When in Rome!

We got lost a few times.... but we finally made it to Rome!



Our morning started early since I am incapable of sleeping past 4am .... We had a nice banana and cookie breakfast (leftovers we didn't want to trash)...and got to work packing our bags.

Since we were taking a plane to Rome we needed to make sure our packs met the carry on requirements. When we came to Madrid we used packing cubes to help organize our packs better. Ryan felt like they were making our packs bulkier, so we ditched them to fill the empty spaces in the pack....and they were better!

Carry-on appropriate pack sizes

Ryan REFUSED.....I repeat..... REFUSED to let me wear anything other than my hiking boots. I understand they are big and bulky but I could have made it work. So because I was wearing boots I HAD to wear something to compliment them... which happened to be my leggings. This was a terrible combination for Madrid's warm/hot weather. Ryan said "why don't you just wear shorts"...Ryan doesn't understand that bright neon shorts just WOULD NOT work and jeans would look silly....but he MADE me suffer anyways.

I'm smiling now because I don't know how miserable I will be in an hour. 

Ryan looking cool as a cucumber. 

We started walking to the bus station around 9 am ....the bus station was a 15 minute walk.... you would think it would be nice and chill outside early in the morning... NO. I was sweating bullets by the time we made it on the bus. This was about the time I started giving Ryan lip about making me suffer such a terrible burden and to add to the fire I got super nauseous on the bus making me doubly miserable.

Ryan asked to tell his side of the story, so here he is:

It costs 50+ Euros to check a bag, so I did not want to risk our bags not meeting the carry on requirements.  Nicole brought 5 pairs of shoes!!!!!! All she had to do was sacrifice and wear the hiking shoes.  I was wearing my jeans (which I discovered only fit me when I have a belt on), hiking shoes AND a snow jacket.  Within 10 seconds of putting on her hiking shoes, she was already complaining of being too hot.  Why does she have these shoes if she cannot wear them?  An hour later after non stop complaining, I caved in and let her change out of the hiking shoes and into sandals. We were fortunately able to fit them into MY backpack of course and narrowly met the size requirements.  

This is us sad to leave Madrid

We arrived at the airport and got through security about an hour early so we decided to hit up McDonald's .....again.....

Then we  hopped on the plane and left the country. Here's some snaps Ryan took while we were in the air....

Coast of Italy

When we arrived in Italy we just walked outside.... like no passport check or anything. Weird. We did a quick search and found that taking the bus was a cheaper option for getting to the city center, so that's what we did. I wish I snapped a picture of the crazy mob trying to get on this dang bus....it was scary.... it was like an heavy metal mosh pit. We made it on alive. I guess I pictured this city being super historic and preserved and magical.... but what we found was a dirty, run-down city with graffiti EVERYWHERE! We haven't seen any of the sites yet, but my immediate impression was disappointment.

I already miss Madrid.... I feel culture shocked and I feel like I took Madrid for granted now that I am in this new, scary place. Ryan seems to be adjusting to the change perfectly fine...........men.

When we got off our bus we were lost for quite a bit. We walked around in circles trying to figure out how to get on the stupid metro. We got in some lines to ask someone but got out of lines... back in lines... up to kiosks (wrong kiosk).... around the corner... across a street... up to another kiosk (out of order)... back across the street (bought tickets from a newsstand vendor)....back across the street... notice everyone is getting on buses and realizing we don't know what we need to be on....back across the street to talk to the vendor.... down some stairs to the hidden metro.... and finally on our ride.

After checking in to our Airbnb we decided it was too late to go to any of the sites so we went to grab some food. We found this pizza place around the corner from our place and it was pretty good.... though we've never tried Italian pizza before we thought it was good.

Italian Pizza with Hot Salami and Beer

After dinner we decided to hit up with gelato place that was highly rated on yelp... and for good reasons. It was delicious!

I'll suffer for this later.

Ryan had no idea what to order so I told him to get the stracciatella and pistachio. If any of you know Ryan.... you would know he is a very picky eater... so I was surprised when he went with my suggestions but I figured we would make me switch my chocolate with him.... WRONG. He totally loved both of those flavors! I guess we're travelling in an alternate universe.

Arty stairs we found on our walk back to the apartment

We are fortunate our Airbnb host left us a city map and guide book because we didn't have a plan on what we wanted to do yet...

The only thing we know so far is that we are going to get an early start tomorrow to visit the Vatican.... the rest I guess we will all find out tomorrow.

That's it for now, ciao!