August 2006 - Rome, Italy - Day 1

We woke up on the plane landing in Madrid, Kenny's Xanni hadn't quite worn off. We raced across the Madrid airport and reached the terminal minutes before takeoff to Rome. Our seats had already been given away so we were upgraded to business class, and that's where our good luck ended. We arrived in Rome, only to watch everyone else's luggage spin around the carousel for thirty minutes. The Spaniards were not quite as rushed as we were to get our luggage to Rome. We met a nice Florentine family in the same predicament who helped us complete the lost bagage report in Italian and walked us to the train station where we - with our 6 carry-ons - hopped on to a moving train - the last one of the day to central Rome. We didn't even have time to pay the fare. Thank god for the Italian "honor" system. One train, one subway, and one taxi ride later, we're at our bed & breakfast just off the Via Veneto (Rome's Champs d'Elysees). Casandra begins our romantic viaggio al'italia and la dolce vita by hand washing our underwear in the sink. Then, we went for a walk and found a very trendy, upscale pizzeria/ristorante called San Marco for dinner. Afterwards, we walked off our amazing 1st meal in Italy down the Via Veneto to the Spanish Steps where locals and tourist together and practice the Italian tradition of sitting in and around public squares and fountains.

We watched Romans drink from the fountain at bottom of steps. Then, we walked down the famed Via Condotti (Rome's Rodeo Drive) to Via del Corso to the enormous and impressive Trevi Fountain and again sat amongst the locals and tourists marveling at the massive modern wonder.

Casandra got a blister and we grabbed a taxi to our B&B.