Italian Gong Show

Well we made it to Rome! We flew into Rome Ciampino which I compared to Bellingham airport... and that wasn't reaaally a stretch. The gong show began at Ciampino. We all got off the plane and boarded these buses which one would assume would be taking us to a terminal of some sorts. It finally fills up and we head off to the terminal! Which happens to be a 12 second ride away... or directly on the other side of our plane. No joke. It took longer to fill the buses, drive them, and unload them than it would have to walk the 100 metres....

The gong show continued this morning. We were trying to find the Visitor center in the main train station "Termini" which is right by our hotel so that we could buy the "Roma Pass". I checked last night.... and FOR SURE there is one there. The problem was that we couldn't find it... and no one knew what we were talking about. Big sigh. After a good while and a mini tour of the shopping center at the train stations we went up to a random vendor and said "Roma Pass" and he handed two to us!!! What the hell!!

We took our newly found Roma Passes to the Colosseum!

Yay!! We took the Metro and everything! We arrived and there appeared to be absolutely no order to anything!! So we promptly ignored the giant line (which it turns out was the appropriate thing to do as we already had tickets). But in doing so we weren't able to rent audioguides because if you have a Roma Pass and skip the giant line there is NO WHERE for you to purchase one... random!! We finagled our way into an actual live tour which we were super excited about!!

But it turned out to be sub-par at best...

We have now accepted the absolute randomness of most things here. Coming here from London (that is preparing for the 2012 Olympics and is in FULL tourist mode) was kind of a shock! But we have lowered our expectations in terms of order and lines and such and are just going to do what the Romans do! Right?? ;)

Overall we had a GREAT day in Ancient Rome! We went to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Forum! All of which were amazing!! I stepped in as tour guide part way through and just started reading aloud from the Rick Steves book! I was gathering a little following of people :) haha.

Day one in Rome - Gelatto count is already at 2! One Strawberry and one Chocolate and oh my gosh were they good!! Tomorrow is the Vatican and then dinner with Uncle Chris!!

Sorry for the lack of awesome pictures today! I forgot my camera at the hotel (GASP!) so we were using Brad's iPhone all day! I won't make the same mistake again!