Some Photos

OK, I am going to try to add some photos here:     The first is the children eating ice cream in front of the Pantheon, the second is in front of St Peter’s and the third is pretty obvious.  You will notice I am not in any of the pictures.  This is because I am always wielding the camera.  But we all know the children are the real stars of the show anyway. 

The Milk Bar

I just ran down to the bar to get some milk because we didn’t have enough for breakfast.  I know that sounds odd, but a bar here is not the same as a bar at home.

You can get sophisticated adult beverages at this bar, both to drink there and to take home with you.  But this is also where you can get a coffee shooter, or a sandwich, or a plate of pasta.  They also have coolers with cold milk, cokes, waters and beer and wine.  Plus at the counter you can get candy, gum, cough drops and cigarette lighters.  It’s a very all-purpose kind of place.  Sort of like the corner store, but they don’t have bread and eggs.

I’m probably in there at least every other day, sometimes every day.  The milk comes in liter size containers here, and that doesn’t last us very long.  Unfortunately, it seems to be the largest size of fresh milk you can get.  You can get 2-liter cartons of UHT processed milk, but I just cannot bring myself to buy milk that is not refrigerated.  It gives me the screaming heebie jeebies.

I know it’s good to be a regular, but it’s kind of embarrassing to be in there so often.  I suppose the solution would be to buy more than one liter at a time, but it’s so handy to just run down there, and so now we are right back where we started, at the razor thin line between being a regular and being obnoxious.

Tom took the kids today so I could kick around town for a while.  I like to just go out and walk around although I usually end up in the Trevi Fountain/Spanish Steps area.  That is my favorite place in the city.  I like to wander around on the little side streets and go in and out of the little shops, and look in shoe stores.  The children have very little patience for this kind of thing.  They like to have an agenda.  They want to know where we are going and why we are going there. They want to know what we will see, and where we will stop for ice cream on the way home. 

I enjoyed myself thoroughly.  Tomorrow Tom is taking the kids again (it’s a three day weekend for the students) so I think I will go to San Luigi to see their Caravaggios.

I have had a request to post some photos so I will work on that tonight.  Wish me luck and watch this space.

Italian and Cannoli

It was absolutely gorgeous today.  We ran our errands this morning and then packed a picnic lunch to take up to the Villa Sciarra.  This is a park up the hill a bit where there is actual grass and a playground.  The playground was overrun with very small children.  Obviously it is very popular with the stroller set.  Princess O and the C-man were the oldest kids there by a mile and a half.  We run into this everywhere.  The reason is simple; all the kids their age are in school.  They didn’t seem to mind though.

Little kids in the 18-24 month range kept coming up to me and either picking up my coke bottle off the ground and handing it to me, or handing me their toys. They would look at me with big serious eyes and they handed me their treasures (or my Coke) and I would say hello and thank you.  They would just stare at me because of course, they couldn’t really talk yet.  So, I think I can have a conversation in Italian, if my conversation partner is younger than three.  Eventually their moms would swoop in and shoo them away.  It was always fun while it lasted though.

And, once again all the children except mine were wearing heavy winter coats.  Even though it was at least 60 degrees today. 

Meanwhile my woefully underdressed children were having a fine time playing some very complicated Jedi game they made up. 

It’s a very nice park, with a lot of fountains, but most of them are still turned off for the season.    And they are obviously doing a lot of work because there is a lot of orange construction fencing around.  But I am sure we will be back.

Before we went home we stopped at a new pastry shop to get some cookies for dessert because K was coming over for dinner.  We have found two pastry shops in the neighborhood.  I’m sure there are more and this requires further investigation, but for now, these will do just fine.  The pastries at the one we were in today were gorgeous.  And they had canollis, which I love.  We didn’t get any though.  We just got some cookies. The children didn’t like the look of the canolli so I caved.  Next time though, they will be mine. 

