Capers in Cambridge...AND BEYOND...: Roma

Duchess here.

Don't worry, my blog won't be on Bologna. We just spent 10 days in Rome, and I wanted to share some of the highlights.

This is the church where Paul (yes, Bible Paul) is buried.

How cool is it to say that? They are not exactly sure where in the church he is buried, but they know he was buried right in there at some point:

This chain below is supposedly the chain that bound Paul when he was a prisoner in Rome between 61 and 63 A.D....yea, I found it hard to believe too, but YOU NEVER KNOW!

As I gazed up at this ancient fresco, it struck me that 2,000 years ago, Paul would be doing the exact same thing.

Before you look at the ghouls below, you must understand that we received some Korean face masks from a dear Italian friend, Ilaria, who goes to Korea occasionally. She said that appearance is a big deal over there, and that all the girls do these face masks, so we had to do it. Oh my word. It was the most terrifying thing. We looked like alien versions of ourselves (well, you can see for yourself). Daniel couldn't even look at us after he saw us the first time. And we couldn't smile! If we did, the whole thing would get discombobulated. So not only were we aliens, we were boring aliens without a sense of humor!

As we took them off I told mom this would be a great sermon illustration. When you put a mask over your true self, you think it's making everything better, with a better opinion of yourself, when really you are distorting and ruining who you are. Instead of making yourself seem better, you are making yourself appear worse, even more so than you were before. But once you finally take off that mask, you are even more beautiful than you were before. You have revealed who you truly are, without any mirages to take your place, and you realize that you are more beautiful without the mask than with it.

It's cool what you can do with a mirror, a detailed camera, and an amazing photographer brother.

We popped down for a gelato. Apparently we had some major miscommunications with the waiter, because all the flavors we ended up with were not what we originally ordered.

Coffee instead of chocolate (all yours, dad); plain vanilla instead of stracciatella (vanilla with choc. chips), and 2 scoops of berry blasts instead of one berry and one of probably something chocolate. Poor guy. He must have been having a long day.

Looking up at the Roman Forum, it was really easy to picture the hustle and bustle of the ancient market.

We visited the National Roman Museum, and I saw this necklace: found in the grave of a woman with a christogram between the letters alpha and omega (beginning and end). This symbol wasn't publicly disseminated till the third century, and in the 4th century, Rome underwent a profound urban and cultural transformation: a crown of Christian basilicas rose up next to the ancient pagan temples. I found this really cool because it is a testimony that the same thing can happen today.

This isn't the origi-original discobolus ("discus thrower"). They are both from about 450 BC, but the origi-original you are thinking of is bronze.

Did they curl those beard locks or something? Gracious, I have a hairy brother getting jealous over here.

I've also seen Caleb make this face, probably thinking about how he'll be just as bald as this guy in a few years. (Daniel is hoping I'm referring to the guy above when I talk about his future hairline.)

Temple of Hercules:

Walking to the bus stop, We passed this little shelter. And all of a sudden I was in Kenya again. It makes sense, though. An African refugee came to Rome, needed money, so he set up his own shop, the African way. It's very refreshing that he took the initiative and did something about his poverty, as opposed to begging on the streets. Unfortunately, business wasn't too hot, so he had to abandon ship.

CIRCUS MAXIMUS! I can almost hear the chariots and cheers.

Note typical umbrella pines in the background.

The Tiber River behind us. I always think, "That's the same water the ancients would have bathed in!" As if the same water particles that touched them would touch me as well, I don't know.

This is the Trevi Fountain. I know it's not that obvious, cause this picture looks like it was taken by a 2 year old Tori (clue one:lamp post blocking view. clue 2: off-degree-angle) I looked up pictures of Trevi Fountain, and they were gorgeous, and gorgeous is how the fountain actually looked, and this picture isn't the exact epitome of the word, so just look it up and be amazed.

Only in Italy would you love pasta so much that even your dogs would eat it. This whole section was devoted to cat and dog food. I'm pretty sure that package above the pasta is oatmeal for pets. (To make the story more exotic.)

We finally got to enjoy some awesome entertainment. We watched Les Miserables, both the musical and the older normal movie, then our go-to, humor/ridiculous/no thinking required movie: