Disclaimer: Since I know several friends and acquaintances are planning to visit Italy in the near future, my posts may include some information about hotels and restaurants that might not be interesting to the non-Italy-traveler. But I hope you still enjoy my postings and become inspired to visit! Because this is one country that needs to be on everyone's passport stamp bucket list.
September 14
This is it. After months of planning and countless hours of scouring TripAdvisor.com, our trip to Italy began on September 14. Since we booked our flight so far ahead, our layover in Philadelphia was shortened from 2.5 to 1.5 hours. Needless to say, we were both eyeing the departures board with pointed interest during our time at SeaTac.
We met our taxi at 6 a.m. and streamed through security easily. So easily that I had about an hour to try (unsuccessfully) to track down an open TravelEx booth and exchange currency. Remind me to write an angry letter to SeaTac, since the service's hours were posted as 6 am - 10 pm.
After arriving in Philadelphia after about 4.5 hours, we had just enough time to grab a non-airplane-food supper (really unsure why airlines can't just give us all sandwiches instead of those mutant microwave dinners), exchange currency, and start boarding for the 9-hour flight to Italy.
In front of us in the jet bridge line was the most adorable elderly couple speaking to each other in Italian. I couldn't believe our luck! They were so cute. Brendan tried to help the older man with storing his luggage, but in typical Italian stubborness, he refused and managed to secure the rather large bag by himself.
Brendan made a great move by upgrading our seats slightly so we snagged a window+aisle pair, where neither of us had to sit immediately adjacent to a stranger. So we settled in, tried to sleep as much as possible, watched Water for Elephants (me) or Thor (Brendan), and officially left the states for Italia!
Since I don't have any photos from September 14, I'm cheating and posting a sneak peak of September 15. (At the Trevi Fountain.)
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