Secret Garden

This morning we did a quick trip into town to see a little something I had almost forgotten about. If you go up to the headquarters of the Knights of Malta and peek through the keyhole, you can see an amazing view of St. Peter's basilica through the gardens! Nobody knows if this was intentional or accidental, but it is so fascinating.

At the door, you don't see any views of Rome at all, much less St. Peter's. And then, when you peek through this little hole, the sight is breathtaking!

This is obviously not my picture. But look at that view!

This is my picture. Not nearly as demonstrative!

Another of my attempts.

That green door is through where you peek.

Buongiorno bella!

We stopped at a nearby park to take in the views a little more. There was a huge fire somewhere close to St. Peter's, and it was a little eerie to see all the smoke so close to the basilica.

I love this fountain.

The drive to and from was fun, as we passed by most of the main sites of Rome. We passed the Wedding Cake and the Piazza Venezia, the Circus Maximus, Santa Maria in Cosmedin and the Mouth of Truth, the Roman Forum, Trastevere, the Castel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Piazza Popolo, Borghese, and the Tiber River. It was so fun to see everything one more time and to remember how many amazing things we've been able to see.

We leave the apartment tomorrow and stay that night in a hotel by the airport. So this may be it! I hate to leave! There is still so much we could see and do here.

Our Piccola

Some nicknames Quintana has acquired here in Italy:

Bella (beautiful)

Bamboletta (dolly)

Pupetta (little doll)

Carina (cutie)

Piccola (little)

She can now say "Buongiorno bella!" in Italian, because people say it to her so often. She also says, "ciao ciao!" (bye bye), which always makes people laugh. 

Ancient Religion

There are so many gorgeous and historic basilicas in Rome that it's hard to know when to say enough is enough. We hit two more amazing ones in the last two days, but I think we've finally hit out limit.

Yesterday we went to the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. It is called the "Mother Church" of Catholicism (Levi gets a kick out of that title, ha), and ranks even higher than St. Peter's in Vatican City. The popes lived in San Giovanni for many many years. It was given to the bishops by Constantine himself, and a statute of Constantine from the 5th century stands just outside.

See little Q down at the bottom?

This enormous bronze door came from the Roman Forum

Constantine

I thought San Giovanni was gorgeous. I love the Baroque style, white stone and lots of light. While we were there Mass was going on, which was cool to see. Inside are huge statues of the 12 apostles.

Matthew

The priest conducting Mass

This looks like Isaiah to me.

Peter, holding the Keys

Keys

This is what happens when I tell them I want a nice picture of them together.

Today we went to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. It is the first cathedral to honor Mary when the Catholic church first began to deify her. The gold on the ceilings was brought to Europe from the New World by Christopher Columbus!

Gold from Christopher Columbus!

The church houses a relic, supposed wood from the manger that the Savior was laid in at his birth! I am pretty sure that is not actually wood from his manger, hahaha.

Do you see the baby at the top? Underneath you can see the piece of wood.

One thing that has been a little disconcerting here in Rome is all the military guards with huge machine guns everywhere we go. I guess it's nice to know they are working hard to keep us all protected, but it's a little scary to think about what they think might happen. You aren't supposed to take pictures of them, but I sneaked a few today.

There are some amazing churches here. I feel a little guilty saying we're cathedral-ed out, but I think we are. Actually I should say basilica-ed out because cathedrals and basilicas are not the same thing I learned! But anyway, we've seen some very cool ones.

Auguri Levi!

We haven't been up to much that warranted its own blog post, but now there are a bunch of little things that I'd like to catch up on!

On Friday night we went out to dinner with a family we met at church here in Rome. They are Italian but speak perfect English (she lived in London for a few years and he served his mission in England), and even their 4-year old daughter speaks English! They told us about the only restaurant in Rome that has a kid's play area, and in true Italian style it was still fantastic food. The restaurant was playing the Olympics on TV and we got to watch Italy versus the United States in the men's volleyball finals! Italy won, so dinner was on us! My favorite food of the night was honey bacon pizza, YUM.

It was such a great time. Again, in true Italian fashion, we were there over two hours, but mainly because of the great company (and the play place!). We talked politics, education, travel, comparing Italy and the United States. It was so interesting to compare notes about the strengths and weaknesses that each country possesses, and how each country can learn from the troubles of the other country.

On Saturday was little Levi's birthday! Five years old! I can do a whole blog post about my mixed emotions about him hitting this milestone, but I know I would sound like a crazy person, so I will refrain.

I wanted to take him somewhere fun (HIS kind of fun, not Keats-Shelley House fun, haha), so we decided on a water park! There were a few, but the one that looked the most fun was about an hour outside of Rome, over along the coast. It was called AquaFelix, and it was great! I was worried it would be packed, as no one is Italy is working right now, but it wasn't bad at all.

I left my camera in the car, so I didn't get any pictures. But I pulled some off Google just to remember.

This was Levi J's favorite one...not too scary but still fun

This was got really really fast at the end!! 

Lazy river

There were some great pools and a million fun slides. We were the only non-Italians there, which certainly was funny in some ways! I was literally the only woman there in a tankini, everyone wore bikinis, even the moms and grandmas! The men were not *all* in Speedos like we expected, but there were certainly lots of Speedos. The Levis both wore their rashguards of course, since we would be in the sun for hours. But the first time they tried to go on a slide, the lifeguard pulled them out and took them to the infirmary. They had to fill out a form with all their personal information and get a wristband in order to wear their rashguards on the slides. No one spoke much English, so we have absolutely no idea why they had to do that!!

(I almost posted a really funny picture from Google of an Italian guy in a little Speedo at Aquafelix, but thought better of it, hahaha).

We decided to only go for a half day, which was also quite a bit cheaper (though even a full day was only €20 for adults and the kids were free). That was the perfect amount of time to have fun without kids that were absolutely beat and grumpy at the end (especially with an hour drive back home). 

Today Levi J baked his own birthday cake (kid loves to bake!) with a candle he begged for at the store! He specified that he wanted Swiss chocolates on top, and got his wish. It was a pretty delicious cake!

At church today there was only one girl in his class who didn't speak English, so they did the lesson in English and Italian. They sang Happy Birthday to him twice, once in each language, and a little American girl who had just recently moved to Rome gave him a heart she cut out during sacrament meeting. He felt pretty darn special!

I hope this kid had a fabulous Roman birthday this year!