Roma, Day 1

No picture this time.
Happy Happy Joy Joy. It is 8AM at Viale Giulio Cesare 94. I am awake and refreshed. Yesterday was so grueling that I may forget much of what went on. My last post was from Frankfurt [I think]. Swiss Air was a charm. Our flight to Zurich was 45 minutes and we had the best airline meal yet. It was only a snack, really but the choice was a sandwich of roast beef or cheese. Both were excellent, especially washed down with some champagne. Our flight to Roma, 1.5 hours later was equally pleasant. Save for one other passenger we had the entire first class cabin to ourselves [maybe 30 seats?] and we had two delightful attendants for our cabin. The back of the plane was packed; there wasn’t an empty seat. As we were leaving the plane one of the attendants brought Jim a bottle of local [Swiss] red wine with which to remember our flight. Our luggage [I’d forgotten how much there was] arrived, our driver was there and we headed for passport control… there was no one there! We walked right out the door with no inspection at all. We didn’t even need to show our “papers.” Already, I love Roma. Our driver was a short swarthy fireplug with “let’s get this show on the road” attitude. He handled our bags like they were filled with cotton candy; we piled into his nice new Opel mini-van and we were off. Veloce, preciso e perfecto. We tore through the city streets stopping once or twice at intersections or lights. Does anyone here follow traffic laws? It was great. We arrived at our hotel around midnight. There were more steps than were described in the ads. The hotel is nice; the staff is nice; so far there are no complaints. I now wait for my companions to stir. It will be a lazy day of exploring our temporary home and neighborhood. Ciao.