Our first day in Rome, Italy. We were so tired that we all slept until about three in the afternoon! A full twelve hours of sleep. Boy were we exhausted. This is what thirty hours of travel plus seven hours of jet lag will do to you.
We got out the door and walked up the street to see the Colosseum. It was already getting dark by the time that we were getting there. It’s winter and Rome is decently far north so the sun was already getting low even though it was not all that late. Travel in the winter is difficult.
We discovered that even in the cold, off season, in the evening that the streets of Rome are packed full of hawkers trying to sell any junk that they can to you, mostly selfie sticks and phone battery chargers or plastic light up figurines. It’s awful. It immediately makes me dislike being out and about in Rome.
We did our walk but the girls were thirsty because they had planned poorly so it was right back to the apartment. Dominica was very impressed by my ability to navigate around town.
Before getting all of the way back we stopped at a little corner shop just outside of the apartment and picked up a few snacks. The girls were really hungry and we have nothing at the apartment for them to eat and it is hours until it will be dinner time.
We spent maybe two hours back at the apartment. The girls had cereal and biscuits. That held us until it was time for actual dinner.
For dinner we had been recommended to check out Ai Tre Scalini by the girl that rented us the apartment. That was a good walk to the north a few blocks. It was chilly but not horrible. The girls were quite tired of walking by the time that we got there, though.
The restaurant turned out to have rather a large line, we were the six table waiting to get in. But we had walked a ways and it was evidentally popular so we decided to stick it out. It was eight when got to the restaurant and it took about forty five minutes before we were able to get seated.
While we were waiting we got to hang out with a nice young couple from San Diego that we had a nice time with. They were two tables ahead of us. After they were seated we talked to a group of girls from NYC that are studying in Italy right now.
Dinner was excellent. Luciana discovered that she adores eggplant parmesan. It is new her favourite food. All of the food was excellent. It was Dominica and me who had ordered eggplant parm, but Luciana stole it from us.
We got some desserts, too. Luciana and Dominica got Italian cheesecake which is kind of like a cannolo in slice form. Liesl tried a chocolate salami which was interesting. I went for the Italian classic of anise biscotti that I dunked in moscato dessert wine – so good. I used to have that when we were in Italy five years ago; I have missed it.
After dinner we just walked back to the apartment. We were all very tired and wanted to get to bed on the early side. It was probably ten when we got back and we did a little but were in bed around midnight.
Not a very intense first day, but we have a lot of jet lag and travel time to overcome.