It all started out with the suggestion of a date night.Â
Joe asked if there was a cooking class in Louisville that we would learn to make an amazing dish then sit and enjoy eating it in each others company. I dont normally get on Groupon, but this sounded like a Groupon thing. So I downloaded the app and customized it to my area. Before I could even type in my guess for how I would find a cooking class. Something caught my eye. Trip for Two - Rome, Italy - Plane Tickets, 5 Night Stay at Hotel B&B, Free Breakfast. $1200. I gasped. That would mean it would be only $600 per person for a trip out of the country?! I excitedly told Joe about it. He looked at my surprised and told me to read the fine print. If everything looked okay, then let's buy these vouchers. I read the fine print and before I knew it we were both transferring money to our joint account to purchase these vouchers. Once I received the digital vouchers, I pulled up the airports and times to use the vouchers. The sooner we used them, we would have to pay extra. The later we used them, we would only have to use the value of the vouchers. So naturally we decided to go the week of Thanksgiving. According to the internet. This was one of the best times to travel to Rome, Italy. They called it an off season with a lower than usual amount of crowds.
After setting our trip dates, I barely thought anything of it for the next 8 months. I casually tried to learn a little bit of Italian. Just enough to ask if someone understands English and where the bathroom is. November rolled around quickly and I scrambled to plan as much as possible in less than a week. I used a suggested app that I could purchase tickets to places in Rome on before we got there. We shoved as much as we could into tiny carry-on bags and set off to Chicago, IL. In Chicago, we found the international terminal and used our paper ticket to go through TSA. Bypassing the front desk was essential as both of us were overweight on our bags. It's free if they need to check your bag at the gate. It would have been a $150 round trip price tag to check just ONE of our bags! This is where we quickly realized the vouchers we bought for our trip to Rome would give us the bare minimum to get us there and back. Our seats ended up being in the center of the plane. So the first thing I did in the terminal was walk up to the women that was managing our gate and sweetly asked her if there was any way she could moved my husband and I next to a window or if there were more comfortable seats available we would love to be considered to move up. She looked down at her computer, didn't say a word and printed out tickets with updated seating. I thanked her without knowing where we were moved to. Then Joe and I huddled over the tickets in the corner and mapped out where this new spot would be on the plane. She moved us next to the window in the business class. Which meant a little more leg room and a two seat row. I could go back and bear hug her for that!
The ride to Portugal was a very long one. As was the layover, but spending half that time in line waiting to get through customs then going through another TSA check on our bags made it seem a little shorter. We learned in Portugal your Terminal to be at would be on the screen but they would only post what Gate you are supposed to be at, at a certain time. Being naive Americans. We spent the first 20 minutes after TSA running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find someone at any gate to just tell us where our gate would be. They of course let us know that would be determined at the time it says right on the screen. We took a moment to grab water from the airport Starbucks and waiting patiently for the gate number to pop up. Once it popped we knew which way to get to our gate. We were among the first ones there and we got in line to board. At this gate they wanted to make sure everyones bags were the appropriate size. If it was you got a red tag on your bag. If it was not, the would take your take and check it for you. Reluctantly I had to give up my bag. I pouted a little bit because this meant I now had to stop at baggage claim in a foreign country and wait for my bags. Something we were not happy about. The flight to Italy from Portugal was short and sweet. I had fallen asleep and my husband woke me up so we could see where we were landing. My bag was one of the first to pop out at the terminal, which NEVER happens for me.Â
We walked over to a seat by the passenger pick up area for our shuttle bus driver to arrive. I received a text saying were the shuttle bus driver would be standing. And we again walked around like chickens with our heads cut off asking random airport workers where the Cafe was. We found our shuttle driver holding the tiniest sign with a short list on names. One of those names read E. Lucas. Unknowingly when I booked this shuttle service, I thought it would just shuttle me and Joe alone to our hotel. But we ended up waiting there a bit longer to pick up a few more passengers. Once they arrived we followed the driver to his shuttle bus and we were off to Rome. You ever do something without much thought, then in hindsight you realize you REALLY shouldn't have done that? Thats the sinking feeling I got when the shuttle bus driver pulled over at a bus stop on what felt like a random street. Ran around and got our bags our of the shuttle, and told us in his best english to enjoy our trip. We were surrounded by towering buildings. Graffiti everywhere. Cars buzzing by down the busy street. And nothing even resembled that there would be a hotel nearby. Um.. Where is the hotel? I asked the shuttle bus driver. He looked at both me and Joe. He had to have noticed the panic on our faces by now. Sorry, Sorry, he apologized and then said, you go this way. He took us to the end of the corner and pointed up the street. Then he pointed at the road construction right next to us and apologized that he could not get down this one way street. But the hotel was only a couple blocks away. Bags in tow.. we walked up the hill a few blocks and found our hotel, right where he said it would be. We checked in and to our pleasant surprise the front desk girl knew english as her second language. We went to our room and got settled in. Now it wasn't some four or five star place that compelled me to take pictures of. But it was cozy and it didn't smell bad. Joe checked the mattress for bed bugs and once he gave the go ahead we climbed in and took a much needed nap!
Exhausted the first day we decided to eat at the hotels dining room and ask the front desk clerk for directions around the city and a map. The dinner was lack luster to say the least. It was basically reheated spaghetti and a giant chicken nugget. Joe pouted while he drank his foreign beer. Hotel food is never great in my opinion anyway. We retired to our room for the night and plotted out our next day adventure with the directions and map the hotel clerk gave us. There was so much we did in those few days I am going to break this up to talk about each day! Xoxo!
Part 1 |Â Rome
Part 2 |Â The Vatican - Mama Angelinas
Part 3 |Â Colosseum - Roman Forums
Part 4 | Spanish Steps -Â Trevi Fountain