Day 1 - Welcome to Rome

Wednesday, 20-May

We're here! After 18+ hours of travel we made it to our Mimosa apartment, home for the next three nights. Tony & I arrived in Rome around 9:15 am. We spent a bit too much time at the airport searching for the Rome Pass counter. It was a bit frustraiting, mostly because of pure exhaust. But we found it, purchased our 3-day transportation and museum pass and then proceeded to attack the public transit system.

So we found the train, traveled the FM1 to Trestevere station, transferred to another line, got off at San Pietro station and walked the 3 blocks to our apartment. BTW, house numbering on many streets aren't sequential. Well, they're kinda sequential, but not really. After Tony & I settled into the apartment we walked down the street to the neighborhood market, purchased the essentials (beer & wine), we went back to the apartment and sat on the balcony to enjoy the view of St. Peter's and to wait for the Bernardi's, John, Gail, Greg & Cara. A couple of hours later we saw the four touristas walking down the street, pulling their suitcases.

After the Bernardi's settled in we put on our walking shoes and headed across the Tiber river to the old centre. Needing some money we stopped at a money wall. John had no problem extracting some cash. But not the story in our case. Tony used his atm card, and the machine decided not to return the card or any cash. Well, you can imagine how we felt. The bank was already closed. So we decided to call the bank but had no success using Gail's international calling card at a public phone. By now Tony & I were beginning to feel the stress on top of exhaustion, so we decided to go back to the apartment and decide what to do while the Bernardi's did a bit more site seeing.

Our apartment doesn't have WiFi, but I've been able to pick up some unsecure connections where I've been able to Skpe intermitently. So I called our credit union only to discover that the travel notification that we checked on 3 times before leaving was indeed on our account, but only for my card. The bank checked their system where they confirmed Tony's card had been captured for possible fraud. But mine should work. There was nothing the credit union could for us so we decided to keep that card locked and wait until the next day to visit the local bank and attempt to get the card back.

So on to happier things. The 3-bedroom, two bath apartment we're staying at is great. Does anyone know how to use a bidet? Our balcony has a view of St. Peter's dome. We can see the backside of all the marble statues at the top of the vatican. The Bernardi's had a great time walking around the city center. And we're all exhausted. Time for some sleep. 36 hours is just too long to be up.