Italy day 1-- arrival

After going back and forth which flight to ams to take, we last minute decided to take the 734pm. 4 first class seats. We were 2/3 on the list. Left work about 20 minutes early and made it to the airport about 6pm. Matt had already cleared my passport and then we waited. Thirty four long minutes to make sure no one listed last minute. And no one did. We scored our first class seats across the pond. Asked the nice gentleman next to me if he wanted to swap and have a seat to himself so matt could sit next to me. Score. The purser was very friendly and he ordered the seared tuna and I the chicken and Rossito. The zed fare link was broken and we couldn't check in for our zed from ams to fco. Hoping that would be back up and working by the time we landed. Two movies later and our five course dinner and I was out cold. Awoke to the clinks of the glasses for breakfast being served. Some frittata which wasn't as tasty as I'd hoped. Then we landed and we're on our way.

We made it through customs and finally got listed for the klm flight. It was yellow, meaning there might be seats, but Europe never oversella tickets so we should be ok. Exhausted we bought some sandwichs and then returned to our flight, which we got seats together. And then we both were fast asleep. Even the free drinks in coach didn't arouse us.

Landed in Rome, and had to wait for our gate checked bags. Purchased train tickets into the city for 14€ each and then took out some cash. After waiting 20 minutes our bags finally arrived walked the fifteen minutes to the train and were on our way to Rome termini.

After thirty minutes we arrived and made our way down the busy steeets filled with tents and merchants to where we though our hotel was. We booked it after we got seats in amsterdam and it was listed as a hotel being right next door to jenny and Nicole's hotel and was only 100$ a night. Buttttt we couldn't find it. We called the number. Thank goodness T-Mobile just works. The front desk guy then said he would meet us outside hotel Verona. He arrived and walked us two blocks around the corner. Apparently the hotel we booked is under construction so we are staying in this other hotel. Up two flights of stairs to a rickety elevator to the top floor (4) into the hotel sandy, a five room hotel. For the double room with the en suite with the tiniest shower I had ever seen. Oh well. It's a room and it was clean. Good enough. The desk man said we could pay cash of 400€ tomorrow and save on taxes and fees. Okay. We showered and freshened up after traveling for 18 hours and hit the road to the coliseum. Sunset hits the rocks and makes it gorgeous. It was about a ten minute walk from the hotel. We then detoured back to this cute restaurant that has outdoor seating. Orders a bottle of the grappe de Castillo (house wine red) and ordered mushroom artichoke olive pruschuto pizza and matt the spaghetti and meatballs. Yummmmm. Then we walked to the Trevi fountain for some night time pictures and grabbed gelato for the 20 minute walk back to the hotel. Where we passed out from exhaustion to sleep for 13 hours.