After many months of planning and more hype than Bruce becoming Caitlin – we are on our way.  Of course as with anything we do there are always some glitches and funnies along the way so rather than keep these boring tales to myself I’m going to bore you guys with them.

Outfit disaster – as I’ve mentioned I’m a bit of a planner and that extends very much to what I wear.  I’d like to be a mood dresser but when you have as many multiple personalities as me that can become problematic.  Rather than have the Inmates of the LK duke it out I tend to think ahead with clothing so it goes without saying that I had carefully planned what to wear the first days.  Jump to 5 minutes before leaving for the airport, a big coffee spill to the left funbag and my carefully constructed plan was thrown out the window.  Gawd dammit!!!!  I hate change at the best of times arghhhh.

Catholic rant – whilst being driven to the airport by a gorgeous friend, husband spent the whole time ranting and raving like a lunatic about George Pell, the Catholic Church and the whole god debate.  So… pretty uplifting get ready to holiday stuff.  It did occur to me that perhaps I should be a little nervous when we hang out with the Pope in a few days time.  I’ve got visions of him doing a nudie run through the Vatican screaming “hang the kiddie fiddlers” (his words not mine).  Rest assured if he does birthday suit up I will be recording and sharing it on the blog *warning … magnifying glass and sense of humour may be required*

Own intro music – as we were walking into the airport I thought, wow that’s odd that they are playing Abba “When I kissed the teacher” so loud in here.   As we were walking along I thought, hey wait…hold the Ryan Reynolds… I think that music is coming from husband.  Has he decided to have his own soundtrack playing out loud everywhere we walk on our trip? But then suddenly a sinking feeling came over me…..I realised Abba was coming out of my handbag.  What the actual…????  At first I tried to deny it to myself – snap out of it lady – you don’t have that song on your phone playlist – but then it dawned on me …. Husband had made me a new playlist on my ipod.    Argghhhhhh – is this the calibre of the selections I can expect to be assaulted with???  Nooooooooo. Ipod thrown in bottom of suitcase never to be used again.

Called up to counter – we just sit down at our gate and we hear over the PA “Mr & Mrs Kelly please come to the service desk”  Husband looks at me like I’ve murdered someone (or eaten his secret chcolate stash).  We sheepishy scuttle up amidst the judging gazes of the other passengers.  It was kinda like the walk of shame without doing something inappropriately sinful haha but it turned out to be a good thing – we had been upgraded and moved to the front of the plane…..#winning 1!!!!  When we were walking back to our seats I wanted to do the middle finger/take that suckers dance the whole way but I chose to be all classy instead cause well I am all that and a packet of chip (just between you and me I was a little worried they had found the porn and drugs in my suitcase ….. that was a relief)

Walking to hotel – so we arrive in Sydney (not a welcome committee or paparazzi in sight which was a surprise) and rather than pay to take the shuttle to the hotel husband says “hey let’s walk, I googled it and it’s only 850m”.  I think yeah ok sounds good although what friggin google failed to mention was you would be to crossing ravines, climbing up cliff faces and and essentially using up several of your 9 lives to make it there *google sucks maleparts*.  It wasn’t all bad though, The Stamford Hotel was lovely, the staff were so friendly and sweet, they upgraded us (#winning 2) and pretty soon we were nestled in the bar having the first bubbles and beers of the trip.  Dinner was fancy burgers you have to mortgage the house to afford but fortunately they were delish (mine was a lentil burger yum) and most fan-freakin-tastic fries known to man.  I may have dreams about them in the coming weeks.

Handholding – hmmmm so husband grabs my hand as we are walking across the foyer to the bar of the hotel.  I’m like ‘what are you doing?’ and he just laughs at me.  I seriously only lasted about 30 seconds before saying ummmm you are getting a bit fresh for a first date, that’s enough for one day, perhaps we can try again tomorrow.  It wasn’t entirely awful and I may try it again tomorrow but as with anything new and unusual, you just need to practice so that it feels natural I guess.

International flight – so next time I tell you I’m thinking about booking a 6am flight out of Sydney give me a swift punch to my lady parts and remind me that this likely means we need to be at the airport at around 3am which in turn likely means need to get up at around 2am.  Actually maybe 2 punches….2am is a very early start.  Here is how I looked at 2am…

Then after the magic of spac filler, heavy duty spray paint, hair wiggery and 57 filters I was almost human….

Obligatory bathroom selfie….trying to look alert and be airport chic

The whole customs thing was smooth as a baby’s bottom (without the nappy rash and runny poo of course) and I was very impressed with the automated passport/customs part of things.  And I love me some being herded through hundreds of ropes like cattle early in the morning.  Got on the plane and there was a spare seat beside husband (#winning 3) and for the most part so far the flight is going really well.  I’ve got some interesting characters sitting around me.  My personal faves are:-

The young Swedish couple who will be potentially be joining the mile high club before the flight is over (yes mate, I can see where your hands are and no I do not wish to witness the making of your future babies)

There’s the old cranky French man in front of me who if he doesn’t freaking put his seat upright soon is going to feel a swift sneaky scone to the top of his head (and I think he is the one releasing the brown clouds on a regular basis – dude you may need to see a doctor btw, that is not a normal )

Then there is husband of course.   This is him now……step back please ladies, this hunk of man is all mine, spoken for (although what words I would speak would not be kind lol)

And this is me 9 hrs into flight……definitely not looking as glam as the super models do when they fly but looking around me on the plane – I’m not the most unfortunate looking one here so that’s a bonus…

Enjoying the plane food – yes I’m one of those!!!!!  What’s not to love, you get a choice, you don’t have to cook it, they just bring it to you and they take it away.  Of course my standards of good food are pretty low to begin with  *although I just wish they were like restaurants and someone would whisk that damn tray away as soon as the last crumb drops down between my boobs*

This was nicer than it looks haha….

