Roman Holiday

We’ve been in Rome since Sunday. The pace is decidedly different here than it was in Roccatederighi. I think I will always love Rome.

We had a bit of a fright when we first got here. We began calling the owner of our Rome apartment about an hour out of town, per previous instructions from Vincenzo (the owner) via email to Bill. Alas, Bill kept getting a message that, though we don’t understand much Italian, seemed to be telling us that the telephone was not in service. Since that was the only number we had for him, we were quite nervous. Did they even own the apartment? Had they taken our 100 euro deposit while we had taken it in the chops?

We found the apartment quite easily, and even found a place to park our car (not right at the apartment, but off street nearby). Bill kept calling the number and I kept praying. Same message.

We walked to the apartment. The security doors were just being opened by a tenant, so we got inside the gates. We searched around a bit and were even able to find the actual apartment building. The name on the box outside was not that of Vincenzo. Hmmm. Bill kept calling and I kept praying.
Again, because of someone leaving the door slightly ajar, we were able to get inside the apartment building and upstairs to see the door of the apartment itself. Much to our relief, the name on the apartment door was the last name of our elusive friend Vincenzo. At least such a person actually existed and apparently actually owned the apartment.

We had decided that the only thing we could do was to telephone Bill’s nephew and have him send an email to the address to which Bill had been sending emails and tell him our plight. We were very concerned because up to that point, it had taken Vincenzo several days to respond to any email, but we didn’t know what else to do.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that we have a travel angel who has been taking care of us on this trip. I’m serious. I don’t know if it’s my mom, Bill’s dad, or just someone up in heaven who is taking pity on us poor, silly travelers. But we have very often had a problem mysteriously fixed, or gone back to check something to see that we had left a door unlocked, or been inclined to look under the bed only to find one of our credit cards that had somehow fallen on the floor.

Well, Bill was about to call his nephew David Troy, but decided to give Vincenzo one last try. Lo, and behold, he answered the phone! “Were you coming today? I thought it was tomorrow,” he said.

David Troy calls it Italian Logic.

By the time we got settled into our very nice little studio apartment, David Troy had walked over. It turns out that he lives about a 20-minute walk from our place. He had asked Bill when he telephoned a bit earlier if we had any interest in hearing Mass in English. Since we had not heard an English Mass since early in May, we jumped at the chance. So we walked back to the house where he lives. He is a priest with the Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and lives in the order’s house. He is studying Canon Law in Rome.

After our wonderful little Mass, which he celebrated with a friendly young priest from Brazil who is trying very hard to learn to speak English, David took us over to St. Peter’s and showed us some of the magnificent art there. It was very interesting because he knows a TON of the history, and we learned so much from his tour despite the fact that we had visited St. Peter’s twice before.

About 7:30, we met up with the nice Brazilian priest (whom we had invited to join us for dinner) and had a very nice meal at a trattoria where all of the staff knew Father David. We enjoyed our pizza and pasta and conversation very much.

One funny note: At the end of our meal, suddenly the waiter brought over two desserts. David Troy saw them coming and knew that they were being wrongly delivered to our table and should actually go to the table next to us that was filled with high-school-age children. He pointed out the error to th waiter. The man at the table across from us, who was traveling with the kids, came over and introduced himself. David asked him where he was from. Denver, Colorado! He was a teacher at a Denver Catholic high school and he and his wife were accompanying these kids to Europe. It’s a very small world.

Yesterday Bill and I got up early and found the laundry, which is also an Internet spot. We did a load of wash and caught up on our email. After that, we took the subway into Rome and walked around a bit. We had lunch and a gelato, and came home because it was getting hot. We rested a bit, then found a grocery store and bought a few supplies.

We had dinner in our apartment. We had eaten a large lunch, so we just had some fruit and cheese and wine. After dinner, about 7:30, Bill suggested we go back into the city and do a bit more exploring. It cools down considerably in the evening, so I thought that sounded like a good idea.

We took a bus to the subway station, then took the subway to the train station. We walked a bit, looking for the hotel where we had stayed in the past (which we didn’t find) and St. Susanna’s (the American Catholic Church, which we did find). We then walked over to the Barbarina area and had a lemincello. It was about 10:45, and we walked over to the nearby subway station, only to find it closed. Nonsense, I thought. This is a major world metropolitan city. The subway wouldn’t close at 10:45. We took a bus back to the train station, certain that the metro station there would be open. Nope. Line A was shut up tight as a drum.

Thankfully, we found a taxi and were able to take a very expensive cab ride home. Live and learn. By the way, we walked a total of 28,557 steps yesterday.