Episode 3: Eli's Exploration Trip in Rome Edited
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Welcome to the Travel Journal, a podcast where we explore real trips, one story and one day at a time. Each episode, we dive into how a journey truly unfolds from emotions felt before it even begins to the moments of ease and joy. Once thoughtful planning takes over together, we walk through the trip day by day, uncovering what was planned, what actually happened, and the little touches that made the experience smoother.

More meaningful and unforgettable. I'm your host Lindsay, a travel agent with 4 0 7 and beyond Vacation Co. I've helped Travelers turn their vacation dreams into reality, taking care of the details so they can focus on the moments that matter the most on the show. I bring that perspective to the stories of real trips, exploring not just where people went, but how the journey felt every step of the way.

This is the travel Journal.

Hey guys, I'm incredibly excited to bring you this episode. Today's journal entry comes from Eli. He recently experienced a [00:01:00] college friend reunion in Rome. This trip was filled with exploration, education, and lots of food. Welcome to the show, Eli.

Happy to be here.

To start off this episode, can you describe your trip in one word or phrase?

Hmm. Uh, breathtaking

Very nice. Can you start us off by giving us the big picture? Where did you go and stay? And who were you traveling with?

So we from, Georgia flew to Rome, Italy. , We spent six days, , in the city of Rome. It was me and two, college friends that went, and we spent all six days between Rome and Vatican City.

what were the dates of your trip?

So we went November 10th, got to Italy on the 11th and then we flew back on the 17th of November.

Very nice. So when you were initially starting to plan what kind of trip were you hoping it would be?

None of us had ever been to Italy. We were all reminiscing sitting on the couch actually. And we were like, what if we went to Europe? It kind of just sparked from there.

We all looked at our calendars and we've got this six day window. What can we do in these six days? So we were trying to jam pack it full of culinary , [00:02:00] architecture history , I think the help of our travel agent, we were able to pack it pretty full.

At what point did you decide to work with a travel agent?

Actually, the travel agent that I use, works with me, at my day job. So we were talking and she had helped me with a Disney World trip before . And, honestly, when I thought travel agent, I thought Disney World cruises, those kind of package trips I wasn't really thinking that they could help plan a trip like this.

I was talking to her and I was like, Hey. you able to help us with this? And she was like, actually, yeah. She was able to help book excursions and help plan our itinerary day by day.

She had lived in Europe for a period of her life, so she was able to help.

That's one of the great things about working with a 4 0 7 agent is we're all connected with each other and while 4 0 7 is a travel agency that specializes in Disney, they have a vast network to be able to book these kinds of trips, with each other.

So that's definitely a great thing to point out. How did working with a travel agent impact you mentally [00:03:00] or your stress levels ?

So, like I said, the three of us had never been to Italy. For me, I had been overseas before, but for the other two, they had been South America, but never over the pond into Europe or Asia it was a new experience for the two of them.

So they were already kind of on edge because they were like, this is just a new part of the world all the unknowns that they didn't know how to navigate. So when it came to planning what we were gonna do, they're like, oh my gosh, this can be so stressful.

, How are we gonna do it all? How do we know what's good and what's not? And I was like, rest easy. , We've got this under control. And thankfully Paige was able to help us. So just knowing that . When we woke up the next morning, we had everything planned out and we knew where to be, what time we had transportation, we had some free time worked in the afternoon to breathe and enjoy walking around roam

made it a whole lot easier knowing that when we got there it wasn't stressful to navigate how are we getting to our Airbnb and then what was nearby an area that we could go that we weren't necessarily worrying about being pickpocketed , or scammed out of our money.

The one thing that I did hear about Rome was you got be mindful of pickpocket.

So her having lived and grew up for a period of time, was able to, ease us just a bit more because she lived [00:04:00] there

It definitely sounds like she really thought out, intentional itinerary for this trip while also leaving space for adventure and, things that pop up in the moment. So let's walk through each day that you had of your trip. You mentioned that you flew out of Savannah, Georgia.

Yeah. So going to Europe, most of those flights are overnight, so we left that afternoon, connected through Atlanta, had probably two hours in Atlanta. We were able to grab some dinner and relaxed for a little bit and then got on the plane and, , flew across.

