Ciao Roma!

First thing first. Shelly, yes, Shelly, I am specifically addressing you in my blog. Why would one do such a thing? Let me tell you. I am doing this simply to thank you for the 3:00 a.m. text that woke me from a dead sleep and nearly gave me a heart attack! I am guessing that in your reading-frenzy you have neglected to realize that there is a time difference between California and Italy and therefore you did not realize you would be scaring the crap out of me when you texted me at that hour. Regardless, I thought everyone should know how divoted a fan you are of our blog. A 3:00a.m. text just to tell me how sad you were that you would be spending the day driving home instead of getting your daily fix on howesabouteurope.com. You are a true fan!

Second thing I must address, Kevin, thank you for posting the photo of me in the movie theater that has my entire bra hanging out of the back of my shirt. For the rest of you, it was HOT in there and apparently when I ripped off my hoodie I neglected to adjust my tank-top before posing for the photo. You would think that my counterpart would have notified me about the wardrobe malfunction, but no such luck. A month of no girlfriends around has taught me that husbands aren’t quite as observantn when it comes to A. wardrobe malfunctions B. bad hair or C. food in teeth. I love him regardless, but honey, a heads up every once in a while would be great!

Now, our last day in Roma. We set our alarm for 8:00 and managed to crawl out of bed at 9:00, an hour of snoozing, not bad. We headed out with the intention of doing all of the things we failed at so miserably yesterday, plus the things we had originally planned on doing today, yikes! The odds were a bit against us from the get go today. The metro was going to be on strike! Only from 11:00-3:00, and at least they give you warning, but regardless, the pending strike packed the metro like we have never see it before. There were thousands of people being shoved into the trains and they were packed in so tight that there was just no room for anyone else so we were stuck on the platform to wait for the next train. Thankful there was a smidge more room on this one, so we went for it.

We hopped on the metro and headed down towards the circo maximus stop. This put us out in a totally new part of town, adventure here we come! We were in search of the ghetto. Not just any ghetto. The Jewish ghetto! Yup, I’m not kidding, that is what they call it here! Apparently that is the place to buy gold in Rome (Nana has requested some earrings, but it isn’t looking good). First thing is first, La Bocca Something was on the way to the ghetto, so we did some searching and found the famous mouth. The line was long, so we skipped the meeting and just took a few pics of him from the outside of the church. Good enough! Now onward to the ghetto! You’d think finding a place called the “Jewish Ghetto” would be easy, but not so much. We walked down random streets, past a Synagogue, through an alley, and we finally made it into the ghetto. Did we find gold? Not so much. We worked our way through the area and without even trying we stumbled upon our next destination, Compo De Fiori. This is a big marketplace where all of the locals do their shopping. We cruised through the market and decided to not buy anything (our bags are heavy enough!) and instead head towrads the castle that was closed yesterday.

While walking to the castle we realized that it was now well past noon and we were both ready to eat. Now, if you read yesterdays blog you may have noticed that there was no dinner mentioned in the blog. That was not an error, we ate lunch yesterday, and that was it. So, at this point we haven’t eaten in 24 hours and were pretty darn hungry. We stopped into a cafe on the way and had a really strange waiter. Long story short he literally took a 2 euro coin out of Kevin’s hand for his “additional tip”. What an asshole. It was one of those situations where you don’t fully understand what is happening or know what to do while it is happening, kind of a “is this guy serious?” and you wish you could go back and ninja chop his ass for even attempting to act the way he did…but there was no ninja chopping today…and the guy guilted us into the additional tip. Ass.

We continued our journey across the river and to the castle, oh, by the way, the weather was amazing!!! The castle was open and up we went! There were some paintings, sculptures, books, and other random works of art. Some even had their “theft” date and “return” date! Pretty cool! The castle kind of wound up and around and eventually we just popped out on the top. What a view! You could see all the way to the mountains, I didn’t even know there were mountains out there! You can check out the many photos, enjoy!

After the castle we took a short detour to Geliati. This is, we have determined, the best Gelato in Italy. The place is always packed and never disappoints. We grabbed a couple of cones and then headed to the crypts. I’m not sure if a photo will come up if you google the Carpuccian Crypts in Rome or not. I wasn’t allowed to take any photos, so I’m hoping I will be able to find some online somewhere. These crypts weren’t like anything we had expected. There were literally thousands of bones, human bones, decorating this portion of the church. They were stacked from floor to ceiling and arranged on the wallas and ceilings to make various shapes. I kind of walked through with my eyes half open. It was hard to grasp the fact that these were real bones and not the stuff you see decorating houses around Halloween. I’m not so sure I like thinking about it now even. Ick.

After the crypts it was back on the metro and back to our room. Packing time. Ick again. We pulled everything out, organized, and actually got it all back in order fairly quickly. We lounged around our room for a few hours before heading out for our final evening. I had done some research online and found that Crispi 19 is the #1 recommended restaurant in Rome according to TripAdvisor.com. We headed out for our last metro ride and arrived at the next stop and to the restaurant 30 minutes early. No problem. We were seated right away and had a fabulous meal. 3 courses, each delicious and fresh. What a perfect last meal in Rome.

After dinner we headed to the Trevi fountain for one last glance. I just love that fountain. There were hundreds of people crowded around, most of which were teens. There must be something happening in Rome this week because there have been swarms of kids everywhere we go! Once we got our fountain fix we headed back home. Kevin couldn’t resist one last gillato (I resisted just fine, I’m still not feeling totally better and now feel like I’m fighting a cold too, boo!). He said it was delicious. I took his word for it.

We walked back to our room and here we are. Our last day in Rome was a good one. I love Italy, but am totally ready to experience Ireland. Sean and Tara, look out, here we come!

Nite.