{"id":1701,"date":"2023-11-14T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/?p=1701"},"modified":"2024-12-09T23:55:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T23:55:45","slug":"11-14-when-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/14\/11-14-when-in-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"When in Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activity level: \ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modes of transportation: \ud83d\ude97\ud83d\udc5f\ud83d\ude8c \ud83d\udeeb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We woke up at 5:30 to pack and head to the airport. We ended up catching the hotel shuttle, which was probably slower than walking (but we weren\u2019t in a rush).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s kind of strange, but it seems that you go through security before the check-in counters. The dumb thing is that they need your boarding pass\u2026 which we couldn\u2019t get since we needed the check-in counters. They ended up letting us through with the ticket receipt, but they hassled us pretty hard about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Felt pretty cool walking through this fancy tunnel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Immigration was easy, though we ended up having to go through security a second time. After everything, we made it to the lounge for about 15 minutes before heading to our gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ready to board our flight to Europe!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the flight, we had some simple breakfast and slept most of the flight. It was fairly uneventful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we got in, we started to go through immigration and this lady asked us where to go. She had a strong Spanish accent, so we told her to head to the \u201call passports\u201d section while we had to go through the other line. She said \u201cno I\u2019m American like you!\u201d so she followed us to the automated gate. She also had no experience going through immigration, which we were sort of confused by since she said she\u2019d travelled before. Long story short, she told us she had dementia and needed help getting to her sister at arrivals, so we helped her get her bag, through customs, and to her sister. They were very appreciative!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Raquelita found us and led the way! At this point our bags are really packed, and Eric still had the strength to carry Sarah’s mini bag.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were greeted by Raquelita, our (!) Aunt Nancy\u2019s assistant saying our names (Since they expected Aunt Nancy, Eric felt sort of like when you\u2019re a kid and someone says your mom told them to pick you up, and you have to avoid getting into their car\u2014but that feeling passed quickly). We quickly found her car, loaded our bags, and were off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We passed by the walls of the Vatican!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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When in Rome! And we are definitely in Rome based on this scenery!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was great seeing Aunt Nancy! She gave us a great driving tour of Rome, which was, fortunately for us, perfect weather (which was lucky because it was supposed to be raining). She wanted to make sure we (especially Sarah) had our first cappuccino in Italy, so we stopped by a \u201cbar\u201d and got some light snacks and cappuccinos. Everything we tried was amazing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The famous Aunt Nancy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cappuccino!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Could you imagine a more Italian caf\u00e8?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
(Read in Italian accent) “Sarah’s first CAPPUCCINO!” Aunt Nancy exclaimed. We couldn’t have had a warmer welcome from family and it was much appreciated after 49 days of travel!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We eventually got to our (!) cousin Sean\u2019s apartment and dropped our stuff off before heading out to walk around, eat lunch, and see Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mozzarella di bufala was to die for<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was our first meal in Italy, so we went all out. We got prosciutto and mozzarella, some house white wine, olive ascolane, and our entrees (margherita pizza for Eric and gnocchi for Sarah). The food was all amazing (but we needed to walk it off for sure).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We walked passed the American ambassador’s house after lunch (who we meet later on the trip!). We had a new appreciation seeing the American flag for the first time after all of our travel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sean really loves to walk, so we ended up walking quite a bit. We walked through the Villa Borghese over to the Piazza del Popolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We had a lovely golden-hour walk through the Villa Borghese with Sean and Fillipo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An obelisk – reminded us both of home (Washington, DC) and Egypt (where we were a few hours ago). Our host in Egypt, Ashraf, told us about many obelisks that were gifted from Ancient Egypt to Ancient Rome. This is the Flaminian Obelisk built in Heliopolis in around 1300 BC and gifted and moved to Rome around 10 BC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Throw back to our proposal October 14th 2022 in DC.
We sure love Obelisks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There was a lot of shopping around Piazza del Popolo, but we decided to save that for another day (tomorrow).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From there, we walked to the Spanish Steps and got some gelato. Then, it was onto the Trevi Fountain, where we got some photos when it wasn\u2019t too busy (and Sarah threw a coin and made a wish).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sarah’s first **real** Italian Gelato<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fun fact: Sean went to middle school at the top of the Spanish Steps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The architecture inside the architecture was beautiful too!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sean let Sarah borrow a coin so she could have her “Lizzy McGuire moment”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Trevi Fountain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We kept walking from there over to the Roman Forum and the Coliseum, which was beautiful at night. It felt as if we were transported back in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We kept walking all the way back to Sean\u2019s place, where we crashed. We felt like we had seen all of Rome. Total, we walked about 28000 steps (11 miles), so we were pretty tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We started the day in Cairo and ended with 28k steps in Rome! (Spoiler for the rest of the week, we slowed down a bit)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah and Eric do as the Romans do\u2014eat lots of great food and walk it off<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-egypt","category-italy","tag-rome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3752,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions\/3752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}