And it's funny, looking back now in the moment, I felt bad about it, but I actually got upgraded to, Delta, pre select. But, but my friends did

Oh.

because it was only one seat lift. So I was like, guys, I'm not gonna turn it down. I was like, , we can rotate however you guys want. But every time I went back there to check on 'em, they were knocked out sleeping. So I was like, you know what? It's fine. Not gonna worry about it, when we got to Rome, it was around nine o'clock that morning and I was like, let's just get to our Airbnb, check in, drop our bags

Thankfully we were able to get some rest on the plane. We got there and dropped our bags and I was like, y'all, I'm [00:05:00] hungry. Let's go get something to eat. So thankfully where our Airbnb was, you looked out the window to the left there was St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel, surely there's something good right here . We, learned they like to hound you to eat at these places. If they're standing outside with their menus, those are not necessarily the best places to eat because if you're having to beg people to come in your restaurant, then , you're not , necessarily letting the food speak for itself. So we went to this place right across the street from the entrance to Vatican City. It was called, something auster. And from what I understand, Auster means cheap restaurant in Italian. That's a lie. ' cause it was not. And I was not thinking about the conversion between Euros to US dollars. And I get back and I look at my credit card statement, wow, I spent a lot more money than I thought that I did. But we got pizza. And pizza over in Italy is not like pizza in America. It's a lot drier, than what we're used to here. There's not a whole lot of sauce either they put the cheese and the meat underneath and then they pour the sauce on top versus we're used to it stacked in reverse. So that was interesting [00:06:00] to get used to, but. We ate lunch and then after that point I was ready for a nap.

' cause it was 10 o'clock at night our time. So we kinda just chilled out at the Airbnb for a little while. I was not trying to be this friend that wants to take a nap on vacation, but I was like, , unfortunately I'm gonna need just a little bit of time.

And they were right there with me. So we relaxed for a little bit and then we ended up sleeping a little bit longer than we needed to and woke up and it was dark outside we decided, let's go get , a nicer dinner tonight.

When you walk up to the door, it is elbow to elbow in this restaurant, there's no space in between tables. You're sitting at this long table with 15 people and you don't know anybody, but they're jam packing you in there. They have a table at the front where they're making handmade pasta. They've got four different stations throughout where they're making spaghetti over here and fettuccine over here.

And it the neatest, thing. , Started out a bottle of the house wine just, we're just gonna try it. They brought it out. And thing, I was surprised, they serve it in a water pitcher.

And I kind of meant like a glass, but they brought us a liter of this house wine. And I was like, well, we paid for it, we're gonna finish

and by that point we had been talking with the table [00:07:00] neighbors and we're all clinking glasses together and having a great time. Then after that, I need to just walk.

I need to walk this pasta off. We've been sitting all day. So we walked through the Vatican that night, and it was the year of the Jubilee, which we did not necessarily understand what that all entailed before we left.

We get there and it is packed elbow to elbow in the Vatican all day, every day because the holy doors were open. , That only happens every 25 years.

Oh.

Catholics from all over the world trying to get into the chapel because you can't outside of the year of the Jubilee.

Can you explain a little bit about what the year of the Jubilee is?

From some pretty surface level research. In the Vatican, the doors to the chapels, they're typically closed and access to them is limited. But every 25 years, the year of the Jubilee happens and the holy doors are open. So that means the chapels are open to everybody to enter.

So we were able, lucky enough to be able to experience that when we went, cause from what I understand, we wouldn't have been able, we would've been able to see the outside and see the Vatican Museum, but we would not have been able to enter otherwise.

That sounds cool.

So we [00:08:00] went and we walked through and of all things that we stumble across, we stumble across in McDonald's and I was like, I want nothing more right now than a Diet Coke. And a McFlurry our nightcap was a diet Coke and a McFlurry from the McDonald's, and then we to bed and woke up the next morning after about 14 hours of sleep

that sounds like a good start to your trip.

Were those restaurants just ones that you found while you were there or were they recommended to you?

So the first day the pizza place we kind of looked on Google Maps a little and was like, there's. A hundred restaurants around us, let's just walk and see what smells good. That's rule of thumb. If it smells good, surely it'll taste good. So we went walking and found the pizza place and we actually went looking for gelato and thought that it was a gelato place. Walked in, they had gelato also, but it was pizza. Double whammy, we'll just go ahead and knock both out. we got to do that for lunch and then dinner. It was something that we had found, looking at reviews online. The pictures look good. We got there and turns out, actually the place that we looked at online was not the place that we went to, but it was a pleasant surprise we'll eat here anyways.

