sorry about the hiatus! when i was younger, i gravely penned this original adage into one of my ubiquitous notebooks: "if you spend your entire life writing, you won't have anything to write
about." the past week has been proof of the inverse: we've been so busy
living that i haven't had time to write about it! we had a wonderful visit with Sabrina and Rebecca, and saw so many things and took so many pictures. i'm going to document at least the first half of their visit before i forget the details, but don't worry (or maybe
do) -- i still have lots to write about the week before they arrived, including the Diaconate Ordination here.
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| also this aqueduct that runs through a park near our house. (i know.) |
anyway, Sabrina and Rebecca arrived from Heathrow at about 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 29, and we met them at their hotel once they got settled in, around 8. the girls were shrieking with excitement and there was much marveling over the old hotel elevator, the balcony, and the bidet. (welcome to Europe!) we took a little stroll past St. Peter's, just a two-minute walk from their hotel, and then they got some takeout from a cafeteria-style restaurant to eat back at the hotel and we said our goodbyes for the evening.
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| photo credit: Rebecca |
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| photo credit: Rebecca |
on Sunday, Rebecca left bright and early for her guided tour of the Circus Maximus and Domus Aurea (gamely deciding to walk the 2 miles to get there rather than take the bus by herself in a foreign country while sleep-deprived and jet lagged!). Sabrina met us at the college for mass at 9:30. this weekend happened to be a travel weekend for most of the seminarians, so mass was held in the small downstairs chapel, which has
the worst possible acoustics for small children -- any movement, whisper, rustling of papers, or squawk is immediately amplified. i usually don't take the girls out of mass unless someone is actually crying or pitching a fit, but after a few minutes of their very-normal little kid noises actually drowning out the priest's voice as he gave the homily, i retreated to the classroom next door so we wouldn't ruin mass for everyone else. (i have to say this: after two months of worshiping together, none of the seminarians has
ever given me an annoyed look or made us feel anything less than welcome at mass. i am so grateful for their understanding, and i hope and pray they continue to make families feel welcome when they are shepherding their own parishes. but still, if we are becoming too much of a distraction, i think it's only common courtesy to step out for a little bit!)
our first mishap of the trip came when we were attempting to meet up with Rebecca in the afternoon after her tour. we had planned to meet by Trajan's Column near the entrance to the Imperial Forums Museum at 2:30 PM, which seemed like a foolproof plan. Trajan's Column is impossible to miss, and there are plenty of places to sit and wait on the broad steps.
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| that's the column on the right. pretty obvious. |
however, i made the egregious mistake of not knowing exactly where the entrance to the museum was. the museum actually occupies the archaeological site of Trajan's Markets, which then connects to the remainder of the Imperial Forums, so it extends the entire length of the city block. when we got to the column at 2:30 and saw no sign of Rebecca (who is never late), i thought, "well, she must be just at the museum entrance then." imagine, if you will, a rectangle with the short ends on top and bottom and the long ends on the sides. Trajan's Column stands at the top left hand corner. the museum entrance stands at the top right hand corner (but you have to go up a staircase and onto another main street to get there, which i was not anticipating). we walked all the way down the left side of the rectangle, finding one entrance that was chained off, and eventually made our way all the way around (which of course included walking up a hill to come up the right side of the rectangle). by this point it was 2:55 and we were all getting a little flustered. we finally turned the corner, nearly back where we started, and saw the entrance. finally!!
annnnnd no sign of Rebecca. we waited there for another ten minutes, then Nick went into a Subway advertising free wi-fi down the street to try to connect with her (since she had a international data plan), and i left Sabrina with the girls (including Greta sleeping in the stroller) and walked back over to the column to see if she was still there. still nothing. i came back, and a few minutes later Sabrina got a text from her saying that she was at Trajan's Column. so i tracked down Nick, and we all went back to the column (with Nick carrying Greta down the stairs in the stroller, still snoozing -- what a life). and there, finally, was Rebecca! it turned out she
had been running a few minutes late, so we missed her at the column initially, but she did know where the museum entrance was so she went there first to wait. when she didn't see us, she too made the same loop around the entire block, and we must have been off just enough from each other that we didn't cross paths. my kingdom for cell service! (i'm planning to sign up for a basic plan once we get our
codice fiscale -- Italian tax code numbers -- assigned. but that didn't help us in the moment.)
after much debriefing over this debacle, we decided that it would be best to skip the museum for now and head straight to the Vittorio Emanuele Monument, since that closed first. this huge monument stands next to some of ancient Rome's most famous ruins (including Trajan's Column, Caesar's forum, and the Roman forum). it was built in honor of Italy's first king, Vittorio Emanuele (Victor Emmanuel), who had the sizable task of ruling over a newly unified Italy.
our main objective was to ride the Sky Elevator to see the beautiful views from the rooftop. we weren't the only people to have this idea, and we waited for about 25 minutes before it was our turn on the elevator. and it was definitely worth the wait.