The tricky thing about both pastry shops is this:  nobody in there speaks any English.  So I HAVE to speak Italian.  This is good.  I like speaking Italian even though I am really really bad at it.  And I don’t get much opportunity.  I suppose I should be grateful that so many people speak English and are able to bail me out when I get stuck.  But it’s more fun if you have to muddle through sometimes.  Or maybe I’m just crazy.

Pizza for everyone

Today we will be talking about pizza.  It is very different here than it is at home.  Although, I suppose that depends on where “home” is.  We live in a college town so pizza for us usually means Papa John’s or Pizza Hut.  The stuff here is vastly different.  You can get pizza from restaurants or pizzerias.  Those are whole pizzas and they are round like American pizza.  The crust is much thinner though, and they are usually baked in wood fired ovens, so they are very crisp.  The other way to get pizza is by the slice, and this seems to be the local default fast food option.

On almost every corner (and often at several places between corners) is a little shop that sells pizza by the slice.  The pizzas are made up in these huge pans, and you just tell them how much you want.  This pizza is square, and is served to you in one of two ways.  Either on a little cardboard tray, or folded in half (New York style) and wrapped in wax paper. 

It is all sold by weight, so you point, and wave your hands around trying to describe how much you want, or say per il bambini if you just want a little piece for the children.  Then they weigh it and charge you accordingly.  It’s quite inexpensive if you tell the children they can’t have Cokes, but have to have water instead.  Cokes are very expensive in restaurants.  Usually 2 or 3 euros each.  At $1.50 per euro you do the math.  Tonight I got pizza for the three of us for about 7 euros.  That’s pretty good considering dinner at the local Golden Arches would have set up back about twice that.

The toppings here are different too.  You can still get plain old cheese pizza, (called pizza margherita), or pizza with just sauce and no cheese (pizza rosso).  You can even get pizza with nothing at all on it, (pizza bianca).  There are pizzas with ham, salami, eggplant, zucchini, artichokes, and just about anything else you can imagine.  I even saw pizza with broccoli at one place.  But my favorite pizza of all has to be pizza patate.  That is pizza topped with shoestring potatoes.  Sometimes it also has mushrooms or pesto or some such whatnot, but often it is pizza crust, oil, and julienne spuds.  No sauce, no cheese, just bread and potatoes.  Delicious.

Now, I freely admit that I am a carbohydrate junky.  I love a good starchy meal.  This is why I love Thanksgiving so much.   You get mashed potatoes, stuffing, and rolls and, if you are so inclined, sweet potatoes.  That’s four different starches in the same meal.  Heaven.

So, in my opinion potato pizza may be the greatest invention since well, pizza.  I think it could be the perfect food.  And Princes O agrees with me.  She has had it twice now in the last two days and has been singing its praises.  That’s my girl. 

The C-man still prefers good old-fashioned cheese pizza, and has declared that he prefers round pizza to square pizza.  Tom is the most adventurous of us and has tried many varieties, including pizza with tuna which doesn’t look that good to me.  But to each his own I suppose.  I think I will stick with my potato pizza thank you very much.  It’s a good thing we live on the fourth floor so I can burn it all off on the way home.

The Sistine Chapel!

We went to the Vatican Museum today.  You have to get a good night’s sleep and an early start for that.  Especially on the last Sunday of the month, like today, because the museum is free on the last Sunday of the month.  This is good because normally tickets cost 16 euros, so we will try to hit the free Sundays as much as we can.  I think we have three left. 

We were all up by 8, so we all got dressed, and had some coffee (not the children of course) and hit the road.  By 9:30 we were in a tremendous queue outside the Vatican walls waiting to get into the museum.  I think we were in line for about an hour and a half.  That is just about as much time as we spent inside too.  We were on a mission today.  The Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel.  For better or worse, everybody else is on the same mission, so it was pretty crowded.  I told the children they had to be holding a parent’s hand AT ALL TIMES. 

