When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Be joyful, cross the street whenever, eat mind blowing food, and drink spectacular wine with that mind blowing food.
Our day began with none of these things. Not even joyfulness, if I am being honest. Brian woke up sick, and we woke up an hour later than we wished. We got ready, ate breakfast, and moved to our new room downstairs. When we got to the metro, we discovered we had the wrong amount to buy a day pass, so we had to walk out and purchase a drink for change. When we finally made our way to the metro, the beeping of the doors about to shut sounded. I, displaying the inconsiderate dare devil antics that I so frequently do, leapt onto the train with just one word, 'Hurry!' Well, hurry as Brian might, the doors were too fast. Despite both our arms jutting out toward each other, the unrelenting doors closed. The catch to displaying behaviors of an inconsiderate dare devil is this: in crunch time, instead of being a suave dare devil, the truer nature comes out.
It turns out, movies have it right, and when separated, the first reaction is to put your hand on the glass dramatically while you watch your loved one mouth, 'Wait for me!' At least, that's what we did. The doors did in fact reopen, perhaps because we put on such a good show the conductor wanted a good ending. Needless to say, laughs were shared by many on the metro today.
Hiccups or not, though, we knew we were bound for a memorable day.
If I had to describe Rome in one word, that word would be 'alive'. During the day, it is bustling, but not over crowded. By night, it's light and friendly. There are fountains everywhere, giving the city both movement and tranquility, both served with a hardy dose of man's artistic nature.
In short, today we saw so much. A lot of Basilicas, a lot of fountains. The Vatican, and museums. The Colosseum, and Pantheon, and Roman ruins. For lunch, we ate pizza, and drank coffee. We snacked on gelato and street coconuts. For dinner, we drank fantastic wine, and ate homemade pasta. Scratch that. We drank the best wine. We ate homemade pasta, mine with artichokes, and Brian's with mussels, clams, shrimp and garlic.
To top it all off, it was basically a family owned joint, where one explained that you can tell a good eatery by its name and if you can see their pizza oven. And, he explained, they used fresh and only fresh ingredients. (And I believe him since there was sand in the clams, shrimp so good it tasted more like crab, fresh plucked basil, and that just names a slice of it!) The pizza chef, a big man, shouted what I can only assume were jokes to other tables, as each waiter ran about yelling and laughing at one another. Another waiter apologized saying, 'This place is crazy, it's crazy.' It was crazy. Crazy awesome! (Ok, lameness of that previous statement aside, just trust me. It was crazy amazing).
Even when we forgot our water bottle, and came back for it a half hour later, the oldest man was waiting by the door. He smiled at us, nodded in recognition, and then shook it somewhat sadly as old fathers do. He waved us in, signaled to the cook, who lifted the red water bottle high, and they all shouted.
Shouting seems to be quite the thing here. Coming from France, where the even the beach was smile starved, this is a warm and welcome surprise.
We're off to Venice tomorrow. While I am sad to see Rome go, I threw a penny in the Fontana Di Trevi, so I know I will find my way back here someday.
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