Home Sweet Home...

As much as I am loving our European travels, with the holidays drawing near I am getting a little homesick!

I miss our house and decorating for fall.
I miss the cool fall days when Lola would sit on the deck and "supervise" me raking leaves.
I miss my fat bulldog snoring while I clean the house with the windows open and a pumpkin spice candle burning.
I miss seeing all the kids at the hospital getting excited for Halloween.
I miss my crock pot with hearty winter stews and soups.
I miss meeting up with good friends after work for dinner.
I miss our church and church family.
I miss college football on T.V and cheering for UGA.
I miss the Thanksgiving section in the grocery store and looking forward to stuffing and turkey.
I miss my bed...my king sized bed!
I miss watching the kids in our neighborhood playing in the front yard.
I miss going to the pumpkin patch to pick out the perfect pumpkins for the porch.

Me and Jess picking out pumpkins at Eckert's

pumpkin carving party

Lola dressed up as a dancing hippo for Halloween

yummy turkey!

Lola on the deck

Good times with good friends!

I am so thankful for this experience that Chad and I have been given.  I wouldn't trade our time in Ireland and all of our travels for anything....but I'm getting ready to come home and get back to reality!  I am in bulldog withdrawal and may carry Lola around in a "dog purse" for a few weeks once I get back : )

Last bits of Rome...

The next day we headed out to explore a little more of Rome before our tour of the Vatican.  Of course you can't start any day without a good breakfast : )  The hotel had an amazing spread of food!    After we ate we headed toward the Colosseum. 

 We stopped along the way to check out the ruins and incredible architecture that IS Rome.  One of our tour guides told us it always takes the Romans forever to build something new because as soon as they start digging they unearth more ancient history.  The city has basically been built on top of itself.  The ancients ruins/buildings are just part of the background.

Next to the Colosseum is the Arch of Titus.  The Arch was built in 82 A.D. to commemorate the life of Titus shortly after his death.  It also happened to the be model or inspiration for the Arc de Triomphe we recently saw in Paris.

Next stop, the Colosseum.  It immediately made me think of the movie Gladiator and Russel Crowe, haha.  But truly, that's what this huge amphitheater was there for.  It was able to seat 50,000 in its day for gladiator competitions, animal hunts and other spectacles for people to watch.  Basically it was the first major football stadium. 

  

We walked the perimeter but didn't have time to go inside since we were on our way to the Vatican for our tour.  

I loved seeing all the markets and veggie stands in the piazzas.  This guy below had gorgeous pumpkins and gourds!  Made me want to go back to STL and decorate my front porch with hay, pumpkins and mums : ( Oh well, next year right? 

We knew we were getting close to the Vatican when we started passing all the guys in black with white collars and the occasional nun.  It was like being the "old person" on a college campus. 

Priests and nun...Vatican in the background.

For those of you who didn't know, Vatican City is a state in and of itself and separate from Rome. It also happens to be the smallest independent state in the world by both space and population.  

St. Peter's Basilica

The inside of the Vatican is mostly one bug museum.  It is filled with thousands of statues, paintings, sculptures and other works of art.  You could really spend 2 or 3 days wandering the halls and still not really see everything.  

Busts

Of course, one of the most famous parts of the Vatican is the Sistine Chapel.  It is the official residence of the Pope and the Papal conclave (where the new Pope gets selected).  But of course it is most famous for it's ceiling painted by Michelangelo.  Now we were told not to take pictures inside....but everyone else was doing it!  Including my mom.  So I didn't feel bad : ) In person it's honestly not the most amazing painted ceiling.   However, it's the Sistine Chapel!

After we left the chapel we walked right past the door that led to the Pope's apartment.  You could look through the key hole and see his guards.  How terrible would it be to have so many tourists walking around just outside your house?

We took a long corridor that the led us into St. Peter's Basilica.  It is supposedly built over Peter's burial site and named for him.  This is where the Pope's mass is held and also happens to house a bunch of the dead/mummified Pope's of the past. 

The altar at the front of the Basilica

Not sure which Pope this was!

Outside we got a better look at the Pope's Swiss guard.  Wouldn't you love to wear a cute costume like that to work?  You wouldn't have to get anything new for Halloween : )

Another view outside the Vatican

The next day we had one more place to check out in Rome.  Chad had heard there was a monastery in Rome that was decorated with skeletons.  Well he was right.  The church is called Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins and housed an order of Capuchin monks (not Capuchin monkeys).  In 1631, Cardinal Antonio Barberini ordered the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars exhumed and transferred to the crypt below the  church. The bones were arranged along the walls, and the friars began to bury their own dead there.  The crypt then became a place where the  Capuchins would go to pray each evening.  There are multiple different rooms all with intricate designs on each wall....all made from bones. 

Our last night in Rome we went out for a traditional Italian meal.  The food and the company was great.  We truly enjoyed our stay in Rome!

Mom and Daddy at dinner

Me and Chad at dinner

In the morning before we hopped on a plane back to Dublin, we were surprised with a gorgeous rainbow off our balcony.  

When in Rome...#3

Our next tour took us to all the best piazzas, fountains and must see stuff in the city.  Ok, honestly I couldn't remember the name of most of these fountains/statues/etc that I took pictures of.  I was truly enjoying the walk and taking in the scenery...I guess I should have paid more attention to all the history I was supposed to be learning. Luckily with a little internet searching I was able to figure it out!

