To Danielle:
To Mom - I think she looks just like you:
To the Burns's, doesn't Patrick look happy?:
A rare photo of me, accidentally:
So after avoiding all forms of indoor/paid-admission tourism, this week has been museum-crazy. Sunday we ended up skipping the Vatican museums and walking down through the Circus Maximus and Forum to get some lunch. Only tourist spots near there, but the grilled vegetables were good. The "cover charge," not so much.
We met Pat's class in Piazza della Reppublica, ate some watermelon & bought tickets for the Museo Nationale - which has 4 locations around the city. Yes, the tickets were $$$ but they were good for 3 days, ideally. Except they were all closed on Monday - so 2 days. There's a tip for you saavy travelers.
We made it through both the Baths of Diocletian and the Palazzo Massimo on Sunday with the group. Reginaldus was in great form through the former, but museum-ed out by the latter. The baths were in name only - it was a museum housed in the former bath house but contained Latin engravings and statues mainly. The palazzo was much more enjoyable to me. Gorgeous palace full of stunning art, coins dating back to the emperors and even a mummified girl.
After all the marble stairccases, my feet were about to fall off. But we managed to walk cross-town to the Abbey pub for Mets, cheeseburgers and beer. Good times. Then an even longer walk for gelato and the bus home.
Monday we got up early and went to buy a portable hard-drive for this laptop. It has been straining a bit and we wanted to back-up everything, especially the photos. Pat found a place online and called them up. Sure enough they were both open and spoke English - an amazing mix in Rome. We got directions but either she was quite the optimist or had robot legs because her "5 minutes north of piazza di Popolo" was our "15 minutes walking then hopping on the tram for a couple of stops." But they were really nice and the hard-drive as the same price as home. After getting a celebratory sandwich at a surprisingly good bakery, we took a direct bus to Trastevere. Trip there: 2 hours. Trip home: 25 minutes.
Pat went to class and I hung out with our house-guests until it was time for them to leave for the train station. G. (Patrick's friend/classmate from Columbia) was catching a train to Geneva to visit his girlfriend and his brother was flying home to NYC. But his flight wasn't leaving for another day - despite us inviting him to stay another night, he wanted to sleep at the airport so he wouldn't miss the flight. OK.
I met Pat after class and we went out for salads with some of his classmates at L'Insalata Ricca, a mini-chain in Rome. Very refreshing to skip the pasta for once. Of course we did stop for gelato on the way home. I really should have kept a better list of the flavors we've tried - I'm sure between us we'd have 60 by now (2 flavors per little cup, then sharing). Regardless, this was a brand new place with 2 girls making the gelato from scratch - I had pignoli and "Indispensible" which had pistachio and cherry in it. Very good.
Today we were up bright and early again for the museums. We were supposed to meet 3 other people from dinner but only 1 showed up. We walked all over and finally stopped into a book store to find the address of the Crypto Balbi. I was underwhelmed. But after that we went to the Palazzo Altemps and that was lovely - a beautiful courtyard in the middle and huge sculptures on all the floors.
We ran into another friend there and all went out to grab lunch. Ended up running into another girl from class and she joined us too. Finally tried the cacio e pepe pasta everyone's been raving about and loved it. Somehow tagliatelle, cracked black pepper and grated cheese is amazing together. More gelato followed - raspberry and toffee this time. I think that's it for the week for me though, I can't do the daily gelato like when we first got here.
We took the bus home and relaxed a bit then Pat went to class and I vacuumed the whole apartment and straightened up for our new houseguests, who are arriving Friday for the wedding this weekend. Tonight I made eggplant stuffed with sauteed spinach and garlic for dinner. I think tomorrow we're going to veg out in the park in the morning and have everyone over for Greek club at night.
Thanks for all the suggestions of things to see - we missed the church with the Moses statue on Sunday by one block, but now we know and will see it soon. And Annie - we are going to Florence in a couple of weeks so I'd love to know your suggestions for there too.