And don’t you think the hostesses *yes I know they prefer flight attendants* look so glamorous????  Some may say glorified waitresses in the sky, I would say hot looking lovelies with killer stocking clad legs strutting their stuff up and down the aisles with a lipstick perfect smile (and that is just the guys).  Truly they just seem to be living the dream, all the pilots they get to frolic with, all the sweet smiling new and interesting passengers they get to meet (who no doubt make their hearts happy with their good manners ) and best of all – the Emirates ones get to wear burgundy scrunchies in their hair.  You heard me….appaz the scrunchie is making a serious comeback….you heard it here first ladies.  Go dig out those relics from the 80s and start wearing them before your daughters do and think they invented such awesomeness.

Sleep = zero  –  first flight really was a bust in terms of sleep for me but to keep myself entertained I wrote all of the above crapola so lucky you guys lol.

Landed in Dubai, what an airport, like seriously wowsers, caught the train over to the next terminal, it’s all very seamless and well organised and literally we almost walked straight onto the next flight.  The best part about this flight was it wasn’t as full and we had 2 spare seats next to us so I got to lie down across 3 seats (since I’m so little I could almost stretch out lol) and I managed to sleep for 4 glorious hours.  It was brilliant …. #winning 4.

Customs in Rome took a little while and there were some gents in the line around us who had some questionable hygiene habits (have you not heard of showers/deodorant/babywipes my stinky line dwelling friends).  The customs guy we got wasn’t able to stop chatting to his current “amore/main squeeze” because he didn’t even look at us, just stamped the passports and tossed them back at us without missing a breath of “tonight in bed I’ma gonna…”.  Note to self :- he’s your man if travelling under false documents.

Our luggage was at baggage claim which is always a pleasant surprise and great relief (thank you luggage god in the sky…#winning 5).  Anyone who has ever arrived in a foreign country and experienced the sick feeling of their bags not being there knows what a relief it is and forever fills you with crap-balls of dread for life.  Our driver was there waiting with a sign as big as his smile and we were soon being whisked off to Roma in the lovely clean and new Mercedes van.  We only thought we might die in the crazy traffic 6-7 times and from what I’ve heard this is an excellent result.  The one thing that did occur to us both was OMFG how are we going to find our way around Rome.  All the teeny tiny windy cobblestone streets which are stunning to look at but impossible to navigate and not get lost.   Since I’m pretty good at directions and getting my bearings husband did get the giggles at the fear in my eyes lol.  This should be interesting.

Hotel Albergo Cesari – we arrive at our beautiful little hotel to be welcomed by the most deliciously merry Italian fellow you could ever hope to meet.  If your perfect ideal of a funny friendly little Italian man and the energiser bunny mated and produced offspring….this is your guy.  I found him positively enchanting and delightful and was happy to listen to him sprout on and on for hours but after 20 minutes I thought husband may be ready to leap the desk and strangle him or at the very least curl up in the  corner and cry.  None of which sounded like a good start to the stay so we had to cut the awesome spiel off and go to our room.  I was disappointed but to be fair to husband it  was approx.. 23 hours since we had left our hotel in Sydney so I cut him some slack for lack of fun.  Our room had been upgraded to top floor, larger and better everything…#winning 6 and there was a bottle of bubbles in an icebucket with glasses and chocolates waiting for us…#winning 7.

Getting some serious pixie dust thrown our way so far on this trip.  I’m so grateful for all the lovely things, big and small that we have already experienced.  Very very blessed indeed!!!!

Dumped our bags and headed off to the rooftop bar at our hotel for a celebratory peroni and my first Aperol Spritz (that everyone said I had to try).  We decided not to bother with dinner and we just got a plate of cheese and bread (as you do) and enjoyed a quick relax and chat with the kids via Facetime.  They are doing great and barely notice we’ve gone (and had a quick Facetime chat with puppy too lol).  The weather is nice and cool like we hoped it would be.  Husband and I prefer cooler temps so we are in chilly heaven.  I think it was around 9 degrees when we arrived tonight.   Lovin it….

We thought we would have a quick twirl around the block before bed and since Trevi Fountain was only a few minutes from the hotel I was keen to see it at night.  Wow….I barely have words for how positively stunning this is.  Crowds everywhere of course but I barely noticed because I was completely enchanted by it.  They have only just recently finished renovations so we are super lucky to see her at her shining best (are fountains girls or boys? Not sure but she looked like a girl).  What a beautiful sight.  I loved it so much I could literally turn around and come home and feel happy (I won’t though lol)

We managed to crawl into what was a surprisingly comfy bed around 11pm after showers.  We will sleep the sleep of the lagged and cannot wait to get up and explore some more tomorrow…..

Note – I know I’ve written far too much here but I wrote most of it on the plane when bored so please don’t be scared that every day will be like this.  Pretty soon I’ll be tired, cranky and won’t give a toss about writing on the blog.  Enjoy it while you can my sexy blog bitches.

Much happy love,

Lisa