The first two fountains are both located in Piazza Navona if you want to go check them out sometime : ) Below is the Fontana del Moro, designed by Giacomo della Porto and built in 1575. The fountain has statues of four Tritons and the basin is made of special antique rose marble.  The sounds of running water in the square was wonderful.  There were people wandering around, having lunch and just enjoying the amazing architecture.

The second fountain in Piazza Navona was the Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi, Four Rivers Fountain.   This was one of my favorites on the tour because it told a story.  The four men that make up the corners of the fountain represent four rivers - the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rio de la Plata.  It was created by Bernini in the early 1650s and was so expensive that the bread tax in Rome was raised in order to cover its high cost.

Next stop the Pantheon!  This place was AMAZING!! It was built in 126 A.D. as a Roman temple to the gods.  Each column was built out of a solid piece of marble in Egypt....that's right, each column was one piece and had to be shipped over from Egypt.  They were floated down the Nile River to the Mediterranean Sea then up the Tiber River into Rome.  Talk about some hard labor! 

 After 2000 years, the roof of the Pantheon still holds the record today for the largest un-reinforced concrete dome in the world!  It was poured in place and has nothing holding it up (hence the un-reinforced thing).  It does have a hole (oculus) at the top so when it rains in Rome it rains in the Pantheon.  No worries though, there are drains in the floor to keep the water in check.

The door

The oculus

For some reason this next statue reminded me of Lola : ) Probably the short, fat, elephant that could have been a bulldog from the back.  It was designed by Bernini and is called Miverva's Pulcino.   On top is an Egyptian obelisk.  

Below is the inside of the Church of Sant Ignazio.  The ceiling was flat and it had no dome but it was painted by Andrea Pozzo in a way to give the illusion of a curved ceiling and central dome.  Honestly, the paintings here were more beautiful than the Sistine Chapel which we would see the next day!

 If you ever need some pope/priest gear while in Rome I know where you can go!  So funny that you could just walk in off the street and check that stuff out.

Last, but certainly not least, we went to the Trevi Fountain.  I had wanted to see this fountain since I watched Gidget Goes to Rome as a kid!  Legend says, if you throw a coin over your left shoulder into to fountain you will return to Rome.  So of course we had to give it a try!

At this point it was dinner time and we were exhausted.  The got some supper and rested up for our tour of the Vatican the next day. 

When in Rome...Day 2

As I said in my last post my Mom had lined up tours to keep us busy while we were in Rome.  For those of you who don't know, my Dad is Jewish and my mom converted to Judaism before they were married.  Why do you need to know this?  Well, the tours my Mom set up were with Jewish Roma a company that does tours of the Jewish ghetto, Vatican and other locations in Rome. Our very first tour took us to the Jewish ghetto.

The first Jews to come to Rome came from Israel in 160 B.C. and they have been in the city ever since.  Micaela, our tour guide, told the history of the Jews in Rome and the persecution they suffered.  The Jewish ghetto was established by Pope Paul IV in 1555 and he required all of the 2000 Jews in Rome to live there.  It was  a walled area with three gates that were locked at night.  The area of Rome chosen for the ghetto was the most undesirable area of the city because of flooding by the Tiber River.

Catholic churches were built at all edges of the ghetto in an attempt to convert as many Jews as possible.  There are even stories of the Catholic nuns taking Jewish children, baptizing them and then returning them to their parents as "Christians".  At the time it was illegal for Jews and Christians to live together, so parents were forced to either convert or give up their children.   

This was one of the original churches on the edge of the ghetto.  It had a painting of the crucifixion above the door with scripture in Hebrew below. 

Many of the buildings standing in the ghetto today were the original architecture from 1555 and before.  There were also remnants of columns and other buildings that had fallen.  The area is now a very chic place to live with expensive property.

The old fish market

Columns and ruins

The main piazza is a happening place filled with little old ladies gossiping, people shopping, restaurants and musicians.  This guy below was playing Hava Nagila over and over again! 

My Dad in another Charlie Sheen shirt....he's obsessed!

As we were walking along pretty much everyone knew our tour guide, Micaela.  She is one popular girl in the Jewish community.  This little old lady came to her window to say hi.  She has lived in that same apartment all here life and refuses to sell it...even though people want to pay her a lot of money for it.

Most, if not all, of the restaurants in the ghetto keep kosher since most of it's residents are Orthodox Jews.  We actually came back and ate at this restaurant the day after our tour....sadly it was not good!! I won't go into the details but it was the most expensive, bad meal ever. 

Jewish art on the wall of buildings

During the Holocaust, many Jews in Rome were taken from their homes in the ghetto and sent to concentration camps.  Today, there are plaques on the street outside of the homes with names and dates of people that were taken and never returned.  A few survivors who were able to return to Rome still live there today.

Our tour group

The last stop on our tour was the Synagogue.  If you are thinking it looks like a church, it does on the inside as well.  Back when it was built in 1870 the only architects in Rome were used to building churches and had never built a synagogue before...so it came out looking a little "churchy". 

Micaela, our guide

After we finished our tour with Micaela we had another tour to show us the highlights of Rome.  More on that to come tomorrow!