The rest of our time in Rome was spent hanging out with my family and walking around the city. One of the days we met up with Martin, a boy that we studied with in Procida. We spent the day walking around Piazza Navona, and getting dinner at Tammy’s favorite pizza place, DaBaffeto.
Our second to last day in Rome was by far the most memorable day thus far. We woke up early and got ourselves somewhat packed because we were going to spend our day at the Vatican. By the time we left the house, it was past noon and the sun was high. By the time we got to the Vatican, it was late enough where the crowd had cleared out. We went to the museum first which can be described as overwhelming, beautiful and HUGE. Now I know I’m not one that is big on museums, and after spending the past month in and out of them I wasn’t really looking forward to walking around. But there was something different about the Vatican. It was as if it finally hit me how ancient everything is and how lucky I was to be able to see it all.
The last place I ever expected to get on was at the Vatican…but it happened. As I was walking through the garden one of the security guards stopped me. He asked me where I was from and I told him California. He asked me how old I was and when I told him 23, he just looked me up and down and nodded. Tammy and I kind of looked at each other, laughed and then walked away…talk about a creeper. I also had a man look at me and give me a thumb up sign. HAHA. After that we left the museum and went to the basilica. After waiting in line for a little bit, we started the tour. The basilica, much like the museum is huge and beautiful. By the time we were done, we were both so tired and getting hungry. Everything was starting to close so we decided to go to dabafetto’s for our last dinner out in Rome. We hop on a bus and take a seat behind this fat older man. As soon as we sat down, this man turned around and looked at us. We didn’t know what to do, so we looked away. Then he started speaking to us in Italian. We tell him that we don’t speak Italian and he just keeps talking to us. After awhile we start to ignore him but he doesn’t stop. He pulls out his credit cards and Tammy and I just look at him and are like “WE DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.” He looks at this guy sitting across him, smiles and kind of laughs and that’s when Tammy and I start to get creeped out. The last straw was when he pulled out this box that kind of looked like a metronome and I mean I know it’s not realistic but my first thought was BOMB haha. After this Tammy and I had had enough, we get off the next stop, god knows where and we just start walking. Tammy suggests we walk around and I was so tired and wiped out from the Vatican that I wasn’t in the mood to explore. I revisited my 5 year old self where I was near temper tantrum mode. We wait for the next bus and it finally drops us off at our destination and we walk to Dabaffetos.
Dabaffetos is the kind of place where if you don’t get there right when they open, you have to wait in line. Thanks to our creeper friend on the bus we had to wait. So as we are waiting Tammy says she is going to get us a drink and I said I’d wait in line. In front of me in line was this older couple, they seat them and a few minutes later the waiter leads me to a table which happens to be right next to the couple that was before me. And when I was about to sit down, the man starts to say something to the waiter about why we have to share a table and I kind of just look at him like…even if I don’t understand Italian, I understand you not wanting to sit next to me.
I sit down and then man leaves to go to the rest room, a few minutes later Tammy comes back and I start to tell her the story. I say something like “homie sitting next to us like doesn’t want to” and just basically talking trash. Throughout the dinner we come to find, his wife who was sitting next us speaks English and more than likely heard me trash talking. When I realized this, I was MORTIFIED. After the couple on the other side of the older couple left, they started talking to us. We find out they are from Salerno, the man doesn’t really speak English but his wife does. They actually ended up being really nice.
During dinner, I ordered some pepperchinos and put them all over my already spicy salame pizza. I ordered a sprite because my mouth was starting to burn, but it wasn’t helping. I started drinking water and that didn’t help either. The man next to me starts to realize what’s happening and all of a sudden he is just like “you need PAN, PAN! PAN! PAN!” I start laughing as he orders me some bread. I keep drinking my sprite and then the man is like ‘try this. He pours some wine into my sprite and then pours his beer into my drink” His wife tries to stop him, but he’s outta control. Haha. He tells me to take a sip, and as if it was magic, the spiciness went away. That moment was definitely the ice breaker. We ended up talking to them as we finished up our meal. After dinner, Tammy and I really wanted to go to the Trevi Fountain at night. Once we left the restaurant, we grabbed another mojito and started to try and find our way to the fountain. By this time, it was like 930 and my uncle had told us not to be late. So we try to hurry but we can’t find it. I stop these two guys and try my best to speak Italian and ask for directions. Somehow, we manage to get the directions and finally end up at the fountain. We throw our coins in, take a few pictures and make our way back to the metro. By the time we get to the metro, its 11:15, and the last bus that takes us back to my uncle’s house leaves at midnight. After we get off the metro, we literally run to the bus stop to see a bus waiting there. We hop on and not even two seconds later, the doors shut and the bus starts going….talk about a close call.
The next day we took care of last minute stuff, mailing stuff home, and grocery shopping because we were going to make my family dinner. We made caprese, and pesto gnocchi. I’m sure it was funny to them because the meal was so American, but it was the best we could do.
I was really sad to leave my family, especially because I hardly ever see them, but I was ready for the next part of our adventure. ciao roma, hola BARCAAA
No comments:
Post a Comment