It was another rough night leading up to today; the girls finally managed to get to sleep around 1:30 am, so they were rather grumpy and weepy when they got up. Their fighting started before they had even managed to take their first bites of cereal. And it would continue, in fits and starts, for most of the day.
I woke up a little grumpy too and my mood was not helped by the loss of power part way through my shower (I had to rinse my hair out in cold water). We found the breakers but they were all intact and the other apartments in the building appeared to be lit, so it was clearly an isolated problem. And it was too early to call the rental office, so we headed out and planned to call later.
Solanne was in such a mood that our plan to visit the Vatican museums was changed and we decided to go to the Colosseum. Once we stepped out
the door and saw the rain, however, we knew it was not an outdoor kind of day. I'm not sure how, but I managed to convince Sol that we should go to the Vatican. We changed courses once more and were off.
We got off to such a bumpy start that we decided we should visit the museum on full tummies. Pizza again for lunch.
When we arrived at St Peter's square we found out that the line, for what we believed was the museums, was two hours long. So we queued up
and played "I spy" and "guess what I'm thinking about" (aka, Twenty Questions, without limitations on the number of questions). The kids were amazing and didn't complain once during what turned out to be a
one-hour wait.
We got to the front, went through security, and we were in... to St Peter's basilica. It turns out that the Vatican museums are behind the basilica, through a completely different entrance. We were pretty disappointed because by now it was mid-afternoon and we might run out of time to see the museum. But we had waited for an hour, so we were
pretty committed to being where we were.
We toured the giant church, and Derek felt the same I had the first time I'd seen it: St Peter's is big and shiny and doesn't feel one bit like a church. We did see Raphael's The Pieta, as well as the famous St Peter statue whose foot you're supposed to rub for good luck, as well as the biggest dome in the world. And tons and tons of gorgeous polished marble.
We left the basilica and decided to take our chances and see what the
lineup at the museums was like. There was almost no lineup at all, so we bought our tickets and began the tour. Thanks to the Vatican Museums app on Derek's iPhone we knew exactly where to go, and we learned quite a bit about what we were seeing, too. Derek managed to make the first half into an I Spy game for the girls where they had to spot: the giant pinecone, a sculpture of a Greek athlete sponging himself off after a run, Laocoon and his sons fighting off the snakes, and many more. They loved it. And they loved the stories that went along with each piece. Then we visited an ancient Egypt exhibit where
they got to see some cool sarcophagi, ancient jewelry, and a 3000-year-old mummy (what could be cooler than that?).
We then dragged them through countless galleries filled with paintings, which they found endlessly boring. It had never occurred to me, but it makes sense that kids would prefer the three dimensions of sculptures to the flat bi-dimensional world of paintings. They managed to keep it together enough to make it to the Sistine chapel. They liked it but were done looking within two minutes, which in grownup time is not nearly enough to begin taking it all in. So on this one we decided that mom and dad were going to have the final say, and we stayed quite a while.
There were still many galleries to walk through before arriving at the exit and the kids were toast by this time. We sat them down at the exit for nice foot rest while Derek called our apartment rental company to fix our electrical problem (we had nearly forgotten!).
We bought a few groceries on the way home to make some supper. While Derek cooked our meal (after having restored the power) I washed the girls' feet and gave them a little massage. They were in a much better mood as the climbed up to their loft to play before our dinner.
Despite the rough start, our day was a good one after all.
A tavola!
Tonight we stayed in and were treated to Derek's great cooking. We started off with a fresh tomato and mozzarella salad (real mozzarella, made with buffalo milk and kept in brine). We then had a delicious shell pasta with Padano cheese, pancetta and olive oil. The girls refused to partake of the pork ("ew! not meat!" - I guess we raised them to be good vegetarians), so we served up their portions first and added the tiny bits of pork to ours after. I know: pork is not strictly vegetarian, but when in Rome... Finally, dinner was served with juice and water. After last night's litre of vino for two,
we decided to resist the E2.50 bottle of wine we saw at the grocer's. Domani - tomorrow.
Maia and Solanne's discovery: washing tired and sore feet will make them feel instantly better.
Cristina's discovery: don't trust your memory on events from ten years ago or you might end up waiting in a long line for the wrong attraction.
Derek's discovery: if you have the right ingredients, anyone can make awesome food that tastes like it's from a restaurant (this is what he says, but for the record, Derek's cooking is much better than just "anyone's").
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