The Vatican Museum is huge, and we couldn’t find a map on our way in, but luckily the “Sistine Route” is pretty clearly marked.  It’s a one-way museum, so you cannot really meander around at your own pace, but have to move in a cattle-like fashion toward the intended target.  There are loads of things we didn’t see. Next time we will try to find a map and see what else is on offer.  I think ultimately all paths lead to the Sistine Chapel so you won’t miss it.

I finally got to see the School of Athens!  It was being restored the last time we were here.  It was spectacular.  It is one of my favorite paintings.  I told the kids all about it. I showed them Michelangelo’s portrait, and Raphael’s self-portrait. I told them how he was working on these rooms at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the chapel ceiling.  I am such a geek.

I could have stayed there longer, but by this time the children were dying to see the headline act.  Every time we walked through a doorway or turned a corner they would ask, “is this it?”

So, finally, on to the Big Kahuna:  the Sistine Chapel.  Or, as the C-man kept referring to it, the sixteen chapel.  Ah, but first you have to make your way through some galleries of really dreadful modern religious art.  The reward is worth it though and we finally found ourselves in the right place staring at the ceiling.  I went into my Art History mode again and told them that it took Michelangelo five years, working all by himself to paint the whole ceiling.  Really, when you look at it, it’s amazing it only took him five years.  We stood there gawping until everybody had a sore neck and then we reluctantly moved on.

Next stop pizza then home for a quiet afternoon.

Yesterday Tom took the kids.  I did some aimless wandering, checked out a few churches that are kind of off the beaten path and then took a deep breath and went to the Prada store.  I was not wearing my nicest clothes, but it didn’t seem to matter.  And clearly I will NOT be bringing home any Prada of any kind.  I found a bag I loved, black, with a pink lining, not leather, but some mystery fabric that fell to earth from space.  It took quite a bit of searching to find the price tag.  For future reference, or in case you are planning your own trip to Prada, they are discreetly tucked into tiny black envelopes, and then tucked into the small zipper compartment on the inside of the bag.  So I finally found the price tag:  420 euros.  Yikes!  That’s a weekend in Venice right there.  So I left and the bag stayed in the store.  How very very sad.  Maybe I will go back and visit it someday.

Team G came over for dinner last night.  Tom makes a mean Bolognese sauce.  The adults chatted and drank prosecco while the children played.  Prosecco is a sparkling Italian white wine and it is really really good.  It goes down like 7-Up.  We all love it.  We all had a grand time and it was a pretty full weekend.

Wandering Aimlessly

I decided we needed to get out today.  The children have been arguing and I thought we needed a big excursion.  I suggested the Bone Church on the Via Veneto.

This is not the official name of course.  The church is actually called Santa Maria della Concezione.  And it is called the Bone Church because the Capuchin monks have decorated several rooms in the adjoining cemetery with human bones.  When they had to dig up old grave to make room for new ones, they used the bones as decorating materials.  I am sure it is right up the C-man’s alley.  I remember going to see a Capuchin church in Paris with a similar theme.   The children both said they would like to see the Bone Church, but not today.  I think this is OC code for “we don’t think you can get us there mom, so let’s wait until dad can take us”.

Anyway, morale was low so I decided a trip to the Golden Arches was in order.  I also decided we should go to the one by the Pantheon just for a change of pace.  Plus, it got us out of the neighborhood.  After lunch we strolled over to the Trevi Fountain.  We found a spot in the sun and sat there for a while.  We also found the Ace of Cups, the Trevi drinking fountain.  I took their picture drinking from it.  The story is that a barber with a shop in that piazza was giving the artists and builder, Nicola Salvi a hard time during construction, criticizing the fountain and generally being difficult.  So one evening Salvi built The Ace of Cups – which conveniently hid the barber and his shop from view, and they all lived happily ever after.  I thought that was a good story.

I was just reading that all the piazzas have fountains because that was each neighborhood’s source of fresh water.  Imagine getting water for your bath from the Trevi fountain every day.  You can still see spigots of running water all around the city.  It’s all fresh drinking water.  The children like to stop and refresh themselves whenever we see one, and they are handy for refilling the water bottles on the road.

