I'm still smiling from a weekend with the girlfriends that I fondly refer to as the XHHH group. Kelly, Liza, Virginia, Liz, Missy and I recently decided to spend a weekend in Boulder. Kelly had it all planned out for us---flights, transportation, restaurants, even sending out weather information the day before we left.
Thursday night four of us arrived in Boulder and went to dinner at Pasta J's. It was so delicious that we ended up going again on our last night so it was the perfect start to our trip. Each morning Kelly had coffee brewing for us. We drank it huddled by the gas log fireplace or on the porch. We would finally get out when we got hungry, usually before we were even dressed & showered, which made us fit right in in Boulder.
We spent the afternoons shopping on Pearl Street, perusing the Farmer's Market, driving through the mountains or sitting around drinking cocktails at the place we lovingly called the cabin. There was lots of talking about our feelings, talking about each other's feelings, and then there was talking about what other people think about the feelings that we think they are thinking. At least that's what Kelly picked up in her oh-so-astute observations!! We had several living room dance parties---I insisted we roll up the living room rug for proper dancing. There was even a sexy bumblebee that made an appearance.
It started to snow on the last day and even though it was not cold enough to stick on the ground it was the perfect ending to a relaxing and fun weekend.
I had such a great time---thanks to all of my girlfriends for adding so much to my life!
We found some good tickets from Southwest that took us into Sacramento on Friday the 25th and back from San Jose on Tuesday the 29th. On Friday, our flight to Phoenix was uneventful, but the flight to Sacramento was delayed by almost two hours. We slept late on Saturday morning before starting the hour-long drive to Napa. We didn't have any plans for the day, which we started to realize could be an issue as we surveyed the number of wineries that require some kind of appointment. Thankfully, Del Dotto winery, which received some really good reviews, had some space for us.
Del Dotto has the second oldest wine cave in Napa (built by Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century)---it's several hundred feet long, with a couple turns, lit with candles, and is lined with barrels of wine. After talking about the barrels they use and letting us sniff an oak barrel, our guide took us through the cave, letting us sample wine straight from the barrels along the way. The wines were between $60 and $125 a bottle, and they were about the best wines I've ever had. The first one was a sangiovese that tasted incredibly smooth and was really good (sorry, that's all you're getting from me, still not really a wine critic). We sampled about eight wines in all---probably the most interesting was a pair of wines that were the same wine (same grapes, same vineyard) from two different barrels. One was French Oak and one was American Oak, and we all preferred the French Oak.
Our second winery was Luna, which was a vineyard-lined country highway mile from Del Dotto. We had a tasting of their wines and took photos near the vineyard before heading up the road to Reynolds Family, a great little winery on beautiful grounds. We had a tasting there but were really keen on getting a tour, since Del Dotto was a great experience but didn't get much into the winemaking process. An intern was nice enough to take us around, showing us some grapes fermenting, letting us taste some grapes off the vine, and giving us some wine out of a barrel.
Our last stop was at St. Supery, which Brandi immediately recognized. They were having a party for their wine club members that included an 80's cover band. The wine club is something that I was previously unaware of. Very few of the wineries you visit distribute their wines through lots of retail and food service outlets. They count on selling to the people who come in for tastings, and then they have a wine club that regularly purchases their product. St. Supery is a bit of an exception, as they can be found in the grocery store, but it's still pretty apparent that they do a lot of business through their club.
For dinner we headed to Sonoma and ate at El Dorado, a restaurant on the city square with a beautiful courtyard. The food was very good, especially the ice cream sandwiches we had for dessert. Then we took a nighttime drive into San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge---that thing is massive! (And it's six bucks to cross, so best to take it all in in one shot.) Highway 1 quickly turns into Lombard Avenue, so we decided to go down the crookedest block in the world. The only problem was that in getting to the crooked hill we took ourselves further away from the hotel, and getting back took our poor rental PT Cruiser (the same type of rental car we had in Banff and on our wedding day, by the way) up a lot of tough hills that it really wasn't prepared for.
We stayed at Parc 55, right on Union Square. The hotel was very nice, we remarked to each other, as we got off the elevator, walked to our room, opened the door, and AAAAAAH! A high-pitched man squeal, along with said man frightenedly saying, "Someone's in here!" is how we learned that our room was occupied. We got a new room, thankfully.
On Sunday morning we went for a long run that included Chinatown, the piers, and the hills near Coit Tower. Then we went to church, which was (surprise!) a Latin Mass (our first). I enjoyed reliving my misspent year in high school learning impossible conjugations and arcane legal phrases, and Brandi enjoyed having no idea what was going on. Oh yeah, and we got to bring up the gifts, so that was pretty cool.
[Brandi here...] For lunch we decided to try Yank Sing, a Chinese restaurant that my doctor recommended. Dr. Schmidt is from the Bay area and he really knows Deem Sum! It was quite an experience; the waitstaff comes by with all menu items displayed on carts such as dumplings of all kinds, meat-stuffed buns, peking duck, various vegetable stir fry, and traditional desserts. We tasted as much as we could but I couldn't quite make it to dessert because I was so full. Daniel thought it was one of the best Chinese meals he'd ever had.
We then decided to go to Fisherman's Wharf and walked through the Ferry Building and then we took a street car the rest of the way there. My favorite thing at the Wharf was watching the sea lions. There were several hundred of them lounging and playing very close to the pier! After walking around Fisherman's Wharf we ended our evening in San Francisco with a nice dinner at the Waterfront Cafe.
We then drove a little under an hour to Half Moon Bay to the Old Thyme Inn, the Bed and Breakfast we were staying at until Tuesday. We got up Monday morning and ran down to the bay. While it was a foggy morning, it was still beautiful and calming. We made it back in time to get ready for the delicious breakfast of Dutch apple pancakes and chicken apple sausage. The pancake was more like eating a sumptuous cake than breakfast. There was also rosemary corn cake (made with fresh rosemary from their garden), fresh fruit and strong delicious coffee. We also had stimulating conversation with the other guests staying at the inn and I was very intrigued by the many different types of visitors.
Once we had our fill, we decided to head south to explore more wineries and enjoy the scenery. The drive was beautiful and calming, except for the first half hour because while I was busy looking at the map I got motion sickness, ugh. The first vineyard we came to was Savannah Chanelle. It was up the side of a mountain and had breathtaking views and a beautiful old house to enjoy our tasting. We kept driving south and visited the Cinnabar tasting room in Saratoga and then to Los Gatos to visit Testarossa---a winery that used to be an old monastery. The used to make church wine there! It was a beautiful old building. We then decided to head to Santa Cruz for a late lunch and possibly make it one last tasting room, Bonny Doon, but we caught them as they were to trying close up so we headed back up Highway 1 to Half Moon Bay. That evening we walked together downtown to our last meal in California at a quaint Italian restaurant that was downtown. It was perfectly warm and relaxing. We toasted to our lovely wine tour of Northern California!
For my birthday we met my family in Dallas for a weekend of theme parks, ballgames, and horse racing. We got a great deal on the Arlington Hilton and made it up there on Thursday night, where Brandi and I promptly went swimming. It lasted all of about ten minutes as the water was very cold and the hot tub, which we quickly switched to, displayed a penchant for throwing water all over the place.
Our first stop on Friday morning was Fuel City, which Texas Monthly has given the distinction of the best taco in Texas (the picadillo). We all had breakfast tacos at the giant gas station that looks up at Interstates 3o and 35 while sitting in our cars since strangely enough there wasn't any seating, and a couple of us had the picadillo, which was nice and spicy. Four of us, my dad, Alicia, Brandi, and I, then went to Six Flags.
Six Flags is suffering from a serious case of theme confusion. Originally, Six Flags was organized according to the six flags over Texas---there was a section for France, Spain, Mexico, the Old South, Texas, and the United States. Now we have all six of the original sections plus Gotham City, which I think doesn't exist in the same sense as those other places. Also, there's an affiliation with Looney Tunes, so there's always a chance you'll see Wonder Woman walking past Porky Pig.
