Jenni
& Joe
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Rome,
Italy
Monday,
November 5 
EARLY
morning! We have to get on the bus to get to the airport 2 hours early for our
flight to Rome. It starts out a pretty but overcast day as we walk to the bus
stop about 20 minutes away and buy our bus tickets. Then a guy told us that there
was a problem with our bus and we should take the metro to go catch another bus
to the airport. We felt lucky for this tidbit of advice, and head off, racing
now as fast as we could since time is growing shorter. At the next bus stop, it
starts pouring rain, and no buses are coming. The stop is crowded with people
waiting for buses that are apparently a long time in coming. A quick glance at
our watches tells us that we have to do something or we risk missing the flight.
A couple of American students on their way to Vienna agrees to share a cab with
us, and we all climb into the first one to stop. The thirty-minute taxi ride is
highly uncomfortable in our dripping clothes with the heater blasting. At the
airport, we quickly wish each other good luck and part ways - we make a beeline
for the Information Desk. That's when we figure out that our flight doesn't leave
for another 4 hours. We are unbelievably early. What a stupid mistake. Oh well
- we've spent 4 hours in this airport before, when we missed our connecting flight
from Samos to Santorini. It's old hat by now and it's part of traveling.
Once
on the plane, we read up on Rome and feel the old travel excitement coming back.
Rome should be wonderful.
And it is! Once settled into our overpriced hotel (Hotel Liberty at $125 a night), we head down the street to see whatever comes up. Just past Piazza Venezia (the "wedding cake" building pictured on the left), we buy a giant pistachio gelato (ice cream) for 3000 lira, or about $1.50. At another shop, we buy a big slice of pizza, which we share for dinner. Nearby, a sign announces a "Time Travel Trip" -- that is, a special theater showing a film detailing the history of Rome. We buy tickets for the 45-minute Disneyesque show, which is actually pretty good. They strap you in to a movable seat like a roller coaster while you watch an interactive movie that guides you back in a time machine, experiencing the history of Rome in a very entertaining fashion. It was an excellent introduction to Rome, but it appears that they are still working on the final scenes. The ending was a bit abrupt. We still give it two thumbs up. After the show we wander down the street to see the famous and beautiful Trevi Fountain and throw in one coin for good luck and the chance that we will return to Rome. Afterwards, we check our e-mail at an Internet café and then just wander more until our feet give out around 10:30, and we head home for bed.
Tuesday,
November 6
Up early to go find a new place to stay. We can only afford
to stay at this 3-star hotel two nights, but plan to spend another few days here
in Rome. The only reason we're staying at this fancy joint is because Joe won
a bet. When we bought his sunglasses in Bulgaria, Jenni bet him he would lose
his sunglasses before we got to Rome. Joe's sunglasses are still in his possession,
which means we get a fancy stay in a fancy hotel for two nights.
We
alternate searching for hostels with shopping for socks and underwear. Joe also
bought a big blue sweater since the weather is getting chillier and chillier the
more we progress into winter. We call Marco, of the Italian Bed and Breakfast,
a pension that is HIGHLY recommended on the Rick Steves Web Site. I had written
Marco months ago and touched base, but he had asked us to book way in advance.
That just wasn't possible since our schedule is so flexible so we were not able
to give him enough notice as he is booked, usually weeks ahead of time. But he
is very nice and points us to another place and, after 3 hours, we finally find
a hostel just south of the Coliseum that costs $40 a night and is twice as big
as the $125 hotel! We have a bingo! 
But
then Joe gets a killer headache - the worst of his life - and is incapacitated
for the rest of the day. Jenni gets Joe some medicine and lunch (Italian shish
kabobs and cheese pizza). Jenni then heads out to make reservations for the Papal
audience tomorrow. She does a quick tour of Saint Peter's Square and the basilica
and goes to the huge bronze door protected by the Swiss guards to score the (free)
tickets to see the Pope. She walks around a bit along the Tiber River up to the
Plaza Popolo before taking the subway back to the hotel around 8:30.