From there we went to the Piazza Colonna, to see the column of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  It has a frieze that winds up the sides telling the story of the Emperor’s successful military campaign in what is now Germany.  The original statue of Marcus Aurelius at the top was removed in the 1500’s (isn’t that specific) and replaced with a statue of Saint Paul.  And that statue faces Saint Peter’s Basilica to help lost pilgrims find their way.  Isn’t that nice? 

By now the children were nervous wrecks, convinced I would never be able to find our way back to the Pantheon.  But I did it.  We cut through another piazza, walked down a little side street, and voila!  The Pantheon.  I am so good.

It was such a nice day we decided to have some ice cream, and brave the many touts in the Piazza della Rotunda selling junky toys for a euro each.  They walk up to you and show you the toys and go on and on saying “tiny price madam” and follow you around.  I guess their sales strategy is just make as much of a pest of yourself as possible and hope the victim, er customer, buys something to make you go away.  They scare the Princess.  I tried to reassure her that they are essentially harmless, and besides, I would never let anybody hurt her.  I hope I succeeded because those guys are everywhere.  It also really bothers the children when I walk away while they are still talking.  I had to explain that it seems rude, but it is the only way to get rid of them.

I also noticed a wide selection of fake bags in the piazza to day.  Sunglasses too.  As we were eating our ice cream I mentioned to the kids that I would like to just take a look at the bags on our way out.  I looked up a minute later and they were all gone.  I wondered what was going on until I looked behind me and saw a police car cruising the piazza.  And then as soon as the cops were gone, the vendors were back.  Those guys move like lightening.

On the way home we stopped to browse a street stall full of soccer jerseys because the C-man wants one.  We spotted a Ferrari/Michael Schumacher world champion jersey.  Only 10 euro.  Princess O was practically drooling on it so I went ahead and bought it for her.  I told her it is coming out of her account.  Calvin was mad because that used up my last 10 euros so that meant he couldn’t get anything.  I told him I would absolutely buy him one; I just couldn’t do it right now.  And besides they had lots of soccer jerseys, but this was the only Ferrari shirt they had.  So I did not win the mom of the year award from the C-man today.  I suspect I will survive.

 

Designer Bags and Babysitters

Team G came over today for a good romp on the piazza playground.   It’s always fun to hang out with them.  They are good fun and the children enjoy playing with someone who is not related to them.  We don’t see many Italian children.  I know there must be children here somewhere because we see babies all the time, and babies do grow up. I think their school day must be quite long.

While we were sitting in the piazza watching the children M and I were talking about shopping.  We are both real suckers for bags and shoes so we were comparing notes.  You see guys on the street all the time selling fake designer bags so we were discussing the pros and cons of that particular idea.  Some of them are fake and some of them “fell off a truck” but it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between the two.  Possession of either kind is illegal according to the US State Department website.  So it’s illegal to sell them, and it’s illegal to buy them.  I assume that means it’s also illegal to have them after the initial transaction, but if it’s a good fake how is anybody going to know? 

Anyway, from there conversation turned to the Via Condotti, which is home to many of the designer stores, including Prada.  I’m a big fan of Prada, especially their bags.  I don’t own one but I would like to someday.   

I really want to go to the shop and just look around.  I will have to wear all my nicest clothes.  Maybe I could afford something small, like a keychain or a coin purse.  Then I would really have a Prada bag (or keychain), and I would have had the pleasure of buying it in the Prada store instead of from a guy selling them off a dirty sheet in the train station.  And maybe I would get a shopping bag too.  For that kind of money you should get a shopping bag and a good-looking Italian to carry it home for you.  I am so pathetic.  I might go on an exploratory mission this Saturday.  The Ferragamo store is right down the street too.  How convenient.