We started out with the Runaway Mine Train, which is kind of the classic roller coaster for me. Then we did a lame river ride where you have to capture a paint-chipped old timey animatronic Yosemite Sam, the Titan, with its giant drops and intense speeds, and the Texas Giant, which is like a cross between ridinig a giant wooden roller coaster and running the gauntlet. We left that one feeling bruised and battered; I kind of thought it was fun, but I was pretty much alone. After lunch, Brandi and I rode the Batman ride, which leaves your feet dangling as you go upside down, and I tried the three-point shooting contest. You get four shots from each of three different spots, which, with a money ball on each rack, gives you a possible total of 15 points. I got six only after sinking my final three shots and won a UT basketball.
We met my dad's sister and much of her family at the Rangers game that evening. My aunt and uncle, Martha and Ralph, showed up with my cousin Monica and her husband, my cousin David and his wife, my cousin Maria and her husband, my cousin Jon and his girlfriend, my cousin Anne, about 8 or so little kids, and about a billion hot dogs. They even have four more kids that weren't able to be at the game. It was great to be with them as they were one of the reasons we decided to do a trip to Dallas.
The game was a 6-0 shutout with a Beach Boys-themed fireworks display after. And the wind was crazy! There was more trash blowing around on the field than I've ever seen.
Saturday for my birthday lunch we went to Sonny Bryan's, a great, tiny, old smokehouse in Dallas that is in my top 5 of all time BBQ joints. We had their great brisket sandwiches and onion rings in their little desks and then made our way to the race track. I made everybody place at least $10 in bets, and the person who netted the greatest amount on their first $10 in bets would receive a prize pack, concocted earlier that morning during Brandi's and my morning jog and conveniently put together at the 7-11 half a mile from our hotel. Cristina, who was going with her heart and picking the best horse names, hit on an 11 to 1 underdog for the win, so she won easily at $23.40 on a $2 bet. My parents and Alicia got back between $3 and $7, and Brandi and I lost all of ours. Let's just say that a $2 trifecta box is a colossally stupid idea.
We found a nice Mexican restaurant called Avila's for dinner---we thought we were going to a place I had discovered online, but I forgot the name and brought us to a restaurant contained in a smallish house, but still good. We went back to the hotel and played some crazy word-making card game of Alicia's to finish off the night.
On Sunday after church we had lunch at i Fratelli, where my cousin David is the manager, and headed on our separate ways, Brandi and I to Austin and my parents and sisters to Houston. My birthday was a fun, family-filled weekend that included not only Six Flags but included a tribute to the Beatles with gifts of the Cirque du Soliel performance of Love and funds towards my anxiously-awaited purchase of The Beatles: Rock Band.
So I’ve been meaning to write a post about our trip on the last weekend of April, but the last several weeks have been busily filled with old friends and renovations. I celebrated Cinco De Mayo at Z Tejas with Andrea, Anna, and Laura—we worked together at Keller Williams became close in a short time. I also went to Cover 3 for a XHHH (which refers to a happy hour with my girls I remain friends with even after all of us have since left Holt, Rinehart and Winston—hence the X). We even have more to share about our fun Memorial Day weekend in our next post. And lastly, we are knee deep in home renovations this spring. Our early May project was for Daniel to hang dry wall to finish out the garage and hang shelves and hooks for all of gardening and yard tools. The most recent is staining the bathroom cabinet to complete the half bath renovation we started earlier in the spring.
So the last Thursday in April I called my parents on the way home from the Hilton after the end of the close of Masterminds (one of my events I manage for KW) to see if they were on board with going to Louisiana for the weekend. When Daniel and I went to Jasper during Easter weekend we talked about crawfish season. Since we decided to split up our Easter weekend with both families it meant I wasn’t going to get to go to the crawfish boil at Memaw’s so we mentioned how it would be great to get back to Louisiana again. Both of my parents have family in Louisiana, and Dwight Breaux, my Mom’s cousin, owns a restaurant known for delicious crawfish, Cajun dishes and barbeque on Sundays. Somehow we ended up with a tentative plan four weeks ago, and the planner in me had been anxiously awaiting the confirmation that the trip was a go. I had talked to my mom several times and by Thursday night my parents were finally ready to commit—Whew! I only had one day to unpack from staying downtown for a week, wash clothes, book the hotel and research some museums in the Lafayette area. Much to my parents enjoyment I was a little wound up! Since my Mom and Dad can kind of roll with ideas and remain fairly spontaneous they think my planner tendencies are curious and funny!
Friday night when Daniel got home from work I had us packed and ready to leave for Jasper. We spent the night in Jasper and then drove to Vidor to pick up my mother’s sister and my Dad’s stepmother; our entire family lovingly refers to her as Memaw. We had great car rides all around with good stories about farming from my Memaw and my parents chiming in on how different life was 40 years ago. And soon, we arrived in Lafayette. We had seen a couple of Acadian Museums online and decided to go to St. Martinville. It is the 6th oldest city in Louisiana and is where many deported families first arrived from Acadia. Acadia is in Nova Scotia and is where many of the French decided to sail to so that they could start a better life for their families. The museum had a great narrative of people of color in Louisiana (slaves and Creoles) as well as the history and culture of the Acadians---I never knew that the term “Cajun” is taken from “Acadian”! On Saturday afternoon we went to Iris and JC’s house to visit, as that is where my mom’s uncle Dallas lives now. We had a good time and he is looking remarkably good for his 101 years of age!
Then we went to our hotel. Daniel picked out the hotel, and he made it painfully obvious why he should always leave the travel arrangements to me. The Lafayette Crown Plaza was undergoing some renovations, and they’re obviously still getting their stuff together. The woman at the counter tried to claim my dad’s credit card didn’t work, and when we got to our rooms they had not been cleaned and looked like a rock band had stayed the night there---they were absolutely trashed! The second set of rooms had no televisions, but the third set of rooms were just right!
Dwight’s restaurant is one of Lafayette’s hot spots for crawfish, and he treated us to a great meal. I really loved the charbroiled oysters, which were served topped with cheese and in cooked on the grill in their shells. The crawfish were great---Dwight’s even has holes in the middle of the tables with buckets underneath to easily discard your carcasses. We caught up on family stories and met with the whole family, including Maverick and Mary, and Suzie and Dwight’s daughters Brandi and Chelsea. After dinner Dwight showed us around his kitchen. He has some great innovations for transporting, sorting, and cooking his crawfish and other foods. He even has one woman whose only job is to shell all the smaller crawfish for etouffee and other dishes.
On Sunday, we went to early Mass and then headed out to the Acadian village. They had numerous houses that showed how people of the late 18th and early 19th century lived, as well as some of their belongings. We think that my great grandmother’s spinning wheel is among the donated items that are featured in the village, but unfortunately we couldn’t figure out which one it was.
We had lunch at Dwight’s---his Sunday barbeque is a buffet line that you can either take out or eat in the restaurant. I had some really good etouffee, and I also had some of Daniel’s ribs and sausage, which he thought were really tasty. He’s kind of BBQ connoisseur.
Our trip to Lafayette was a great mix of food, family, and history. We hope to have more trips like it very soon!
Texans should be forgiven for harboring a little resentment toward the Land of 10,000 Lakes. After all, when Adam and Jenny Max left Austin for Minneapolis in the summer of 2005, it broke up the one-hit wonder known as Ausbats. I had a homeschool conference in St. Paul last weekend, so it gave Brandi and me an opportunity to go pay them a visit.
Brandi and I got to their house late Saturday afternoon and got immediately acquainted with their two children Owen and Audrey. Now, saying these kids are cute is kind of like saying that Ben Sheets is a dubious guy to take in the 15th round of your fantasy baseball draft. (Quick aside...Adam and I had our fantasy draft Thursday night for Adam's "B" league, and it was poorly attended. There were two humans and eight automatons, but with the errors Adam and I made using the draft software, it might actually have been better to be on autodraft.) Owen is really into throwing things, so he and I got along swimmingly, even if he was a bit bashful to begin with. And Audrey crawls all over the place! It's hard to believe that the last time I was in Minnesota, Jenny was about five months pregnant with Owen and I had, just the week before, had a really bad second date with a girl I'd met earlier in the year.
