Rome

Rick Steves said we were crazy, the Meinkens had deep reservations, but we did it! We saw nearly all the major sights of Rome in one day! The Coliseum, Forum, Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain. In the back of my mind, I had kind of pictured everything nicely laid out, like Washington DC, only with less grass. Ha! Major points of interest were sprawled all across the city to be seen only after charging through a gauntlet of uneven cobblestones, slanted steps, and steep inclines.

Our first destination was the Coliseum and with the help of Rick Steves we were able to pretty vividly picture what had happened there. Although it made me wish that I had watched the movie Gladiator and that I hadn’t watched the heinous movie, Jumper, which had filmed a scene there.

Besides the Sistine Chapel, my favorite stop was St. Peters. Its vast, celestial grandeur made me feel very small, both in terms of space and in terns of time, its sheer scale reminding me of the greatness, the vastness of our God.

And that’s where I give up trying to describe the monuments I saw…They were far too magnificent for my petty writing skills. I do have a couple other things I want to share though.

Many of my favorite things from that day were not listed in Rick Steves book. One of them happened outside the Pantheon. A chubby little boy toddled after the pigeons, who cooed unappreciatively. Every time the pigeons would scatter, the boy was overcome with a fit of giggles. As Jaclyn pointed out, the best part of the scene was the mother’s expression as she chased after him chasing after the pigeons, an expression of complete love and utter devotion.

The Pantheon was near the end of the day, by which time my feet blazed with pain. To make matters worse, we missed out train which had switched tracks at the last minute. Then, when were driving back, Mr. Meinken took a wrong turn and ended up driving to some random village. So there I was, sitting in the back seat having a little pity party when suuddenly, we saw a bright green flash in the sky. Fireworks! We pulled the car to the side of the road and got out. A few people had already assembled, and others soon pulled over or came out of their houses to join our impromptu gathering. All day, there had been a lot of miscommunication, confusion, and chaos. And yet… we were all standing there together, marveling at the same the thing, appreciating the same fiery beauty. We were all just people.