Italy Day 1: Rome

Our trip began with one slight snag: our flight to New York (JFK), where we were connecting, was cancelled. We had to have American put us on a flight to LaGuardia, where we could pick up car service to JFK in time for our flight. Had some stressful moments, but we ended up making it to JFK in just enough time to catch the flight, thanks to a driver who was willing to smash all five of us in her car, even though she only had space for four. (And I was actually grateful for the experience... now I know what a lot of my travelers go through.)

The flight to Rome was long and I only slept 10 minutes, while they were serving breakfast. Ugh. I don't know if I'll ever master the art of sleeping on airplanes.

After we collected our baggage, we were picked up by Renzo, who drove us to our apartment. The apartment was BEAUTIFUL. Smaller than we expected, but plenty big enough. A nice lady named Carla showed us around (she spoke mostly to me because I knew the most Italian, and her English wasn't great). :)

Here is what the view from our balcony looked like:


We had some time to crash and unpack and relax a little, then we had to head to St. Peter's to attend the 4:00 Mass (actually while THEY were relaxing, my dad and I headed over to see exactly where we'd need to go).

Some views of St. Peter's Square:




Inside St. Peter's:






After exploring St. Peter's, we had dinner at a little pizzeria (at a tavola calda, literally "hot table," a place to sit down and be served). :) Then we went back to the apartment and watched the lights come on in St. Peter's as the sun went down.


More to come soon...