Oh Christmas tree!

Oh, the Christmas tree.  What a saga it seemed to be.  A tree is a part of our Christmas tradition that we just couldn't let go, especially for My Girl.  It was an absolute requirement.  The questions became where to find a tree and how to get it home.  Asking around and an internet search turned up a few likely spots.  Ikea had the cheapest trees and I had a friend with a minivan who agreed to help with transportation.  Christmas season starts on December 8 and apparently Ikea sells out of Christmas trees at about the same time.  After driving around the Southern suburbs for hours looking we decided to accept defeat and called it a day.  

I remembered a flower stand at a street market not far from our house that might have a little tree so I set out in the drizzly weather with Buddy Boy and a big sturdy grocery bag, just in case we were lucky.  We were very lucky and he had two scraggly little trees, both shorter than my growing boy.  We took the better looking of the two and headed home.  These trees aren't what we were used to since they still had the root ball attached.  We put the tree, root, dirt and all into the bag and each took a handle for the walk home.  It is a short easy walk unless you are carrying a Christmas tree in a grocery bag in the rain.  (1.1 km or .68 miles  I looked it up.)  We stopped at the mini dollar store and bought a plastic pot to put it in.  I had to go to a different store to buy a little bag of potting soil to secure it into the pot so it wouldn't tip over.

The things we do for the holidays!

We made some decorations and bought a few more and bought some lights as well.  It turned out OK.  The many many lights help camouflage the wonky mangy tree. 

We made decorations using a dough made from baking soda, corn starch, and water.  There are endless recipes online with names like cold porcelain.  It is hard and brittle when it dries.  And I like the pure white color, but it is rather fragile.  We made stars and snow flakes with cookie cutters.  The snowflake cutters had five points so we ended up with odd snowflake/star hybrids, but I like them.

Buddy boy helped by supplying Christmas music.  Yes, we have a camping lounge chair in our living room.  John bought it inspired by our scout master in California.  (Nap safely my scouting friends.)  It is better in some ways than our better looking too short too stiff oddly shaped white leather couches and chairs.  We put a blanket on top and it is practically a Lazy-Boy recliner.

 I love this picture of My Boy in his happy place.

Our landlady stopped by for something else and loved it so much she took a picture to send to her daughter.  I'm glad she liked it.

My Girl added a couple of Lego creations to the decorations and a few bobbles made from Fimo clay.  And of course the angle near the top made from a toilet paper roll.

You can't forget the Kinder eggs!  We probably had a dozen hanging from the tree.  The special Christmas editions had little ornaments inside.

It was an adventure finding the tree and we had a great time putting this all together.  We'll never be in a style magazine, but that isn't what I'm after here.  The faces say it all.  Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated My Girl's birthday one day late.  The actual birthday was the day of My Boy's winter choir/theater performance and we wanted time to celebrate properly, so we waited one day.  We did have the Happy Birthday poster to celebrate on the day of.

We celebrated with American style hamburgers and our traditional family chocolate cake covered in whipped cream.  We even had a living room full of birthday balloons that said Tanti Aguri!

New ukulele

Ravenclaw earrings

We were able to find a ukulele at a music store in the neighborhood, but the Ravenclaw earrings came from the UK.  Just in time, thank goodness.  There is a Harry Potter store in town, called Roma Express, but they were woefully understocked and out of the things I wanted.

Amazon is wonderful.  The Italian version has a limited selection of the things I want, but I can often find things on the UK or German sites for not much difference in shipping.  Once we figured out how to pick packages up at the corner cafe instead of the hit and miss deliveries at home life became a lot simpler.

It was a rather quiet family celebration (except for the balloon volleyball in the living room) but sometimes that's just right.

Black Friday at the Colosseum

The day after Thanksgiving we took My Girl on what John likes to call a death march, where we drag the kid(s) around the city and force them to look at things.  This morning we went to the Colosseum, not just to, but in.  This was a new one.  John had never been inside before.  A couple weeks ago we walked past at night and touched the outer wall, but didn't go inside.  Even though he lived here for three years he had never managed to make it inside so we had to correct that.

It was a bit of a rainy morning, but we managed to be under cover when it was actually coming down and stayed fairly dry.  The advantage to going on a rainy Friday in November are the relatively short lines.  It still took awhile to get in and the security point made it feel like an airport, but we made it.

