A day at the museum

It seems like it was years ago that we visited the Vatican.  In reality it was Saturday, March 7.  There were recommendations to stay away from crowds, but museums and restaurants were still open.  Schools had been closed for a couple of days, but life wasn't so bad.  Schools were only closed "until March 15th".  Two days later the whole country and most businesses were shut down.  Now they are saying that schools may open in the fall for online instruction only.  I hope that changes.  Yesterday (April 21), they announced that a few factories and other businesses would be allowed to open in May.  Last week stores that sell children's clothing and bookstores were allowed to open as long as everyone wears masks and gloves and keeps their distance.  It will be awhile before a museum day like this will happen again.

The day before going to the Vatican we avoided the crowds by taking a walk near the Colosseum.  It was deserted, except for a few stragglers and a tour group or two wearing masks.  Saturday we went to the museum to avoid the crowds.  There were people there, but it wasn't crowded.  We were able to walk up to the ticket office without a line.  Normally there would be a line hours and hours long.  It was actually perfect for my crowd-hating family.

There is so much to see it is impossible to describe even a fraction of it.  I loved the mosaic floors.  Room after room had amazing works of art in the tile floor.  The best pieces are fenced off to avoid wear and tear, but for many years this is what was underfoot.  Incredible.

Probably the most famous ceiling in the world is the Sistine chapel.  It is pretty amazing and I did sneak a picture just before the security guard told me not to.  You have to see it, just because it is what it is and it was painted by Michelangelo.  What many do not realize is that the walls were painted by other artists in the late 15th century.  At that point the ceiling was painted as a starry sky.  Michelangelo was commissioned to repaint the ceiling and upper portions of the walls in 1508.  The central panels tell the stories from the book of Genesis.  It took 4 years to finish the work.

 

I forced the kids to stay with me until we had seen the Sistine Chapel.  They were ready to go home by that point.  It had been a couple of hours, but you can't go to the Vatican and not see the Sistine Chapel.  After that I cut them loose to go home and worked by way back through the museum so that I could spend more time with my favorites and take my time with the rest.

I almost hate to say it, but the Sistine Chapel isn't my favorite ceiling in Rome and definitely not my favorite room.  This is an example of the ceiling in a random Vatican hallway.  Just as amazing to me, probably done much later, but not something anyone would have heard of.

I prefer the ceiling at St Ignatius.  The frescoes here are from a completely different time period, the Baroque era of the late 17th-early 18th century.  They have a big mirror on the floor so you don't hurt your neck looking up at the center part of the building.  How kind.  St Ignatius also has a fake dome painted on the ceiling.  I think that is pretty funny.  If you stand in the center of the building it looks quite convincing.  If you are off to the side it still looks, good, but the perspective is off just enough that you can tell something is wrong.

 The fake dome painted on the the ceiling of St Ignatius di Loyola

Photo of the ceiling of St Ignatius in the mirror taken at the end of October, 2019

But really, my favorite type of church ceilings are the old Byzantine style mosaics.  This example is from the Chapel of Venatius in the Lateran Baptistery behind the Basilica San Giovanni in Laterno near our house.  The original baptistery dates from the time of Constantine in the 4th century.  The octagonal building there today is 5th century.  This chapel and the mosaics were added later in the 7th century.  Unfortunately, even later a tall alter was placed in front of the mosaics in the apse so you have to peek behind to get a good look.

So many ceilings, so little time...

Back to the Vatican...

I think that this could be one of my favorite rooms in Rome.  It's probably my favorite room in the Vatican.  It's one of the four rooms called Raphael's Rooms today.  It was painted by Raphael and his crew at the same time Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel down the hall.  It was originally a private Papal apartment.  Can you imagine this as your private study?  This particular room is called the Room of the Segnatura and houses one of Raphael's most famous works, the School of Athens.  This wall features all of the Greats from ancient Greece and represents rational truth and philosophy.

I love that Raphael included a little self portrait off to the side.  He is the young man in the black cap looking out at you.  It reminds me of the image used in the posters for the big Raphael exhibit that opened that weekend.  It was only open for 2 days before the museums were closed in the national shut down.  It looks unlikely that the museums will open any time soon.  The exhibit celebrates the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death.  The big question now is if the pieces on loan will be allowed to stay so that people can see them together after the museums reopen.

On the opposite wall is the Disputation of the Holy Sacraments, or Triumph of the Church, which represents theology.  It includes Christ on his throne, God the Father, the Holy Ghost, as well as many prophets, saints and martyrs.  Figures above represent the triumphant church in the glory of God.  The figures below are those who fought against evil on earth, the militant church.  Interestingly, this included Dante Alighieri.  He is behind the pope in gold robes and is wearing a laurel wreath.

Some of my favorite objects in the museum were these models by Bernini and friends.  He didn't work alone.  They were working pieces made in preparation for later bronze castings.  All of the angels have broken noses.  They are far from perfect condition and I think that is what I like so much about them.  I love that you can see the straw and metal armatures through the broken clay.  They are broken and still quite beautiful.

Toward the end of the museum there is a hall called the Christian museum.  In this hall there are cases of vitri dorati, or gilded glass.  These objects first collected in the 17th and 18th centuries, but made for the early Christians of the 3rd and 4th centuries.  The objects are small glass discs with a thin layer of gold sandwiched between layers.  The images in the gold depict stories from the Bible or wealthy couples and families.  Some of these objects were the bottoms of glasses or bowls.  Others were decorations for glass objects or seals for burial niches in the catacombs.

