Rome finally!

It was an eventful last 2 days. We had a nice overnight in Chicago and then after breakfast went on to the airport. The plane to Newark was on time, and the flight was pretty comfortable. Phil is using his airline miles for better seats with more legroom, while my short legs are fine back in the cheap seats, so we are not seated together on this trip for the most part.

At Newark, I remarked that the terminal was nicer than I remembered from when I spent a year in New Yoek on a predoctoral fellowship. We had a late lunch and then went to our gate for Rome. The boarding time came and went, and the ground crew finally announced that the backup power source was defective and would need to be replaced.

They said it could take until 2 am. to repair it, and they had put in a request for a different aircraft. At about 6:30, they announced we would need to hike a mile or so to another gate, but that we had a new aircraft. The plane boarded at about 7:30. I was quite angry because they made me check my backpack at the gate even though there was still plenty of room on the plane for it and the other bags near the end of the boarding line. It was snowing hard so we had to wait for the plane to be deiced.

Normally, there are 4 deicing bays, but last night only one, so we waited for 2 more hours in line to be deiced and finally took off about 10 pm. They fed us supper around midnight.

Finally, we arrived in Rome about noon. Not a big line at passport control. Our bags were on the carousel, and we were able to walk right out to our hotel shuttle. We checked in and slept a couple of hours before showering and hand washing some underwear.

We scoped out the train stop by our hotel and will use the train tomorrow instead of the shuttle to get back to the airport. It is cheaper and will help us get the hang of things.

We walked around a large shopping mall and ate at an Italian place in the food court. There was also KFC and Burger King. The waitress identified us immediately as English speaking tourists. She ran out with an English menu of food allergens. We just had big salads, and they also served us bread.

We walked around the mall and then went back to the hotel to sleep off a bit more jet lag. After breakfast tomorrow, we'll begin our train journey to Pompeii.Read more