On Saturday evening we had some pizza and played Taboo down in the basement. We also played some Wii Sports. Brandi and I brought our Miis all the way from Austin, which ended up being a lot of fun. I set a new record in Home Run Derby and stormed out of the dugout like George Brett when Adam declared my home run swing to be illegal. And the Lauves got plastered by the Maxes in the first four-person game of video tennis any of us had played.
On Sunday we started off at Edina Grill, which has some of the best French toast I've ever had. Then we went sledding--remarkably, a few inches of snow fell overnight, and even though it started melting before noon, it gave us a nice window to take a couple sleds down the hill. Brandi had never been sledding before, so I really enjoyed seeing her take it all in. Later, Adam and I had a rousing game of Wii Game Party while the ladies went shopping.
Then we all met up at General Mills headquarters. We got to see all the different mascots, the Betty Crocker Mixer show that Jenny is working on, and the experimental cereals that are about to hit store shelves. I won't ruin the surprise, but suffice it to say that gummy bears and peanut butter make an excellent combination!
Every chance we got to play with the kids was a blast. Owen's a rambunctious kid who enjoyed intentionally tripping while running around the house, and Audrey is very talented at putting everything in the house inside her mouth. Adam, Jenny, and Brandi think she may be teething. Owen and I remain on the sidelines of the teething debate, awaiting more evidence.
For dinner Jenny and Brandi made chicken breasts with a tomatillo sauce, along with rice and vegetables. It was so great getting to catch up with a couple people who were such a huge part of the two years I spent in business school. Our lives have all changed in huge ways, but it was great to know that we still have so much in common.
On Monday morning we said goodbye to the Maxes, got checked in for our flight, and headed off to the Mall of America. We rode the SpongeBob Rock Bottom Plunge, and Brandi visited lots of...get this...clothing stores! If you took the roller coasters out of the Mall of America, what you'd have is basically a collection of stores under one roof connected by escalators and featuring a food court.
Our wakeup this morning was jarring, to say the least. The phone rang at 6:00 a.m. from the front desk telling us that our car to Florence’s Amerigo Vespucci Airport was downstairs and ready to go. It was one of those disorienting moments that takes you a few minutes just to believe that you’re not in a bad dream. I had gotten a wake-up call, but I reflexively picked up the phone when it rang and sat it back down. And for some reason my phone alarm that I have used numerous time for all sort of other hotel alarms did not sound. And with staying up late the night before and my smart decision not to pack up all my stuff so it would be easy to get up and go for our early flight, let’s just say this morning was my least favorite moment of the trip! Not to mention I was sad that we were leaving our dream vacation. Daniel had actually gotten his luggage packed before we went to bed, so as the calm one in these situations he threw his clothes on to go downstairs. He was going to talk to the driver to see if he could wait for us, and then he’d come back to help me with my luggage. I raced around and managed to get dressed and packed in 10 minutes flat, and we were out the door on our way to the airport before sunrise.As we drove away from downtown I welled up a little over the beauty we were leaving behind but was filled with all the memories Daniel and I had created in one week in a different world. It left us with a yearning to see more of the surrounding countries and cultures that we have yet to experience, so there will always be another adventure for us. But for now, I had to say good-bye to our Italy, or better yet, “Ciao Bella!”
After a morning run taking us back by the Duomo, we had breakfast downstairs and went back up to the room to get ready. I was in the bathroom when Brandi was having trouble getting her hair dryer to work. We have a converter for it to fit into the European plugs, but it tends to operate with very little power for some reason. She was looking for a new place to plug it in to, when POP! There was a loud crack and all of the lights went out. When I went to Radio Shack to pick up a plug converter, the guy there actually sold me two, one adapter that is for appliances that are already at the right voltage, and a converter primarily for heated appliances like the hair dryer. When the converter wasn’t giving her the results she wanted, she decided to give the adapter a try. You see, Brandi has a philosophy that if she doesn’t have enough electricity to dry her hair, then nobody in the hotel should have enough electricity to do anything. It was really just our room that lost power, Daniel is just being double-headed two-horned jackass with a smelly butt.
Each of us had one thing that we had not yet gotten to eat while in Italy, so for our last lunch we decided to seek out a good restaurant for pasta alla carbonara (Daniel) and gnocchi alla Bolognese (Brandi). After some shopping in the rain, we went south of the Arno to Celestino’s, a restaurant recommended by our hotel. It was a perfect last lunch. We arrived right at noon, so we were the only ones there for a little while. I had spaghetti alla carbonara, which has bacon and egg yolks. Alla carbonara and alla matriciana are two pasta preparations you don’t see as often in the states. I think I prefer alla matriciana, but alla carbonara was definitely interesting and worth trying. The restaurant was great and their gnocchi was unbelievable! It was hearty and delicious, well-worth the traipse through the rain to get there.
The one thing Brandi requested for this trip was a wine tour in Tuscany. We spent the whole trip thinking that the tour listed for today (which included Pisa and Lucca and was slated for a full day) was going to have the winery tour. When I called the bus company today to see what the tour included, the lady said that it was just Pisa and Lucca with lunch in between. Not only that, but she told us it was canceled due to lack of interest (punctuated with another “Didn’t you get the fax?”). Luckily, when I mentioned that we’d rather sign up for a Tuscany tour that included a winery, the tour company happened to have exactly what we wanted.
We walked to the bus stop under a light but consistent rain---definitely not the best weather for visiting a winery. The bus took us along a similar route to the one we took to Siena, through windy, hilly roads and around some really tight corners. Once we got within a few kilometers of the winery, all you could see was vineyards on one side of the bus and olive trees on the other.
The winery is housed in a medieval castle that figured prominently in some of the Renaissance tug-of-war between Florence and Siena, and it’s about the most beautiful place we’ve ever seen. It looks very, uh, castle-y, with those little cutouts at the top of the walls (not sure what they’re called), as well as Spanish-style roofs and an amazing view out of the back. As if on cue, the rain cleared up and the clouds went away just as we were leaving so we could enjoy the view in all its glory. We walked inside and got to see the barrels that they use to age the wine, and then we got to see the wine cellar, an amazing collection of the winery’s production that includes bottles going all the way back to 1911.
We got to sample some of their wines (a chianti, a chianti reserva, and a dessert wine), plus some nice cheese and bruschetta. Then it was on to Greve in Chianti, a nice little town where we visited a butcher shop with very, very fresh prosciutto. They had these legs hanging in the window, and I don’t want to get too graphic, but I’ll just say that you could see the hoof. And some little hairs right by the hoof. Daniel is being polite; those legs were everywhere in the shop, so much so that he actually had to duck. I’m not a huge fan of meat on the bone (too graphically carnivorous for me), but I love prosciutto, and it ruined the mystique of not knowing exactly what part of the pig it comes from.
We spent just a few minutes at Pieve di San Leolino, a hillside village that has a 12th century church another spectacular view. We had dinner at Trattoria da Pordo on Via Valigondoli (which seemed like a country house on the side of a solitary mountain that we walked part of the way down to get to dinner) and we sat by Chris and Natalie, a couple from Richmond, Virginia, who were also on their first anniversary trip. We had talked with them throughout the bus rides all afternoon. It was great getting to know them---we haven’t gotten much of a chance to socialize with the people on our tours, and we really enjoyed getting to spend time with a couple our age. Interestingly, another table had a couple that was getting married the following day. The other people at the table gave them a pretty good “rehearsal dinner”---they were laughing the whole time and taking pictures afterward. We ended the evening telling Chris and Natalie good-bye and walking through downtown for our last taste of gelato, which turned out to be a gelato gorge. We went to two different places just to make sure we had all of the flavors that we were so dearly going to miss once we left Italy. My favorite one was the gelato made from nutella and peanut butter….delicious!