' cause we walked a mile to get there.

Yeah.

and if it's [00:09:00] nasty, it's nasty. It ended up being a great experience. So those were just things that we had just stumbled upon through our research on our own.

Since you ended up taking a nap a little bit longer than you expected, did you end up missing anything that you had planned

When I was working with Paige, she was like, , how are we wanting to schedule these first few days? I know that second day don't schedule us anything until the afternoon. Because I know we're gonna get there and be tired. We may wake up and feel great, but I just don't want to get there and be so tired that , we're miserable the whole day so I told her not to schedule us anything super early that first day that we were there. Thankfully we did not miss anything. The only thing that we had scheduled that day was just, a hop on, hop off bus tour. You can basically buy a ticket for however long you want to use it. So you can do 12 hours, 24 hours, 72 hours. , But it's a great way to use it for transportation around the city because it's gonna hit those highlights so we were able to use that instead of having to Uber walk or take public transportation, to get around the city. We bought that for 72 hours. So it actually ended up working well for that second day. We didn't end up missing anything.

. [00:10:00] Sounds good. Well, let's move on to your second day in Rome. How did you start that day off?

After we woke up from our extended nap, the weather was a little bit cooler than we had expected , we've learned that 55 degrees here in South Georgia is not 55 degrees in Italy. Thankfully we came prepared, for cooler weather clothes-wise,

so walked outside and then quickly turned around and walked back in. We were like, actually we need more layers . But that day pretty much consisted of big name, attractions. We started off at the Coliseum, we walked there, which was about a 30 minute walk from our apartment,

we'll get to see the city. Enjoyed that. We actually learned that there's a good bit of things to see around there. There's some other ancient ruins around, that you just stumbled across. You're just walking down the street and bam, there they are.

Then we grabbed lunch, , and I'm blanking on the name of this place, but the view is unreal. , You're sitting on the street at this table and you're looking and the coliseum's right there, it almost felt like you could reach out and touch I didn't realize just how big this thing was. And how they built that all those years ago with no power

but another thing, when you're [00:11:00] in those like highly trafficked areas with a lot of people, they're rushing you to turn those tables over as quickly as they can, because the longer they keep you, the less money they make.

Right.

When they bring you your food, they're bringing you your ticket. You can pay now. So when you're done, you can leave. And then they're constantly coming back, are you done? Are you done? I was like, does it look like I'm done? They're just ready to get you outta there. Got done eating and I was like, let's just walk. See what we can stumble across. ended up stumbling across, the subway station actually,

it's actually not a subway. You go underground, buy your ticket, and then you come back up onto the platform to get onto the train. So it's not like a New York City subway like I was used to. It's just a train.

Gotcha.

surprisingly because it was in Rome, I guess I was expecting it to be a little bit more tourist friendly.

Like maybe like have the announcement in Italian and then have another announcement in English, or maybe have it written in English

Mm-hmm.

Not the case. Everything was in Italian. So I'm trying to pull up Google Translate and let it listen so we know what train to get on.

And I was like, I only did two weeks to Duolingo before I came over here. We ended up on the right train, thankfully. we took this train the little district but there [00:12:00] were trains going in, but no trains coming back out. So then we had to get on a bus the bus only runs like every 30 minutes from this stop. So it was just like, oh my gosh, we're stuck here Uber's absurd ' cause we were far away from where we needed to go and everything. Also, I realized they only do uber black. They don't have uber ex, it's only a Mercedes.

It's automatically three times more than what it should be because they're only picking you up in luxury cars. Which is great 'cause you feel safer and fancy while you're riding around in this Mercedes. But I don't wanna pay that.

So we finally get to where we're going. And, walking around there for a little while, and we ate so much gelato on this trip, every time we saw a place, we're like let's just get some more, it's vacation. What does it matter? Calories don't count here.

Right.

Then we found an olive oil store actually. And I wasn't thinking just how close Italy was to Greece, that olives were so prominent here. They were doing tasting. It looked like a bath and body works of olive oil, like just oil after oil after oil. It was just samples.

And I was like, where's the bread? What do I eat it with? And they're like, you , just drink it. And I was like, just drink oil. That doesn't sound good for you. but after the first one, then they had flavored ones. They had orange one and a lemon one [00:13:00] and a rose flavor.

