Barb and Karen's Italian Escapades - A Roman Holiday

In our Italian Escapades, Barb is co-blogging and adding her comments in Italics :)

Having said goodbye to tearful (Barb’s) and somewhat indifferent (mine) children and husbands - we headed off to the airport.  (--Elinor's random made up song, sung before I left: " My mummy cannot play with me..she had to go to Italy."  Sob! --B.) My mum droves us which I was especially thankful for since I woke Sunday morning with eyeball pain. It wasn’t excruciating, but would have made driving difficult….. Waiting in airports, and train stations, and just that “getting there” process is like limbo, or purgatory. It seems endless until you are finally on your way to what you hope will be heaven. Waiting areas in the travelling world are uninspiring and dull, at best; at worst they are scary, and dirty, sometimes extremely smelly and run down (Termini Subway station), however, it’s obviously all worth it....

We had a short connecting flight, which landed at JFK in New York, and amused ourselves by posing behind a life-size cutout of a mariachi dude…. I think  I capture the look of how they probably feel on the inside, even though they have to look happy, like Barb...(pay no attention to the extra forearm dangling from the elbow)... It was pouring rain in New York, and in fact, is probably what contributed to some of my clothing being damp upon arrival at our hotel in Rome…but I’m not complaining!!! (--Karen, you are forgetting how New York met our expectations when we walked between terminals, and every single driver in every single car in the traffic jam adjacent to us was leaning on their horn.  Thank you, New York.  Thank you!--B.)

We boarded the plane, with a departure of 9:30 and were informed that we would be taxiing for an hour, since the airport is so big, and in fact it was about an hour and  a half before we took off. I loved the plane....we all had our very own in-seat tv screens where we could pick our choice of movies or television, or what I mostly did if I watched it at all was watch the flight trajectory or the outside view camera. I can now see why piloting is so stressful. If you are flying at night the view outside is either black or cloudy. You can't see anything. It was pretty terriffying, so I turned the camera view off pretty quickly after takeoff. 

 We figured we weren’t getting a meal until the morning, so we snacked away on corn nuts, but then it turns out that a hot meal was served, so we ate around midnight…. Our options? Meat or pesce (fish). Well, I guess I will take meat. Not sure what kind of meat it would be, but it was definitely not going to be fish. Barb got fish, just to have something different, and well, I don’t think either of us won in the food stakes here….I had something that I assume was beef, right up there for flavor with hamburger helper..mmm….The broccoli actually looks way more appetizing in this photo than it really was. Yep. Khaki-coloured broccoli just doesn’t ding all the bells. The pasta thing on the side was edible, and the pickled carrot and ham side dish was the best thing offered, and that is about all I have to say about that.  ( Karen, your 'meat dinner' looks like a tray of throw-up.--B.)

We tried to sleep after that, but with a crying baby beside us it was difficult. Although the baby (about a year old), was super-cute, and was being adorable peekabooing and making funny faces at Barb for awhile….I felt bad for the parents, since we’ve all been there with kids who cry when we wished they wouldn’t, although I think we wished they wouldn’t cry, full stop.   We weren’t expecting to be able to sleep much anyway. After dozing on and off for a few hours, we were awake again around 4:00 a.m., and were shortly after served a breakfast of pastry and Milano cookies….and coffee which turned grey when the milk powder was added….completely undrinkable. The worst coffee I’ve ever had. I was disappointed in the food, since it was Alitalia, and I thought an Italian airline would have better food. I have to agree with Somerset…the pizza on the Sunwing planes is the best airplane food going…..

...just a thought if you need a shoe that goes with everything...

Once we arrived at Rome’s Fumincio Airport, we found our way to the train station, and were convinced by a charmingly glamourous, in that chipped-red-nail polish way, but a girl as young and pretty as she was can totally pull it off, that taking a shuttle would be cheaper and take us right to our hotel, so off we went. It becomes immediately apparent that urban Italians are extremely well groomed, and well-perfumed. Anyone otherwise is either making a deliberate fashion statement, indigent, or most likely NOT Italian. They seem effortlessly stylish, and always smell like they’ve showered in perfume or cologne.  ( For the most part I agree with you, but I am not on board with the short shorts and panty hose combo that seems to be acceptable here.  Sure, panty hose hides the hairy legs and veins, but I should not see your control tops peeking out the bottom of your shorts.  Also, women of Rome, if your shorts are short to the point of being rude, it gives me the almost uncontrollable urge to pinch the backs of your thighs as punishment.  And I'll do it one day you know, so do me a favour and put your damn pants on!--B.) 