Today we slept in until 8:00 and went downstairs for the hotel’s buffet breakfast, which I had heard was very good. It had eggs! Also, there was sausage and pancakes, as well as prosciutto and melon. And they made delicious cappuccinos to order---all in a lovely quaint room on the top floor.
Yesterday, we had a little trouble finding the bus (they are doing construction on the train station/bus terminal), but we figured it was productive since we needed to take a bus tour today. We were in the SITA (Florence’s bus company) bus terminal at 9:45, waiting for our bus, when a woman ran in, screaming to us and one other couple, “Hurry, the bus is across the street!!! It’s about to leave!!! Didn’t you get the fax???” Well, no, do you mean on the fax machine that I carry in my backpack? “You’ve got to hurry to get on the tour today, but if you miss the bus we can get you on the Saturday tour.” That’s good. Apparently SITA’s experience with foreign tourists is that they stay in Florence indefinitely. As we were planning to be going home on Saturday, we decided to run to the bus, leaving the other couple (one of whom was a gentleman who walked with a cane) in our collective dust. I thought we could warn the tour guide ahead that another couple was coming behind us, but Daniel makes it sound like we were in the amazing race!
The tour started at Piazza de Michaelangelo, which is a spot up in the hills overlooking Florence with an amazing view of the entire city, including Fiesole, a neighboring town that figures prominently in Etruscan history. We then drove across much of the rest of the city, stopping and getting off the bus for good near the city center. Except something didn’t get off the bus---Brandi forgot her sweater. She realized it and started getting upset just as the bus was driving off, and we were told there wasn’t a way to recover it.
This whole sequence had me worrying about spending the rest of the day with a very upset wife, until a woman in the back of the crowd started crying, realizing that she had left her camera at Piazza de Michaelangelo. Now, losing a camera is a horrible thing, and I felt really sorry for her, but it did mean that Brandi had to pass the Pout Pipe to her, which made me a little happy. Awful, I know. It was a taupe-colored goes-with-everything cardigan that fit my 5 ft frame perfectly and it was a bargain! He’s right, though, I can sometimes get a little upset with myself when I lose stuff…
We walked through the Piazza della Republica and toward the Duomo, the fourth-largest cathedral in the world. The Baptistry was built a couple centuries before the main church (between 1059 and 1128), and it is where Dante and several members of the Medici family were baptized. Built between the 13th and 16th centuries, the Duomo was conceptualized at a time when Florence had passed Rome as a center of European culture, and it was built to surpass the greatest churches of the time, though the new St. Peter’s Basilica clearly dwarfs it now. One of its best features is the fact that tourists can climb to the top of the dome, but unfortunately our tour did not go inside.
We walked on to the Accademia, which was originally meant to be an academy for the training of young artists. It changed into a museum, chiefly, in 1873, when Michaelangelo’s David was brought there, after previously being kept outside near the Uffizi, which sounds crazy. He was brought in to the Accademia to protect him from the elements, kind of like when my dad would tell me to bring the dog in when it had started raining, though I think it was more involved than that. The museum also houses several of Michaelangelo’s unfinished sculptures as well as a few other notable sculptures and paintings.
Unlike some of our pre-arranged tours in Rome, today’s tour had the feeling of being a little cheap. Our tour guide was pretty knowledgeable, but while most of the museum tours are equipped with little radios that allow you to hear your guide speak quietly, our tour relied completely on the lung capacity of the guide. If I had paid for a tour that included the radios, then I would be a little upset when another tour guide came in and started yelling at everybody, so it wasn’t too remarkable when the other tour guides started getting onto our tour guide. He started yelling back at them and being a little bit of a jerk in the process. He turned back to us and said, “They just don’t know what they’re talking about.” These confrontations repeated a few times throughout our tour, which made us all increasingly more uncomfortable.
Michaelangelo’s David was probably my favorite artifact that we saw in Florence! Just because you have seen it in a book, don’t second guess its perfection. It is truly breathtaking work.
After a quick lunch at a pizza by the slice place (our least memorable meal of the trip), we made our pilgrimage to the Dante Museum, a three-story Dante exhibit built in Dante’s renovated house. It’s definitely not a big tourist destination--there were two people there when we arrived, and the people who showed up after us just wanted to know where the American Express office was. But for a Dante fan, it was a real treat. We learned about Dante’s early life and his exile from Florence, and there were many depictions of his Commedia.
We tried to visit the Uffizi, but the line was about an hour long, so we went to the hotel and came back at about 5:00 p.m., an hour and a half before it closed. We got in right away, but unfortunately we were there after they stopped checking out the audio tours. I was wondering what we were going to listen to but Daniel was clever---before the trip he downloaded some Rick Steves podcasts of notable places in Rome and Florence, and this was one of several places where they came in handy. We saw Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus as well as numerous other Renaissance works, but unfortunately many of the works on the back half of the tour were missing descriptions.
As we were just about finished with the museum, a woman sidled up next to us, asking if the piece in front of us was marble or ivory. Turns out that she was an American who had spent time in Houston. Oh yeah, and she was annoying. She spent some time telling us how bad Houston’s museum scene used to be. (They only had an art museum and an opera, she said, which, last time I checked, is still ahead of Peoria and Siberia and a bunch of other places.) She kept up a 90/10 talking-to-silence ratio, telling us about every member of her family and the fact that she was in Italy for three weeks before asking us how long we were here. When we told her we were on a one-week trip, she said, “Oh, that’s better than nothing.” Thanks, lady.
It’s funny how quickly things can change in a tourist destination. The guidebooks are very helpful, but if you go to the places they recommend, you will find many more Americans than you would have if you happened upon it before it was “discovered.” Our dinner tonight was at Acqua al Due, a restaurant my friend Adam recommended to me. When he found it a few years ago, it was an unknown restaurant where nobody spoke English. When we went, pretty much every customer was an English speaker. So much so that in the middle of our dinner I distinctly heard the words Beaumont and Austin. We both popped up out of our chairs to go and introduce our selves to the two couples because it seemed so odd to run into someone from our own backyard!
The food was still very good, though. In addition to a bottle of wine, Brandi ordered a salad sampler (three different types of salad), and I got a pasta sampler (five different pastas). For our main course, I got their popular blueberry steak, while Brandi ordered cannelloni with ricotta and spinach. My first four samplers, vodka macaroni, blue cheese gnocchi, eggplant rigatoni, and spicy fusilli, came out before my steak, and they were all very good, as was the steak. I figured the fifth one was on its way, but when it didn’t come after a while I asked the waiter for it. After a couple minutes, he brought out a plate with “cannelloni”---a dollop of ricotta covered in red sauce. Besides being what Brandi ordered, it didn’t actually have any pasta. Brandi asked him about it, and he said, “Yes, it’s pasta with cheese and sauce. It’s very good, do you like it?” We pointed out that there was no pasta. “Oh, yes, that’s right. That’s how it comes.” We’re guessing he didn’t like it pointed out that they had forgotten 20% of the pasta sampler. Although I wasn’t thrilled with the waiter because I really felt like he needed to know that we know what pasta looks like but I still really enjoyed our meal there and our walk back through the cobblestone streets!
After dinner, we grabbed a Bailey’s on ice and went up to the rooftop patio to hang out. It was a great, relaxing end to our evening that mirrored the serenity of Florence. Since we had all sorts of extra battery space left on our camera, we both started taking silly pictures of each other. (Then I forgot to recharge the camera that night. Sorry we don’t have any pictures of the Ponte Vecchio, winery, or Tuscan countryside---but we hope you enjoy the million pictures of us mugging for the camera!)
