Europe 2009 – Day 1
Posted in Photos, Vacation by Christina on October 13th, 2009
Everyone’s been asking how was our vacation. AMAZING. In my usual style, I’m going to document each moment here bit by bit. I meant to bring a journal with me, but left it at my desk at work, so I guess I’ll have to draw things from memory. We have over 1500 pictures but I don’t want to bore everyone with them, so I’ll just post the ones that I like or that captures the essence of it all.
Flight to Rome. At the last minute the agent changed our flight for a better deal. So we got to fly Lufthansa for the first time. The plane ride was smooth. We tried to sleep the entire way there, but of course it was rather cramp and uncomfortable. The service on the plane was definitely great. They serve alcohol for FREE! I had a couple of cups of wine hoping that it would help me sleep, but of course that just gave me a headache. At least the movie selection was good. I fell asleep here and there, but it certainly wasn’t refreshing. 1/3 of the way there, I just sat there tracking the flight on the monitor…”only 4 hours to go”….
We finally landed in Frankfurt but had to board almost immediately. For some reason, being in Germany scared me. Maybe because everyone was 1 foot taller than I am?
Anyway, after 1.5 more hours on the second flight, we finally landed in Rome. We grabbed our baggage and found our driver. Unfortunately we had no change, so we couldn’t tip the driver :-(. The same thing happen with the Parking Spot driver. All we had with us were Euros on the way to the airport. :-(
Despite feeling like a jerk we finally arrived at the hotel. We stayed at the Visconti Palace Hotel which is somewhat modern compared to everything else in Rome. It was built in the 70s. The rooms were small, but I expected that. The one thing that mattered was that the bathroom was modern and clean, which it was. It even had a bidet, which grosses me out by the way.
We unpacked, changed, and decided to explore the neighborhood. First up was lunch. Since it was already quite late for lunch, we wanted something small. After walking up and down the streets we found a tiny pizzeria. You pretty much had to stand and eat. The pizza didn’t look very tempting, so Brian got a calzone stuffed with sausage and rice, and I got some weird fried thing. I rate it a 1 out 5. Actually it was rather gross. It was cold and flavorless. Ick. Here’s a picture of Brian trying to be nice. “Mmmmmm”. With the disappointing lunch, I was hoping we’d find something better for dinner.
With that said, I’ll have to finish day 1 later…
