Carefree Travelling

Today is a bit of a setup day for tomorrow’s trip to Croatia.  We decided to get a place near the airport as it’s around an hour away from our accommodation downtown and there was no way the kids we getting up early enough to get to the airport from Rome.  Thought we’d have a nice mellow day where we caught the bus to the airport and caught a cab to our place in Fiumicino.  It was called the B&B Retro that I had booked a couple of days ago based on all the great recommendations it got. 

So we get to the place and pulling our bags out of the taxi when the big metal door for the place swings open and we met our host, Daniele.  Smile from ear to ear or as Alyssa said he had a smile that took up half his face.  Wow, this guy was the ultimate host.  We sat outside in the yard as they hadn’t finished cleaning the room so we hung out and ate lunch listening to the birds, the odd dog and a few planes leaving a little ways to the north of us.

After getting into the room and catching up on the blog, Jenna and Shan had a nap while Alyssa and I went outside to attack our books.  Another beautiful sunny day in the low 30’s which sounds pretty nice compared to the 40+C I heard it was in Revelstoke today, holy!  After, I went to check in with Daniele and it became apparent.right away why the rooms were as they were and thename of the B&B was call Retro.

I guess I need to jump back to describe the room a little.  Each room has a theme and ours was the Ray Charles room.  Red, with record covers and records framed and

hung on the walls.  Even the tile work in the bathroom was white tile with red grout!  The doors had the egg shell foam painted red on the doors but it wasn’t tacky at all, it was funky and quite homey feeling.   So when I went in to pay he showed me his house too and we hung out with an espresso shot (everyone does in Rome!). The guy has over 2000 records as he used to be a D-jay and also collects old games.  The whole room had records shelved on one end and wrapped up collector’s games all around the room on shelves.  He was definitely a collector of things, many of which he used to decorate his rooms.  One of the things I see on his wall is a book on the Bueno Vista Social Club.

I need to digress a little further to my experience with the Bueno Vista Social Club.  When Shannon and I were hitch hiking on the Big Island of Hawaii before we got married we got into this beautiful little town in the northeast (after a pretty rainy day where we had issues getting rides) and found this cool old style cinema.  We had no clue what the Bueno Vista Social Club was but it was playing at the theatre so we went to watch.  Turns out it’s a really cool story about these older musicians in Cuba that are located by this American guy and he gets them back together to play some incredible music.  It was an amazing movie and I’d recommend it to you all.  So I told him this story to Daniele and he actually got goose bumps from me telling it!  He then told me his Bueno Vista Social Club story where he saw them play in Rome.  Once again goose bumps!  It was a really funny experience with a pretty genuine, exuberant guy, thought I’d share it!

Chilling out infront of our huge laptop screen!  All 11 inches!!!

After it was off for dinner, chill out together to watch something on the laptop and bed.  Good and early start tomorrow for the airport!