Roma! by Susie (May 27-31)



Which way should we go?



You all know I’ve been a 6^th grade teacher for quite a few years, and so I’ve always wanted to visit Rome. All the better truly understand and make history come alive for my students, especially since it is the grand finale of our ancient civilizations’ curriculum. Besides the perpetual eating frenzy of Rome (as Noa with his gelato addiction, and the book Eat, Pray, Love celebrates), I tried valiantly to make sense of what exactly we were seeing and how the puzzle pieces of history fit together.  This city is Noa’s textbook for the week, and we get to crawl inside the pages first-hand!  But nowadays little old "Rome" is BIG...where do we start?

Double-decker bus

The city is a boggling metropolis of millions, the metro makes no sense (yet), the Tiber River meanders through, with old B.C. aged brick walls & aquaducts tucked in between modern flats and cafes. But Hooray for technology! Because about this time, when I’m most overwhelmed, and just as Les and I are twisting city maps around in our hands, that we get a text message from our great friend Terri Shives! 



Trevi Fountain- the BEST!

 She exclaims, “You’re in Rome! It’s the BEST! You absolutely MUST get a double-decker bus pass to jump on & off at anytime…” Oh, what a relief. Thank God for sending us little angels with texting thumbs, because now we have direction and purpose. Bus tickets in hand, wind in our hair, & earbuds plugged in to hear the tour narrations…our intimidation slowly fades away. Terri texts again, “You have to see the museums on Piazza del Campdogliano and the Fontana di Trevi! It’s the most famous and the Best! Don’t forget two gelato scoops along the way, twice a day!” Her energy is contagious; we are motivated to find one or all of the above.

Vatican Square

Another great friend, Diane Kenny chimes in with an email on my iPhone, “Don’t forget to go to the Vatican, here's the link, and this is how you get the passes and tickets to see St. Peter’s Basilica and the Michelangelo’s miraculous Sistine chapel… plus you will need two scoops of gelato, twice a day!”
We CAN survive this crazy town, with its blaring police and ambulance horns that fray our nerves and remind of us of that goofy kid movie called Time Bandits.



Beware the catacombs & crypts...



Terri texts again, “Noa will love the crypts & catacombs, you have to find them because after touring all those ancient ruins and churches, my boys LOVED the catacombs too.” Another great tip, just in time, we get back on the red double-decker bus with another daily dose of gelato in our hands. Catacombs are creepy and cool.



The Colosseum



But what about the Roman Colosseum, you say? Oh yes, thankfully it is only 2 blocks from our "St. John’s B & B," so we found it quite easily, kinda hard to miss. It's real name is the Flavian Amphitheater and could seat 80,000 spectators free of charge (mostly men, the women could only sit way up top). Now that is a place filled with stories of gladiators and glory, but also sadness, greed and death. Did you know they killed over 9,000 wild animals in the first 100 days of opening the Colosseum in 80 A.D. And then when all the “talented” fighting gladiators and slaves were killed off, the rulers decided to just set the people on fire and watch them die dancing in flames…real nice.

Makes me glad I’m alive in 2011 A.D. and not 211 A.D.  So now I have pages of notes & gigabytes of pix for my students; Noa has real Roman images and sensory overload in his mind, and Les got to relive the infamous Ben Hur chariot race scene as he strolled through Circus Maximus!



Hey and something else kind of cool...we found the "Mouth of Truth or Bocca della Verita" in Piazza Venezia (from which romantic movie?), which seemed the greatest by the end of the day because when you are a turned-around tourist and you find something you're not looking for, it's just SERENDIPITY! Thanks again Diane & Terri for your enthusiasm and advice when we, the mellow Hopper family, found ourselves a little lost.



Mouth of Truth-watch your hand!!