 My Girl keeping herself entertained with her bubble gum

One part that I really enjoyed in addition to learning about the Colosseum was the temporary exhibit of artifacts from Carthage in Northern Africa. (here, here, and here) You may have heard of the most famous (at least to me) Carthaginian, Hannibal and his elephants.  Carthage and Rome fought three wars called the Punic Wars.  It was during the second Punic War that Hannibal famously marched his war elephants across the Alps to surprise the Roman troops.  One thing that was interesting to me was the mix of cultures evident in the artifacts.  You could definitely see the influence of both the Greek and Egyptian civilizations.  Some of my favorite items were a collection of little glass heads.  These seemed to be uniquely Carthaginian.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's an interesting thing to celebrate a holiday in a country where doesn't happen.  I've done this once before.  We celebrated Thanksgiving in Belize on our honeymoon 17 years ago.  On that rainy evening we ate stew chicken and rice on the front patio of a little restaurant with 4 young LDS missionaries who were far from home.  One of the elders looked at the menu and said, "I keep looking at the menu, but there just isn't any turkey."  He was more than a little wistful.  It was a great evening.

Fast forward 17 years and here we are in Rome, Italy celebrating a very American holiday.  My Girl got the day off of school, but my boy did not.  Her school is more American in many ways.  My Boy's school is more international even though the instruction is in English and there are a lot of Americans there, maybe a third of the students.  One nice thing is that the grocery stores and other shops are open, just in case you need more cream.

The main challenge was to find all of the right ingredients for the traditional dinner.   I had heard you can order whole turkeys from your friendly neighborhood butcher, but you need to do so about a week ahead.  I didn't get to it so I went in search of whatever turkey bits I could find.  You can find thin sliced breast, filleti, and I had seen turkey legs at a store that I couldn't find again.  On my wandering way back from an unsuccessful trip to find turkey legs I found the holy grail of butcher shops, Multicarni, on Via Gallia, not far from home.  In addition to whole rabbits (head, eyes, and feet included) you could buy turkey parts!  I am now convinced that this is the only way to go when cooking turkey.  I bought a massive turkey breast, two thighs, and two legs for broth.  It was perfect.  I seasoned the outside with a dry rub of salt, pepper, sage, and other herbs, then let it sit for several hours to soak up the salt.  I then covered the skinless breast with bacon and cooked the light meat and the dark meat in separate pans in my microscopic oven so that I could give them the loving individual attention that they need.  I turned out so good.

For next year:

Less salt in the rub

One leg

Smaller turkey breast

I put a lot of thought into how to get everything baked and roasted one tiny pan at at time.  I started the day making pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, my Grandma's recipe.  Last time John was in California I had him bring me cloves.  You can find a lot of spices, but I haven't found cloves.  It's strange what you can and can't find.  Libby's canned pumpkin is a regular item at the Elite grocery store.  They have more of the nontraditional things.  I've also heard of another store, Castroni, that has similarly exotic items.  There isn't one close but I'll have to check it out.  Maybe they have cloves and evaporated milk.  I ended up having to evaporate my own milk for the pie filling.  There are rumors that the Esquillino market has more spices and foods for the immigrant community.

Next came stuffing making.  For this I had to get the family recipe from my in-laws.  It turned out yummy.  Just like Grammie's.

The bird bits roasted while I prepped the stuffing.  The stuffing baked last.  I did figure out a way to get more in the oven by stacking a pan on the bottom of the oven on top of metal cookie cutters.  It seemed to work out OK and helped relieve the oven traffic jam.

I made cheater gravy from a turkey leg and a few vegetables simmered in chicken stock.  It tasted very turkey-y and turned out yummy.  There was even enough for left overs.

Our full menu for four included turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans, and pomegranate, with pumpkin bread and pie for dessert.  We missed the Brussels sprouts, cranberries, and creamed onions as well as the berry tart and cinnamon rolls I usually add on.

We had a nice dinner with our little family, but missed the extended family we usually celebrate with.