So then we ended up spending 30 minutes just tasting different oils. And I swear I drank like a whole bottle of olive oil we had so much. They only sold it in 375 milliliter bottles. Like they didn't sell smaller ones.

So I was like, well, I guess this is just a sign that I didn't need any. So after that we just kept walking. And honestly, for food in discussions with Paige, I was like, give us a general area. But I want to leave room for exploration, I don't wanna necessarily have reservations at this place and we have to make it , I wanted to leave a little bit of room for exploration so that way if we stumble across this area that , we actually we love and don't want to leave.

We ended up spending the rest of the evening there because as the sun went down, they have string lights everywhere.

We were able to sit and just sip a glass of wine and eat pasta, and bread and just chat.

Now this restaurant thankfully was not trying to rush us out of there, I think we ended up sitting there almost three hours and then it's 11 o'clock, we need to go home because we're 45 minute walk from our apartment. So we got an Uber that night, thankfully, 'cause the next morning we did have, early morning, tickets that we needed to make too. So that night we got back and because we had ate three hours ago, I was like, y'all, I really [00:14:00] want McDonald's again. I know I'm in Italy and I know I shouldn't be eating McDonald's ' cause we have that, five minutes from my house , but I really want McDonald's.

I was like getting on chat GPT, what's the DoorDash equivalent Italy? And we found it and the service fee for Italian DoorDash is like 40 something percent. But I was like, you know what? I don't care. So, we DoorDash, McDonald's and this guy brings it on a bicycle and we walk outside and he's just sitting there at the door and spoke no English. And he just holds out the McDonald's bag. . We went back upstairs. Ate our McDonald's McFlurries and our chicken wings watch the movie and went to bed.

Very nice. Did it seem that McDonald's had different food items than in the us?

They called it a McDo it's just a grilled cheese sandwich. They had chicken wings. But the quantities were weird. we do , a four piece, six piece, 10 piece nugget. They have a three piece, a five piece and a nine piece, then after that it goes 30. You can't get a 20 piece I was like, I don't need 30 chicken wings. They had a McSpaghetti, which was strange. And they had a piece of fish almost looked like a whole like [00:15:00] fish, but they had bacon, cheese, fries. We don't have that from South Georgia, I love ranch. And they did not have ranch. And their ketchup is a lot sweeter than what I'm used to here. Ours is more like a vinegar base. Theirs is like syrup. The wings were super spicy. Also they have um. a cafe, they had like a patisserie almost, which I know that's like a French term, but they have different kinds of pastries croissants muffins cakes and a whole cappuccino bar.

It's a full service bakery inside this McDonald's versus I'm used to like a apple pie

now this one was a little bit fancier because it was right by the Vatican, it was insane how nice this McDonald's was.

Were there any moments from this day that really stood out or were surprising to you?

Just going to the coliseum, how big it is. Majority of the buildings are so close together that , you'll miss certain things. As far as I can see, it's this huge piece of ancient architecture it's kind of hard to put into words, it's just unfathomable, but , just how. Amazing it is to realize how long ago they built this and how long it takes us now , I swear, the interstate that's by my house has been under [00:16:00] construction for 20 years.

Yep.

have every modern piece of equipment that you could possibly think of to fix it. And like they built this and record timing moving all of these huge rocks by hand, stacking it, hundreds of feet high. That's the wow factor. And then it makes me wonder how far behind, the modern world is now. They could do all that by hand and now it takes forever to build a normal construction project with every possible tool you could think of.

Yeah, it definitely puts in per into perspective, the tools that they had versus what we have now and how maybe we're not using them as efficiently.

Yeah, for sure.

So, everything you did this day was things that you just found through exploration. Is that correct?

Yeah. So the first day and the last day were the only planned, paid activities we had minus , the bus tour that we had for the first three days. And the museum on the third day. But we only had three actual, planned excursions that we had paid for ahead of time.

I want to leave a little bit of room for being able to just stumble across things. I feel like that's how you can find the cool things so that's why I asked Paige. Give us a list of things to peruse through. And we picked the top three or four things that we [00:17:00] wanted to do

but for the most part I was like, let's just pick an area, walk around, see what we can find. And that seemed to work well for us.

So this is third full day, but fourth day technically in

Rome.

