristorante suggested by my co-worker.  What luck!  It was a couple streets away from where we were staying.  She recommended the lasagna, so Ryan and I split it.  It was totally amazing.  Not really a lot of cheese or sauce at all - it was mostly pasta and meat (thinking a mix of beef and veal).  Super yummy!  Then we wandered around and saw the Spanish Steps at night, Trevi Fountain (AWESOME at night!) and Pantheon.  It was nice.  By the time we got back to the b&b it was 12:30 and we collapsed into bed.  Our hotel room was about the size of the front bedroom at mom & dad's (room & bathroom) - but despite its size (which I was expecting in Rome), it was nice!  Our breakfast was actually pretty good.  Ryan loved the coffee. 

Everyone is pretty nice here and they speak English really well!  We've had some super helpful people.  Like on the train yesterday, we had to get off to connect to Sorrento.  As we were getting off, some guy yelled to us - "Take the numba 2 to get to Sorr-ey-nto!  Riiight - just reee-memb-er, numba 2!"  We must scream tourists.  I still blame the Japanese husband with the camera...not me and my American clothes at all. 

Ryan wants to stay in Sorrento the entire trip.  Our hotel is sooooo nice - our room is easily 4 or 5 times the size of our room in Rome.  We just had breakfast downstairs - it reminded me a lot of the breakfast buffet that we had at the Kawaii Marriott when we were 16.  This hotel has an amazing garden with a trellis and wisteria, lemon trees - it's totally beautiful.  I am super happy with my pick!  It's so central to downtown too - we went to a pizzeria last night, and I a huge medium size pizza for 4 euro.  Then gelato, which was so yummy.  With carrying our backpacks from place to place, we have been getting such a workout.  Sweating so much.  Hopefully it will offset the gelato.  Today we may go down to Positano, with Capri tomorrow.  I'm super happy we decided to stay down in the Amalfi coast for 5 days!  Although the prospect of going place to place next week seems daunting with our backpacks.  Don't be surprised if a box of our dirty clothes show up on your doorstep - I'm seriously considering sending some stuff home on Wednesday.  I'll give you a heads up :)

Oh - our flights were so smooth!  EXCEPT - as we were taking off in the plane to SFO (the 9 hour one), we heard a crash during take-off - it sounded like someone broke a vase.  We're looking around like what the hell was that?!  Then about a minute later, behind us about 5 rows, we hear commotion and some people screaming Emergency!  Emergency!  as we're taking off.  It didn't dawn on me really that it could be the plane - I thought it was a passenger.  Which it was - a passenger.  He (?) had passed out during take off.  The stewards all were rushing as the plane is going up and then they were rushing for the defibrillator.  Which made us worry that someone was having a heart attack.  Then I got really sad for the person.  But, it ends up - not a heart attack, just a horrible time to pass out.  He ended up being fine the entire trip.  They still had paramedics come on the plane the minute we landed in Heathrow.  Besides that, it was an extremely nice flight!  Not too much turbulence at all - not even over Iceland/Greenland area.  I was calm during both flights - maybe I got over my brief fear of flying???

I miss you all so much and wish you were here!  We are having a great time :)  Taking lots of pictures!  Christy, your email about the rat in the bed was hilarious!!!!  (See her Templeton blog post) That is probably the real reason why we have indoor cats!!  OMG, Mike was petting it because he thought it was Merlin.  I seriously hope you soaked his hands in hydrogen peroxide later!  We were in stitches over here!

Tell me what else you all have been doing this week???  How is everything going?  I'll be on the internet often over the next few days, so I'll be in touch!  Love you lots!!!!!!