The miracle at Cana

The Original Sin - Eve, Serpent in a tree, Adam

A bridal couple

I was enchanted by these little gems.  The smaller ones depicting the bible stories are maybe an inch across.  The larger one of the couple is maybe 2.5 inches.

The path through the exhibits twists and turns so many times it is impossible to keep track of where you are.  Somewhere between Raphael's rooms and the Sistine Chapel the walkways detour through a newer addition where more contemporary art is displayed, including a very large work on paper by Matisse and a small painting by Van Gogh.  Other works by Matisse included mock ups for stained glass windows in France.

It was a great day.  I loved visiting the museums.  I hope to go back sometime sooner than later.  

On the way home I stopped by Castroni and bought oyster sauce and a few other hard to find items.  I was quite happy to find it because I wanted to make stir fry.  Sometimes you need a break from the Italian food.

...into the fire

We left Rome early in the morning of March 25.  We had to take two taxis to the airport since the newest restrictions at the time limited the number of passengers per taxi.  I worried about everything going smoothly that day.  There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but it ended up an uneventful trip, thankfully.  At the airport there was a large group of seminarians, student priests, returning to the US on our flight.  The Catholic seminaries had closed and they were returning home or to new assignments.  The lines were a bit long, but I've seen worse.  Overall it was less crowded because so few people are flying.  It was a little eerie with all of the shops closed.  Alitalia required all passengers to wear masks or face coverings.  The ones they provided were little strips of fabric with holes for your ears.  They would barely qualify as a face covering and wouldn't do any good as a mask.  The flight was maybe half full with plenty of space in between people.

We flew from Rome to JFK in New York, a virus hot spot, which was a bit of a worry.  Our only other option was to fly through London.  I didn't want to do that because I wanted a direct flight to the US.  I didn't want to run the risk of any border quarantine issues in another country.  So much is so unpredictable.  I felt like everything was changing so rapidly.  As we arrived we all had to fill out a form declaring where we had been in the past 14 days.  As we left the plane we each had our temperature checked on the Jetway before they let us into the airport.  JFK was also strangely quiet.  There were only a few people working there and a few more passengers.  It took awhile to get through security and screening, but we made it just fine.  Our next flight was directly to SFO.  The flight was pretty empty so we each had our own row to stretch out and get some sleep.  After a bit of a rest it was so nice to get back home.

That day I celebrated Dantedi, This is a relatively new Italian holiday to celebrate Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet know by some as the father of the Italian language.  Next year is the 700th anniversary of his death.  Big celebrations are planned.  He is best known for writing the Divine Comedy.  It isn't funny.  It is called a comedy because at the time, writing was divided into tragedies and comedies.  Tragedies were written in Latin.  Writings in Italian, the common language, were considered comedies even if they chronicle a trip through horrific layers of hell.  What better way to celebrate Dante than a 19 hour flight fleeing a center of a global pandemic.  It seemed fitting somehow.  The celebration continued when I grabbed a copy of Dan Brown's Inferno I had picked up at a used bookstore weeks ago, to read on the planes.  It was oddly appropriate, or inappropriate depending on your view, since the plot centers around a madman's plot to infect the world with a bioengineered virus.  I don't think I can recommend the book overall.  It is typical Dan Brown with conspiracies centered around great works of art and architecture, but it all fell a little flat and seemed formulaic.  My Boy really likes Dante's Inferno.  He read an English translation a couple years ago.  He was introduce to the story by a series of YouTube videos on a channel he really likes. 

Even though we are home in California we aren't back in our house.  We rented it out while we were planning to be gone.  We stayed in an Airbnb for our days of self-isolation before moving in with my in-laws.   John has been there since January while he has been working on tax season.  The tax deadline has been extended by three months and the people who get their paperwork in at the last minute now have an extra three months to procrastinate so his work has slowed for awhile.  We were able to stop by the house and pick up bicycles we had stored in the backyard shed.

The kids are continuing with their online schooling from Rome.  It is more difficult now with the 9 hour time difference.  Some of My Boy's teachers are having two online class sessions at different times to accommodate the students who are temporarily in the Western hemisphere.  Other classes are recorded or he communicates the best he can with email and in class messages.  These online classes aren't the best environment for him.  It is a struggle.  My Girl decided she wanted to attend her last class of the day.  That means getting up for a 5 am online video class.  It works for her.  These classes have group projects and things that would be difficult to do outside of class.  She got put into a new project group with a couple of boys she considers complete slackers because one of the boys is in Mexico and the time zones are more similar.  She hates it because neither of the boys show up for their planned group work sessions.  One of her morning teachers records his lectures, which is helpful.  The online learning stresses her out completely because it takes more effort to keep on top of things and know if you are getting 100% or not.

It is a little strange to be back.  There are things I appreciate that I never thought of before, clothes dryers, garbage disposals, driving, Target, and restaurants open for take out.  Some of the changes I find strange.  The shortage of toilet paper baffles me.  All of a sudden Americans have turned into bakers emptying the shelves of flour, yeast, and eggs.  The "social distance" in Italy is 1 meter.  In the US it is 6 feet.  Why?  No one knows.  Stores are implementing their own social distance policies differently, leading to strange new protocols for grocery shopping.

My landlady and other Italian friends thought we were crazy for leaving Italy to come to the US, especially California.  From the headlines it didn't look good.  American political leaders were making strange statements.  Italians considered the American attitude cavalier.

The restrictions in Rome are getting more and more strict.  The rules are becoming more restrictive and the enforcement is tightening.  I'm glad to be back in California.  There are social distancing restrictions, but it just isn't the same.

