June 28, 2017. Rome. [Eden] CIAO from Rome!!!

When in Rome, speak as the Romans do?! Except we barely know any Italian. It’s not really necessary though because most people speak at least some English. I’m still hoping for an experience where we have to resort to charades, but that hasn’t happened yet.

This is Eden, by the way 🙂 I guess my time to blog is long overdue.

At seven this morning, us kids woke up to a Moana song blasting from our portable speaker. Thanks, Dad. It seemed extra early, especially considering none of us were asleep by midnight last night, but that’s the price you pay for early tickets to the Vatican!! We were out the door soon after 7:45 and walked forty minutes, through adorable Roman streets, to the Vatican City. It’s the smallest country in the world and enclosed almost entirely by a super tall brick wall. We were sort of laughing at the state of both the wall and the surrounding land: it’s all pretty dirty! Public garbage bins are barely a thing so people pile their trash at various locations.

We expected it to be less crowded because it was so early in the morning, but there were still tons of tourists lined up. Our special tickets allows us to essentially cut the line and we made it through security, etc, within half an hour. After looking at a really cool wooden model of the entire country (ha), we wandered outside and then wandered back inside after realizing we went the wrong way. Thus began a long walk through the Vatican Museum, which is packed full of sculptures and other really old stuff. I didn’t know where to look: the crazy realistic paintings that looked like carvings on the ceiling, the gold that lined the paintings, the stone sculptures and busts and their inscriptions, the ridiculously elaborate mosaic floor. Thinking about the amount of time that went into each minuscule detail made me depressed because I’m not sure what I’m doing with my life. In other words, it was absolutely spectacular. Two of the rooms that stood out were the Gallery of Maps, which reminded me very much of Versailles with a horribly extravagant amount of gold, and of course, the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel had almost too many paintings to focus on a single one!! It was super amazing to be in that place because I’ve heard about it so many times and then we were right there, right under the Creation of Adam. Also, Elliot was playing a game on his phone and one of the security guards TOTALLY chewed him out for it: “no. no video games. you look up!!!!” Awesome.

Unfortunately, the jostling flow of the crowds pushed us through it all faster than I wanted but perhaps that was okay because there was no air conditioning!!

Our next plan was to walk a mile around the walls to the St. Peter’s basilica, but that took way longer than expected because all of a sudden it began to POUR. Apparently that’s a rare thing in Rome but the street vendors totally took advantage of it, shoving umbrellas in our faces. The heaviest of it only lasted like ten minutes so we waited it out under a gelato cart’s overhang and then walked to the basilica. Along the way we passed maybe a dozen brides and it was really weird until we found out that the Pope had had an address in the morning. While that was cool to hear that we’d been less than a mile from the Pope, it sucked because that meant the basilica was closed for the day. We asked like eight different people to confirm and all of them gave different answers so we gave up and left. But I was really looking forward to climbing the dome!!! 😦

We went back mostly the way we came, walking both on main streets and mainly pedestrian alleys. Everything is cobblestone and the pedestrian alleys are super narrow with restaurants and shops and tourist shops lining either side, and apartments on top. The building are really colorful compared to the uniform creaminess of Paris buildings! Also, on literally every corner, you can find a gelateria. We took advantage of that and stopped for some on the way back. I highly recommend the pure chocolate at Gelateria del Teatro. It’s like bittersweet dark chocolate. YUM.

My siblings were tired from our short night and the “boring” Vatican so we chilled at the flat for maybe half an hour. Harrison is obsessed with Peppa Pig right now so he and Helena and Elliot watched that while my mom and I slept (and Dad booked a new place in Venice since the old one canceled on us last minute). That was okay until we left the flat and when to get some food and Harrison fell asleep!!

From the cafe we walked to the Colosseum!! That was another crazy moment of omg-we’re-actually-here, because that like the iconic Rome landmark™ and we were THERE. The sky had cleared up nicely and so Dad got his nice pictures. We went inside and took more pictures and just were in awe, or at least I was, of the things that have happened at that very spot. I wondered aloud how many people had died there and that was freaky to think of.

Then it was a long walk back, up a main boulevard full of people trying to make money however they could: a beatboxer, a spraypainter, a guitarist, a couple invisible men, a floating genie, some singers, and lots more. People get creative!!

We met some of our friends from RI at a main plaza place and walked to the banks of the Tiber, where a long line of tents was set up with lots of good food. We got our good Italian spaghetti meal in, and then walked to yet another gelato place and got some of that too. I got chocolate again, this time with coconut, and the bittersweet/sweet taste was amazing.

And then, back to the flat!! Somehow walking through Rome at 11 at night seems a lot less sketchy than walking through Providence at night would be. Hm. The city is still quite active.

Also, today we walked the most we have this entire trip: over 25,000 steps, or 18.5 km!

Ciao for now! 🙂