Arrivederci Roma...

Well, today was our last day in Rome.  It was a slow start to the day for most of us.  Ang got up early (I know, shock horror hehehe) and headed down to breakfast.  She and Trace were doing the Vatican tour again as I mentioned in yesterday’s post.  The Taggs and I had organised to meet for breakfast at 8am, so Meriana and I make our way downstairs for breakfast and find Ian and Jazz waiting.  Was only the dad’s and the kids this morning, Devika was having a wee lie in (green with envy at this stage hehehe).

So off we went for breakfast, after which we decided to take the kids for a walk.  We walked for a good hour around the streets of San Pietro and stumbled across a market.  Fresh fruit and veges, meats stalls, cheese stalls and clothes and shoes.  Bought Meriana a pair of Italian made shoes and then headed back to the hotel.

It was about 9:40 by the time we got back to the hotel so I spent the next hour or so packing our luggage.  After the luggage was all packed, Meriana and I went for another walk around the neighbourhood.  My goal of course was to find an I LOVE ROMA sticker.  I searched all the shops in the area, but to no avail.  So a bought a couple of other stickers instead.

We got back to the hotel where Devika and Jazz were at reception checking out and Ian was at our room waiting for us.  I took the luggage cart upstairs and loaded it up to check out.  Just as we got the cart out into the hallway, Ang arrived back at the hotel, so we got ourselves sorted, checked out and, yip, you guessed it, it was time for lunch hehehe.

We made our way to the hop on, hop off bus and stopped off at one of the little pizza/ pasta places on the way.  After lunch we made our way to St Peter’s Square where we caught our bus.  We had decided to stay on the bus until it got back to our starting point.  It was such a relaxing ride and we got to see a lot of the city that way.  Once we made it back to our starting point we decided to get off at the Spanish Steps.

We got to the Spanish Steps and OMG there were a million people there, I’m sure of it.  The funny thing was it didn’t look that impressive and none of us knew why it was a special feature.  The only thing was, we were among a film crew who was shooting a movie.

So we took a couple of photos and from here we said goodbye to Trace as she had another 5 days left in Rome.  We then SQUASHED into a SMALL taxi (or was it only small because we ate so much over the last week?) and made our way back to the hotel to wait for our taxi to the airport. 

We got back to our hotel at 5:15 and the taxi was due at 6pm.  The kids had a little run around and were playing games with one another in the lobby, Ian was doing his assignment and the rest of us were just veging on the couches.

The taxi arrived and took us to the airport.  We weren’t expecting the trip to the airport to be so short, because our flight wasn’t due to leave until 11:40 (according to our e-ticket).  So of course we’re at the airport at 6:30, what else do we do?  Well go and have something to eat of course hehehe, the golden arches it was.  The thing I’ve noticed about the airports in both parts of Europe we’ve been in is that while you’re eating you are on watching the planes departing, seems quite close too.

It was about 7:30ish by the time we finished eating so we thought we’d find the Qatar airways check in counter to see what time we were able to check in.  Lucky we went early, because it turned out, that the time on our e-ticket had us leaving an hour later than the actual departure time.  So we checked our luggage in  and made our way through customs and onto the other side.  We had enough time for a drink and the kids had a little play (and I mean little, because the play area was over taken by big kids.  We made our way to the departure gate (which we had to catch a train to) and had about a 20 min wait.  Boarded the plane and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

When we left Dubai, we left in a light shower, we had great weather throughout the 8 days we were away and when we left Rome for our journey back to the UAE, we left in a light shower.  What a great way to start and end our holidays.

It has been awesome to share this experience with Ian, Devika, Jazzmyn, Geeta and Tracey.  We’ve had some fantastic, memorable moments which we will never forget. 

Like all good things they must come to an end and so ends our journey of a thousand miles.

We’ve just arrived home, a load of washing is in the machine, Meriana is having a bath, Ang is on Skype back to NZ and I am posting the post which was due last night.

This may have inspired me to keep up a blog of our time here in the UAE.

Our next trip is with the Taggs and the Rouvis which will be to Hong Kong before heading back to the land of the long white cloud.

This post has been kept photoless as we've only took photos of the bus trip, which are also included in the Day 7 album.

There may be a highlights and filling in the gaps post after this one, Insha Allah, but for now its Asalam wa alykum from the Middle East, I hope you’ve enjoyed taking the journey with us, it’s been a pleasure sharing these special moments with you all.