We had Vatican Museum tickets, , that morning, which is really just a huge ancient art museum there's six different museums in the one ticket. You can just join the line and wait, or you can pay for. A timed entry ticket, which is what we did. So we got nine 30 tickets that morning. They are very strict about it. If you're there at 9 29, they're like, no, you're not here till nine 30. And they will turn you away and say, that's the nine 30 line over there. Go get in line. At nine 30 they blew the whistle. And walk in, they scan your ticket, and then you're in the museum. They scan your ticket twice, you go through security. And then once you're in there, it's kind of a free for all. We walked around and there's just these huge like type rugs that are woven 2000 years ago hanging on the wall.

And they've got old paintings of the life of Mary, and Joseph and of the birth of Jesus but from different points of view. So you've got like the same story but painted 400 different ways, from [00:18:00] the different points of view of different saints and priests throughout history.

Then as you get to the end of this one hallway, you walk into this room , it's probably 75 foot tall ceilings of these huge rugs , you truly can't put into words just how magnificent it is like how on earth that they created this by hand and it's huge like, who has a room this big in their house. That's . Enough carpet to cover my whole house. But it's honestly like too pretty to walk on.

But we peruse to the rest of the museums. And there's some old ancient boats that they had and some Sarcophaga that they had and other tombs. Then these old busts and sculptures of different historical figures, but it'll be the foot of this one and then the mid thigh section of another sculpture. Then they had a section dedicated to the past popes that they've had. Each pope has a commemorative coin that signifies their time in office essentially.

And the most recent one being Pope Francis, his coins and that were donated either by him or his family to the museum

Then they actually, have a post office in the museum that you can, send a [00:19:00] postcard from there, address it, drop it in the box. I did not see a place to pay for postage. So I don't know if they just do it . Now , I did not send it to myself, so I don't know if it ended up making it

so how much time do you think you spent at the Vatican ?

The tour probably took us about four or five hours . We took our time and looked, at every single artifact. Just because this is a once in a lifetime

Know if we're gonna get to come back. So we're like, we're not gonna miss anything

My dad and grandparents grew up Catholic. So this is a very special place for them. So , being able to just see what their childhood was surrounded by was pretty special.

You're gonna need at least three hours to get through that just because of how much history is in this museum.

Also the tickets were not super cheap. So I was like we're gonna get our money's worth. We paid 80 euros, so that's closer to a hundred US dollars.

We even walked through some sections twice

We ate lunch in there ' cause they had a food court. And they had an American station and American plate that you get has a little salad on the side.

I finally asked one of the waiters , why is because it was literally pieces of lettuce, grape tomato [00:20:00] cut in half, and three, niblets of corn. They're like, , we have to add it because you Americans aren't healthy, so we have to add some sort of salad to make your meal a little more healthy. And I was like, that's probably true.

Yeah.

They had a bakery in there, so of course we had to get a croissant, um, and sip a cup of coffee in Italy

so did you have a favorite section within the Vatican?

After we did the Vatican Museum. Included in that was. The Sistine Chapel in St. Peter's Basilica. So we got a skip the line essentially. We could have done all of it for free, but we paid just because it was the year of the Jubilee. And there are so many people there. We have, now 24 more years before that happens again. But if somebody happens to listen to this podcast in 24 years buy the, skip the line ticket.

Good to know.

Because we had this little ticket that we paid a hundred dollars for we get to walk past all these people. We get inside of St. Peter's Basilica it looks big from the outside. It's just this huge, empty building. The ceiling is huge. This dome goes up probably 200 feet. And I was thinking that it was a bunch of rooms up there but , it was just this huge dome. There's these different prayer [00:21:00] rooms on the sides, and then they have confession boxes and all different kinds of construction going , on inside.

So you have masks going on in this corner, and then you have people waiting in line for confession, and then you've got a sledgehammer, knocking rock, on this side. It was so many things going on. so we walked through there and then they have a gift shot that you can go to and my uncle was like, I have one request. I want a rosary from the Vatican. It was like five euros. Not a problem. So we got that. I got a few other souvenirs over there, postcard and some little coins to commemorate the trip. St Peter's probably took us an hour just because waiting in lines and obviously you want to just take it in. There's a reverent feeling. You step in there and this presence kind of takes over . And, , you can't help but just be amazed by the architecture of this building.

