Off to Rome

The travel to Rome went pretty well considering how long we had to travel. Short flight to Chicago but over 9 hours to Rome.

American Airlines had pretty comfortable seats in biz class - the plane was brand new. I watched the latest Die Hard movie and they fed is well. But, unfortunately both of us only got short catnaps. Arrived in Rome very tired.

Took forever to get our luggage. Luggage from both our flight and a flight from NY came on the same carousel at the same time. At least 45 minutes to get the luggage. Minor glitch hooking up with our driver - my fault.

About an hour to our hotel and what a zoo of traffic all the way. I absolutely, definitely would not want to drive here. Even when we got to the hotel, the driver basically just stopped in the street to unload us - what little parking that existed was overfull.

When we got into the hotel lobby - well, that was another story. I will first say that our room is very nice. But, the lobby was pretty unimpressive. And, when we arrived at around 10, we were simply told that checkin is 2. She gave us a map, marked various sites, told us to leave our luggage and to come back after 2.

Well, since we were dead-tired, that wasn't going to work. We sat down and told her we would just wait. When she realized we weren't leaving, she offered us breakfast. But, Jill was about to fall asleep - and did - and we had just had breakfast on the plane - so I took her up on coffee - which was excellent. Finally, after about 45 minutes - maybe an hour - she realized we weren't moving and she came to tell me that our room was ready for us. When we got to our room, a guy was hustling to finish cleaning. He finished while the bellman brought our bags. Oh, I forgot, the elevator is so small that it would fit only Jill, me and our small carryon bags. The bellman put us in, closed the doors and ran up the stairs to open the doors for us. Well, finally in our room, we went to sleep for a very long time.

As I said, our room is quite nice. Nice queen bed that is comfortable. Big whirlpool tub. No phone. No radio. On the TV I have found CNN in English so far. It will be quite adequate for a few days.

Will begin to update re sites and other things in Rome when we get out tomorrow. For now, it is about 9:30PM and I have slept more than enough. We'll see what the evening brings if Jill wakes up any time soon.

Chow - or however you spell it ;-)