Italy (Day 1&2)

 Hello friends!  I cannot believe it's been more than a year since I blogged here.  I'm so sorry.  I have some motivation, so I'm back.  I want to chronicle our latest vacation, and I'm sure some of you might be interested in it also.  WE WENT TO ITALY!  Let us begin.

This whole trip came about because Kevin and I were talking about getting into more debt and taking a family vacation or trying to get out of debt and have no vacation.  I've always wanted to go to Italy, what Catholic doesn't?  Kevin and I just went for it.  We had tickets booked to coincide with Logan's spring break from college which just happened to put us there at the beginning week of Lent.  I probably wouldn't have planned it that way if I had the option, but I didn't want Logan to miss any school.

Some of my friends have been to Italy and told some tips and tricks to start booking some tickets for things early.  I was contacting people as early as June last year.  No one really got back to me except to say to contact them again later.  Luckily I remembered.

I think the easiest way of doing this is going to be explaining pictures.  I don't know why I didn't get any of the airport trip to Italy.  I guess it wasn't eventful or the fact that we took a red-eye didn't give me much brain power to think about documenting that part.  I do remember that we alerted the gate attendant that Rory had a tree nut allergy.  Since I had ordered her a vegan meal, they couldn't tell what ingredients were in it because it was pre-made.  The flight attendants were very helpful, made an announcement asking all passengers to refrain from eating nuts of any kind, and brought menus with ingredients listed to Rory.  They really were great about it.  

We flew a 6p flight on a Friday to a layover in London.  We got into London at 1a our time, 6a London time.  We didn't arrive into Rome until 730a our time and 130p Rome time.  It was rough.  The flight was delayed, so we didn't get to our AirBNB until around 4p.  Our host showed us around and gave us a recommendation for dinner, a restaurant across the street.  We ventured out.

This was our first meal for I can't remember how long.  Some of us were hangry.  We walked into this little shop and all six of us stood there waiting to be helped.  We didn't know if we should seat ourselves or wait.  Eventually someone cleaned off a table that fit all of us, and we sat.  They were not in a rush to help us.  I think we spent two hours at this restaurant.  We got some dishes to share.  The two defaults were Margherita Pizza and Caprese Salad for Marley.  I thought the rest of us would be ok.  Stay tuned for that story.  We went back to the AirBNB after dinner.  I wanted everyone to stay up, so we could get on Rome time.  At 7p Rory was crying in the corner, so we all went to sleep.  The kids were up at midnight eating leftover pizza from dinner.

The next morning Kevin and I ventured out for an authentic Italian breakfast.  We had talked about doing this every morning, just the two of us, and really hyped it up.  We found this great place in walking distance that was gluten free.  The guy spoke a little English.  Kevin ordered a latte or something.  I ordered a hot chocolate.  He went over to a pot that was stirring melted chocolate and poured me a mug.  Ummm.... Apparently we learned later from K'lyn that you're supposed to dip your croissants in the chocolate.  I tried to drink mine.  I got a couple sips in, but that was all I could do.  We saw someone else order a hot chocolate crema or something like that.  When we were leaving, I asked to take my chocolate to go and asked him to add some milk.  He asked hot or cold?  I said hot, so he literally poured the milk on top and put a lid on it.  He obviously didn't understand.  I didn't even know if he would know what I meant if I asked for an "American" hot chocolate.  I ended up throwing it away.  

We brought breakfast back for the kids.  They ate and we headed out to St. Peter's Square.  This was not a far walk at all from the AirBNB.  

  

We walked around a lot and ended up crossing the bridge and finding a gelato place.  We were looking for a lunch place, but most of them didn't open until noon, so we opted for the gelato instead.  For some reason I only have a pic of K'lyn eating the gelato this time.  

We walked around some more and decided to find some place for lunch.  We read all the things that said lunch was the big meal for Italians, and then they rest from 2-4p, and dinner at 8p.  I don't know what we were expecting, but the host had given us recommendations, so we found one and went in.  It was open to the street with tables and chairs sitting outside and looked like a rather expensive place.  By that I mean that the tablecloths were white linen and the servers looked like the owners of the place.  We sat and fumbled our way through asking for still water instead of sparkling.  I had gotten all of us plastic water bottles with filters in them because everyone said they had water filling stations all around the city.  These ended up being fountains that people literally went up to and drank out of.  As in the stream would be streaming and they would put their mouth in the middle to catch it.