On my quest for turkey on Wednesday I saw that the door to the San Giovanni di Laterno baptistery (also here and here) was open.  It is a pretty nondescript building from the street outside, unlike the basilica it is attached to.  I later learned that this was built during the time of Constantine and was the first baptistery in Rome.  I had read that it was worth a look inside and it did not disappoint.  The first thing I liked was the scale.  It was much more human scale than the massive basilicas.  The decorations were incredible.  The walls of the main area were covered in frescoes.  One shows the story of Constantine's conversion to Christianity.  The ceiling was decorated with a dove from the story of Christ's baptism in the Bible.  A side chapel had an amazing mosaic almost hidden behind an alter.  I'm so glad I stopped by.  I'll definitely be back.

Weekend concerts

A couple of weeks ago we stumbled upon a free concert, part of a festival of sacred music.  This weekend we went on purpose.  It was exquisite.  This week's concert was called Illo tempore - La polifonia fre anitco e moderno, something about polyphonic music both old and modern.  The old selections were from composers who died between 1521 and 1657.  The new composers died 1963 or were still living.  The music may have been new, but it was in a similar style to the older music.

The music was just incredible.  It seemed to float out in gentle waves from the singers in a fuzzy cloud with a few polished silvery soprano edges.  It helped that the basilica has amazing reverberating acoustics terrible for listening to the introduction, but perfect for this type of music.  The singers started standing in a semicircle surrounding the altar in the center of the building.  Later they moved to stand outside the circle of pillars.  There were slight differences in the sound with the singers in a different place.  Both were beautiful.

 Basilica interior 

This concert was in the Basilica di San Stefano Rotondo. (also here)  It is an amazing building.  Even though it looks a bit like the Pantheon inside with its round structure, it was originally built as a Christian church in the late 5th century.  It has changed a bit through the years, but remarkably little considering the amount of time that has passed.  There are mosaics from the 7th century.  The exterior walls are covered with frescoes from the 16th century that depict the deaths of Christian martyrs along with the names of the emperor who ordered the execution. 

Interesting fun fact:  The Irish king died in Rome in 1064 and is buried at St Stefano.

Original mosaic floor

On a completely different note, quite literally, we went to Piazza di Spagna to see the Carabinieri marching band.  It was part of a celebration of turning on the Christmas lights on Via dei Conditti.  We bought a cone of hot roasted chestnuts and took in the scene.

 After the band passed by we joined in the parade and followed them to the piazza where they played a few classical marches and the national anthem.  My Girl learned the national anthem in choir and remembered enough to sing along.

Afterward we stopped at the Lego store.  I loved the gladiator maximinifigures.

My Boy didn't come with us.  He had rehearsal for the school play.  He is on the tech crew where he helps with props and lighting and general doing.  Recently he was given a speaking part in one of the scenes.  They needed a radio voice, so his voice will be in the play, but he doesn't have to worry about being on stage.  I think that sounds perfect.

So we went for a walk...

John and I went out for a little walk before dinner.  Nothing special, just a little stroll around the neighborhood.  We ended up going along the Aurelian walls and saw and heard the starlings swarming in the trees.  There must have been thousands of them.  They are an incredible site, but can be a bit problematic.  We wandered through the Porta Metronia and past the Angolan embassy.  Up the hill we saw an open gate an went inside to find the Villa Celimontana and it's gardens with the obligatory obilisk. 

It was starting to get dark when we left through the gate on the north side.  There was an old church  on a dimly lit piazza with candles burning outside and people drifting in.  Of course we went to check it out.  A free concert of Baroque music was starting in 15 minutes so of course we stayed.  The group was a little like the Philharmonia Baroque we had gone to see when we were dating many years ago, Baroque music played on replicas of period instruments.  It was rather magical.

 Festival di Musica Sacra nelle Basiliche del Celio 

L 'Orchestra Diletto Barocco a Bascilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo 

After the concert we started walking home and came across this lovely site.  I'd seen glimpses, but hadn't been up close yet.  It is really quite impressive.  We'll take the full tour one of these days.

Not bad for just a little walk.


Notes:

The Villa Celimontana is home to the Italian geographic society and a Jazz festival in the summer.

According to the founding legend, the church was originally build in 362 over the home of John and Paul, two Romans martyred for their Christian faith.  There are certainly Roman homes beneath the church, but details are fuzzy.  Like so many sites in Rome, this church has been destroyed and rebuilt many times through the years.  More information here, here, and here.

