Part 1 - Roma

It is the first Sunday in March and the Ferguson Four are back in Unterschleissheim recovering from our week in Rome. When I say recovering, I mean it. All of us have varying degrees of illness and it has been going on for a few days now. Hopefully after this day of rest we will be ready to tackle the new week.

For the following posts about Rome I wanted to try something a little different. Our previous trips I have gone into detail about the things that we saw but not so much on the personal stories. I still want to have the pictures and captions with brief descriptions, but spend more time remembering the little things that happened along the way. Nobody needs a history lesson from me on what we saw in Rome, all of it is very well documented on this little thing called the internet.

On day one our first challenge was getting on the plane. We left the house three hours before our flight and still almost missed our flight. We had an option of taking a taxi from our house, the public transportation, or parking at the airport. A taxi from the house was 60 euro and parking at the airport for six days would have been about the same. The train goes into the terminal at the airport, but you cannot leave your car in the park & ride lot overnight, much less six nights. We settled on the combination of driving to TI in Freising and taking a 25 euro cab ride the rest of the way. That way the car would be in a secure lot and it would be half the cost of the other options. I called the taxi company over an hour before we left. After arriving at TI we waited for the taxi. After he was 15 minutes late I called them again, he was "on the way". He was a very deliberate driver. We stopped along the way to get Katherine a booster seat out of the back. I gave him the terminal number and the airline, Alitalia Airlines. He drove up to the terminal and dropped us off. Before we got out I asked him again, this is for Alitalia? He said yes, I told him that I did not see the sign for Alitalia among the other airlines listed in this drop off area, he again nodded to confirm this was it. You might already know what comes next.......this was not the right area. By the time we got inside with our luggage he was long gone. The airport was a madhouse, insanely busy. We started walking across the terminal looking for the counter for Alitalia. We are dragging four suitcases and four backpacks and we are late as it had taken over half of our three hours to get to this point. The airline counter was on the other end of the terminal and by the time we reached it the line was so long it was not even a line, outside of any barriers they had up. The automated machines were not working and this ticket counter was checking in for three airlines. There was no chance that we would make it through this line, then the long security line, before our flight left. I left Cindy with the luggage and kids in the big line to go stand in the priority line. This was another very deliberate person running this line, but after about 25 minutes I got to the front. The guy in front of me was also not a priority customer but the attendant helped him anyway, jackpot, now I have leverage. During this time in line I was once again witness to the fact the Europeans do not respect the line. Several people lust walked up to the side of the counter and got their business handled, others would skip the line and stand in the front of the queue as if they were next. Cindy was dealing with people coming from all directions acting as if they had no idea the line snaked in the other direction. The guy behind me, who was a priority customer was really frustrated when he realized the person in front of me was being helped and was not in the proper line. I chuckled to myself when I thought about his reaction once I get there and pulled Cindy and the kids over with our luggage. It did not come to that, he already had enough before I got up there. He pushed past me to the side with suitcase in hand and walked right in front of a person that was on their way to the counter from the peasant line. The employee asked him to stay in his line, he refused, and she helped him. I was simply amazed at all of this. I got to the counter finally and informed the guy we were going to miss our flight. At this point it was thirty minutes from flight time and we still had a security line plus walking to the gate. He quickly agreed to check us in. I motioned to Cindy to come over, but at this point she was in the belly of the beast. She forced her way out of the chaos and managed to get luggage and children over to where I was. As we started to get our boarding passes another person came to the side of the counter and the attendant started helping him. I protested to no avail, he still got his boarding pass before us. I suppose I did not have any moral high ground since I was in the wrong line, but at least I waited in line, right? Okay, so maybe we didn't really wait in the security line. It seems that when you check in through the priority line there is a direct link to the priority security line that takes you right to the metal detectors and scanners. There was nothing I could do, we had to go that way. Well the first drama of the trip was over. We made it to the gate and got on board with no problems after that. I am exhausted at this point, remind me why we didn't just drive.

Just as we arrived at the gate we were greeted by a familiar face, that's right, we know people in Germany. It was a Learning Support teacher from the kid's school. She is the teacher that has David in an advanced math and advanced reading class each week. We have met with her and David's regular teacher several times. I had just seen her two days before talking about David and the great progress he has made this year. She is also heading up the group of kids going to Berlin in April for an international school math competition. She described David as the "A" player on the team from BIS, and he is planning on competing in this challenge in a few weeks. More on that later, we are very proud of him, but I will digress for now. So this teacher and her husband are on their way to Rome on the same flight as us.

