When In Rome

Let’s see – last place we left off I believe I was getting on yet another plane. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE that I’ve been given the opportunity to be able to work and travel to some pretty great places; however, by this point in my “January Journeys” I have been away from my husband for two and half weeks (including missing our first anniversary). Needless to say, I was a little anxious to get home to him as well as my pup. But I put that aside and geared up for another exciting program in Rome.

If you didn’t know, Italy is hands down my favorite place in the world. I just love everything about it. The history, the food, the wine, the people, the accents, everything. Granted our hotel was about 15 minutes outside of the city, I’ll take what I can get.

I arrived just after noon and went searching for Ginger and Hilde who had arrived the day before. The look on their faces when I walked in the office told me that this wasn’t going to go as smoothly as the Barcelona program (but who am I kidding, I don’t know that any ever will). Apparently they had been working non-stop since the minute they arrived putting out fires and just trying to get caught up. Flights were a mess, the rooms that had been booked for attendees were all wrong, we were missing supplies, you name it. But we bunkered down and worked as hard as we could and by the time dinner rolled around, things were looking a little better.

Now for the fun stuff – at the recommendation of the concierge the three of us took a taxi into the city in search of a tiny restaurant near the Pantheon. The main dining room only had about eight or nine tables total but the atmosphere was great. We each ordered an appetizer which were all fantastic but my favorite was the scrambled eggs with truffles (strange, I know). I’m talking WOW! But when my steak arrived…..let’s just say those Italians would give Bob’s Chophouse a run for their money. Mmmmm mmmm mmm!

After dinner, the three of us went on a little walk. I couldn’t stand being that close to the Pantheon and not seeing it. We came around a corner and there it was, standing right in front of us….it brought back so many good memories. Seems like just yesterday I was standing in that same spot with my family and Giancarlo, eating gelato, taking pictures, and trying to be the first one to figure out the Roman Numerals on the top of the Pantheon.

Since it was almost midnight by the time the three of us got there, we were unable to go inside. We walked around for just a bit then made our way back to the hotel. As funny as it is, it’s dinners like that that make the difficult programs all worth it.

View on the taxi ride back to the hotel

The program should have been a walk in the park as it was technically a one day meeting with a welcome reception and dinner the night before. But several weeks of pretending like I was doing a good job at handling the stress of Brad being in Iraq finally caught up to me and before I knew it, I had my first (and hopefully last) ulcer. So I wasn’t feeling well, the majority of the attendees were high maintenance and obnoxious, and we were all fed up with the whole thing. I was counting down the hours until I got to go home.

The good news was that the meeting broke early and the majority of the attendees left that same evening giving us the opportunity to have one more dinner in the city. Unfortunately, we couldn’t all the leave the hotel (just in case something happened) so Ginger and I waited and enjoyed a late dinner.

With our map in hand, we were dropped off in the Piazza Novona and made our way over to a trendy little place called Naboo. (Not Nobu, the sushi place.) We split a couple of pizzas and bottle of wine and discussed how great married life is. Sappy, I know but we’re both still newlyweds so we get to do that kind of stuff.

On our walk to the restaurant

I saw several groups off the following morning before departing to the airport myself. It was a short flight but not fast enough. I was dying to get back to Brad and Stella. I stepped through the doors of the baggage claim hoping to see my favorite bald head…but I didn’t see him, not right away at least. And what was funny was he didn’t see me either. In fact, he probably would have missed me all together if he hadn’t noticed some brunette chick carrying our luggage….oh wait, that was me. I dropped my bag and finally got that hug and kiss I’d been waiting three weeks for.