We got two bottles of still water.  One bottle looked relatively ok.  The other bottle was DISGUSTING.  You poured the water out, and there was all sorts of yuck stuck on the sides.  I had my plastic water bottle though, so I survived without drinking their water.  We ordered muscles, caprese, and I don't know what the other thing was called, but it looked like a white pizza with prosciutto on it.  The muscles came out in a HUGE bowl.  Kevin took five and handed the bowl of 20 more to Logan.  When Kevin went to get some more, Logan had finished the rest of the bowl himself.  We couldn't tell because he was putting the empty shells back into the bowl.  K'lyn LOVED her white pizza, and I think Marley liked this caprese.  I ordered pasta with sauce, Rory had lasagna, Logan ordered seafood pasta, K'lyn order carbonara, and Kevin had a seafood pasta too (I think?).

Did I mention that we had a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red wine?  We did this at dinner the first night too I think?  Maybe we didn't.  I don't remember, but I know we did here.  Everyone was old enough to drink except Marley.  We just got the house wine.  Afterwards K'lyn, Logan, and I ordered tiramisus.  They were pretty good.  The lady offered a coffee for dessert and Kevin and K'lyn got one.  She kept saying something that sounded like catto.  We just all nodded and smiled.  Here's what she came back with.

Little coffees that had foam in the picture of a cat!  They were so cute!  We were very impressed, and I think it showed whether she knew what we were saying or not.  The tiramisu here was different than Olive Garden back home.  ;)  The pasta was VERY al dente.  It had huge chunks of bacon, which I would normally think I would be ok with, but not here.  I think this was actually pork cheek.  Anyway, K'lyn and Kevin liked the bacon, so that was good.  You would think this meal would've been expensive with all the appetizers, two bottle of wine, dessert, and coffees.  Folks, it cost the same if not less of all all eating at a nicer place like Longhorn's here at home.  CRAZY.

After this two hour meal, we went back to the AirBNB.  Rory had forgotten her jacket on the plane (let's not talk about it), so we decided to go to the mall and shop.  Logan stayed behind and the rest of us got an Uber.  K'lyn had the app on her phone.  This great car showed up with seats facing one another.  OH!  I forgot to tell you about the car that picked us up from the airport.  It was a half hour from the airport to the AirBNB, so we got a driver.  He was youngish and hardly spoke english.  We were asking him how to say certain phrases, and he would literally trail off in what sounded like the middle of a sentence and then just do a laugh.  It was SO FUNNY.   Back to the mall, we got there ok.  It was an outside mall of sorts.  They were having some celebration because there was confetti EVERYWHERE.  All the kids were dressed in Halloween costumes and playing in the confetti.  We chalked it up to it being Fat Tuesday that week, and this was the mall celebration.  

I didn't take many pics here either apparently.  In that first pic is a slide that went down all three floors.  You had to pay to slide.  I don't think we saw anyone go on it.  Marley made the point of the parents having to drop the kids at the top and then run down three floors.  We ate MacD's and KFC at the mall for dinner.  They didn't have the same food we have here, so it was interesting.  They had NO-ggets which were nuggets without all the bad stuff in them.  I don't think we knew what that meant.  Anyway, they weren't bad.  We brought Logan home food too and ubered back.  Marley got some bracelets, Rory got a coat and sweater, I got a sweat jacket (I only packed one!), and I bought Logan a hoodie because Rory spilled wine on his other one, accidentally of course.

Day two ended with Marley, Kevin, and I back over at St. Peter's Square at 9p to pray the Rosary for Pope Francis.  It was all in Italian.  We followed along in english.  It was cold, so I packed the complimentary blanket from the plane.  That helped.  We headed back afterwards, and I think the kids had another midnight food fest this night too.

Sorry for the blurry first pic!

Hopefully I'll be able to get to the rest of the days sooner rather than later.  Enjoy!