First day in Rome

Hello family!!! As we speak Adam and I are feeling well rested in BED!!! Yes, you heard right... we didn't make it all day. We were both exausted and at 2:30pm came to the room and took showers and crashed. We slept until 11:30pm and are awake to download/upload pictures and blog about our first day. We are pretty certain we won't have a problem going back to sleep for a few hours :)
So, here is a recap of Day 1. After going through customs (which was a breeze and had no line) we waited for about an hour for our bags... for some reason they don't have their baggage claim opporation down like we do :) After gathering both bags... YEA they BOTH got here... we went to the train station to get to ROME!! While purchasing a 28 Euro train ticket the man at the counter said he could have a shuttle take us to our hotel door for 30 Euro and we said... YES! When our travel agent tried to hire a car for us it was going to be $90... We were tired and didn't want to watch our bags like a hawk on the train that is known for pickpockets and bag stealers... so we took the shuttle with another family straight to our hotel. Our room wasn't ready so they told us to go walk around for awhile and it would be ready at 2pm.
Boy did we walk around... they gave us a map and told us where to go. We hit all the major spots within a few meters of our hotel including the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and Pantheon. The Spanish Steps were beautiful and covered in azaleas. There were so many people around... we were able to get some good pictures but none of the two of us :( We will work on that in the days to come. Trevi Fountain was amazing!!! Again so many people it was crazy. There are tons of priests giving tours to groups of people... it reminds me of Cousin Father John taking Grandma and Granddad to Rome a few years ago :) The Pantheon was beautiful, Adam and I really want to do some reading to find out the history of these places so they mean more when we visit them.
After doing the sight seeing we decided to get our first Italian meal!! We went to a little Cafe called Carlo's Pizza and shared a salad, pizza and small bottle of wine :) MMMMM..... it was the best pizza either of us had ever had. See pictures...
We ventured back to our hotel and got settled. Our hotel is really nice and quaint... Robes and slippers waiting for us ;) And Adams favorite the bidet!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!!
Adam said that tomorrow he wants to venture off the beaten path and fully embrace the Roman culture... hahahaha... we will see about that!!! We are planning on venturing out and seeing more tomorrow. We discussed doing the Romantic Night Tour from our Rick Steve's book tomorrow evening... pictures to come :)
By the way to see our pictures there is a link to the right that says "view our picassa albums" that is where we will be uploading.
Ciao!!

We Made it!!!

Well hello family!! As I type this, we are in our last hour of the flight and see land below!! Beautiful mountains.. We are over Nice, France!!
Been pretty uneventful so far. One thing is for sure... American Airlines flight attendants are busy on international flights!! We are NOT hungry or thirsty!!! No snacks were needed although we brought enough to last the two weeks we are here haha. Oops maybe "snack rabbit" as Adam calls me went a bit overboard...
I did well with sleep as always... Adam on the other hand couldn't get comfy and is running on a quarter tank. We are going to have to push through the first day and enjoy Rome on our adrenaline. Adam already asked what time we can check into the hotel but we have been told not to take a nap the first day... so we will go till we can't go anymore. Small blessing is that our afternoon tour of the coliseum was cancelled due to rain so we can just relax and explore. Monday on the other hand is going to be CRAZY with a Vatican tour in the am and coliseum tour in the pm. We will be able to relax in Venice on Tuesday :)

Special shout out to my Big Sister who turns 32 today :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZ!!!! Love you so much !! Hope you got our card :)

We are posting this from the hotel and are now about to roam the streets of ROME!!!!!! :)

The Beginning of our Blog...

Hello family and friends! Adam and I have decided to start a blog to document our lives as the Texas Terpstra's! Since we have so many friends and family members scattered throughout the United States we thought this would be a good way to keep everyone up to date with our lives.

First on the list is our upcoming travel. As some of you know we have been saving for our dream vacation to Europe. The time has finally come and we leave for our two week excursion to Italy and Spain in a few short weeks. Our itinerary includes Rome, Venice, Cinque Tera, Barcelona, Madrid and Sevilla. We can't wait to share this trip with each other as we travel Europe. I am especially excited to show Adam around Sevilla where I studied for  a semester in college.

We have added a link to the right of the blog posts that will connect you to our photo albums which we will also update while we are away.

We love you all and hope you enjoy our updates.
Sarah and Adam