The next morning we don't have to get up early. We already feel bad for the half of the family that left because this never happened, we never got to sleep in, in air conditioning, this luxury. I do make sure to get up for the actually free breakfast, in the lobby backroom, where Emma decides Rome eggs also taste like runny dog food (she is right) so we end up eating toast since every single other thing on the menu tastes as dry as a sandwich packed by a dead camel in a high noon desert.
We don't have tickets to anything til 4 pm, the Borghese gallery to see some carved marble people, so I say let's take the subway and see the coliseum since I had this great memory of walking out of the modern subway and seeing this massive relic just sitting there. We stop at a bicycle/moped rental place just to see if there's any WAY we could figure out how to reinact Roman Holiday while not actually knowing the streets or where we're going on a moped that we've never ridden on before. They're out of mopeds luckily and we decide bikes might be stupid if we go inside places, so, well it's another day with just the legs then.
We get to the train station (which has cheap baguettes AND a microwave which I use later) and figure out metro tickets at a machine in Italian for our two day stay and head to the coliseum direction subway. Okay! New city. Less family, which is lame. But the train we need is getting there so we're jamming on the last car and there is a short lady actually squashing against me in the train doors and some fierce shoving and Emma says MOM she's trying to pickpocket you and I stare at Emma cause she's always worrying too much but then later we get off the subway and she tells me that EXACTLY what happened in the video she watched for school in Versailles was happening in the subway in Rome, just like they said! The video said to watch for an obstruction in a doorway where you're overcrowded, and when we were boarding Emma thought hmmm, this looks like the video, and she watched this lady cram next to me and throw her sweater over my fanny pack and was unzipping the fanny pack when Emma shoved her off like a she-hulk avenger. I didn't have any idea what was going on, and the lady had hopped off the subway, then hopped BACK ON and rode next to us the entire way with her back to us. We decided she had a seriously good skill going on, to not only pickpocket but then even once foiled by us, she still thought well hey, I'm not missing the train. And not even changing cars out of near theft courtesy!
So we walk out to reveal the coliseum with our nerves shaken and our hands on every pocket, wallet and zipper, which is how we experience every piece of public transportation for the rest of Rome and pretty much the rest of our trip. Paranoia, a superb traveling companion. Thank you Rome, for ruining Europe for us. It was the best thing that could happen really, because thanks to the early heads up without anything actually stolen, we were vigilant and remained crime free
excccept for a few minutes later
when we were walking around the coliseum gawking, rattled but still awed by the old round crumbly stadium, still wanting to LIKE ROME and then this tall lanky Kenyan dude throws a leather bracelet at Nathan all friendly like and starts talking to us and we're still wary so we're friendly but like see you later friendly and stop throwing your bracelets and he keeps putting them on us and I'm trying to get out a piece of change to pay him so he'll leave us alone but I'm worried after the subway lady so I'm blocking the guy with my body and he's getting closer and Nathan is handing back his bracelets and saying no thanks man and I'm like just let me give him a little quarter or whatever and then Nathan is grabbing me and saying NO MOM let's get out of here. NO so I think he's overreacting but I give the guy a little rome quarter and then we get a few feet away and the guy is yelling fuck off to us and Nathan says MOM he pinched my nipple! The guy had been crowding us and when Nathan shoved him off he pinched him and then Nathan got mad and I was just trying to get a coin so he wouldn't kill us and I still have the dumb bracelet but I don't want to give it to anyone cause it's bad mojo or hojo or isn't that howard johnson's I don't know.
So then we spend the next hour looking around and scared to go on subways and just talking about the mean nipple guy and I'm like this is our introduction to Italy, this sucks guys. But this is the last of the mean locals, luckily. It just had to happen in a quick two step, in probly the most famous place in all of Italy. So, good memory.
August in Italy is a good way to lose any unwanted water weight. We sweated to the Trevi Fountain, we sweated to the Spanish Steps. The steps are supposed to be the widest and longest in all of Europe but the kids and I were standing there and thinking they don't look that big. Also you cannot eat gelato on the steps. People were filling their water bottles out of the fountain which scared me but then we filled ours out of the bathroom in the gelato place right across the street so I'm not sure which is better but I have to say the best part of Italy? The stone aquaducts make the tap water ice cold. And we did tap water all through europe and there is nothing cold about europe water.
There were outlet stores from all the stores the kids like all around the Spanish Steps so the kids were very happy to walk inside an air conditioned Gucci store and look at 600 dollar wallets. (Nathan got one for 20 dollars by the train station) (genuine)
We took an uber to the Borghese because it was like 8 dollars and we were scared for our wallets. My dad wanted us to see a statue of Daphne frozen in marble turning into a tree to escape Apollo's love. I didn't even know this was an option for escaping love, but we read all about it in the museum cafe while waiting for our ticket time. The good part about going to museums with Nathan and Emma is that we all care the exact same amount, in minutes and in soul. We gaze, we feel, we are awed, we think, we don't think, we secretly wish everyone else would leave, we feel the chisel of Bernini gently making marble toes so rounded and soft, we dawdle, we feel sweaty we need water
We take a picture of our awe, which is real, and we wander to see what the next room or set of hot stairs will bring. Miles high painted ceilings with cherubs, a carnival of clouds. Dwarfed by talent in this room, the art makes you feel little, like you're a child in this house and you're holding hands with the 1600s. The David by Bernini in here comes alive at night and fixes any broken outlets or remodeling that needs to be done, his arms are so freshly ripped from working, he can't hide his nocturnal secret. How else could he still look so good after 400 years. I take his arms home with me.
All freshly arted up, outside we kept seeing people careening around in these four wheeled bike chariots, and we walked probably an entire marathon around the extensive gardens asking people where they got their bikes and everyone pointed a different way, and everyone was either lost or lying, but we believed and tried everyone's ways which took a bunch of time on sore legs. Eventually Emma got irritated and mapped us to the bike place (oh, duh here it is) and we rented a 3 person bike. Emma and I did nothing but pretend to pedal while Nathan driving it was like no seatbelts off a cliff in the rain while drunk, tipping and whipping down dirt paths that jostled our guts and brain goo and I'm pretty sure weren't supposed to be off-roaded on. People leaping out of our way with cake boxes, spilling wedding cakes no I'm kidding. We found out you cannot pedal up hills we needed that statue of David to help us so we took the smallest hills to get back to the bike place, and after ditching the bike on the way back eat crepes and soda and gelato, which is the main diet of the traveling opper.
We happily bussed back to the hotel, washed off all of Rome and climbed in bed destroyed until we were starving enough to go back to that spaghetti place and again try a different pasta. Which Emma gave a 4. She still hadn't found her perfect Italian noodle sauce. But she knew to never try a white sauce while here again.
That night while needlepointing and all of us flat out exhausted in the beds, we got a text from a friend of Neisha's named Danny who used to live in Rome. He said you have to visit the Basilica San Clemente if you're hot. It's an underground church with a spring running through at the bottom. And you have to go to the orange grove at the top of the hill to see all of Rome from the more ancient side. We had no plans before the afternoon Coliseum trip tomorrow, so we ordered tickets for the hidden church and mapped out the orange grove to figure it out. He also told us to get a water taxi pass for Venice when we went later, and it turned out all things Danny were highlights of our trip.