I wondered if I was jumping from the frying pan and into the fire.  The number of cases in California was growing, it looked like it could become one of the global hot spots.   The day before we left Rome had 1,287 cases for a city of nearly 3 million.  The region of Lazio, which includes Rome, had 1,545 current cases and 1,723 positive tests.  Nationally for a population of just under 6 million there were 54,030 current cases, 6,820 had died and 8,326 had recovered.  The daily death count continued to rise, but the number of new cases was down for 3 days.  Since then deaths are still high, but flattening, and the number of people in ICU and the number of new cases daily continues to fall.  It's a ragged trend down, but encouraging.  Now Lazio has 3,448 cases with a total of 4,266 testing positive.  Nationwide out of 143,636 positive tests there are 96,877 active cases.

At the same time, Santa Clara County, California had 375 confirmed cases for a population of just under 2 million.  They are now up to 1,442 cases which is a lot, but is far from the catastrophic spike that everyone had worried about and a much better situation than Italy is facing and what is happening in New York.  Of course these numbers are all questionable because of limited testing in both places.  Some scientists have a theory that the virus arrived in California last fall and there is now a degree of herd immunity in the area.  There are studies going on now to test for virus antibodies.  We'll soon see if that is the case or not.  It now appears that the situation in California is moving in the right direction with the number ICU patients coming down just a bit.

We are settling into a new routine in a new place.  The celebrations have continued.  We celebrated two birthdays, including My Boy's 15th birthday.  How did he get so old and so tall?  He is now taller than me and closing in on Dad.  We got him a book called Bad Days in History.  It was fun to see what bad thing happened on each of our birthdays.

We celebrated carbonara day.  Carbonara is a classic Roman pasta dish with a few simple ingredients, eggs, pasta, pepper, pancetta, parmesean, and pecorino.  Our home made version was tasty, but nothing compared to the carbonara at Core de Roma, our favorite neighborhood pasta/pizza place.

This weekend is Easter, making tomorrow Good Friday.  Last weekend our church had our twice yearly general conference.  It was unusual this year in that the only people physically attending were the speakers and those giving prayers.  Even the choir music was prerecorded.  The messages were encouraging and inspiring.  Our church president called for Good Friday to be a day of prayer and fasting for members of our church and all of God's children who might wish to join us.  During this day of devotion we will pray for healing, "that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized."   Anyone is welcome to join in any way they feel would contribute to the spirit of the day.

Out of the frying pan...

As I've talked to people over the past couple of weeks I've been asked if we are planning to go home.  The answer was quite decidedly no until it was yes.  So, we are jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by leaving Italy and going to California.

When this first started I was quite comfortable in our little apartment.  We have plenty of food, water, our usual glitchy internet, and toilet paper.  What more could we need for a couple of weeks?  During the week My Boy was home from school due to a cancelled school trip we went grocery shopping every day.  I calculated how much food we would need for two weeks, a rather arbitrary number, and we shopped.  We could only buy as much as we could carry home.  That really cuts down on the hoarding possibilities.

The restrictions started slowly, like the frog being slowly boiled alive.  You can get used to a lot when it comes on bit by bit.  The schools closed, then the museums, then other businesses bit by bit.  You know it is serious when they finally closed the coffee shops completely.  The grocery stores, pharmacies, and a few other "essential businesses" are still open as well as the banks and post offices.  People are getting creative to stay open.  A couple of pizza places are no longer restaurants, they are now bakeries that also will sell you a little pizza on the side.  A store that sells mostly sun glasses and trinkets is now a tabbacheria, a tabacco shop, an essential business in Italy.  A carteria, paper store, is open.  Their main business is stationary, art, and party supplies.  They also sell packaging for food and most importantly right now, cleaning products.

You need to carry a self declaration in case you get stopped by the police.  It basically says that you understand the restrictions and states your reason for being out and that you have not tested positive for the coronavirus.  You can only go out for limited reasons, but these restrictions are widely ignored.  People debate whether you can go out for exercise or not.  The head of school contacted the police to ask.  At that time it was allowed as long as you were alone.  If you violate the rules you could get fined or jailed.  I heard of one teen out spraying graffiti who was arrested, but mostly they just tell you to go home.

Recent restrictions include no face to face contact with delivery people.  (Not a problem since I usually tell them to leave it in the elevator for me.  No need to walk downstairs unless I really need to.)  No more than two people per taxi and no one in the front seat.  All taxi drivers and bus drivers must wear masks and gloves.  I don't know where they are going to get the masks.  All of the pharmacies are out.  The one that sealed the deal for me is when they restricted travel between towns by all public and private transportation "unless for non-differable and proven reasons of work, or for matters of absolute urgency or health."   I'm going to call the trip to the airport absolutely urgent and hope the taxi drivers agree.

At this point I had been thinking of coming home for a day or so.  I could see things tightening down.  The time to leave is while you still can.  Borders in the EU are closed.  Although I don't know exactly what they mean by that.  To avoid problems we chose a flight that goes directly from Rome into the US.  Many flights stop in the UK or an EU country before going on to San Francisco.  Airports in the North of Italy are closed as well as one of the two airports serving Rome.  Although that is more for lack of flights, than government restriction.  The original order was to expire on March 25.  At first I naively thought that it really might only last that long.  Last week the premier hinted that it could be longer and more official announcements would be coming.  Monday morning brought news of more travel restrictions effective immediately.  We immediately started booking flights.

