We roam in Rome…

Allow me to preface this by saying that "Roman Holiday" is one of my favourite movies of all time. It just makes me happy. I love the concept of the film. I love the execution of the film. Every time I watch it, my heart lightens up a bit.

On the flip side, I feel almost no great love for the city of Rome. I don't mean that I don't like Rome or that I don't feel privileged to visit the city, but it's just not one of those cities that I click in the way I used to click in Paris or the way I've been dying to get back to Prague since I visited about 3 years ago.

I was just in Rome about 11 months ago and wasn't overly thrilled about the idea of going back so soon, especially since our time in Europe is drawing to a close and the list of new territories I'd like to conquer is growing ever-longer, but the family wanted to see Rome, and so Rome we saw.

Our first day in the ancient city was a bit of a blur. The fam. from the states had arrived in Germany one day prior and were a bit jet-lagged. This sleepless haze was compounded by the fact that we had to wake up around 0400 to catch the shuttle to the airport and then as soon as we got onto the plane, SB's sister reached into her bag for some gum, sliced the pad of her finger off on a safety razor (srsly, how does that happen?) and we spent the flight putting pressure on her open wound… and then when we landed, the medics came and whisked her away and we had to spend nearly an hour trying to find her.

After all of this excitement, we needed a low key sort of afternoon. Our driver got us safely to our apartment just off of the Campo di Fiori, which was down a little alley way and opened off of a rather magical courtyard. We dropped our stuff, wandered into the market in the piazza, split a few pizzas, gave the girls their first fateful taste of gelato and then had a bit of a wander into the Piazza Navona, through the Pantheon, to the Trevi Fountain (still under construction from last summer), got a magnificent glimpse of the Altare della Patria and called it a night!