When in Rome...

The view from our balcony window.

When we arrived at our hotel in Rome, it was around 7:00 p.m. It is an older hotel that felt like it was a pretty luxurious hotel in the seventies. The bathroom had both a shower and a tub, as well as a bidet and regular toilet. The room had an old boxy T.V. with about a 12 inch screen. We had a balcony with a gorgeous view since the hotel is tucked into the side of a mountain. We tried very hard to open our balcony sliding door, but it wouldn't budge. A couple on the tour with us, said they couldn't get the door to shut. There was a two-inch gap when they attempted to close the door. The most interesting thing about this particular hotel was spacious lobby downstairs and the very large open space on our floor. There were no real hallways. Instead when you got off the elevator, you stepped into a very large room with a raised area in the center of the room surrounded by columns. Around the edges of the room were the doors to the guest rooms. It was almost like you could have some type of gathering in the center area like a party or a meeting. The open space was void of chairs or lecterns and the lighting was poor, so I'm not sure what the purpose of the design was and I was too tired to remember to ask at the front desk.

Dinner was at 8:00 p.m. They served us rigatoni al dente with marinara sauce (similar to what we had for dinner the night before) as the first course. Second course was slices of sour dough bread, meatballs, roasted potatoes, and salad. And dessert was a sponge cake with chocolate filling and frosting. On the table for the adults was a complimentary bottle of wine, and two large bottles of one of which was carbonated. Carbonated water is a common drink in Italy we discovered. The day before our bus driver had bottles of water for sale. When someone asked to purchase a bottle he asked "with gas or naturale?" When she replied natural, he looked at our tour director, David and said "Ay! Americanos!" David then explained that in Europe the people are surprised that Americans don't like carbonated water, since we drink so much soda. The Europeans really like carbonated water and think we are crazy.

After dinner, we sat around and chatted with the other adults from our group. There were two couples from Alabama who were chaperoning 4 teen girls, and another couple and a student teacher who were chaperoning 34 students from Wisconsin. We got to hear stories from one of the Alabama couples on how the husband had been a groomsmen in the first wedding of the wife. At the time, they really didn't know each other. And then years later, after her divorce, they went on a blind date and she didn't like him at all. It was a cute story and we all laughed a lot. The Wisconsin couple shared about their different experiences adopting two girls from China, and both Janice and I talked about our own stories of being adopted and being the grandma of adopted babies. It was very nice and relaxing getting to know everyone, but eventually the hotel staff kicked us out of the dining area.

Internet at this hotel was only available in the lobby. So the lobby was filled with teens from our group and two other groups trying to access the Wi Fi on their phones making it very sluggish and basically non-existent. After a while I gave up, and headed to bed we had an early wake up call and were going to spend the next day in Rome.