When in Rome, Day 1

We made it to Rome! 

Our flight over was just as long as advertized. They kept the fully bright lights on and did not allow the seat backs to be reclined until half-way through the flight, so we didn't get a lot of sleep. We did, however, get to see both a sunset and a sunrise while on the same plane. And both were breath-taking.

We weren't in Ireland for long, but we can tell you it is in fact very green. More on that when we return next week...

The Rome airport was CRAZY busy and people speaking every kind of language were everywhere. We got our bags (Great news, my dress didn't get lost on the plane!) and went to find our ride in the sea of livery service people. And boy was it some ride.  I now know where my father gets his driving tendancies. The guy was driving a very large vechice like an F1 racer. Now, the streets of Rome are very narrow and filled with lots of bumps (basically Boston) so we had more than a few close calls with cars, people, buses, city curbs, etc. The Dutch gentelman next to me told me at one point that his wife hadn't stopped praying throguh the whole journey. (Nick's side note: stop getting into livery vans in Europe....)

We ended up making it to the Hotel safe, but 3 hours early for check-in. Which was unfortunate because all we wanted to do was take a nap.  Instead, we wandered the streets to find a pizza shop.  We ordered one pizza to split, and the waiter told us to get two. So we did, thinking they were small. What came out were two full sized pizzas. Apparently, Italians eat an entire pizza, sometimes two, by themselves. Rachel's pizza was far superior to Nick's. But, they were both amazing. However, we barely finished a total of one pizza. We are clearly not full Italians.

We returned to the hotel to settle in and take a quick siesta. Then it was off to explore Rome and settle into the city that is the backdrop for our honeymoon, part 1. Except the skys opened up and dumped 25 to 50mm (that's 1-2" for those keeping score) of rain on our heads as we walked around the block and right back into the hotel room soaking wet.  Well, we went to buy umbrellas, then we returned to the room. 

Eventually, we decided to do Rome, Take-out style.   We bought a bottle of "cheap" wine (that was amazing) and went to a restaurant around the corner.  We watched the guy put together our antipasto salad and had a blast listening to the wait staff tease each other in Italian while waiting for our food. For those curious, it was amazing. My favorite part? The antipasto salad had two melon slices covered in prosciutto. The combination of sweet and salty was delicious.