Day 10 - Ciao Roma! Hello Detroit!

Yippee, we're home! We woke up at 6am Rome time (midnight, Michigan time) and headed to the airport. We got dropped off at the wrong terminal so we took a train to our terminal. We had about an 11 hour flight to Atlanta, Georgia. We were all so tired on the flight (except for Charlotte who was wide awake the whole time). We flew over several countries and the beautiful Alps, then a long stretch over the Atlantic. It was good to see land again.

We went through passport control and customs in Atlanta (the busiest airport in the world!). We called the dads, and found out there was heavy snow in Detroit. Luckily, it had cleared up by our flight time. After a 4 hour layover we finally got on our flight to home. Dan, Maddie & Carson were waiting for us at the airport, and it was a wonderful reunion! The kids had made signs for us and we were all ecstatic to see eachother. Uncle Tim, Christian & Grace were there also to pick up Aunt Beth, Aunt Lynn, Ben & Mitch.

We finally got home about 11pm (5am Rome time). What a homecoming...Dan and the kids had put signs on the door, cleaned the whole house, put out a vase of fresh flowers, and had made all of our beds with fresh sheets and clean PJs layed out for us! This morning we all got up and had lots of fun passing out souveniers and talking. We all missed each other so much, and it is so good to be home! Thank you to all of our friends & family who traveled with us through our blog!

Day 9 Update - Italian desserts!

Jacob: Tonight my mom and Aunt Lynn took us out one more time for gelato. We went to a Sicilian Gelaterie across the street and had the BEST gelato ever! We all got chocolate fondante and it was so creamy and good! Then since it was our last night we got a bunch of Italian pastries also - tirumisu, connolis and chocolate croissants. We came home and had a big feast of desserts! It was so fun for our last night!

Day 9 Gallerie Borghese, Trevi Fountain & Spanish Steps

Molly: This morning we took off early for a 9am tour of Gallerie Borghese, an art museum filled with paintings & sculptures formally belonging to the Borghese family. We had a young, lively tour guide who really made the collection come alive. We enjoyed lunch at the Gallerie, and lots of espresso.

Jacob: After we toured the art museum we went outside to a huge park called Villa Borghese. It was so much fun! Then we took a long walk to the Trevi Fountain to see it one more time before we leave. Ben, Charlotte and I threw coins in it again.

We walked back to the Spanish Steps one more time. Then we took the Metro back to our apartment. We've been packing and cleaning up. We're about to eat dinner and go to bed early so we can wake up early for the airport. We're hoping to have a little more gelato tonight for our last time! (Molly: Important news: I got some darling Italian boots!)

I had so much fun on this trip this year! My favorite parts were seeing some of the most famous things in the world, going to all the parks, and exploring the city.

Day 8 Pompeii

Jacob: This morning Pietro & Marina picked us up early and we drove all the way to Naples and Pompeii. They have huge lemons and really good oranges in Naples and we drank fresh lemonade and orange juice. (Molly: Pietro & Marina own our apartment, and are both artists and tour guides.)

Jacob: Pompeii is a whole city that got buried in volanic ash when Mt. Vesuvian erupted almost 2,000 years ago. They dug out the city and you can walk all around the temples, stores, streets and houses.

Some of the really wealthy people had running water in their houses! There was also a really cool ancient laundromat, where people could take their clothes to be washed, dyed, dried and ironed. The old pipes were made of lead.

When they dug out the city they found spaces in the ash where people died. They filled the spaces with plaster and they have molds of their bodies. Most people had their hands covering their faces because the ash would have been in their eyes.

There were ancient baths where the people would go to bathe and relax. There were tubs for cold water and hot water, and their was a steam room. The walls were hollow, and the people would burn wood under the bath to make it hot then the smoke would fill the walls to make the room warm.

The rich people had mosaics on their floors. Mosaics are patterns or pictures made from tiny tiles. One of the mosaics was a picture of Alexander the Great fighting in a battle. Most of the walls had paintings and designs. One of the designs was of animals getting hunted. One house even had a huge fish tank where they could keep fresh fish to cook.