Firsts and Frictions

Anytime you move there are a lot of firsts in the new place.  Here, where things are so different, there are so many firsts.

The kids had their first ride in a taxi going from the airport to our apartment in Dublin.  We've taken taxis a few times here in Italy as well, but mostly it's the bus and metro.  Taxis just aren't a thing in suburban California where we lived.  Now we see them around all the time and even ride in one every once in awhile, like when My Girl hurt her ankle and couldn't really make the 10 minute walk to the school bus on crutches.  Luckily that only lasted a couple of days.  And when I got the call to pick up My Girl from school because she was sick.  I thought a taxi would be better than a 90 minute bus/metro ride with a queazy girl.

We had our first climb to ancient walls (to not on) while walking to the Irish consulate.  Ancient walls are everywhere and you really shouldn't climb them.  We live just outside the Aurelian walls to the South East of the historical center.  The walls were built around 271-275 AD.  It is pretty cool to have so much history part of our everyday life.  The walls of the new metro C station at San Giovanni show the different layers of history as you go down.  In other walls are cases displaying some of the artifacts they found while building the station.  They are building the new C line and are now getting into the historical center.  They are currently working on a station at the Forum next to the Colosseum.  The trouble is that you can dig deep enough to avoid archeological treasures for the tunnels, but you eventually have to come up for the stations.  It really slows things down when you have to excavate all the time.  They have already cancelled a couple stations and just pushed the already delayed opening date from 2020 to 2024.

We had our first scout meeting.  It is a small group, but I think it will be good.  John was a scout here and his dad was the scout master many years ago.  We really enjoyed scouting at home and hope to continue it here.  My Girl was in Scouts BSA in California, but there isn't a girl troop here so she will register as a lone scout and join in on the activities.  We looked at Girl Scouts, but she just turned up her nose and said, "Crafts and ponies."  Not interested.  She wants to go out and do stuff.  The first outing is kayaking on Naples bay.  Sounds good to me.

This is the first time I've lived without a dryer.  It is quaint to see laundry hanging from a line, but not so much when that's the way it goes every week rain or shine.  Dryers here are rare so I'm not alone.  The only problem is if something falls off the line.  The bottom is two floors down on the neighbor's terrace.  The real problem is that no one lives there.  I did eventually get the sock back when someone was there cleaning out the apartment.  It will be sold sometime... eventually.

This is the view from my back window where we hang our laundry.

I made my first sketches of the city on a sketch tour.  We stopped at a couple of places like the Fontana della Tartarughe and Teatro di Marcello.  It was a lovely morning.  I met a woman who was in Rome with a basket making tour group.  Sometimes you meet the most interesting people.

I made my first visit to the Pantheon.  I was out for something else and stopped by because I was close.  It's pretty amazing.

People talk about the slower pace of life here compared to the US.  It is slower, but not always for the reasons you want.  It can be a leisurely slow, like restaurant service.  But just as often it is slow because of the incredible friction involved in making anything happen.  When we first arrived in August most of the shops were closed for the holidays.  By mid September the city was starting to come back to life again.

It took me a day to get codice fiscale for me and the kids, but only a day.  Compared to the California DMV I can't complain.  It only took a day and a half and three trips to the bus office across town to get the annual bus passes.  We are still working on document translations, passports, and other official things.  Get the stamps, the copies, the photos, the apostille.  I'd never heard of getting a document apostilled before.  Now I have.  Bureaucracy is an never ending frustration.  You just have to let it go.  Package delivery is a problem in an apartment building with no door man.  If you aren't home you are out of luck unless the package gets left at the coffee bar downstairs.  But then, how are you to know you have a package waiting?  If you are home you can buzz in the delivery person and ask them to leave the package in the elevator for scala B.  You then bring up the elevator and there it is!  Magic!

There are some pretty amazing things about being here.  My Boy had his first school trip.  His group spent three days touring the Val d'Orcia area of Tuscany.  That's pretty fantastic.  No One wants to hear about the frustrations and the frictions, just the fantastic.  Living here is a mixed bag but now I can say I'm glad we're here.

