last day in Rome

Oscar looks like he's listening to the lecture

  Last full day in Rome and we’re planning on meeting the group at the Pantheon and having a late breakfast while they see three sites prior to the Pantheon.  We go up a hill and back down again and see the group in front of a church after strolling through the Pantheon and not finding them.  Oscar 

 finally gets to get out of the stroller and run some, so I follow him around the piazza while the lecture goes on and we are back in the piazza pretty quickly because he doesn’t like being back in the stroller in order to view the Pantheon and is yelling pretty much the whole time in it.  So, 

  he and I hightail it back to the meeting spot and run around some.  After some running around, I’m able to coax him back into the stroller to go into Santa Maria Sopra Minerva for a second to see the Bernini and Michelangelo in there before Oscar realizes that when he 

I don't think he knows what to make of the hole in the ceiling

 hoots, it echoes.  So, then I have to push him outside hooting the whole time, which Rachel thinks is cute and I guess it’s better than a screaming baby, but still feels sacrilegious or something.   At the entrance to all the churches in Rome, there are usually gypsy women who are begging for money.  This has

 always been the case, but for some reason this time, they latch onto the fact that I have a baby, and they have a hungry baby at home, so when I offer them Oscar’s baby food, they don’t want that, but they won’t leave me alone.  And for the first time, I find myself superstitious about 

 it.  I’m in front of a church with a Romani woman that could put a curse on me or my child or give him the evil eye or something.  It sounds ridiculous, but it’s like Oscar has made me more vulnerable because now I’m worried about someone doing something to hurt him. 

  So, while other people might be staying away from travel in Europe this season because of terrorists, I will run away from poor street beggars that have folk power over me apparently.  Speaking of terrorists, the guard presence at all of the main sites is formidable this year.  The EU is 

apparently taking the possibility very seriously and it’s unnerving at times to see machine guns and armored vehicles at these sites, but I guess it’s the new norm.  We hit a couple of churches with Oscar and I entering and leaving at times that suit him and not the group, so we’re with them, but 

not and he is fighting a nap, so I can’t really enjoy St. Ignatius of Loyola with its flat dome that is painted to look real, but I do get to appreciate the Caravaggio paintings at the French Cathedral before heading to Piazza Navone where he finally falls asleep after watching the Brazilian gymnastics team in the street (not really, these were street performers, but they could have been).  But when he hears daddy join us and we set up a table to eat

fighting a nap in Piazza Navona

at, he’s all awake again and a bear for lunch.  More open air changing, some walking, and Rachel and I getting taken in for an upgrade in our antipasti makes for an exasperating lunch before one more church and the group breaking up to do different things.  I wanted to go to a museum that was on the ticket for the National Museum, but of course it’s closed on Mondays.  John is taking some kids to a crypt with the bones of 4000 monks and Rachel is taking a group to the Ara Pacis which was Augustan’s temple to peace.  Oscar and

finally asleep

I head back to the hotel up more hills than you can imagine.  I always said in the past, that I can’t see the 7 hills of Rome, but now I think that it has 28 hills when I have to push 50lbs up every one of them.  Oscar is finally asleep for this whole trip, but then wakes up when we get to the hotel and I could actually get a rest.  So, I realize that this is not going to work.  I have got to quit trying to meet up with the group and stick to a schedule that works for Oscar and me.  I wear myself out trying to reach things at certain times and then stress about missing them, 

don't compare this photo with Carravagio's Madonna below

staying with them or Oscar not behaving.  While I prepared to do things opposite the group in Paris, I thought that Rome could stay the same, but I guess I was wrong about that and I’m going to have to work out something in Florence that works better.  Because I’m not enjoying the trip this way.  At all, and while it’s great that I’m in Europe because I love being

they weren't meant to be next to each other 

 here, to come all this way and not enjoy it is not an option.  So, I’ll have to brainstorm.  Meanwhile, John gets back and is able to nap while Oscar and I fight about taking a nap.  How John can sleep through this is a miracle, but probably attests to how worn out he is.  I kept saying that he and Rachel had amnesia about how hard leading a foreign study was two years ago, but I think they remember now and this time they have more students.  It’s no wonder they’re

 almost through that bottle of scotch before we leave Rome.   The rest of the evening is taken up with John realizing that there is no train ticket to Florence for me and Oscar and we leave tomorrow morning.  So, after a mini meltdown, he goes to Termini with Oscar, and I go to do laundry.  John and I are minimal packers and that is a great way to travel, until you travel with a baby.  Because everything he gets into, gets on me.  I have little sticky hand prints, little dirty footprints on every outfit that I have worn so far, so it’s already laundry day.  Rachel and I pick an easy restaurant across from the laundromat in order to change the clothes from the washer to the dryer and we have our cheapest meal of the days in Rome that was still surprisingly good….Rachel has an actual bathtub in her room and I plan to give Oscar a bath but when he is playing in there he slips and then wants out because he doesn’t feel safe in there, so what was to be a night to play in the bath, was done in 5 minutes.  But we have to pack everything up anyway for the train to Florence tomorrow.  Now that Oscar and I have a ticket, it will be easy.