A couple of factors leading up to this was our living situation.  We have a great little apartment with a sliver of a balcony out front and a tiny little utility balcony overlooking the courtyard in back.  It's a place to hang laundry and store mops.  Being inside for two weeks was starting to wear on us a bit, especially My Girl.  My introverted Boy and I were actually OK but the idea of another month inside when we had other options was not looking good.  Our friends live next to a farm with puppies.  If we lived next to a farm with puppies I might feel differently.

I also worried about what might happen if we got sick.  Most likely we would get mildly sick.  John thinks we already had it when we had the flu a few weeks ago.  The symptoms are the same.  There is no way to know at this point.  My Girl has mild asthma and the flu hit her particularly hard.  The health care system here is stressed.  In the North the hospitals are overflowing.  Recently patients have been sent to hospitals in Germany in an effort to relieve overcrowding.  There are a lot fewer patients here in the South, but the reports say that the health care system is also less robust.  New facilities are going online as existing buildings are converted into hospitals and medical staff are coming in from across the world.  I think things will be OK, but I felt more comfortable facing that possibility in the US.

Not least of all, John has been in California since January for tax season.  He didn't plan to come back until mid-April, but that got pushed forward long ago when the travel restrictions started going into effect.  He needed to get the essential work done before coming back to Rome in case he couldn't travel back and forth easily.  We don't have Italian passports.  So at this point it is unclear if he would be able to come into the country.  By the time the schools are open and we are ready to come back I imagine that the borders will be open as well.  The Italian economy is taking a huge hit without the tourists.  I think they will want to let people back in as soon as it is reasonable to do so.  The question is, will anyone want to come to coronavirus central?

So we are taking a brief pause in our European adventure.  We'll be back when the schools open.  No one can guess when that will be.  The Premier hinted that the restrictions will be rolled back slowly.  Does that mean weeks or months?  It is impossible to know.  The evening we bought the tickets they announced the second day of fewer deaths.  They called it a trend.  Perhaps the crisis is peaking.  It could just as easily be a blip or a correction from the previous record high days.  Cases in California are still increasing so we may get to experience coronavirus peaks in two different countries.  Who knows how bad it will get in either place.

So after a fruitless trip to two pharmacies and no masks I decided to make face masks.  I had seen a lot of pictures and posts about this.  I didn't worry about masks while we were here and pretty isolated from people, but being in airports and on planes felt a lot more risky.  I wondered if it would be worth the effort.  I found an article about different household fabrics that made me think that it would be.  Homemade masks are not as effective as surgical masks, but they are better than nothing.  The irony is that we have N95 masks in California.  My husband bought them the last time the smoke from the wildfires was bad.  I remember thinking that I should have grabbed a few to bring with us, but the thought passed and it didn't seem to be that important.  Who could have predicted a global pandemic that would cause a shortage of protective masks?  So we spent the evening making masks out of a pillow case.  The straps are strips of lycra My Girl brought to make dresses for her Lego mini dolls.  We put wire from paperclips around the nose.  My Girl was very into the craftiness.  I felt very Macgyver.

Irish eyes smiling.

My Girl is excited to go.  She will miss the online interaction with her friends at school.  She will still do the work, but because of the time difference will most likely not attend the video conference classes.  My Boy was fine here and will be fine there.  It will be strange going back to California.  Rome feels like home.  We have renters in our house so we won't be going home exactly.  California has it's own version of restrictions with stores closing, but the big difference is that the personal restrictions don't have the same weight of law.  Now that we have decided I'm also excited to go as long as I know we can come back.  I'm not ready to be done yet.

In other news... 

We continued our celebrations this week by making ravioli on Ravioli day.  Every well stocked Italian apartment should come with ravioli making tray things!  I don't know enough about Persian food to properly celebrate Perisan new year.  My friend said it is all about eating a lot and visiting family.  So we learned about the day and ate a lot of our home made ravioli and had a zoom family party with my brothers my parents and the cousins.  It was a lot of fun and a little crazy.  We made French bread twice for French bread day.  We all took showers on water day.  We watched puppy videos on Puppy Day and played balloon volleyball for Goof Off day.  We are packing to flee a center of global pandemic on Tuberculosis day.  I bought saffron for paella day later this week so I'll take that to the US with me so the celebrations can continue.

Children are making signs like this to hang from windows and post around.  This sign is in the building lobby.  It is a great reminder that everything will be OK.

Celebrate!

This morning there was news from the Italian premier that the quarantine measures set to expire in the next two weeks would most likely be extended.  This is not at all a surprise as the number of cases and the number of new cases identified daily continues to climb.  It takes weeks for the effects of quarantine measures to show up as those people who contracted the disease before quarantine start to show symptoms.  So we continue as before and hope to see the results of our efforts soon.

The kids have school work to do and I have my classes to keep up with.  We try to have some fun every day.  Inspired by Pi day on March 14 we looked up some of the lesser known holidays for the rest of March.  We'll do something to celebrate each one.

 We started with Pi day, something we have celebrated for several years.  We celebrated with pizza pie on Saturday, apple pie on Sunday and beef hand pies on Monday.  We stretched this one out for as long as possible.

While reading a NY Times story about the complete breakdown and social isolation of European society, I heard cheering outside.  It was time for another balcony party.  This time 9:00 pm with cell phone flashlights.  I'm not feeling so isolated.  I'm seeing neighbors I've never seen before.  We smile and wave from our windows and balconies, but if you so much as sniffle at the grocery store you get the stink eye from behind the masks.

You may have seen the viral videos of people singing from their balconies during the quarantine.  Unfortunately we don't have an opera singer in the neighborhood, but we do have a neighbor with a great set of speakers.  For several days we had little balcony dance parties each night at 6:00 for about a half an hour.  Everything from Italian classics, the national anthem, classic rock, We Will Rock You, and YMCA.

