Roma!

Why did I think I'd ever be able to sleep on a flight? Well, par for the course, I didn't. Both Chris and I were too excited to sleep until we were about 45 minutes from Frankfurt. Not enough time. The coolest thing was the Lufthansa agent who met Rome bound passengers at the bottom of the stairs. Yes, stairs.

Word to the wise, if you are landing in Frankfurt go pee before you land, because it takes 20 minutes to get to the terminal. Anyway, back to the special bus for Rome bound passengers. We hopped on and realized fairly quickly that we weren't supposed to be on that bus. There was a 7:25 flight that a number of passengers were trying to get on. The coolest part was that the bus for the Rome passengers went through a special security area and passport clearance. It looked like we actually woke up the crew running the area. We got run through security, passport clearance, back on the bus whisked around the airport, chucked out on the tarmack underneath the Rome bound plane. I'd never been on the tarmack in front of an aircraft before.

Long story short, we didn't get on that flight, but on the one 3 hours later. We arrived in Rome, collected our bags, all 4 of them and realized we had a problem. We have too many bags! We managed to make it into Rome on the train - thank-god for all the exercise I've been doing in preparation or I would never have been able to heave that 60lb bag up 3 flights of stairs onto the train. On the way into Rome it occurred to me that the left luggage could be our best friend. Our faithful bike friday's are patiently waiting for us to pick them up at Roma Termini.

Got lost looking for the hostel. Found it eventually. The folks running it are great. Mabry encouraged us to take advantage of the free entrace for the Colloseum, Palatine and Forum. Some municipal celebration has lead to a free entry. We managed to trot our tired carcasses down hill and all around the fabulous sites. Photos soon.

We did take the subway the 2 stops back as we were dead on our feet. That was like being a sardine in a can, not possible to fall as other folks pressed from all sides. Luckily a short ride and with Chris as my point man, no problems getting out. We then managed to find the shoe store that Crhis bought his last Birkenstocks at when we were here 4 years ago. He bought another pair just before closing time.

We staggered into a grocery store for my favourite pop and succumed to a few other sundries. All in all the longest day I can remember in a long time. That happens when you pack 32 hours into a day...

Today Rome, tomorrow the world!