Leavin on a Jet Plane...
We got on the plane in Boston but sat there for about 3 hours while they fixed the brakes. Luckily I had the Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love to keep me occupied (thanks!). We arrived late in London and missed our original flight so we had to sit there for several hours for the next flight out. They have smoking rooms there so we sat in there and talked with a guy on his way to Morocco for work. He works for Voice of America radio station. He was very interesting and it was a good way to pass the time. Finally got on a plane and arrived in Rome. We missed our bus transfer to the hotel so got a taxi. Whoa! I heard they drive crazy but figured I'm used to Boston driving. He drove SO FAST it looked like other cars were just standing still. I think he ran almost every red light possible--not the kind where the light is just turning red. These lights were RED for a while. A few times he would slow down and look and then go but most of the time he just blew right through them. Finally got to our Hotel and he said we owed him 140,000 lire. We had changed money at the airport so we gave him a 100,000 and 50,000 lire note and should get 10,000 back in change. Well, he quickly leaned into his cab and then came back out and tried to tell us we didn't give him enough money. That's when we realized he switched the 100,000 note for a 10,000! The bastard! We argued with him for about 15 minutes--really holding our ground and eventually he "suddenly" realized that we gave him the right amount. Imagine that! He SO tried to scam us. Good first lesson.
We checked into the hotel and found our room. Luckily we had our own bathroom and our own shower and 2 twin beds. In Europe, it's common to share a bathroom and shower down the hall (I've had to do that in my previous trips to Europe). We then met downstairs with the tour guide, Valerie, and she bought us a drink and explained what will be happening for the next week.
Link to the Hotel Cicerone: http://www.travel.it/roma/cicerone/
Having not eaten or slept for quite a while (it's the Sunday evening by this time, Rome time, though we left on Saturday evening) we went across the street to a pizzeria. At first we were completely ignored by the hostess who spent her time on the phone and working on receipts. Finally one of the waiters or something yelled at her and she roller her eyes and sat us at a table. Nothing like making us feel welcome. I ordered a pizza and we split a half carafe of wine. They put bread on the table which I finally remembered someone warning me that they tend to put food on your table that you didn't order and then if you eat it, they charge you for it but if you don't touch it they don't charge you for it. Ate the bread anyway since we were hungry. We ate and drank, finishing the 1/2 carafe of wine. Without us asking, they put another 1/2 carafe on the table. Since we didn't really want it anymore we thought we'd check it out on the bill to see if they charge us for it if we didn't drink it. They didn't charge us! They did charge for the bread but that was fine.
We went back to the hotel and into the bar (of course!) and hung out there for a while. A group of 50 or 60ish people came into the bar and were loud and having a great time. We looked at each other and said "Americans!" We were right. You could tell by their accents that they were from the Boston area. We finally asked them and we were right. As we were extremely exhausted and knew we had to get up early and be ready by 7:15 the next morning we just went up to bed.