Italia 2015: Arrival Day

My adventure to Italy started off with a spectacular flourish. I left on time from DFW Airport and arrived ahead of schedule on May 26, 2015 at the beautiful city of Milan. I tasted Indian Cuisine for the first time during the flight, an interesting experience:

Then we changed our dollars to euros (I would NOT recommend changing money in an airport for anyone who is considering traveling to Europe) and continued in our quest to find the train station with a grande total of 3 hours sleep between us. We made it successfully to Milano Centrale (by God's grace) and were greeted by a scene straight out of Harry Potter. I found myself looking around for platform 9 3/4:

The trains in Italy are fantastic! Very comfortable and quiet. We had a hard time not falling asleep, but stayed (semi) awake with a valiant effort. On the train we met Gespare, a very kind, intelligent Italian man who looked at our map of Rome with us and explained how to get around the city. He also mentioned some must see tourist locations and his favorite place to get Tiramisu (which I specifically asked for). He told us of some affordable, authentic Italian restaurants and the best places to get Gelato. After a long (but extremely fun and comfortable) train ride we arrived at the Roma Termini station in Rome. The station is huge (by this time I was regretting my thinking I NEEDED a hair dryer, two razors, a straightener, shampoo and all my denim products - seriously, who needs all that?) and we lugged our luggage all over creation looking for bus tickets which are NOT sold in the metro station. After much aimless wandering we found the bus ticket booth (right outside the doors to the station!!) and were on our way to our hostess' house. Adele, our hostess, is just about the sweetest person alive! She welcomed us with open arms (literally, she hugged us!) and gave us a tour of her house and some water (Natalie and I were super thankful for the water even though it was fizzy - travel tip #1: never travel without a water bottle, it's definitely worth the space in your bag/a few dollars). We rested for awhile then went across the street to a pizzeria that Adele recommended:

The food in Italy is SOOOO good! Very fresh ingredients. The pizza has very few toppings which make for simplistic, but STRONG flavors!

Today - May 27th - we went to the Colosseum. It was a very satisfying historical experience:

 Then we went and ate (pizza again, but it was very good!) On our way to the Roman Forum we got caught in the rain...without an umbrella!

We caught a train home (thoroughly cold and drenched) and now we are chilling (pardon the pun) until tomorrow! Thank you for your prayers for our trip. I will continue to update the blog with our adventures and provide traveling tips for those who with to see Italy someday in the future.