Italy, Rome: Day 1

 Pardon my French, but motion sickness, lack of sleep, and jet lag suck.

I got up on Sept. 19th at 5:00 because  I couldn't sleep.

We left Indy at 12 ish and landed approximately 12 minutes later in Chicago. LOL...okay, it wasn't 12 minutes (time change).

We arrived in Rome at about 20 minutes til 9 am (3 am Indiana Time). I'm exhausted.

First, we went to the hotel and met our main tour guide, Francesco. 

Check in is not til 3pm. Utterly stinks. We all left our suitcases with the staff. Then we gallivanted a couple blocks to a church called "The Immaculate Conception", listened to Mass in Italian while starving for lunch and almost falling asleep due to not knowing anything the priest was saying. Though, I have to admit, the sign of the cross in Italian sounds a LOT like Spanish.

After Mass, Mom and I left the other tourists that went with us and stopped at a cafe. Thankfully, there was a worker there who was incredibly friendly and could speak English. I had to keep stopping myself from speaking French. It's like my brain automatically switches to French no matter what language is being spoken to me if I'm in a foreign country. I have to keep reminding myself, "This was my  idea."

 

After a really good shrimp sandwich and one of the best freshly squeezed orange juice (they squeezed an orange right there!), we headed back to the hotel to wait and wait and wait.

 

We didn't get our room until after 3pm. And had to discover that this hotel is weird. Depending on what elevator you go on, you go to different rooms. We have to go to the back of the building to go up to our room. Weird.

I also forgot that you have to put your room key in the slot by the door inside to turn the lights on.

Tourist meeting at 6:15 followed by dinner at 7:30 at Frankie's Restaurante. We had rice with a mushroom sauce (I could stomach the mushrooms, but it was a bit salty), chicken, salad, some of the best potatoes I've ever eaten, and chocolate/coffee flavored flan (or at least what I consider flan). The chicken was good. The potatoes were excelent. I'm full and that's all that matters.

 

So, here we are after rushing back to our room because I'm literally going to go to sleep in a few minutes.

 

Tomorrow, we get to be in Rome, and not a hotel on the outskirts. Look forward to a really big post about a really busy day.