One last first:  A pigeon in the living room.  I first saw it tottering around by the kids' homework area.  It must have come in through the back balcony where we do laundry.  It couldn't see the way it came in so it tried to fly out the closed kitchen window.  No luck flying through glass.  It then got stuck between the microwave and the window glass.  Since it couldn't fly in my face at that point I was able to open the window, move the microwave and shoo it out with one of My Boy's plaid shirts.  I quickly closed the windows and felt very grateful that there wasn't some sort of Hitchcock ending to the whole thing.  I later had to open the windows to hang the laundry out to dry.  No more pigeons for today.

First Days of School

We arrived in Rome on August 21, our first time in Italy as a family.  Of course John lived here as a boy and has been back a few times since.  I spent a couple of days in Venice once in 2001.  The kids have never traveled this much before.  But this is more than just a trip.  We are moving here for at least a couple of years.  We'll give it a good two year trial and see how we like it before committing to more.

The kids are tired and want to get on with life.  They are ready to start school and meet kids their own ages.  I really enjoyed Dublin and Ireland, but it was more of a vacation.  Now the realities of moving are settling in.  In our first week we toured the kids' new schools.  My girl will go to the same school John attended when he lived here with his family.  It is elementary through high school, but we decided to send our boy to a different high school.  My girl's school is an American style school plopped on the north edge of Rome.  There is a good mix of Americans, Italians, and kids from other places, but the feel is quite American with a PTA and after school sports.  She has found some good friends who welcomed her in.  The 6th grade girls eat lunch together and have a good time.  It turns out that there is another girl in 6th grade with the same first name as my girl, she also wears glasses, and attends the same church we do, but in a different congregation.  What a funny thing.  I was hoping and praying for friends for the kids.  This is amazing.  They don't have classes together, but they see each other at lunch and before school.  The school started in an old villa which still houses the middle school classes.  Then there is a courtyard surrounded by buildings for the elementary and high schools.  Out back there is a large patio and amphitheater built into a hillside with a pretty spectacular view.

One nice thing is that all of the kids are starting middle school so there is a lot of attention from the staff about helping them adapt to the new middle school experience.  The day before school started there was a morning orientation for new kids and parents of all grades and then an afternoon orientation for all incoming 6th grade middle schoolers.  It was a long day but by the end (not in the middle) she was excited to start school.

Another first is riding the bus to school.  My girl rides the school bus to and from school.  We walk 10 minutes to the bus stop.  She gets picked up at 7:25 and gets to school by 8:15-8:30 for a 9:00 start to school.  It is a very long ride to and from school every day.  The school is in north Rome closer to the neighborhoods where the Embassy families live.  We live South-East of the historical center.  Not close.  For me to get there on the metro/busses takes an hour and a half at least.  That really cuts down on my ability to be at school.  I can't even ride the bus home with her if I am there.  Frustrating,

My boy rides the city bus to school.  It is a short trip, 15 minutes or so.  But you can never be sure when or if the busses are coming.  He missed the bus one day and then decided it would be worth spending a few extra minutes waiting in the morning so that it didn't happen again.  I can't just run him up in the car.  He either waits for the next bus or walks.  It's only a mile so it isn't the end of the world.  Luckily we are close so that in the likely event of a bus strike he can still get to school.

The high school is truly an international school with an IB curriculum and kids from 50+ countries among the 250 students.  John's older sister attended here many years ago.  Many of the kids' parents work at the UN, FAO, or various embassies, and a few corporate families.  I'm not sure where we fit in to all of that.  We are just here.  There are also Italians as well who are attracted to the English language instruction and the reputation for strong academics. They seem to be quite different from the civil servant/government expats.  It has been a good fit for My Boy.  He has found some friends, joined the theater tech crew, and a few clubs.

All students are required to do a sport after school so after examining the options he chose Pilates, no running or balls.  He did try one day of volleyball.  A church friend is on a high school volleyball team here.  It wasn't for him, but I'm glad he would check it out to see.  During the interview last spring they asked My Boy about sports.  He didn't have much to say about that.  When asked what he did for exercise he said that he sometimes walked to the library.  At first I groaned a bit inside, but now I think they probably liked that answer.  It's an honest response that really shows who he is.

Each year they take two trips.  The fall trip is in Italy and the spring trip is international and usually based in community service of some kind.  So in a couple weeks he is off to Tuscany for a couple of days.  I'm more than a bit envious.  Unfortunately parents are not invited.

I hope all goes well and that they continue to enjoy school even after the excitement and newness wear off.