And the adventure begins!

I always knew that "adventures" follow me where ever I go...so I really shouldn't have expected anything more when I decided to have a Mediterranean vacation!

So here it goes...

Those who know me know that I have a fear when I fly.... I worry about my luggage. Whenever I fly, I pray really hard the night before that my bags will follow me on each plane that I get on. We always have a happy reunion and I feel a sense of relief when I see it pop out of the baggage return.

However, for some reason, this time I was more afraid of crashing and blowing up over the ocean. That seemed more important than my bags. So my prayers were more for the safety of the plane, pilot. etc... I don't believe that I even mentioned my bags in my prayers. That was something I will never do again! :) (Even though I am thankful that we didn't blow up!)

(This is a picture in Chicago before we got into the plane headed for Rome. I doubt I would have been smiling had I known what was to come! I think I would have ran out there and made sure my bag was on the flight before we took off! :) )

When we flew into Rome (and the overhead compartments were popping open as we were starting the final decent. That was fun. I was waiting for any moment that someone's carry-on would be banging into my head.) we found my friend who flew in from Utah by herself (which was a miracle in itself) and all headed toward baggage claim. One word will describe what we saw... Chaos.

Never had I ever seen anything like what was before my eyes. I am surprised anyone received the right bags. My Utah friend got her bag almost instantly. After searching for what seemed like an eternity we finally found the correct baggage carousal. We were so happy to be there and were quite enjoying ourselves (and with our sleep deprived- jet lagged- sense of humor... we thought we were hilarious) That was until the movement stopped on the carousal and our bags never "popped" out. My first thought was "umm...wait. There are 3 things missing." All 3 of us and all our cute new things that we so carefully packed for this vacation were lost somewhere in the world. My heart sunk and I realized that our Mediterranean adventure was going to be just that.

I won't bore you with details because we really tried to focus on the positive, but I have dedicated myself to send out a message to the world and that is to never ever fly Alitalia. Their customer service really should be re-named "oh we lost your bags? Well sign this paper that is in Italian and I will get annoyed when you ask what it says because I have to help the next person in line and then I am going to lunch- oh by the way we have no idea where your bags are. They are probably here but we're really too lazy to go figure it out. Oh and you're going on a Cruise? well we'll just catch up with you at your ports". It was fun. I was sure I would never see my bag again. Okay- soap box done. On with the show!

Once we left the airport we just tried to put it out of our minds (even though it was a weight on our shoulders the whole time ) and enjoy the fact that we were in Rome and were seeing some of the most amazing sites in ancient history!

So what do you do when you are trying not to be swallowed up in self pity??

Go to a place where millions of people fought each other and animals to the death! (That kind of puts losing your bags into perspective!)

We hoped we were in the right bus to the Colosseum and just as we began doubting it-WHAM! There it was. Its sure is something that you don't miss!

It was amazing and surreal. I couldn't believe where I was standing. We would look up to where the people would have been sitting and tried to imagine what it would have been like. Thankfully- there were no Gladiators charging us and no starved animals running at us. My problems seemed very minimal at that moment.

Here we are being major tourists... these were door where the animals would be let out to go kill the Gladiators. Therefore we decided to act it out. Can't you see it? The animal charging the people running. I know- we are great actors! :)

Here is a fun fact... or more of an interesting one that you all probably knew, but took me going all the way to Rome to find out... The Colosseum used to be all in marble! Crazy! It is impressive now- I can ONLY imagine how it look in its day! There are only a few spots of marble left there.

PS see those tan flip flops I'm wearing ... yep- those are what I wore for 8 days straight. Up and down every hill and I'll tell you what- my feet were feeling AWESOME! Target $5. Best things I've bought in a long time!

So here we are...even though we felt sweaty and gross in the same clothes that we had been wearing for the past 24 hrs... we were grateful to be alive and grateful to be in Rome... and these perty flowers were a nice reminder of that!

We loved the Colosseum- Those Romans- I tell ya- they knew a thing or 2 about architecture... and this was only our first stop!

So completely off topic...my computer is acting like a 2 yr old and throwing tantrums... therefore, this is all I can do tonight... Stay tuned for more super exciting stories and pics... same bat time. same bat channel! :)