St Peter's and Cupola - views

As we got higher and higher the views got better and better. It was the perfect day to visit. We walked about the roof of the basilica and then climbed to the top of the cupola itself. You could see more of Rome than I could fit in a single picture... Ozayr tried though and that last picture is his from the very top.

Cupola Photos - inside

Once you reach the top the first stop is the inside of the cupola, which is pretty incredible.

Cupola - the ascent

Getting to the top of St Peter's was an ordeal in and of itself - an elevator, many, many steep steps and spiral staircases, narrow passageways with leaning walls...

Cupola

The time had come for us to visit the cupola (dome) of St. Peter's. We walk past it every day with an appreciative glance, but since Ozayr had some time free this morning and the day was clear and warm, we decided today was the day to go right to the top! I took too many pictures to fit in one blog post, so I will put them in a couple of separate posts. Info about St Peter's Basilica can be found here: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/stpeters.html

Timbits!

Well, not really but these little donut holes are commonly found in Italian pastry cases!

Walking walking walking

Yesterday the girls and I tagged along on a walking tour that Ozayr had arranged for his students. The theme of the talk/walk was the city as "palimpsest".

A palimpsest is a manuscript page (we're talking a long time ago here, so probably parchment) which has been scraped or washed off so that it can be used again. Rome is like that, in a sense - layers upon layers of buildings/structures built upon the partial deterioration or ruins of what it previously was. Sometimes you can see it clearly in a single building where it might have the foundation from the 12th century, columns from the theater of Pompi, a Baroque facade and an internet cafe tucked in the corner. Sometimes a "hill" we walk on here is actually not a hill topographically speaking, but an incline due to the amount of rubble underneath the road or piazza.

It was a pretty great talk, and I did not take any photographs but occasionally the kids took random pics, so that's what I am including today :-)

School blog

Ozayr and his students are contributing to a blog which you might enjoy: http://mplsabroad.wordpress.com/

A pretty fancy fountain

Today Hafsa woke up and showed me a picture in her book "Dodsworth in Rome" and said The Trevi Fountain, I want to go to the Trevi Fountain! It was as good a goal as any for us today and so we set off around lunchtime, picked up Ozayr at the Accent Center (pic of the girls waiting outside above) and headed off!

It was very crowded but BEAUTIFUL. Bigger than I imagined, and the water really is that gorgeous light blue-aqua colour you see in pictures. The girls threw in their coins as tradition demands, and then we set off to have a nice pizza/pasta lunch before taking Ozayr back to work!

And so another lightning-fast day ends for us in Rome - I think when you walk everywhere and there is so much to see, the hours just FLY by. We have been here almost a week already!

Trastevere

We had a quiet morning and then decided to take a walk to Trastevere for the afternoon. It was quite an adventure, as we took quite a circuitous route, getting lost numerous times (can you say you "got lost" if you never really were sure of where you were? We were basically just heading "south" at first, and then we figured we needed to go uphill, and later, downhill.) We entered the outskirts of Trastevere and found it to be quaint and charming.

Then we stopped for cash and were briefly locked in an ATM vestibule whose machine would not release Ozayr's card. When it finally did, the door flew open and red lights and alarms sounded, declaring something in Italian like "Exit the Bancomat! Exit the Bancomat!"

So we did!

All's well that ends well, and it ended with PIZZA. It was Maymuna's first in Italy and she loved it.

The walk back was much quicker, 30 or 40 minutes, along the River this time - much more reliable. And now the girls are just eating their gelato and I am resting my feet. :-)

And then...

... our Colosseum tickets provided entry into the Roman Forum, so we spent another hour or two walking through there, stopping to sketch periodically or collect rocks (Hafsa). The girls were troopers, and I knew they were getting tired but they really managed to persevere and enjoy the sights and the view. It was beautiful.

Colosseum

We went to the Colosseum today. It's impossible to describe the scale... It's just so huge. Even the steps are huge. The girls did a fantastic job keeping up and staying interested. Ozayr and I were just saying that they are probably the perfect age to do this right now. They can keep up, and they can also take little breaks and play their own games and be silly at times too. They stopped and played a game of Rory's Cubes on the steps of the Colosseum at one point.

Ponte Sant' Angelo

Rome is beautiful of course, but made even more amazing by the LIGHT. Rome has a great light, especially in late afternoon when it makes everything glow... At that time of day, you can absolutely not take a bad picture of these ladies (case in point, I took these with my cellphone camera).

Blurgh!

My expression when the girls asked if they could have their allowance in euros...

Gelato

One on the way out into the city... and one on the way home!

Sculpture by Bernini

This is another picture from the Vatican yesterday. I think it's pretty genius to create something that looks like the softest substance, cloth or hair, out of what is truly the hardest substance, stone or marble. I could not take my eyes off the folds and draping...

Rome

Hard to describe our first day here since it has been like one looong day since we left Minneapolis. The kids each slept a couple of hours on the plane but really that is all the sleep they have had... Ozayr and I each got even less.

Still, even as tired as we were, the view coming down into Rome was spectacular and the drive from the airport was beautiful. It was just after sunrise here and it had been raining but the sun was sort of peaking out...

It's been pretty low impact around here since then - we took a leisurely walk through (the free parts of) the Vatican and then to buy groceries. Back at the apartment the grownups took a quick nap and now it's about 5 pm Rome time and we are coming to end of a very long day... We will have the strength to go out and search for pizza and gelato...? I don't know, we'll see!

Rome so far?

Pretty awesome!

Moleskins

A great tradition that we have inherited from Ozayr is bringing a moleskin notebook on our trip for the kids to draw in and record the details of their trip with mementos and sketches. We are at the airport and it has already begun!

Airport!!!

Kinesthetic learning in action

She scored highest on the "gotta move!" learning scale but still manages to be a big reader! Spinny chairs are her friend!