The Aly

Roma

Rome has a Great Wall kind of awe and curiosity to it.  I just don’t get how they did it; I can’t even begin to comprehend it.  It is so immense, so huge…just very diligent work.

the Forums - a little taste of some serious ruins

Rome is amazing.  You have to see it to believe it because it is totally unreal.  You can imagine that my trip to Rome was everything you would read in a guidebook so I don’t need to elaborate further.  I saw the sites, I took the pictures and I even sent a letter from the Vatican City post office.

I strongly believe that if you can learn the mail system in a foreign country, you can do anything

But what you won’t read in the guidebooks, and what everyone will keep from you when they return from their fabulous trip to Rome is this: Rome is like one big scavenger hunt; everyone in Rome carries a map and they live in their map, even the Italians!  It is the most bizarre site.  Just picture every New Yorker carrying around a map, stopping at every corner to double-check where they are.  And no one asks anyone for help and everyone gets lost.  They concentrate very hard and rotate the map around a bunch of times.  And then they spin around a few times take a picture, walk a few yards and then repeat.  It’s my heaven.  Anyone who has traveled with me knows this is me.  I don’t try to fit it; I play the part.  I relish in being the conspicuous tourist with camera and fanny pack (well, at least a cool looking one for my gear) and sunglasses and layers tied around my waste and hanging off my bag; but most of all, I really like to get inside my map.  I like to whip it out in large crowds of tourists and say, “look at me!  I’m not from here!”  Then I take a bunch of pictures and I pull out my map again and put it on the ground so I can become one with the map.  Rome is full of my people!  I’m so at home here.

A map in daylight, much more useful

And we did get lost, very lost.  After my Mom, the 10+ marathoner led us around by foot (and they say that Rome is too big to walk the whole thing, but we did…twice) we were at mile 15 or so (for real) when we decided we should head back so we could fit in a nap before dinner.  Well, I got in my map, but my map was poorly lit as the sun was setting so we set off in the wrong direction, actually the total opposite direction.  And then we took a short cut and it was not a short cut.  This is the point where I became a very irritable eight-year-old, once again sitting in the back seat of a grey Oldsmobile rental in Arizona with no air conditioning en route to the Grand Canyon.  Yep, took me right back…and I was not happy.  It’s amazing how easy it is to shed years off your life.  I was eight again, just like that.  And Mom was still Mom…and oh, was I a brat.

We finally got back to the hotel two hours later, a luxurious hotel only made available after a, “you’re not that poor” moment.  We had arrived in Rome specifically on this day to meet up with my friend Brooklyn, a fellow world-traveling companion from college, and her mother who were touring Italy.  They were staying at the Albergo Santa Chiara, literally adjacent to the Pantheon;

I mean they probably shared the same plumbing (yes, you could call the hole in the floor of the Pantheon, plumbing).  It was beautiful and clean and just so Roma.  But, being the travelers Rick Steves would have been proud of, we decided to walk around the block to check out if there was anything cheaper.  The concierge at the Santa Chiara recommended the Pesione down the street.  We rang a little buzzer and were let in.  A mangy looking man in mangy clothes with a careless walk led us to a room for us to check out…the most depressing, dimly lit, creepy room I had seen in a long time for a fraction of the price of the Santa Chiara.  It reminded me of my first frat party I had gone to.  It was in the basement of the frat house, dark, smelly and certainly creepy and I remember wondering, “this is what all the hype is about?”  Well, we decided, this was not what Rome was about and that we weren’t that poor.  So after our long hike back to the Santa Chiara a well-groomed man with a confident walk led us to our beautiful room.

Shooting Brooklyn. Yes, that would be the Pantheon behind us

Brooklyn and the latest heart throb of Roma - this head shot of a handsome young priest was on every street stand. The JTT of Roma.