Like how can they build this concave of a dome and then not collapse in. Then thinking how they can go back all these years later and run wiring through it to put lights and audio equipment, like how they can do that without damaging the integrity of the building.

It just like blows my mind.

Yeah I've never actually visited, Rome before, but , I remember hearing about all of the painting and the sculptures and just thinking about having to [00:22:00] paint those high areas and how long those paintings took.

I'm sure it's absolutely incredible to see in person.

Mm-hmm. Definitely a must. See,

After was just another day of just walking around. That was the day that we hit the tre fountain and the Spanish steps that's another thing too, you're walking through these buildings and then you see an opening and there they are.

So we came upon the tre fountain that way. And there's so many people and you have to wait probably 15 minutes to get anywhere near the front to try and get a good picture. Then you've got people like shoving you in the shoulder. to push you out the way so they can get a better picture.

I just imagined that we're all in the background of each other's Instagram posts because everybody's trying to get the same picture, pushing each other outta the way. We were able to get a few good pictures and then I was like, let's just get outta here. This is too much.

So we got out and we walked down a little bit further and we found another McDonald's like y'all I can't eat McDonald's again. Let's please eat something else. So we just walked and, ate some more gelato and they had a ricotta cheese gelato that I thought was interesting. But it actually wasn't bad. It didn't taste like cheese like I [00:23:00] expected. We came up on the Spanish steps, but all around the Spanish steps is a bunch of designer stores all stores that we have in America.

But when I think the Tiffany store, in New York, it's this huge flagship store that you can get like everything that you want. You walk into this one in Italy and the first thing you look at, guarded by one man in a tux is like a $35,000 bracelet. to be such a highly tourist populated, but known for pickpocketing, to only have high jewelry in this store was crazy.

My goodness.

Then there's Hermes and Louis Vuitton, like every designer you could possibly think of, which it was just such an odd location to me. Oh, like this doesn't really make sense to put all of these stores side by side, in between these two huge attractions but I guess that's why they put 'em there because they know everybody's gonna walk between these two locations.

Right.

They had handmade Italian leather bags. When I think Italy, think leather goods. And they had wallets and purses and belts and little cross body bag, everything you could possibly think of made outta leather stuff.

And they had stores you could custom form a pair of leather shoes you come back tomorrow and pick 'em up. Just things you don't see in America so we did a little bit of, shopping around there. [00:24:00] Thankfully did not come back with a $35,000 bracelet.

Then that night, we ended up just eating street cart food. I actually got a hot dog,

I was like, we've eaten so heavy the past three nights

Then we were able to walk back I know the area in Italy that's famous for like lemons is Sicily.

They had a Sicilian sorbet storefront and the entire store was yellow. The walls were yellow, the floors were yellow. Everything was yellow. , Everything was lemon. It smelled like lemon.

They had lemon hand soap, lemon mouthwash, just about lemon laur and different shots of like lemon cello that you could try. But they had sorbet that was served in a lemon that they've pitted and taken everything out when they put the sorbet in. It would lock your jaws up.

It was so sour. It was just straight lemon juice that they like mixed with a little bit of frozen milk so, so sour, so good. And we each got one of those and, enjoyed that on our walk back.

And I don't think we realized because we were just having a good time talking with each other that we actually ended up walking three miles back to our apartment. I don't think we realized how far away we were. But we got back and I was like, yo my legs hurt.

And I looked at my Apple watch, like [00:25:00] we just walked , almost three and a half miles to get back off for some living sorbet, but it was very well worth it. And then we ended up each night watching a movie and going to bed

alright, let's move into your next

day.

This is the last day, full day in Rome. We've had a jam packed, past four days. This is our last full day. kind of take it slow, we did have a cooking class this day. This is the last excursion that we had, scheduled ahead of time. So the cooking class was just in this restaurant that was only open for dinner. So during the breakfast and lunch hours, they did a cooking class there we walk up and there's nobody inside.

Like the doors are locked and people are doing construction on outside the building. So it's like we booked it and now they're closed for renovations and , we're not gonna be able to do it. Then lo and behold, they were in the back half of the building the guy comes out Mateo was, his name, was like, oh, you here for cooking class? And , he knew our names without ever seeing us. There were only six people in that class, he took us back we started the tiramusu first because it had to sit in the fridge , and set. We were the only Americans and then there were two Dutch,

and two Israelis. He was using us as the example because [00:26:00] he thought our southern accents were so funny , he kept picking on us to , try and pronounce this poster, we ended up making the cheer Mao and he pulled the three of us and was like trying to. He was like, stir this and do that.