Joe, meanwhile, is feeling better - on muscle relaxers - flipping the TV between a Fellini film and some bad Italian infomercials. After sunset, Joe is feeling much better so we decide to go out to dinner. We easily find the Hostario Romano, recommended in one of our guidebooks, and plop down to a 4-course meal. First, we are served an appetizer of "suppi," which is a delicious deep-fried rice ball with a Parmesan cheese center. After that, we are treated to an antipasto buffet (all-you-can-eat). We pig out on sardines, stir-fried zucchini, squid, big beans, stuffed mushrooms and something else that had garlic and olive oil. Our third course was pasta. Jenni ordered spaghetti carbonara with egg and bacon. Joe ordered fettuccini with salmon. Neither of us liked our own dish, so we traded. We were supposed to order a big meat dish for the next course, but we were too stuffed…but not too stuffed for gelato! Jenni loved the limone (lemon) flavor. We walked home along via Quattro Fontaine arm-in-arm and satisfied.
Wednesday,
November 7, 2001 
Up
early again to go see the Pope and change hotels. We grab a quick breakfast of
coffee, cereal and ham and cheese at the hotel and check out, leaving our backpacks
in the baggage room to pick up later. We catch the Metro most of the way to the
Vatican and walk up via Ottavia to St. Peter's Square. Glorious! After the audience,
we wander through the cavernous St. Peter's Basilica and see some of the artwork,
including Michelangelo's famous "Pieta," the sculpture of Mother Mary holding
Jesus' lifeless body in her arms. 
We
touch the feet of Saint Peter's statue. They are worn almost flat from so many
people rubbing them for good luck. It's one of the few statues to predate the
current Basilica…it was made around the 500's AD.
On
our way out, we see NBC News correspondent Fred Francis doing a standup for the
camera. He is doing a story about the Pope's frail health, and what happens if
the 294th pontiff retires or dies 
(the
Cardinals will pick another pope from inside the Sistine Chapel). We take a subway
back to our hotel, grab our big backpacks and head to our new hostel. After picking
up our key, we head to the grocery store for picnic supplies. We eat a lunch of
cheese, salami, breadsticks and fruits on a makeshift table in the new, and better,
room! There's a convenient Internet café right next door with low prices so we
check our e-mail, then head back out for more sightseeing.
The Coliseum at sunset is a special sight indeed and we appreciate where we are and what we're doing over a cup of coffee across from the great stadium of death. We stroll down Via de Fori Imperiali past the ruins of the Roman Forum and a half-hour later we're at the Spanish Steps! We sit on the steps for awhile and talk about how lucky we are to be here! Joe talks with some street blues musicians and then we get on the subway and head for home and another picnic of salami, cheese and breadsticks for dinner. We spend an hour planning the rest of our stay in Rome and it looks we will be kept quite busy!
Thursday,
November 8
Bounding out of bed after a terrific night's sleep, we are
out the door by 8:00 AM. We proudly charge down to the subway, determined to get
to the Vatican museum early. We storm out at the "Vatican Museum" subway stop
and then … we lose our way! First, we struggle to find a supermarket to buy some
fruits - Joe eats a pear and Jenni eats a banana - and then we start walking the
wrong direction and get absolutely lost. 
After
we find our way we end up getting to the Vatican Museum at 10 AM, just in time
to stand in line with a substantial crowd. For the next four hours we tour the
different halls in one of the top collections in the world. The Egyptian collection
featured a very old and ugly mummy. The Greek and Roman collection featured a
huge collection of statues, including the Apollo Belvedere and the Lacoone group.
The Raphael rooms featured gorgeous, colorful paintings of religious and classic
Greek themes. And then…the Sistine Chapel is even more glorious in person than
any picture could ever relay. The Pinoteca collection features one of the best
Italian paintings in the world. The highlight of this room is "The Transfiguration,"
Raphael's famous painting that definitely leaves the viewer in a profound sense
of awe.
Bone
tired, we find an another guidebook-recommended eatery and enjoy an exquisite
lunch of fettuccine with orange sauce and minestrone. We shared the main course
of aubergine (eggplant) with mozzarella. It was to die for! Still tired, we force
ourselves to stick to our grueling schedule and check out an amazing fountain:
the Fountain of the Naiads. After the fountain, we grab a giant ice cream cone
of pistachio, limone and crema (vanilla) then head back to the room for a rewarding
nap. Later, we eat dinner at the "Devil Planet" pizzeria. We both eat entire pizzas.
Jenni
enjoys an artichoke, ham and olive pizza, while Joe's pizza has hot sausage and
cheese. We also devour the Time and Newsweek magazines we picked up along the
way.
