wonderful, but not P E R F E C T

We are still trying to wrap our brains around all that we were fortunate enough to experience in Rome.

It was beyond incredible. That does not mean everything was perfect.
Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.

I had that quote up in our home for a while. I forgot how much I loved it- I might have to put it back up somewhere.

For this anniversary trip, we started planning in October. Not crazy itinerary planning, but we found our tickets on RyanAir and committed to making the trip happen.

our incredible view of the Alps en route to Roma

If you are going to live in Europe, it is critical that you know about RyanAir.

RyanAir is a discount airlines. Cheap, cheap, cheap if you watch flights and have an open mind.

They fly out of Frankfurt-Hahn, a small {crummy} airport in the middle of the hills about an hour from our house.

The way they make money is in the fees. If you know this, you can easily avoid paying extra and experience really cheap travel to so many destinations in Europe.

There are also no assigned seats, so people get a little crazy rushing to board each flight. If you know this and go with the flow realizing the whole time it was so cheap- you are fine.

I'm still working on not getting worked up as these pushy Europeans cut in line- makes me CRAZY!

welcome to Roma

For us, we look at the days we want to travel, then see what destinations are cheap.

We had a few places we wanted to visit, Rome happened to be super cheap the week we could travel. Plus, it has been super high on our list.

With our tickets just 10 Euro each way {that's about $14 USD), plus airport fees and taxes we were able to both fly round trip to Rome for a grand total of $100. T O T A L.

Everyone knows if you check a bag, you pay. We pack light and carry it on.
If you want a coke, or bottle of water, you pay. We bring ours with us.

There are no warm washcloths to wash your face or hands.
Pockets in the seats in front of you do not exist.
There definitely are no movies.

For an hour and a half flight and a two-night, three day trip- RyanAir is the way to go.

As we parked in the parking lot and started to unload, we realized we had forgotten our backpack. Seriously? We have never forgotten a whole backpack.

We could live without the Italy book and itinerary I had put together and printed.
We could survive without the snacks we had packed.

our weather was perfect... this was on our return to the airport as the rain started

Our camera has video option, so it was no big deal that the camcorder was in there as well.

But, the one thing we really needed was the envelope that had all of the paperwork to go with our flight including our boarding passes. Yes, re-printing boarding passes is yet another way RyanAir makes money.
Once we realized we still had passports and could actually fly, we had to suck it up and pay for them to print boarding passes.

The grand total for two new pieces of paper to get on the flight: 30 Euro.

That's 15 Euro each, or $40.75 for them both. Boarding passes that cost more than the initial tickets.


I'm pretty sure on any flight we go on for the rest of our lives, we will never forget the backpack.

Kicking ourselves, we tried to move on and were fine until we realized everything else was in that folder including our hotel address, public transportation instructions {how to get from the airport to the bus to the metro line to walk}, and all addresses and phone numbers.

I had spent a lot of time planning this trip out and making sure everything was printed. Now, we were on our own with only our memory to rely on.

Walking a few circles around the underground Metro, we finally figured out which line to take. Fortunately, Rome's Metro is quite simple with just two lines- one red and one blue. It took me longer to recall which stop we were to get off at, but we did it!

Our first impressions of Roma... blue skies and perfect weather.

We bought our tickets and squished out way onto the crazy filthy Metro to our stop: Ottaviano- S. Pietro. How could I forget a name like that?

We got off avoiding all pick-pocketing, walked up the stairs and tried to get our GPS to work. By this point, we realized the hotel address was on Jim's leave paperwork in his wallet. Trouble was, our GPS never got past the searching for satellites screen. Ugh.

We just started walking and lucky for us- ran straight into the road. As we turned on the street, the hotel was right there. What a relief.

Not perfect, but we were ok and on our way- kinda.

Next, the hotel let us know that they did not have water {slight problem} and had rebooked us to another hotel. After several attempts at finding the USO office just around the corner from the hotel, we showed our IDs and were let in the door.

With this super small sticker on the door, I'm not sure how we missed it.

What a blessing the USO is to military members around the world. They are there to help with anything and a cold bottle of water and place to sit down was as welcomed to us as anything at that point.

With free WiFi, we tried to re-print our boarding passes to avoid the fees on our return. Hotmail noticed that we were in an unusual location and would not let us in without the code they emailed to my A Simple Impression email address.

I have not worked or used that email address in 3 1/2 years and could not even remember how to get to the site. At this point, I remember feeling that I was tired of thinking. We were on overload.

We decided to figure out the Internet thing later {Ty came to our rescue} and were on our way by foot to our new hotel. 

Only one or two wrong turns and we made it to Hotel Consoli.

Upgraded from a 3-star to a 4-star hotel at the same price, we checked in, took a deep breath and headed out for our first afternoon in Vatican City. We had sights to see and were on a mission. No rest for the weary on this trip.

Definitely not a perfect start, but a start to a wonderful trip.
Welcome to Roma.