Teatro Marcello and the Tiber

While the group goes to a museum, Oscar and I stop for a more

yoga at the wedding cake, just to have something to do

appropriate lunch at a café and he gets toast sticks that he enjoys a lot and the waiter gives him little jelly candies, that I had to buy more of since he enjoyed them so much.  I got some much needed ravioli and it amazes me how even what amounts to a fast food joint at home, has great food.  Although, I have to say 

 that there are times when a Big Mac tastes like the best thing on earth, but not as often as the Italian food.  Oscar gets open air diaper changes now because there are no changing tables or room in the bathrooms to set him down anywhere.  At least it’s keeping down the diaper 

even the bread gets a nose wrinkle

rash I think with all the fresh air hitting him, but the stroller is not the easiest place to change him and he sometimes gets things like cheerios in his diaper as a consequence of this.  I’m doing one of my Rome walks cards that I had planned for this trip to the Boca

building behind him is a couple of thousand years old

 della Verita which is the big mouth that is supposed to cut off your hand if you tell a lie.  We get to walk past the teatro Marcello which is an Imperial time period building that people are still living in today.  Can you imagine a building that 2000 years later can still be used?  Not as a ruin or a tourist 

likes to pull his sunshade back and forward to play peekaboo

site, but as a living residence for people?  I find that amazing and we pass two more temples that are still standing that I’ve never seen before.  And I finally start to feel like I’m traveling.  The part I like best about traveling is seeing things that I haven’t seen before and I’m finally doing that here.  I 

 let Oscar run around a little park for a while because he’s been cooped up in the stroller for a while, but because we’re playing and not paying attention to time, the mouth of truth is closed when we get there, but I got a picture from outside and we wouldn’t have been able to juggle putting 

he actually looks happy here, not bored out of his mind

 Oscar’s hand in, getting a picture and all that anyway, so this is easier.  Because I’m close to the Tiber River, I head over to see the Cloaca Maxima, which is most likely the world’s oldest sewer.  This is the huge drain from Rome into the Tiber that has been here for probably 2500 years.  I got a picture 

 since dad used to work in wastewater management and I thought that he could appreciate the engineering.  I get a couple of pictures of the Tibertine Island before realizing that I’m going to be late meeting John where we planned because I haven’t been paying attention to time again.  So, we try to hurry 

 back to the meeting point, but crossing streets in Rome rush hour traffic with a stroller takes some guts and a willingness to put your life on the line, so we’re late.  But we get to meet up with John and stroll past Trajan’s market, before finding a place to eat on Via Cavour.  We sit outside in case Oscar 

starts to get fussy and students are passing by at times and Rachel finally joins us for an unbelievable meal.  We got to have 3 courses before Oscar got too fussy for us to stay for dessert, but what a 3 courses.  John said that his carbonara was one of the “10 best things I’ve ever put in my mouth”. 

 And it was delicious.  This pasta dish is served at times in America, but I’ve noticed that instead of incorporating the egg into the sauce with the bacon fat, they seem to have hard boiled egg included as if that makes the same dish.  I think it’s because we’re so hyper 

 aware of any possibility of salmonella or any kind of liability regarding food that they cook everything to death.  If most Americans could taste how good unpasteurized cheese tastes, we could maybe get the laws changed….We had antipasti of prosciutto  and 

 melon and I meant to ask what the melon was because it was delicious and was white, but forgot.  We also had a beef taglietelle (and I’m not spelling that right I’m sure”) that was perfectly cooked beef medallions with fried artichoke cut up on top.  It was a superb meal and I would highly 

recommend Massenzio Ai Fori if you’re ever in Rome.  We should have gone back for dessert another night, but alas, you don’t backtrack much on these trips.  Walking back to the hotel, Oscar fell asleep and wasn’t able to partake of gelato that we stopped for and we found a liquor store that had scotches that John had not seen at home, so a bottle was purchased for use in Italy and a good thing too, because it somehow helped John and Rachel through planning the next day’s activities every night that we were in Rome.