On our last morning in Rome, we put on our Human Race shirts and took a run by Vatican City, our third visit to the sovereign nation in four days. We got to see people milling about and crowding together for the Pope’s Wednesday visit. Breakfast was pastries and cappuccino (for Brandi) and orange juice (for Daniel) at a little café near our hotel. We spent the rest of the morning shopping, and Brandi got a Morellato watch. And Daniel is an awesome husband for entertaining my need to shop and buy a nice anniversary gift.
The train to Florence was nice and relaxing. The signs and staff at the train station tell you that there are no porters and not to let anyone take your bags, but once we got on the train there was someone offering to find a place for our large suitcase, and he had basically taken it and put it up before I had a chance to refuse (it was actually fairly helpful, though). The dumb move on my part was letting him put up my backpack, which allowed him to ask for an extra euro in tip.
We were seated next to a couple Australian girls who were doing a three-week tour of Europe. They had about half our luggage. Daniel commented to me that he thought they probably hadn’t brought their 1800 watt hair dryer and diffuser on the trip. But I am still pretty proud of myself for filling only one suitcase for 8 days. The Italian countryside was very beautiful, and we crossed through a number of tunnels as well.
Florence is different than Rome, but the same. You see many of the same types of buildings, but it is much smaller, more laid back, and easier to navigate than Rome. I left Rome after four days still pretty unable to get my bearings, but Florence felt pretty comfortable after a couple hours. Streets that run north-south and east-west are a sight for sore eyes. Immediately when we arrived in Florence I realized that this was going to be the more relaxing part of our vacation and I knew immediately I was going to love Florence.
Brandi had mentioned on the train that we might want to go to Siena that night, which sounded fun but a little quick to be going to a new city. But with nothing planned for the evening, we headed back to the train station after dropping our bags at the hotel and grabbing a quick lunch at a wine bar with, yes, a touch of wine.
The bus to Siena was a little over an hour and took us through some hilly terrain in central Tuscany. Rather than ending up at a station as it had started, the bus dropped most of its passengers on several stops on the outskirts of Siena. We got off at the final stop, unsure of where exactly we were. We started heading downhill, taking in some amazing mountain views along the way, and eventually saw signs pointing us toward Il Campo (the large piazza at the center of town that is the biggest tourist destination) and the Duomo (the big church; actually the name of every town’s big church). The Duomo is a very impressive cathedral, with a mix of different colored marble that is characteristic to the region. Il Campo is one of a million things in Italy that pictures do absolutely no justice.
Siena was even more of a country town than Florence and felt a little sleepier in many ways. This one pottery shop I walked into fit perfect into my idea of what a country store would look like in Italy. The potter was managing the store and let me alone to walk into the different rooms to shop his wares. While I was marveling at the way the shop looked like an old house with almost rounded walls and ceiling made out of stucco, I heard something happening at the front of the shop, and the potter was groaning in Italian as a grey kitten scurried out of homemade pitcher. I couldn’t help myself as I immediately felt like I had to help the guy get this cat out of his shop and I also just wanted to hold a cat from Sienna. I came out of the store with a cat in my hands and I think Daniel thought I was going to ask to take it home with me! I let the cat go and we headed off to dinner.
We decided to eat just off of the piazza, as you usually have to get a little distance away from the touristy areas to find the best food. In the case of the Piazza del Campo, you don’t have to travel very far.
Trattoria la Torre is a tiny family restaurant that occupies a single room. As we walked in, the son was in the corner making fresh pasta while dad was serving customers and mom walked us to our seats. The dad came up to us to take our order---he started rattling off six or so pastas, and then just looked at us. I asked for a menu in Italian, and he said, “I am the menu.” After he repeated the choices for me, I got the tagliatella (it came alla Bolognese), and Brandi had the ravioli (filled with cheese in a fresh sage and aioli sauce). The food was out quickly, about two minutes after we ordered, and it was amazing. Pretty much all the pasta we’ve had in Italy has been an order of magnitude fresher than anything we get in the States, but this was something else. We also had a bottle of wine (of course) and finished the meal off with prosciutto and pecorino cheese. This was kind of a weird “dessert” but it just looked so fresh at the table next to us I couldn’t pass it up!
When we arrived, there was one other group eating, plus about eight empty tables. By the time we were close to finishing our meal, the place was packed, and people kept coming in to try and get a table only to be turned away. We felt badly that we were causing these people to lose business, so we asked the owner for a check so we could clear the table. He looked offended: “No, no, finish!” It was so admirable—an Italian cook and restaurateur who was so dedicated to his craft that he won’t fill your seat before he’s ready, even if you volunteer it.
But we did eventually get out, finding our way back to a bus stop and enduring a very bumpy ride back to Florence. We stopped for gelato, which, for me, was the best yet. Panna cotta is like caramel, but they do it as ice cream a million times better than any caramel ice cream I’ve ever had.
Without a pre-purchased tour to go on this morning, we slept in, and we didn’t get out until lunchtime. It doesn’t mean anything that we didn’t get out of bed until almost 11AM---it certainly has nothing to do with jetlag! We decided to ride the bus down to the Colosseum, and we purchased a couple of panini (in Italian, “panini” is the plural of “panino”) at a nearby café. They were excellent---we ate them on the bus. The bus was interesting---you can purchase tickets at bus stations or on the bus itself, but it seems to rely on the honor system more than anything. The machine you use to buy a card or get your existing card punched is in the middle of the bus, so you’re already past the driver and can pretty much do what you want.
The Colosseum was bustling with people, and we were prepared to wait in a long line until someone approached us saying that an English-speaking tour was about to start. The tour was led by an Italian woman who initially looked like she was going to be good but showed her inexperience early (we later discovered it was her first tour to lead). After a grueling two-minute, 100-meter walk past the long lines and into the Colosseum, several people indicated they needed a bathroom break. Our guide pointed out the restrooms and stood with the rest of us for about 30 seconds before saying we should go on in. What the third of our group that was in the bathroom missed was an amazing view of the Colosseum, with a fascinating commentary provided by…hmm. I thought the little radios we had been given were so we could hear interesting facts from our tour guide, but instead we got to hear her responding to the older British couple that was peppering her with questions. “Yes.” “Over there.” “80 A.D.” “I don’t think so.”
We went back by the restrooms and found some (but not all) of our group, and the guide muttered something about how foolish it was for people to use the bathroom at the beginning of the tour. The British couple perked up: “Bathroom? Where’s the bathroom?” She pointed to her right, and they scampered off. Our inspiring tour guide commented, “This is like being with children,” before taking us up to the upper level of the Colosseum. More great views, more lacking tour information. It was obvious that our tour guide was lacking as a guide but she looked good doing it. She was fantastically Italian, like she had stepped out of a movie with subtitles. We saw some other groups enthralled with their tour guides, and we thanked ours and walked on to the second half of the tour, the Palatine Hill. We handed in our radios and were transferred to our next tour guide, not knowing what to expect.
Observing the difference between our two tour guides was like observing Bullwinkle pre- and post-Kirward Derby. If you didn’t get this reference, don’t worry, I didn’t either. It’s one of those moments in time where Daniel gets to be the only one laughing at his own joke. The second guide was a Ph.D. student from Denver, studying in Rome, and he was incredible. Every piece of information was relevant and interesting, and he linked everything together to give a pretty complete narrative on the Roman Republic and its place in the history of Western culture. A few tidbits (paraphrased):
What allowed the Romans to conquer such vast territories was their ability to move men and equipment. They built roads and an infrastructure to get places fast, and then they built aqueducts and sewers in conquered territories to help keep them loyal.
If you were coming to Rome from another land, and you saw the structures they had built and the visual record they kept of the battles they had won, you would have no choice but to think that these people were superhuman.
When people think about what made Rome great, what they’re thinking back to is the Roman Republic. The only people who look on the Roman Empire as a great example are Hitler, Napoleon, and Mussolini. The Roman Republic is the foundation of Western civilization, and that is what Brutus was trying to save when he killed Julius Caesar.