Here are a couple of favorite songs that we recognized.

This one is unofficially called the Italian Gibberish Song.  It was written to sound like English but it isn't real words.  More about it here and here.  Apparently this style follows a medieval comic tradition.  Who knew.

Then the classic about a boy from Naples who tries to be too American, listening to rock and roll and drinking whiskey and soda.

You might recognize this one, Volare, officially titled, Nel blu dipinto di blu.

My girl also knew the words for the national anthem thanks to choir class at school and could sing along.

It was quite fun while it lasted.  Unfortunately this hasn't happened for the past couple of nights.  I think people were starting to gather in the street, a strict no no.  Maybe it will be back at some point.  It's a little thing, but I miss it.

View across the piazza.  You can see the the umbrella pines and the sunset reflecting off the buildings.

If you look carefully you can see people at their windows.

The kids on our balcony.  We are on the 3rd/4th floor depending on how you count them.

Sunday, March 15 was the Ides of March, as in "Beware the Ides of March."  In ancient Rome this was a traditional day for settling debts.  This date was made famous by Shakespeare in his play, Julius Caesar, when a fortune teller warned Caesar of this date.  The warning was for good reason.  Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC at the spot we now call Largo di Torre Argentina.  This is a spot we might normally have visited, but not this week.  There you can find a cat sanctuary that the kids love to visit to pet the cats.  If you like Italian cats, you can do a distance adoption to support the old or crippled cats who live there permanently.  There is also a big book store, Feltrinelli's, with a small selection of English language books, and a fabric store that has been on the square since 1917.  My Girl's favorite store on the square is Flying Tiger, a Danish chain store that is the dream of many tween girls, full of cute little things.  None of it is necessary, but we always end up bringing something home.  It's a fairly reliable source of marshmallows, which is important when we go camping with the scouts.

We usually attend church on Sunday mornings.  A couple weeks ago our meetings were cancelled indefinitely and we were encouraged to have modified services at home with our families.    It takes 45 minutes to an hour to get there so quite honestly we're enjoying home church without the metro trip. This week we had a Sunday School class through Zoom.  It was nice to see people's faces.  My Italian isn't great so I didn't catch everything, but it was nice anyway.  During Sunday School I heard an amplified voice coming from the back courtyard. A priest was giving mass from one of the terraces.  It was a beautiful thing to see.  After he finished the service he talked to a few of the people who had come out to their balconies.  He clearly knows them and cares about them.  Since then Mass has been repeated every day at 5:00 pm.  Sometimes he plays some peaceful music while he sets up.  In the middle of the Italian songs I was surprised to hear a lovely version of Amazing Grace in English.

The priest saying Mass on the terrace to the left.  You can just see his purple vestments. 

This is the back of the bus stop sign with the advice I'm sure you have all heard by now.

The kids pulled out the musical instruments for a bit.  We need to do this more.  They had a good time singing Country Roads by John Denver.  I'm not quite sure why this is the song of choice for today, but it was great to hear them singing together.  My Boy has a lovely rich deep voice when he is willing to sing.

Monday we celebrated artichoke day.  I like them.  My boy will eat a bit if there is enough vinaigrette to dip them in.  It's a hard no for My Girl.  Artichokes are a typical springtime food here and quite traditional in the Jewish quarter restaurants.

We started Tuesday with a birthday party for Dad.  He is in California for tax season and timing was an issue.  So we baked a cake before breakfast and called him to sing and blow out the candles with a little help from the kids.  We played an online party game we could all join in on just to keep it festive and ate birthday cake for breakfast.  It was short, but we had a good time.  It also happened to be St Patrick's day.  We would usually have had a corned beef and cabbage dinner with the family.  Dad did that in California.  We did our best with beef pies,  They are more British than Irish, but we did eat beef pie in Dublin so I'm counting it as close enough.

Wednesday was another set of birthdays for my dad and brother.  I called my dad, but couldn't get through to my brother.  Disappointing.

Today is poultry day so we are having chicken for dinner.  Earlier in the week or was it last week we made mu shu chicken for the first time including making the little pancakes.  This is a Chinese restaurant favorite for us but I had never tried it before.  The super thin little pancakes aren't nearly as tricky as it seems.  It was delicious.

So, how are we doing?  Overall pretty well.  It isn't exactly a European adventure.  Or maybe it is.

It is interesting to watch the differences between the US and Italian experience with this whole pandemic thing.  I hear reports of empty shelves in the US as people buy up toilet paper and certain food items.  We have plenty of both.  People are buying more food, but mostly because they are cooking at home now that the restaurants are all closed.  California has shut down nonessential businesses in our area and encouraging the social distancing we've been doing here for a little while now.  I'm not sure why the distance is 1 meter in Italy and 6 feet in the US.  Kids are out of school across the country in Italy and increasingly in the US.  Everyone is adapting to a new temporary normal.

Holidays we are celebrating
3/14  Pi (pie) day
3/15  Ides of March
3/16  National artichoke day
3/17  St Patrick's day, Dad's birthday
3/18  Grandpa and Uncle's birthdays
3/19  Poultry day, Italian Father's day also St Joseph's day as in Mary and Joseph
3/20  Ravioli day, Kick butts day, Happiness day
3/21  Spring equinox, French bread day
3/22  Goof off day, Water day
3/23  Puppy day, Meteorological day
3/24  Tuberculosis day
3/25  Waffle day, Dantedi
3/26  Spinach day
3/27  Paella day
3/28  Cat respect day
3/29  Mom and Pop business day
3/30  Doctor's day
3/31  Backup day

Also National noodle month

Have fun celebrating the little things.

