Bonjourna a Roma!

I'll start off by letting all the parents know everyone has arrived safely in Italy! We all survived the 3 hour bus ride to the Atlanta airport, 9.5 hour flight, and 1 hour bus transfer to our hotel. Unfortunately, 7 people from the last flight landed without their luggage. It is supposedly landing on another flight tonight and they will have it in the morning. Our equipment we shipped before hand is also somehow stuck in Germany for the time being. It should also be here sometime tomorrow. But at least we all made it and the "stuff" will get here eventually.
The plane was very large and conveniently had an individual screen at each seat with on-demand movies and tv shows. They served us 3 different "meals" so it felt like we were eating all the time. The first was an actual meal with chicken or pasta, then we had a small sandwich snack, and finally a breakfast meal just before we landed. Most people got on the plane with every intention of sleeping the whole way, but it seemed like most people failed at that mission. It's a lot harder to sleep on a plane than we originally thought.
After we landed in Italy we went through passport control and found our luggage, we were greeted by our tour guides with Alabama signs and game day shakers. A very pleasant sight in a foreign country!
Since flight A landed so early we got on our buses and went directly downtown. Our tour guides showed us some of the more popular piazzas and then set us loose for a few hours to explore. It's remarkable to be walking down a street that seems perfectly modern and then suddenly run across a giant monument or ancient building. My group meandered through tight streets trying to find the trevi fountain and along the way discovered a huge monument that turned out to be the tomb of the unknown soldier. Again, we wandered through the monument and came across a very plain looking brick church. We went in not expecting much but found some of the most beautiful paintings and sculptures and an incredible gold ceiling. Again, it hits me that we're in Italy and these little treasures are everywhere.
We found a little pizza spot and got some lunch. They sell pizza by weight here not by the slice. It was different from American style pizza but was absolutely delicious!! The streets are very small and apparently Italy has no traffic laws. We were almost run over at least 10 times. Just got to keep an eye out for cars and trucks!
Our hotel is an older building that used to be apartments. They have been redone and are either two rooms with a living/kitchen area and a bedroom or they're studios with everything in one room. The beds are all single beds, only large enough for one person so sleeping is going to be a little different. I have a feeling that won't be a problem for most of us tonight.
We have our first group dinner and information meeting tonight so we'll all finally be together. Tomorrow we tour the Coliseum and then have some more free time in the city. I'm having problems getting pictures from my phone uploaded but hopefully I'll figure that out soon and get you guys more to look at then words. Hope everything is going well back in the states! Ciao!


- Marea Rotolare

Location:Rome, Italy