Today we actually made it to church for the first time on our trip!
Luckily both Justin and I lived in Rome so we were confident we could
make it to church. We still had to leave an hour early to catch the bus
and every person that got on the bus was put through my rigorous test
of whether or not they were LDS or not. There ended up being only one
lady who was a member of the church on the bus and I suspected that she
was because she was dressed way modestly for August in Italy and she was
Peruvian! She was kind enough to show us the way there from the bus
stop and learned that she was seduced by an Italian man who wanted to
marry her and bring her back to Italy. She ended up convincing him that
he should just help her get to Italy and didn't end up having to marry
him. Phew! Well, when we got to church Justin and I saw a guy who
Justin and I knew as a young kid from another city we served our
missions in at the church with his wife and a baby. We couldn't believe
it. I didn't serve in that branch(now a ward) so I didn't see anyone I
knew except for him. Church was really wonderful and it was so nice to
hear the gospel in Italian again. The talks were great, the lessons
were really insightful and the spirit was strong. It's so nice to see
that the church isn't in it's infantile state in Italy. The people are
really understanding the doctrine. We said our goodbyes and walked back
to our bus stop. We were like 5 minutes late to get to the grocery
store to get some fruit and bread, so we had to stop with our starving
children at this place called Pizza Planet. It was run by a man and his
wife from Morocco and had probably the worst pizza we have ever
tasted. The kids wouldn't even touch it. Only Violette ate some.
After tasting the pizza we asked them owner what the best thing there
was and he brought us out these delicious gyro wraps that we devoured
and had to get another for Henry and Bea because they even loved them.
This man was so generous. He brought out some special tea for us to
drink, washed our grapes for us and even gave the kids some macaroons
for free just to be nice. He was so excited that we came all the way
from the US and were in his little shop in the middle of suburban Rome.
After eating, we waited for the bus in the blazing hot heat back to our
apartment.
Once at the apartment, Justin decided to
stay behind and pack while Lucy and I took Henry and Bea to see the
Colosseum. Since the kids didn't get much sleep the night before they
were cranky the whole time. We got a video tour of the Colosseum and
Lucy and the kids learned about all the fights and deaths that happened
there. It was pretty incredible to think about what went on in that
place. One thing I learned is that the women were probably not allowed
in the main area, but were separated from the men up in the highest
section inside the walls and could barely peak out at what was going
on. Reminds me of how the Pittsburgh Steelers won't let women with
newborns in to see their games because they're trying to protect the
enjoyment of their fat, drunken male fans. Looks like things haven't
changed much since then. Henry and Bea took a million photos with
Lucy's camera and threw an hour long fit because we wouldn't him keep
taking photos of every single artifact even though we were a half hour
late to meet Justin.
We got home and geared up for our last night in Italy. We
started our magical night at the Piazza Venezia(the wedding cake) which
houses the tomb of the unknown soldier. I ate the hardest sandwich in
my life and we went on a stroll to all the closest interesting Piazzas.
After that we hit the Pantheon and the largest gelateria with over 150
flavors to choose from. It, of course, took forever for everyone to
choose what they wanted, especially since it was the last gelato we were
going to eat in Italy. Then we wandered back to the piazza and let the
kids run around. We played tag, and hide and seek in the columns of
the Pantheon. Of course, everyone in the piazza thought it was really
entertaining. The cutest was when I was running around holding Violette
out, chasing Clementine and Bea and they were all laughing their heads
off. They found a fountain and got all wet trying to get drinks from it
and I ended up falling down while I was holding the baby and hit my
knee really bad that ended up as a giant bruise. Ouch! The stairs were
so slippery! The worst part is that tons of other people slipped while I
was recovering on the steps and it seemed like it was just
entertainment for the people sitting around there. They were just
waiting for the next person to slip and fall and keep the night
lively.
After that we debated about going home because it was like 11pm
already, but we were really close to the Trevi fountain and we just
could leave without seeing that. We were so close! We walked there and
spent a few beautiful moments looking at the newly cleaned fountain with
super clear water. I remember it being really dirty, so it was awesome
to see it so sparkling clean. We debated about going to the Spanish
Steps, but we were not close at all so we abandoned that idea and waited
for a bus to take us home. I think we got home around 1am and crashed
hard. We and the kids were exhausted!
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