First day in Rome! Saturday, 2/20/1999

We went through customs easily and converted $100 to 165,200 lira at the airport.  The hotel sent a driver, Mario, to pick us up.  He spoke a few words of English and pointed out some of the old Roman walls we passed on the way to the hotel.  At the hotel we had to take several trips to get our luggage upstairs, because the elevator was very, very tiny.  Randy just barely had enough room to stand in it!

But we got everything up to our room, which was decorated in startling colors of red and blue.  

We quickly unpacked and went outside to see Rome.  The hotel was a few blocks from a train station, several pizzerias and an exchange office (cambio).  Randy exchanged another $200 for 342,000 lira at a rate of 1,710 lira per dollar.  We started exploring Rome by going across the street to get bottled water and a tomato pizza.  It was very good pizza; their tomatoes aren’t as acid as ours.  We stopped at another pizzeria for coffee and steamed milk (latte), and at a newsstand for some post cards.  We went to the train station to check it out but didn't find it very interesting, so we headed into the city, where we found a great museum.  It's called Palazzo Massimo aloe Terme, and it's one of several buildings that make up the Roman National Museum.  It had rooms full of beautiful old Roman mosaics, and other rooms full of ancient statues. 

I loved this Discus Thrower, but I was so tired I didn't even get a good picture! 

And I thought this an interesting bust of Claudia Octavia. I wonder how odd our hairstyles will look to future generations?

We also found a department store called UPIN, where Randy bought a meat pounder for our kitchen back home.  For dinner we went to a pizzeria close to the train station and ate inside, although it was somewhat smokey, plus a couple of women sitting next to us looked very stoned.  Randy had lasagna and I had 2 fried rice and cheese balls, which was not what I was expecting.  We tried to do more sightseeing but by this time we were really worn out, so we went back to the hotel and were in bed before 6 pm.