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| great photo on the informational board outside the elevator |
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| Cece wanted nothing more than to play with the little bunny figures Nana brought her |
arriving at the top, we were treated to some of the most beautiful views in Rome. our own rooftop view from the college is incredible, and it was fun to see the perspective from the other side of the Tiber.
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| oh, hi, Colosseum |
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| "what view? where are my bunnies?" |
after riding the elevator back down, we explored some more of the monument. the monument is also known as the
Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland), and was completed in 1925. if we had such a monument in Pittsburgh, or even in New York City, i think we'd be completely in awe of it. here in Rome, although it dwarfs its surroundings, it seems almost commonplace. unfortunately, construction on the monument destroyed some medieval buildings beneath it. it's acquired a few pejorative nicknames over the years, including "the dentures".
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| the curved brown building is Trajan's Market |
after returning to street level, we decided to save the museum for another day and head into the center of Rome to find some food. thanks to Rebecca's meticulous research, we checked out the Lost Food Factory, just a few blocks from the Pantheon. despite the touristy neighborhood, this little cafe turns out amazing (and cheap!) rustic sandwiches and has a decent beer selection. the server was fantastic. at first Greta balked at the sundried tomatoes on her pizza bianca (which came out looking like a sandwich, not the pizza she was expecting), and the server pulled out a paper mustache on a stick from behind the counter and started making all these funny faces. i thought she was just trying to brighten Greta's mood, but then in a combination of English, Italian, and gestures, she made it clear that Greta could
have the mustache on a stick if she finished her dinner. "it'll never work," i thought to myself, but darned if Greta didn't start immediately chowing down on her food! Cecilia, for once, was not quite as enthusiastic (she pulled a long string of melted fresh mozzarella off her sandwich and said "no yike it cheese").
Nick got a sandwich with
cinghiale (wild boar meat) and i had the "special" sandwich with pancetta, tomato, cheese and tabasco sauce. completely delicious!
while we were waiting for our food, the girls couldn't resist running across the street to the Lindt store to give this huge bear a hug. they did this probably three times before they actually stepped foot into the store and realized that there were rows upon rows of chocolate under the glass!
the girls were getting a little antsy while waiting for us to finish our food, so the same amazing waitress came back out with chalk for them to draw on the cobblestones. later, while she was sweeping up, she handed them the broom and dustpan and they were absolutely thrilled!
finally, after an elaborate farewell to the waitress with much blowing of kisses and cries of "
grazie mille" and "
ciao ciao", we headed back in the direction of the Pantheon. the view of this ancient building never gets old. the experience tonight was made more, shall we say, authentic by a singer with a very voluptuous vibrato who was belting out an operatic theme.
our last stop of the night was to Cremeria Monteforte, a gelateria just around the corner from the Pantheon. it was surreal to sit on the low wall with our backs toward a building that had been constructed almost 1900 years ago, and eat ice cream. Cremeria has great reviews, but at this point my two favourite gelaterias were still Frigidarium and Fatamorgana. the ice cream was fine but lacked the flavor punch i wanted. (okay, i'll bring out my tiny violin.)
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right before Nick spotted a plump rat running around on the other side of the wall,
thankfully about 6 feet below where we were sitting. welcome to Rome! |
our evening ended, as so many future evenings would, waiting for a bus. as Rebecca later said, we have a love-hate relationship with the 64 bus. when it runs on time, a bus departs every 6 minutes, which is by far the most frequent out of the other buses that run similar routes. but it
doesn't often run on time, and it's often super-crowded because it travels between the most popular destinations. however, it's one of just a few bus lines that stops right across the street from their hotel, so we sucked it up and got real familiar with the 64 over the past ten days.
stay tuned for volume 2 - quite the sightseeing extravaganza!
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