A, our new babysitter came over for dinner tonight to meet the children.  They must have passed because she was still willing to baby-sit even after she met them.  So now we will have to think of something to do.  I want to go to one of the restaurants in the neighborhood that does not sell pizza.  Next weekend is out, but it will be good to have somebody available for the occasional evening.  Now, if only we can get invited to another great party like the one we went to last weekend.

Learn fast kids, the grandparents are coming!

We are trying to power through a lot of schoolwork in the next two weeks.  After that we will start having Visitors, and I don’t think the children will be very excited about their math workbooks if they know grandma is waiting for them.  They will be even less excited about them than they are now.  And I don’t mind saying that is pretty darned unexcited. 

I think we are finally settling into a routine. Math is our big objective.  They read all the time under their own power, and we have been talking about what they are reading.  They are writing in their travel journals, and we are living IN ROME for crying out loud, so I think we have history and social studies covered.  Math is the one thing that worries me.  It is so easy to fall behind, and so very difficult to catch up once you do.

I also still have to work on the human body with both of them, and electricity and magnetism with the Princess.  Of course, I forgot our big science book so I guess we will have to cover those areas when we get home.  Although, we could get lucky and find a book in the English language lending library here.  

Yes, there is an English language library here.  It is in the Church of Santa Susanna.  That’s the American parish church in Rome.  According to their website they have a lending library, and you do not have to belong to the church to belong to the library.  I even think I know how to get there.  We will attempt that little adventure next week.  I think we have to take the bus and the subway.  This makes it a very exotic location indeed.  I think both children have read every single book they brought with them about three times by now so it’s about time we got them some new materials.

So I’m feeling better about school now.  I was kind of panicking about it before.  I am pretty sure I haven’t completely destroyed their chances to get into Harvard.  Yet. 

We have also met some other American families at the playground in the last few days.  It’s kind of odd to hear somebody I don’t know speaking English.  I find I am much more forward than I ever am at home about walking up to complete strangers and starting conversations.  I am not normally very good at that.  Fortunately everybody else seems very receptive to being walked up to.  

Wild strawberries and confetti

We went out for dinner tonight at one of the neighborhood trattorias.  We have been there twice now so I feel like we need to try someplace else next.  I know it’s good to be regulars, but I don’t want to miss anything either.  And what if the trattoria at the end of the street is better than this one?  Further investigation is necessary.  We also stopped for ice cream at Fior di Luna.  I opted not to have ice cream and had a coffee shooter at the bar downstairs instead.  I really do enjoy that, even though I have decided that for me the coffee is really just a sugar delivery device.

Today we found that market down at the end of the #8 tramline.  We tried to find it yesterday but I chickened out and abandoned the search before we got there.  It is in a parking lot, and doesn’t have the picturesque qualities of the markets in the city center, but it is definitely a real working market, meant for the locals, not tourists.

The market is covered, and there are tons of fruit stalls, fishmongers, cheese stalls, butcher stalls, and other miscellany.  I also spotted a lot of knock-off clothing and some of those everything for a euro house ware stalls.  There are big signs on all the stalls that say “non toccare”, which means don’t touch.  It was fun, because I actually had to try to speak Italian and I think I did a respectable job.  Or at least, nobody seemed to be laughing at me.  At one point the guy at the stand where I was buying carrots said something to Princess O and the C-man, and they just gave him the deer in headlights look.  He looked at me and said “non capito?”  I said “no, les bambinis non parle italiano”which I am sure was conjugated incorrectly and may have been partially in French, but it got the point across.  I feel like my Italian is getting a little better, but I will certainly never pass for a native.  Why?  Because my Italian is ghastly and even if that improves, very few native Romans have blonde hair.

We got a ton of stuff.  And we found fragole!  The first ones I have seen so far.  Fragole are tiny wild strawberries.  The biggest ones are about the size of my thumbnail.  They are tiny but pack a powerful strawberry punch.  They are like strawberries with a capital “S”and they are so delicious.  I have never seen them for sale in the States.  I could eat them every day, and probably will once the season is in full swing. 

