Roman Holiday



Travel for fun is so much better than travel for work.  Last night, when all the other passengers on our delayed flight to Rome were losing it as the gate agent kept pushing back the departure time, 10…15… 7 minutes and finally an hour late, we were just chillin’ with no place we absolutely had to be. Vacation mode came to us quickly.

We arrived in the eternal city and since it is low season our hotel not only upgraded us to a better room, but had it ready for us early.  Purposely I had not planned for us to do anything today so we would have no guilt easing into our vacation.  The lack of plan turned out to be the perfect plan.

After unpacking and taking in the view of the Spanish steps from our balcony we went out for a walk looking for someplace to grab lunch.  We happened upon a rustic restaurant where we were seated beside a multi-century old fireplace where the smell of smoke permeated the ancient stones.  I happily had a small plate of the vegetable antipasto, Carter a pizza and Russ the first of his two spaghetti carbonara for the day.  Perhaps this trip should be renamed “Russ Lange’s carbonara tour 2015.”

After lunch Carter opted to walk back to the hotel alone to start her afternoon siesta while Russ indulged my pocketbook shopping and walk through the neighborhood.  I purposely had not brought a purse on the trip as a good excuse to have to buy one first thing.  My justification was that the dollar had never been this strong and I was never going to get such a good deal again.  Russ did not need any of this malarkey and just went along and cheerfully bought me the bag.

After strolling for a while the bed was calling me for a nap so we went back and I passed out for a good three hour restoration.  I think Russ might have worked the whole time, but it certainly did not bother me.  

Post nap showers and fresh clothes and we were all finally human again and ready to walk to dinner.  We picked a route that would take us by the Trevi Fountain. Sadly when we got there we discovered it was drained, covered with scaffolding and surrounded by a glass wall for restoration. We continued on our meandering way and arrived at our destination and old Roman restaurant.  Although we had not planned any activities for the day we had talked about all the roman foods we wanted to eat on this trip as well as a no diet talk rule. Tonight I Carter and I both had stuffed squash blossoms which was very high on our list and Russ had his second serving of carbonara for the day.  Carbonara is Russ’ favorite food, but the problem is that he compares each version to the one I make and seems disappointed in his selection.  I don’t know why, I tasted both his plates today and they were equally wonderful and different from each other.  I do hope he gives up searching for the best carbonara and try’s some other things soon.

Half way through our dinner a group of six men were seated at the table behind us.  As they were enjoying their dinner Russ leans over to me and says, “I bet they are from Philly.”  After we payed the bill I got up and turned to ask them if they were from Philadelphia and they say yes with a roar. Not only were they from Philly, but one of them was Rusty Shunk’s nephew who was the head of admissions at Dickinson and admitted me and all my friends since he worked there for about 30 years.

Russ quickly did the math, and the people of the city of brotherly love only make up 0.07% of all the people in the world and in this one small room in Rome where there were just three tables of diners seven were from Philly, with Carter and I being honorary Philly-in-laws it would be nine.

There was not enough walking today to make up for Italian food, but there was not too much eating considering we are in Rome.  Tomorrow we will get to work showing Carter the city, but for today we just were on vacation.