Day 1

We landed in Rome at 7:30 a.m. local time, 2:30 a.m. Eastern.  We slept a little on the plane and hoped to get in a full day of Rome.

However, by the time we got our luggage, got to the train station, bought tickets, waited for the train, rode the train, found the Metro, bought tickets for the Metro, bought a map, found out which bus would take us to our hotel, rode the Metro, found the bus stop, realized our bus wasn't running, found a bus that took us close, rode the bus, got off at the wrong stop, asked two women who "non parlo inglese" for directions, broke the wheels on our luggage and just dragged them on the ground, left Jeff standing on the corner with our broken luggage while I went off alone, found the hotel, asked them to use their shuttle to go find Jeff, gave the non-english speaking driver directions using grunts and pointing, picked up Jeff, got back to the hotel and checked in, it was already 12:30 and we were beat.

I had been warned not to go to bed until bedtime.  Sternly warned.  That it was a bad idea.  But I was so tired.  So I laid down.  Jeff joined me.

We woke at at 9:30 p.m.  Crap!  Luckily, we still had time to go grab dinner at the hotel restaurant.  Spaghetti alla carbonara.  Super good.  Then we went back to the room, made notes about the day in our journals, and, surprisingly, managed to go back to sleep.

One important note:  Neither of us has a watch.  So the only way we knew the time was by looking at our phones that were still on eastern time and adding 5 hours.  (Not a single room in all of the rooms we stayed in had a clock.)

I woke up some time later with a backache.  I couldn't see any light coming through the blinds, so I assumed it was still night and not time to get up.  I got up to use the restroom and check the time.  My phone said it was 8:35.  Which meant 1:35 local time.

I was so sad.  I felt like my body was done sleeping, and the bed was making my back hurt, and I was bored.  Jeff was awake by this point too.  Then he suggested that perhaps our phones had found a local signal and had adjusted to Roman time, which meant it was actually after 8:30 local time.

Maybe that's it!  Jeff got up and opened the blinds and daylight came pouring in.  Yay!  It's daytime!  Time to get up!

So we got up and started getting ready.  Ready to hit the town, well rested and ready to sight see!  Woo!

Then Jeff had another thought:  What if our phones DIDN'T pick up a local signal.  What if it was in fact now almost 2.  In the afternoon.

No way.  Nuh-uh.

Just then, the cleaning lady knocked on the door.  I told her we needed dieci minuti (10 minutes) and asked her the time.  She showed me her watch.  2:05.

Dang it!  That means we slept almost 9 hours, were awake for about 3 hours and then slept another 13 hours.    And that a day and a half of our 2 and half days in Rome were gone.

Well, let's stop wasting time.  Let's go see Rome.