The Benderz' Vacation Adventures: The Colesseum, the Forum and gelato, oh my!

Let the nap blogging commence! Z & Z are passed out right now (5:45 Rome time, almost noon Florida time). We are letting them sleep with hope of doing a bit more walking later on. I cannot believe that 24 hours ago we were walking into the Miami airport.

The kiddos were super excited about getting to eat on the plane, and both thought it was yummy! Soon after they fed us, they turned the lights out...like, "go to bed, now!" But seriously, sleep, at 9? But of course, 9 Florida time was 2 German time...so we are very lucky that the kids slept for a couple hours. Then they turned the lights on around 5:30 German time to serve breakfast

...which was met with far less enthusiasm (11:30pm our time). But, the crew rallied and even smiled for a pic before we got off in Düsseldorf.

Everyone zonked out on the next flight to Rome. When we got off the plane, we only had to walk 100 feet for our first taste of gelato.

That's right. We ate airport gelato. Then jumped in a cab to our hotel in Rome.

Found our super cute hotel, Royal House, which is right across the street from the Colesseum.

Zoe was checking out the old gladiator training grounds. Made me think of you Ya, and watching American Gladiators! But seriously, how cute is this place?

Zoe was just as thrilled as you'd imagine she was when we said, "alrighty, let's hit the Colesseum!" (Last note about time, 1 Rome time, which makes it 7am Florida time). The Colesseum was crazy cool.

Christmas card contender! Day 1!! Woot woot!

I'll post all our pics on shutterfly, but it was an awesome experience. Then we took a little walk to Pizzeria Boccaccia for lunch.

Thank you Rick Steves! It was insanely good. Then on for more gelato!

And they were recharged for a quick stop by the Forum. It was also crazy cool...but Zoe did mention that she saw a LOT of rocks today. We talked a little about the history of the Forum and took it all in.