Rain again today, so we couldn’t go to the playground.  We walked past it tonight on our way to dinner and all the confetti has gotten soggy.  There is a ton of new confetti in the piazza every day.  Silly String too.  I have no idea what that’s about.  The children think the confetti ghost is responsible, but I don’t think that’s very likely.  It kind of makes me wonder if we’re missing some huge party every night. 

We did partially solve the Silly String mystery over the weekend.  We saw two preschool age girls in princess costumes spraying it all over the place.  The C-man came up to me and asked in his most charming voice if we could get some “because mom, apparently it’s allowed here.  I told him maybe which, of course, actually means no.  I just hate to contribute to the messiness of the piazza.  Plus, I am not even sure where we would get it.

Adventures at the grocery store

They say you shouldn’t write about the details of your everyday life in your blog, but when I am traveling, I am constantly wondering about the everyday life in whatever place I am visiting.  So today I will tell you about the grocery store.

 

I have actually discovered three grocery stores in the area.  I only really like one of them and only visit the others for specific things.  We visit the one near the playground just to buy waffles.  Not frozen waffles, but waffles that come packaged like cookies.  You can eat them at room temperature or put them in the toaster.  The children just eat them at room temperature.  Syrup, however, remains elusive.

 

The biggest surprise so far came at the meat counter in Standa, our grocery store of choice.   They must have a lot of customers from Other Places, because they have helpfully put little labels underneath all the different kinds of meat.  So the pork section has a pink sign with a pig on it.  Beef is red, veal is orange, and yellow is apparently poultry, and rabbit.  Oh, no, actual rabbits, in Styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic.  Don’t look C-man it will only upset you because a whole rabbit in a Styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic still really looks like a rabbit.  Too late, he saw them.  Poor C-man.  He was rather upset.  And, then I assumed the blue was lamb, but wait, no, that is not a picture of a lamb.  OMG, Princess O, avert your eyes.  Blue is HORSE MEAT!  Everyone say it with me now:  EEEW! 

 

I knew the French liked horsemeat, but I guess it never occurred to me that the Italians would eat it too.  Oh, my.  Needless to say, we won’t be trying that.  Even if I wanted to, Her Royal Highness would be scarred for life.  The same is true about the rabbit.  C-man would never recover.  Although, trying rabbit isn’t really an issue, since they seem to be packaged for roasting and our oven is still a mystery to me.  I did take a look at the horsemeat though, just out of pure curiosity.  It looks a lot like beef.  Good thing for us they put those handy labels on the shelves. 

 

The store is about a quarter the size of our local grocery at home, and I think it takes me about five times as look to do half as much shopping.  I am sure there is a very complicated Word Problem in there somewhere, but I am not in the mood to go looking for it. 

 

The difficulty, of course, is that I don’t speak Italian.  So I spend a lot of time staring at labels trying to figure out what’s what.  For example, fresh milk seems to come in two different colored packages:  dark blue and a kind of blue-green.  I have no idea what the difference is between them.  But the color differentiation seems to be universal, no matter what brand of milk you get.  You can also get UHT milk in cartons like juice boxes.  Those are not refrigerated.  I’m sure it’s fine, but I am also sure the kids would find something wrong with it, so we will stick with the fresh milk.  I have discovered I can get it in liter cartons at the bar downstairs, so that’s handy, and saves lugging it home from the store.

 

I am slowly getting the hang of it and I am sure when I go back to Cub foods I will go into complete sensory overload, but for now it’s still a bit of a challenge.  On the plus side, it is fun to wander up and down the aisles and see what you can find.  One day we saw a whole swordfish head at the fish counter.  That was pretty cool.  I probably would have taken a picture if only I’d had my camera with me.  And the store brand seems to be called “Clever” which we all think is very funny.

 

The other fun discovery is all the exotic and expensive things we like at home are much less expensive here.  Things like Parma ham and Parmesan cheese, and good olives and fresh bread.  We will be very spoiled when we get home.