Unite... separately

Quote of the week, "It's not the Apocalypse.  It's just a pandemic."
-My Girl

I'd seen this poster floating around online before, but it seemed particularly appropriate this week.  Earlier this week Italy went from "lock down" to "total shut down".  The quarantine has reached a new level.  All shops and stores are closed except for grocery stores and pharmacies and we are all encouraged to stay home except when absolutely necessary. #iorestoacasa (I stay at home)  These restrictions have been in place in the North for a couple of weeks but are now in effect for the whole country.

On Wednesday, when we were still in mid-level lock down, My Boy and I went for a nice walk through the Appia Antica park.  The entrance is close to our house, but the walk was long because the park is huge.  This part is called Caffarella park after the Caffarella valley at its center.  After walking through the deserted city center last Friday we found people!  The park was full of people walking dogs, jogging, riding bikes, playing soccer, walking, and enjoying a beautiful early spring day.  All while supposedly keeping an appropriate "social distance".  A few people wore masks, but mostly everyone was just enjoying a day out.  It felt pretty festive, like everyone was out for a holiday.

The park has a working farm and we even saw the herd of sheep!

There are many old buildings in the park.  This looks like an old stone barn or farmhouse, but is actually, a Roman cistern from about 100 AD.  It was originally underground, but was uncovered a couple hundred years later when some building was being done nearby.  There's no sign or fencing.  People were climbing up and around it.  We did too.  It's an incredible view from the top.

My Boy wanted to show me the second century nympheum he found a few days earlier.  It is built into a hillside with a fountain at the back fed by a spring.  The fountain has a statue of the God Almo, the personification of the nearby Almone river that runs through the park.  I can imagine the niches with their statues and a lovely pool to honor the water nymphs.

It was a beautiful day.  We had no idea that the next day things would change again.  It was all a bit confusing when I first heard of the shut down.  I didn't know what was allowed and what was not.  Now, a couple of days in everything has calmed down.  People are really taking it all in stride.  There is even a sense of solidarity in the whole situation. The piazza where we live is quieter than I've ever seen it.  Only a few cars go by and a few people are out to buy groceries or walk their dogs.  An Italian flag popped up on the balcony over the shuttered fronts of the hair salon and cafe.

People are lining up in a very orderly fashion to wait their turn to enter the grocery store.  The social distancing rules limit the number of people who can be in a store at any given time so people wait patiently.  This is so strange in the land of take a number and cut in line.

Today in My Girl's social studies class the teacher told her that at 6:00 people would be out on their balconies to sing.  We forgot about it until a little after six when we heard the music.  Someone was broadcasting the national anthem and songs about Rome over a loud speaker.  We couldn't tell where the music was coming from, but we went out onto the balcony to listen and wave to our neighbors.  It was beautiful.  Apparently this has been happening all over Italy.  I love it.  I can't imagine any of this happening in the US.  It looks like we'll get to see pretty soon.

This isn't the first pandemic the world has seen.  People are talking about other pandemics like the recent SARS outbreak, H1N1 flu and the 1918 Spanish flu.  The last one isn't the best comparison, because that flu was much more severe than the current coronavirus but I think it is instructive.  I saw a comparison of death rates and disease progression in Philadelphia vs St Louis.  One city cancelled parades and events, the other one did not.  It made a big difference.  Many lives were spared by what we are calling social distancing today.

Earlier this week my Mom told me about my Grandfather and the 1918 Spanish flu.  As a small boy he lost his mom who was quite pregnant at the time and a young sister to the flu.  Funerals and other gatherings were not being allowed, but he remembers seeing her in her casket in his grandmother's living room with a baby on each side.  It was something that affected him for the rest of his life.

We are doing well.  The kids and I have our school work to do and we try to have some fun.  We had a dance party to banana songs.  (Yes, we have no bananas and I love bananas because they have no bones.)  They are on day 7 of online school.  So far so good.  My Girl likes that she can go to school curled up in a blanket and doesn't have a 45 minute bus ride each way.  She doesn't like that she can't talk to her friends as easily.  They get around that with video chats at lunch and to work on class assignments, but it just isn't the same.  She feels lethargic and tired after sitting at a computer all day.  My Boy loves that everything starts a lot later.  He had been attending an online scripture study class at 6:00 am.  That got moved to 8:00.  Much more reasonable for us all.  He likes not feeling used up by the end of the day.  He misses his friends and his drama class and doesn't like that this is happening because of a pandemic, but doesn't seem too bothered by staying home.  It's the classic extrovert/introvert dilemma.

Life in the time of COVID-19

When I talk to my husband he frequently references the book/movie Love in the Time of Cholera.  I haven't read/seen it, and I don't know much about the story, but there is something about it that seems familiar.  An AP reporter who blogs from Rome as Mozzarella Mamma had the same idea in her post on recent events.

Melodramatic love stories aside, life here is a little surreal at times and oddly normal at the same time.  It started with the arrival of the COVID-19 coronavirus a few weeks ago.  Soon after that hot spots in a few smaller towns and cities in Northern Italy were quarantined.  New orders cancelling school trips were a bummer.  Then schools and universities were closed for 10 days. (March 5-15)  Sunday the quarantine area spread to include much of Northern Italy including Milan and Venice and all museums, libraries, sports venues, and archaeological sites were closed nation wide.  Luckily, we spent Saturday at a delightfully empty Vatican museum.  No more.  Monday night the quarantine area was expanded to include the whole country and school closures were extended to April 3.  So, here we are a week later and so much has changed.