Then we moved into pasta making. it's actually fairly easy, to make the pasta. It's just egg flour and a little bit of water, and you mix it up and you kn and when you think you needed it enough, you haven't keep going. and I felt like we, we were needing this dough for 15 , 20 minutes. So after that, he showed us different ways to cut it. But then we knew that there was a meal included, but we didn't know that we were gonna get to eat what we made.

And I was like, I don't know if I want to eat it. 'cause I don't know if it's gonna be any good. So he took all of our pasta bacon and we got to pick a sauce. There was three different sauces that we could pick from. I picked Durang with Panchetta, they took all of our pasta and cooked it, then they brought that out and we got to eat a amisu as well.

And then it was paired with the other white or red wine, just the house wine, whichever one you wanted to pick. But each pasta had a certain pairing, mine was the white wine pairing.

After that we were over, in the government district. There was a bunch of government buildings, for Rome in that area. And then we found the US Embassy or a consulate in embassy. Of course got more gelato [00:27:00] after that. And then I was like, this is the day that we need to focus on souvenirs for our family and our friends.

Along the river, there were a bunch of different street vendors that had coffee mugs espresso cups chains magnets and everything else that you could think of we were able to grab some stuff for our families

so by that point it was dinnertime. And that night we ended up going back to the same place that we ate lunch at the first day

Okay.

more pizza. And then I was like, we gotta be at the airport at 10 in the morning and we gotta be gone by seven. Let's try to reign it in a little early tonight.

And we did just that. We ate pizza and came back packed. We each had to sit on each other's suitcase to try and pack everything we bought wrapped up a great trip in Italy and then the next morning we took off for the airport and flew home.

Any notable things about your flight home?

Everything was smooth on the way home, like I was staying on the way there. I got upgraded again, and ended up leaving them in the back , and I felt horrible. I just remember how hot it was on that plane. I was like, something's not right. Finally they were like, yeah, the air's finally working . They brought the food out and I was like, I know that when we get back, we're gonna be four [00:28:00] o'clock in the afternoon. I need to get some sort of sleep. So I got under my blanket, put my eye mask on, my headphones were on, , I rolled over in my seat and was about to go to sleep. And then the guy sitting next to me tapped me. He was like, Hey, before you get comfortable, can I go to the bathroom? I was like, bro you literally just watched me do all of this stuff to get ready, now you're gonna be like, before you get comfortable.

I was like, no way. You just did that.

I'm like, I'm already comfortable. So then I was like, yeah, you can. So I put my little footrest down got up and I was like, go ahead. Then he comes back and he was like, I won't ask again. So then I finally was able to get some sleep and slept through breakfast. And I woke up to the flight attendant having to tap me on the shoulder like, Hey, you gotta push your seat up now. I have never slept that much on an, international flight. Like I'm normally like so antsy, like ready to get back.

I'm watching a movie or whatever. But this one I slept the whole time. Then we had to go through customs. And customs was super smooth. That was the quickest I've ever been through customs. Every flight when I'm flying home from JFK, I'm always in the same a terminal, so I know where all of the restaurants are there. ' cause I've been to New York probably 20 times, they're like, so what is there to eat in this terminal? I was like, I'll tell y'all what is there. And they're like, what? I know there's a [00:29:00] McDonald's there. So in my six days gone from Italy, I had McDonald's five times.

we got back to America and I was like, you know what I want?

I want an American cheeseburger with a sweet tea and an apple pie for McDonald's. With some ranch dressing. We ate and got on our flight back to Savannah, my truck was there waiting on us, ready to go home we stopped by the gas station, got a little drink to give us a little energy to get us home my suitcase probably sat in the corner of my bedroom for about four days before I finally decided , I'll unpack you now and , wash all the clothes

back to the reality.

Very nice. So just a couple of, recap questions for this.

What was your overall favorite experience that you had on this trip?