Apart from the tour information, Palatine Hill itself was remarkable. To walk across a marble floor that’s been standing there for 20 centuries is unreal, and although the hill itself is much sparser than it once was, everywhere you look from atop the hill is amazing, from the Colosseum to the Arch of Constantine to the Forum to a panoramic view of Rome to the north.
Our daily gelato stop was at Ciampini, a more upscale shop in a nice little piazza along Rome’s main shopping street. Brandi had banana, chocolate chip, and lemon, and I had banana, peach, and cherry (with cream on top, which is apparently what they do in Italy, even on cones). We then did a little shopping and headed back to the hotel.
My aunt had suggested a place called the Supper Club for one of our Rome dinners. Supper Club is like a cross between a speakeasy, a massage parlor, and a restaurant (you lounge on a bed while you eat), and unfortunately they were closed (a barely noticeable door along a tiny alleyway was shut, with about seven motorcycles parked in front of it), so we visited Pierluigi.
Pierluigi is a very nice restaurant tucked away a few blocks from the Tiber. We started sitting outside with an English-speaking waiter, but Brandi got cold, so we moved inside, where our waiter spoke not a word of English. For the pasta dish, Brandi had risotto alla crema di scampi (with a whole crawfish on top), and I had some oriecchette con broccoletti (ear-shaped pasta with broccoli). Both were very good. All of the fish dishes were priced per etta (100 grams, or about a quarter pound), with a 3 etta minimum. So we asked our waiter for 3 ettas of the sea bass. He took the order and, after a couple minutes, came back telling us something about the fish and “pochino” (a little bit). With a little difficulty, we determined that the sea bass is not a fish that can be subdivided into small portions---you have to take the whole thing. He weighed the sea bass for us: 0.96 kilos. No sale. He pointed out a few fish that you could get 3 ettas out of, but we were so confused with what was what (and a little eager to not look at all of the fresh fish on ice (the lobsters were still moving around)) that we just ordered scallops, which were also excellent. The tiramisu we had for dessert, though, was half frozen. We also had a nice bottle of wine and toasted our 1st year anniversary feeling blessed to have the opportunity to experience another wonderful day in Rome.
Today’s morning tour brought us to the Vatican Museum. We had a very good tour guide who used something that comes in very handy in Rome---the microphone that transmits to individual radios held by each tourist. It was a little crackly but an excellent way of communicating in a place like the Vatican, where there are just too many tour groups for people to be shouting over each other.
As far as most people are concerned, the Vatican Museum tour might as well be called “The Sistine Chapel and a Bunch of Other Stuff.” But much of what is in the “other stuff” is quite fascinating and does a good job of illustrating the artistic and political relationship between the Catholic Church and Rome.
One thing you notice a lot going through Rome is that along with the date in Roman numerals, most buildings of a certain age have a pope’s name, preceded by “PM” or “Pont. Max.” This goes back to the Latin for “high priest” and originated in Pagan times, but the title was carried over for the reigning pope, most notably in the 16th through 19th century. Even buildings like the Colosseum carry the names of Popes who undertook restoration projects (which, to me, kind of goes against the idea of restoration). At the Vatican, you see over and over again the great art that was commissioned during the Renaissance by powerful popes as well as the impressive collections they amassed from previous periods.
The Vatican’s Official Shooshers have a daunting task: to keep people quiet. Though you’re reminded numerous times that there is no talking or photography of any kind allowed in the Sistine Chapel, it turns out to be a rather loud room with a number of flashes going off. However I must point that it is rather easy to forget the no talking rule as I found out when we first entered the Sistine Chapel. I was so awed that I kept looking up and then at Daniel and couldn’t help but say I can’t believe we are actually here! So a handful of men in suits walk around saying, “Shhh!” and giving scornful looks to people who take pictures. And really, it’s not like you’re going to take a better picture of the chapel than one that could be found on a post card. Your time is best spent just taking it all in.
Michaelangelo’s nine scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and final judgment on a short wall are absolutely magnificent, but the two long walls, painted by well-known artists from the same time period, are great as well. One side shows six scenes from the life of Moses, while the other shows six scenes from the life of Jesus. They are not chronological---I think they are meant to parallel each other, or at least that’s what the Latin verbiage around them seems to suggest. That’s right, he even knows a little Latin which is definitely another plus in Italy. That’s three languages that he works his way around if you are paying attention. Like me.
A quick aside, one of my favorite things to see plastered all over the place was four little letters, SPQR. I learned in Latin class that this stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, which stresses the link between the Roman people and the government in the old Roman Republic. SPQR was on a purple shield that was in the back of the classroom, and it was burned into my brain. It is really cool to see it all over Rome.
Lunch was good but not great. Brandi had a buffet that included mostly vegetables, and I had fried veggies and a cheese pizza. I would like to point out that my half bottle of wine and Daniel’s Coke were each 3 euros which is good enough excuse as any for me to have a drink at lunch. We took an afternoon break in the hotel room, and Brandi got in touch with her parents, closing the last chapter on the uncertainty under which we started the trip. They are without power, but they’re all right, which is pretty much the story with all of our families. Brandi also took a nap, her second in as many days, but she wants to make it clear that this was not due to jet lag. Nope, no jet lag, I was just enjoying the opportunity to sleep during the day, thank you very much for the clarification!
For dinner we decided to try Il Posto Accanto, a restaurant a decent distance away that was recommended by Lonely Planet. Despite some pretty hard rain, we decided to walk it, and I ended up getting us lost in a not so great part of town. We did have one umbrella that we tried to share but it was interesting (read: near impossible) with the tiny height difference between us. But it definitely felt like an adventure which is worth getting a little wet for any day. Rome can be tough to navigate because a) the roads tend to be short, at odd angles, and prone to changing names every couple blocks, b) street names are not always displayed where you would want them to be, and c) landmarks are not entirely helpful. They provide a good visual cue, but they often have ten or so streets radiating out from them, and you sometimes have to travel a couple blocks to discover you’re gone down the wrong one.
The restaurant is basically a little house with seating for about 20, and the waiter told us the menu verbally but did give us a hard copy when we requested one. We surveyed the unconventional menu and started with a pumpkin ravioli, thinking that we might leave and have a more traditional “second dinner” at a nearby place. But we were impressed with the homemade quality and decided to stay, finishing with pumpkin-covered pork and a side of eggplant. Now reading this it sounds funny that we ate more pumpkin in one meal than I usually eat in Thanksgiving, but it was delicious! We then walked to the Colosseum, which is incredibly beautiful (romantic) at night, and back to our hotel via the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. We left the Spanish Steps just in time---a crazy man broke a bottle in some sort of dispute and started yelling random craziness.
We got up at about 6:00 and headed down to our hotel breakfast at about 7:00. Many American breakfast favorites, like eggs and bacon, were not available, but there were some breakfast cereals there to cater to American tastes. Italians don’t eat big breakfasts---a typical breakfast consists of a cappuccino and a pastry which isn’t really my cup of tea so I decided the protein bars I brought would be the way to go for me on most mornings!
Our morning tour today was called “Classical Rome,” and it picked up at 8:00. While Brandi waited inside, I stood outside and looked around. A woman came up and asked me (in Italian) where something was, and I told her, “Non parlo italiano, mi dispiace.” That was my most complete Italian sentence so far this trip! I also saw a big tour bus loading up with people from our hotel. There seem to be two activities that occupy the guests at our hotel: getting onto and off of tour buses during the day and sitting at our hotel’s bar and chatting with each other at night. It could be a generational thing, but it seems like a lot of the adventure of going to a new place comes from getting lost, screwing up the language, and otherwise making yourself uncomfortable. Of course, there’s a spectrum along which people are going to immerse themselves into a culture, but I would say that saying “buon giorno” and “grazie” is pretty much a bare minimum. Surprisingly, they’re not in everyone’s game plan.
Anyway, I was very excited when our ride pulled up and it was not a giant bus but a smallish van, with a couple of British couples and a Spanish couple. So I was a little disappointed to find out that this van was just shuttling us to a bigger bus, and that English speakers and Spanish speakers were segregated onto different buses. Oh well---it was good for tour logistics, if not for my dreams of a United Nations tour of Rome.
