Rain again today. Rain likely again tomorrow. Well, the family motto is change your clothes, not your plans, so we decided to press on with the day’s Plan.
Today we went to the Vatican because we figured it would all be inside. They still have their nativity scene and Christmas tree up in the piazza de San Pietro. They are very nice.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We took the 115 bus from our neighborhood up the Janiculum hill and down the other side to Vatican City. The hill has a little park at the top and some amazing views. We will definitely have to go back there some time when it is not raining. If there ever is a time when it is not raining. I would love to take some pictures of the kids with the whole city in the background. Talk about the ultimate proof shot.
Now, back to Vatican City. We decided that today we would just go in the church and skip the hall of fame of papal tombs in the grottoes. We will save those for another day.
We also passed on climbing the dome. Because:
a) I don’t want to
b) It was raining
c) It’s a long slog for the kids, and finally
d) I don’t want to
I’ve climbed to the top of St. Peter’s. Twice. Have I mentioned that I am very afraid of heights? I don’t really feel an overwhelming need to do it again. I think I will stay nice and safe on the ground thank you very much.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Before we could do anything we had to wait in a big queue to go through the metal detectors. Those are new since the last time we were here. The line moves fast though. We got through and pointed out some of the Swiss Guards to the kids. Princess O gave them the once-over in their colorful uniforms and declared, “Well, that’s not very good camouflage”. This makes her the winner of the quote of the day award.
While we were eating a quick lunch it started absolutely pouring down, so we decided to just take the bus home to avoid drowning.
I attempted to make pasta sauce tonight. It came out pretty good if I do say so myself, but it could still use some tweaking. I overcooked the gnocchi again though. I think I cannot wait until they start floating, I think they really only need a minute to cook. To the best of my knowledge the (Italian) directions say cook them until they float, but seems to be too long. Oh, well, if at first you don’t succeed, and so on. Fortunately I really like gnocchi so repeated attempts are not a real hardship.
The sauce had a ton of garlic in it, and both kids came out of their room to see if I was making garlic bread. Sorry guys. I’m not sure I can make garlic bread since I can’t figure out how to turn on the oven. And even if I could light it, there are no temperature numbers on the dial, so I would have no idea what temperature I was attempting to use. Hmmm. It doesn’t inspire confidence.
Posted by goitaly 
