Weekend With my Mom in Rome!

03/31/11

     Thursday approached me very quickly. I had been excited for so long for it to come! I only had one class that day and it was Italian. Following Italian, I was headed on an adventure to try and find my mom’s hotel because she was landing in Rome on Thursday afternoon a little after noon! Before heading there, a girl in my program, Claire, and I had to stop at a couple restaurants to see if any would be willing to help us out with our video project for school. Her and I were given the role of producers, so part of our task was to identify the location to film. With our topic being fresh markets in Rome, we found the perfect place. It’s called Trattoria der Pallero. They serve a different menu every day depending on what’s fresh at the market. Luckily, they agreed to help us out! It should make for an interesting project given that none of the workers speak very good English! 

     From here, I headed on my adventure to the hotel. It was relatively far away so I had to take a bus to Termini, the train station, and from there hop on another bus over closer to the hotel. I didn’t have much trouble finding it and got there about 45 minutes before my mom arrived so it was perfect timing. I couldn’t complain because the weather was great and I just sat up on the roof of the hotel soaking it in! After my mom got there and checked in, we relaxed a couple minutes and headed out for the evening. 

     She was starving so we first stopped at my apartment to drop a few things off before heading to Tony’s, the restaurant, for dinner. While there, we enjoyed wine (red this time, it’s different being with adults versus fellow college students who typically drink white!), suppli, bruschetta, and then I had the penne alla vodka again because I like it so much. After dinner, we decided to head over towards the Pantheon, grabbed some gelato from Giolitis, and then headed to the Trevi Fountain. Both of these sites are pretty at night as well as during the day so it was good for her to have the chance to see them during both times. Considering she was exhausted from her flight, we took a bus back to Termini where I helped her buy train tickets for the rest of her weeklong travels before parting ways for the evening. I left one of my roommates Italian phones that I put money on with her so that we could more easily communicate while here. 

Streets outside Giolitis

04/01/11

     We got an early start Friday morning, knowing we had a lot on our plate to see that day! Unfortunately, all public transportation was on strike on Friday, so we literally had to walk everywhere. We planned to meet outside the Vatican, but because transportation wasn’t working, my mom had to take a cab and I walked. The walk to the Vatican from my apartment is over two miles on its own! We explored the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica and then she went to the Vatican Museum. I waited outside because the museum itself is very fascinating, but not something you need to see more than once and I had just been the previous weekend.

St. Peter's Dome

     From the museum, we were starving so we headed towards Piazza Navona, hoping to find a restaurant nearby. On the way, we stopped by my school and did a bit of shopping within Piazza Navona. My mom bought me a painting! I’ve been trying to find the perfect one since I’ve been here and I finally found it! It has three paintings within it, one of the Colosseum, one of the Spanish Steps, and one of Piazza Navona, three of my favorite locations in Rome. As we wandered from Piazza Navona, we went to the Pantheon to get a glimpse of it in the daylight and go inside as well. After the Pantheon, we found a cute little restaurant outside along the way to the Trevi Fountain. At the restaurant, we just ordered a couple things and split it so that we could taste a little bit of everything. We got an appetizer with meats and cheeses, spaghetti with carbonara sauce, and a risotto. It was all great and filled me up quite a bit! 

Painting my mom bought me

     Next stop, the Trevi Fountain. Of course, it was as busy as usual, but still a beautiful sight nonetheless. My mom pointed something out that I couldn’t agree more with. Often times when you see pictures of something and then see it in real life, it tends to be smaller than imagined in real life. Yet, the opposite seems to be true in Rome. Everything seems so much bigger than it is depicted!. Because we had gotten such an early start and ate lunch relatively late, we still had plenty of time to kill before going to dinner. Therefore, we went to the Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese, and Piazza del Popolo. As you can see, there was a lot of walking involved! With all the walking, we quickly worked up our appetites for dinner and headed to Dar Poeta for pizza! From dinner, we split up to get to bed early after a large amount of walking. When I got home, I mapped out how far I had walked that day and it totaled to over 8 miles! My feet could definitely feel the impacts of this!

Spanish Steps

Walking down Villa Borghese

04/02/11

     Saturday morning I met my mom at Piazza Republica because a shuttle dropped her off there from her hotel. We had yet another ambitious day ahead of us. First stop, Colosseum. Although I had already been in for class, I joined her inside where we enjoyed listening to Rick Steves’ podcast on my phone as he guided us around and thoroughly explained the history. From the Coloseeum, we went to the Roman Forum and again had Rick Steves guide us around. By the time we finished touring both of these places, we were starving and wanted to grab lunch immediately. I took her to a restaurant called L’Antica Birreria Peroni, one of my favorite places. Here we enjoyed some gnocchi, penne all’amatriciana, suppli, and fresh Peronis. It turned out that this meal actually tided us over for the remainder of the day and I wasn’t even hungry for dinner! 

Piazza Republica

Spaghetti all'Amatriciana

Inside the Colosseum

Gnocchi

Roman Forums

     After lunch, we found a place to buy some wine and cups and brought it with us as we climbed up the Aventine Hill. My mom was anxious to get a glimpse through the keyhole at the top that frames St. Peter’s Basilica. After hiking up and viewing this, we relaxed in one of the park/gardens at the top and sipped on some wine. The day had slipped away from us and it was starting to get late. I went back to my mom’s hotel with her and slept there, knowing I’d get a better night sleep there than at my apartment with everyone going out. Plus, I wanted to make sure she figured everything out in the morning with what train to get on and how to get there as she was headed for Torrita di Siena bright and early. Over the course of the week while I’m in class she was traveling to Torrita di Siena, Siena and Florence. I’m meeting her at the train station this coming Friday morning and we are heading out to the Amalfi Coast, I can’t wait!

04/03/11

     After falling asleep at 10:30, probably the earliest I’ve fallen asleep in two years, getting up early wasn’t a problem as I’d already slept 8 hours! After dropping my mom at the train station, I headed back to my apartment where I went back to sleep for three more hours and woke up at 11, not able to sleep another minute even if I wanted to! I didn’t have much to do on Sunday, but I didn’t want the day to go to waste because the weather was absolutely beautiful. A bunch of us in our program were going to the Rome soccer game Sunday night against Juventus. 

     I didn’t have anything to wear to the game so I went to the market in front of our apartment that is there every Sunday afternoon and purchased a scarf. I’m not a big jersey person and figured I’d get more use out of a scarf. I really liked it and it reminded me a bit of Harry Potter. After the market, I headed over to Tiber Island where I laid out in the sun for two hours. I think the sun in Italy is much hotter than at home because I laid out for about two hours and it was about 75 degrees out and I got absolutely fried! I have a very nice shorts tan line on my legs… oh well! I’d rather have some sun one way or another! When I got back from Tiber Island, it was time to start getting ready for the game. 

     We went and had a couple beers at Piazza del Popolo before heading to the stadium. When we got to the game, it was unlike any soccer game in the U.S. that’s for sure. The fans were absolutely nuts. Somehow we wound up sitting almost directly next to the fans for Juventus. Apparently it’s normal in Europe to toss full beer bottles at the fans of the other team. This seemed very not normal to the rest of us and we spent a lot of time watching our heads so we didn’t get hit! Although Roma lost 2-0, it was an experience I’ll never forget!

Piazza del Popolo before the game!

Inside the AS Roma Stadium