It is hard to pinpoint one. Not gonna lie. Definitely the coliseum, it's hard to put into words how to describe that surreal experience you've read about in history class and seen it in books. And then the cooking class was just so much fun. Our guide just really went above and beyond to make sure we were comfortable , we had a blast and were able to meet people from other countries , there's a good chance that I'll probably never see those people again, but the two or three hours that we were there, we were the best of friends and able to share stories of , what does life look like in [00:30:00] the Netherlands and, Israel?

What was your favorite pasta that you had?

Definitely the cooking class, one thing I've learned, food in Italy is not what it, I was expecting. I was expecting knock your socks off. But I've learned why American food tastes so good is because of all those preservatives that are not the best for you, but it makes it taste good.

So when you get Italy and it's just like super clean eating pasta without all of that extra stuff in there, it doesn't taste quite the same.

It's no olive garden, which this makes me sound super American and I promise, I'm well traveled, but it just, wasn't what I was expecting. , But the pasta class that we had was the best pasta we had. The tiramisu and that pasta was definitely by far, the best meal that I've had,

Very nice. Do you by chance remember the name of the cooking class ?

The tour company that we use, eat and Walk Italy. They've got all different kinds. You can do a pizza class, you can do a pasta, interior tiramisu, they have a wine tasting class. We were just trying to get the one that incorporated the most that we wouldn't necessarily be able to just create our own I've made homemade pizza a million times before, but never homemade pasta.

Do you think you'll ever make pasta at home?

I did actually a few weeks ago, [00:31:00] and it, a lot harder when you don't have a teacher there

I tried to do it by hand. Tried to get the glute to activate was so hard, it just never got to the right consistency. So then I finally put it in the KitchenAid and dough ball got to the right consistency, but I didn't roll it thin enough because the noodles like were super thick.

Flavor was there, tasted great, but it was a very odd texture,

I recommend looking into a pasta maker if you don't have one.

percent. I will buy an attachment for my KitchenAid

so looking back, how did this trip feel different from trips that you've planned on your own?

This trip snuck up on me because there was very little work that I had to do before because my travel agent was able to take so much of it, off of our plate.

Like we showed up in Italy and it was , have a great time. I didn't have to do research, very minimal booking of anything Paige has my card and was able to take care of majority of it for us. I literally got the notification from Delta, , time to check in for your flight.

And I was like, whoa, I leave tomorrow. And I haven't packed, I haven't done anything like that just goes to show like how easy the planning process of a trip like this is with using Paige.

She made it so seamless that literally the only thing I had to do was make sure I knew [00:32:00] where my passport was and pack a suitcase

and what you just highlighted there is the goal of every travel agent we wanna make sure that you don't have any of the stress. You just get all of the fun with a vacation.

That's exactly what happened. The only stress was, where's my passport? And now I know exactly where it is I'll never lose it again.

Yep.

Very nice. And then my last question for you what is your next travel adventure?

Next Travel adventure is actually a Sandals trip, for leisure anyways, I travel, , weekly for work, so I'll be gone on a few other trips, but I don't particularly count those as always enjoyable.

Yep.

But my next one we're going to Sandals Ochi in Jamaica. My family and I are going down there for, five days Paige was able to help us book that as well. I told her, we're celebrating several milestone birthdays this year.

Very nice. Well, thank you for joining me on this episode. , This was a great, story to hear, and excited about your future travels.

Thanks for having me,

That wraps up this journal entry Hearing Eli's story reminds us why leaving space in an itinerary for living in the [00:33:00] moment creates some of the best vacations. It's about the different moments, surprises, and memories that stay with us long after we return home. If this episode has inspired you to plan your own trip, I'd love to help make that a reality.

As a travel agent, I provide personalized planning, expert guidance, and support every step of the way. So your vacation is as smooth, relaxing, and memorable as possible. You can reach out through the link in the show notes to start planning your next adventure with me. If you have enjoyed listening to the Travel Journal, I would love it if you subscribed to the show and gave it a review to help others find it.

Also, if you're looking for additional entertainment, head over to Back to the Magic Podcast 4 0 7 and beyond's flagship podcast. There they have additional tips, tricks, and games about Disney World. Their podcast is also linked in the show notes. . Lastly, be sure to follow along on Instagram at plan with Lindsay Mann, where I'll be sharing photos, highlights, and behind the scenes moments from this trip, giving you even more inspiration for your own journeys until our next entry, keep [00:34:00] dreaming, exploring, and savoring every moment.

This is the travel journal and the pages are just getting started.