Friday,
November 9
Today is a "take-it-easy" day during which we get some practical,
essential matter taken care of - like laundry and showers. We haven't seen a Laundromat
with self-service machines in some countries now - and now there's one right down
the street. Clean clothes are heaven-sent; there is no question about it. A few
hours later Jenni sets off to visit the Catacombs, ancient burial places for Christians
back in the Roman times. Joe wanders nearby neighborhoods and watches the world
go by. We meet back up in the early evening and do what apparently most Romans
do…we wander.
Saturday,
November 10
For several days now we've been seeing posters up all over
the city announcing some sort of parade or demonstration in the Piazza del Popolo
(The People's Square). The posters are very professionally made, and we can gather
that the gist of the demonstration is in support of the United State's actions
in Afghanistan. Both of us are fascinated by what might happen there, but naturally
we're a bit cautious. But we opt to go, and are overwhelmed by the display of
support and appreciation for the USA.
Sunday,
November 11
MORE sightseeing! There's so much cool stuff to see it's driving
Joe crazy. Today is earmarked for the Roman Forum and another trip to the Trevi
Fountain, and some churches. At the Roman Forum, we ran into the New York firefighters
we saw at the USA-Day yesterday, and we stop to shake their hands and pose for
a picture. They must have been tired - they'd only flown into Italy Friday night,
got a quick blessing from the pope, attended the demonstration and they were leaving
this afternoon. They were very nice and posed for a picture. They are truly heroes,
and we felt lucky to be able to tell them, "thank you." On the way through a guidebook-recommended
neighborhood called Campo di Fiori, we stumbled across a wine-tasting event! For
$5, we could get two wineglasses and taste all the new wines of the northern regions
of Italy! For as long as we wanted. As much as we wanted. Neither of which is
sometimes a good thing! See The Journal for more on the wine tasting.
Monday,
November 12
We simply MUST get caught up on our Web site! Today we do
just that, not straying far from the pension all day long - the one exception
being a run for pizza and a giant bowl of 4-cheese pasta for lunch. Then we take
turns sleeping and working on the site.
Tuesday,
November 13
Joe's Birthday Today! We wake up and get out early, determined
to visit a museum that - as it turns out - doesn't exist! We'd planned on learning
a bit more about the history of the papacy by visiting the Papal museum, but we
must have read the guidebooks incorrectly because there is no such museum. But,
since we are at St. Peter's again, we decide to climb up to the top of the dome
and see a breathtaking aerial view of Rome. Despite the driving rain, it is well
worth the twisty, narrow, claustrophobic climb up the 360 steps to see this magnificent
view.
Afterwards, Jenni poses for pictures because her friend Danielle is having her
bachelorette party back home. The party has an animal theme, so Jenni has bought
some tiger gear to wear in the pictures that we will eventually send to Danielle.
For lunch, we head to the same eatery we went to a few days before, thinking of
their yummy eggplant and mozzarella dish. The TV News is on, and it appears there
has been some kind of battle victory in Afghanistan. An American couple sitting
at the table nearby sees the confusion on our faces and kindly fills us in on
the details. The Northern Alliance has taken control of Kabul and people are celebrating
in the streets! Men are dancing and shaving their beards and women are taking
off their burqas. Awesome. We get to talking to the couple and they invite us
to sit at their table. We make fast friends with Liz and Sean Ruiz from Hollywood,
California, and decide to hang out together for the rest of the day. After lunch,
we help them get tickets to see the Pope in the morning, walk around, do some
shopping, and eventually end up at a small market where we buy a bottle of limoncello
(a thick, lemony Italian liqueur) and some amazing chocolate truffles. We walk
down to the Spanish Steps where we eat all the chocolate and down the entire bottle
of limoncello. As it turns out, you can drink alcohol anywhere on the streets
of Rome EXCEPT the Spanish Steps! Without even knowing it, we'd broken a law.
Good thing the Italian police don't really enforce many of their thousands of
laws! We toast to Joe's 36th birthday and suddenly are starving. We eat dinner
of pizzas and veggies at a restaurant Liz and Sean have found, and talk for hours
upon hours. We have a great time together and decide we'll be best friends if
we ever become neighbors. We also decide we'll meet again for dinner tomorrow
evening (for more on Sean and Liz, see The Journal.)
