Ancient Rome

Thursday, October 16, 2014
We woke up early to catch the high speed train to Rome. Pete was unable to join us right away, but he made sure to talk up how cool the train was and promised to join us later that evening.

The train was a great way to travel, getting up to 300 km/hr and not even seeming like it. When we arrived in Rome, we proceeded to the train station exit where we lined up to wait for a cab. Our cab driver, a young Italian man, aggressively drove us through the busy and narrow streets of Rome, joining the other small vehicles in honking at pedestrians, Vespas, and even police cars. At one point, he actually got out of the vehicle to angrily yell at an Italian man dressed in a suit who had apparently failed to recognize proper pedestrian behavior. We eventually made it to the address of our hotel, though you'd never know it was a hotel by looking at it.

We walked in the door and found a tiny elevator and staircase which we were to use to get to our hotel on the fifth floor. I was skeptical, but when we walked in we were very kindly greeted by the hotel manager and were promptly taken up to the rooftop balcony where we could wait while our rooms were prepared. The manager showed us the hot tubs and explained that the whole area was ours to use to free, and that they would serve us with complimentary beverages throughout the day and breakfast in the morning. We sat and had a coffee and took some pictures, and the manager gave us tourist maps and explained how to get to various areas throughout the city. It was a perfect start to our time in Rome.

The manager gave us a recommendation for a lunch restaurant close to the hotel across the river. It was a beautiful day, and we sat outside on the patio and enjoyed a wonderful meal of seafood gnocci for me (which ended up being one of my favorite dishes) and seared tuna with fresh tomato salad for Noah. We proceeded to walk to Ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome 

The Roman Forum is a huge complex of ruined temples, basillicas, and arches. It was the ceremonial, legal, social, and business center of ancient Rome. As we wondered through the large property, I just tried to picture what it looked like in ancient times and tried to transport myself back in time to understand early civilization. 

We proceeded to wonder around Palatine Hill, where the emperors and aristocrats of ancient Rome lived starting in the first century B.C. We continued to be impressed as we hiked through the area and tried to absorb all we were seeing.

We ventured on to visit the famous Colosseum, the huge, impressive ampitheater built in the first century AD. It held an estimated 55,000 people and was the scene of gladiatorial and wild animal fights. It is even more impressive than you'd expect. I stood in awe as Noah talked about its history, describing what he learned from the History Channel about how the battles changed throughout the years, and how they even flooded the sublevel for mock naval battles. It was amazing to me how closely this huge ancient structure resembles our modern stadiums.

After spending about 4 hours experiencing Ancient Rome, we started walking back towards our hotel. Our route took us straight through tourist central, with tourist snack carts lined up and several vendors selling "Selfie sticks." I was initially surprised at how touristy it was, but then realized it was a major city with major attractions, like you'd find near Navy Pier in Chicago. We grabbed a snack of Roman style pizza, which were thick, rectangular pieces of pizza that they cut (with scissors) in half and wrapped up cheese side together to go like a sandwich. We relaxed on our hotel rooftop, planned our activities for the next day, relaxed, and got ready for dinner. We met up with Peter at a nearby restaurant--it was exactly what you would picture a family-style Italian restaurant to look like, complete with a large man who managed the restaurant and served us. We enjoyed an antipasta combo with breads, marinated veggies and meats, and Kelley and I shared a gruyere cheese fondu for dinner. Noah had veal with mushroom sauce, and Pete a sliced steak dish recommended by the manager. It was another pleasant, true Italian meal. We headed back to the hotel after our late dinner knowing we'd be waking up early for our tour at the Vatican the next morning.

The Spaniards know how to travel

Tuesday-Wednesday October 14-15, 2014
Our Italian Adventure began on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 14, 2014 in Champaign, Illinois. We confirmed our love for flying out of Champaign with a stress-free flight out to Chicago. At O'Hare, we got our first taste of Europe boarding a flight to Madrid on Iberia Airlines. Rather than an organized line of people like we typically experience in the U.S., everyone just mobbed and cut in front of each other to board. After taking our seats, we were asked a question in Spanish by the flight attendant and both gave her a blank stare. She caught on and said, "Espanol o Inglese?" "Oh, English." Our only previous experiences traveling outside the U.S. were trips to Mexico or the Caribbean, where they assume you speak English just by looking at you. I immediately realized this trip was going to be much different; but in a way that felt exotic and exciting.

