Very exciting to be sure!  My advice would be to set your watch to Roma time when you board the plane (if you have a lay-over in Chicago or NY, wait til you get on your over-seas flight) and then start acting like you're there as soon as you can... eat something on the plane and try to rest/sleep (ha) as you would if you were there already... when you arrive revert to your Shark Week learnings and just keep MOVING (else you'll drown into a sleepy coma)!!  They have plenty of lovely espresso on every street corner over there to help you in that regard... get thru your first day, have a great dinner w/ some-a-nice-a vino and the CRASH like a 286mg desktop computer running version 1.0 of microsoft windows... you'll sleepa lika baby, and be ready to go full steam ahead on day 2!  Ciao Bella!