Buongiorno, Roma!

ROME, ITALY Thursday 15 February 2007 Friday 16 February 2007 I woke Thursday morning exhausted because I couldn’t sleep that night. We were finally going to Rome! But I was so excited, I didn’t even feel tired. I went to school for Chem (I had a unit test) and French, the first two hours. Then mummy picked me up, and we went home to say goodbye to Happy and Lucky. Daddy brought Mrs. Barb home to stay with the dogs. We left, and drove to work, where Uncle Mike drove us to the airport. Because of the weather the day before (we had a snow day) the flights were all delayed. Our flight to Philadelphia was delayed and we had to wait about an hour in the Buffalo airport but Alex and I played the NHL 2007 game on Lappy. I got some fruit and sweet potato fries to eat, with fruit juice.We got on the plane, and it was the loudest plane I’d ever been on! Mummy and I sat next to the wing and engine, so it was SUPER loud! I did manage to sleep most of the time, though, and it was a good thing that the flight to Philly was only about 1 hour and 45 minutes. When we got to Philly our flight on US Air to Rome was delayed also. It was originally to leave at 6pm, and was only supposed to be delayed for 45 minutes. But we had to wait for a bunch of people from another flight, and ended up sitting on the runway forever! The plane was about 2 hours late leaving Philadelphia. It was a 8 ½ hour flight, plus 6 hour time difference. They fed us dinner, but I was supposed to get a gluten-free vegetarian meal, and they gave me only gluten-free, which was chicken. But not everyone was on the flight, so I got someone’s vegetarian meal. It was tofu that didn’t really taste like anything, with rice and cooked vegetables. It came with caramel rice crisps, a fruit cup, baby carrots, and cran-apple juice. It was ok. They gave us more drinks later; I got a water. They had radio stations on the plane and gave us free earphones because they made us wait so long. The radio stations played Shakira, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nelly Furtato, and some other stuff. Then the movies came on. There were lots and lots of movies and TV shows. I watched The Departed in parts. I have no idea what happened! In the end, every single person was dead. I guess that’s a good way to avoid a sequel! I also watched an episode of Joey. They also had a music section. n where you could listen to an entire CD. I listened to Nelly’s Loose twice, Christina Aguilera’s CD, and part of the Killers’. That was fun. They gave donuts as breakfast, but I couldn’t have them. I did have a coffee with cream and sugar thoughI didn’t sleep too much on this plane. It was very long, but not too bad. We finally got to Rome’s Fiumicino airport at about 10:30 am Rome time. We were about 1.5 hours late, and couldn’t find the person who was supposed to pick us to take us to the apartment. After we got our suitcases from baggage claim we had to call the apartment people on a payphone, and they told us to go to the waiting area in Terminal B (we were in C). The guy came up to us and said “Cleveland’s?” and took us to the van .He didn’t speak any English at all, and drove really fast and scary like all the other drivers! We got to the apartment after lots of twisty roads, and Sacha got us settled. He spoke English! After we unpacked really quickly, we went outside. We were in ROME! We walked down the road, and to a path of stairs, and went down a bunch of roads. We saw a little market, and then ate lunch outside. The people were very nice, but spoke only Italian. It was hard for me to order, but I did get “un salada” with tomatoes and raw mozzarella cheese, with yummy Italian olive oil. I got an orange Fanta to drink. It was super good! Then we walked around a bit more, and Alex and Mummy wanted to come back “home.” After we had to help them get in, daddy and I went for a walk in the other direction, up a bunch of stairs. We saw lots of big statues, and the entire view of the beautiful city of Roma! We were really high, so it was uber cool. I took tons of pictures! Then we came back to the apartment, and everyone took a little rest (slept) while I watched MTV Italia, and wrote this! After everyone got up, we went out to dinner at about 6:30 pm. We went to dinner at al Spaghettaria. We had to wait a bit because they didn’t start serving pizza until seven. We had a nice table by the window, and the waiter spoke English pretty well. There was a TV behind us, and the servers were all watching “All Music.” (I’m watching it now!) I had mushroom risotto, which was ok. I tried a little of Mummy’s pizza, and it was really good! After dinner when we went to the “toilette” it was really funny! It was like a communal washroom, and there was a closet in there, too. When we came out of the little bathroom to the sink, like 4 cooks all came in. It was quite strange! Then we went back up on the high hill to show Mummy and Alex the view. IT was really cool at night to see all the lights and stuff, but I think it was more impressive during the day. The cop with the machine gun was still guarding the Spanish embassy, and he looked scary, especially in the dark! Then we came back down and stopped at a little grocery store, and bought a water, some hazelnut jam (yummy!), 2 yogurts, a coca cola light, a biscotti, and a pastry thing. We ate the stuff on the way back to our apartment. Alex and I watched music videos until we went to sleep.