11.23.16 - I don't even know what to do when I see a handsome boy.

11.23.16

“I don’t even know what to do when I see a handsome boy.”

If you don’t know what a metal grinder sounds like, check this out: pffffffffrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnggggggggssssshhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrvvvrrrrrrrrrnnnn

I didn’t even have to use my alarm this morning - it was fantastic!

Then, we started getting it started this morning, thinking that we could wash off these two dirty little ladies with a nice warm shower, and as they stood there naked and shivering, we discovered the hot water was broken again this morning.  

So, we sent off an email, and bummed around on the couches until Marta from the apartment agency came to sort out the boiler.  This time, she showed me how to fire it up so that we can keep it going.  

The world's smallest hair dryer.

Finally, about 10:30 or 11, we managed to wash off some of our own grime and get out the door.  

H2 was already mad dogging me and throwing vicious elbows, so we knew she was hungry.  She’d eaten a mess of Ringo cookies already, but it wasn’t cutting it.  

The girls playing tag while mom and dad finished coffee

Over at the bar, we snagged some lunchtime cappuccinos and pastries to fuel a further search for a popular bakery.  

The Trastevere neighborhood is medieval, so the streets are super narrow and all at weird angles that make little sense because the buildings sprouted up organically where ever someone wanted to build before city planners got involved in everything.  We wandered through a few of these streets to find the bakery, which smelled amazing.  

Let me interject here, that all of us are snuffling and hacking cool stuff up, but S has it the worst of all.  She can produce some really vibrant green stuff from her nose that is a big hit and popular party trick.  If we want to make space at a monument, we let her blow her nose and bam!  We can take a killer photo.  

Poor S couldn’t smell a thing (we’ve got a doctor’s appointment for her tomorrow) but we grabbed a mixed bag anyways because she is wonderful and said she would just imagine the taste of the 48 cookies she was going to eat this morning.  

Turning a corner, a little dog ran out and greeted us, sniffing the girls Callipos (ICE CREAM #1) and the cookie bag.  He wouldn’t let us pet him, but H2 still managed to cry about the dog having an owner and not jumping into my backpack to come home with us.  

H2 tried to steal this dog

I had booked us a tour of the Vatican at 2pm, so we took a taxi up the street to Vatican City.  With S not feeling well and H1 and H2’s patience at dangerous levels, we’ve been going bourgeois style this trip and taking taxis in Rome.  It’s not too expensive when you consider it’s 4 of us and we don’t really have to think about navigating numbers of buses or trams or metros.  We are paying for convenience and even though I’m normally pretty stingy on taxis, it has been well worth it.  

At the foot of St. Peter’s square, we began the process of saying no to every vendor and tour proprietor on the street.  

Tour Person: do you have reservations?

Us: yes

TP: do you have a tour?

Us: yes

Multiplied by about 25.  One time, we even got hit up in Russian.  

Oh, and the restaurants like to do the same thing, so add 25 of those.  

Taxis saving us from many complaints of walking too much

I was ill-prepared for the walk and should have had us dropped off at the museum entrance, because we walked about .5 miles up to that from the square.  H2 said her foot hurt from stubbing her toe, so I carried her 65 pounds plus gelato the whole way.  At least I made a dent in some of my gelatos.  

We met our tour guide, Francesco, and he took us into the museums.  He was super energetic and nice and did his best to interest the girls.  

Stopping at the toilets, H2 turns to me and says:

I’m not wearing any underwear.  Don’t tell Mommy.  I tricked her.

Not a great start to entering the heart of the Catholic faith.  No undies and lying.

H2 was bored from the outset, but H1 worked pretty hard to stay engaged.  Francesco had a ton of cool facts and stories to tell about the history of the Vatican, the Popes, and the artists, and if you are ever in Rome, I give our wholehearted recommendation to both our guides.  

H1 and H2 guess the pinecone was around 129 years old. Close... 1900 yrs... :) 

He made time for the girls to sit and eat a snack, and made sure to point out the really important pieces alongside the animals and optical illusions that the girls loved.  