If that was not enough of a coincidence lets fast forward to three days later. After a long day of walking all over Rome we decided to have dinner at a restaurant that was a ten minute walk from our hotel. This restaurant was relatively inexpensive and had good reviews so we went early, 6:30 is early in Rome. A few minutes into dinner a notice a guy outside looking through the window, but didn't think much of it since he seemed to carry on down the street. Seconds later I realized it was the same teacher and her husband once again. They were staying in a B&B twenty meters down the road from this restaurant. She told us that she recognized David's shirt walking by and came in to say hi. They ended up staying there to have dinner and were nice enough to sit next to us. They have older kids that they left at home for a couple's trip to Rome, but still were nice enough to spend this dinner with our family. You would think she would stay away from kids when she had the chance, but then again these teachers can't help themselves. She was initiating the conversation with the kids and was having fun, and the kids were loving the attention. It was good to run into them again and pretty unbelievable too.

Back to day one and the airport. When we first arrived in Germany, and for the business trips that Cindy has taken, we have yet to board or deplane from a terminal tunnel. In all cases we have had to take a bus on the tarmac to get to the plane and board on movable stairs or stand alone structures with escalators. Landing in Rome it was the same thing, we had to take a bus to get to the terminal. We were also in the back of the plane since we lost our seats towards the front for now checking in an hour before the flight time. Eventually the second bus arrived and we made it to the terminal and retrieved our luggage. Now for the big test, I had set up a "luxury van" to pick us up and take us back to the airport for less than what it would cost for two taxi rides. I was sure this was not going to work. As we exited the baggage claim, there he was, a really nice guy holding a sign saying "John Ferguson". He took Cindy's suitcase and led us to the van. He spoke English well, and was really friendly. He drove us right to our apartment/hotel and helped unload. I went to pay him and ran into a dilemma. This guy was asking me to pay for both rides, to pay for the return trip in advance. I had assumed that I would pay half now and half in a few days once the journey was complete. I refused to pay in full explaining that I had no guarantee that anyone would be here to pick us up if I paid in full. He called his supervisor and had me talk to him. After much debate I reluctantly, and against my better judgement, paid in full. He gave me a piece of paper to give to the other driver in a few days. All I could think was, yeah, this is going to do me a lot of good when we are stranded missing our return flight home.

We had arrived at our apartment. I had stopped looking at traditional hotels in Europe since it is hard to find rooms for four people that are affordable. Most of the time they are very small rooms and require foldable portable beds to be brought in to the room. I had found this one berdoom apartment that was in a nice location and was a good price. The owner had emailed me several times and let me know that she was flying back to Rome from California and did not land until several hours after us. She was going to have her sister or daughter meet us. As we arrived at this large unmarked door between two other shops we realized nobody was there to met us. This was a very large and thick door. Here is a Google maps street view picture of the entry to this building. Past the door was an open atrium with apartments on all sides above the shops on the first floor.

We rang the bell over and over with no luck. At this point it was close to 3pm and we had not had lunch yet after a busy and early morning. Cindy took the kids down the street to a Burger King to get them some food while I stayed with the luggage on the street. Yes, Burger King was the first meal for the kids in Rome, they were excited. Luckily it was only a few minutes when a girl arrived speaking perfect English to let us in. This was the daughter of the owner who grew up in California. She was very nice, but everything the girl told us turned out to be wrong or disputed by others. She filled us with suggestions and opinions, all of which we found to be not good or in our opinion untrue, right down to where the best gelato was to be found. She also did not give me a warm fuzzy when I told her I paid the return trip to the airport in advance. Once I told her the company name she seemed to think it was going to be okay.

