Rome - Day 1

As I sit here composing what will likely be my longest blog of the vacation, Rome is waking up.  Half an hour ago, the streets were quiet.  Slowly, the noise of moto scooters and cars are filling the background.  (To predict that this will be my longest -- perhaps only - blog does not require much knowledge of my tendency to bring tons of energy to an activity, only to see that energy quickly redirected elsewhere the next day.  One only need look at my Google Blogger profile, where you will see that my last blog post -- grandly titled something like "McKinnon Family Website" - had exactly one entry, a 2008 baseball game of Billy's.  Presciently, I predicted that it might be my only post.)

We are at the apartment of our good friends Chris and Elif, who live here in Rome during the school year, but spend the summers in Turkey, and kindly offered to let us stay in their home.  To give you a sense of just how central this apartment is, I thought I would map it for you.

We are at the "A" marker, the Piazza dell'Orologio (roughly translated, "The Clock Plaza"), and when you look out the window, it is pretty clear why.  Directly across from us is a church (more on that later), and behind the church is a beautiful clock tower with an inlaid picture of a woman (presumably Mary) holding a baby (presumably Jesus).  The baby has a crown and there are three people (angels?) below.  (The art majors among you now know why I studied econ in college.)

Apartments here are small.  I guess the best comparison is New York, or maybe even Tokyo.  In all of our walking yesterday, I don't think we saw one house - just apartment buildings.  Most buildings are 6 or fewer stories, and I suspect they don't have elevators.  Chris and Elif have a relatively large apartment, at approximately 2000 sq ft.  But coming from America, and our 6000 sq ft home, it lends some perspective.  All that being said, the buildings are absolutely beautiful.  Here is a picture of us in front of the doors of the apartment.  Until now, I thought that the biggest doors in the world -- at about 8 feet tall and 4 feet wide -- was the door on my Dad's home in Georgia.  He bought it at a garage sale, of course, but legend has it that they came from a church in Europe. These doors made Pappy's door pale in comparison.  At about 13 feet tall, I thought that they were remarkable until I realized that almost all of the buildings here have similar doors.

(Of course, big doors require big keys.  You can see the normal sized key below the big ones.)

The cramped living probably contributes to Italy's low birth rate (until a recent immigration boom, the birth rate was 1.14 kids per woman, which over time would lead to a quickly shrinking population).  Yesterday, one of the kids remarked at how small the cars are here.  Indeed, Tree noted that she had not seen one Suburban, and in fact many of the cars are Smart Cars, or the equivalent, with room for maximum 2 people.  On occasion you will see a four person car, but SUVs are non-existent.   In fact, moto scooters are the most common form of transportation, weaving in and out of the small streets and alleys.

Within walking distance of the apartment are some of the most influential buildings in the world.  When we arrived yesterday, we followed the advice -- as hard as it was -- not to go to sleep and to forge ahead with our day, despite it being 2 a.m. for our body clocks.  Indeed, we made quite a day of it, hitting such notable sites as the Pantheon (6 blocks, and not to be confused with the Parthenon, which is in Greece), St. Maria Sopra Minerva Church (across from the Pantheon), the Trevi Fountain (about 8 blocks from the Partheon).  We stopped to take photos at each (you can enjoy them below).  I think my favorite photo of that outing was Jimmy flashing gang signs in front of the Pantheon.  Nice contrast of old and new.

St Maria Soppa Minerva Church.  To the left and right are vestibules that were built over the ages for particular orders of Priests.

One of the most famous vestibules was painted by some famous painter.  You have to pay 1 euro to make the lights go on (kind of like a pay toilet).  Of course, right when I paid, a man came along and told us the church for mid-day cleaning was closing and we had to leave.  Fortunately I had time to snap the above photo.

With the Pantheon in the background, and Jimmy sending a message to his homies.

Tree did a self-shot in the interior of the Pantheon

 We all posed in front of the Trevi Fountain

And then Jimmy and Lilly cooled off.

At about 3:00, having walked the street of Rome for 4+ hours,  I was regretting taking the advice of those who told me to “power thru the day [to avoid jet lag].”  I had been carrying Jimmy on my shoulders for much of the day, and as we sat in front of the Trevi Fountain, I realized that none of us had much juice left.  So we decided to head back to the apartment for a nap before dinner.  I think this photo accurately captures how we felt:

The nap was a great idea.  We awoke around 6pm, ready to head back out for dinner and a little bit more exploration.  Being who I am, “just any meal” was not good enough for our family (or me, especially).  So I went online to find an obscure but highly rated restaurant.  I found a place called La Fraschetta (sotto le Mura).  I just looked up what that means, and according to Google, it’s “The Bitch (Under the Walls).”  The “under the walls” makes sense, because the restaurant is just one block away from the towering outside wall of the Vatican.  At about 50 feet straight up, the walls are an impressive feat of architecture from 1000+ years ago.  I am not sure about the “Bitch” part, because the waitress and the owner (Marco) could not have been nicer.  In fact, Marco offered to meet Tree today at noon to go to the market and help her shop for olive oil and vegetables so that she did not get ripped off.

Marco took good care of us and we had an excellent meal, ranging from pumpkin cannelloni (Tree) to pesto lasagna (Lilly), to gnocci (Dan) to smoked swordfish (Dad).  But the happiest person was Tommy, our pickiest eater most selective palate, who found a restaurant that served massive glasses of his favorite drink -- milk.  Tom topped his drink off with a giant hot dog, and all of our anxiety about feeding him in Italy was finally resolved. 

Meanwhile, as dinner came to a close, Marco brought over four shots of liquor for the table.  At first I thought they were for the group next to us, but then Marco offered the two extras to Billy and Danny, and who were we to object.   When in Rome... (literally).

On the walk home, we stopped in St. Peters Square – yes, its about 10 minute walk from our apartment – and took a photo of St. Peters Basilica at night.  At this point, it was close to 11:00 and most of Rome was asleep.  The lack of tourists (damn tourists) made for a much more pleasant feel to seeing the sites and so we committed to getting up and out early the next morning.   So we headed home and everyone plopped into bed.