We settled in and were impressed with the new, comfortable plane with nice seats, individual touch screen tvs, USB ports, charging outlets, blankets, pillows, and an empty seat next to us in the center aisle. Kelley had explained how the flight would go ahead of time, and as she had explained, we were offered dinner about 60-90 minutes into the flight. We both got funny-sized Coke Zeros to drink. I have to say I was  pretty impressed with the quality of the food, and had no complains about my chicken, rice, veggies, roll, and tiramisu cake. I gave my crab salad and really bad coffee to Noah. This coffee flavored water was not at all representative of what we'd find in Europe going forward.

Shortly after dinner, they dimmed the lights and Noah and I settled in to watch Maleficent on our TVs together. After that, it was made pretty clear that it was night time and they expected everyone to be quiet and sleep. Despite my hardest attempts, I just tossed and turned and annoyed Noah in the process. I became irrationally irritated at the kids a few rows back who kept yelling and their parents just kept saying "Shhhhh," but obviously this never helped because they just kept speaking loudly. I started to think to myself "Is the fact that I can't understand what they are saying making this better than it otherwise would be, or worse?" I'm still not sure.

About 90 minutes before landing time, the flight crew decided it was morning! No, I thought. It is not morning. It's the middle of the night and I am exhausted. But, they turned on the lights and served us breakfast, and nobody else felt it was weird to be eating pastries and drinking juice at the equivalent of what was about midnight. After our casual landing, we proceeded through the Madrid airport. Besides the fact that we were forced to walk through a duty-free retail zone that reeked of strong perfume, I found the Madrid airport pleasant and easy to navigate. We boarded our small plane to Bologna and landed a couple of hours later, tired but excited.

Kelley was there to meet us in overcast and drizzly Bologna. Seeing her was exciting, and we chatted all the way back to Correggio, where she and Peter were living for a few months. We made our way up the crazy loft steps with our luggage and had some lunch. We were then "allowed" to take a short nap. It felt amazing to be horizontal.

When we woke up, we ventured out to explore Correggio on foot, and stopped for "the best gelato in town." Gelato shop owner, Fabio, was a friendly, smiling Italian who "spoke terrible English" that was actually very good English. I loved him. He handed out samples and I settled on a dish of tiramisu and some nutty flavor that Keels recommended.  Noah had Irish coffee (that Fabio was very  proud of) and pistachio. Kelley explained that he made all the gelato and rotated it frequently, with the older flavors on one side of the display and newer ones on the other. Fabio had left his job in finance and opened the gelato shop with his wife. Pete had asked him once about how they were doing, how business was and he replied, "Business is good, and we are happy."

We continued walking around and found humor in the side-of-the-road vending machines with tobacco, candy, and condoms--basically their version of a 24-hour convenience store, which doesn't even come close to existing there. Everything but the restaurants and bars pretty much shut down at 6pm. After our first unsuccessful attempt at finding a "non-baseball cap" hat for Noah, we ventured back to Bellins' apartment, showered, and got ready for dinner.

We got a true Italian experience for dinner at Kelley and Pete's favorite restaurant in town. We walked into the nearly empty restaurant and were greeted by the owner, Marco, who knew Kelley and Pete and that they preferred that he recommend what they should have for dinner. He brought us wine, and bottles of "frizzante" and "naturale" water (sparkling and still). I found I liked the Europe preference for sparkling water, especially since I wasn't able to indulge in the wine. We enjoyed an extremely delicious traditional Italian dinner with cured meats and cheeses and fresh bread, cheesy vegetable risotto that was served out of a huge wheel of parmesan cheese, and porcine mushroom, spinach, and pumpkin tortellini. We all fell just short of licking our plates clean. Despite our full bellies, we couldn't help but take a few tastes from the tray of various small desserts (chocolate, espresso, and fruit cakes and meringue) that Marco brought us. After a warm, welcoming dinner with good conversation and company, we returned to the Bellin apartment and prepared for our early morning trip to Rome.