The kids are doing school online.  It's interesting to see how the two schools approach it so differently.  My Girl's school is very interactive.  Her teachers are using Google Meet to hold real time classes on their usual schedule including choir and PE.  It is interesting to see how they are adapting to the situation.  The kids work together and talk to each other.  My Girl even has lunch with her friends some days and meets with them online to talk about homework after school hours.  My Boy's school has boarders who are now spread across the world so synchronous classes are not really viable.  He gets assignments through Google classroom and works on them through the day.  I think there is less accountability since he isn't seeing or interacting with his teachers in the same way.  As an online teacher I've seen the other end of this where students just sort of float along.  I'm trying to encourage him to continue to do his best work.  He did have a text chat meeting with his advisory group yesterday so that was something.  They both seem to be doing fine with it.  I think My Boy might like it a bit too much.  Last week his drama class got together informally at a student's house, but with the new restrictions I don't think that will be able to continue.

I teach online so nothing has really changed for me at work.  The only problem is that with all of us at home and everybody else now at home during the day the internet has become clogged.  Sites are slow to load and videos are laggy.  The trials of the modern era!  I have more to do than usual since I'm trying to get a new online health class organized on top of my usual teaching/grading.  It's a different dynamic with the kids home during the day even if they are busy-ish with their school work.

John is in California for tax season.  He isn't missing the epidemic fun entirely.  California is having it's own COVID-19 experience.  He'll delay his return so that he doesn't have to go back so soon.  The CDC is recommending a 14 day self quarantine for anyone coming into the US from Italy or other affected country.  If you are planning a 7 day trip it just isn't worth it.

As of last week our church was closed.  Now that gatherings are prohibited, all church services, including mass, are not allowed.  It's interesting.  At the beginning of the year we started a new "home-based church-supported" curriculum.  The idea was that we would study for ourselves and learn at home as families then gather on Sundays to discuss and share.  It was something years in the making and a big shift for the church.  I don't think anyone had an idea that there would be a global pandemic that would shut down churches around the world.  Last Sunday we watched a video devotional by one of my favorite church leaders, Dieter Uchtdorf.  It was especially fun to hear from his wife.  She talked about how they met and how grateful she is for the missionaries who taught her many years ago in Germany.  He talked about being willing to give something up for a greater blessing later.  For example, he had to learn English, not something that came easily to him, in order to become a pilot, something he loved doing.  This Sunday they will be offering church services broadcast through Zoom.  It will be in Italian, so I might join in for a bit, but we will do our own thing at home as well.

I was not terribly surprised when I heard the news that we were being quarantined.  Another blogger in Rome mentioned that what a couple of weeks ago seemed unthinkable, seemed inevitable when it happened.  In a weird way it is almost a relief not having to wait for the shoe to fall.  We don't know what will happen next or how long it will last.  But for now we are doing fine.

When I first heard that there would be more restrictions I was nervous and confused about what that really meant, what was allowed and what was not.  Today, the day after the new restrictions went into place, there were lines outside the grocery stores as people waited to get inside.  Stores were limiting the number of people inside so that we could all practice the recommended 1 meter of "social distancing".  On the street there are fewer people, in some neighborhoods the streets are empty.  We live in a part of town where a lot of people live their regular lives.  It isn't a tourist neighborhood at all.  The streets around the tourist sites are deserted.  Even last Friday when we went out for a walk near the Colosseum, Largo Argentina, and the Jewish Quarter I was surprised at how few people were out.  The Jewish Quarter was shockingly empty.  You would expect it to be bustling with tables in the street full of tourists and locals eating artichokes.  No tables, no tourists, no people.  Oddly quiet.

Ravenclaw Biker Girl and Hufflepuff Plaid Boy

Colosseum without a crowd

Back alleys of the Jewish Quarter

Saturday we "avoided crowds" by going to the very uncrowded Vatican museum.  It was wonderful to be able to walk right up to the ticket counter.  It isn't unusual to have a 2 hour wait, more during peak seasons.  Inside the museums there were people around, but not so many that you couldn't see or really experience the work.  I'll write more about that later.  It was a great day.

Sunday we planned to take a walk to the museum of the walls and then down to a little church where, according to legend, Jesus Christ appeared to Peter.  Sunday morning the museums closed.  I found out by reading the sign on the museum door.  So we headed down the Appian Way to the church.  It is a tiny little church, very small and very simple.  Even before it was a church it was a place where travelers leaving Rome along the Appian Way would stop and pray for a safe journey.  The story goes that Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, where are you going?" (Domine, quo vadis?). Jesus answered, "I am going to Rome to be crucified again" (Eo Romam iterum crucifigi).  At this point Peter returned to Rome where he was imprisoned and later killed.  It couldn't be much different from the opulence of the Vatican.

With the new restrictions we are encouraged to stay home.  Public transportation is working, but should only be used when "necessari e indispenabili".  We can go out for a walk or to the store.  Cafes and restaurants are open, but must close at 6:00 pm, something unheard of for Italians.  Many restaurants don't usually open for dinner until 7:00 or 7:30.  Grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open.  Access is a bit limited and there might be a line so that we can keep our "social distance", but there is plenty of food.  Travel between cities is restricted, but you can self certify that you have a need to go.  It seems like most people are taking it seriously and staying put.  We went out for pizza at lunch today and the pizza guy seemed happy to have someone come in.  It's going to be tough on businesses.

The situation seems to change almost daily.  We're rolling with it.  The kids are generally in good spirits.  My biggest concern is if I can get my new class ready to go in the next couple of weeks.  If you are the praying sort send in one our direction.  The whole country could use it.

