Rome: Traveling There and Day 1

We left San Diego bright and early Saturday morning for our first leg of the fight to JFK. Once in New York, we only had a short wait for our flight to Rome. We left on time, sitting in our roomy emergency exit seats. About one hour into the trip, the pilot announced that the fuel gauge was broken and we would have to turn around and land in Boston. You could just hear everyone in the plane thinking "this is not good, we're going to be late or miss our connecting flights!". When we landed in Boston, I was surprised to see at least six fire engines with there lights flashing on the runway. They were all there for us, just in case there was a problem, since we were landing with a full take of fuel. Shortly after reaching the gate, they told us we would need to depart the plane and wait for another jet to take us to Rome. The delay lasted almost four hours, and all we got for our troubles were free waters and orel cookies. Once the new plane arrived, we re-boarded quickly and sat in our same seats. When they finally started drink and food service, I ordered a Jack and Coke, and was given two small bottles of Jack Daniels - for free! This made the delay not as bad. We found out later that American Airlines also gave us 5000 free bonus miles for our troubles.

As usual, it is difficult to sleep on the trans-Atlantic flight. I think I may have slept for three hours, which is more sleep than I thought I'd get. What made the delay even worse was that my sister, who took a different flight, had to wait in the Rome airport for four hours, as her flight was on time. However, she used her time wisely and bought four Roma passes. These passes included entrance to two sites and a metro pass good for three days. It turned out to be a great deal, saving us some money.
Once we finally arrived in Rome, we quickly got through customs, where surprisingly there were no forms to fill out. All we needed were our passports. We were a little worried when our baggage was the last to come out, but once it did we all met up and grabbed a taxi. Because most of us had large bags, they had to put us in a larger taxi. Like most European cities, cars are smaller than in the US.

Since we were late, we were able to check into our rooms at the Marriott hotel in the downtown historic district of Rome. The hotel had excellent service with doormen and bellboys. Once we got to our rooms we had a quick turnaround, because the sun was setting and we wanted to get to a few sites in the afternoon. There were no sites within walking distance of the hotel, so we used the metro to get around town. Our first stop was the Colosseum, just four metro stops away. Unfortunately, we arrived 10 minutes after the gates closed. So we walked to The Forum next door and they too were closed. We decide to just walk around the outside, and take photos. This was a good choice because it was still sunny and sun makes for good pictures.


We continued to walk around for over an hour. There is actually many good ruins within view of the streets. In fact, everywhere you walk, another ruin comes into sight. Once the sun set and it got dark and cold, we headed back to our hotel. There were plentiful restaurants and cafes near our hotel, and we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I ordered the local special, lasagna, which was excellent, and everyone else ate the salmon dish, which apparently was not very good. The salmon was dry and the vegetables were tasteless. For beer, I ordered London Pride, because they didn't have any Italian beers that were good. Italy is known for its wine, not beer, so there was never a good choice of beers.

Totally exhausted, we turned in by 8 PM to get much needed sleep for the next day, our first full day in Rome. No Belgium couples were harmed during our entire stay.