The tour was a great one, filled with lots of information and amazing views. We first saw the Trevi Fountain, which we had already seen, but I was more than happy to visit again. I had a nice mini-conversation with a man from Spain. His English was very limited, but he knew enough to tell me he had been to New York and DC in the spring. Just a little tidbit, it was especially sexy to watch and hear Daniel attempt to speak two different languages in one day. His Spanish is not bad and he understands a lot more than he lets on. It was great to see the Trevi Fountain again, and I know it is cliché but the pictures don’t do it justice. We took pictures during both visits to the Trevi Fountain, but you can’t really tell because we’re wearing the same clothes!
We then walked to the Pantheon, which was another pleasant surprise. To be walking in and around something as old and storied as the Pantheon felt like stepping through time. I’ve visited some really old historical sites, like Aztec pyramids and Hindu temples, but nothing that’s part of the narrative of Western civilization like the Pantheon. And that, to me, is what Rome is all about. I tried on the flight over to describe to Brandi how BIG the visit to Rome is to me, but nothing can make it hit home like the Pantheon.
It was really incredible to see---I hardly even knew it existed before I got here and to see it really was the first artifact that made me catch my breath and say, wow, we really are in Rome. The original Pantheon was built in 31 BC and was destroyed in a fire in 80 AD, and the one we saw was then rebuilt in 125AD. (How often do you get to use BC vs AD in a sentence, so I took the opportunity!) The current Pantheon is mostly intact and is sitting in the middle of a courtyard. Since the 7th century it has been used as a church. In fact, we had to time our visit to fit around the mass schedule. Also, having Raphael’s tomb there is a nice bonus.
We next walked to Piazza Navona, a picturesque square with all sorts of restaurants and artists and people watching. Then we got back on the bus to head to the Vatican. Vatican City is so small that if you wanted to fit the world’s one billion Catholics comfortably within its boundaries, you would need to stack them 75 feet high (made-up statistic). St. Peter’s Square is huge, however, with hundreds of columns on either side of the huge basilica.
We had a relatively short wait that included our only view of the Swiss Guard, and once we got past the metal detectors and the dress code enforcers we were in the church. Built in the 16th century and decorated in the 17th, the “new” basilica is built on an absolutely massive scale, with more statues than you can take in, plus seven-foot lettering going around the top representing every quote Jesus spoke to Peter in the Bible. Pretty much the first thing you see, off to the right in the back of the church, is Michaelangelo’s Pieta, created when he was 23, or 24, or 25 (the guide books and tour guides are not in agreement). I snapped a couple pictures of the Pieta and then put away the camera. The basilica is really too big to do justice to, plus for me there was a very spiritual aspect of being there, and it took away from it a little bit to have people treating it as just a tourist destination. Seeing a girl having her picture taken next to a big, stone holy water container was especially bizarre.
We attended 12:15 Mass at the basilica. I’m hoping that Alitalia, the official airline of the Pope, CC’d God on their decision not to return our luggage, because otherwise He probably would have been pretty disappointed with our appearance. The staff had the whole front of the church blocked off for the (almost hourly) services, and they were being very strict about letting in only the people who were headed for Mass as well as hurrying along the people coming from Mass so they wouldn’t stick around to take pictures.
Mass was very nice, though it was in Italian with a little Latin thrown in. A few “moles” did happen to slip in however. A guy right in front of us was taking pictures (with flash) of every part of the Mass. And as I was taking part in Holy Communion, another woman tried to take the communion home with her as a souvenir. She walked up in line, grabbed the host and tried to leave with it, and was told by a server to put it in her mouth. This is quite a weird exchange for a cradle Catholic to see, maybe even slightly weirder than being in church in clothes I’d been wearing for three days.
The recommendation our tour guide gave us for lunch was Il Matriciano, a restaurant almost on the way to our hotel from the Vatican. It was very good---we had an antipasto plate with all sorts of fried veggies, and I had linguini funghi while Brandi had tortellini soup followed by prosciutto with figs. When we arrived, every table was speaking Italian (the ladies next to us were conversing with the waiter in both French and Italian for some reason). We felt like the Americans who had found the local hotspot. Even better, it began to rain, I mean pour, as we were sitting outside under the awning, almost as if Italy were convincing us to have our second three-hour traditional meal and not without again meeting great people along the way. As the rain started to slow we met a couple vacationing from London—she was British and he was American. They were super nice—they asked us all sorts of questions about our trip, and he was especially keen to find out the scoop on Sarah Palin and the presidential race. The British woman gave us some good advice on our luggage but I never caught her name as I’m afraid we never introduced ourselves. She also happened to be event planner as I am. Oddly enough, so was Jill, the woman from our flight to Rome. Anyway, she gave us good advice on our luggage: we should call American Airlines since our flight originated with them and we have points with them. Of course, why hadn’t I thought of this, being the recent past frequent flyer with American! They also said that nothing was likely to happen today, because nothing happens on Sunday in Italy, and tomorrow could be tough as well.
The rain dried up and after picking up some gelato and walking to the hotel, the front desk told us that one of our bags had arrived and had been brought up. They did not know whose bag it was. Now, when today began I thought of the four luggage possibilities and ranked them. I think if you’re married you can understand the preferences I came up with:
1) Both bags arrive. 2) Brandi’s bag arrives but Daniel’s does not. 3) Neither bag arrives. 4) Daniel’s bag arrives but Brandi’s does not.
Thankfully, we got the second best outcome instead of the worst outcome. I hated to be overly celebratory when Daniel was still in a bind, but WHOO-HOOO!!!!
I called American Airlines, at the exorbitant international-call-from-the-hotel-room rate, to find out about the bag. The number for lost baggage is a toll-free number, unreachable internationally, so I called an 817 number and was transferred a couple times (on hold a few minutes each time) before getting disconnected (we think the hotel puts a time limit on the calls). The second time around we reached Tina, a representative whose sarcasm and rudeness knows no bounds. Brandi explained our predicament to her, and Tina explained her side, something about an agreement among airlines that the destination airline would be wholly responsible for the luggage. Then she said that if we couldn’t speak Italian well enough to get our bags back from Alitalia then we shouldn’t have come to Italy. I took the phone, and she said that no information on a bag becomes available until it reaches its destination. I asked, from the perspective of American Airlines, whether that would be Paris or Rome. She responded, curtly, “Excuse me, sir, where are you right now? Did you not land in Rome?” I reminded her that Alitalia was not an airline we had asked to be put on, and she was unfazed, saying that if I was going to be uncomfortable with the baggage policies of the airline then I shouldn’t have accepted the connection. (Just writing it down here makes me so mad all over again---AAAHHHH!!! SERENITY NOW!!!!) So the next time you have an international flight, be sure to thoroughly research the baggage records and policies of every major airline in case you have to make a quick decision while running through an airline terminal.
So we headed to dinner, Brandi in clothes she had been wearing for five minutes and me in the clothes I had been in for 53 hours. There we toasted to never worrying another minute about luggage.
Le Coppelli Taverna is a perfect little pizza place not too far from Piazza Navona. It’s situated off of a little cobblestone alleyway, with checkered tablecloths and a large, grey-haired man working a wood-fired oven in the back. I couldn’t believe my eyes when we first saw the restaurant. Seriously, it was the cutest pizza joint I’ve ever seen anywhere and I’m not just anywhere at this moment, I am IN Italy (and in clean clothes). We had bruschetta (with olive oil and with tomatoes) and fried mozzarella (theirs is in balls instead of sticks) before splitting a great, super thin sausage pizza (with a cheap but good bottle of wine, of course). Strangely, my credit card was denied, another thing you don’t want to have to deal with 5000 miles from home. (It was working the next day, thankfully, after a second denial later in the evening.)
