Day 14 - Travel Day....the Longest Day of Our Lives!

Got up at 6am and made it to the airport with time to spare - even after dropping off the car. So...that little Fiat 500 would go about 150km before the gas gauge would move off of full. We had gassed up about 100km outside of Rome and the gauge still showed full as we left the hotel. The gauge still showed full when we pulled into the car rental drop off. And....the gauge no longer showed full once the car had been emptied out. Damnit!! We had to pay for another full tank of gas as I didn't have time to go out and find a gas station. Oh well.

Our flight left at 10AM Rome time and was scheduled to arrive at 2:30PM LA time. We followed the sun across the sky for 12.5 hours in a tube filled with all our fellow sardines. Wow, what a grind!  Nasty, nasty food on Alitalia, as well. If anyone reads this and flies Alitalia, I would recommend packing some munchies because the only thing edible during that 12 hours was some saltine crackers and apple slices. At one point, we were served these pale pink meat slices with little green specks in them with a "cheese" (I think it was cheese...it had the consistency of creamy feta cheese....maybe not....I don't know) spread that had canned peas in it as well as crunchy potato-looking things that could have been any white/gray kind of vegetable. I don't know. I don't even think my dogs would've eaten it. We also got served cooked vegetables that included a slice of some vegetable that was bright orange and looked like a cooked carrot but was the size of a huge potato slice. Sandra thought it might have been sweet potato but tasted it and couldn't be sure. I think there was a slice of eggplant in there, as well. UGH!!!!

The doggies and our bird were so happy to see us! Big kisses and tummy rubs all around! We cracked a cold beer, unloaded our suitcases, had some food and could no longer keep our eyes open by 7PM! Jetlag from east to west sucks!!!

And that, my friends, is our Italy adventure. Stay tuned for an Epilogue.