It was quite a trip. We made it and (most) things are good. Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good: We made it! The apartment is very nice and Trastevere (the neighborhood in Rome where we are staying) is even more charming than we expected. There is a gelato store within 50 feet of our place and an uncountable number of restaurants nearby. We ate at a place that, according to google, was 85 feet from our front door. The food was great and it was inexpensive. You gotta love Rome!
The bad: It was a long day of travel. Our flight from Las Vegas started at 7:00 pm (local time) and took ten hours to reach London. The airplane, a Boeing 747-400, was very warm and there were no air nozzles at the seats; I’ve never seen that before. We waited for a gate at Heathrow for 20 minutes; after a ten hour flight it was exasperating. We just wanted to get off and stretch our legs.
At Heathrow we had to change to the Domestic terminal. For some reason it meant we had to go through airport screening again. We had a two+ hour layover and so we made it in plenty of time. Our flight boarded on time but for unknown reasons our departure was delayed for 45 minutes. Shockingly our arrival was still on time. I know no airline wants their on-time record to look bad so they pad their schedules but putting an extra 45 minutes on a two hour flight seems extreme.
As expected it took over an hour to get through immigration at Fiumicino airport but it was worth it because we got our first stamps in our brand new passports!
The ugly: we’re still missing one (Marc’s) bag from British Airways. According to the airline it was “lost” in Las Vegas but has since been found. It was supposed to arrive on the “next flight” last night so we waited for it but it never showed up. Since it was late (8:45 pm local time) and it had already been a very long day we decided to head into Rome. As of this morning the status is unchanged; it’s still showing as, “on the next flight”. I followed up with the airline this morning and no one can tell us if it ever left Las Vegas, whether it made it to London, etc. In the meantime I can spend “any reasonable amount” on clothing and toiletries and British Air will reimburse me. My confidence is low.