Wednesday,
November 14 
We
part ways in late morning - Jenni goes to the Villa Borghese, a fantastic museum
of incredible sculptures in a glorious park. Joe decides to take a nap and then
walk around and people-watch for most of the morning and afternoon. We meet at
3:30 at the Pantheon, the ancient domed church that is just amazing both in its
preserved interior and the fact that it's still standing! The Romans declared
the building a Christian church right before the Gauls invaded Rome, so the barbarians
left it standing. Most other ancient structures were looted for building materials,
but the Pantheon stayed intact. Afterwards, we tour several beautiful churches
in the area, including one that has a fake dome. Well, actually, it has a painting
on the ceiling that is 3-dimensional and looks like it has a dome from the inside.
They originally planned to make a dome, but apparently they ran out of money,
so they had to settle for a painting. We buy some newspapers and read while sipping
coffee at a pizza joint near the Trevi Fountain. The Northern Alliance has taken
Kabul and is now making gains on Kandahar. After a long walk, we arrive at our
friends Liz and Sean's hotel and take them out to dinner. We have long, fun, delicious
talks about everything under the sun while we eat dinner at the Hostaria Romana,
the place we had dinner our second night in Rome. Jenni had antipasti and pasta
while Joe ate a soup that was delicious but looked like dishwater. Sean and Liz
are vegetarians so they had vegetable soup and assorted veggies and antipasti.
We had two bottles of wine between us and a limoncello shot, which really hit
the spot. After dinner, we checked e-mail together at EasyEverything, an Internet
Café chain then walked home in the rain. We made plans for us all to eat dinner
together again tomorrow night.
Thursday, November 15
It's our last full day in Rome and Jenni gets
up early for the 3-hour trip to Pompeii near Naples while Joe takes another day
off. He sleeps late, does laundry, checks e-mails, eats a slice of pizza then
takes a long nap. Afterwards, he catches up on some Web site work. We meet up
at Liz and Sean's hotel around 8:30 and walk a few short blocks to an Indian restaurant.
Not at all like Italian food, but equally as good!
We
walk off dinner in search of gelato and wrap up the late night with a few minutes
at the EasyEverything. It's a 30-minute walk home for us after we drop Liz and
Sean off, and we are dead-tired by the time we get to our pension. But there's
a problem. The key doesn't fit into the lock to the outside door! This is a pension,
which means the owner lives there and there's no reception or lobby. You are given
a door key and a room key, and it's your own responsibility to keep up with them
both. But the key worked earlier that day at 4:00…why not now? It's a mystery,
an inconvenient one at that, but thankfully we have the phone number of the pension
owner, and we can always ring the buzzer to wake him up. But there's another problem.
The buzzer doesn't wake him up even after prolonged ringing, and the phone number
is out of order.We try the key over and over again, but it just will not fit into
the keyhole.
Jenni eventually calls the police but they tell her to call the fire department
and we don't know how!!! The guy at the hotel down the street won't let us use
his phone, and we are now cold and tired, an hour after we first showed up at
our pension. We resort to loudly banging on the door - hammering it -- and yelling
as loud as we dared. We even woke up a few neighbors who expressed their displeasure
in Italian. No answer! The landlord is either asleep or dead. We wind up walking
a few blocks to wake up another pension owner, Marco, the guy from the Italian
Bed and Breakfast who originally recommended we stay at this place. Marco is a
great guy, because he immediately came outside to help, apparently seeing the
desperation in our eyes. Seeing as it's now 3:00 AM, he's no happy camper but
thank goodness he has a heart! Marco walks us over to ring the bell at another
apartment and another guy yells back through the speaker phone that we are irresponsible
for losing our keys and some other stuff that Marco won't translate. But anyway,
the man who turns out to be the landlord's son is irate and Joe lets him have
it for giving us bad keys! After Joe demands the man open our door, he probably
curses us as he walks with us the four blocks to our impregnable pension and --
unbelievably!! -- wakes the owner up with his first ring of the bell!! They have
a heated discussion with the landlord hanging out the window seemingly to refuse
to come down and let us in - and that's when Joe lost his temper. He ordered him
to get his lazy tail downstairs and open up the door. Apparently that was enough.
He slowly came down, opened the door, and we threw the bum key at him. (Turns
out the key was bent.) It's now 3:30 AM and it's impossible to stay rational.
Sleep comes almost the instant we hit the pillow.
By the way, we really owe a debt of gratitude to Marco. His place comes highly recommended and we wish we could have stayed there. But even Marco's recommendation where we ended up at was quite decent and cheap. If you're going to Rome, contact Marco at the Italian Bed and Breakfast www.italianbandb.com/ and he'll hook you up!