The exterior doors on buildings are often enormous, and the door to our hostel was one such door. (I didn't take a picture of it though) The Pantheon probably has the most extreme example, but since it was once a shrine to the gods of Rome, I’m sure the citizens fully expected them to be able to stride through those doors. We stayed in a hostel called Alice in Wonderland, and when we buzzed the doorbell, we were led down about three flights of stairs, and I worried that we were going to be in a dungeon-like room, but the buildings are constructed at so many levels, we actually ended up with a terrace outside the common room, although we never got the chance to use either one.

This hostel was more like a four-bedroom apartment, with a shared common room and bathroom, and you rent one room. The breakfast offerings were things like tetra packs of juice and milk, at room temperature, some prepackaged pastries, and Cornflakes, and kiwifruit. There was only instant coffee...and with Italy having as much of a coffee culture as a wine culture, there was no way we would not venture forth in search of good coffee....

Wisteria was growing on a terrace adjacent to ours…. Wisteria symbolizes an Italian spring for me, so I was pretty thrilled to see it hanging outside our hostel.

We tried to rest for half an hour, but then became excruciatingly aware of constant clattering of dishes, banging, and water splashing in a fountain. However, a rest was enough to get us going again, and out into the streets of Rome. The weather was beautiful, though we had been expecting rain, and we took the nearest subway station to the Piazza del Popolo (People’s Square, for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_del_Popolo ). We were amused by the somewhat suggestive nature of the architecture, but there were beautiful altars, and some buskers entertaining the crowd. ( Deara Benini, Pleas-ah make-ah a building for me-ah that looks-ah like a giant wang-ah that points-ah to the sky-ah.  Love-ah, the Pope.)

We then made our way to the Spanish Steps(Spanish Steps) which was crammed full of people. We didn’t linger, but continued on our way to the Trevi Fountain, which was also crowded, so we decided to find a snack in the shop nearby,

and found cannoli and cappuccino….we sat on the steps opposite to the fountain, and enjoyed a creamy pistachio-topped filling in a crispy cinnamonny cannoli shell…..It seemed almost too sweet at first, but it was so delicious, we had no problem savouring it, and enjoying it, after realizing that the last food we had eaten was “breakfast” on the plane and it was now around 4:00 o’clock.  (Both were extremely delicious, and this was an extremely memorable life moment for me.  And why is it that I need two sugars in my coffee at home, but I can drink cappuccino in Italy with nothing in it, and it's PERFECT?--B.)

It was the perfect time of day, and I was reminded now and then of Bill Murray in in Groundhog Day, when he is trying to pick up Andie MacDowell’s character, and he makes a toast saying “…it reminds me of Rome and the way the sunlight hits the buildings in the afternoon…” We took pictures of everything along the way, with a pretty regular outburst of “oh my god” every few minutes. Near the Trevi Fountain we saw a man selling chestnuts.....but since we were pretty full from our cannoli we thought we'd try to make it back the next day (although we didn't).

Beautifully presented gelato in a gelateria....

A beautiful dragon frieze (for Somer, in her year of the dragon)

Wandering around Rome.

A flower stall.

Peonies, my favourite flowers...

Near the food shop...

We left the Trevi Fountain in search of the Pantheon, and along the way discovered a beautiful little shop full of Italian specialty goods….I picked up the best Balsamic Vinegar I have ever tasted, sweet and syrupy, and it wasn’t even the top of the line in that shop, and some truffled honey which I was told would go well with cheese…can’t wait to try it. I also found some pasta rainbow shells for Aria and some chocolate pasta for Somerset. Barb picked up some giant penne noodles in a few colours as well as Black Truffle Oil…..there is a reason they sample their wares….once you try it, you want to buy it…..I could have spent all of my money there…..it was hard not to….( Is it bad to drink black truffle oil staight out of the bottle?--B.)

We then found the Pantheon and gaped in awe at the perfection of the architecture and paintings, not to mention the scale of things. The Pantheon was originally a temple built for the gods (Pantheon is the Greek word for "every god", which the Romans obviously liked well enough to bring into their own lexicon). It was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa, and later rebuilt by Hadrian @ 126 AD… It was amazing to stand in, and touch a building that is close to two thousand years old... It is now a Catholic Church, and all of the alcoves which formerly held statues of the gods are now empty, which I think is a shame.... I guess in Italy, at least in ancient times, the philosophy was Go Big or Go Home…..the amazing attention to details everywhere, inside and out, from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, is astoundingly beautiful, and I love how the ancient city is blends with the modern in a continuous flow.Throughout the day we kept looking at each other, asking "Is this real?" It felt like a movie, our own Roman Holiday without the vespa ride or Gregory Peck... We then wandered around for awhile and decided it was time to find dinner….but that is the next post J Arrivederci for now.