Hello Again Italy

This morning started in a flurry with a whirlwind of packing and shoving some hotel buffet into our stomachs before just making our airport shuttle after missing our first one. We arrived at the airport with two hours before our flight, plenty of time. We arrived in the line to check my dad’s bag and found it to be quite long. We waited and waited until we got to the front and were told we had to pay before getting in line. So, we walked back out of the line and found the line for the kiosk to pay for bag checking. After we got my dad’s bag on its way we headed towards security and I was happy to see a short line. The ease was hindered when we actually got to the line and my mom’s bag was randomly selected for a search. Meanwhile, my sister’s bag apparently looked suspicious because she also had to have her bag searched after it went through the security belt. Eventually we managed to get to the gate, but we didn’t have much time. When boarding time came around the airport struggle continued when the man scanning tickets made my mom, sister, and I all gate check our bags.

Once we were finally on the plane everything went much more smoothly and when we arrived we had a transfer waiting to take us to our cute “boutique” hotel. When we arrived the people were amazingly helpful and helped us book a tour for tomorrow. We then got our keys to the apartment we were staying in that belonged to the hotel, but was just across the plaza, which was filled with an enormous market of fresh produce, pasta, flowers, and some clothes. We were all hungry after having a light travel day breakfast so we went out to find a vegan restaurant that was just a few minutes away. We checked out its menu once we arrived and it didn’t look at that appealing. Everything seemed to have vegan cheese or mayo and we though we could find much better. We ended up going to a super cute vegetarian friendly restaurant called Ginger for lunch. There I was able to fulfill my açai bowl craving, but I also ordered a weird combination of potatoes on the side. Better food wasn’t the only upside to switching restaurants, Ginger was just a street away from the Pantheon, which we decided we may as well check out. It is one of the oldest buildings in continuous use in the world. The front of the building looks like a greek temple, but the main part is a brick circle covered by an enormous dome with a hole in the center. We got to go inside for free and were able to really appreciate how enormous the dome really is. It was also really cool to see the sun shining through the roof’s hole onto the dome in a perfect circle. It wasn’t long after we got in that we were gradually pushed out. I didn’t totally understand why until Hannah pointed out to me that there is mass everyday at 5. It is really amazing to me that people still attend mass in a building that was built over 2,000 years ago.

With the Pantheon crossed off of our list my dad was craving some gelato so he took us on a scavenger hunt on the nearby streets for the best gelato places our hotel suggested. The first one he went to is the oldest shop of its kind in Rome. It fit into a specific category, but I will generalize and stay it was about, if not, the first gelato shop in Rome. There were tons of people there and the scoopers wore some fancy clothes. My dad got two scoops of different flavors and he said they were really good. Next, we went to a gelato shop that didn’t seem to be super famous, but the sorbet seemed good. My dad got coconut, which I thought it looked weird because it was to be chewy. Last, my dad went to a shop famous for having 150 flavors. I think that many flavors would be overwhelming when picking which one to get, but they seem to be doing well so I suppose the choices are a draw.

With my dad’s sweet tooth satisfied, we started walking back to our apartment, but stopped on the way through a plaza called the Piazza Navona. We didn’t really understand it’s significance, but it is huge and has three beautiful fountains in it. it has an almost oval road going around it and an amazing building on one side. There was a circus like act going on at one end of the plaza and we watched it for a bit before heading off to our hotel for the night. At least I thought it was for the night. After about an hour at the apartment my dad decided to go on a late night run and I went with him. The night life in the area of Rome we are staying in is amazing. We ran along the Tiber River and there were tents lined up for over a mile in just one direction. They were filled with fun things like bands, restaurants, clothes, and one even had some carnival games. On the way back from our run we nearly got lost, but managed to avoid it, which was good since it was really dark. Hungry, the whole family went out for a 10:30 dinner of gnocchi and polenta for me and others pastas for everyone else.