Travel trials and other stories

Okay it wasn't too trial-ish. But our day began at 5 am with a wake up call. We went to Victoria station at 5.45 and caught the Circle line two stops before we transfered to the Picadilly line to Heathrow. It took us until 7.00 to get to Heathrow by the Underground - which eventually becomes the overground about 10 stops from the airport. Everything went smoothly and the check-in process was quick.

Heathrow has been all about the security this past week since the attempted bombing last week. Security didn't take too long but the way they deal with the shoe issue is everyone needs to take off their shoes. I never had to do that in an airport before. Not only do you have to take them off, you have to walk through security with them off while your shoes go through the scanner. Needless to say, Jenn wasn't too impressed as, being in sandals, she therefore went through on barefeet.

Now at Heathrow you don't get a gate number when you check in because, well, they don't know what it is. No flight gets a gate until about 30-40 minutes before it leaves and then everyone has to scramble to get to their gate! That was a little stressful. I mean, there was a Catholic priest waiting for the same Alitalia flight and even he was stressed. When has anyone seen a stressed priest? They're not married for heaven's sake! Anyways, we finally got our gate number only to get there and find that the flight was delayed because, get this, the Alitalia flight was late on arriving from Milan. The Italians late for something? No kidding.

We finally got to Rome and the temperature was about 15 degrees higher than in London. But hey, it could be worse; we could be in Lethbridge tomorrow. It took a bit to get to our hotel with the Rome subway system and the walk, but we finally made it. We really did well on the hotel. It's only 5 minutes from the Vatican. We can lean out of our second story window and see the walls down the street.

We went for a long walk around the neighborhood to orient ourselves. We also went to St. Peter's square and it was really unbelievable. That square and that church are incredibly huge! And beautiful. We bought postcards and stamps from the Vatican post office (only place in the world you can buy them) and sent some cards home. After some shopping (lots of swanky shops on our street) we finally found a lovely restaurant where we had individual, huge plate size pizzas (thin crusted and very delectable) and fruit. The vegetables and fruit here are amazing to taste.

Jenn is currently downloading some pictures to put on the blog - we know that's what you've really been waiting for. Tomorrow we are going to go and explore St. Peter's Basilica early in the morning and then take our long awaited tour below the foundations! In the afternoon we are hoping to see the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel. We've brought iPods with Allegri's Miserere just for that purpose! And now, I need a good night's sleep. çiao! Buone notte.