This was a fountain in the atrium of the building near the entrance to our room. I was curious about the history of the building and this fountain, but never had the opportunity to learn much about it. After it was all said and done we do not have a high opinion about our apartment. The owner insisted I pay the city tax in cash and wanted me to leave cash under a stack of maps in a common area of the three apartments they rent out. I was unwilling to take that chance so we had little notes on our door a couple of times. Eventually I left the money in our room, secure, after we checked out. There was also a nasty smell in the room, especially if the windows were closed. Did I mention that all of us were sick now too? We blame the room, although it could have been in number of things in Rome. The bed was uncomfortable and it was noisy. Every night around midnight the person upstairs was doing Palates in high heels for about an hour. Even the six inch thick shutters over the windows could not keep out the noise from the atrium and street. It was however a very good physical location with good access to public transportation and walking to many attractions.

That first evening we sampled food from a few places and walked around the area to get familiar with it. The next morning we had an early appointment for a tour of the Colosseum. We turned in early for a good rest for the next day.

The next morning we were able to take a ten or fifteen minute walk to our tour meeting place just north of the Colosseum. I had booked several tours with a company known as Dark Rome Tours. This was referred to as a semi-private tour with access to the lower and upper levels of the Colosseum. The public does not have access to many of the area that we saw and I was very satisfied with this tour.

 Panaromic

B&W Profile

The area below was really interesting to see up close, but for me the partial recreation of the arena floor and the upper section was the best. Going out onto the battle field of the gladiators was really cool to me. It was not that I was trying to picture myself as a gladiator with the fans cheering, more just thinking back to what I imagine took place here and standing in the same spot as a fly on the wall experiencing it in my imagination, as a spectator. The tour guide did a good job of stripping the Hollywood version down to what is probably more accurate. Although the gladiators were still considered desirable by women at the time, they were not the muscular savvy men that Hollywood has depicted. The tour guide compared them more to her uncle Tony and reminded everyone these were in fact slaves forced to fight for their lives.

Our tour was just ten people, but when you went out on the floor, below, and above we joined up with another group of ten from the same tour company.

 Above and below are pics from the lower level. We saw where they kept the animals and heard about the innovative sewer and drainage system they had.

 So here is the shot from on top. What struck me about this view was how I felt like I was looking through a super wide angle lens. It was really amazing to see in person. This first picture is just a snap shot from an 18mm lens setting. It is amazing how much it looks like a special wide angle lens, at least to me. 

And here is a Photoshop of three pics stitched together.

It was an amazing view that a camera just cannot capture. 

 Outside of the Colosseum from the upper levels. Palatine Hill in the background and the Roman Forum on the right side, all of which we saw on this tour.

The beginning of the Roman Forum area behind Katherine

The Arch of Constantine is above. Many of the attractions had scaffolding around them, I think it is one disadvantage to going in the low season. They are still getting ready for the summer high season. Below David is in fact wearing my pullover and hat, he got a little cold. We could not have asked for better weather. It was about 45-50 degrees each morning and warmed up to around sixty each day.

This tour was inclusive of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill areas. Next we headed towards the Roman Forum. It was a plaza that was the center of ancient Rome and held many government buildings. This is really the first time that I clearly understood what buried with the past means. I don't think I ever realized or thought about how or why things from the past eventually end up below the modern day ground level. Rome has many examples of generations and ages over time building on top of one another. They say 70% of old Rome is still buried and for many reasons it will remain that way. 

Dancing on top of ancient rocks. 

 This is believed to be where Julius Caesar was cremated.

 It is thought that the ground level was at the bottom of the door behind the columns at the time that this church was built.

 1500 year old door on this church.

Another arch on the way up to Palatine Hill along the old Roman road of victory.

This is marble flooring that still remains on top of Palatine Hill.  

View from on top of the hill. 

 Fun with pigeons.

That evening after a little rest we headed back out for a late dinner. We stopped by Trevi Fountain and got quite the scene with a bunch of people. 

We found that at all of the major tourist attractions there was usually a big crowd and always street vendors. These people were very intrusive. Here was one of our first run-ins. The guy was trying to sell us one of those squishy things, it flattens out when you drop it then it returns to the original form, a blob of sorts. We were just standing back away from the fountain trying to take it all in and the guy would not leave. After saying no several times I finally told him to move away from our view and he finally did. This would not be our last encounter.

We found a nice restaurant close by. This was the most heavily decorated restaurant that we saw. It was pretty amazing, complete with a live harp player.

That was it for our first full day. The following posts will cover the tour of the Vatican, a couple of days on our own, and our day trip to Pompeii.