We went out for a big meal where they served us prawns, octupus and whole fishes. There were even fried seaweed cakes. When we got back into Rome, Pietro took us to the oldest Gelateria in Rome called Giovanni Fassi.

Day 7 Gladiator School

Jacob: Today we did the coolest, funnest thing ever...we went to Gladiator School!!! We learned about the gladiators, did a bunch of training exercises, and learned defense & attack moves with swords. Then we got to fight! We also learned how to throw knives! (Molly: Charlotte & I had great fun watching Jacob, Aunt Beth, Aunt Lynn, Ben & Mitch learn how to be gladiators. It was a long trek there, and a cold afternoon...but definitely worth it!)

Jacob: We also took the Metro to to see the Castello de San Angelo. (Molly: This is a fortress built in the 1st century that has been used as a mausoleum, prison, papal residence, and National Museum.) We found a toy store on the way and got a couple of things.

Day 6 - Layers of churches, Ancient Baths & Race Course

Jacob: Today we got to sleep in because we didn’t have early plans. It was sunnier than usual out today. We played in the apartment and ate upstairs on the terrace. (Molly: Lynn & I took a great run around the Colisseum this morning - super beautiful!)

Jacob: We have a church in our neighborhood called St. Clemente. We went there today and it was really cool! The church was actually 3 churches stacked on top of each other. We paid 5 euros and got to go way down underground to the bottom of the first church. There were caves and tunnels, and there was a tunnel that led to a spring at the bottom. I hid behind rocks and scared my little sister. (Molly: St. Clemente was the highlight of the trip for me so far. Not only is it a beautiful church, but archaelogial digs have uncovered layers of other churches and buildings going back thousands of years underneath the current church. The lowest layer discovered is a Roman building from the 1st century, on top of that is a pagan temple from the 2nd century, on top of that is a Christian church from the 4th century, and on top of that is the current church built hundreds of years ago on the current street level. There were pieces of marble statues, columns, frescoes...all buried each time a new church was built on top. We traveled down lower and lower exploring this archaelogical wonder. This is our neighborhood church!)

Jacob: We had to walk and walk to get to Circus Maximus. On the way we walked through a park and saw parrots in the trees! We also saw orange trees growing on the street and my cousin Mitch jumped up and picked oranges. My other cousin Ben bit into them and said they were worse than Crybabies!

Jacob: We walked all the way to the Baths of Caraccalla. I learned that 1,600 people could fit in one bath together! I guess it was like going to a swimming pool. Just ruins are left. We walked down the street and went to Circus Maximus. This is where the chariot races were held. Now it’s just a big oval, rocky field. We ran around the oval where the horses would have raced.

We took the Metro a couple of blocks back to the Colliseum where we live. On the walk home, we found a pizzeria behind our apartment and got pizza to bring back. The man gave us powder sugar cookies to eat while our pizza was cooking.

Tonight we tried to download and watch the movie Gladiator, but it stopped working before we could finish watching. I think tomorrow morning we can finish watching it. Charlotte went to bed early because her stomach was hurting. We think she ate too much cheese. We got to talk to our family at home on the computer. I’m so excited because tomorrow I’m going to Gladiator School!

Day 5 Vatican - Sistine Chapel & St.Peter's

Molly: Jacob crashed tonight after a very long day and evening, so I'll write tonight's blog. We jumped on the Metro A line this morning and headed to Vatican City (residence of the Pope). First up, we took a tour of the Vatican Museum. Our favorite things were the mosaic floors and the many statues.The Sistine Chapel was our next destination (finally!) and it was fabulous! WOW! We all stared up at Michelangelo's amazing ceiling and wall panels until our necks ached.