I may have had to carry H2 in my arms through about a mile of galleries, but I got a sick arm pump and the guide was so good I didn’t really mind.  

Even Francesco was impressed with the emptiness of the place and it was truly amazing to stand in front of the Laocoon with no one else around or to not be crowded in the Sistine Chapel or St. Peter’s.  

H2 beside herself when Francesco talks with his hands.

Snelfie! 

Still training even while on vacation - 65lb ruck baby

Francesco had a bag full of gifts for the girls at the end of the tour: a giant pencil, a postcard, a mini-St. Peter’s, AND snowglobes which H2 has wanted the whole trip.  She refused to let us put it away.

Finishing with the tour, we were blocked by leaving by the Vietnamese president heading into the Vatican, so we even got to see the VIP treatment holding us up from getting pizza.  

After we paid Francesco for the tour, H2 turned to S and I and said:

I don’t even know what to do when I see a handsome boy. (in reference to Francesco)

Me neither H2.  Me neither.

I think it was all of his hand talking that really sold her. She kept busting up and covering her mouth as laughter bubbled out of her as he explained everything with a vast array of gestures.

Literally dragging H2 through this last part of the tour

A perfect 68 degree day left us with this view post tour

We took a taxi from St. Peter’s Square all the way around Vatican City to the Trifonale neighborhood to visit Bonci’s Pizzarium, my one true quest on this trip.  If you’ve ever watched Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover: Rome, you may remember a pizza place with a giant exuberant Roman serving Pizza al Taglio with interesting toppings - this has been my dream.  

I turned a corner and there it was in all it’s NO LINE glory.  

We ordered so many slices we needed two trays.  We ate those trays.  

Then we ordered so many slices we needed two trays again.  We needed a box.  

I can’t even begin to list all the toppings, but everything worked.  Even H1 bit into her ham and cheese and smiled and said that’s really good! Which if you’ve been reading, is perhaps the highest compliment, higher even than a Michelin star.  H2 got down on some purple cauliflower, but she loved her pizza rossa with just this beautiful sauce on top.  

Really, I could go on and on, but I’ve got leftovers in the fridge I want to get down on.  

Eating without 10 mins of pre eating fighting! 

Trying to find a taxi from here was impossible because it was an actual Roman neighborhood for Romans and not a tourist area.  We walked all the way back to the Vatican to grab a taxi, which was probably a good thing after all the pizza.  

Oh, note on taxis.  You can’t hail one and have to get one at a stand or call, but my knowledge of Italian is limited to food items and pointing.  

Her "beer" according to H2

We made it back to Trastevere and grabbed some gelato downstairs, served by two American college students on study abroad from New York who looked just like my own children but a little larger.  Then we came up to our apartment and slammed some gelato.

ICE CREAM #2!

I will throw down that Florentine gelato reigns supreme, but you can’t go wrong with a gelato no matter where it is.  

Tomorrow, we head into the center of the city - mostly for S’s doctor’s appointment at the Spanish Steps!  I will have two yahoos by myself for a little while, so look forward to that news report on CNN later tomorrow.  

Francesco told us that at the Trevi, the old story about throwing the coin in backwards is of course true.  S and I tested it, and here we are!  BUT, he added, that if you throw in TWO coins, you will marry a Roman…

Knowing H2 and her love of Italian men, I’ve gotta make sure she doesn’t pick up any coins along the way.  

And don’t worry, I’ve already taken all of S’s change.  

Sometimes I'm wistful.

11.22.16 - This is not a real treasure hunt

11.22.16

“This is not a real treasure hunt!”

This might be a short one.

I’ve got all the right pieces to charge the laptop, but of course, they don’t want to cooperate with Italy’s low wattage power.  

Combine that with no hot water and waiting around to get that sorted out, I’ve got to make this quick.

This was our earliest morning so far.  I shook myself out of bed at 5:30 while on vacation and found the shower frigid with no hope of hot water.  

I was very alert.  

We had a tour at 8:30 at the Colosseum, so we needed to get the girls up, dressed, and fed all by 7 after they’d gone to bed at 10 last night.  Amazingly, they were cooperative, and we were walking down the street to the taxi stand and coffee by 7:05.  