After dinner we happened along this great gelato shop (Della Palma) that had just about every flavor you could imagine, along with a bunch of interesting candies. Brandi had "after eight" (mint chocolate chip) and spicy chocolate, and I had peach, strawberry crème, and banana. We walked back and stopped at the Pantheon and hung out on the steps of the fountain across from it, watching all the teens and tourists while eating some of the best ice cream we’ve ever had.
When we got back to the room, my luggage had arrived! I had all my stuff, but I had lost an airtight excuse for being a slob. The first two days of our trip were wonderful even with a giant cloud hanging over them, so we couldn’t wait for what the rest of the week would bring.
Though I’ve never been to Paris, I’ve been through its airport twice before, though I got to see much more of it this time around. We landed and were met by a shuttle, which pulled up to a little entrance where we waited, and waited, and waited. The woman taking us around was having a fairly spirited argument with the shuttle driver, we think about whether to let us through. But enough people started trickling off the bus that she finally gave up, so we all poured off the bus and into the airport. Once our passports were looked at, we met back up with Jill (our new friend from Austin) and started searching for our Alitalia flight to Rome.
Arriving at 8:30 for a 10:10 flight seems like plenty of time, but by the time we went outside security, got our tickets and came back inside security, the plane had already been boarding for ten minutes. And by "boarding" I mean sending people down a jetway to climb on a shuttle bus and wait. The flight was pretty uneventful---we both slept for about the last half of it, and we got a great view of the Italian countryside and the Mediterranean sea on our approach.
We wound our way down to the baggage claim with Jill, and along the way we asked her if she knew a good place for lunch near the Spanish Steps. She recommended Mario's, a place that has a family tie to a couple Italian restaurants in Austin. When the baggage carousel stopped circling, there were three people waiting for their luggage: Jill, Brandi, and me. The Alitalia baggage people were fairly helpful, explaining that our bags were in Paris and that they would be in on the next flight and at our hotel by 5:30 that afternoon. A customs checkpoint beyond the baggage area was surprisingly nonexistent. We found a taxi service that offered us a flat rate of 50 euros to our hotel, so we took it. I spent much of the ride calculating our distance, converting it into miles, and converting euros into dollars to see if we were getting hosed—I don't think we were, but who knows. Our driver was very nice---he knew a little English and a little Spanish and kept apologizing for his language skills and for taking a phone call while he was driving.
Our hotel, Visconti Palace, obviously caters to English-speaking clientele: all of the guests speak English to each other, and even the staff immediately break into English after a token “buon giorno” or “buona sera.” The guy we met at the counter was about as quintessential an English-speaking Italian as I could have imagined. Not the pizzeria proprietor with a mustache and bushy hair, but a little bit more of the Roberto Benigni type. He was short, thin, and eager to please, with greasy hair held against his scalp with lots of product, including a Superman-like curl cemented to his forehead. With the characteristic “-a” punctuating every word out of his mouth, he pointed us the way to the “Spanish-a Steps-a.” Without any clothes to change into, we immediately took to the streets.
The buildings around our hotel could easily be found in New York or a dozen other cities, but once we crossed the Tiber (about three blocks away) we were in a different world. For two people who have never been in a really, really old city, Rome is so impressive and such an overload for the eyes that it defies description. A few of the things we noticed on our walk: there are no street signs, but the names of the streets are carved into stone on the sides of buildings; for many buildings the year it was built is found in Roman numerals (along with the name of the reigning pope in most cases) across the front; in a few places around town you’ll find a faucet of constantly running water feeding out of a building into a tub or simply coming up from the ground, and people will stick a water bottle or a bucket under there and use it for drinking and cooking.
The Spanish Steps were pretty cool. Looking up at them from the plaza beneath is impressive, but climbing the steps and looking out among the Roman rooftops (and the crowds of people below) is pretty amazing.
After some initial difficulty in finding the right street (streets veer off in all different angles and have names that run together, and the map tends to omit some streets, as you have to when there are a billion of them), we found Mario’s. Brandi ordered buffalo mozzarella and tomato salad, and I had rigatoni amatriciano. Right after our food arrived, Brandi looked right over my head and smiled as if she recognized somebody. Her eyes got really big, and I thought, “Who on earth could she know here?” I turned around and saw Jill (from the flight) and her husband Michael. We sat for a long time and talked about our trips (Michael had had a similarly frustrating time getting in via Continental) and our plans. We also talked about the travel habits of our fellow Americans. Michael is very good at painting a picture with his hands, which is one of the recommendations of the Italy travel books. They also tell you to a) make an attempt to speak the language and b) not be loud and obnoxious, and you can see why. Most everyone is very nice and interested in immersing themselves into the Italian experience, but it seems there is a brand of visitor here determined not to speak a word of Italian, and unfortunately they tend to come from the States.
Our meal was one of those three-hour lunches you hear about being so common in Italy. Michael and Jill let us have some of their antipasti, which had great prosciutto, white beans in olive oil, and seasoned zucchini. For dessert, we had a passable crème caramel (basically flan), and Brandi had a cappuccino that she was delighted with. We enjoyed our time with our fellow Austinites---they were even nice enough to loan us a phone for me to try and call my family, though I couldn't get through. Soon we said our goodbyes and were on our way to more Italian adventures.
Our trip back to the hotel took us by Trevi Fountain. Like many major landmarks in Rome, the fountain is in among many narrow alleys and newer buildings, so it comes up as if out of nowhere. And the Trevi Fountain is unique in that no street approaches it directly, so you always hear it before you see it. We came upon it from behind, so it kind of revealed itself bit by bit. The fact that the fountain appears out of the side of a building is part of its mystique. Lots of people crowded around, trying to throw their coin in to assure another trip to Roma! We only had a euro, so we threw in 100 times the money of most visitors. That should purchase a return trip for us, plus a couple generations of our offspring.
The last word from Alitalia was that the luggage didn’t make it on either of the flights from Paris, but they were hoping to get it on the 5:30 flight, which would get it to our hotel at about 8:30.
Our hotel room is pretty nice---apart from a shower that would fit about 1 ¼ of me, there’s not too much to separate it from what we’re used to. The TV has CNN International and Sky News (both in English), plus about 10 Italian stations, a French channel, and a German channel. We got little bits of news about the hurricane, and we tried to call our families but didn’t get an answer.
Dinner was at Grotto Azzurra, a restaurant a few blocks from our hotel. We sat outside on the sidewalk, and the waiter was very friendly. We started off with a bottle of their house wine (8 euros---are you kidding me???). They brought out a basket of bread, but Brandi was disappointed with the lack of olive oil. Of course this was due to the Americanization of the Italian meal, but it proved not to be a staple at the table in Italy. I had half moon pasta with sausage and mushrooms, which was great. My gnocchi, on the other hand, was just okay. I didn’t realize how unsavory it was until Florence, but I'll tell you more about that later...
With a little effort, we found our way back to the hotel, but our luggage still hadn’t. I went downstairs to try and make some sense of the situation, but there was no sense to be had. The latest update was that our luggage would be on the first flight in the morning and at the hotel shortly after that. I tried to question the guy at the desk about Alitalia’s lack of certainty about our bags, but I didn’t get a straight answer. I started getting frustrated with the hotel staff, but I think that the staff just can’t get a straight answer from Alitalia. We’ve had different hotel employees tell us different stories about airline strikes and customs delays, and it seems like it’s something they have come to accept is not very reliable. After giving up on the hotel staff, I tried calling Alitalia directly but couldn’t get someone who spoke English. I’ve had my luggage lost before, but only for a few hours as the airport has usually delivered it to my hotel within a few hours. My most recent experience was on the way home, which make a big difference. Without our luggage, not only can we not change clothes tomorrow; we also can’t recharge our camera battery, so we are limited in the number of pictures we can take. Oh yeah, and Alitalia is basically going day-to-day in terms of whether they will continue to operate, so I’m sure getting our luggage back to us is not at the top of our list. I was asleep by 9:30PM (since we had now been up for 24 hours) dreaming about what our next day in Rome would like!