We enjoyed the outdoor gardens a bit. There are some beautiful sculptures outside. Charlotte, our art conoisseur, chased pigeons. We enjoyed a big lunch at the Vatican where the kids and I met some lovely American teachers traveling with a student exchange program. They asked Jacob to tell them what he knew in Italian and he said "Well, it's really interesting because it's a lot like Spanish." They loved that, especially the one who was a Latin teacher.Our final destination in Vatican City was St. Peter's Basilica. Ok, again may I just say, WOW! This isn't so much a church as it is a palace! Marble, gold leafing, statues, paintings, wood carvings...everywhere! St. Peter's is named such because it was built over the tomb of St. Peter, Jesus disciple. We all took turns touching the right foot of St. Peter's statue, and admiring the amazing art & architecture (designed by a number of architects including Michelangelo). Brave Aunt Lynn took Jacob, Ben & Mitch up to the roof of St. Peter's where they proceeded to climb a narrow, spiral stone staircase of 320 stairs to the top of the gigantic dome! Jacob took my camera and got some great arial shots. In the meantime, Aunt Beth, Charlotte & I explored the interior of St. Peter's further and attended the 5:00 mass (in Italian & Latin).A bit of shopping rounded out our day and we headed for home, where we had an 8:00 dinner reservation at Bon Amici, a favorite neighborhood restaurant. Shockingly, we stuffed ourselves with pasta...again! Our apartment owner, Pietro, had called ahead to get us a reservation and to order all of his favorites for us. The dishes kept coming...we had red wine, sparkling water, fried calamari with lemon juice, linguini with clams (Jacob & Charlotte both loved the clams!), seafood risotto, fettucini with portabello mushrooms, spaghetti pomodoro, chocolate apricot cake and my favorite, Mille Feuille. We took the long way home, but those 125 stairs up to our apartment were still tough after that meal! It was a wonderful, memorable day. The kids are truly having the time of their lives!

Day 4 update - Bones & Gelato

Jacob: This afternoon we went to this church that had a crypt filled with monks bones. There were designs made of bones on the walls and ceilings. There were big stacks of human skulls, leg bones, jawbones, every kind of bone. Some of the skulls still had skin attached to them. (Molly: We went to the Cappucin Crypt, where they have chambers filled with human bones from 4,000 people - mostly monks- from 1600's-1800's. It was really interesting, but creepy.) Afterwards we walked around and found Piazza Barbieri and in the center there was a big fountain with fish blowing water. The best thing we found was a gelaterie! I got melon & kiwi, mom got mango & kiwi, and Charlotte got strawberry, but then she traded with mom.

Now we're getting ready for dinner and then we're going to make popcorn on the stove in olive oil and have fun.

Day 4 Ancient Rome - Roman Forum & Colesseum

Jacob: We went to bed really late last night and had to get up early this morning for a tour. First we went to the Roman Forum and saw the ruins from all kinds of monuments, churches, temples and buildings. (Molly: The Roman Forum is the ancient remains of the political meeting place for Rome's Emperors & Senators. The Forum was built between approximatley 350bc and 650ad...over 2000 years ago). One of my favorite buildings was a huge triumphal arch that's still stands today. After we explored the Roman Forum we went to the Colesseum. The Colesseum is an ancient fighting arena where gladiators fought, and they also had animal fights. They brought animals from Africa that the Romans would fight in the arena. All other sports arenas are modeled after the Colesseum. The best part was listening about the fights of the gladiators. (Molly: our tour guide told us that it is a myth that Christians were martyred in the Colesseum, the deaths of the Christians actually happened in Vatican City. She said most Gladiators were slaves, but some were professionals who were highly trained and paid.)We walked home and our moms cooked homemade pasta! We had tortellini and fetuccini, with a whole bunch of romano cheese and olive oil, mmmmmm! After lunch Ben and I had to wash the dishes. Now we are playing a gladiator computer game and looking at a really cool book about gladiators that my mom bought. We're begging for gelato because we missed it last night. Then we're going out for more pasta tonight at a restaurant Pietro told us is his favorite. (Molly: Pietro & Marina are our wonderful hosts who rented us this incredible apartment. They have been so kind to us. They took Beth & Lynn on a long tour of the neighborhood, introducing them to shop keepers and an English-speaking waiter at their favorite restaurant.)