We Made It To Italy!

What an experience already! The good news is that Seymour traveled like a trouper. He was in his travel crate for over 16 hours due to plane delays and never made a peep or had an accident. We had about 10 minutes to spare in Paris and I headed to the restroom, put out the pee pad, put him on the floor and said "pee". I guess he had performance anxiety and nothing happened. Anyway, he finally got back to normal once we got to the hotel.

Now for the rest of the story. All planes were full. Seymour's crate didn't fit under the seat in any plane but it was worse in the plane to Paris. No one seemed to care. I had an aisle seat but the speaker for the TV's was under the seat in front of me so I had to change to a middle seat to be able to get him part way under the seat. So, for over 8 hours my legs were cramped and constricted. I couldn't sleep so about 3 am (our time) I found an episode of Glee on their TV. I started watching it and about 10 min. into it the flight attendant came and turned it off saying "sorry". I am thinking there was a "lights out" thing going on. So I sat and tried to sleep until "lights on" came about 5:30 am.

Once we got to Rome I saw no signs for going through security or showing passports, etc. I finally asked someone and he sent me through a door that just took me outside. So, no one looked at Seymour's paperwork or my passport. Now I'm worried that when we go to leave they are going to ask how we got into the country!

I then followed the train signs, coming back to where I started 3 times and again had to ask for directions. Now, remember I'm trying to keep my spending to a minimum so I decided to take the train instead of a taxi that would have cost close to $100. After hours of walking I got to the train station and bought my ticket for 8 euros. That was the cost of both trains going one way. There were no signs showing which train I needed to take, so again I asked for help. I knew I had to get my ticket stamped before I got on the train, so I put it into the machine and it got stuck. After much time trying to stick things into the machine a man who worked there opened the machine to get to out.

Finally we were on the train and I had no map but looked at each stop. When it seemed that I had been riding a LONG time I asked someone where my stop was located and found I had missed it! I had to get off the train, go up and down stairs (I carried Seymour and my bag up and down more stairs than I thought I could ever climb) and I got to the right platform. Now my train ticket was no longer legal but I didn't care. I just wanted to find the right stop this time. Making a long story a bit shorter, People who only spoke a little English really helped me out. They directed me when to get off the train, how to find my next train and how to read the train maps. By this time it was 11 pm and dark and I still had to find my hotel when I got off the train. My trusty GPS got me there!!

Thanks to my sister, we are staying for 2 nights at a Marriott in Rome. I totally forot that in many hotels here the electric or A/C only works when you put your room key into the slot in your room. After stumbling in the dark for awhile I did remember that. It is hot here and I would gladly trade 2 of my long sleeved shirts for a fan. I have spent more time dripping sweat than anything else. I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't take pictures of "the profusely sweating woman" to show their surprised friends at home.

As to Seymour, he was a bit mad at me for awhile - wouldn't come out of his crate and when he was in it he layed with his butt to me. He has now forgiven me and we have taken a few walks around the hotel. I took him down to breakfast and fed him some meat and he is back in his crate waiting for our next walk.

Although every part of my body is yelling "no", I plan to take the train and subway into Rome to check out the sites. We do have a view of St Peter's church from my balcony, which is nice.



I am hoping to figure out how to take videos and put photos on my blog using my iPad. I just found out that there is an app you can use to upload pics into a blog since the iPad doesn't work with google to all that right now. So it looks pretty blurry but this is the view from my balcony. That is St Peters' in the middle. Also, please ignore the typos. I see them but can't figure out how to fix them. I guess I should have tried blogging on my iPad before I left home!

More tonight