Again, the Italian people have been so nice to the girls.  At the bar where we had coffee and pastries, the barman gave each of the girls a Kinder chocolate on their way out.  

The taxi was a quick ride to the Colosseum, and we were, unbelievably, ten minutes early for our tour.  

This was our first ever tour with the girls, so we were a little nervous, mostly about how H2 would do listening for 3 hours.  

Our tour guide, Marta, was really nice and spoke directly to the girls, trying to engage them with books and activities and questions all along the route.  H1 was enthralled for most of the 3 hours, and even H2 managed to keep her I’m boreds to herself for at least an hour.  We spent two hours in the Colosseum, learning about its construction and use and related discoveries and then we walked to the Palatine Hill and into the Forum.  

KEY MOMENT: We saw a cat outside the Colosseum and all of us turned to look at it and take pictures.  I didn’t see that much excitement at any other thing we saw all day.  

Without a tour guide, the Forum and the Palatine Hill are a jumble of broken columns and rocks - it’s hard to make sense of what you are seeing without someone to paint the picture.  The Flavian palace came into view as she described it, as did the nature of the Forum’s use and the road that led from it to the Palace.  

Marta had promised a treasure hunt, and H2 was ready.  She started with muttering and then when it finally did come, she crossed her arms and planted her feet and declared this is not a real treasure hunt!  H1 happily took the scavenger hunt map and started doing it all by herself.  She did wonderfully and was elated with her discoveries.  H2 made me carry her.  

After 3 hours of listening, H2 had on her best dirty look.  Her eyebrows knit and her eyes dark with rage at having to listen and not jump off of every step and rock she came across.  It was time for food.  

Marta gave us a recommendation, but as we walked up to the restaurant, we noticed a big sign that read “Closed Tuesday.”  Noooooooooooo.

So we ate at the restaurant across the street and it was okay.  H1 has this really charming habit that as soon as the food hits the table, she starts first going crazy with energy, and then when you ask her to stop and eat a bite, she says she is tired and tries to lay down.  

I have never had the pleasure of meeting someone that hates eating so much.  

After that negotiation, she ate almost her whole half of pizza, it just takes 15-20 minutes to make it happen, which is not a fun use of time.  

We headed to get a taxi back to the apartment and the street vendors were out in full force.  We even got hit up by the same guy from last night that asked if we were African.  H1 and H2 of course want to ask a million questions about why we say no and won’t talk to them which gives the guys more time to ask us if we want some bizarre phone charger or mini sewing machine.  

The route to the taxi took us by Trajan’s Forum and Trajan’s column, but the girls were more interested in making pine needle nests in the pebbles and finding quartz in the rocks.  

After the taxi ride home, we had…

ICE CREAM #1

The early wake up caused a need for naps all around.  Upon wake up, we set out for more suppli and park action.  The girls happily played while we ate the fried heaven.  

Stopping at a market, we checked out all the interesting Italian products and prices and tried to navigate the shop that twisted around and behind the other shops on the block.  It was a maze with tiny aisles and doorways between sections.  

Walking back to find dinner, we stopped outside of a restaurant and a guy came out telling us it was the best place in Rome.  He asked us where we were from and bizarrely, he had worked at Luna Rossa, a restaurant at the top of the PV hill and had lived in Manhattan Beach!  We figured that was some kind of a sign, and the food was actually pretty good.  

H1 did her finest acting job again, but after 15-20 minutes of her show, she ate her whole bowl of Cacio e Pepe.  

So there it is, folks.  Another day travelling as a family.  Sometimes the debating about if a child has to eat food gets to the point where we ask if it is even worth it.  But then I remember that H1 does this at home too with a grilled cheese or turkey, so it’s the same debate, just with the added cost of traveling thrown in.  AND layer on the fact that I want to enjoy my food that I am paying a bunch of dough for and you get an extra layer of annoyance.  

But there is growth too.  She ate pasta that wasn’t dry eventually and the debate time was probably 5 minutes shorter than usual.  

I’ll count it as a win.

This is how the magic happens.