So high in the Sky

So the trip has begun! We had a LONG day of flying- got up at 430am in Fresno, flew until about 1am Fresno time, 10 am in Rome. We tried to sleep as much as we could on the 9 hour flight from Charlotte to Rome, which helped us to feel like it was morning when we got here.

The photo of Mom and Dad above was near the beginning of the flying day- they look much more chipper than the photo I took at the end of the day. The food was not as bad as I remember airline food to be- chicken with barbeque sauce, mashed potatoes, green beans, warm bread and a little salad.

So finally we saw our first glimpses of Europe, passing over what we guessed was Spain, and some small islands off the coast.

Once we landed and got our baggage, the combination of fatigue and not knowing where to go exactly, caused a bit of stress and tension. Finally we decided to take the train in to Rome, and from there we would take the Metro to our hotel. First, we got our Roma passes, which so far has been a great idea- unlimited transportation for 3 days, and you get into 2 main attractions "free" (we paid for the passes- but you get to skip the ticket lines) and discounts on other attractions. 

First glimpse of Rome as we arrived on the train.

Once we got into Rome and to the metro station, more confusion and fatigue caught up with us. We weren't sure at this point if our Roma passes would just work as our metro ticket, or if we used it to get metro tickets. After figuring out our Line and direction, we dragged our suitcases up and down staircases- I will soon post a photo of the size of my huge suitcase. This was not fun. Once we got to the place to put our tickets, we could not figure out how to use them, because they did not go in the slots where the normal tickets went. Eventually we discovered they were scanned over a big yellow dot at the top of the machine- easy peasy, once you know what the heck you're doing. So finally we made it to our stop, which was very close to our hotel. This made for a much more excited group of tourists :)

(On our way up out of the metro)