Not a post about school trips

This is not a post about the spring school trips the kids were planning to take this year.  My Boy had plans to go to Catalunya in Spain and My Girls class planned to go to Venice and the surrounding areas in March.  These trips are fantastic and one of the reasons we wanted the kids to come here and go to school.

Last Sunday morning we got up at 5:30 to make it to the airport by 6:30.  At 7:00 the group headed to the gate and I headed to the train.  I was half way home when I got a call from My Boy saying that the trip was cancelled.  The Italian ministry of health had cancelled all educational travel inside and outside of Italy.  While private schools are not compelled to comply they decided it was prudent to do so.  Several trips to more distant locations had already left on Saturday.  They continued their trips as planned.  With a good share of the teachers and students already out of the country there was no reasonable way to hold classes with the students suddenly at home, so an unexpected week at home.

The reason for the cancellation is the outbreak of the coronavirus or COVID-19 in Northern Italy.  The virus was first noticed in China and has slowly spread around the world, first to several Asian countries and now to Europe and Iran.  There are two cases in Rome, Chinese tourists, but it is not spreading in the community yet.  The main outbreak is in Northern Italy in Lombardy and Veneto.  Towns have been quarantined, schools closed, and major events cancelled including the famous Carnival in Venice.  At this point hundreds are sick and several have died.  The numbers will go up I'm sure.  The virus has spread from Northern Italy to other European countries, the Canary Islands, and now Brazil and the US.  Still no new cases in Rome thank goodness.

People are worried.  Stores are running out of hand sanitizer and face masks.  People in town are stocking up on food.  Friends and family are reconsidering travel plans.  The schools are making plans to teach remotely and pestering students about hand washing and hand sanitizer.  Hospitals are setting up triage tents.  I have been buying extra food and washing my hands a lot.  We had so little food in the house that it was probably a good idea to get more anyway.  Somewhat unintentionally I have mostly been staying away from the crowded city center.  Yesterday, when we ventured into the center in search of Froot Loops at the American Minimart we found relatively sparse crowds and a few people wearing face masks.  There is an undercurrent of tension and uncertainty, but other than that life goes on.  

With an unexpected week off of school I've been having a good time with My Boy.  We've been having a relaxing week.  Between all of the grocery shopping we have been taking long walks in some of the open spaces nearby.  Monday we walked to the Appia Antica park.  It is open and huge and lovely and a little bit wild on the east side where we walked.  It is nearly spring so the grass is green and the sun is out.  There were just enough people so that it didn't feel abandoned, more like we had all found the same secret.  

Another day we went a little further to the Aquaduct park.  Also open, huge, lovely, and a bit wild, but with the added interest of rows of repeating arches in the aquaducts and blossoming fruit trees.  They are both a nice escape from the concrete canyons of the city.

It is easiest to tempt the kids out of the house with food, so we also went to the Testaccio market in search of meatball sandwiches.  We found them at Mordi e vai (bite and go).  It is an old place where they serve traditional Roman food sandwich style.  If you like tripe, heart, and lungs, this is the place for you.  We stuck with the boring, but delicious, meatballs.

After lunch we wandered south into the Ostiense neighborhood.  This place is a bit more industrial and hipster.  This part of town is known for its street art.  We found a bakery/cafe I had heard served sourdough bread.  We found the market and the sourdough.  My life in Rome is now complete!  The bread was amazing.  The cinnamon twists were just so so.  If you need your fix of hipster avocado toast I know where to send you.  Please bring me a loaf of bread.

Last week was Settimana Bianca or ski week for My Girl.  We didn't go skiing since My Boy was in school, but we had a nice week anyway.  It might have been nice to have both kids home instead of one at a time, but I also really enjoyed having the one on one times with them.  We talked about things we might not have other wise.  It has been really nice to connect with them individually.  

My Girl and I ran errands in the neighborhood and did a little shopping.  One day we went to the big mall in EUR.  We hadn't been out there before.  What can I say, it's a mall.  We went to the Lego store, ate hamburgers, and watched the teenagers.  Earlier in the week we went to Decathlon to get things for soccer.  She has decided to join the school soccer team.  This is a good thing at a good time.  She thought about joining in the fall, but we had just arrived and it was all a bit too much.  Now she is more settled into life here and can really enjoy it without being exhausted by it.  

We also shopped for food.  We found lambchops at Eataly a "food emporium" near the Ostiense train station.  We also found fun pasta shapes and enjoyed looking at all the unusual food items available.  The baguettes there are worth the trip.

We spent an afternoon at Trajan's market near the Colosseum and Roman Forum.  It wasn't really a market, more like an office building with some market stalls.  It has recently been turned into a museum.  It was fun to see the marble statuary in this ancient setting and walk around the excavated ruins.  

It's hard to get a sense of the scale of these figures in this picture.  It was maybe 3 feet tall.  Imagine what the whole thing would have looked like. The standard human is 7 heads tall.  That would put her at about 20 feet tall.  That's one tall statue.  Check out the detail in the curly hair.  These large figures would have been made to be seen from quite a distance, so the level of detail is amazing.

I really loved the room with all the amphorae.  They were so beautiful with their variety of shapes and colors.  I watched a pottery show on pit firing.  These look like they have the same marks.  Amphorae are shipping vessels for wine and olive oil, so not pieces of fine art at all, but their rustic simplicity really appealed to me.

Up on top we counted church domes.  So many.  I love visiting off season.  It would have been a completely different experience with a crowd.