Winter break staycation: Vatican and Castel Sant'Angelo

We had plans for winter break that included getting out of town.  Even though we live in an incredibly beautiful city, I wanted to see something else.  We had plans to visit John's sister in France.  We dreamt of baguettes and chocolate croissants, but it wasn't meant to be.  Over the holidays France was in the middle of a nationwide transportation strike.  Over a month later it is still unresolved.  There is a stand-off over the possibility of pension reform.  The French do love their unsustainable pensions.  With no reliable trains running from Lyon to my sister-in-law's town we tried a rental car.  No luck.  We couldn't get one.  We heard later that getting gas was iffy since the protesters were blocking refineries.  With no way to get where we wanted to go we just decided to be "flexible" and go another time.  We looked into Croatia and other places, but in the end stayed home.  This is, after all, one of the most visited cities in the world.  Why leave, right?

The decision to stay home brought a sigh of relief from the kids.  Recently I learned a word that describes them pretty well on most days.  Pantofolaio.

Pantofolaio comes from the word pantofola which means slipper. By adding the agent suffix -aio to the end, you wind up with a word that means “someone who wears slippers all the time”. People in this category prefer to stay at home on the couch watching TV rather than go out and see new things.

My girl likes to go do things, but neither is all that interested in going out to see things, especially things like big piles of old rocks.  So what did we do over the break?  We went out and looked at piles of old rocks.  Often.  We threw in a few newer rocks and some underground rocks just for fun.  To be fair, after we finally get out of the house, they have a good time, but they are more than happy to get back home.

Buddy Boy and I headed up to Piazza San Pietro to see the Vatican nativity.  We hadn't been there at all before.  The whole thing is quite impressive.  We'll need a whole day to see the Vatican museums.  We'll tackle that one another time.

 Piazza San Pietro

Each year the Nativity or presepe is done in the traditional style of a different region of Italy.  This year it is Valsugana in Trentino.  This is near the northern border with Austria.

After seeing the big one we stopped into the exhibit of 100 presepi.  It was fun to see all of the different materials, wood, straw, stone, paper, and even pasta.

Pasta presepe

 Traditional presepe

Italians claim to have originated the Presepe.  Maybe in Naples.  Maybe one of the several other places making the same claim.  The traditional presepe have a specific style with very elaborate sets.

 "Really mom, will you PLEASE stop taking pictures?"

We were back a few days later with the whole family.

This time we added Castel Sant'Angelo to the itinerary when we saw that it was free entrance day and, more importantly, almost no line.  It is a perfect example of the layering of history in Rome.  The building originated as a tomb for the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 123 AD.  It later became a military stronghold as layer upon layer was added, including an escape passage from the Vatican in case of siege.  Later additions included lavish papal apartments with frescoes decorated by the Renaissance master, Rafael.

 Why yes, that is a catapult with piles of stone shot.

 Statue commemorating a papal vision of St. Micheal the Archangel sheathing his sword signalling the end a 6th century plague.

 View of the Vatican from the top.

Gorgeous winter days.  Life is good.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas season in Italy officially starts December 8th on the feast of the immaculate conception.  Oddly enough even though there is no Thanksgiving there are still Black Friday sales.  It makes no sense.  Little here does.  Italy has it's own internal logic that only works (or doesn't work) here.

We started our holiday celebrations with a visit to the Piazza Navona Christmas market.  The market itself was pretty underwhelming.  Christmas markets are a Northern European thing.  The Italian ones aren't that interesting.  The stalls had a few candies and some carnival games, but were pretty uninteresting.  The carousel was fun and the church on the piazza is beautiful.  There was an organ recital going on which was pretty spectacular.  We watched the puppet show for a few minutes.  It featured the traditional Neapolitan character, Pulcinella, dressed in white with a black mask.

In an astonishing show of bureaucratic efficiency the Christmas market was shut down for lack of appropriate safety permits a few days after we visited.  Fortunately, it was able to reopen on Christmas day.

We celebrated Christmas Eve with our family tradition of cioppino.  Cioppino is an Italian-American fish and seafood stew that originated in San Francisco with the Italian fishermen from Genoa.  It was made as the fishermen would "chipped in" from their catch of the day to make the meal.  The California version features Dungeness crab and is served with fresh sourdough.  We couldn't find crab of any sort and sourdough bread doesn't exist here.  We made up for it with the amazing scallops.  We finished up the dish with artichokes, another California/Italian specialty.  This was my first year making the cioppino.  I'm usually the dessert person.  It turned out great.  I think we will still reserve it for Christmas Eve, but it no longer scares me.

 I kept the shells because I think they are pretty, but they are outside until they no longer smell like fish.

We were invited up to our landlady's apartment above us to join in with her family Christmas Eve party.  It was a lot of fun.  They are a great family.  Her two daughters were there with their husbands, kids, and in-laws.  One daughter lives in Rome across town and the other one lives in Sicily.  The daughters speak pretty good English, which makes it easier.  I made American desserts to share.  I took chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread men, and cinnamon rolls.  They were a hit, rare and foreign delicacies.  One daughter had tasted something like the gingerbread in the Netherlands and they had seen cinnamon rolls from Sweden.  I explained that my great grandmother was from Sweden.  It was too much to explain the connection between Utah and Scandinavia with all of the LDS Nelsons, Nielsons, Chiristensens, Sorensens and others that came to the state in the late 19th century.  Our connection is through the Jensens and others.

Christmas day started with the kids unwrapping their presents.  I couldn't find the wrapping paper so pillow cases and towels had to substitute.  I wanted the to stretch it out and have the kids actually unwrap instead of just seeing things there.  It seemed like it would be more fun that way.  The big presents were actually replacing things that we didn't bring with us, like the guitar and sewing machine, and warm fuzzy things to stay warm.  Then sometimes you find the perfect mug. 

"That's what I do.  I eat Cheez-Its and I know things."

We had dinner with some families from church who don't have extended family in the area.  It was an interesting mix of people.  The host family is Italian and American.  Most of the invited families were from South America.  The menu was all Italian and very good.  I again brought American cookies, which the American missionaries loved.  A little taste of home on Christmas day.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

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.