November 9 & 10

November 9, 2005 11:00am Germany time
Well I made it through my first two flights and I have 30 min. until I am officially in Rome. So far our trip has been…well…long. Our first flight to Chicago was 2 and a half hours. Our second flight was a whopping 9 hours. On that flight I sat by a really nice lady from Chicago who has lived in Hong Kong for the last 9 years and now her husband, her and her 2 year old live in Germany and they are both lawyers. We got to talking and she told me that they are looking for a nanny…and she gave me her card. Can you imagine me in Germany? That would rock! Also on that flight we had a choice of 8 movies and we all had our own personal T. V.’s. It was great! I watched my new favorite movie Willy Wonka. (That would be a great Christmas gift for me by the way *wink*wink*) I didn’t get that much sleep. Mom gave me sleeping pills and I took two halfs and all it did was give me a headache. We had little maps that we could watch our progress in the air as we went and I know I fell asleep halfway over the ocean and I woke up again when we were flying over Ireland. Which was about two hours…and that is it. I am really tired right now but I decided to get ready and get caught up in writing before I was blinded by wonderful Rome and forget everything that I have done so far. When we got to the airport in Germany I was looking at the gift shop and I decided that in every stop that I go to along the way I am going to buy two things. A charm for a bracelet of travels I am starting and a postcard. I am excited. The little towns from the airplane are so cute!! We have started our decent!! Talk to you soon!!

2:45pm Rome time
We made it to the Villa Rosa Hotel after driving through the crazy streets of Rome. People really drive differently here. The way they drive reminds me of how Dan drove when he first got back from his mission. They don’t even bother to put lines on the road because people just drive where they want to. The best is watching the people on mopeds. They weave in and out of the cars like they are just obstacles in a race. It is scary to watch but kind of fun. I know that I couldn’t EVER drive here. I would crash after the first five minutes. I will try to get a video of it for all of you. (of the cars not of me crashing) our hotel is very Podunk. And it is in the middle of nowhere. I feel bad because we are not even near any of the sites. It cost us 60 euro to get to our hotel and our diver even got lost. It was interesting driving past all of the graffiti on all the buildings leading to our hotel. Bad hotel choice on me. I will do better next time. Right now we are sitting in our hotel getting naps. We are exhausted but I just want to go and explore Rome. Oh and the exchange rate is crazy here! I exchanged $200 at the airport and got 148.11 euro back. They took out the 1.25 for the exchange and then an extra 6.5% for commission. LAME! Oh well…what do you expect? I think I am going to go to sleep now for a little while and dream about the hot Italians I am seeing everywhere. I will write later if we do anything cool.

10:30pm Rome time
This hotel is starting to grow on me. The man at the front desk was very helpful and gave us a ton of information about where to go tomorrow and how to get to the ship. We are not going to the Vatican while we are here because it is so far out of the way. Instead we are going to the Collesseum, Trevi Fountain, and some other great places along the way. It will be a great day. I have come to grips with the fact that I am not going to the Vatican and it will be fine. It just means that I have to come back here. After our dinner of fresh fruit, fabulous spegetti, salad, French fries and pork we went and walked our little street. It is so fun to just look around at everything. Sally, Micheal and I went and got some ice cream at a little shop. We found some Vienntta like what I had almost everyday in England. Us three ate the WHOLE thing. It was great! I don’t know why I love ice cream so much but I do. It is so great being here with the people I am with. We are constantly laughing. I know by the end of the trip will have a laughing attack. I am just doomed for it. It has already almost happened about ten times already. I am going to sleep now cuz I took a sleeping pill so that I will for sure get some sleep tonight. Next time I write I will be on the glorious Grand Princess. Until then TA-TA!!

November 10th, 2005 9:10pm
I MADE IT TO THE SHIP!! Today was one of the best days of my life! We woke up and went down to the best continental breakfast I have ever had. In our hotel restaurant we had ham and swiss cheese, warm wheat croissants with a yummy honey in the middle, warm rolls with butter and peach jam and carrot juice. It was SO good. We then went to the trolley and started into town. We first saw some ruins right when we got off of the trolley. Then we walked down the street to the tomb of the unknown solider. It was spectacular! It had fountains and fire and statues. I got TONS of pictures. From the tomb we could see the colloseum. We decided that we were going to see that last. So we began walking up the street to Trevi Fountain. On the way we stopped in tons of shops. They were great. I found so many things that I wanted to buy. But I didn’t. I did buy my second charm though. It is a miniature colloseum. After our long walk and many stops in shops we made it to Trevi Fountain. It was beautiful and everything that I ever thought it would be. I got some great pictures. I even got a video tape of me throwing me my coins into the water. We continued on our adventure up through the alleyways and arrived in front of the Spanish Steps. From there we retraced our steps to the colloseum. When we arrived we were so tired and sick of spending money that we didn’t go inside for the tour. We walked around it, peeking through the archways to try and see inside. When we were finished, we had to hurry to the hotel so we could make our train to Civitiveccia. I was kind of sad because I didn’t get to see the mouth of truth. When we arrived at our hotel they kept on sending taxi’s that were too small for all of us to fit. We had to take two taxi’s to the station. On the way I was taking a ton of pictures then all of a sudden my driver told me in Italian that we were coming up to the mouth of truth and I freaked out. I was SO excited. Not only did he drive past it but he let me get out and take pictures of it. We didn’t find out until later that he was charging us while I was having my fun. At the Termani station we waited and waited for the second cab to arrive and after 45 minutes of waiting we just got on the train without them. Whil we were waiting though we saw some missionaries and I chased them down and asked them if they knew Elder Kotter. They did and they told me that he is down in Naples. I then got a picture of me with them to show him when I see him in February. The train ride was really long. It was an hour and 13 min. we made some friends on the way and shared a taxi to the ship. When we arrived the other half of our group was there but they had only just gotten there. They were on the train before us and when they got there they walked to the port with all their bags. They were crazy and so tired. We checked in and boarded onto our beautiful floating hotel. It is INCREDIBLE! We went strait to dinner. We had not eaten since breakfast. We went to the 24 buffet. It was really good. Heather and I then went to the top of the ship for when the ship first departed the port. We went swimming at the outside pool next to the big screen tv and watched a Tina Turner concert while we swam. It was heavenly. I took a stroll around the ship and it is huge! We are now relaxing and writing all of our e-mails in advance because it costs $10.50 for a half an hour to use wireless internet on the ship. A half an hour! Crazy!! I also just found out that for tomorrow, going to Florence, it would cost 350 Euro for a taxi for 6 people. My friends will not be wanting to go to Florence at that price. I might find some old couples and talk them into letting me go with them. If not I miss Florence. Sad huh? Well, at least I got to see Rome. I am going to enjoy my time here anyways. I will be continuing to write during my days here but I will only be able to put them up about every two days to save on the internet fee. Love you all and I will talk to you next when I am on my way to Lisbon!